One picture especially riveted her. It was a Christmas scene. Her father holding a five- or six-year-old on his lap, surrounded by presents. A young Frances Grolier kneeling behind him, arms around his neck. All wearing pajamas and robes. A joyous family.
Was that one of the Christmas Days I spent praying for a miracle, that suddenly Daddy would come through the door? Meghan wondered.
Sickening pain encompassed her. She turned away and saw against the far wall the bust on a pedestal. With feet that now seemed too leaden to move she made her way to it.
A rare talent had shaped this bronze image of her father. Love and understanding had caught the hint of melancholy behind the twinkle in the eyes, the sensitive mouth, the long, expressive fingers folded under the chin, the fine head of hair with the lock that always strayed forward onto his forehead.
She could see that cracks along the neck and forehead had been skillfully repaired.
“Meghan?”
She turned, dreading what she must now tell this woman.
Frances Grolier crossed the room to her. Her voice pleading, she said, “I’m prepared for anything you feel about me, but please . . . I must know about Annie. Do you know where she is? And what about your father? Has he been in touch with you?”
Keeping his promise to Meghan, Mac tried unsuccessfully to phone Stephanie Petrovic at nine o’clock on Tuesday morning. Hourly phone calls continued to bring no response.
At twelve-fifteen he called Charles Potters, the lawyer for the estate of Helene Petrovic. When Potters got on the phone, Mac identified himself and stated his reason for phoning and was immediately told that Potters too was concerned.
“I tried Stephanie last night,” Potters explained. “I could tell that Miss Collins was disturbed by her absence. I’m going over to the house now. I have a key.”
He promised to call back.
An hour and a half later, his voice trembling with indignation, Potters told Mac about Stephanie’s note. “That deceitful girl,” he cried. “She helped herself to whatever she could carry! The silver. Some lovely Dresden. Practically all of Helene’s wardrobe. Her jewelry. Those pieces were insured for over fifty thousand dollars. I’m notifying the police. This is a case of common theft.”
“You say she left with the father of her baby?” Mac asked. “From what Meghan told me, I find that very hard to believe. She had the sense that Stephanie was frightened at the suggestion that she go after him for child support.”
“Which may have been an act,” Potters said. “Stephanie Petrovic is a very cold young woman. I can assure you that the main source of her grief over her aunt’s death was the fact that Helene had not changed her will as Stephanie claimed she planned to do.”
“Mr. Potters, do you believe Helene Petrovic planned to change her will?”
“I have no way of knowing that. I do know that in the weeks before her death, Helene had put her house on the market and converted her securities to bearer bonds. Fortunately those were not in her safe.”
When Mac put down the phone, he leaned back in his chair.
How long could any amateur, no matter how gifted, pull the wool over the eyes of trained experts in the field of reproductive endocrinology and in vitro fertilization? he mused. Yet Helene Petrovic had managed it for years. I couldn’t have done it, Mac thought, remembering his intense medical training.
According to Meghan, while Petrovic was working at the Dowling Assisted Reproduction Center she spent a lot of time hanging around the laboratory. She might also have been seeing a doctor from Valley Memorial, the hospital with which the center was affiliated.
Mac made up his mind. He would take tomorrow off. There were some things best handled in person. Tomorrow he was going to drive to Valley Memorial in Trenton and see the director of the facility. He needed to try to get some records.
Mac had met and liked Dr. George Manning but was shocked and concerned that Manning had not immediately warned the Andersons about the potential embryo mix-up. There was no question he’d been hoping for a cover-up.
Now Mac wondered if there was any possibility that Helene Petrovic’s abrupt decision to quit the clinic, change her will, sell her house and move to France might have more sinister reasons than her fear of an error in the laboratory. Particularly, he reasoned, since it might still be proven that the Andersons’ baby was their biological child, if not the identical twin they’d expected.
Mac wanted to learn if there was any possibility that Dr. George Manning had been connected to Valley Memorial at any point in the several years that Helene Petrovic worked in the adjacent facility.
Manning would not be the first man to throw aside his professional life for a woman, nor would he be the last. Technically, Petrovic had been hired through Collins and Carter Executive Search. Yet only yesterday Manning had admitted that he had spoken to Edwin Collins the day before Collins disappeared. Had they been in collusion over those credentials? Or had someone else on the Manning staff helped her out? The Manning Clinic was only about ten years old. Their annual reports would list the names of the senior staff. He’d get his secretary to copy them for him.
Mac pulled out a pad, and in his neat penmanship, which his colleagues joked was so uncharacteristic of the medical profession, wrote:
Edwin Collins believed dead in bridge accident, 28 January; no proof.
Woman who resembles Meg (Annie?) fatally stabbed, 21 October.
“Annie” may have been seen by Kyle the day before her death.
Helene Petrovic fatally shot hours after she quit her job at Manning, 25 October. (Edwin Collins placed Helene Petrovic at Manning Clinic, vouching for the accuracy of her false credentials.)
Stephanie Petrovic claimed conspiracy by Manning Clinic to prevent her aunt from changing her will.
Stephanie Petrovic vanished sometime between late afternoon of 31 October and 2 November, leaving a note claiming she was rejoining the father of her child, a man she apparently feared.
None of it made sense. But there was one thing he was convinced was true. Everything that had happened was connected in a logical way. Like genes, he thought. The minute you understand the structure everything falls into place.
He put aside the pad. He had work to do if he was planning to take tomorrow off for the trip to Dowling. It was four o’clock. That meant it was two o’clock in Arizona. He wondered how Meg was doing, how the day, which must be incredibly difficult for her, was progressing.
Meg stared at Frances Grolier. “What do you mean have I heard from my father?”
“Meghan, the last time he was here, I could see that the world was closing in on him. He was so frightened, so depressed. He said he wished he could just disappear.
“Meghan, you must tell me. Have you seen Annie?”
Only a few hours ago, Meg had remembered her father’s warning that some events cause unforgettable pain. Compassion engulfed her as she saw the dawning horror in the eyes of Annie’s mother.
Frances grasped her arms. “Meghan, is Annie sick?”
Meghan could not speak. She answered the note of hope in the frantic question with a barely perceptible shake of her head.
“Is she . . . is Annie dead?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No. That can’t be.” Frances Grolier’s eyes searched Meghan’s face, pleading. “When I opened the door . . . even though I knew you were coming . . . for that split second, I thought it was Annie. I knew how alike you were. Ed showed me pictures.” Grolier’s knees buckled.
Meghan grasped her arms, helped her to sit down on the couch. “Isn’t there someone I can call, somebody you’d like to have with you now?”
“No one,” Grolier whispered. “No one.” Her pallor turning a sickly gray, she stared into the fireplace as though suddenly unaware of Meghan’s presence.
Meghan watched helplessly as Frances Grolier’s pupils became dilated, her expression vacant. She’s going into shock, Meghan thought.
Then, in a voice devoid
of emotion, Grolier asked, “What happened to my daughter?”
“She was stabbed. I happened to be in the emergency room when she was brought in.”
“Who . . . ?”
Grolier did not complete the question.
“Annie may have been a mugging victim,” Meghan said quietly. “She had no identification except a slip of paper with my name and phone number on it.”
“The Drumdoe Inn notepaper?”
“Yes.”
“Where is my daughter now?”
“The . . . the medical examiner’s building in Manhattan.”
“You mean the morgue.”
“Yes.”
“How did you find me, Meghan?”
“Through the message you left the other night to call the Palomino Leather Goods Shop.”
A ghastly smile tugged at Frances Grolier’s lips. “I left that message hoping to reach your father. Annie’s father. He always put you first, you know. So afraid that you and your mother would find out about us. Always so afraid.”
Meghan could see that shock was being replaced by anger and grief. “I am so sorry.” It was all she could think to say. From where she was sitting, she could see the Christmas picture. I’m so sorry for all of us, she thought.
“Meghan, I have to talk to you, but not now. I need to be alone. Where are you staying?”
“I’ll try to get a room at the Safari Hotel.”
“I’ll call you there later. Please go.”
As Meghan closed the door, she heard the steady sobbing, low rhythmic sounds that tore at her heart.
She drove to the hotel, praying that it would not be full, that no one would see her and think she was Annie. But the check-in was fast, and ten minutes later she closed the door of the room and sank down on the bed, her emotions a combination of enormous pity, shared pain and icy fear.
Frances Grolier clearly believed it possible that her lover, Edwin Collins, was alive.
48
On Tuesday morning, Victor Orsini moved into Edwin Collins’ private office. The day before, the cleaning service had washed the walls and windows and cleaned the carpet. Now the room was antiseptically clean. Orsini had no interest in even thinking about redecorating it. Not with the way things were going.
He knew that on Sunday Meghan and her mother had cleared the office of Collins’ personal effects. He assumed they had heard the message on the answering machine and taken the tape. He could only imagine what they thought of it.
He had hoped they wouldn’t bother with Collins’ business records, but they’d taken all of them. Sentiment? He doubted it. Meghan was smart. She was looking for something. Was it the same thing he was so anxious to find? Was it somewhere in those papers? Would she find it?
Orsini paused in the unpacking of his books. He’d spread the morning paper on the desk, the desk that belonged to Edwin Collins and soon would be moved to the Drumdoe Inn. A front-page update on the Manning Clinic scandal announced that state medical investigators had been in the clinic on Monday and already rumors were rampant that Helene Petrovic may have made many serious mistakes. Empty vials had been found among the ones containing cryopreserved embryos, suggesting that Petrovic’s lack of medical skill may have resulted in embryos being improperly labeled or even destroyed.
An independent source who refused to be identified pointed out that, at the very least, clients who were paying handsomely for maintenance of their embryos were being overcharged. In the worst possible scenario, women who might not be able to again produce eggs for possible fertilization might have lost their chance for biological motherhood.
Featured next to the story was a reproduction of Edwin Collins’ letter strongly recommending “Dr.” Helene Petrovic to Dr. George Manning.
The letter had been written 21 March, nearly seven years ago, and was stamped received on 22 March.
Orsini frowned, hearing again the accusing, angry voice of Collins, calling him from the car phone that last night. He stared at the newspaper and Edwin’s bold signature on the letter of recommendation. Perspiration broke out on his forehead. Somewhere in this office or in the files Meghan Collins had taken home is the incriminating evidence that will bring down this house of cards, he thought. But will anyone find it?
For hours, Bernie was unable to calm the rage the sneering passenger had triggered in him. As soon as his mother went to bed Monday night, he’d rushed downstairs to play his videotapes of Meghan. The news tapes had her voice, but the one he’d taken from the woods behind her house was his favorite. It made him wildly restless to be near her again.
He played the tapes through the night, only going to bed as a hint of dawn flickered through the slit in the cardboard he had placed over the narrow basement window. Mama would notice if his bed had not been slept in.
He got into bed fully dressed and pulled up the covers just in time. The creaking of the mattress in the next room warned that his mother was waking up. A few minutes later the door of his room opened. He knew she was looking in at him. He kept his eyes shut. She wouldn’t expect him to wake up for another fifteen minutes.
After the door closed again, he hunched up in bed, planning his day.
Meghan had to be in Connecticut. But where? At her house? At the inn? Maybe she gave her mother a hand in running the inn. What about the New York apartment? Maybe she was there.
He got up promptly at seven, took off his sweater and shirt, put on his pajama top in case Mama saw him and went out to the bathroom. There he splashed water on his face and hands, shaved, brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He smiled at his reflection in the mirror on the medicine cabinet. Everyone had always told him he had a warm smile. Trouble was the silver was peeling behind the glass, and the mirror gave back a distorted image like the ones in amusement parks. He didn’t look warm and friendly now.
Then, as Mama had taught him to do, he reached down for the can of cleanser, shook a liberal amount of the gritty powder into the sink, rubbed it in vigorously with a sponge, rinsed it away and dried the sink with the rag Mama always left folded over the side of the tub.
Back in the bedroom he made his bed, folded his pajama top, put on a clean shirt and carried the soiled one to the hamper.
Today Mama had bran flakes in his cereal bowl. “You look tired, Bernard,” she said sharply. “Are you getting enough rest?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“I guess about eleven o’clock.”
“I woke up to go to the bathroom at eleven-thirty. You weren’t in bed then.”
“Maybe it was a little later, Mama.”
“I thought I heard your voice. Were you talking to someone?”
“No, Mama. Who would I be talking to?”
“I thought I heard a woman’s voice.”
“Mama, it was the television.” He gulped the cereal and tea. “I have to be at work early.”
She watched him from the door. “Be home on time for dinner. I don’t want to be fussing in the kitchen all night.”
He wanted to tell her that he expected to work overtime but didn’t dare. Maybe he’d call her later.
Three blocks away he stopped at a public telephone. It was cold, but the shiver he felt as he dialed Meghan’s apartment had more to do with anticipation than chill. The phone rang four times. When the answering machine clicked on, he hung up.
He then dialed the house in Connecticut. A woman answered. It must be Meghan’s mother, Bernie thought. He deepened his voice, quickened its pace. He wanted to sound like Tom Weicker.
“Good morning, Mrs. Collins. Is Meghan there?”
“Who is this?”
“Tom Weicker of PCD.”
“Oh, Mr. Weicker, Meg will be sorry she missed your call. She’s out of town today.”
Bernie frowned. He wanted to know where she was. “Can I reach her?”
“I’m afraid not. But I’ll be hearing from her late this afternoon. May I have her phone you?”
Be
rnie thought swiftly. It would sound wrong if he didn’t say yes. But he wanted to know when she’d be back. “Yes, have her call. Do you expect her to be home this evening?”
“If not tonight, surely tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” Bernie hung up, angry that he couldn’t reach Meghan, but glad he hadn’t wasted a trip to Connecticut. He got back in the car and headed for Kennedy Airport. He might just as well get some fares today, but they’d better not tell him how to drive.
This time the special investigators of Helene Petrovic’s death did not go to Phillip Carter. Instead, late Tuesday morning they phoned and asked if it would be convenient for him to stop in for an informal chat at the assistant state attorney’s office in the Danbury courthouse.
“When would you like me to come?” Carter asked.
“As soon as possible,” Investigator Arlene Weiss told him.
Phillip glanced at his calendar. There was nothing on it that he couldn’t change. “I can make it around one,” he suggested.
“That will be fine.”
After he replaced the receiver he tried to concentrate on the morning mail. There were a number of references in on candidates whom they were considering offering to two of their major clients. As least so far those clients hadn’t pulled back.
Could Collins and Carter Executive Search weather the storm? He hoped so. One thing he would do in the very near future would be to change the name to Phillip Carter Associates.
In the next room he could hear the sounds of Orsini moving into Ed Collins’ office. Don’t get too settled, Phillip thought. It was too soon to get rid of Orsini. He needed him for now, but Phillip had several replacements in mind.
He wondered if the police had been questioning Catherine and Meghan again.
He dialed Catherine at home. When she answered, he said, cheerfully, “It’s me. Just checking to see how it’s going.”
“That’s nice of you, Phillip.” Her voice was subdued.
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