Regrets Only

by Nancy Geary

  The second book was a trade paperback with the title Motherless Daughters. A blurb on the cover read “. . . a must read for the millions of women whose mothers have gone—but whose need for healing, mourning, and mothering remains.” Lucy flipped through the well-worn pages, several of which had come loose from the binding. Blue pen underlined numerous passages. There were handwritten notations, brackets, and asterisks in the margins throughout. On the page marked by Morgan’s piece of colored paper, the author wrote of surviving emotional abandonment through focus on positive memories and traits.

  How many times had Morgan read this book? Was her interest personal or professional? As Lucy replaced the volume on the shelf, she remembered Archer’s words. She was lucky to have a mother—a mother who cared, a mother who had devoted her life to her family, a mother who even after twenty-eight years was willing to discuss how best to iron a satin bow.

  She walked back to the window. Staring at the nearby building with its still mostly dark windows, she remembered the trial of Commonwealth v. Moses Walker that she’d been involved with as a detective for the South Division. Moses had been fourteen at the time he coordinated and executed a series of home invasions around Jefferson Square. How a scrawny black kid had managed to return to South Philadelphia packed with two .38s, a .22, and a hunting knife and rampage for five straight weeks still baffled her. Despite a fairly good description and a collection of physical evidence, she and her partner had been unable to apprehend him. At one point, she’d even wondered if he literally disappeared into the underground water ducts after each horrible beating. Finally, it was a neighbor, hearing the desperate cries of a woman as she watched her husband being tied to a chair and beaten with the butt of a gun, who had waited below the fire escape and shot Moses in the thigh as he’d exited. The neighbor wasn’t licensed to carry but the prosecutor was more than willing to overlook that technicality.

  Then, amid much controversy, the juvenile judge had allowed Moses to be tried as an adult because of the heinous nature of his crimes. The press called him a victim, a product of poverty and the destruction of family values. It was the classic ghetto saga: He had no father. His mother, a crack addict, put macaroni and cheese on the table only by sleeping with a panoply of undesirable men willing to give her five bucks a shot, ten if they wanted to take a turn at her adolescent son afterward. Moses had scars on his face from being scalded; his leg had been broken twice before it received a bullet. By contrast, the prosecutor painted him as an animal. Rehabilitation was meaningless. He was incapable of following a moral code. He had blood lust. He’d confessed that the popping sound of breaking a bone or crushing a skull excited him. His parental situation was irrelevant because he wasn’t human. This hadn’t been about money—in five home invasions, he’d gotten less than $300. He sought the thrill.

  Moses hadn’t shed a tear or displayed any emotion during the three-week trial. He’d received multiple consecutive sentences that would put him away forever. And yet, more than the evidence, more than the passion of closing arguments, more than the defendant’s eerie calm, what haunted Lucy most of all was that moment as the courtroom security guards escorted him to lockup. His wrists cuffed and his ankles shackled, he turned to the audience, scanned the crowd, and set his eyes on a woman who’d fallen asleep in the back row. Then in a voice that could have belonged to a member of a boys’ choir, he’d called out repeatedly, “I love you, Mama. I love you, Mama.” Even after he was out of sight, his plaintive words echoed in the corridor.

  The bond between mother and child never broke.

  Lucy returned to the desk and sat down in the black nylon contraption that epitomized ergonomic design. What about Morgan? What was her story? Despite the thirty-six hours that had elapsed since the discovery of her body, her next of kin had still not been located. This woman apparently lacked a community of relatives. The only person who might be able to provide helpful information on her family was Mr. Haverill, but Lucy had held off on calling him until after Archer had had a chance to speak with him first. That opportunity couldn’t occur soon enough.

  The top of Morgan’s desk held a fabric-covered blotter, a mug with the caduceus insignia of the medical profession filled with pencils and pens, and a stack of photocopied articles from various medical and psychiatric journals held down by a crystal paperweight from AmeriMed, the pharmaceutical company. A color photograph in a black frame showed Morgan beside a young woman with sandy-colored hair leaning against a split-rail fence. The pretty girl wore jodhpurs and held a riding crop. Behind them was a chestnut horse with a white star on its muzzle. Small digital numbers in the lower right-hand corner marked the date: April 27, less than a month before Morgan’s death.

  Lucy held the picture up to take a better look. There was something about the girl’s features that resembled Morgan. Was it the eyes? Lucy removed an evidence bag from her satchel, labeled it, and inserted the framed picture.

  Next, she slid the narrow center drawer open and gazed at its haphazardly arranged contents: two jars of Carmex, paper clips, rubber bands, a stapler and staples, dental floss, a small calculator with brightly colored numbers, pastel Post-it notes, a Mason Pearson hairbrush, nothing more than the usual accoutrements of a professional woman. But tucked in the back was a second photograph, this one unframed, yellowed with age, and curled at the edges. It had been torn and taped back together, making part of the background difficult to decipher. Lucy lifted it up to her eyes to get a closer look. Although the photo had been taken decades earlier, the figures in the middle were unmistakable. Wearing a pale pink cardigan and white Capri pants, Morgan stood beside Rodman Haverill, with the iron gates of their mansion visible behind them. He stared straight into the camera with his arm around her waist while she looked away over her right shoulder. Her arms dangled by her thin body, unwilling to return his affection.

  Lucy flipped the picture over, hoping to find a date on the back, but only “Kodak” was there. Then she put it in her satchel. She might not be able to provide answers, but perhaps Archer would appreciate the souvenir.

  Surprisingly, the drawer on the left-hand side of the desk held an answering machine. Its message light blinked. Lucy got down on her hands and knees to look underneath the desk. Sure enough, a telephone wire came from the floor through a small hole in the bottom of the drawer and connected inside. She hit the “play” button.

  A computer voice announced, “You have four new messages. First message. Friday. Three forty-three P.M.”

  “Hi, Dr. Reese. This is Natalie. I need to cancel my appointment. My SAT tutor has to come at the same time, and my mother thinks college preparation is more important. Sorry. See you next week.”

  There was a bleep. “Message two. Friday. Four twelve p.m.”

  “Hello. My name is Marsha Birnbaum and I’m an assistant claims coordinator at Journeymen,” said the voice in the bland tone that seemed unique to health insurance personnel. “We’re having a clearance problem with a prescription you wrote for a Walter Reese. Perhaps it’s the diagnostic code. Please call me at your earliest convenience at extension three two six two. Thank you for using Journeymen. Have a good day.”

  Message three came at 4:31 p.m. from a male, who didn’t identify himself. His voice was stern. “I’ve made a reservation for three at eight o’clock at Le Bec-Fin. I assume you remember where that is on Walnut Street. Believe me it wasn’t easy on such short notice. I hope you’re satisfied.”

  Le Bec-Fin was one of the most elegant formal restaurants in all of Philadelphia. Although Lucy had never eaten there—and probably never would given the prices and the fact that she didn’t care for French food anyway—she knew of it by reputation. Meals no doubt consisted of several courses and lasted hours. If this man dined with Morgan on Saturday night, he had to have been one of the last people to see her alive—if not the very last.

  The fourth message was a hang-up.

  She rewound and listened again. “For three,” he said. She’d heard th
e words the first time but their significance had escaped her. Who else had been included? Had the extra person come with Morgan or with the unknown caller? Although the chances were negligible of having voice-recognition software identify this man, she still popped the tape out of the machine and tucked it into her satchel.

  The only drawer on the right-hand side of the desk contained a black day planner, printed stationery, blank invoices and index cards, and a Realtor’s color brochure of an elegant home in Gladwyne. Flipping the brochure over, Lucy saw that it included small color photographs of the well-appointed living and dining rooms, the kitchen, entrance hall, and library, plus a lengthy description of this six-bedroom fieldstone mansion with every amenity, its horse barn, and landscaped acreage with mature plantings, all for an asking price of $3.9 million. Written in pencil in neat cursive was “Gail—cell phone: 610-533-4959.” Gail Ripley, the listing broker, had included only an office number on the printed materials. Lucy kept the brochure, too.

  Opening the day planner, she could see that every page had numerous entries—patients, meetings, lunches and dinners, even some personal appointments. Morgan’s schedule was frantic, with times ranging from as early as six in the morning to well after nine at night seven days a week.

  Lucy turned to the week-on-a-page layout for the dates that had just ended yesterday, the last week of Morgan’s life. Monday through Friday morning was sufficiently filled, but the two patients listed on Friday afternoon had been crossed out, and Saturday and Sunday were completely blank. There was no reference to dinner out on any night. She flipped the page. As of this morning, Morgan’s life was booked once again. So why had she scheduled nothing for the weekend she died?

  It was almost nine thirty and she had to go meet Jack. Lucy stuffed the calendar into an evidence bag. This investigation was still in its infancy; it was too soon to make a judgment call. But she didn’t like the nagging sensation she was experiencing: that Morgan had set about to change her life and somebody had successfully stopped her.

  13

  10:05 a.m.

  The Reading Terminal Market was more crowded than Lucy would have expected for this time on a Monday morning. Businessmen, secretaries, cabdrivers, and probably more than a couple of police department personnel who had been at work since eight were on their coffee breaks; the Society Hill stay-at-home mothers, having finished their Pilates mat classes, came for fresh fish and cut flowers; plus, as usual, there was a steady stream of out-of-town visitors. Tourists in Philadelphia seemed constant; unlike Boston, where they tended to flock only in the summer, Lucy couldn’t remember a season in the hub of Pennsylvania where she couldn’t hear multiple languages and see groups of disoriented people with cameras and travel guides swarming the area’s attractions. The converted railway station with its delicious food and market stalls was a mandatory stop.

  Jack had suggested they meet here instead of the Roundhouse. The detectives of the Homicide Unit barely fit into their allotted space and she was just as happy to get away from the cramped office, bitter coffee, and endlessly ringing telephones.

  She wove her way down the long center aisle and found Jack already perched on a stool by the Amish bakery stall with a paper cup in his hand. His blue blazer was wrinkled and his shirttails hung over the top of his trousers. His eyes were red. Gulping his coffee, he stood as she approached.

  “You look like you’ve been up all night.”

  “You got that right.”

  She felt a momentary pang of guilt. She’d gone home the night before, leaving further work into Morgan Reese’s death for today and tomorrow and the day after that. Jack had explored investigative leads while she’d slept.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Just the agony of being a parent.” He took a swig of his coffee. “Sean had an emergency appendectomy at about three o’clock this morning,” he explained, referring to the younger of his two sons.

  Appendicitis was not that common in children and Sean was only twelve. “What happened?”

  “By the time I got home yesterday, Sarah said he’d been complaining of pain in his abdomen all day. Normally, I’d accuse him of making it up. He’ll do anything to miss school, but staying in bed on a Sunday . . . never. Then about midnight his fever spiked way up, and Sarah was worried sick. Here I am trying to tell her not to get so worked up, that both boys are strong, that Sean is going to be fine, and meanwhile, I’m beside myself,” he said, and then paused, scanning the crowd. “No matter how big he gets, he’ll always be my baby. And I can tell you one thing. Your imagination plays horrible tricks on you. Anyway, I took him down to the emergency room. They did a CT scan and sure enough it was serious. The appendix was completely inflamed. The doctor admitted him then and there.”

  Jack often spoke with pride about his children, but she’d never heard him sound so vulnerable. Here was a seasoned cop, a veteran of the Homicide Unit, completely undone by a sick appendix. It amazed her how different the same person could be in his personal and professional lives. “But he’s okay?”

  “Yeah. Thank God we caught it, and the surgery went smoothly. He was in recovery when I left and Sarah is with him. I’m going to go back to spell her in a little while. I’m more concerned about her than him at this point. I don’t want her driving tired and distracted.”

  “Please. Go whenever you want. Go now. There’s nothing more important than your family. I can handle this investigation,” Lucy said.

  Jack smiled. “I never doubted that. But I’m just sorry about what you’ve had to go through the past twenty-four hours—attending the autopsy of your boyfriend’s mother. Who would ever have expected that in the line of duty?” He took another sip of his coffee. “How’s Archer holding up?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, he pulled his notepad from his jacket pocket. Flipping through several pages, he said, “Let me at least bring you up to date on what I got yesterday. I did manage to gather some information before calling it quits.” He paused to read his almost illegible notes. “The gun’s registered to David Ellery, the doctor Reese shared an office suite with.”

  “Who also happened to be having dinner at the Rabbit Club Saturday night.”

  Jack raised his eyebrows.

  “Ellery called the police on April twenty-sixth and reported the gun stolen. There was a perfunctory investigation, mostly centered on one of Reese’s patients.”

  “Calvin Roth,” Lucy added.

  Jack looked puzzled. “How did you know?”

  Lucy quickly filled him in on the details of her conversation with Nancy Moore and her visit to Morgan’s office.

  When she was finished, he gave her an approving nod. “Good work, Detective.”

  “Thanks. I will say Nancy did seem genuinely panicked to get out of there.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to her. “I got this from our files.”

  Lucy stared at the series of docket numbers at the top of the page followed by the caption “In re Calvin Roth” and then scanned the typewritten lines at the bottom. Dated December 30, it was a copy of Morgan’s application for a restraining order against her patient.

  Mr. Roth has been under my care for nearly a decade. In the past six months, however, he has repeatedly and incessantly called me at home and at my office and threatened violent behavior if I did not take his calls. He has shown up at my office and my residence without an appointment, and has followed me on several occasions. I am aware that he has access to firearms. He has recently stated that he will use one against me. I am in fear for my life.

  It was signed under the pains and penalties of perjury.

  “A stalker,” Lucy said, imagining Morgan’s terror. As Roth’s psychiatrist, she would know better than anyone his deepest, darkest secrets, and the violence of which he might be capable. “Nancy mentioned he wouldn’t leave after his appointments. But what happened with the stolen gun investiga
tion?”

  “Nothing as far as I can tell. I checked with Jimmy Bartlett, the investigating detective. He said nothing really panned out. Roth had a solid alibi. He gets electroconvulsive therapy periodically, and he was hospitalized at Friends Hospital over on Roosevelt Boulevard for a round of shock treatment on the day Ellery filed the report.”

  The twenty-sixth had been a Saturday. “Did Ellery know for sure that it was stolen on that day or was that the day he discovered it missing?”

  “Apparently both Ellery and Reese see patients on weekends, so the office is open. I didn’t grill Jimmy on the particulars of the interview but I assume he didn’t let Roth off the hook without good cause.”

  “So that was it?”

  “There were no other leads.”

  “No sign of a B and E, was there?” she asked. The criminal population of those who would break in and enter to steal a gun was quite different from the narrow range of suspects who might have had access to the office on the twenty-sixth.

  “Technically, it’s still an open investigation but Jimmy said nobody’s doing anything on it.”