Damn.
That meant he wouldn’t get to talk to her today. He was having dinner in New York with Clovis Simmons, an actress on one of the soaps. Clovis was fun; he always enjoyed himself with her, but the signs were that she was getting serious.
Richard made a resolve. This was the last time he’d take Clovis out. It wasn’t fair to her. Refusing to consider the reason for that sudden decision, he leaned back in his chair and scowled. A mental alarm was sending out a beeping signal. It reminded him of traveling in the Midwest when the radio station would suddenly announce a tornado watch in effect. A warning was the sure thing. A watch suggested potential trouble.
He had not been exaggerating when he’d told Scott that if Vangie Lewis had not delivered that baby soon she wouldn’t have needed the cyanide. How many women got into that same kind of condition under the Westlake Maternity Concept? Molly raved about the obstetrician because one of her friends had had a successful pregnancy. But what about the failures over there? How many of them had there been? Had there been anything unusual about the ratio of deaths among Westlake’s patients? Richard switched on the intercom and asked his secretary to come in.
Marge was in her mid-fifties. Her graying hair was carefully bubbled in the style made popular by Jacqueline Kennedy in the early sixties. Her skirt was an inch over her plump knees. She looked like a suburban housewife on a television game show. She was in fact an excellent secretary who thoroughly enjoyed the constant drama of the department.
“Marge,” he said, “I’m playing a hunch. I want to do some unofficial investigating of Westlake Hospital—just the maternity section. That maternity concept has been in operation for about eight years. I’d like to know how many patients died either in childbirth or from complications of pregnancy and what the ratio is between deaths and the number of patients treated there. I don’t want to let it out that I’m interested. That’s why I don’t want to ask Scott to have the records subpoenaed. Do you know anybody over there who might look at the hospital records for you on the quiet?”
Marge frowned. Her nose, not unlike a small, sharp canary’s beak, wrinkled. “Let me work on it.”
“Good. And something else. Check into any malpractice suits that have been filed against either of the doctors over at Westlake Maternity. I don’t care whether the suits were dropped or not. I want to know the reason for them, if any exist at all.”
Satisfied at getting the investigation under way, Richard dashed home to shower and change. Seconds after he left his office, a call came for him from Dr. David Broad of the prenatal laboratory at Mt. Sinai Hospital. The message Marge took asked that Richard contact Dr. Broad in the morning. The matter was urgent.
♦17♦
Katie left for the hospital at quarter to three. The weather had settled into a tenacious, somber, cloudy cold spell. But at least the warmth of the cars had melted most of the sleet from the roads. She deliberately slowed down as she rounded the curve that had been the starting point of her accident.
She was a few minutes early for her appointment, but could have saved her time. The receptionist, Mrs. Fitzgerald, was coolly pleasant, but when Katie asked if she filled in for Edna very often, Mrs. Fitzgerald replied stiffly, “Miss Burns is almost never absent, so there’s very little need to substitute for her.”
It seemed to Katie that the answer was unduly defensive. Intrigued, she decided to pursue the issue. “I was so sorry to hear that Miss Burns is ill today,” she added. “Nothing serious, I hope?”
“No.” The woman was distinctly nervous. “Just a virus sort of thing. She’ll be in tomorrow, I’m sure.”
There were several expectant mothers sitting in the reception area, but they were deep in magazines. There was no way Katie could feasibly strike up a conversation with them. A pregnant woman, her face puffy, her movements slow and deliberate, came from the corridor that led to the doctors’ offices. A buzzer sounded at the desk. The receptionist picked up the phone.
“Mrs. DeMaio, Dr. Highley will see you now,” she said. She sounded relieved.
Katie walked quickly down the corridor. Dr. Highley’s office was the first one, she remembered. Following the printed instructions to knock and enter, she opened the door and stepped into the medium-sized office. It had the air of a comfortable study. Bookshelves lined one wall. Pictures of mothers with babies nearly covered a second wall. A club chair was placed near the doctor’s elaborately carved desk. Katie remembered that the examining room, a lavatory and a combination kitchen/instrument-sterilizing area completed the suite. The doctor was behind his desk. He stood up to greet her. “Mrs. DeMaio.” His tone was courteous; the faint British accent, barely perceptible. He was a medium-tall man, about five feet eleven inches. His face, smooth-skinned with rounded cheeks, terminated in a plump oval chin. His body gave the impression of solid strength, carefully controlled. He looked as though he could easily put on weight. Thinning sandy hair, streaked with gray, was carefully combed in a side part. Eyebrows and lashes, the same sandy shade, accentuated protruding steel-gray eyes. Feature by feature he was not an attractive man, but his overall appearance was imposing and authoritative.
Katie flushed, realizing that he was aware of her scrutiny and not pleased by it. She sat down quickly and to establish rapport thanked him for the phone call.
He dismissed her gratitude. “I wish you had something to thank me for. If you had told the emergency-room doctor that you were my patient, he would have given you a room in the west wing. Far more comfortable, I assure you. But just about the same view,” he added.
Katie had started to fish in her shoulder bag for a pad and paper. She looked up quickly. “View. Anything would be better than the one I thought I had the other night. Why . . .” She stopped. The pad in her hand reminded her that she was here on official business. What would he think of her talking about nightmares? Unconsciously she tried to straighten up in the too-low, too-soft chair.
“Doctor, if you don’t mind, let’s talk about Vangie Lewis first.” She smiled. “I guess our roles are reversed at least for a few minutes. I get to ask the questions.”
His expression became somber. “I only wish there were a happier reason for our roles to be reversed. That poor girl. I’ve thought of little else since I heard the news.”
Katie nodded. “I knew Vangie slightly, and I must say I’ve had the same reaction. Now, it’s purely routine, of course, but in the absence of a note, my office does like to have some understanding of the mental state of a suicide victim.” She paused, then asked, “When was the last time you saw Vangie Lewis?”
He leaned back in the chair. His fingers interlocked under his chin, revealing immaculately clean nails. He spoke slowly. “It was last Thursday evening. I’ve been having Mrs. Lewis come in at least weekly since she completed the halfway point of her pregnancy. I have her chart here.”
He indicated the manila file on his desk. It was tabbed LEWIS, VANGIE. It was an impersonal item, Katie decided, a reminder that exactly one week ago Vangie Lewis had lain in the examining room adjoining this office having her blood pressure checked, the heartbeat of her fetus confirmed.
“How was Mrs. Lewis,” she asked, “physically and emotionally?”
“Let me answer as to her physical condition first. It was a worry, of course. There was danger of toxic pregnancy, which I was watching very closely. But you see, every additional day she carried increased the baby’s chance of survival.”
“Could she have carried the baby to full term?”
“Impossible. In fact, last Thursday I warned Mrs. Lewis that it was highly likely that we would have to bring her in within the next two weeks and induce labor.”
“How did she respond to that news?”
He frowned. “I expected Mrs. Lewis to have a very valid concern for the baby’s life. But the fact is that the closer she came to the potential birth, the more it seemed to me that she feared the birth process. The thought even crossed my mind that she was not unlike a little
girl who wanted to play house, but would have been terrified if her doll turned into a real baby.”
“I see.” Katie doodled reflectively on the pad she was holding. “But did Vangie show any specific depression?”
Dr. Highley shook his head. “I did not see it. However, I think that answer should come from Dr. Fukhito. He saw her on Monday night, and he’s better trained than I to recognize that symptom if it’s being masked. My overall impression was that she was getting morbidly fearful of giving birth.”
“A last question,” Katie asked. “Your office is right next to Dr. Fukhito’s. Did you at any time Monday night see Mrs. Lewis?”
“I did not.”
“Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been very helpful.” She slipped her pad back into her shoulder bag. “Now it’s your turn to ask questions.”
“I don’t have too many. You answered them last night. When you’ve finished talking with Dr. Fukhito, please go to room 101 on the other side of the hospital. You’ll be given a transfusion. Wait about a half hour before driving after you’ve received it”
“I thought that was for people who gave blood,” Katie said.
“Just to make sure there’s no reaction. Also . . .” He reached into the deep side drawer of his desk. Katie caught a glimpse of small bottles in exquisite order in the drawer. He selected one containing about nine or ten pills. “Take the first one of these tonight,” he said. “Then one every four hours tomorrow; the same on Friday. Take four pills in all tomorrow and Friday. You have just enough here. I must stress that it’s very important you don’t neglect this. As you know, if this operation does not cure your problem, we must consider more radical surgery.”
“I’ll take the pills,” Katie said.
“Good. You’ll be checking in around six o’clock Friday evening.”
Katie nodded.
“Fine. I’ll be making my late rounds and will look in on you. You’re not worried, I trust?”
She had admitted her fear of hospitals to him on the first appointment. “No,” she said, “not really.”
He opened the door for her. “Till Friday, then, Mrs. DeMaio,” he said softly.
♦18♦
The investigative team of Phil Cunningham and Charley Nugent returned to the Prosecutor’s office at four P.M. exuding the strained excitement of hounds who have treed their quarry. Rushing into Scott Myerson’s office, they proceeded to lay their findings before him.
“The husband’s a liar,” Phil said crisply. “He wasn’t due back till yesterday morning, but his plane developed engine trouble. The passengers were off loaded in Chicago, and he and the crew dead headed back to New York. He got in Monday evening.”
“Monday evening!” Scott exploded.
“Yeah. And checked into the Holiday Inn on West Fifty-seventh Street.”
“How did you get that?”
“We got a list of his crew on the Monday flight and talked to all of them. The purser lives in New York. Lewis gave him a ride into Manhattan and then ended up having dinner with him. Lewis told some cock-and-bull story about his wife being away and he was going to stay in the city overnight and take in a show.”
“He told the purser that?”
“Yeah. He parked the car at the Holiday Inn, checked in; then they went to dinner. The purser left him at seven twenty. After that Lewis got his car, and the garage records show he had it for over two hours. Brought it back at ten. And get this. He took off again at midnight and came back at two.”
Scott whistled. “He lied to us about his flight. He lied to the purser about his wife. He was somewhere in his car between eight and ten and between midnight and two A.M. What time did Richard say Vangie Lewis died?”
“Between eight and ten P.M.,” Ed said.
Charley Nugent had been silent. “There’s more,” he said. “Lewis has a girlfriend, a Pan Am stewardess. Name’s Joan Moore. Lives at 201 East Eighty-seventh Street in New York. The doorman there told us Captain Lewis drove her home from the airport yesterday morning. She left her bag with him and they went for coffee in the drugstore across the street.”
Scott tapped his pencil on the desk, a sure sign that he was about to issue orders. His assistants waited, notebooks in hand.
“It’s four o’clock,” Scott said crisply. “The judges will be leaving soon. Get one of them on the phone and ask him to wait around for fifteen minutes. Tell him we’re having a search warrant sworn out.”
Phil sprinted from his chair and reached for the telephone.
“You”—Scott pointed to Charley—” find out what funeral director picked up Vangie Lewis’ body in Minneapolis. Get to him. The body is not to be interred, and make damn sure Chris Lewis doesn’t decide to cremate it. We may want to do more work on it. Did Lewis say when he was coming back?”
Charley nodded. “He told us he’d return tomorrow immediately after the services and interment.”
Scott grunted. “Find out what plane he’s coming in on and be waiting for him. Invite him here for questioning.”
“You don’t think he’ll try to skip?” Charley asked.
“No, I don’t. He’ll try to brazen it through. If he has any brains he’ll know that we have nothing specific on him. And I want to talk to the girlfriend. What do you know about her?”
“She shares an apartment with two other stewardesses. She’s planning to switch to Pan Am’s Latin American Division and fly out of Miami. She’s down in Fort Lauderdale right now signing a lease on an apartment. She’ll be back late Friday afternoon.”
“Meet her plane too,” Scott said. “Invite her here for a few questions. Where was she Monday night?”
“In flight on her way to New York. We’re absolutely certain.”
“All right.” He paused. “Something else. I want the phone records from the Lewis house, particularly from the last week, and when you do the search see if there isn’t some kind of answering machine on one of the phones. He’s an airline captain. It would make sense to have one.”
Phil Cunningham was hanging up the phone. “Judge Haywood will wait.”
Scott reached for the phone, swiftly dialed Richard’s office, asked for him and softly muttered, “Damn. The one day he leaves early has to be today!”
“Do you need him right now?” Charley’s tone was curious.
“I want to know what he meant by saying there was something else that didn’t jibe. Remember that remark? It might be important to know what it is. All right, let’s get busy. And when you search that house, search it with a fine-tooth comb. And look for cyanide. We’ve got to find out fast where Vangie Lewis got the cyanide that killed her.
“Or where Captain Lewis got it,” he added quietly.
♦19♦
By contrast with Dr. Highley’s office, Dr. Fukhito’s seemed more spacious and brighter. The writing table with long, slender lines occupied less space than Dr. Highley’s massive English desk. Graceful cane-backed chairs with upholstered seats and arms and a matching chaise substituted for the clubby leather chairs in the other office. Instead of the wall with framed pictures of mothers and babies, Dr. Fukhito had a series of exquisite reproductions of Ukiyo-e woodcuts.
Dr. Fukhito was tall for a Japanese. Unless, Katie thought, his posture was so upright that he seemed even taller than he probably was. No, she judged him to be about five feet ten.
Like his associate, Dr. Fukhito was expensively and conservatively dressed. His pin-striped suit was accentuated by a light blue shirt and silk tie in muted tones of blue. His jet-black hair and small, neat mustache complemented pale gold skin and brown eyes more oval than almond-shaped. By either Oriental or Occidental standards he was a strikingly handsome man.
And probably a very good psychiatrist, Katie thought as she reached for her notebook, deliberately giving herself time to absorb impressions.
Last month her visit with Dr. Fukhito had been brief and informal. Smiling, he’d explained, “The womb is a fascinating part of the anatomy. Sometimes, irregular o
r inordinate flowing may indicate an emotional problem.”
“I doubt it,” Katie had told him. “My mother had the same problem for years, and I do understand it’s hereditary, or can be.”
He’d queried her about her personal life. “And suppose a hysterectomy becomes necessary someday? What would you feel about that?”
“I would feel terrible,” Katie had replied. “I’ve always wanted a family.”
“Then have you any plans to be married? Have you a relationship with someone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because right now I’m more interested in my job.” She had terminated the interview abruptly. “Doctor, you’re very kind, but I don’t have any big emotional hang-ups, I can assure you. I’m looking forward very much to being relieved of this problem, but I assure you it’s a purely physical one.”
He had acceded gracefully, standing up at once and holding out his hand. “Well, if you’re to become Dr. Highley’s patient, please remember I’m right here. And if a time comes when you’d like to talk things out with someone, you might want to try me.”
Several times in the past month it had fleetingly crossed Katie’s mind that it might not be a bad idea to talk with him to get a professional and objective view of where she was at emotionally. Or, she wondered, had that thought sprung into being much more recently—for instance, since last night’s dinner with Richard?
Pushing that thought away, she straightened in the chair and held up her pen. Her sleeve fell back, revealing her bandaged arm. To her relief, he did not question her about it.
“Doctor, as you know, a patient of yours and Dr. Highley’s, Vangie Lewis, died sometime Monday evening.”
She noticed that his eyebrows rose slightly. Was it because he was expecting her to positively state that Vangie committed suicide?