As Time Goes By Page 10

  “Where was Mrs. Betsy Grant seated?”

  “Next to Angela on her left and to me on her right.”

  “Thank you, Doctor, I have no further questions.”

  I can see what he’s driving at, Delaney thought. Betsy could have slipped something into Angela Watts’ drink to make her sick. But if she were planning to kill her husband, why would she have invited people to dinner that night? But maybe the prosecutor is right. Maybe getting assaulted really did, finally, push her over the edge.

  Robert Maynard then stood up. “Your Honor, I have just a few questions. Dr. Adams, would you say that Betsy Grant was always trying to do something to make Ted happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “As his health began to steadily decline, would you please describe how she took care of him?”

  “She was always concerned and always devoted to him. She was heartbroken by his illness, particularly because for a long time he realized that he was failing. He had been a wonderful husband and an outstanding doctor. But eventually he became completely dependent on Betsy and his caregiver.”

  “You have testified that when you were at the dinner party that evening, he assaulted her and that she stated ‘I can’t take it anymore.’ Did you ever hear her threaten to hurt him in any way?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “How did you regard her comment that night?”

  “I was so sorry for her. She just seemed weary. She had just been hit very hard. I think she said what anyone would have said under those circumstances.”

  Prosecutor Holmes grimaced as Robert Maynard said, “No further questions.”

  Dr. Scott Clifton was the next witness. His testimony was virtually identical to that of Dr. Kent Adams but it was clear that he was much more reserved and less empathetic in his tone and in his demeanor when he spoke about Betsy. He also stated that he had been very focused on Ted Grant and getting him calmed down and had not taken any notice of the mortar and pestle set. He could not say whether the pestle had been there or not.

  When Dr. Clifton was finished, the judge released the jurors until the following Tuesday morning.

  25

  Alvirah continued on her determined hunt to trace Delaney’s birth mother. “Step two,” she told Willy as they drove to Oyster Bay on the North Shore of Long Island. “I want to get a good look at the house where Delaney was raised,” she said, speaking over the voice of the navigation system.

  “That was ‘turn right in five hundred feet.’ ” Willy hoped he was right, as he tried to concentrate on directions in the unfamiliar area.

  He made the turn and could see the map depicting a straight line for at least a mile even as the mechanical voice said, “One mile to right turn.”

  “I mean this is a lovely area,” Alvirah said admiringly. “Remember years ago I was offered a Monday-to-Friday cleaning job in a house in Oyster Bay, but it was too inconvenient to get there without a car and you needed our car to get around to your jobs.”

  “I remember, honey,” Willy confirmed. “In those days I never would have believed that we would ever win the lottery.”

  “Neither would I,” Alvirah sighed as she visualized her days as a cleaning woman, vacuuming and dusting and dragging heavy sheets and towels down the stairs to basement laundry rooms.

  The last turn was to Shady Nook Lane. It was a dead end street with homes on an acre or more of property. The trees were still rich with leaves, and azaleas and chrysanthemums lined the driveways. Several of the houses were handsome brick-and-stucco Tudors, others very large manor-type dwellings with front porches.

  Willy had been watching the mailboxes for numbers. “It’s this one,” he said as he slowed down and stopped in front of a long two-story residence.

  “That house reminds me of Mount Vernon,” Alvirah said approvingly. Then she added, “You can tell it’s not occupied because there are no curtains. But Delaney told me that it was just sold, so I guess the new people will be moving in soon.”

  “I would guess that Delaney was lucky to be adopted by people like the Wrights,” Willy observed. “With that kind of private adoption it was hit or miss as to the kind of parents she was given.”

  “I agree, and now let’s go talk to Delaney’s old nanny. We’re lucky that she still lives on the Island.”

  Thirty minutes later they were parking in front of a ranch-style house in Levittown, a community built after World War II for returning veterans.

  Bridget O’Keefe, Delaney’s former nanny, opened the door herself. A vigorous-looking seventy-eight-year-old with a pear shape and short white hair, she greeted them with hearty warmth and invited them into her living room, where a tray with cups and a plate of cookies was on the coffee table. “It’s always nice to have a cup of tea,” she announced. “You settle yourselves and I’ll be right back.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen.

  “No wonder Delaney liked her so much,” Willy whispered.

  Bridget returned a few minutes later carrying a teapot with steam wafting from the spigot. “I don’t have any use for those teabags,” she announced, “and when you make real tea you can always read your fortune in the leaves.”

  When she had poured the tea and passed the creamer, sugar and cookies, she went directly to the point. “You are trying to trace Delaney’s birth mother.” It was not a question but a statement.

  “That’s right,” Alvirah confirmed. “We did manage to find a woman who lived next to the midwife but she has no idea where she is now.” Deliberately she did not mention that the midwife was selling the babies she had delivered.

  “I started working for the Wrights the day they brought Delaney home,” she said. “You couldn’t have seen a more beautiful newborn. Most of them aren’t that attractive until they fill out but she was beautiful with those gorgeous brown eyes and ivory skin.”

  “What did they tell you about her background?”

  “Mrs. Wright’s friend, Victoria Carney, who had arranged the adoption, had told Mrs. Wright that the mother was very young and that she was of Irish descent on both sides of the family.”

  “You never knew more than that about her real mother?”

  “Never. I don’t think the Wrights knew more than that either. But from the time she was three years old and knew she had been adopted, Delaney started daydreaming about her mother.”

  “Yes, that’s pretty much what she told us,” Alvirah said. “What about the friend who helped arrange the adoption?”

  “Victoria Carney was a very nice lady. She died when Delaney was ten years old. I know the Wrights felt terrible about that.”

  “That’s what Delaney told us. She got in touch with Victoria Carney’s niece, but she said that her aunt never talked about any details of Delaney’s birth and that she had gotten rid of any papers she had when her aunt died.

  “We knew that much,” Alvirah continued, a trace of defeat in her voice, “and we know that she expressed concern over the midwife who arranged the adoption. Is there anyone else you can think of we may talk to who might have some information about Delaney’s background?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that ever since you called me,” Bridget said. She put down her teacup and walked over to the upright desk in the corner of the room. From a drawer she took out a picture. “I dug this out. I wasn’t sure I’d kept it. One day Miss Carney came to the house. She asked me to take a picture of her and her friend Edith Howell, who’d come with her, with Delaney. She told me she had bragged so much to Miss Howell about how beautiful Delaney was, that Miss Howell wanted to take a picture with her.

  “Anyway, I took the pictures with Miss Carney’s camera, one of Miss Carney holding Delaney and one of Miss Howell holding her. She was nice enough to send me a copy of both pictures. She wrote on the back of them.”

  Eagerly Alvirah reached for the pictures. On the back of one was written, “Delaney and I,” and the date; on the other, “Delaney, Edith Howell and I.”

  The other woman
was obviously much younger than Victoria Carney.

  “Have you any idea where Edith Howell lived?” Alvirah asked.

  “I only know she was Miss Carney’s neighbor in Westbury,” Bridget said. “I looked her up in the phone book. If it’s the same Edith Howell, she still lives there.”

  It was a slim lead to follow, Alvirah thought with resignation. But if Edith Howell was a neighbor of Victoria Carney, there was always the hope that over a cup of tea or a glass of wine Victoria had confided something about the adoption to her.

  She thanked Bridget O’Keefe profusely, then on the way out paused and stopped. “Bridget, you speak to Delaney regularly, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Please don’t tell her about Victoria Carney’s neighbor yet. I mean if she hears about her, she’ll get her hopes up and then be so disappointed if it doesn’t amount to anything.”

  Bridget made the promise, then laughed. “When we were kids and promised something, we would say, ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ ”

  When they were back in the car, Willy said, “Honey, why not just call this lady now and see if we could drop in for a few minutes?”

  “I thought about that,” Alvirah said, “but I decided it wasn’t a good idea. You just heard Bridget say that my call jogged her memory. If I get to talk to Edith Howell, I want to give her time to jog her memory after I tell her why I’m calling.”

  “That makes sense,” Willy said even as he noted that the westbound traffic was already thickening. Resigning himself to a long drive home, he turned on the radio and learned there was a traffic accident on the westbound Long Island Expressway and to expect heavy delays.

  26

  After discussing on the phone the fact that they both liked northern Italian cooking, Jon and Delaney met at Primola’s restaurant. It was only their third date but Delaney realized how totally comfortable she was with Jon.

  She asked him how the investigation into the drug dealers was going.

  “I paid a visit to Lucas Harwin, the father,” he said. “I told him that I was conducting an investigation for the Washington Post about a drug ring in Washington, New York and New Jersey that we believe is selling prescription pills to high-end people. He assured me that he would keep that confidential.”

  “How was the father when you talked with him?”

  “If you ever wanted to see the face of grief, he was the one to look at. His wife was there. Of the two she seems to be bearing up better, although that isn’t saying much. Steven was an only child.

  “She told me that she had so looked forward to having grandchildren someday and now it would never happen. She said the overdose didn’t just kill Steven, but also the next generation and the ones after that.”

  “Did Lucas Harwin have any idea where their son might have gotten the pills?”

  “Well, as he said in that statement, these were not the kind you can ordinarily get on the street corners. He almost certainly had a prescription, but the ones that were found in his apartment were in medicine bottles without labels. That suggests that the pharmacy he went to knew enough to keep its name off the bottle. The police are undoubtedly checking Steven’s cell phone to see if they can trace any calls to or from a doctor or pharmacist. The Harwin interview will be my first column in the Washington Post and will come out tomorrow. It will focus on Steven’s life and the impact of his loss on his family, but of course, it’s not going to reveal our investigation.”

  “What then?”

  Jon lowered his voice. “I’m going to start going to a couple of those clubs where some minor-league celebrities are known to go.”

  “Celebrities who use drugs?”

  “Exactly. The word gets around among the upscale users. Some of them are names you would recognize but not the kind who go somewhere with an entourage of bodyguards. I’ll try to get on a friendly basis with one or a couple of them in that group and see what happens.”

  As the waiter cleared their dishes, Jon asked, “As much as I could, I’ve watched your coverage of the Betsy Grant trial on television. Of course, you were objective, but what are your thoughts about her now?”

  Delaney paused, then looked directly at him. “It’s like watching a coffin being nailed shut with her in it. The testimony sounds so devastating, every word of it. I mean her outburst after Ted Grant slapped her hard. The caregiver suddenly taking ill. The security system being on. Then Professor Peter Benson, the boyfriend. She had dinner with him the night before her husband’s birthday gathering.”

  “Is there any chance that he might have done it?”

  “Zero. He can absolutely confirm that he was in Chicago at the time of the murder. He was meeting with professors he was recruiting for positions at Franklin.”

  “From what you tell me, it doesn’t sound as though it’s going well for Betsy Grant.”

  “It isn’t. But Jon, if you were to see her, she’s so pretty. She’s forty-three but she doesn’t look it. She’s very slender and sitting next to that big hot-shot lawyer of hers, she looks so—” Delaney paused. “What is the word I’m looking for? I know, so vulnerable. My heart aches for her.”

  “I read that she was a history teacher at a high school in New Jersey.”

  “Pascack Valley. I phoned the principal there. Her name is Jeanne Cohen. She told me in no uncertain terms that Betsy Grant was a marvelous teacher, that the students loved her, and that she was loved by the other teachers and the parents. Cohen said that Betsy had taken a leave of absence to care for her husband about two years before he died. She was adamant that Betsy Grant would no more have taken another life, especially the life of the husband she loved dearly, than the sky would fall on top of all of us.”

  “Pretty vehement,” Jon observed.

  “And Jon, I don’t think that Robert Maynard is passionate about her defense. For example, if she had killed Dr. Grant, and I say ‘if,’ why would it be a blow to the back of the head? From all accounts he was given extra sedation after he made such a scene at dinner. Supposedly, she goes to his bedroom, manages to get him in a sitting position, hits him with the pestle on the back of his head, and then just goes back to bed? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Delaney, it sounds as if you should be Betsy Grant’s lawyer.”

  “I only wish I could be. There’s a little problem though. I don’t have a law degree. But I do think I could do a better job.”

  They both smiled, then Jon said, “Delaney, do you remember what I said last week about ‘love at first sight’?”

  “I’m sure that it’s little more than hyperbole. But it’s a good line.”

  “Actually not, but probably much too soon to have said it. I mean I wish I had waited a month or two.”

  Delaney laughed. “That line gets better and better.” For a brief moment the images of the men she had dated since college ran through her mind. A couple of them had been mildly interesting, but not enough to go deeper into any steady kind of dating.

  “It’s not a line,” Jon said, “but we’ll leave it at that.”

  For a long moment they looked across the table at each other. Then Jon reached over and for a brief moment touched the hand Delaney had unconsciously reached out to him.

  27

  Alan Grant often did the nightclub scene in SoHo with his buddy Mike Carroll. They had grown up together in Ridgewood and had much in common. Mike was also divorced and that had “freed him from bondage” as he liked to put it.

  Like Alan, he lived on the west side of Manhattan near Lincoln Center. Unlike Alan, he was a partner in an engineering firm, and even after supporting his ex-wife and two children, he was able to live comfortably.

  A ruddy-faced, slightly overweight thirty-seven-year-old, his quick humor and winning smile made it easy for him to pick up women at bars. As he had joked to Alan, “You look classy; I look sexy. Way to go.”

  But friends though they were, Mike had been upset when he read in the Post that Alan had received a one-hundred
-fifty-thousand-dollar disbursement three months ago. When they met, Mike immediately pulled a folded sheet of paper from his wallet. “Pay-up time, buddy,” he said cheerfully but firmly.

  Alan’s eyes widened as he saw the total amount of the loans and interest, sixty thousand dollars. “I didn’t know it had piled up so much,” he said.

  “It sure has,” Mike said. “Don’t forget you’ve been underwater for years. I helped bail you out. And you promised to pay me back as soon as you got any of your father’s money.”

  Alan’s sense of euphoria after receiving the check from the estate was rapidly receding. Why did that have to come up at the trial? he asked himself. After reading the Post’s article about how much he had received, Justin’s mother had immediately called him and demanded back child support. His ex-wife Carly had phoned the same day. She had seen it too.

  When he received the disbursement, he had paid Carly the arrears of fifty thousand dollars, but he had not paid her in the three months since then. He had just paid Justin’s mother eight thousand dollars in arrears. Besides that, he was behind on the bank loan and on his condo maintenance and had bills all over the place. After his personal expenses of the last three months and now paying off Mike, he’d have a measly ten thousand dollars left to live on. And he didn’t know if it would be weeks or months after the trial before he could get the rest of his money.

  I’ll have to find more jobs, he thought, as he wrote out a sixty-thousand-dollar check to Mike and shoved it down the bar to him. Not that many magazines were offering to hire him. He knew his reputation in the business was that he was very good but unreliable.

  “It looks to me like your stepmother is going to get convicted,” Mike said as he signaled the bartender for a refill. “I read in the paper that she had a boyfriend. That sure won’t help her any. Did you know about him?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Alan said vehemently. “I mean she was always doing the sweet, loving wife routine with Dad. Then she goes out and was probably having a fling with the guy. When I found that out, I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.”