The reason behind their visit soon became apparent. It was Cal who first broached the subject. “Molly, yesterday that TV news reporter, Fran Simmons, was in the hospital coffee shop asking questions. Was she there at your suggestion?”

“No, I didn’t know Fran was going there,” she responded with a shrug of her shoulders, “but it’s fine with me.”

“Oh Molly, please,” Jenna murmured. “Don’t you understand what you’re doing to yourself?”

“Yes, I do, Jen,” Molly said quietly but firmly.

Cal set his glass on the table with unnecessary force, causing a few drops to splash from it.

Molly resisted the urge to immediately mop up the spill, part of her impulse to do anything to escape this nightmare. Instead, she looked at the two men who had been her husband’s partners.

Cal was not ignoring the spill. He jumped up, muttering, “I’ll get a paper towel.” In the kitchen he looked around, found the towel rack. As he started back, his eyes diverted to the single notation on the wall calendar. Carefully he studied it.

Peter Black’s cheeks were flushed; clearly this wasn’t his first drink of the night. “Molly, you know that we’re in discussion about the acquisition of several other health maintenance organizations. If you persist in allowing, much less encouraging, this program to proceed, could you at least ask Fran Simmons to hold off until after the merger is completed?”

So that’s what this is all about, Molly thought. They’re afraid that if I open old wounds, the infection could spread to them.

“Of course, there’s nothing to hide,” he added emphatically. “But talk and gossip and rumors have ruined plenty of important negotiations.”

He was drinking scotch, and Molly watched as he drained his glass. She remembered that years ago he had been a heavy hitter when it came to booze. Obviously that hadn’t changed.

“And Molly, please give up the idea of trying to locate Annamarie Scalli,” Jen pleaded. “If she found out about a possible television program, she might sell her story to one of those scandal magazines.”

Molly still sat unspeaking, staring at the three people, feeling her old fears and doubts bubbling just below the calm surface she had displayed so far tonight.

“I think the case has been presented,” Philip Matthews said bluntly, breaking the awkward silence. “Why don’t we give it a rest?”

Peter Black, Jenna, and Cal left a short time later. Philip Matthews waited until the door closed behind them, then he asked, “Molly, would you prefer that we skip dinner and I get out of your way?”

On the verge of tears, she nodded, then managed to say, “You can have a rain check if you want one.”

“I do want one.”

Molly had prepared coq au vin and wild rice. After Philip left, she covered the dishes and put them in the refrigerator, then checked the door locks and went into the study. Tonight, maybe because Cal and Peter Black had been there, she had a strong sense of something lurking at the edges of her conscious mind, trying to break through.

What was it? she wondered. Old memories, old fears that would drag her deeper into the depression she felt? Or would it provide answers, maybe even help her escape the darkness that threatened to envelop her? She would just have to wait and see.

She did not turn on a light but curled up on the sofa, her legs tucked under her.

What would Cal and Peter and Philip Matthews think, she wondered, if they suspected that tomorrow evening at eight o’clock, at a roadside diner in Rowayton, she was actually going to meet Annamarie Scalli?

33

There is nothing like Sunday morning in Manhattan, Fran decided as she opened the apartment door at 7:30 to find the Sunday Times, thick and inviting, awaiting her. She fixed juice and coffee and a muffin, settled in her big chair, planted her feet on the ottoman, and picked up the first section of the paper. A few minutes later she put it down, realizing she had absorbed very little of what she had read.

“I’m worried,” she said aloud, then reminded herself that it was a bad habit to talk to yourself.

She had not slept well the night before and was sure that her restlessness had something to do with Molly’s cryptic statement that she might have some very interesting news for her. What kind of news could be “very interesting”? she wondered.

If Molly is conducting some kind of private investigation of her own, she could be getting in over her head, Fran thought. Pushing aside the newspaper, she got up, poured a second cup of coffee, and returned to the chair, this time to read Molly’s trial transcript.

For the next hour she went through the testimony, line by line. There was testimony from the first police officers to arrive on the scene, as well as from the medical examiner. That was followed by testimony from Peter Black and the Whitehalls, describing their final meeting with Gary Lasch, a few hours before he died.

Clearly it had been like pulling teeth to get Jenna to say anything negative, Fran thought, as she carefully studied her testimony.

PROSECUTOR: Did you speak to the defendant in the week before her husband’s death, while she was at her home on Cape Cod?

JENNA: Yes, I did.

PROSECUTOR: How would you characterize her emotional side?

JENNA: Sad. She was very sad.

PROSECUTOR: Was she angry at her husband, Mrs. Whitehall?

JENNA: She was upset.

PROSECUTOR: You didn’t answer my question. Was Molly Carpenter Lasch angry at her husband?

JENNA: Yes, I guess you would say so.

PROSECUTOR: Did she express great anger at her husband?

JENNA: Will you repeat the question?

PROSECUTOR: Surely, and will Your Honor direct the witness to answer without equivocation?

JUDGE: The witness is directed to answer the question.

PROSECUTOR: Mrs. Whitehall, during your telephone conversations with Molly Carpenter Lasch in that week before her husband’s death, did she express great anger at him?

JENNA: Yes.

PROSECUTOR: Did you know the reason Molly Carpenter Lasch was angry at her husband?

JENNA: No, not initially. I asked her, but she wouldn’t tell me at first. That Sunday afternoon she did.

When she read through Calvin Whitehall’s testimony, Fran decided that, intentionally or otherwise, he had been an extremely damaging witness. The state attorney must have loved him, she thought.

PROSECUTOR: Mr. Whitehall, you and Dr. Peter Black visited Dr. Gary Lasch on Sunday afternoon, April 8th. Is that correct?

CALVIN WHITEHALL: Yes, we did.

PROSECUTOR: What was the purpose of your visit?

CALVIN WHITEHALL: Dr. Black had told me he was very concerned about Gary. He said it had been obvious to him all week that Gary was deeply worried, so we decided to go see him.

PROSECUTOR: By “we,” you mean…?

CALVIN WHITEHALL: Dr. Peter Black and myself.

PROSECUTOR: What happened when you got there?

CALVIN WHITEHALL: It was about five o’clock. Gary brought us into the family room. He had put out a plate of cheese and crackers and opened a bottle of wine. He poured a glass for each of us and said, “I’m sorry to say this, but it’s time for true confessions.” Then he admitted to us that he had been having an affair with a nurse at the hospital named Annamarie Scalli and that she was pregnant.

PROSECUTOR: Was Dr. Lasch concerned over your possible reaction?

CALVIN WHITEHALL: Of course. That nurse was only in her early twenties. We were afraid of the ramifications-a sexual harassment suit, for example. Gary was the head of the hospital, after all. The Lasch name, thanks to his father’s legacy, is a symbol of integrity that, of course, spilled over to the hospital and then to Remington Health Management. We were deeply distressed at the prospect of that image changing because of a scandal.