“Can that test be done on me and the dead woman?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem surprised that I’m asking about it, Mac.”
He put down the coffee cup and looked at her squarely. “Meg, I already had decided to go to the morgue and see that woman’s body this afternoon. They have a DNA lab in the medical examiner’s office. I was planning to make sure they were preserving a sample of her blood before she’s removed to potter’s field.”
Meg bit her lip. “Then you’re thinking in the same direction I am.” She blinked her eyes to blot out the vivid memory of the dead woman’s face. “I have to see Phillip this morning and stop in at the hospital,” she continued. “I’ll meet you at the medical examiner’s. What time is good for you?”
They agreed to meet around two o’clock. As Mac drove away he reflected that there was no good time to look down at the dead face of a woman who resembled Meghan Collins.
23
Phillip Carter heard the news report detailing Dr. Helene Petrovic’s death on his way to the office. He made a mental note to have Victor Orsini follow up immediately on the vacancy her death had left at Manning Clinic. She had, after all, been hired at Manning through Collins and Carter. Those jobs paid well, and there would be another good fee if Collins and Carter was commissioned to find a replacement.
He arrived at the office at a quarter of nine and spotted Meghan’s car parked in one of the stalls near the entrance of the building. She had obviously been waiting for him, because she got out of her car as he parked.
“Meg, what a nice surprise.” He put an arm around her. “But for goodness sake, you have a key. Why didn’t you go inside?”
Meg smiled briefly. “I’ve just been here a minute.” Besides, she thought, I’d feel like an intruder walking in.
“Catherine’s all right, isn’t she?” he asked.
“Doing really well.”
“Thank God for that,” he said heartily.
The small reception room was pleasant with its brightly slipcovered couch and chair, circular coffee table and paneled walls. Meghan once again had a reaction of intense sadness as she hurried through it. This time they went into Phillip’s office. He seemed to sense that she did not want to go into her father’s office again.
He helped her off with her coat. “Coffee?”
“No thanks. I’ve had three cups already.”
He settled behind his desk. “And I’m trying to cut down, so I’ll wait. Meg, you look pretty troubled.”
“I am.” Meghan moistened her lips. “Phillip, I’m beginning to think I didn’t know my father at all.”
“In what way?”
She told him about the letters and the obituary notice she had found in the locked drawer, then watched as Phillip’s expression changed from concern to disbelief.
“Meg, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said when she finished. “I’ve known your father for years. Ever since I can remember, I’ve understood that his mother died when he was a kid, his father remarried and he had a lousy childhood, living with the father and stepmother. When my father was dying, your dad said something I never forgot. He said, ‘I envy you being able to mourn a parent.’”
“Then you never knew either?”
“No, of course not.”
“The point is, why did he have to lie about it?” Meg asked, her voice rising. She clasped her hands together and bit her lip. “I mean, why not tell my mother the truth? What did he have to gain by deceiving her?”
“Think about it, Meg. He met your mother, told her his family background as he’d told it to everyone else. When they started getting interested in each other it would have been pretty difficult to admit he’d lied to her. And can you imagine your grandfather’s reaction if he’d learned that your father was ignoring his own mother for whatever reason?”
“Yes, I can see that. But Pop’s been dead for so many years. Why couldn’t he . . . ?” Her voice trailed off.
“Meg, when you start living a lie, it gets harder with every passing day to straighten it out.”
Meghan heard the sound of voices in the outside office. She stood up. “Can we keep this between us?”
“Of course.”
He got up with her. “What are you going to do?”
“As soon as I’m sure Mother is okay I’m going to the address in Chestnut Hill that was on the envelope with the obituary notice. Maybe I’ll get some answers there.”
“How’s the feature story on the Manning Clinic going?”
“It’s not. They’re stonewalling me. I’ve got to find a different in vitro facility to use. Wait a minute. You or Dad placed someone at Manning, didn’t you?”
“Your dad handled it. As a matter of fact, it’s that poor woman who was shot yesterday.”
“Dr. Petrovic? I met her last week.”
The intercom buzzed. Phillip Carter picked up the phone. “Who? All right, I’ll take it.”
“A reporter from the New York Post,” he explained to Meghan. “God knows what they want of me.”
Meghan watched as Phillip Carter’s face darkened. “That’s absolutely impossible.” His voice was husky with outrage. “I . . . I will not comment until I have personally spoken with Dr. Iovino at New York Hospital.”
He replaced the receiver and turned to Meghan. “Meg, that reporter has been checking on Helene Petrovic. They never heard of her at New York Hospital. Her credentials were fraudulent, and we’re responsible for her getting the job in the laboratory at Manning.”
“But didn’t you check her references before you submitted her to the clinic?”
Even as she asked the question, Meghan knew the answer, she could see it in Phillip’s face. Her father had handled Helene Petrovic’s file. It would have been up to him to validate the information on her curriculum vitae.
24
Despite the best efforts of the entire staff of the Manning Clinic there was no hiding the tension that permeated the atmosphere. Several new clients watched uneasily as a van with a CBS television logo on the sides pulled into the parking area and a reporter and cameraman hurried up the walkway.
Marge Walters was at her receptionist best, firm with the reporter. “Dr. Manning declines to be interviewed until he has investigated the allegations,” she said. She was unable to stop the cameraman, who began to videotape the room and its occupants.
Several clients stood up. Marge rushed over to them. “This is all a misunderstanding,” she pleaded, suddenly realizing she was being recorded.
One woman, her hands shielding her face, exploded in anger. “This is an outrage. It’s tough enough to have to resort to this kind of procedure to have a baby without being on the eleven o’clock news.” She ran from the room.
Another said, “Mrs. Walters, I’m leaving too. You’d better cancel my appointment.”
“I understand.” Marge forced a sympathetic smile. “When would you like to reschedule?”
“I’ll have to check my appointment book. I’ll call.”
Marge watched the retreating women. No you won’t, she thought. Alarmed, she noticed Mrs. Kaplan, a client on her second visit to the clinic, approach the reporter.
“What’s this all about?” she demanded.
“What it’s all about is that the person in charge of the Manning Clinic lab for the last six years apparently was not a doctor. In fact her only training seems to have been as a cosmetologist.”
“My God. My sister had in vitro fertilization here two years ago. Is there any chance she didn’t receive her own embryo?” Mrs. Kaplan clenched her hands together.
God help us, Marge thought. That’s the end of this place. She’d been shocked and saddened when she heard on the morning news of Dr. Helene Petrovic’s death. It was only when she arrived at work an hour ago that she’d heard the rumor of something being wrong with Petrovic’s credentials. But hearing the reporter’s stark statement and watching Mrs. Kaplan’s response made her realize the enormity of the pos
sible consequences.
Helene Petrovic had been in charge of the cryopreserved embryos. Dozens upon dozens of test tubes, no bigger than half an index finger, each one containing a potentially viable human being. Mislabel even one of them and the wrong embryo might be implanted in a woman’s womb, making her a host mother, but not the biological mother of a child.
Marge watched the Kaplan woman rush from the room followed by the reporter. She looked out the window. More news vans were pulling in. More reporters were attempting to question the women who had just left the reception area.
She saw the reporter from PCD Channel 3 getting out of a car. Meghan Collins. That was her name. She was the one who’d been planning to do the television special that Dr. Manning called off so abruptly . . .
Meghan was not sure if she really should be here, especially since her father’s name was certain to come up in the course of the investigation into Helene Petrovic’s credentials. As she left Phillip Carter’s office she’d been beeped by the news desk and told that Steve, her cameraman, would meet her at the Manning Clinic. “Weicker okayed it,” she was assured.
She’d tried to reach Weicker earlier, but he was not yet in. She felt she had to speak to him about the possible conflict of interest. It was easier for the moment, however, to simply accept the assignment. The odds were that the lawyers for the clinic would not permit any interviews with Dr. Manning anyway.
She did not attempt to join the rest of the media in flinging questions to the departing clients. Instead she spotted Steve and motioned for him to follow her inside. She opened the door quietly. As she had hoped, Marge Walters was at her desk, speaking urgently into the phone. “We’ve got to cancel all of today’s appointments,” she was insisting. “You’d better tell them in there that they’ve got to make some kind of statement. Otherwise the only thing the public is going to see is women bolting out of here.”
As the door closed behind Steve, Walters looked up. “I can’t talk anymore,” she said hurriedly and clicked down the receiver.
Meghan did not speak until she was settled in the chair across from Walters’ desk. The situation required tact and careful handling. She had learned not to fire questions at a defensive interviewee. “This is a pretty rough morning for you, Mrs. Walters,” she said soothingly.
She watched as the receptionist brushed a hand over her forehead. “You bet it is.”
The woman’s tone was guarded, but Meghan sensed in her the same conflict she had noticed yesterday. She realized the need for discretion, but she was dying to talk to someone about all that had been going on. Marge Walters was a born gossip.
“I met Dr. Petrovic at the reunion,” Meghan said. “She seemed like a lovely person.”
“She was,” Walters agreed. “It’s hard to believe she wasn’t qualified for the job she was doing. But her early medical training was probably in Rumania. With all the changes in government over there, I’ll bet anything they find out she had all the degrees she needed. I don’t understand about New York Hospital saying she didn’t train there. I bet that’s a mistake too. But finding that out may come too late. This bad publicity will ruin this place.”
“It could,” Meghan agreed. “Do you think that her quitting had something to do with Dr. Manning’s decision to cancel our session yesterday?”
Walters looked at the camera Steve was holding.
Quickly Meghan added, “If you can tell me anything that will balance all this negative news I’d like to include it.”
Marge Walters made up her mind. She trusted Meghan Collins. “Then let me tell you that Helene Petrovic was one of the most wonderful, hardest working people I’ve ever met. No one was happier than she when an embryo was brought to term in its mother’s womb. She loved every single embryo in that lab and used to insist on having the emergency generator tested regularly to be sure that in case of power failure the temperature would stay constant.”
Walters’ eyes misted. “I remember Dr. Manning telling us at a staff meeting last year how he’d rushed to the clinic during that terrible snowstorm in December, when all the electricity went down, to make sure the emergency generator was working. Guess who arrived a minute behind him? Helene Petrovic. And she hated driving in snow or ice. It was a special fear of hers, yet she drove here in that storm. She was that dedicated.”
“You’re telling me exactly what I felt when I interviewed her,” Meghan commented. “She seemed to be a very caring person. I could see it in the way she was interacting with the children during the picture session on Sunday.”
“I missed that. I had to go to a family wedding that day. Can you turn off the camera now?”
“Of course.” Meghan nodded to Steve.
Walters shook her head. “I wanted to be here. But my cousin Dodie finally married her boyfriend. They’ve only been living together for eight years. You should have heard my aunt. You’d think a nineteen-year-old out of convent school was the bride. I swear to God the night before the wedding I bet she told Dodie how babies come to be born.”
Walters grimaced as the incongruity of her remark in this clinic occurred to her. “How most of them come to be born, I mean.”
“Is there any chance I can see Dr. Manning?” Meghan knew if there was a chance it was through this woman.
Walters shook her head. “Just between us, an assistant state attorney and some investigators are with him now.”
That wasn’t surprising. Certainly they were looking into Helene Petrovic’s abrupt departure from the clinic and asking questions about her personal life. “Did Helene have any particularly close friends here?”
“No. Not really. She was very nice but a little formal—you know what I mean. I thought maybe it was because she was from Rumania. Although when you think about it, the Gabor women came from there, and they’ve had more than their share of close friends, especially Zsa Zsa.”
“I’m quite sure the Gabors are Hungarian, not Rumanian. So Helene Petrovic didn’t have any particular friends or an intimate relationship you’re aware of?”
“The nearest to it was Dr. Williams. He used to be Dr. Manning’s assistant, and I wondered if there wasn’t a little something going on between him and Helene. I saw them at dinner one night when my husband and I went to a little out-of-the-way place. They didn’t look happy when I stopped by their table to say hello. But that was just one time six years ago, right after she started working here. I have to say I kept my eye on them after that and they never acted at all special to each other.”
“Is Dr. Williams still here?”
“No. He was offered a job to open and run a new facility and he took it. It’s the Franklin Center in Philadelphia. It has a wonderful reputation. Between us, Dr. Williams was a top-drawer manager. He put together the whole medical team here, and believe me, he did a terrific job.”
“Then he was the one who hired Petrovic?”
“Technically, but they always hire the top staff through one of those headhunter outfits that recruits and screens them for us. Even so, Dr. Williams worked here for about six months after Helene came on staff, and believe me, he’d have noticed if she seemed incompetent.”
“I’d like to talk with him, Mrs. Walters.”
“Please call me Marge. I wish you would talk to him. He’d tell you how wonderful Helene was in that lab.”
Meghan heard the front door opening. Walters looked up. “More cameras! Meghan, I’d better not say any more.”
Meghan stood up. “You’ve been a great help.”
Driving home, Meghan reflected that she would not give Dr. Williams the chance to put her off over the phone. She’d go to the Franklin Center in Philadelphia and try to see him. With luck she could persuade him to tape an interview for the in vitro feature.
What would he have to say about Helene Petrovic? Would he defend her, like Marge Walters? Or would he be outraged that Petrovic had managed to deceive him, as she had deceived all her other colleagues?
And, Meghan wondered, what wou
ld she learn at her other stop in the Philadelphia area? The house in Chestnut Hill, from which someone had notified her father of his mother’s death.
25
Victor Orsini and Phillip Carter never socialized for lunch. Orsini knew that Carter considered him to be Edwin Collins’ protégé. When the job at Collins and Carter had come up nearly seven years ago it had been between Orsini and another candidate. Orsini had been Ed Collins’ choice. From the beginning his relationship with Carter was cordial, but never warm.
Today, however, after they had both ordered the baked sole and house salad, Orsini was in full sympathy with Carter’s obvious distress. There had been reporters in the office and a dozen phone calls from the media asking how it was possible that Collins and Carter had not detected the lies in Helene Petrovic’s curriculum vitae.
“I told them the simple truth,” Phillip Carter said as he drummed his fingers nervously on the tablecloth. “Ed always researched prospective candidates meticulously, and it was his case. It only adds fuel to the fire that Ed is missing and the police are openly saying they don’t believe he died in the bridge accident.”
“Does Jackie remember anything about the Petrovic case?” Orsini asked.
“She’d just started working for us then. Her initials are on the letter, but she has no memory of it. Why should she? It was a usual glowing recommendation attached to the curriculum vitae. After he received it Dr. Manning had a meeting with Petrovic and hired her.”
Orsini said, “Of all the fields in which to have been caught verifying fraudulent references, medical research is about the worst.”
“Yes, it is,” Phillip agreed. “If any mistakes were made by Helene Petrovic and the Manning Clinic is sued, there’s a damn good chance the clinic will sue us.”