I’ll get you, Fran thought. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll get you.

72

Whenever a troubling situation reached crisis level, Calvin Whitehall had the enviable ability to eliminate every trace of frustration and anger from his mind. That ability was put to the test by the call he received from Peter Black at 4:30 that afternoon. “Let me understand,” he said slowly. “You are telling me that Fran Simmons was sitting in the coffee shop of the hospital, gossiping with one of the volunteers, when you went there to tell Barbara Colbert’s son that his mother had died?”

It was a rhetorical question.

“Did you then speak to the volunteer and ask her the exact nature of her discussion with Fran Simmons?”

Peter Black was calling from his library at home and holding his second scotch in his hand. “Mrs. Branagan was gone by the time I could decently leave Mrs. Colbert’s sons. I phoned her home every fifteen minutes until I got her. She had been at the hairdresser.”

“I am not interested in where she had been,” Whitehall said coldly. “I am interested in what she told Simmons.”

“They were talking about Tasha Colbert,” Peter Black said bleakly. “Simmons had asked her if she knew about a young patient at the hospital who had been in an accident and gone into an irreversible coma more than six years ago. Apparently Mrs. Branagan identified the patient for her and filled Simmons in on whatever knowledge of the events she had.”

“No doubt including Barbara Colbert’s statement that she had heard her daughter speak before she died?”

“Yes. Cal, what are we going to do?”

“I am going to save your skin. You are going to finish your drink. We are going to talk later. Good-bye, Peter.”

The click of the receiver being replaced was barely audible. Peter Black gulped down the remaining contents of his glass and instantly refilled it.

Calvin Whitehall sat nearly motionless for several minutes while he considered and rejected possible avenues to follow. After some time, he reached a decision, analyzed it thoroughly, and was satisfied that it would eliminate two of his problems- West Redding and Fran Simmons.

He dialed West Redding. The phone rang a dozen times before anyone answered.

“Calvin, I’ve been watching the tape.” The excitement in the doctor’s voice made him sound almost youthful. “Do you realize what has been achieved? What arrangements have you made for press interviews?”

“That’s exactly why I’m calling, Doctor,” Cal said smoothly. “You don’t watch television, so you wouldn’t know who I’m talking about, but there is a young woman who is achieving national prominence as an investigative reporter, and who I am arranging to have come out and do a preliminary interview with you. She understands we have to maintain absolute secrecy, but she will immediately begin plans for a thirty-minute special that will be aired within seven days of now. You must realize that it is essential to whet public interest so that when this stunning scientific achievement is unveiled, the show will be watched by a huge national audience. It’s all got to be carefully planned.”

Whitehall got the response he anticipated. “Calvin, I am very pleased. I realize that we may have some minor legal problems to contend with, but that is of little importance given the significance of what I have achieved. At seventy-six years of age, I want to see my accomplishments recognized before my own time runs out.”

“And you shall, Doctor.”

“I don’t think you’ve told me the name of the young woman.”

“It’s Simmons, Doctor. Fran Simmons.”

Calvin hung up the phone and pressed the button on the intercom that connected him to the garage apartment. “Get over here, Lou,” he said.

Even though Cal had announced no plans to go out that evening, and Jenna had left earlier, taking her own car, Lou Knox had been waiting for the summons. He had seen and heard enough to know that Cal was having serious problems and that, sooner or later, he would be called in to help solve them.

He was right on the money, as usual.

“Lou,” Cal said, his manner almost genial, “Doctor Logue in West Redding has become a serious problem, as has Fran Simmons.”

Lou waited.

“Believe it or not, I am setting up an appointment for Ms. Simmons to interview the good doctor. I think you should be in the vicinity when it takes place. Now I should tell you that Doctor Logue has a good many combustibles in his laboratory at the farmhouse. I know you’ve never been inside, so let me explain. The laboratory is on the second floor, but quite accessible thanks to an outside staircase to a back porch that leads directly to it. The window onto the porch is always left slightly open for ventilation. You’re following me, aren’t you, Lou?”

“Yes, Cal.”

“Mr. Whitehall, Lou, please. Otherwise you might forget yourself in front of others.”

“Sorry, Mr. Whitehall.”

“There is a clearly marked oxygen tank in the laboratory. I am sure that a fellow as clever as you are could toss a flaming object into that room and be down those steps and clear of the house before the tank explodes. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I do, Mr. Whitehall.”

“This mission may take you away from here for several hours. Of course, any overtime service you do for me is always suitably rewarded. You know that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have been turning over in my mind the best way to persuade Ms. Simmons to visit the farmhouse. Naturally the utmost secrecy about her trip there must be maintained. Therefore I think she should receive a tip she can’t resist, preferably from an anonymous source. You get my drift?”

Lou smiled. “Me.”

“Exactly. How say you, Lou?”

“How say you?” was Cal ’s habitual touch of humor when he was satisfied that a good plan was about to be executed.

“You know me,” Lou said, swallowing Cal ’s name before he uttered it, “I love to play Deep Throat.”

“You’ve done it so well before. This time I think it should be particularly interesting. And rewarding, Lou. Don’t forget that.”

As they smiled at each other, Lou thought back to Fran Simmons’s father and to the hot tip Lou had passed along to him, telling him he’d heard Cal talking of overnight riches to be made in a stock that was about to go public. The $40,000 Simmons had hastily borrowed from the library fund, thinking he would replace it in a few days. What led Simmons to take his own life was that a second withdrawal, under his forged signature, had been made that raised the deficit to $400,000. He knew that after he admitted the first illegal withdrawal, nobody would believe that he wasn’t guilty of the second.

Cal had been particularly generous that time, Lou remembered. He’d been allowed to keep the original $40,000 Simmons had eagerly pressed into his hand and the worthless stock certificates that Simmons had trustingly put in Lou’s name.

“Given our history, it seems only fitting that I be the one to make the call to Fran Simmons, sir,” Lou said to his former school chum. “I look forward to it.”