“Annamarie told you that?”

“Yes.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Doctor, that’s what scares me so much. I think that at that moment I hated her with every drop of blood in my body, just for even saying those words.”

With every drop of blood in my body, Daniels thought.

Molly suddenly started talking very rapidly. “You know what went through my mind, Doctor? That line from the Bible, ‘Rachel mourned her lost children and would not be comforted.’ I thought of how I had mourned my baby. I had just felt life stirring in me, and then I lost it. In that moment I became Rachel, and the anger drained away and I was in mourning.”

Molly sighed, and when she continued, all emotion had been drained from her voice. “Doctor, Annamarie left ahead of me. She was gone when I got to the parking lot. My very clear memory is that I came home and went to bed early.”

“ ‘Very clear memory,’ Molly?”

“Doctor, the cops are searching my house. The detectives tried to talk with me this morning. Philip ordered me not to tell anyone, not even Jen, what Annamarie Scalli told me.”

Her voice became agitated again. “Doctor, is it like last time? Have I done something terrible and blotted it out again? If I have, and they can prove it, I’m not going to let them put me back in prison. I’d rather be dead.”

Again, Daniels thought. “Molly, since you’ve been home, have you had any more feelings about someone else being in the house that night Gary died?”

He watched as the tension eased from her body and a measure of hope flickered alive in her eyes. “There was someone in the house that night,” she said. “I’m beginning to be sure of it.”

And I’m beginning to be just as sure that there was no one there, Daniels thought sadly.

A few minutes later, he drove Molly home. The house was dark. She pointed out that there were no cars parked outside, no sign of the police. Daniels would not leave until Molly was safely inside, until she had turned on the foyer lights. “Be sure to take that pill I gave you tonight,” he cautioned. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Doctor Daniels waited until he heard the click of the front door lock before he walked slowly back to his car.

He did not believe that she had yet reached the point where she would harm herself. But if evidence was found to justify an indictment against her in Annamarie Scalli’s death, he knew that Molly Lasch might choose another way to escape reality. Not dissociative amnesia this time, but death.

He drove home slowly, sadly, to his very late dinner.

43

When Fran reached the office on Tuesday morning, she found a message marked “urgent” from Billy Gallo. It stated simply that he was Tim Mason’s friend, and he would like her to please call him on a very important matter.

When she called him back, Gallo picked up on the first ring and got directly to the point. “Ms. Simmons, my mother was buried yesterday. She died from a major heart attack that could and should have been prevented. I hear that you’re doing a story on the murder of Dr. Gary Lasch, and I wanted to ask you to expand it to include an investigation into the so-called medical insurance plan he started.”

“Tim told me about your mother, and I’m truly sorry for your loss,” Fran said, “but I’m sure there is a procedure whereby you can register a complaint if you feel that she wasn’t cared for properly.”

“Oh, but you know the runaround you get when you try to register complaints, Ms. Simmons,” Billy Gallo said. “Look, I’m a musician and I can’t afford to lose my job, which unfortunately is with a show in Detroit. I’ve got to get back there soon. I talked to Roy Kirkwood, my mother’s primary care physician, and he told me he had made an urgent recommendation that further tests be done. But guess what? The request was denied. He strongly believed that more could have been done for my mother, but they wouldn’t even let him try. Please talk to him, Ms. Simmons. I went in to his office ready to bash his head in, and I came out feeling sorry for him. Dr. Kirkwood is only in his early sixties, but he told me he’s closing his practice and taking early retirement. That’s how disgusted he is with Remington Health Management.”

Bash his head in, Fran thought. The wild thought went through her mind that there just might be one chance in a million that a relative of some patient might have felt that way about Gary Lasch.

“Give me Dr. Kirkwood’s phone number and address,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”

At eleven o’clock that morning she was once again turning off the Merritt Parkway into Greenwich.

Molly had agreed to have lunch with her at one o’clock, but despite Fran’s pleading, she would not leave the house. “I can’t,” she said simply. “I feel too exposed. Everyone would just stare at me. It would be awful. I can’t do it.”

She accepted Fran’s offer to pick up a quiche at the bakery in town and bring it with her. “Mrs. Barry isn’t here on Tuesday,” she’d explained, “and the police towed my car, so I can’t get out to shop.”

The only good news so far, Fran thought, is that Mrs. Barry won’t be hanging around when Molly and I have lunch. It would be nice for once to talk to Molly without that woman marching in and out of the room every two minutes.

But she did want to see Edna Barry, and her first stop once she reached Greenwich was an unannounced visit to her home.

I’m going to be direct with her, Fran decided as she consulted her directions to Barry’s house. For some unknown reason Edna Barry is hostile to Molly and afraid of me. Maybe I can find out what her problem is.

The best laid plans of mice and men, she thought as she stood on the narrow top step of Edna Barry’s home and rang the doorbell. There was no answer, and Barry’s red Subaru was not in the driveway.

Disappointed, Fran debated the wisdom of slipping a note under the door that stated that she had stopped by because it was important they talk. She knew such a message would upset Mrs. Barry, and that was fine. It was her intention to get the woman rattled.

Then again, would a note only serve to warn her and make her even more wary? she wondered. There’s no question she’s holding something back, and it could be terribly important. I don’t want to risk scaring her off.

As Fran debated what to do, a call rang out:

“Yoo-hoooo.”

She turned to see a woman in her fifties with a beehive hairdo and harlequin glasses rushing across the lawn from the house next door.

“Edna should be back soon,” the woman explained breathlessly as she reached Fran. “Her son, Wally, was feeling pretty upset today, so Edna took him to the doctor. When Wally doesn’t take his medicine, he’s a real problem. Why don’t you just wait for her in my house? I’m Marta Jones, Edna’s neighbor.”

“That’s very nice of you,” Fran said sincerely. “Mrs. Barry wasn’t expecting me, but I really would like to wait for her.” And I would love to talk with you, she added to herself. “I’m Fran Simmons.”

Marta Jones suggested they wait in the television room, which obviously had originally been part of the porch. “It’s so nice and cheerful, and we’ll be able to see Edna when she comes home,” she explained as she brought in steaming cups of freshly brewed coffee.

“I like coffee best when it’s made in the old-fashioned percolator,” she explained. “Doesn’t taste the same from all those new machines.” She settled back in the armchair opposite Fran. “It’s just too bad Edna had to take Wally to the doctor today. At least she didn’t have to take time off from her job. She works for Molly Lasch three mornings a week-Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

Fran nodded, happy to store that bit of information in her head.