“And win.”
Carter nodded glumly. “And win.” He paused. “Victor, you worked more directly with Ed than you did with me. When he called you from the car phone that night, he talked about wanting to meet with you in the morning. Was that all he said?”
“Yes, that’s all. Why?”
“Damn it, Victor,” Phillip Carter snapped, “let’s stop playing games! If Ed did manage to get over the bridge safely, do you have any inkling from that conversation whether he might have been in the state of mind to use the accident as his opportunity to disappear?”
“Look, Phillip, he said he wanted to make sure I was in the office in the morning,” Orsini replied, his voice taking on an edge. “It was a lousy connection. That’s all I can tell you.”
“I’m sorry. I keep looking for anything that might start to make sense.” Carter sighed. “Victor, I’ve been meaning to speak to you. Meghan is clearing out Ed’s personal things from his office on Saturday. I want you to take that office as of Monday. We haven’t had a great year but we can certainly refurbish it within reason.”
“Don’t worry about that right now.”
They had little else to say to each other.
Orsini noticed that Phillip Carter did not hint that after the matter of Ed Collins’ legal situation was somehow straightened out, he would offer Orsini a partnership. He knew that offer would never be made. For his part it was only a matter of weeks before the position he’d almost gotten on the Coast last year became available again. The guy they’d hired for the job didn’t work out. This time Orsini was being offered a bigger salary, a vice presidency and stock options.
He wished that he could leave today. Pack up and fly out there right now. But under the circumstances that was impossible. There was something he wanted to find, something he wanted to check out at the office, and now that he could move into Ed’s old office, the search might be easier.
26
Bernie stopped at a diner on Route 7 just outside Danbury. He settled on a stool at the counter and ordered the deluxe hamburger, French fries and coffee. Increasingly content as he munched and swallowed, he reviewed with satisfaction the busy hours he’d spent since he left home this morning.
After the car was cleaned up, he’d purchased a chauffeur’s hat and dark jacket at a secondhand store in lower Manhattan. He’d reasoned that outfit would give him a leg up on all the other gypsy cabs in New York. Then he’d headed for La Guardia Airport and stood near the baggage area, with the other chauffeurs waiting to make pickups.
He lucked out right away. Some guy about thirty or so came down the escalator and searched the name cards drivers were holding. There was no one waiting for him. Bernie could read the guy’s mind. He’d probably hired a driver from one of the dirt-cheap services and was kicking himself. Most of the drivers from those places were guys who had just arrived in New York and spent their first six months on the job getting lost.
Bernie had approached the man, offered to take him into the city, warned that he didn’t have a fancy limo but a nice clean car and bragged he was the best driver anyone could hire. He quoted a price of twenty bucks to drive the fellow to West Forty-eighth Street. He got him there in thirty-five minutes and received a ten-dollar tip. “You are a hell of a driver,” the man said as he paid.
Bernie remembered the compliment with pleasure as he reached for a French fry and smiled to himself. If he kept making money this way, adding it to his severance and vacation pay, he could last a long time before Mama knew he wasn’t at the old job. She never called him there. She didn’t like talking on the phone. She said it gave her one of her headaches.
And here he was, free as a bird, not accountable to anyone and out to see where Meghan Collins lived. He had bought a street map of the Newtown area and studied it. The Collins house was on Bayberry Road, and he knew how to get there.
At exactly two o’clock he was driving slowly past the white-shingled house with the black shutters. His eyes narrowed as he drank in every detail. The large porch. Nice. Kind of elegant. He thought of the people next door to his house in Jackson Heights who had poured concrete over most of their minuscule backyard and now grandly referred to the lumpy surface as their patio.
Bernie studied the grounds. There was a huge rhododendron at the left corner of the macadam driveway, a weeping willow off center in the middle of the lawn. Evergreens made a vivid hedge separating the Collins place from the next property.
Well satisfied, Bernie leaned his foot on the accelerator. In case he was being watched, he certainly wouldn’t be dope enough to do a U-turn here. He drove around the bend, then jammed on his brakes. He’d almost hit a stupid dog.
A kid came flying across the lawn. Through the window, Bernie could hear him frantically calling the dog. “Jake! Jake!”
The dog ran to the kid, and Bernie was able to start up the car again. The street was quiet enough that through the closed window, he could hear the kid yell, “Thanks, mister. Thanks a lot.”
Mac arrived at the medical examiner’s office on East Thirty-first Street at one-thirty. Meghan was not due until two o’clock, but he had phoned and made an appointment with Dr. Kenneth Lyons, the director of the lab. He was escorted to the fifth floor, where in Dr. Lyons’ small office, he explained his suspicions.
Lyons was a lean man in his late forties with a ready smile and keen, intelligent eyes. “That woman has been a puzzle. She certainly didn’t have the look of someone who would simply disappear and not be missed. We were planning to take a DNA sample from her before the body is taken to potter’s field anyway. It will be very simple to take a sample from Miss Collins as well and see if there’s the possibility of kinship.”
“That’s what Meghan wants to do.”
The doctor’s secretary was seated at a desk near the window. The phone rang and she picked it up. “Miss Collins is downstairs.”
It wasn’t just the normal apprehension of viewing a dead body in the morgue that Mac saw in Meghan’s face as he stepped from the elevator. Something else had added to the pain in her eyes, the drawn, tired lines around her mouth. It seemed to him that there was a sadness in her that was removed from the grief she had lived with since her father’s disappearance.
But she smiled when she saw him, a quick, relieved smile. She’s so pretty, he thought. Her chestnut hair was tousled around her head, a testament to the sharp afternoon wind. She was wearing a black-and-white tweed suit and black boots. The zippered jacket reached her hips, the narrow skirt was calf length. A black turtleneck sweater accentuated the paleness of her face.
Mac introduced her to Dr. Lyons. “You’ll be able to study the victim more closely downstairs than in the viewing room,” Lyons said.
The morgue was antiseptically clean. Rows of lockers lined the walls. The murmur of voices could be heard from behind the closed door of a room with an eight-foot window on the corridor. The curtains were drawn over the window. Mac was sure an autopsy was being performed.
An attendant led them down the corridor almost to the end. Dr. Lyons nodded to him and he reached for the handle of a drawer.
Noiselessly, the drawer slid out. Mac stared down at the nude, refrigerated body of the young woman. There was a single deep stab wound in her chest. Slender arms lay at her sides; her fingers were open. He took in the narrow waist, slim hips, long legs, high-arched feet. Finally he studied the face.
The chestnut hair was matted on her shoulders, but he could imagine it with the same wind-tossed life as Meghan’s hair. The mouth, generous and with the promise of warmth, the thick eyelashes that arched over the closed eyes, the dark brows that accentuated the high forehead.
Mac felt as though a violent punch had caught him in the stomach. He felt dazed, nauseated, light-headed. This could be Meg, he thought, this was meant to happen to Meg.
27
Catherine Collins touched the button at her hand, and the hospital bed tilted noiselessly up until she stopped it at a semireclining position. For
the last hour, since the lunch tray was taken out, she had tried to sleep, but it was useless. She was irritated at herself for her desire to escape into sleep. It’s time to face up to life, my girl, she told herself sternly.
She wished she had a calculator and the account books of the inn. She needed to figure out for herself how long she could hold on before she was forced to sell Drumdoe. The mortgage, she thought—that damn mortgage! Pop would never have put so much money in the place. Do without and make do, that had been his slogan when he was a greenhorn. How often had she heard that?
But once he got his inn and his house he’d been the most generous husband and father. Provided you weren’t ridiculously extravagant, of course.
And I was ridiculous giving that decorator so much leeway, Catherine thought. But that’s water under the bridge.
The analogy made her shiver. It brought to mind the horrible photographs of wrecked cars being hauled to the surface from under the Tappan Zee Bridge. She and Meghan had studied the photos with magnifying glasses, dreading to find what they were expecting to see: some part of a dark blue Cadillac.
Catherine threw back the covers, got out of bed and reached for her robe. She walked across the room to the tiny bathroom and splashed water on her face, then looked in the mirror and grimaced. Put on a little war paint, dear, she told herself.
Ten minutes later she was back in bed and feeling somewhat better. Her short blond hair was brushed; blusher on her cheeks and lipstick had camouflaged the gaunt pallor she had seen in the mirror; a blue silk bed jacket made her feel presentable to possible visitors. She knew Meghan was in New York for the afternoon, but there was always the chance someone else might drop by.
Someone did. Phillip Carter tapped on the partially open door. “Catherine, may I come in?”
“You bet.”
He bent down and kissed her cheek. “You look much better.”
“I feel much better. In fact I’m trying to get out of here, but they want me to stay a couple of days more.”
“Good idea.” He pulled the one comfortable chair close to the bed and sat down.
He was wearing a casual tan jacket, dark brown slacks and a brown-and-beige print tie, Catherine noticed. His strong male presence made her ache for her husband.
Edwin had been strikingly handsome. She had met him thirty-one years ago, at a party after a Harvard-Yale foot-ball game. She was dating one of the Yale players. She had noticed Ed on the dance floor. The dark hair, the deep blue eyes, the tall thin body.
The next dance, Edwin had cut in on her, and the next day he was ringing the bell at the farmhouse, a dozen roses in his hand. “I’m courting you, Catherine,” he’d announced.
Now Catherine tried to blink back sudden tears.
“Catherine?” Phillip’s hand was holding hers.
“I’m fine,” she said, withdrawing her hand.
“I don’t think you’ll feel that way in a few minutes. I wish I could have spoken to Meg before I came.”
“She had to go into the city. What is it, Phillip?”
“Catherine, you may have read about the woman who was murdered in New Milford.”
“That doctor. Yes. How awful.”
“Then you haven’t heard that she wasn’t a doctor, that her credentials were falsified and that she was placed at the Manning Clinic by our company?”
Catherine bolted up. “What?”
A nurse hurried in. “Mrs. Collins, there are two investigators from the New Milford police in the lobby who need to speak with you. The doctor is on his way. He wants to be here but said I should warn you they’ll be up in a few minutes.”
Catherine waited until she heard retreating footsteps in the corridor before she asked, “Phillip, you know why those people are here.”
“Yes, I do. They were in the office an hour ago.”
“Why? Forget about waiting for the doctor. I have no intention of collapsing again. Please, I do need to know what I’m facing.”
“Catherine, the woman who was murdered last night in New Milford was Ed’s client. Ed had to have known her credentials were falsified.” Phillip Carter turned away as though to avoid seeing the pain he knew he was going to inflict. “You know that the police don’t think Ed was drowned in the bridge accident. A neighbor who lives across the street from Helene Petrovic’s apartment said Petrovic was visited regularly late at night by a tall man who drove a dark sedan.” He paused, his expression grim. “She saw him there two weeks ago. Catherine, when Meg called the ambulance the other night a squad car came as well. When you came to, you told the policeman you’d had a call from your husband.”
Catherine tried to swallow but could not. Her mouth and lips were parched. She had the incongruous thought that this is what it must be like to experience severe thirst. “I was out of it. I meant to say Meg had a call from someone saying he was her father.”
There was a tap on the door. The doctor spoke as he came in. “Catherine, I’m terribly sorry about this. The assistant state attorney insists that the investigators of a murder in New Milford ask you a few questions, and I could not in conscience say you weren’t well enough to see them.”
“I’m well enough to see them,” Catherine said quietly. She looked at Phillip. “Will you stay?”
“I certainly will.” He got up as the investigators followed a nurse into the room.
Catherine’s first impression was surprise that one of them was a woman, a young woman around Meghan’s age. The other was a man she judged to be in his late thirties. It was he who spoke first, apologizing for the intrusion, promising to take only a few moments of her time, introducing himself and his partner. “This is Special Investigator Arlene Weiss. I’m Bob Marron.” He got straight to the point. “Mrs. Collins, you were brought here in shock because your daughter received a phone call in the middle of the night from someone who claimed to be your husband?”
“It wasn’t my husband. I’d know his voice anywhere, under any circumstances.”
“Mrs. Collins, I’m sorry to ask you this, but do you still believe your husband died last January?”
“I absolutely believe he is dead,” she said firmly.
“Beautiful roses for you, Mrs. Collins,” a voice chirped as the door was pushed open. It was one of the volunteers in pink jackets who delivered flowers to the rooms, brought around the book cart and helped feed the elderly patients.
“Not now,” Catherine’s doctor snapped.
“No, it’s all right. Just put them on the nightstand.” Catherine realized she welcomed the intrusion. She needed a moment to get hold of herself. Again stalling for time, she reached for the card the volunteer was detaching from the ribbon on the vase.
She glanced at it, then froze, her eyes filled with horror. As everyone stared at her, she held up the card with trembling fingers, fighting to retain her composure. “I didn’t know dead people could send flowers,” she whispered.
She read it aloud. “‘My dearest. Have faith in me. I promise this will all work out.’” Catherine bit her lip. “It’s signed, ‘Your loving husband, Edwin.’”
Part Two
28
On Wednesday afternoon, investigators from Connecticut drove to Lawrenceville, New Jersey, to question Stephanie Petrovic about her murdered aunt.
Trying to ignore the restless stirring in her womb, Stephanie clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. Having grown up in Rumania under the Ceausescu regime, she had been trained to fear the police, and even though the men who were sitting in her aunt’s living room seemed very kind and were not wearing uniforms, she knew enough not to trust them. People who trusted the police often ended up in prison, or worse.
Her aunt’s lawyer, Charles Potters, was there as well, a man who reminded her of an official of the village where she had been born. He too was being kind, but she sensed that his kindness was of the impersonal variety. He would do his duty and he had already informed her that his duty was to carry out the terms of Helene’s wil
l, which left her entire estate to the Manning Clinic.
“She intended to change it,” Stephanie had told him. “She planned to take care of me, to help me while I went to cosmetology school, to get me an apartment. She promised she would leave money to me. She said I was like a daughter to her.”
“I understand. But since she did not change her will, the only thing I can say is that until this house is sold you may live in it. As trustee, I can probably arrange to hire you as a caretaker until a sale is completed. After that, I’m afraid, legally you’re on your own.”
On her own! Stephanie knew that unless she could get a green card and a job there was no way she could stay in this country.
One of the policemen asked if there were any man who had been her aunt’s particular friend.
“No. Not really,” she answered. “Sometimes in the evening we go to parties given by other Rumanians. Sometimes Helene would go to concerts. Often on Saturday or Sunday, she would go out for three or four hours. She never told me where.” But Stephanie knew of no man at all in her aunt’s life. She told again how surprised she had been when Helene abruptly quit her job. “She was planning to give up work as soon as she sold her house. She wanted to move to France for a while.” Stephanie knew she was stumbling over the English words. She was so afraid.
“According to Dr. Manning, he had no inkling that she was contemplating leaving the clinic,” the investigator named Hugo said in Rumanian.
Stephanie flashed a look of gratitude at him and switched to her native language as well. “She told me that Dr. Manning would be very upset and she dreaded breaking the news to him.”
“Did she have another job in mind? It would have meant her credentials being checked again.”
“She said she wanted to take some time off to rest.” Hugo turned to the lawyer. “What was Helene Petrovic’s financial situation?”