We'll Meet Again (14 page)

On Monday afternoon, when Edna Barry arrived home from Molly’s house, her neighbor and close friend Marta came running over before she was even out of the car.

“It’s all over the news,” Marta said breathlessly. “They say Molly Lasch is being questioned by the police, and that she is a suspect in that nurse’s death.”

“Come in and have a cup of tea with me,” Edna said. “You just wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had!”

At the kitchen table, over tea and her homemade coffee cake, Edna described her shock at seeing Molly lying fully dressed under the quilt on the bed. “I thought my heart would stop. She was fast asleep, just like the last time. And when she opened her eyes, she looked all confused, and then she smiled. I tell you I got such a chill. It really was like six years ago-I almost expected to see blood on her.”

She explained how she had rushed downstairs to get that reporter, Fran Simmons, who’d shown up there first thing that morning, and Molly’s lawyer. They had made Molly sit up, then they walked her around her sitting room and made her drink several cups of coffee.

“After a while, Molly started to get some color in her cheeks, even though her eyes still had that funny vacant look in them. And then,” Edna Barry said, leaning closer to Marta, “Molly said, ‘Philip, I didn’t kill Annamarie Scalli, did I?’ ”

“No!” Marta gasped, her mouth a circle of amazement, her eyes wide behind her harlequin glasses.

“Well, let me tell you, the minute she said that, Fran Simmons took my arm and shoved me down the stairs so fast it would make your head spin. She didn’t want me to be able to report anything I might overhear to the police.”

Edna Barry did not add that Molly’s question had taken a great load of worry off her mind. Clearly Molly was mentally unstable. Nobody who wasn’t sick would kill two people and then not even know if they did it. All her secret worry about Wally had been for nothing.

Now, in the safety of her own kitchen, with her concerns about Wally removed, Edna freely dished up the events of the morning for her confidante. “We were no sooner downstairs than a couple of detectives showed up on the doorstep. They were from the state attorney’s office. Fran Simmons took them into the family room. She told them Molly was in consultation with her lawyer, but I knew he really was just trying to get her to talk some sense. They couldn’t have brought her out the way she was.”

Her mouth set in a straight line of disapproval, Edna reached across the table to the coffee cake and helped herself to a second slice. “It was a full half-hour before Molly’s lawyer came downstairs. He’s the same one who handled her trial.”

“Then what happened?” Marta asked eagerly.

“Mr. Matthews-that’s the lawyer-said that he was going to make a statement on behalf of his client. He said that Molly had met Annamarie Scalli in the diner the night before because she wished to bring closure to the terrible tragedy of her husband’s death. They were together for fifteen or twenty minutes. Annamarie Scalli left the diner while Molly paid the check. Molly went directly to her car and came home. She learned of Ms. Scalli’s death on the news and extends her sympathy to the family. Beyond that, she has no knowledge of what might have happened.”

“Edna, did you see Molly after that?”

“She came down the minute the police left. She must have been listening from the upstairs hallway.”

“How did she act?”

For the first time in this exchange, Edna showed a hint of sympathy for her employer. “Well, Molly’s always quiet, but this morning was different. She seemed almost like she wasn’t in touch with what was going on. I mean, it was like the way she wandered around after Dr. Lasch died, as though she wasn’t quite sure where she was or what had happened.

“The first thing she said to Mr. Matthews was, ‘They believe I killed her, don’t they?’ Then that Fran Simmons said to me that she’d like to talk to me in the kitchen, which was just a way of not letting me hear what they were planning.”

“So you don’t know what they talked about?” Marta asked.

“No, but I can guess. The police want to know if Molly killed that nurse.”

“Mom, is somebody being mean to Molly?”

Startled, Edna and Marta looked up to see Wally standing in the doorway.

“No, Wally, not at all,” Edna said soothingly. “Don’t you worry yourself. They’re just asking her some questions.”

“I want to
see
her. She was always
nice
to me. Dr. Lasch was
mean
to me.”

“Now, Wally, we don’t talk about that,” Edna said nervously, hoping that Marta would not read any significance into the anger in Wally’s voice, or notice the terrible scowl that distorted his features.

Wally walked over to the counter and turned his back on them. “He stopped over to see me yesterday,” Marta whispered. “He was talking about wanting to visit with Molly Lasch. Maybe you should take him over to say hello to her. It might satisfy him.”

Edna was no longer listening. Her full attention was focused on her son. She realized that Wally was fishing in her pocketbook. “What are you doing, Wally?” she asked sharply, her voice thin and high.

He turned to her and held up a key ring. “I’m just going to get Molly’s key, Mom. I promise, this time I’ll put it back.”

On Monday afternoon, waitress Gladys Fluegel willingly accompanied Detective Ed Green to the courthouse in Stamford, where she related what she had observed of the meeting between Annamarie Scalli and Molly Carpenter Lasch.

Trying to contain her pleasure at the level of deferential treatment accorded her, Gladys allowed herself to be led into the courthouse by Detective Green. There they were met by another youngish man who introduced himself as Assistant State Attorney Victor Packwell. He led them to a room with a conference table and asked Gladys if she’d like coffee or a soda or water.

“Please don’t be nervous, Ms. Fluegel. You can be a great help to us,” he assured her.

“That’s why I’m here,” Gladys responded with a smile. “Soda. Diet.”

Fifty-eight-year-old Gladys had a face that was creased with wrinkles, the result of forty years of heavy smoking. Her bright red hair showed gray roots. Thanks to her slavish devotion to on-line shopping, she was always in debt. She had never married, never had a serious boyfriend, and she lived with her contentious elderly parents.

As her thirties had yielded to her forties, and then her forties blended almost unnoticeably into her fifties, Gladys Fluegel found her outlook on life souring. Eventualities no longer seemed to hold even possibilities. She was no longer sure that someday something wonderful would happen to her. She had waited patiently for excitement to enter her life, but it never had. Until now.

She genuinely enjoyed waitressing, but over the years she had become impatient and abrupt with customers, at least on occasion. It hurt her to see couples linking hands across tables, or to watch parents having a festive night out with their kids, knowing that she had missed that kind of life.

As her resentful attitude had deepened, it had cost her a number of jobs, until finally Gladys had become a fixture at the Sea Lamp, where the food was poor and the patronage sparse. The place seemed to fit her personality.

On Sunday evening she had felt particularly edgy, due to the fact that the other regular waitress had called in sick and Gladys had been forced to cover for her.

“A woman came in sometime around 7:30,” she explained to the detectives, enjoying the feeling of importance it gave her to have these policemen pay such close attention, not to mention the clerk, who was taking down her every word.

“Describe her, please, Ms. Fluegel.” Ed Green, the young detective who had driven her to Stamford, was being very polite.

I wonder if his parents are divorced, Gladys thought. If they are, I wouldn’t mind meeting his father. “Why don’t you just call me Gladys? Everybody does.”

“If that’s what you prefer, Gladys.”

Gladys smiled, then touched her hand to her mouth as though she were thinking, trying to remember. “The woman who came in first…Let’s see…” Gladys pursed her lips. She wasn’t going to tell them that she’d been irritated at that woman because she’d insisted on a booth way in the back. “She looked like she was somewhere around thirty, she had short, dark hair, was maybe a size 14. It was hard to tell for sure. She was wearing slacks and a parka.”

She realized that they certainly knew what that woman looked like and that her name was Annamarie Scalli, but she understood also that, step by step, they needed to nail down the facts. Besides, she was enjoying all this attention.

She told them that Ms. Scalli had ordered only coffee, not even so much as a roll or a piece of cake, which of course meant that the tip wouldn’t be enough for Gladys to buy a stick of gum.

They smiled when she said that, but their smiles were benign, and she took them as encouragement.

“Then that really classy-looking lady came in, and right away you could tell there was no love lost between the two of them.”

Detective Green held up a picture. “Is this the woman who joined Annamarie Scalli?”

“Absolutely!”

“What exactly was their attitude to each other, Gladys? Think carefully-this could be important.”

“They were both nervous,” she said emphatically. “When I brought the tea to the second lady, I heard the other one call her Mrs. Lasch. I couldn’t hear what they said to each other, except little bits of talk when I brought the tea and when I tidied up a table near them.”

Gladys could tell that this information had disappointed the detectives, so she rushed to add, “But business was real slow, and since I was just moping around and there was something about those two women that made me curious, I sat on a stool at the counter and watched them. Of course, later I realized I’d seen Molly Lasch’s picture in the paper last week.”

“What did you observe going on between Molly Lasch and Annamarie Scalli?”

“Well, the dark-haired woman, I mean the one named Annamarie Scalli, started looking more and more nervous. Honest to God, it was almost like she was afraid of Molly Lasch.”

“
Afraid
, Gladys?”

“Yeah, I mean it. She wouldn’t look her in the eye, and, actually, I don’t blame her. The blonde, I mean Mrs. Lasch-well, believe me, as Annamarie Scalli talked, you should have seen the look on Mrs. Lasch’s face. Cold, like an iceberg. She sure didn’t like what she was hearing.

“Then I saw Ms. Scalli start to get up. You could tell she wanted to be a million miles away from there. So I headed over to see if they wanted anything more-you know, refills.”

“Did she say anything?” Detective Green and Assistant State Attorney Victor Packwell asked in unison.

“Let me explain,” Gladys said. “Annamarie Scalli got up. Mrs. Lasch grabbed her wrist so she couldn’t leave. Then Ms. Scalli broke away from her and rushed to get out. Practically knocked me down, she was in such a hurry.”

“What did Mrs. Lasch do?” Packwell demanded.

“She couldn’t leave fast enough either,” Gladys said firmly. “I gave her the check. It was for a dollar thirty. She tossed five dollars down and went running after Ms. Scalli.”

“Did she seem upset?” Packwell asked.

Gladys narrowed her eyes in a dramatic effort to remember and to describe Molly Lasch as she had appeared at that moment. “I would say she had a funny look on her face, kinda like she’d been punched in the gut.”

“Did you see Mrs. Lasch get in her car?”

Gladys shook her head emphatically. “No, I did not. When she opened the door leading out to the parking lot, she seemed to be talking to herself, and then I heard her call out, ‘Annamarie,’ and I figured she still had something to say to the other woman.”

“Do you know if Annamarie Scalli heard her?”

Gladys sensed that the detectives would be terribly disappointed if she said she couldn’t be sure. She hesitated. “Well, I’m pretty sure that she must have gotten her attention, because Mrs. Lasch called her name again, and then called out ‘Wait.’ ”

“She called for Annamarie to wait!”

It
was
like that, wasn’t it? Gladys asked herself. I was half expecting Mrs. Lasch to come back looking for change, but then I could tell that all she cared about was to catch up with the other woman.

Wait
.

Did Molly Lasch
say
that, or did that couple who had just taken a table call
Waitress?

Gladys saw the excitement on the detectives’ faces. She did not want this moment to end. This was part of what she had waited for. All her life. Finally it was
her
turn. She looked again at the eager faces. “What I mean is, she called Annamarie’s name twice, then when she said ‘Wait,’ I got the feeling that she’d attracted her attention. I remember thinking that Annamarie Scalli had probably waited out in the parking lot to talk to Mrs. Lasch.”

That was kind of the way it was, Gladys told herself, as the two men smiled broadly.

“Gladys, you’re very important to us,” Victor Packwell said gratefully. “I have to tell you that down the line you’ll be needed for further testimony.”

“I’m glad to help,” Gladys assured him.

Within the hour, having read and signed her statement, Gladys was on her way back to Rowayton in Detective Green’s car. The only thing that marred her happiness was Green’s response to her probing about his father’s marital status.

His parents had just celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary.

At the same time, at the courthouse in Stamford, assistant state attorney Tom Serrazzano, was appearing before a judge to request a search warrant authorizing them to search Molly Carpenter Lasch’s home and automobile.

“Judge,” Serrazzano said, “we have probable cause to believe that Molly Lasch murdered Annamarie Scalli. We believe that evidence relevant to this crime may be found in these two locations. If there are bloodstains or hairs or fibers on her clothes or on a weapon or in her car, we want to seize them before she cleans or otherwise disposes of them.”

On the drive back to New York from Greenwich, Fran systematically reviewed the events of the morning.

The media had arrived at Molly’s house in time to catch the detectives from the state attorney’s office as they were leaving. Gus Brandt had run file tape on Molly’s release from prison, as Fran did a live voice-over by phone from Molly’s house.

As the Merritt became the Hutchinson River Parkway, Fran replayed her report in her mind: “In a stunning development, it has been confirmed that the woman found stabbed to death last night in the parking lot of the Sea Lamp Diner in Rowayton, Connecticut, has been identified as Annamarie Scalli. Ms. Scalli was the so-called other woman in the Dr. Gary Lasch murder case, which was in the headlines six years ago and then again last week, when Molly Carpenter Lasch, the wife of Dr. Lasch, was released from prison where she had been serving time for killing her husband.

“Although details are sketchy at this time, the police have indicated that Mrs. Lasch was seen last evening at the Rowayton diner, apparently meeting with the murder victim.

“In a prepared statement, Lasch’s lawyer, Philip Matthews, explained that Molly Lasch had requested a meeting with Ms. Scalli to bring closure to a painful chapter in her life, and that she and Scalli had an honest and frank exchange. Annamarie Scalli left the diner first, and Molly Lasch never saw her again. She extends her sympathy to the Scalli family.”

After she’d completed the telecast, Fran had gotten in her car, planning to head immediately back to the city, but Mrs. Barry had come running out of the house to get her. Once she was inside, a grim-faced and disapproving Philip Matthews had asked her to come into the study. She had entered the room to find Molly sitting on the sofa, her hands clasped together, her shoulders drooping. The immediate impression Fran had gotten was that the jeans and blue cable-knit sweater Molly was wearing suddenly had jumped a size-she seemed so small inside them.

“Molly assures me that as soon as I leave she is going to tell you everything she told me,” Matthews had said. “As her attorney, I can only advise her. Unfortunately, I can’t compel her to take my advice. I realize Molly considers you a friend, Fran, and I believe you do care about her, but the fact is that if it came to a subpoena you might be forced to answer questions we may not want answered. It is for that reason I have advised her not to tell you the events of last night. But again, I can only advise her.”

Fran had cautioned Molly that what Philip said was absolutely true, but Molly had insisted that she wanted Fran to know what happened anyway.

“Last night I met Annamarie. We spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes,” Molly had said. “She left ahead of me, and I came home. I did not see her in the parking lot. A car was pulling out as I left the diner, and I called, thinking it might be her. Whoever was in the car, however, either didn’t hear me call or didn’t want to hear.”

Fran had asked if it was possible that it
had
been Annamarie in that car, and suggested that perhaps she might have come back to the parking lot later, but Philip pointed out that Annamarie was found in her Jeep; Molly was sure that the vehicle she saw leaving the lot was a sedan.

Having heard about their leave-taking, Fran asked Molly what she and Annamarie had talked about. On that aspect of the meeting, Fran felt that Molly had been less forthcoming. Is there something she doesn’t want me to know? she thought. If so, what was it, and why was Molly being secretive? Was Molly trying to use her somehow?

As Fran steered her car onto the Cross County Parkway, which would lead her to the West Side Highway in Manhattan, she reviewed a few other unanswered questions she had regarding Molly Lasch, among them: why did Molly go back to bed after she’d showered and dressed this morning?

A shiver of doubt ran up Fran’s spine. Was I right in the first place? she asked herself. Did Molly really kill her husband?

And perhaps the biggest question of all: Who is Molly, and what kind of
person
is she?

It was the exact question Gus Brandt tossed at Fran when she got back to her office. “Fran, this looks like it’s gonna turn into another O.J. Simpson case, and you’ve got the inside track with Molly Lasch. If she keeps knocking people off, by the time you feature her on the series, we’ll need two episodes to tell the whole story.”

“You’re convinced that Molly stabbed Annamarie Scalli?” she asked.

“Fran, we’ve been looking at the tapes of the crime scene. The driver’s window of the Jeep was open. Figure it out. Scalli heard Lasch call her and rolled it down.”

“That would have to mean Molly went to that diner having planned it all out, including carrying a knife,” Fran said.

“Maybe she couldn’t find a sculpture that would fit in her purse,” he said with a shrug.

Fran walked back to her office, her hands shoved in the pockets of her slacks. It reminded her suddenly of how her stepbrothers used to tease her about the habit. “When Franny’s hands are quiet, her brain is working overtime,” they would say.

It’s going to be the same scenario as the last time, she thought. Even if they can’t find a single shred of hard evidence to tie Molly to Annamarie Scalli’s death, it won’t matter-she’s already been judged guilty of a second murder. Only yesterday I was thinking that six years ago nobody ever bothered to look for another explanation for Gary Lasch’s death. The exact same thing is happening now.

“
Edna Barry
,” she said aloud, as she entered her office.

“Edna Barry? What about her?”

Startled, Fran turned. Tim Mason was right behind her. “Tim, I just realized something. This morning, Molly Lasch’s housekeeper, Edna Barry, came running downstairs to tell Philip Matthews and me that Molly had gone back to bed. She said,
‘Dear God, it’s just like the last time.’ ”

“What do you mean, Fran?”

“There’s something that has been bothering me. More than
what
Edna Barry said, it was
the way
she said it, Tim, like she was
glad
to find Molly that way. Why in the name of God would it please that woman to see Molly duplicate her reaction to Gary Lasch’s death?”