From the front door of the Drumdoe Inn, Kyle looked back and watched Meghan drive away. She was on a story. Cool. He wished he was going with her. He used to think he’d be a doctor like Dad when he grew up but had decided being a reporter was more fun.
A moment later a car zoomed out of the parking lot, a green Chevy. That’s the guy who didn’t run over Jake, Kyle thought. He was sorry he didn’t get a chance to talk to him and thank him. He watched as the Chevy turned down the road in the direction Meg had gone.
Kyle went into the lobby and spotted Meg’s mother and Mrs. Murphy at the desk. They both looked serious. He went over to them. “Hi.”
“Kyle, what are you doing here?” That’s a heck of a way to greet a kid, Catherine thought. She ruffled his hair. “I mean, did you and Meg come over for some ice cream or something?”
“Meg dropped me off. She said to stay with you. She’s working on a story.”
“Oh, did she get a call from her boss?”
“Somebody called her and she said she had to leave right away.”
“Wouldn’t that be great if she’s being reinstated?” Catherine said to Virginia. “It would be such a morale booster for her.”
“It sure would,” Murphy agreed. “Now what do you think we should do about that guy in 3A? Frankly, Catherine, I think there’s something a little wrong with him.”
“Just what we need.”
“How many people would stay in a room for nearly three days and then go charging out so fast he almost knocked people down? You just missed him, but I can tell you there appeared to be nothing sick about Mr. Heffernan. He tore down the stairs and ran through the lobby, carrying a video camera.”
“Let’s take a look at the room,” Catherine said. “Come with us, Kyle.”
The air in 3A was stale. “Has this room been cleaned since he checked in?” Catherine asked.
“No,” Murphy said. “Betty said he would let her in just to change the towels, that he just about threw her out when she tried to clean up.”
“He must have been out of bed sometime. Look at the way that chair is pulled up to the window,” Catherine commented. “Wait a minute!” She crossed the room, sat in the chair and looked out. “Dear God,” she breathed.
“What is it?” Virginia asked.
“From here you can look directly into Meg’s bedroom windows.” Catherine rushed to the phone, glanced at the emergency numbers listed on the receiver and dialed.
“State police. Officer Thorne speaking.”
“This is Catherine Collins at the Drumdoe Inn in Newtown,” she snapped, “I think a man staying at the inn has been spying on our house. He’s been locked in his room for days, and just now he drove away in a mad hurry.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Kyle, when Meg dropped you off did you see if a car followed her?”
Kyle sensed that something was very wrong, but surely it couldn’t be because of the nice guy who was such a good driver. “Don’t worry. The guy in the green Chevy is okay. He saved Jake’s life when he drove past our house last week.”
In near despair, Catherine cried, “Officer, he’s following my daughter now. She’s driving a white Mustang. He’s in a green Chevy. Find her! You’ve got to find her!”
57
The squad car pulled into the driveway of the shabby one-story frame house in Jackson Heights, and two policemen jumped out. The shrill ee-aww of an approaching EMS ambulance sounded over the screech of a braking elevated train at the station less than a block away.
The cops ran around the house to the back door, forced it open and pounded down the stairs to the basement. A loose step gave way under the weight of the rookie, but he grabbed the railing and managed to keep from falling. The sergeant stumbled over the mop at the foot of the stairs.
“No wonder she got hurt,” he muttered. “This place is booby-trapped.”
Low moans from a crudely enclosed area drew them to Bernie’s alcove. The police officers found the elderly woman sprawled on the floor, the telephone beside her. She was lying near an unsteady table with an enameled-steel top heaped with phone books. A worn Naugahyde recliner was directly in front of a forty-inch television set. A shortwave radio, police scanner, typewriter and fax machine crowded the top of an old dresser.
The younger cop dropped down on one knee beside the injured woman. “Police Officer David Guzman, Mrs. Heffernan,” he said soothingly. “They’re bringing a stretcher to take you to the hospital.”
Bernie’s mother tried to speak. “My son doesn’t mean any harm.” She could barely get the words out. She closed her eyes, unable to continue.
“Dave, look at this!”
Guzman jumped up. “What is it, Sarge?”
The Queens telephone directory was spread open. On those pages nine or ten names were circled. The sergeant pointed to them. “They look familiar? In the last few weeks all of these people reported threatening phone calls.”
They could hear the EMS team. Guzman ran to the foot of the stairs. “Watch out or you’ll break your necks coming down here,” he warned.
In less than five minutes, Bernie’s semiconscious mother had been secured to a stretcher and carried to the ambulance.
The police officers did not leave. “We’ve got enough probable cause to take a look around,” the sergeant commented. He picked up papers next to the fax machine and began to thumb through them.
Officer Guzman pulled open the knobless drawer of the table and spotted a handsome wallet. “Looks as though Bernie might do a little mugging on the side,” he commented.
As Guzman stared at Annie Collins’ picture on her driver’s license, the sergeant found the original of the fax message. He read it aloud. “ ‘Mistake. Annie was a mistake.’ ”
Guzman grabbed the phone from the floor. “Sarge,” he said, “you’d better let the chief know we found ourselves a murderer.”
Even for Bernie it was hard to keep far enough behind Meghan’s car to avoid being seen. From the distance he watched her begin to follow the dark sedan. He almost lost both cars after the intersection, when they suddenly seemed to vanish. He knew they must have turned off somewhere, so he backed up. The dirt road through the woods was the only place they could have gone. He turned onto it cautiously.
Now he was coming to a clearing. Meghan’s white car and the dark sedan were shaking up and down as they covered the uneven, rutted ground. Bernie waited until they were past the clearing and into another wooded area, then drove the Chevy through the clearing.
The second clump of woods wasn’t nearly as deep as the first. Bernie had to jam on his brakes to avoid being seen when the narrow track abruptly turned into open fields again. Now the road led directly to a distant house and barn. The cars were heading there.
Bernie grabbed his camera. With his zoom lens it was possible to track them, until they drove behind the barn.
He sat quietly, considering what he should do. There was a cluster of evergreens near the house. Maybe he could hide the Chevy there. He had to try.
It was past four, and the fading sunlight was obscured by thickening clouds. Meg drove behind Phillip along the winding, bumpy road. They came out of the wooded area, crossed a field, went through another stretch of woods. The road straightened out. In the distance she saw buildings, a farmhouse and barn.
Is Dad here in this godforsaken place? Meg wondered. She prayed that when she came face to face with him, she would find the right words to say.
I love you, Daddy, the child in her wanted to cry.
Dad, what happened to you? Dad, why? the hurt adult wanted to scream.
Dad, I’ve missed you. How can I help you? Was that the best way to start?
She followed Phillip’s car around the dilapidated buildings. He parked, got out of his sedan, walked over and opened the door of Meg’s car.
Meg looked up at him. “Where’s Dad?” she asked. She moistened lips that now felt cracked and dry.
“He’s nearby.” Phillip’s eyes locked with hers.
/> It was the abrupt way he answered that caught her attention. He’s as nervous about this as I am, she thought as she got out of the car.
58
Victor Orsini had agreed to be at John Dwyer’s office in the Danbury courthouse at three o’clock. Special investigators Weiss and Marron were there when he arrived. An hour later, from their impassive faces, he still did not know if they were putting any stock in what he was telling them.
“Let’s go through this again,” Dwyer said.
“I’ve gone through it a dozen times,” Victor snapped.
“I want to hear it again,” Dwyer said.
“All right, all right. Edwin Collins called me on his car phone the night of January 28th. We spoke for about eight minutes until he disconnected because he was on the ramp of the Tappan Zee Bridge and the driving was very slippery.”
“When do you tell us everything you talked about?” Weiss demanded. “What took eight minutes to say?”
This part of the story was what Victor had hoped to gloss over, but he knew unless he told the complete truth he would not be believed. Reluctantly, he admitted, “Ed had learned a day or two before that I’d been tipping off one of our competitors to positions our major clients would be looking to fill. He was outraged and ordered me to be in his office the next morning.”
“And that was your last contact with him?”
“On January 29th I was waiting in his office at eight o’clock. I knew Ed was going to fire me, but I didn’t want him to think I’d cheated the firm out of money. He’d told me that if he found proof that I’d been pocketing commissions, he’d prosecute. At the time I thought he meant kickbacks. Now I think he was referring to Helene Petrovic. I don’t think he knew anything about her, then must have found out and thought I was trying to pull a fast one.”
“We know the commission for placing her at the Manning Clinic went into the office account.” Marron said.
“He wouldn’t have known that. I’ve checked and found that it was deliberately buried in the fee received for placing Dr. Williams there. Obviously Edwin was never supposed to find out anything about Petrovic.”
“Then who recommended Petrovic to Manning?” Dwyer asked.
“Phillip Carter. It had to be. When the letter endorsing her credentials was sent to Manning on March 21st almost seven years ago, I’d only been at Collins and Carter a short time. I’d never even heard that woman’s name until she was murdered less than two weeks ago. And I’d bet my life Ed didn’t either. He was away from the office the end of March that year, including March 21st.”
He paused. “As I’ve told you, when I saw the newspaper with the reprint of the letter supposedly signed by him, I knew it was a phony.”
Orsini pointed to the sheet of paper he had given to Dwyer. “With his old secretary, who was a gem, Ed had gotten in the habit of leaving a stack of signed letterheads she could use if he wanted to dictate over the phone. He trusted her completely. Then she’d retired, and Ed wasn’t that impressed with her replacement, Jackie. I can remember him ripping up those signed letterheads and telling me that from then on he wanted to see everything that went out over his signature. On the blank letterheads he always signed in the same place, where his longtime secretary had left a light pencil mark: thirty-five lines down and beginning on the fiftieth character. You’ve got one in your hands now.
“I’ve been going through Ed’s files, hoping that there might be other signed letterheads that he’d missed. I found the one you’re holding in Phillip Carter’s desk. A locksmith made a key for me. I imagine Carter was saving this in case he needed to produce something else signed by Edwin Collins.
“You can believe me or not,” Orsini continued, “but thinking back to that morning of January 29th, when I waited in Ed’s office, I had the distinct feeling he’d been there recently. The H through O drawer in the filing cabinet was open. I’d swear he had been looking at the Manning file for any record of Helene Petrovic.
“While I was waiting for him, Catherine Collins phoned, worried that Ed wasn’t home. She’d been at a reunion in Hartford the night before and found the house empty when she returned. She tried the office, to see if we’d heard from him. I told her about speaking to him the night before when he was on the ramp of the Tappan Zee Bridge. At that time I didn’t know anything about the accident. She was the one who suggested that Ed might have been one of the victims.
“I realized it was possible, of course,” Victor said. “Ed’s last words to me were about how slippery the ramp was, and we know the accident took place less than a minute later. After talking to Catherine, I tried to call Phillip. His phone was busy, and since he lives only ten minutes from the office, I drove to his house. I had some idea we might want to drive down to the bridge and see if they were pulling victims out of the water.
“When I arrived, Phillip was in the garage, just getting in his car. His jeep was there as well. I remember he made a point of telling me he’d brought it down from the country to have it serviced. I knew he had a jeep that he used to get around his farm property. He’d drive the sedan up and then switch.
“At the time I thought nothing of it. But in this last week I reasoned that if Ed wasn’t involved in that accident, went to the office and found something that sent him to Carter’s home, whatever happened to him took place there. Carter could have driven Ed away in his own car and hidden it somewhere. Ed always said Phillip had a lot of rural property.”
Orsini looked at the inscrutable faces of his interroga tors. I’ve done what I had to do, he thought. If they don’t believe me, at least I tried.
Dwyer said in a noncommittal tone, “This may be helpful. Thank you, Mr. Orsini. You’ll hear from us.”
When Orsini left, the assistant state attorney said to Weiss and Marron, “It fits. And it explains the findings of the forensic lab.” They had just received word that analysis of Edwin Collins’ car revealed traces of blood in the trunk.
59
I t was nearly four o’clock when Mac completed his last errand and started home. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, he thought. He’d gone to the barber, picked up the dry cleaning and stopped at the supermarket. Mrs. Dileo might not be back from taking care of her father to do the usual shopping on Monday.
Mac felt good. Kyle had been thrilled to be visiting with Meg. There’d certainly be no problem for Kyle if Mac succeeded in rekindling the feelings Meg had once had for him. Meggie, you don’t have a chance, Mac vowed. You’re not getting away from me again.
It was a cold, overcast day, but Mac had no thought of weather as he turned onto Bayberry Road. He thought of the hope in Meg’s face when they’d talked about Petrovic’s connection to Dr. Williams and the possibility that Victor Orsini had forged Edwin’s name to Petrovic’s letter of recommendation. She’d realized then that her father might be proven innocent of any connection to the Petrovic case and the Manning Clinic scandal.
Nothing can change the fact that Ed had a double life all those years, Mac thought. But if his name is cleared of murder and fraud, it will be a hell of a lot easier for Meg and Catherine.
The first warning that something was wrong came as Mac neared the inn. There were police cars in the driveway, and the parking lot was blocked. A police helicopter was landing. He could see another one with the logo of a New Haven television station already on the ground.
He pulled his car onto the lawn and ran toward the inn.
The door of the inn was flung open, and Kyle rushed out. “Dad, Meg’s boss didn’t call her to cover a story,” he sobbed. “The man who didn’t run over Jake is the guy who’s been watching Meg. He’s following her in his car.”
Meg! For a split second Mac’s vision blurred. He was in the morgue looking down at the dead face of Annie Collins, Meg’s half sister.
Kyle grabbed his father’s arm. “The cops are here. They’re sending helicopters to look for Meg’s car and the guy’s green car. Mrs. Collins is crying.” Kyle’s voice broke. “
Dad, don’t let anything happen to Meg.”
Tailing Meghan as she followed the Cadillac deeper into the countryside, Bernie felt slow, burning anger. He’d wanted to be alone with her with no one else around. Then she’d met up with that other car. Suppose the guy Meg was with tried to give him trouble? Bernie patted his pocket. It was there. He never could remember if he had it with him. He wasn’t supposed to carry it, and he’d even tried to leave it in the basement. But when he met somebody he liked and started to think about her all the time, he got nervous and a lot of things started to be different.
Bernie left the car behind the clump of evergreens, took his camera and carefully approached the cluster of ramshackle buildings. Now that he was up close he could see that the farmhouse was smaller than it seemed from a distance. What he’d thought was an enclosed porch was actually a storage shed. Next to that was the barn. There was just enough space for him to slide in sideways between the house and the storage shed.
The passageway was dark and musty, but he knew it was a good hiding place. From behind the buildings he could hear their voices clearly. He knew that, like the window in the inn, this was a good place for him to watch and not be seen.
Reaching the end of the passageway, he peeked out just enough to see what was going on.
Meghan was with a man Bernie had never seen before, and they were standing near what appeared to be an old well, about twenty feet away. They were facing each other, talking. The sedan was parked between them and where Bernie was hiding, so he crouched down and crept forward, hidden from sight by the car. Then he stopped, lifted his camera and began to videotape them.
60
“P hillip, before Dad gets here, I think I know the reason for Helene Petrovic being at Manning.”
“What is it, Meg?”
She ignored the oddly detached tone in Phillip’s voice. “When I was in Helene Petrovic’s house yesterday, I saw pictures of young children in her study. Some of them are the same pictures I’d seen on the walls of Dr. Williams’ office at the Franklin Center in Philadelphia.