28

On Saturday morning, Edna Barry awoke with a nervous start. Today that reporter was coming to see her, and she had to make sure Wally wasn’t around when Fran Simmons got there. He had been moody for several days, and since seeing Molly on television had kept talking about wanting to visit her. Last night he’d announced that he wasn’t going to the club, where he usually spent Saturday mornings. The club, run by Fairfield County for outpatients like Wally, was usually one of his favorite places to go.

I’ll ask Marta to keep him at her place, Edna thought. Marta Gustafson Jones had been her neighbor for thirty years. They’d seen each other through illness and widowhood, and Marta doted on Wally. She was one of the few people who could handle him and calm him down when he became upset.

When Fran rang Edna’s bell at eleven o’clock, Wally was safely out of the way, and Edna was able to manage a reasonably pleasant greeting and even offered her coffee, which Fran accepted. “Why don’t we just sit in the kitchen?” she suggested, as she unbuttoned her coat.

“If you like.” Edna was justifiably proud of her spotless kitchen, with its brand-new maple dinette set she’d bought on sale.

At the table, Fran fished her recorder out of her shoulder bag. Casually she laid it on the tabletop. “You know, Mrs. Barry, I’m here because I want to help Molly, and I’m sure you do too. That’s why, with your permission, I need to record you. There may just be something that will come up that might prove to be helpful to Molly. I’m sure that she’s become more and more convinced she wasn’t the one responsible for her husband’s death. In fact, she’s beginning to remember things about that night, and one of them is that there was someone else in the house when she arrived home from the Cape. If that could be proven, it might mean her conviction would be overturned, or at least that the investigation would be reopened. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

Edna Barry was pouring water into the coffeemaker. “Yes, of course, it would,” she said. Then, “Oh, dear.”

Fran’s eyes narrowed as she saw that Mrs. Barry had splashed water on the counter. Her hand is trembling, Fran thought. There’s something about all this that’s bothering her. I could tell she was nervous the other day when I met her at Molly’s and she certainly was uptight when I talked to her on the phone to ask about coming here today.

As the aroma of coffee began to fill the room, Fran set about trying to get Edna Barry to relax and let down her guard. “I went to school with Molly at Cranden,” she said. “Did she tell you that?”

“Yes, she did.” Edna took cups and saucers from the cabinet and placed them on the table. She peered at Fran over her glasses for a moment before sitting down.

She’s thinking about the library-fund scandal, Fran thought, then brushed her concern aside and went ahead with her interview. “But I understand you’ve known her even longer than that?”

“Oh, yes. I worked for her parents from the time she was little. Then they moved to Florida right after she got married, and that’s when I started working for her.”

“Then you knew Dr. Lasch very well also?”

Edna Barry considered the question. “I guess the answer to that one has to be yes and no. I was there three mornings a week. The doctor was always gone off to work when I got there at nine and seldom home at one o’clock when I left. But if Molly was giving a dinner party-which she did fairly often-then she’d have me in to serve and clean up. That’s really the only time I saw the doctor and her together. When he was around, he was always very pleasant.”

Fran noticed that Edna Barry’s lips tightened into a straight line as though whatever she was thinking as she spoke was not very pleasant. “When you did see him and Molly together, did you get the feeling that they were happy?” she asked.

“Until that day I came in and Molly was so upset and packing to go to the Cape, I never saw even a hint of a quarrel. I will say that before that day, I had felt time hung a little heavy on her hands. She did a lot of volunteer work in town, and I know she’s a very good golfer, but sometimes she’d tell me that she missed having a job. And, of course, she had some tough breaks too. She was so anxious to start a family, and then, when she had that last miscarriage, she seemed different, very quiet, very withdrawn.”

Nothing Edna Barry was saying was really of any help to Molly, Fran thought, as a half-hour later she finished her second cup of coffee. She had only a few questions left to ask, and so far the woman hadn’t been very forthcoming. “Mrs. Barry, the security system wasn’t on when you got to work that Monday, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Did you check to see if there might have been an unlocked door that an intruder might have used?”

“There was no unlocked door.” Edna Barry’s voice turned suddenly antagonistic, and the pupils of her eyes widened.

I’ve hit a nerve, Fran thought, and there’s something she’s not telling me. “How many doors are there in the house?”

“Four,” she answered without pausing to think. “The front door. The kitchen door. They had the same key. A door from the family room to the patio. That only opened from the inside. A basement door that was always locked and bolted.”

“Did you check all of them yourself?”

“No, but the police did, Miss Simmons. Why don’t you talk to them?”

“Mrs. Barry, I’m not questioning what you told me,” Fran said, her tone conciliatory.

Seemingly mollified, Edna Barry said, “On that Friday afternoon, when I left, I checked all the doors to be sure that they were locked. Dr. Lasch always came in the front door. The floor bolt wasn’t fastened that Monday morning, so that means over the weekend someone used that door.”

“The floor bolt?”

“At night, Molly always put it on. The kitchen door was locked when I came in. I am positive about that.”

Edna Barry’s cheeks were flushed. Fran could see the woman was on the verge of tears. Is she afraid because she thinks she may have been careless and left the house unlocked? she wondered.

“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Barry, and your hospitality,” Fran said. “I’ve taken enough of your time for now, but I may want to ask you a few more questions later, and possibly we’ll ask you to be a guest on the program.”

“I don’t want to be a guest on the program.”

“Of course. As you wish.” Fran turned off the recorder and got up to leave. At the door she asked a final question: “Mrs. Barry, let’s just assume the possibility that there was someone else in the house the night Dr. Lasch died. Do you know if the locks on any of the doors were ever changed?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“I’m going to suggest to Molly that they should be changed. Otherwise she might be in danger from an intruder. Don’t you agree?”

Now the color drained from Edna Barry’s face. “Miss Simmons,” she said, “if you’d seen what I saw when I went upstairs-Molly lying in that bed, covered with crusted blood-you’d know that no intruder came into the house that night. Stop trying to make trouble for innocent people.”

“What innocent people am I trying to make trouble for, Mrs. Barry?” Fran demanded. “I thought I was trying to help a young woman, someone you’ve known for years and say you care for, to perhaps prove herself innocent of this crime!”

Mrs. Barry said nothing, her lips a grim, straight line as she opened the door for Fran to leave. “We’ll be talking again, Mrs. Barry,” Fran said, unsmiling. “I have a feeling I still have a lot of questions for you that need to be answered.”