As Time Goes By

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “What did you do when you entered the house?”

  “I put my coat away and went right to Dr. Grant’s room. At first I thought he was still asleep, but then when I went to the bedside, I could see that he wasn’t breathing. I touched his neck and face. They were so cold. I knew that he was dead.”

  “What did you do when you realized he was dead?”

  “I dialed 9-1-1, then I hurried to Mrs. Grant’s room to tell her.”

  “Was Mrs. Grant still in bed?”

  “She was in the bathroom. When I called her name, she opened the door. She had the hair dryer in her hand. She had obviously been drying her hair. I told her Dr. Grant had died in his sleep.”

  “What was her reaction?”

  “She didn’t say a word. She just looked at me. She threw the hair dryer on the bed and brushed past me. I followed her into Dr. Grant’s room.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She put her hands on his face and caressed it.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “Yes, she said, ‘Oh, my poor darling, you won’t have to suffer anymore.’ ”

  “What was her demeanor?”

  “Calm, very calm. She said, ‘Angela, you said you called 9-1-1?’ When I said, ‘yes,’ she said, ‘I had better get dressed.’ She left Dr. Grant’s bedroom without so much as a backward glance at him.”

  You make me sound so awful, Betsy thought frantically. I was in shock. For several years I had felt that an axe was swinging over my head. I was watching this wonderful man deteriorate. I had just decided that I had to put him in a nursing home before he hurt himself or me or someone else. I was relieved that he had died before I did that. She bit over the lump in her throat as she remembered how in his rational moments Ted had begged her to keep him home.

  “And what happened next?”

  “Mrs. Grant got dressed very quickly. She went back into Dr. Grant’s bedroom just as the policeman arrived.”

  Elliot Holmes paused and said, “Ms. Watts, let’s go back to what happened immediately following the dinner. You testified that you, Alan Grant and Dr. Scott Clifton helped Dr. Grant to his room after he became upset at dinner. Was there any object or decoration beside his bed?”

  “Yes, there was.”

  “Would you please describe it?”

  “It was a mortar-and-pestle set that was part of a plaque that had been given to Dr. Grant as a gift from Hackensack Hospital.”

  “And the pestle was an object that could be picked up and removed from the mortar bowl. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ms. Watts, do you recall if the pestle was on the night table when you helped Dr. Grant into bed after the dinner party?”

  “Yes. It was there. It was in the mortar, the bowl.”

  “And you are certain of that?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Ms. Watts, I’m now going to ask you some questions in a different area. Did you ever meet a Peter Benson?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Were you familiar with that name?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Do you know if Mrs. Grant ever saw Mr. Benson?”

  “Yes, I do. I mean she had dinner with him occasionally and she always gave me his cell phone number too in case I needed to reach her and her cell didn’t answer.”

  “When you use the word ‘occasionally,’ what do you mean by that?”

  “I’d say it was about a couple of times a month.”

  “When was the last time that she had dinner with him?”

  “The evening previous to the birthday dinner.”

  “Did Mrs. Grant ever talk to you about Peter Benson?”

  “No, other than to say that he was an old friend from high school. She never really said much more. But she always seemed to be happy when she was going to meet him.”

  “No further questions,” the prosecutor said, the smirk on his face obvious as he exchanged glances with the foreman of the jury.

  The courtroom was silent as the prosecutor returned to his seat. Delaney wondered how the defense was going to counteract the testimony from the caregiver. The judge said, “Mr. Maynard, your witness.”

  “Ms. Watts, you indicated that you lived at the home six days a week. You said that this was round-the-clock. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “When Mrs. Grant went out to meet Peter Benson, what time did she usually leave the house?”

  “Usually about four thirty to five o’clock.”

  “And what time did she normally return?”

  “Usually about ten thirty to eleven o’clock.”

  “Was there ever a time that you can remember that she either didn’t come home or she stayed out past that hour?”

  “Well, to be honest with you, I often fell asleep by ten o’clock. But I’m a very light sleeper and I would usually hear her come in when the garage door went up. But I can’t absolutely swear that she never came home later than that.”

  “Did she ever tell you that she would not be returning home after one of these dinners?”

  “No, she always came home.”

  “And she always slept in the little bedroom on the main floor so that she could be close to Dr. Grant if he got up during the night?”

  “Yes. She would always help me take care of him if he got up during the night.”

  “Ms. Watts, you testified that you had your own key to the front door and that you knew the code to the alarm system. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “To your knowledge, did anyone else have a key and know the alarm code?”

  “Well, of course Mrs. Grant had a key. So did the housekeeper, Carmen, and they both knew the combination.”

  “So that makes three keys. Did anyone else have a key, or were there backup keys?”

  “When I started working, there were four keys. Dr. Grant had one. But several years ago he lost or misplaced it. We never found it.”

  “Ms. Watts, most modern alarm systems maintain an electronic record that can tell precisely when an alarm was activated and shut off and even which key was used. Could the system at the Grant home do that?”

  “No, it was a really old system. It didn’t have any of that.”

  “Was there ever any talk of upgrading it or replacing it with a new one?”

  “I asked Mrs. Grant about that, but she said keeping things the same made it easier for Dr. Grant. When I first started taking care of him, he could unlock the door himself and on good days he could put in the code himself. But in the last couple of years he couldn’t do that.”

  “Did you ever observe Dr. Grant on a good day put in the alarm code himself?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “As he tapped in the four numbers on the alarm box, would he do anything else?”

  “Yes. He would say the numbers out loud.”

  “Would he say them loud enough for you to hear them?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you are testifying that during the time you worked in the Grant home there was a total of four keys and the alarm code had been the same for many years. And one of the four keys that could allow someone to gain entrance to the Grant home disappeared several years ago. And Dr. Grant was in the habit of verbalizing the code in a manner that anyone who might have been with him could hear it. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Maynard paused for a few moments as he faced the jury. He then turned to the judge and said, “No further questions.”

  22

  Steven Harwin’s father called a news conference two days after his son’s death.

  “In his twenty-three years, Steven fought and overcame leukemia, graduated from Bowdoin College with highest honors and started the ‘Five Dollars a Month’ club to get young people involved with giving money for leukemia research. Starting with pain medication during his fight with leukemia, he became a drug addict, a condition he valiantly fought but could not overcome. The pills found in his
apartment were potent. I will find the person or people who sold them to him and expose them for the unspeakable swine that they are.”

  With that, the director of four Academy Award–winning films choked up and turned away from the cameras.

  Delaney was in the studio with Don Brown. Together they watched the on-camera interview.

  “I wouldn’t want to be the guy who sold the pills to Lucas Harwin’s son,” Delaney observed.

  “I’d feel the same way if it was my son,” Don said fervently. “Sean’s sixteen, at that age when kids get into trouble. It’s a fortune to send him to a private school, and I know that’s no guarantee that will keep him away from the drug scene, but last year they expelled a senior from his former school who was selling drugs in the locker room.”

  Vince Stacey, the news director, began to count down. At “one” they were back on the air and Delaney was reporting on the Betsy Grant murder trial.

  “The testimony of Angela Watts, the caregiver for the late Edward Grant, was not favorable to Betsy Grant today,” Delaney began, “particularly when she said that Betsy had had dinner with a former classmate, Peter Benson, the evening before the birthday party.”

  She went on to summarize the caregiver’s other testimony. “The alarm was on when the caregiver arrived at the house that morning, a big plus for the prosecution. It certainly makes it much harder for the defense to push the idea that an intruder entered the home.”

  “How was Betsy Grant as she listened to that testimony?” Don asked.

  “She seemed very calm,” Delaney observed, “but people do react differently.”

  “Great reporting, Delaney. Thanks.” Don turned toward the number one camera. “Police in New York City are on the lookout for . . .”

  Do they react differently? Delaney wondered as the program went to commercial break. She realized that in her twenty-six years she had not suffered the death of a close family member or friend. Even when her adoptive parents had celebrated her mother’s seventy-fifth birthday, she had reassured herself that seventy-five is the new sixty and that both of them might easily live another fifteen to twenty years.

  When the program was over, she said that to Don.

  “You’ve had grief in your life,” he answered matter-of-factly. “Remember how emotional you felt about that segment we aired on the mother and son reunion? What you felt was grief about your own situation, nothing more or less.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Delaney agreed. “You’re right.”

  A thought crossed her mind. It was about a story the network had done six months ago. A two-year-old had wandered out of the house in the middle of the night. The agonized mother had been on camera early the next morning begging help in finding her. The child was found unharmed about a mile away sleeping on a park bench. Delaney vividly remembered the joy of the mother holding the toddler in her arms as she fervently thanked the woman who had found her.

  She cheered herself with the hope that maybe Alvirah would somehow, someway bring about that long needed reunion for her.

  23

  Alvirah had sat in on the trial of Betsy Grant when Dr. Grant’s caregiver testified. She didn’t get a chance to talk to Delaney, who was rushing back to the studio.

  The afternoon had turned warm. She and Willy sipped their five o’clock cocktail on the balcony of their apartment. Reflecting, she looked at the park across the street.

  “Willy, how would you feel if you were told that your parents bought you?”

  “I guess I’d feel flattered that anyone wanted to pay money for me.”

  “But how would you feel if your birth mother, or her parents since she was young, decided to sell you months before you were born?”

  “I wouldn’t think much of them,” Willy said firmly.

  “I wouldn’t either. That’s what worries me. I mean suppose I do track down Delaney’s birth mother. Will Delaney be happy to know that as an infant she was sold like a piece of clothing or an appliance?”

  “It’s hard to guess. But if her mother was a kid herself, her parents might have thought she’d be too young to take care of a baby.”

  “Then why wouldn’t they go to a legitimate adoption agency which would screen the adoptive parents carefully?”

  “Honey, I agree with you. But on the other hand, weren’t the Wrights pretty old when they adopted Delaney? Delaney’s twenty-six now and it was just her mother’s seventy-fifth birthday. That means she was forty-nine. I know Delaney’s father is a year or two older. They’ve eased the regulations but I’ll bet that twenty-six years ago they might have been turned down by a regular adoption agency.”

  Willy took a sip of his scotch on the rocks. He never had a second one so he savored each drop carefully.

  Alvirah on the other hand sometimes enjoyed a second glass of wine.

  The evening was suddenly turning cooler. “Instead of a refill here, why don’t we go inside?” she suggested.

  As always, Willy agreed. When he was seated on his comfortable leather chair, Alvirah took her usual spot on the couch. Willy could see that she was intent on her own thoughts.

  A few minutes passed. Willy was keeping an eye on the clock to be sure to watch the six o’clock news and catch Delaney’s report on the trial.

  Then just before he reached for the remote to turn on the set Alvirah said, “Willy, I got a good look at Betsy Grant. She’s a lovely looking woman but I swear that there was something about her that . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “What about Betsy Grant?” Willy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alvirah said slowly, “but it will come to me. It always does.”

  24

  Dr. Kent Adams was the next witness. Sixty-two years old, with every strand of his thinning white hair in place, rimless glasses over mild hazel eyes, his lean frame covered with a gray pinstriped suit, he had an air of poise and confidence.

  After he was sworn in, the prosecutor began. His manner was markedly less aggressive than it had been when he questioned both Carmen and Angela.

  Adams testified that he was a surgeon who had been in partnership in an orthopedic practice with Dr. Edward Grant and Dr. Scott Clifton for many years.

  “Dr. Adams, did there come a time when you observed certain changes in Dr. Ted Grant?”

  “Unfortunately, I did. We all did.”

  “What were those changes?”

  “Ted had been an outstanding surgeon with a wonderful patient rapport. He was very caring toward all of his patients and he was always cordial and helpful to our office staff. But then there were changes. He started to become forgetful and then he became more and more irritable and impatient with all of us. These changes became more pronounced as the months went by.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Dr. Scott Clifton and I spoke with Betsy Grant and expressed our concern.”

  “What was her response?”

  “She was very upset, but not at us. She completely agreed that something was very wrong with Ted and we all decided to speak to him together.”

  “Did you do so?”

  “Yes, we did. It was very unpleasant.”

  “How so?”

  “I think it was a mixture of Ted resenting us for raising this issue with him but also a recognition on his part that we were telling him the truth and were very concerned for him.”

  “Were you also concerned for the wellbeing of his patients?”

  “Absolutely. Dr. Clifton and I knew that it had to be addressed.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “Ted reluctantly underwent a thorough series of tests, and the unfortunate outcome was a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease.”

  “What was his participation in the practice, if any, after that?”

  “He continued to come to the office on a fairly regular basis, but he did not perform surgery anymore nor was he the primary physician for any patient. As the months went on, the time he spent in the office considerably diminishe
d.”

  “Did this affect the rest of the practice?”

  “Yes, it did. With Ted no longer an active participant in the practice, it was a time for reevaluation. Dr. Clifton and I had different viewpoints of how the practice should be managed. After much discussion, I decided to leave and set up my own practice. Some of Dr. Grant’s patients came with me, and others remained with Dr. Clifton.”

  “Approximately how long ago did you split off from the practice?”

  “About seven years ago.”

  “How did that work?”

  “I opened a practice about a mile away, still in Fort Lee. Dr. Clifton stayed in the same location.”

  “Did you continue to see Dr. Ted Grant and Betsy Grant after that?”

  “Yes, I would visit them at their home.”

  “Do you know if Dr. Grant continued to stop in at the original practice where Dr. Clifton had remained?”

  “Betsy Grant told me that she still would bring him in to Dr. Clifton’s office about once every six weeks. He enjoyed chatting with the staff and just being in his old surroundings.”

  “Dr. Adams, I’m now asking you to direct your attention to March 21st of last year, the evening before Dr. Grant was found dead. Where were you on that evening?”

  “Well, Dr. Grant’s wife, Betsy, had decided to have a birthday party for him that night. My wife and I were invited.”

  The prosecutor’s following questions elicited the same information that prior witnesses had offered, including the two occasions when Dr. Grant had become extremely upset. Dr. Adams did recall that when Ted Grant had been angrily pointing at everyone during cocktails, he had been shouting something that he believed was the word “find.”

  When asked about Dr. Grant slapping Betsy that evening, he replied that Betsy Grant had been sobbing when she said, “I can’t take it anymore.” He added that it was his perception that when Ted Grant lunged across the table, he had been trying to attack Lisa Clifton.

  “Dr. Adams, I have just a couple more questions about that evening. Where was Angela Watts seated at the dinner table?”

  “It was a round table. Angela Watts was seated to the right of Ted. His son was seated on his left.”