The last time she had been behind the steering wheel of a car was that Sunday she had returned from Cape Cod. With her hands on the wheel now, Molly could visualize that drive. I was gripping the wheel so tightly that my hands hurt, she remembered as she backed out of the garage, then used the remote to close the door. She drove slowly down the long driveway and onto the street. Normally I’d have put the car in the garage, but I remember that night I stopped right in front of the house and just left it there. Why did I do that? she wondered, straining to remember. Was it because I had the suitcase and, that way, wouldn’t have to carry it as far?
No, it was because I was frantic to talk to Gary face to face. I was going to ask him then the same questions I’m going to ask Annamarie Scalli now. I needed to know how he felt about me, why he was away so much, why, if he wasn’t happy in our marriage, he hadn’t been honest and told me instead of letting me waste so much time and so much effort in trying to be a good wife to him.
Molly felt her lips tighten, felt the old anger and resentment surge through her body. Stop it! she told herself. Stop it right now, or turn around and go home!
* * *
Annamarie Scalli arrived at the Sea Lamp Diner at twenty after seven. She knew she was ridiculously early for her meeting with Molly Lasch, but she wanted very much to be the first to arrive. The shock of actually speaking to Molly, of having her actually track her down, had not set in until after she had agreed to the meeting.
Her sister Lucy had argued strenuously against keeping the date. “Annamarie, that woman was so upset about you that she bludgeoned her husband to death,” she had said. “What makes you think she won’t attack you? The very fact that she may be telling the truth when she says she doesn’t remember killing him tells you she’s a mental case. And you’ve always been afraid because you know too much about what was going on at the hospital. Don’t meet her!”
The sisters had argued all evening, but Annamarie had been determined to go through with it. She had reasoned that since Molly Lasch had tracked her down, it would be better to go ahead and meet with her face to face at the diner rather than to risk having her show up at her home in Yonkers, maybe even stalking her as she tried to take care of her clients.
Once inside the diner, Annamarie had headed for a corner booth at the far end of the long, narrow room. A few people were sitting at the counter, their expressions glum. Equally malcontent was the waitress, who had become annoyed when Annamarie had refused the front table at which she’d tried to place her.
The gloom of the diner only added to the feeling of foreboding and despondency that had come over Annamarie on the long drive back from Buffalo. She could feel fatigue settling into her bones. I’m sure that’s why I feel so low and depressed, she told herself without conviction, sipping the tepid coffee the waitress had slapped down in front of her.
She knew much of the problem stemmed from the argument that had raged between her and her sister. While she did love her sister dearly, Lucy was not shy about hitting her where it hurt most, and her litany of “if onlys” finally had gotten to her.
“Annamarie, if only you’d married Jack Morrow. As Mama used to say, he was one of the nicest men who ever walked in shoe leather. He was crazy about you. And he was a doctor, and a good one at that! Remember, Mrs. Monahan came in to say hello that weekend you brought him up here? Jack said he didn’t like her color. If he hadn’t persuaded her to go for those tests and that tumor hadn’t been found, she wouldn’t be alive today.”
Annamarie had continued to give the same answer she’d been giving Lucille the past six years. “Look, Lucy, give it a rest. Jack knew that I wasn’t in love with him. Maybe under other circumstances, I could’ve loved him. Maybe it would’ve worked out if things had been different, but they weren’t. The fact was, I was only in my early twenties and on my first job. I was just starting to live. I wasn’t ready for marriage. Jack understood that.”
Annamarie remembered that the week before Jack was killed, he had quarreled with Gary. She’d been on her way to Gary’s office but was stopped in the reception room by the sound of angry voices. The secretary had whispered, “Dr. Morrow is in there with Dr. Lasch. He’s terribly upset. I haven’t been able to make out what it’s about, but I suppose it’s the usual—a procedure he wanted done for a patient has been canceled.”
I remember at the time being terrified that they might be arguing about me, Annamarie thought. I ran rather than risk having Jack confront me there; I was that sure Jack had found out.
But later, when Jack had stopped her in the corridor, he had given no indication of being angry with her. Instead, he had asked if she was going to visit her mother soon. When Annamarie told him she would be driving up the weekend after next, he said that he was going to copy a very important file he had compiled, and he asked if she please would keep the copy in her mother’s attic. He’d get it from her later.
I was so relieved he hadn’t found out about Gary and me and so tortured over what I knew about the hospital that I wasn’t even curious about what was in the file, Annamarie thought. He said he’d give it to me soon and made me promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone about it. But he never did give it to me, and a week later he was dead.
“Annamarie?”
Startled, Annamarie looked up. She’d been so immersed in thought that she had not seen Molly Lasch come in. One glance at the other woman and she suddenly felt heavy and unattractive. The oversized sunglasses could not hide Molly’s exquisite features. The hands that untied the belt of her coat were long and slim. When she pulled the scarf from her head, her hair was darker than Annamarie remembered, but still fine and silky.
Molly studied Annamarie as she slid into the seat opposite her. She’s not what I expected, Molly thought. She’d seen Annamarie Scalli in the hospital a few times and remembered her as being very pretty, with a provocative figure and a mass of dark hair.
There was nothing provocative about this plainly dressed woman across from her. Her hair was short now, and while her face was still pretty, it was somewhat puffy. She was heavier than Molly remembered. But her eyes were lovely, deep brown with dark lashes, although the expression Molly saw in them was one of unhappiness and fear.
She’s afraid of me, Molly thought, amazed that she might have that effect on someone.
The waitress reappeared, friendlier now. Annamarie could see that she was impressed by Molly.
“Tea with lemon, please,” Molly said.
“And more coffee for me, if it’s not too much trouble,” Annamarie added as the waitress turned away.
Molly waited until they were alone before she said, “I’m grateful you agreed to meet me. I know this is probably as awkward for you as it is for me, and I promise I won’t keep you too long, but you can help me if you’ll be honest with me.”
Annamarie nodded.
“When did your relationship with Gary begin?”
“A year before he died. My car wouldn’t start one day, and he gave me a ride home. He came in for a cup of coffee.” Annamarie looked steadily at Molly. “I knew he was getting ready to hit on me. A woman can always tell, can’t she?” She paused for a moment, looking down at her hands. “The truth is, I had a huge crush on him, and so I made it easy for him.”
He was getting ready to hit on her, Molly thought. Was she the first? Probably not. The tenth? she wondered. She’d never know. “Was he involved with any other nurses?”
“None that I knew of, but then I’d only been working at the hospital a few months when I became involved with him. He did stress the need for absolute discretion, which suited me fine. I come from a strict Italian Catholic family, and my mother would have been heartbroken if she’d known I was carrying on with a married man.
“Mrs. Lasch, I want you to know—” Annamarie stopped as the waitress returned with the tea and more coffee. She didn’t slam the cup down in front of Molly Lasch, Annamarie noticed.
When the waitress was out of earshot, she continued:
“Mrs. Lasch, I want you to know that I absolutely, profoundly regret what happened. I know it destroyed your life. It ended Dr. Lasch’s life. I gave up my baby because I wanted him to have a clean start with people who would give him a happy, two-parent home. Maybe someday, when he’s an adult, he’ll want to see me. If he does, I hope he’ll be able to understand and even forgive me. You may have taken his father’s life, but my actions set this entire tragedy in motion.”
“Your actions?”
“If I hadn’t gotten involved with Dr. Lasch, none of this ever would have happened. If I hadn’t called him at home, you probably would never have known.”
“Why did you call him at home?”
“Well, first of all, he told me that you and he had been discussing divorce, but that he didn’t want you to know there was another woman in the picture. He said it would complicate things for him with the divorce, and it would just make you jealous and vindictive.”
So that’s what my husband was telling his girlfriend about me? Molly thought. He said that we were talking about divorce, and that I was jealous and vindictive? That’s the man I went to prison for killing?
“He said it was just as well that you lost the baby; he said a baby would only have complicated the breakup.”
Molly sat in stunned silence. Dear God, could Gary really have said that? she thought. He said it was just as well I lost the baby.
“But when I told him I was pregnant, he freaked out. Told me to get rid of it. He stopped coming to see me and even ignored me at the hospital. His lawyer phoned and offered a settlement, provided I signed a nondisclosure statement. I called your home because I had to talk to him, and he wouldn’t see me at the hospital. I was desperate; I wanted to discuss with him whether or not he planned to be involved with his child. At that time I had no intention of giving it up for adoption.”
“And I picked up the phone and overheard the call.”
“Yes.”
“Did my husband ever talk about me to you, Annamarie? I mean, other than to say we were talking about divorce?”
“Yes.”
“Please, tell me what he said. I have to know.”
“I realize now that anything he said to me about you then was because he thought it was what I wanted to hear.”
“I’d still like to know exactly what that was.”
Annamarie paused uncertainly, then looked directly at the woman across from her, a woman who at first she had disdained, then hated, and now, finally, was beginning to feel some compassion for. “He called you a boring Stepford wife.”
A boring Stepford wife, Molly thought. For a moment it seemed to her that she was once more in prison, eating the tasteless food, hearing the click of locks, lying awake for sleepless night after sleepless night.
“As a husband—and as a doctor—he wasn’t worth the price you paid for killing him, Mrs. Lasch,” Annamarie said quietly.
“Annamarie, you’ve made it very clear that you believe I killed my husband, but, you see, I’m not so sure myself. I genuinely don’t know what happened. I’m not convinced that I won’t regain some memory of that night. At least, that’s what I’m working toward. Tell me, where were you on that Sunday evening?”
“In my apartment, packing.”
“Was anyone with you at the time?”
Annamarie’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Lasch, you’re wasting your time if you came here with the purpose of suggesting I had anything to do with your husband’s death.”
“Do you know of anyone who might have had a reason to kill him?” Molly could see the startled look in the eyes of the other woman. “Annamarie, you’re afraid of something. What is it?”
“No I’m not. I don’t know anything more. Look, I have to go now.” Annamarie put her hand on the table, preparing to stand.
Molly reached over and grasped her wrist. “Annamarie, you were only in your early twenties then. Gary was a sophisticated man. He wronged both of us, and we both had reason to be angry. But I don’t think I killed him. If you have any reason to think there was someone else who might have had a grudge against him, please, please, tell me who it is. At least it would give me a starting point. Did he quarrel with anyone?”
“There was one quarrel I know of. With Dr. Jack Morrow.”
“Dr. Morrow? But he died before Gary.”
“Yes, and before he died, Dr. Morrow was acting strange and asked me to hold a copy of a file for him. But he was murdered before he gave it to me.” Annamarie pulled her hand away from Molly’s grasp. “Mrs. Lasch, I don’t know whether you did or didn’t kill your husband, but if you didn’t, then you’d better be very careful how you go around asking questions.”
Annamarie almost crashed into the waitress, who was returning to offer refills. Instead, Molly asked for the check and hastily paid it, hating the lively curiosity in the woman’s eyes. Then she quickly grabbed her coat, anxious to catch up with Annamarie. Boring Stepford wife, she thought bitterly as she hurried from the diner.
As she drove back to Greenwich, Molly mentally reviewed the short talk with Annamarie Scalli. She knows something she’s not telling me, Molly thought. It’s almost as if she were afraid. But of what . . . ?
That night, Molly stared in shock at the breaking story on the CBS eleven o’clock news, of the just-discovered body of an unidentified woman who had been stabbed to death in her car in the parking lot of the Sea Lamp Diner in Rowayton.
35
Assistant State Attorney Tom Serrazzano had not been the one who prosecuted Molly Carpenter Lasch, but he’d always wished he’d had the chance. It was obvious to him that she’d been guilty of murder, and that because of who she was, she’d been given the sweetheart deal of all sweetheart deals—only five and a half years served for taking her husband’s life.
Tom had been in the office when Molly had been prosecuted for Gary Lasch’s death. He had been appalled when the trial prosecutor had allowed a plea to the manslaughter charge. He believed that any prosecutor worth his salt would have continued the trial and gone for the murder conviction.
It particularly bugged him when the perpetrators had money and connections, like Molly Carpenter Lasch.
In his late forties, Tom’s entire legal career had been spent in law enforcement. After clerking for a judge, he had joined the state attorney’s office and, over a period of time, had earned the reputation of being a tough prosecutor.
On Monday morning the stabbing of a young woman, first identified as Annamarie Sangelo, from Yonkers, took on new meaning when the investigation revealed that her real name was Annamarie Scalli, the “other woman” in the Dr. Gary Lasch murder case.
The statement given by the waitress from the Sea Lamp Diner, describing the woman Scalli had met there, sealed it for Serrazzano. He saw it already as an open-and-shut case.
“Only this time she won’t plea-bargain,” he said grimly to the detectives working on the case.
36
It’s terribly important that I’m absolutely accurate in what I tell them, Molly said to herself over and over through the night.
Annamarie left the diner before me. I paid the check. When I was walking from the table to the door, it felt as though my head was spinning. All I could hear was Annamarie’s voice, saying that Gary was relieved I’d lost my baby, that he thought of me as a boring Stepford wife. I suddenly felt as if I were suffocating.
There were only a few cars in the lot when I got to the diner. One of them was a Jeep. I noticed it was still there when I left. A car was pulling away as I came out. I thought it was Annamarie, and I called to her. I remember that I wanted to ask her something. But what? What could I have wanted to ask her?
The waitress will describe me. They’ll know who I am. They’ll ask questions. I’ve got to call Philip and explain to him what happened.
Philip thinks I killed Gary.
Did I?
Dear God, I know I didn’t hurt Annamarie Scalli, Molly thought. Will they think that? No! Not again! I can’t go
through that again.
Fran. Fran will help me. She’s starting to believe that I didn’t kill Gary. I know she’ll help me.
The news at 7 A.M. identified the victim of the stabbing in Rowayton as Annamarie Sangelo, an employee of the Visiting Nurse Service, from Yonkers. They don’t know who she is yet, Molly thought. But they’ll work it out soon.
She made herself wait until eight o’clock to call Fran, then cringed at the distress and disbelief in Fran’s voice when she said, “Molly, are you telling me you met Annamarie Scalli last night, and now she’s been murdered?”
“Yes.”
“Have you called Philip Matthews?”
“Not yet. My God, he told me not to see her.”
Fran quickly flashed on the trial transcript she had read, including the devastating testimony Calvin Whitehall had given. “Molly, I’ll call Matthews right away.” She paused, then continued with a new urgency in her voice. “Listen to me. Don’t answer the phone. Don’t answer the door. Don’t talk to anyone, even Jenna, until Philip Matthews is with you. Swear that you won’t.”
“Fran, do you think I killed Annamarie?”
“No, Molly, I don’t, but other people will think you did it. Now sit tight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
* * *
An hour later Fran was turning into Molly’s driveway. Molly had been watching for her and opened the door before she could knock.
She looks as though she’s in shock, Fran thought. Good God, is it possible that she really is guilty of two murders? Molly’s complexion was ashen, as white as the chenille robe that seemed much too large for her slender frame.
“Fran, I can’t go through this again. I’d rather kill myself,” she whispered.
“Don’t even think like that,” Fran said, taking both her hands in her own. She felt how trembling and cold they were. “Philip Matthews was in the office when I called. He’s on the way. Molly, go upstairs, take a hot shower and get dressed. I heard on the car radio that Annamarie has been identified. There’s no question that the police will be looking to talk to you. I don’t want them to see you looking like this.”
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