“Did you give it to him?”
“Yes, I did. I will not tell you how much, but that is why I believe that if Nick took all that money from the company, it was because he was spending it on research and not because he planned to put it into his own pocket.”
“Do you believe he is dead?”
“Yes, I do. Nick was not a dissembler, and he never would have abandoned his son.” Reid Barlowe held up a warning hand. “I think Jack just came in. He was being dropped off after soccer practice.”
I heard feet running down the hall, then stopping at the closed door. The boy looked in through the French windowpanes, then raised his hand to knock. Reid Barlowe waved him in and jumped up to hug him.
He was a skinny kid with spikey hair and enormous gray-blue eyes. When we were introduced, his wide grin for his grandparents became a shy, sweet smile for me. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss DeCarlo,” he said.
I felt a lump in my throat. I could remember Nick Spencer saying, “Jack’s a great kid.” He was right. You could tell he was a great kid. And he was the age my Patrick would be now if he had lived.
“Gran, Bobby and Peter asked me to stay overnight with them. Is that okay? They’re having pizza. Their mom says she really wants me to.”
The Barlowes looked at each other. “If you guys promise not to stay up too late fooling around,” Susan Barlowe said. “Don’t forget, you have early practice tomorrow.”
“I really, really promise,” he said earnestly. “Thanks, Gran. I told them I’d call right away if you said yes.” He turned to me. “It was very nice to meet you, Miss DeCarlo.”
He walked quietly as far as the door, but once he was in the hall, I could hear him begin to run. I looked at his grandparents. Both of them were smiling now. Reid Barlowe shrugged. “As you can see, it’s the second time around for us, Carley. The joke is that Bobby and Peter are twins, but their parents are only a couple of years younger than we are.”
There was an observation I felt I had to make. “Despite everything that has happened to him, Jack appears to be a well-adjusted kid, which certainly is a tribute to both of you.”
“He has really down days, of course,” Reid Barlowe said quietly. “But how could he not? He was very close to Nick. It is the uncertainty of everything that could destroy him. He’s a smart kid. Nick’s picture and the stories about him have been all over the newspapers and television. One day Jack’s trying to cope with his father’s death, the next he hears he’s been seen in Switzerland. Then he starts to fantasize that Nick might have parachuted out of the plane before it crashed.”
We talked for a few minutes more, and then I got up to leave. “You’ve been very kind,” I said, “and I promise that when I see you on Sunday, I’ll simply be another dinner guest, not a journalist.”
“I’m glad we had this time to talk quietly,” Susan Barlowe said. “We felt it absolutely necessary that our position be known publicly. Nicholas Spencer was an honest man and a dedicated scientist.” She hesitated. “Yes, I’ll call him a scientist, even though he didn’t have a Ph.D. in microbiology. Whatever went wrong in Genstone was not his fault.”
They both walked with me to the front door. As Reid Barlowe opened it, his wife said, “Carley, I just realized, I haven’t even asked about Lynn. Is she fully recovered yet?”
“Just about.”
“I should have contacted her. Truthfully, I resented her from the beginning, but I shall always be grateful to her. Did she tell you that Nick was planning to take Jack with him on the trip to Puerto Rico, and she was the one who persuaded him to change his plans? Jack was so terribly disappointed at the time, but if he had been with Nick that day, he would have been on the plane when it crashed.”
FORTY-THREE
I liked Casey’s friends, Vince and Julie Alcott, immediately. Vince and Casey had been in class together at Johns Hopkins Medical School. “How Julie and I had the nerve to get married when I was still in school, I’ll never know,” Vince said with a laugh. “I can’t believe we’re coming up on the tenth anniversary this Sunday.”
I joined them in a glass of wine. They tactfully stayed away from asking me about my visit next door. All I said about it was how nice the Barlowes were and how much I enjoyed meeting Jack.
I think Casey realized, however, that I was terribly troubled because after a few minutes he stood up. “Speed the parting guest,” he said. “I know Carley has work to do on her column, and we’re looking forward to coming back on Sunday.”
We drove back to Manhattan in almost total silence. But at a quarter past seven, as we got close to midtown, he said, “You do have to eat, Carley. What do you feel like having?”
Although I hadn’t thought about it, I realized suddenly that I was starving. “A hamburger. Is that okay?”
P. J. Clarke’s, the famous old New York restaurant on Third Avenue, had recently reopened after a total overhaul. We stopped there. After we ordered, Casey said, “You’re really upset, Carley. Want to talk about it?”
“Not yet,” I said. “It’s still kind of spinning around in my mind.”
“Did meeting Jack get to you?”
Casey’s voice was gentle. He knows how seeing a boy the age Patrick would have been stabs me in the heart.
“Yes and no. He’s a really nice kid.” When our hamburgers arrived, I said, “Maybe it’s better if we do talk it out. You see, the problem is that I’m adding two and two, and where that’s leading me is pretty bad and a little frightening.”
FORTY-FOUR
On Saturday morning Ned turned on the car radio. The seven o’clock news was just coming on. As he listened, he began to smile. In Greenwood Lake, New Jersey, three longtime residents had been shot dead while they slept. The police said that their deaths were believed to be connected to the shooting death of Mrs. Elva Morgan of Yonkers, New York. Her tenant, Ned Cooper, had formerly owned a home in Greenwood Lake and was known to have recently threatened the victims there. The report went on to say that Cooper was also a suspect in the death of Peg Rice, the drugstore clerk who had been shot four nights ago. Ballistic tests were being conducted. Cooper was thought to be driving either an eight-year-old brown Ford van or a recent-model black Toyota. He should be considered armed and dangerous.
That’s what I am, Ned thought: armed and dangerous. Should he go over to the guest house now and finish off Lynn Spencer and her boyfriend, if he was still around? he wondered. No, maybe not. He was safe here. Maybe he’d wait. He still had to figure out a way to get to Spencer’s stepsister, Carley DeCarlo.
Then Annie and he could both rest, and it would be all over, except for the final thing, when he took off his shoes and socks and lay down on Annie’s grave and held his rifle close.
There was a song Annie liked to hum, “Save the last dance for me . . .”
Ned got the bread and peanut butter out of the car, and as he made a sandwich he began to hum that song. Then he smiled as Annie joined in:
“Save . . . the last . . . dance . . . for me.”
FORTY-FIVE
On Saturday morning I slept until eight o’clock, and when I woke up, I felt better in the sense that it had been a busy and emotional week and I had needed the rest. My head felt clear, too, but that wasn’t helping me feel any better about all that I had learned. I was coming to a conclusion that, with all my heart, I wanted to be wrong.
As I was making coffee, I turned on the television to catch the news and heard the headline about the shooting spree that had left five people dead in the last few days.
Then I heard the word “Gen-stone,” and listened with growing horror to the details of the tragedy. I heard how Ned Cooper, a resident of Yonkers, had sold his home in Greenwood Lake without his wife’s knowledge and then invested the money in Gen-stone. I learned that she had died in an accident the day they learned the stock was worthless.
A picture of Cooper flashed on the screen. I know him, I thought; I know him! I’ve seen him somewhere recently. Was it
at the stockholders’ meeting? I wondered. It was possible, but I wasn’t sure.
The announcer said that Cooper’s late wife had worked at St. Ann’s Hospital in Mount Kisco and that he had been treated for psychiatric problems in the clinic there on and off for years.
St. Ann’s Hospital. That’s where I saw him! But when? I was at St. Ann’s three times: the day after the fire, a few days later, and when I spoke to the director of the hospice wing.
The roped-off crime scene in Greenwood Lake flashed onto the screen. “Cooper’s house was located between the homes of the Harniks and Mrs. Schafley,” the announcer was saying. “According to neighbors he was here two days ago and accused the victims of conniving to get rid of him, knowing that his wife would not have allowed him to sell the house if they had notified her of his plans.”
The crime scene in Yonkers was next. “Elva Morgan’s son tearfully told police that his mother had said she was afraid of Ned Cooper, and she had told him he would have to vacate the apartment by June 1.”
Throughout the broadcast Cooper’s picture was inset in a corner of the screen. I kept studying it. When did I see him at St. Ann’s? I wondered.
The TV anchor continued, “Three nights ago Cooper was the next-to-last customer in Brown’s drugstore before it closed. According to William Garret, a college student who was behind him at the register, Cooper had purchased a number of salves and ointments for his burned right hand, and became agitated when the clerk, Peg Rice, inquired about it. Garret is positive that Cooper was sitting outside in his car when Garret left the store at precisely ten o’clock.”
His burned right hand! Cooper had a burned right hand!
I saw Lynn in the hospital the first time the day after the fire. I was interviewed by a reporter from Channel 4, I thought. That’s where I saw Cooper. He was standing outside watching me. I’m sure of it.
His burned right hand!
Something told me I had seen him another time as well, but figuring that out wasn’t important now. I knew Judy Miller, one of the producers at Channel 4, and phoned her. “Judy, I believe I remember seeing Ned Cooper outside St. Ann’s Hospital the day after the Spencer mansion was torched,” I told her. “Would you still have outtakes of the segment of my interview on April 22? Cooper might just happen to be in it.”
I then called the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office and asked to be connected to Detective Crest in the arson squad. When I told him why I called, he said, “We did check St. Ann’s emergency room, and Cooper didn’t get treated there, but he was well known in the hospital. Maybe he didn’t go through the emergency room. We’ll let you know what we find out, Carley.”
I kept switching from channel to channel, picking up varying information about Cooper and his wife, Annie. She was reported to have been heartbroken when he sold their house in Greenwood Lake. I wondered how much the news that Gen-stone was worthless had contributed to her accident. Was it just coincidence that the announcement of the stocks being worthless came out the day of her death?
At nine-thirty, Judy called me back. “You were right, Carley. We have Ned Cooper on camera outside the hospital the day we interviewed you.”
At ten o’clock, Detective Crest called back. “Dr. Ryan at St. Ann’s saw Cooper in the lobby on Tuesday morning, the twenty-second, and noticed a serious burn on his hand. Cooper claimed he burned it on the stove. Dr. Ryan gave him a prescription.”
I was feeling heartsick for Cooper’s victims, but at the same time I felt sorry for Cooper himself. In their own tragic way he and his wife had been victims of the Gen-stone failure, too.
But there was someone else who, at least in one way, might not be victimized any further. “Marty Bikorsky absolutely did not set the fire at the Spencer mansion,” I told Detective Crest.
“Off the record, we’re reopening the investigation,” he told me. “There’ll be an announcement later on this morning.”
“Say it on the record,” I snapped. “Why not say it straight out—Martin Bikorsky did not set that fire.”
Next I called Marty. He had been watching the report on television and talking to his lawyer. I could hear the hope and excitement in his voice. “Carley, this nut has a burn on his hand. If nothing else, I’ll get reasonable doubt at my trial. My lawyer says so. Oh, God, Carley, do you know what this means?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’ve been so great, but I have to tell you that I’m glad I didn’t take your advice to admit to the cops that I was in Bedford the night of the fire. My lawyer still thinks I’d have handed them a conviction if I’d placed myself there.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, too, Marty,” I said. What I didn’t tell him was that my reason for not disclosing his presence in front of the mansion that night was different from his reason. I wanted to have my talk with Lynn before the subject of the car parked inside the gate became known.
We agreed to keep in close touch, and then I asked the question that I was afraid to ask: “How is Maggie doing?”
“She’s eating better, and that gives her some energy. Who knows, we might even have her with us a little longer than the doctors said. We just keep praying for a miracle. You be sure to pray for her, too.”
“You bet I will, Marty.”
“Because maybe if she can hang on long enough, there will be a cure someday.”
“I believe that, Marty.”
When I hung up the phone, I walked to the window and looked out. I don’t have a great view from my apartment. I just look out at the row of converted town houses across the street, but I wasn’t seeing them anyhow. My mind was filled with the image of four-year-old Maggie and the terrible thought that for their own greedy motives some people might have deliberately slowed down the development of the cancer vaccine.
FORTY-SIX
Every hour or so on Saturday, Ned listened to the news on the car radio. He was glad that Annie had made him buy the groceries the other night. It wouldn’t have been safe to go to a store now. He was sure his picture was being shown on television and over the Internet.
Armed and dangerous. That’s what they said.
Sometimes after dinner Annie would stretch out on the couch and fall asleep, and he’d go over and hug her. She’d wake up and look startled for a minute. Then she’d laugh and say, “Ned, you’re dangerous.”
But that was different from now.
Without refrigeration the milk had gone sour, but he didn’t mind eating the cereal dry. Ever since he shot Peg, his appetite had been coming back. It was as if a big stone inside him had started to dissolve. If he hadn’t had the cereal and the bread and the peanut butter, he would have gone over to the guest house and killed Lynn Spencer and taken food from her kitchen. He could even have driven her car out of here, and no one would have been the wiser.
But then if her boyfriend came back and found her, they’d know her car was missing. The cops would be on the lookout for it everywhere. It was flashy and cost a lot of money. It would be easy to spot.
“Wait, Ned,” Annie was saying to him. “Rest for a while. There’s no hurry.”
“I know,” he whispered.
At three o’clock, after he’d been dozing on and off for a couple of hours, he decided to go outside. There was little room to walk around in the garage, and his legs and neck felt cramped. The garage had a door on the side next to the car. He opened it very slowly and listened for the sound of anyone outside. But it was all right. There was no one around this part of the property. He would have bet that Lynn Spencer never walked over here anyhow. But just in case he ran into any trouble, he carried his rifle with him.
He went around the back of the pool house as far as the trees that screened the pool from the guest cottage. Now that all the leaves were out, no one in the guest cottage could see him even if they were looking that way.
He could see the cottage, though, by looking through the branches. The shades in the guest house were up, and a couple of the windows were open. Spence
r’s silver convertible was in the driveway. The top was down. Ned sat on the ground with his legs crossed. It felt a little damp, but he didn’t mind.
Because time didn’t mean anything to him, he wasn’t sure how long he had been there when the door to the house opened and Lynn Spencer came out. As Ned watched, she pulled the door closed and walked to the car. She was wearing black slacks and a black and white blouse. She looked dressed up. Maybe she was meeting someone for a drink and dinner. She got into the car and started the engine. The car was so quiet that it hardly made a sound as it started, then went around the side of what was left of the mansion.
Ned waited three or four minutes until he was sure she was gone, then he moved quickly across the open space and to the side of the house. He walked from window to window. All the shades were up, and as far as he could see, the house was empty. He tried to open the windows on the side, but they were locked. If he was going inside, he had to take a chance and go in through a front window where anyone who happened to come up the driveway would see him.
He took time to rub the bottom of his shoes back and forth on the driveway so he wouldn’t leave any dirt on the windowsill or inside the house. Then, in one quick move, he shoved up the left front window and, propping his rifle against the house, hoisted himself up. When he got one leg over the sill, he reached for his rifle and, once inside, lowered the window back to just the spot it had been when he opened it.
He checked to make sure there was no dirt on the windowsill or that his shoes didn’t make any marks on the floor or carpets. He did a quick search of the house. The two bedrooms upstairs were empty. He was definitely alone, but he knew he couldn’t count on Lynn Spencer staying out long even though she was dressed up when she left. She could even have forgotten something and come back in a minute.
The Second Time Around Page 23