“It was in the bag,” Danny whispered.
The two detectives looked at each other. One of them shrugged and turned to the newspaper on the desk behind him. The other dropped the file he had been examining back into the bag. “All right, Danny. We’re calling Dr. Salem to find out just what he had in this bag. That’ll settle it. It could go easier if you’d cooperate. You’ve been around long enough to figure that out.”
The other detective looked up from the paper. “Dr. Salem?” His voice was startled.
“Yeah. That’s the name on the file. Oh, I see. The nameplate says Dr. Edgar Highley. Guess he had a patient’s file from some other doctor.”
The younger detective came over to the table carrying the morning Daily News. He opened the file and examined the sheaf of papers with the name EMMET SALEM, M. D. printed across the top. He pointed to page three of the News. “Salem’s the doctor who was found on the roof of the Essex House extension last night. The Valley County Prosecutor is working with our people on that case.”
The police officers looked at Dannyboy with renewed interest and narrowed, suspicious eyes.
♦63♦
He watched as Katie’s eyes closed and her breathing became even. She’d fallen asleep again. The question about Vangie had come from somewhere in her subconscious, triggered perhaps by a duplication of her mental state of Monday night. She might not even remember asking the question, but he couldn’t take the chance. Suppose she talked about it again in front of Nurse Renge or the other doctors in the operating room before they anesthetized her? His mind groped for a solution. Her presence at the window last Monday night could still destroy him.
He had to kill her before Nurse Renge made her check, in less than an hour. The heparin shot would act to anticoagulate her blood immediately, but it would take several hours to complete the procedure. That was what he had planned. Now he couldn’t wait. He had to give her a second shot, immediately.
He had heparin in his office. He didn’t dare go near the hospital dispensary. He’d have to go down the fire stairs to the parking lot, use the private door to his office, refill the hypodermic needle and come back up here. It would take at least five minutes. The waitress would start to question his absence from the table, but there was no help for that. Satisfied that Katie was asleep, he hurried from the room.
♦64♦
The technician in the Valley County Forensic Lab worked overtime on Friday evening. Dr. Carroll had asked him to compare all microscopic samples from the home of the presumed suicide Vangie Lewis with all microscopic samples from the home of the presumed accident victim Edna Burns. Carefully he had sifted the vacuum-bag contents of the Lewis home and the Burns apartment and painstakingly searched for substances that might be out of the ordinary.
The technician knew he had a superb instinct for microscopic evidence, a hunch factor that rarely failed him. He was always particularly interested in loose hair, and he was fond of saying, “We are like fur-bearing animals. It’s astonishing how much hair we are constantly shedding, including people who are virtually bald.”
In the exhibits from the Lewis home he found an abundance of strands of the ash-blond hair of the victim. He’d also found medium brown hair, a fair quantity of it, in the bedroom. Undoubtedly the husband’s, since those same hairs were in the den and living room.
But there were also a number of silverish-sandy hairs in the victim’s bedroom. That was unusual. In the kitchen or living room, strands of hair could easily come from a visitor or deliveryman, but the bedroom? Even in this day, there were few non-family members who were invited to enter the bedroom. Shafts found there assumed special significance. The hair had come from a man’s head. The length suggested that automatically. Some of the same strands were on the coat the victim had been wearing.
And then the technician found the connection Richard Carroll had been seeking. Several sandy hairs with silver roots were clinging to the faded blue bathrobe of Edna Burns.
He placed the samples of hair under powerful microscopes and painstakingly went through the sixteen points of comparison check.
There was absolutely no doubt. One person had been close to both dead women; close enough to have held a head near to Edna Burns’s chest and to have brushed a head on Vangie Lewis’ shoulder.
The technician reached for the phone to call Dr. Carroll.
♦65♦
She tried to wake up. There was a click: a door had closed. Someone had just been here. Her arm hurt. Dr. Highley. She dropped off . . . What had she said to Dr. Highley? Katie woke up a few minutes later and remembered. Remembered the black car and the shiny spokes and the light on his glasses. She’d seen that Monday night. Dr. Highley had carried Vangie Lewis to his car Monday night. Dr. Highley had killed Vangie.
Richard had suspected something. Richard had tried to tell her. But she wouldn’t listen.
Dr. Highley knew she knew about him. Why had she asked him that question? She had to get out of here. He was going to kill her too. She’d always had nightmares about hospitals. Because somehow she’d known that she would die in a hospital.
Where had Dr. Highley gone? He’d be back. She knew that. Back to kill her. Help. She needed help. Why was she so weak? Her finger was bleeding. The pills he had given her. Since she’d been taking them she’d been so sick. The pills. They were making her bleed.
Oh God, help me, please. The phone. The phone! Katie fumbled for it. Her hand, weak and unsteady, knocked it over. Shaking her head, forcing her eyes to stay open, she pulled it up by the cord. Finally she had the receiver at her ear. The line was dead. Frantically she jiggled the cradle, tried dialing the operator.
Dr. Highley had said the phone was being repaired. She pushed the bell for the nurse. The nurse would help her. But the click that should have turned on the light outside her door did not happen. She was sure the signal wasn’t lighting the nurse’s panel either.
She had to get out of here before Dr. Highley came back. Waves of dizziness nauseated her as she stood up.
She had to. Vangie Lewis. The long blond hair, the petulant, little-girl eagerness for a child. Dr. Highley had killed Vangie, killed her baby. Had there been others?
She made her way from the bed, holding on to the footrail. The elevator. She’d go down in the elevator to the second floor. There were people there—other patients, nurses.
From nearby a door closed. He was coming back. He was coming back. Frantically Katie looked at the open door to the corridor. He’d see her if she went out there. The bathroom door had no lock. The closet. He’d find her there. Through sheer willpower she managed to stumble to the door leading to the living room, open it, go inside, close it before he came into the bedroom.
Where could she go? He’d look for her immediately. She couldn’t stay here. If she tried to go out into the foyer, she’d pass the open door of the bedroom. He’d see her. She had to go down the foyer and turn left, then down the long hall to the elevator. She was no match for him. Where could she go? She heard a door open inside. He was in the bedroom looking for her. Should she try to hide under the drop cloth? No. No. She’d be trapped there. He’d find her, drag her out. She bit her lip as dizziness clawed at the space behind her eyes. Her legs were rubbery, her mouth and skin spongy.
She stumbled to the door of the living room, the one that led to the hall. There was another door there, the fire exit. She’d seen it when she was wheeled in. She’d go down that to the second floor. She’d get help. She was in the hall. In a minute he’d be behind her.
The door to the fire stairs was heavy. She tugged at it . . . tugged again. Reluctantly it gave way. She opened it, stepped inside. It closed so slowly. Would he see it closing? The stairs. It was so dark here, terribly dark. But she couldn’t turn on a light. He’d see it. Maybe he was running down the corridor toward the elevator. If he did that, she’d have an extra minute. She needed that minute. Help me. Help me. She grabbed onto the banister. The stairs were steep. Her bare feet were si
lent. How many stairs in a flight? Thirteen. No, that was a house. There was a landing here after eight steps. Then another flight. Eight more steps, then she’d be safe. Seven . . . five . . . one. She was at the door, tried to turn the handle. It was locked. It opened only from the other side.
From upstairs she heard the third-floor door open and heavy footsteps coming down the stairs.
♦66♦
Chris refused to call a lawyer. He sat opposite the Prosecutor. He had been so worried about this encounter, so afraid they wouldn’t believe him. But Joan believed him; Joan had said, “It just makes sense that they’ll be suspicious of you, Chris. Tell every single thing you know. Remember that quote from the Bible, ‘The truth shall make you free.’” Chris looked from the Prosecutor to the two detectives who had met him at the airport. “I have nothing to hide,” he said.
Scott was unimpressed. A bookish-looking young man carrying a stenographer’s pad came into the room, sat down, opened the pad and took out a pen. Scott looked directly at Chris. “Captain Lewis, it is my duty to inform you that you are a suspect in the deaths of Vangie Lewis, Edna Burns and Dr. Emmet Salem. You may remain silent. You are not required to answer any questions. At any point you may refuse to continue answering questions. You are entitled to the services of a lawyer. Any statement that you make can be used against you. Is that perfectly clear?”
“Yes.”
“Can you read?”
Chris stared at Scott. Was he being sarcastic? No, the man was deadly serious.
“Yes.”
Scott shoved a paper across the desk. “This is a copy of the Miranda warning you have just heard. Please read it carefully. Be sure you understand it and then, if you are so disposed, sign it.”
Chris read the statement swiftly, signed it and handed it back.
“Very well.” Scott pushed the paper to one side. His manner changed, became somehow more intense. Chris realized the formal questioning was about to begin.
Funny, he thought, every night of your life, if you wanted to, you could watch some form of cops-and-robbers or courtroom drama show and you never expect to get involved in one yourself. The Prosecutor obviously believed that he had killed Vangie. Was he crazy not to have legal counsel? No.
The Prosecutor was talking. “Captain Lewis, have you been in any way ill-treated or abused?”
“I have not.”
“Would you care for coffee or food?”
Chris rubbed his hand over his forehead. “I would like coffee, please. But I am ready to answer your questions fully.”
Even so, he was not prepared for Scott’s question. “Did you murder your wife, Vangie Lewis?”
Chris looked directly at him. “I did not murder my wife. I do not know if she was murdered. But I do know this. If she died before midnight Monday night, she did not kill herself in our home.”
Scott, Charley, Phil and the stenographer were startled into unprofessional astonishment as Chris calmly said, “I was there just before midnight Monday. Vangie was not home. I returned to New York. At eleven the next morning I found her in bed. It wasn’t until the funeral director came to the house for clothes to dress my wife for burial and told me the time of death that I realized that her dead body must have been returned to our house. But even before that I knew something was wrong. My wife would never have worn or even tried to put on the shoes she was wearing when she was found. For six weeks before her death the only shoes she could wear were a pair of battered moccasins a cleaning woman had left. Her right leg and foot were badly swollen. She even used those moccasins as bedroom slippers . . .”
It was easier than he had expected. He heard the questions coming at him: “You left the hotel at eight P. M. Monday night and returned at ten. Where did you go?”
“To a movie in Greenwich Village. After I got back to the motel I couldn’t sleep. I decided to drive home and talk to Vangie. That was shortly after midnight.”
“Why didn’t you stay and wait for your wife?” And then the one that was a hammerblow to his stomach: “Did you know your wife was carrying a Japanese fetus?”
“Oh, my God!” Horror somehow mingled with a sense of release flooded Chris’s being. It hadn’t been his baby. A Japanese fetus. That psychiatrist. Was he his baby. A Japanese fetus. That psychiatrist. Was he louse enough to do that to her? She’d trusted him so. Oh, God, the poor kid. No wonder she was getting so frightened to give birth. That must have been why she called Dr. Salem. She wanted to hide. Oh, God, she was such a child.
The questions came: “You were not aware your wife was involved with another man?”
“No. No.”
“Why did you go to Edna Burns’s apartment Tuesday night?”
The coffee came. He tried to answer. “Wait, please—can we take this just the way it happened?” He began to sip the coffee. It helped. “It was Tuesday night, just after I realized that Vangie had died before she was brought home, that that woman, Edna Burns, called. She was almost incoherent. She rambled on about Cinderella and Prince Charming, said she had something for me, something I’d want to have, and she had a story for the police. I thought she might know who Vangie had been with. I thought if she told me, I might not have to admit that I’d been home Monday night. I wanted to keep Joan out of this.”
He set down the coffee cup, remembering Tuesday night. It seemed so long ago. Everything was so out of proportion. “I drove to Miss Burns’s housing development. Some kid was walking his dog and pointed out her apartment to me. I rang the bell and knocked on the door. The television was on, the light was on, but she didn’t answer. I figured she’d passed out and there was no use trying to talk to her, that maybe she was just a crank. I went home.”
“You never went in?”
“No.”
“What time was that?”
“About nine thirty.”
“All right. What did you do then?”
The questions, one after another; he drank more coffee. Truth. The simple truth. It was so much easier than evasion. Keep the future in mind. If they believed him, he and Joan would have a life together. He thought of the way she’d looked at him, thrown her arms around him last night in her apartment. For the first time in his entire life, he’d known there was someone he could go to in trouble; someone who would want to share it with him. Everyone else—Vangie, even his parents—had always leaned on him.
For better, for worse.
It would be better for them. Joan, my darling, he thought. He took a deep breath. They were asking about Dr. Salem.
♦67♦
Richard sat at Katie’s desk as he waited for the staff director of Christ Hospital, Devon, to answer his phone. Only by emphasizing the urgency of his need to talk to someone in authority who had been at the hospital more than ten years had he been given the man’s private number.
While he waited, he looked around. The table behind Katie’s desk was filled with files she was working on. It was no wonder she hadn’t taken any time off after her accident. But no matter how busy, she should have stayed home. This afternoon she’d looked lousy. And losing that case today must have upset her terribly. He wished he’d seen her before she left.
The phone continued to jab. The guy must be out or asleep. Maybe it could wait till morning. No. He wanted to find out now.
There were snapshots in a frame on Katie’s desk. Katie with an older woman, probably her mother. He knew the mother lived in Florida somewhere. Katie with Jennifer, Molly’s oldest. Katie looked like Jen’s big sister. Katie with a group of people in ski outfits. These must be the friends she stayed with in Vermont.
No picture of John DeMaio. But Katie wasn’t the kind to subtly remind people at work that she was the widow of a prominent judge. And there certainly were plenty of pictures of him around that house.
The phone continued to ring. He’d give it another minute.
Richard realized he was pleased to note that there were no pictures of any other guy either. He’d been analyzing his reaction t
o Katie’s announcement that she’d be away for the weekend. He’d tried to make it look as though he were surprised that she wouldn’t be available with a big case breaking. Hell. That had nothing to do with it. He was worried that she was with some other guy.
“Yes.” An angry, sleepy voice had answered the phone.
Richard straightened up, tightened his grip on the receiver. “Mr. Reeves? Mr. Alexander Reeves?”
“Yes.”
Richard went directly to the point. “Sir, I apologize profusely for calling you at this hour, but the matter is vital. This is a transatlantic call. I’m Dr. Richard Carroll, the Medical Examiner of Valley County, New Jersey. I must have information about Dr. Edgar Highley.”
The sleepiness vanished from the other man’s voice. It became intense and wary. “What do you want to know?”
“I have just spoken with Queen Mary Clinic in Liverpool and was surprised to learn that Dr. Highley had been on staff there a relatively short time. We had been led to believe otherwise. However, I was told that Dr. Highley was a member of the Christ Hospital staff for at least nine years. Is that accurate?”
“Edgar Highley interned with us after his graduation from Cambridge. He is a brilliant doctor and was invited to become staff, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology.”
“Why did he leave?”
“After his wife’s death he relocated in Liverpool. Then we heard he had emigrated to the United States. That’s not uncommon, of course. Many of our physicians and surgeons will not tolerate the relatively low pay structure of our socialized medicine system.”
“There was no other reason for Dr. Highley’s resignation?”
“I don’t understand your question.”
The Cradle Will Fall Page 24