The Cradle Will Fall Read online

  “I’d like to take you abroad someday. But I’d show you Italy first. Now, there’s a beautiful country.”

  When he dropped her off that night he’d said, “You have the loveliest blue eyes I’ve ever had the pleasure of looking into. I don’t think a twelve-year age difference is too much, do you, Kathleen?”

  Three months later, when she was graduated from law school, they married.

  This house. John had been raised in it, had inherited it from his parents.

  “I’m pretty attached to it, Kathleen, but be sure you are. Maybe you want something smaller.”

  “John, I was raised in a three-room apartment in Queens. I slept on a daybed in the living room. ‘Privacy’ was a word I had to look up in the dictionary. I love this house.”

  “I’m glad, Kathleen.”

  They loved each other so much—but besides that, they were such good friends. She’d told him about the nightmare. “I warn you that every once in a while, I’ll wake up screaming like a banshee. It started when I was eight years old after my father died. He’d been in the hospital recovering from a heart attack and then he had a second attack. Apparently the old man in the room with him kept pressing the buzzer for the nurse, but no one came. By the time someone got around to answering the buzzer, it was too late.”

  “And then you started having nightmares.”

  “I guess I heard the story so much it made an awful impression on me. In the nightmare I’m in a hospital going from bed to bed, looking for Daddy. I keep seeing faces of people I know in the beds. They’re all asleep. Sometimes it would be girls from school, or cousins—or just anybody. But I’d be trying to find Daddy. I knew he needed me. Finally I see a nurse and run up to her and ask her where he is. And she smiles and says, ‘Oh, he’s dead. All these people are dead. You’re going to die in here too.’”

  “You poor kid.”

  “Oh, John, intellectually I know it’s nonsense not to get over it. But I swear to you I’m scared silly at the thought of ever being a patient in a hospital.”

  “I’ll help you get over that.”

  She’d been able to tell him how it really was after her father died. “I missed him so much, John. I was always such a daddy’s girl. Molly was sixteen and already going around with Bill, so I don’t think it hit her as hard. But all through school, I kept thinking what fun it would be if he were at the plays and the graduations. I used to dread the Father and Daughter Dinner every spring.”

  “Didn’t you have an uncle or someone who could have gone with you?”

  “Just one. It would have taken too long to sober him up.”

  “Oh, Kathleen!” The two of them laughing. John saying, “Well, darling, I’m going to uproot that core of sadness in you.”

  “You already have, Judge.”

  They’d spent their honeymoon traveling through Italy. The pain had begun on that trip. They’d come back in time for the opening of court. John presided on the bench in Essex County. She’d been hired to clerk for a criminal judge in Valley County.

  John went for a checkup a month after they got home. The overnight stay at Mt. Sinai stretched into three days of additional tests. Then one evening he’d been waiting for her at the elevator, impeccably elegant in the dark red velour robe, a wan smile on his face. She’d run over to him, aware as always of the glances the other elevator passengers threw at him, thinking how even in pajamas and a robe, John looked impressive. She’d been about to tell him that when he said, “We’ve got trouble, darling.”

  Even then, just the way he said, “We’ve got trouble.” In those few short months, in every way, they had become one. Back in his room he’d told her. “It’s a malignant tumor. Both lungs, apparently. And for God’s sake, Kathleen, I don’t even smoke.”

  Incredulously they had laughed together in a paroxysm of grief and irony. John Anthony DeMaio, Superior Court Judge of Essex County, Past President of the New Jersey Bar Association, not thirty-eight years old, had been condemned to an indeterminate sentence of Six Months to Life. For him there would be no parole board, no appeal.

  He’d gone back on the bench. “Die with your robes on—why not?” he’d shrugged.

  “Promise me you’ll remarry, Kathleen.”

  “Someday, but you’ll be a hard act to follow.”

  “I’m glad you think so. We’ll make every minute we have count.”

  Even in the midst of it, knowing their time was slipping away, they’d had fun.

  One day he came home from court and said, “I think that’s about it for the bench.”

  The cancer had spread. The pain got steadily worse. At first he’d go to the hospital for a few days at a time for chemotherapy. Her nightmare began again; it came regularly. But John would come home and they’d have more time. She resigned her clerkship. She wanted every minute with him.

  Toward the end, he asked, “Would you want to have your mother come up from Florida and live with you?”

  “Good Lord, no. Mama’s great, but we lived together until I went to college. That was enough. But anyhow, she loves Florida.”

  “Well, I’m glad Molly and Bill live nearby. They’ll look out for you. And you enjoy the children.”

  They’d both been silent then. Bill Kennedy was an orthopedic surgeon. He and Molly had six kids and lived two towns away in Chapin River. The day Katie and John were married, they’d bragged to Bill and Molly that they were going to beat their record. “We’ll have seven offspring,” John had declared.

  The last time he went in for chemotherapy, he didn’t come back. He was so weak they had him stay overnight. He was talking to her when he slipped into the coma. They’d both hoped that the end would come at home, but he died in the hospital that night.

  The next week Katie applied to the Prosecutor’s office for a job and was accepted. It was a good decision. The office was chronically shorthanded, and she always had more cases than she could reasonably handle. There wasn’t any time for introspection. All day, every day, even on many weekends, she’d had to concentrate on her case load.

  And in another way it was good therapy. That anger which had accompanied the grief, the sense of being cheated, the fury that John had been cheated out of so much of life, she directed into the cases she tried. When she prosecuted a serious crime, she felt as though she were tangibly fighting at least one kind of evil that destroyed lives.

  She’d kept the house. John had willed her all of his very considerable assets, but even so, she knew it was silly for a twenty-eight-year-old woman on a twenty-two-thousand-dollar salary to live in a home worth a quarter of a million dollars with five acres surrounding it.

  Molly and Bill were always urging her to sell it.

  “You’ll never put your life with John behind you until you do,” Bill had told her.

  He was probably right. Now Katie shook herself and got up from the couch. She was getting downright maudlin. She’d better call Molly. If Molly had tried to get her last night and not received an answer she’d have been delighted. She was always making a novena that Katie would “meet someone.” But she didn’t want Molly to try to reach her at the office and find out that way that she’d been in an accident.

  Maybe Molly would come over and they’d have lunch together. She had salad makings and Bloody Mary ingredients. Molly was perpetually on a diet, but would not give up her lunchtime Bloody Mary. “For God’s sake, Kate, how could anyone with six kids not have a belt at lunch?” Molly’s cheerful presence would quickly dispel the sense of isolation and sadness.

  Katie became aware of the bloodstained blouse she was wearing. After she’d talked to Molly, while she was waiting for her to come over, she’d bathe and change.

  Glancing into the mirror over the couch, she saw that the bruise under her right eye was assuming a brilliant purple color. Her naturally olive complexion, which Mama called the “Black Irish” look from her father’s side, was a sickly yellow. Her collar-length dark brown hair, which usually bounced full and luxuriant
in a natural wave, was matted against her face and neck.

  “You should see the other guy,” she murmured ruefully.

  The doctor had told her not to get her arm wet. She’d wrap the bandage in a Baggie and keep it dry. Before she could pick up the phone, it began to ring. Molly, she thought. I swear she’s a witch.

  But it was Richard Carroll, the Medical Examiner. “Katie, how are you? Just heard that you’d been in some kind of accident.”

  “Nothing much. I took a little detour off the road. The trouble is there was a tree in the way.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “About ten last night. I was on my way home from the office. I’d worked late to catch up on some files. Spent the night in the hospital and just got home. I look a mess, but I’m really okay.”

  “Who picked you up? Molly?”

  “No. She doesn’t know yet. I called a cab.”

  “Always the Lone Ranger, aren’t you?” Richard asked. “Why the blazes didn’t you call me?”

  Katie laughed. The concern in Richard’s voice was both flattering and threatening. Richard and Molly’s husband were good friends. Several times in the last six months Molly had pointedly invited Katie and Richard to small dinner parties. But Richard was so blunt and cynical. She always felt somewhat unsettled around him. Anyhow, she simply wasn’t looking to get involved with anyone, and especially anyone she worked with so frequently. “Next time I run into a tree I’ll remember,” she said.

  “You’re going to take a couple of days off, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m going to see if Molly’s free for a quick lunch; then I’ll get in to the office. I’ve got at least ten files to work on, and I’m trying an important case on Friday.”

  “There’s no use telling you you’re crazy. Okay. Gotta go. My other phone’s ringing. I’ll poke my head in your office around five-thirty and catch you for a drink.” He hung up before she could reply.

  Katie dialed Molly’s number. When her sister answered, her voice was shaken. “Katie, I guess you’ve heard about it.”

  “Heard about what?”

  “People from your office are just getting there.”

  “Getting where?”

  “Next door. The Lewises. That couple who moved in last summer. Katie, that poor man; he just came home from an overnight flight and found her—his wife, Vangie. She’s killed herself. Katie, she was six months pregnant!”

  The Lewises. The Lewises. Katie had met them at Molly and Bill’s New Year’s Day open house. Vangie a very pretty blonde. Chris an airline pilot.

  Numbly she heard Molly’s shocked voice: “Katie, why would a girl who wanted a baby so desperately kill herself?”

  The question hung in the air. Cold chills washed over Katie. That long blond hair spilling over shoulders. Her nightmare. Crazy the tricks the mind plays. As soon as Molly said the name, last night’s nightmare had come back. The face she’d glimpsed through the hospital window was Vangie Lewis’.

  ♦6♦

  Richard Carroll parked his car within the police lines on Winding Brook Lane. He was shocked to realize that the Lewises lived next door to Bill and Molly Kennedy. Bill had been a resident when Richard interned at St. Vincent’s. Later he’d specialized in forensic medicine and Bill in orthopedics. They’d been pleasantly surprised to bump into each other in the Valley County courthouse when Bill was appearing as an expert witness in a malpractice trial. The friendship that had been casual in the St. Vincent’s days had become close. Now he and Bill golfed together frequently, and Richard often stopped back to their house for a drink after the game.

  He’d met Molly’s sister, Katie DeMaio, in the Prosecutor’s office and had been immediately attracted to the dedicated young attorney. She was a throwback to the days when the Spanish invaded Ireland and left a legacy of descendants with olive skin and dark hair to contrast with the intense blue of Celtic eyes. But Katie had subtly discouraged him when he’d suggested getting together, and he’d philosophically dismissed her from his thoughts. There were plenty of mighty attractive ladies who enjoyed his company well enough.

  But hearing Molly and Bill and their kids talk about Katie, what fun she could be, how chopped up she was over her husband’s death, had rekindled his interest. Then in the past few months he’d been at a couple of parties at Bill and Molly’s and found to his chagrin that he was far more intrigued by Katie DeMaio than he wanted to be.

  Richard shrugged. He was here on police business. A thirty-year-old woman had committed suicide. It was his job to look for any medical signs which might indicate that Vangie Lewis had not taken her own life. Later today he’d perform an autopsy. His jaw tightened as he thought of the fetus she was carrying. Never had a chance. How was that for motherly love? Cordially, objectively, he already disliked the late Vangie Lewis.

  A young cop from Chapin River let him in. The living room was to the left of the foyer. A guy in an airline captain’s uniform was sitting on the couch, hunched forward, clasping and unclasping his hands. He was a lot paler than many of the deceased Richard dealt with and was trembling violently. Richard felt a brief twinge of sympathy. The husband. Some brutal kick to come home and find your wife a suicide. He decided to talk with him later. “Which way?” he asked the cop.

  “Back here.” He nodded his head to the rear of the house. “Kitchen straight ahead, bedrooms to the right. She’s in the master bedroom.”

  Richard walked quickly, absorbing as he did the feel of the house. Expensive, but carelessly furnished, without flair or even interest. The glimpse of the living room had shown him the typical no-imagination interior-designer look you see in so many Main Street decorator shops in small towns. Richard had an acute sense of color. Privately he thought it helped him considerably in his work. But clashing shades registered on his consciousness like the sound of discordant notes.

  Charley Nugent, the detective in charge of the Homicide Squad, was in the kitchen. The two men exchanged brief nods. “How does it look?” Richard asked.

  “Let’s talk after you see her.”

  In death Vangie Lewis was not a pretty sight. The long blond hair seemed a muddy brown now; her face was contorted; her legs and arms, stiff with the onslaught of rigor mortis, had the appearance of being stretched on wires. Her coat was buttoned and, because of her pregnancy, hiked over her knees. The soles of her shoes were barely showing under a long flowered caftan.

  Richard pulled the caftan up past her ankles. Her legs, obviously swollen, had stretched the panty hose. The sides of her right shoe bit into the flesh.

  Expertly he picked up one arm, held it for an instant, let it drop. He studied the mottled discoloration around her mouth where the poison had burned it.

  Charley was beside him. “How long you figure?”

  “Anywhere from twelve to fifteen hours, I’d guess. She’s pretty rigid.” Richard’s voice was noncommittal, but his sense of harmony was disturbed. The coat on. Shoes on. Had she just come home, or had she been planning to go out? What had suddenly made her take her own life? The tumbler was beside her on the bed. Bending down, he sniffed it. The unmistakable bitter-almond scent of cyanide entered his nostrils. Incredible how many suicides took cyanide ever since that Jones-cult mess in Guyana. He straightened up. “Did she leave a note?”

  Charley shook his head. Richard thought that Charley was in the right job. He always looked mournful; his lids drooped sadly over his eyes. He seemed to have a perpetual dandruff problem. “No letters; no nothing. Been married ten years to the pilot; he’s the guy in the living room. Seems pretty broken up. They’re from Minneapolis; just moved east less than a year ago. She always wanted to have a baby. Finally got pregnant and was in heaven. Started decorating a nursery; talks baby morning, noon and night.”

  “Then she kills it and herself?”

  “According to her husband, she’d been nervous lately. Some days she had some sort of fixation that she was going to lose the baby. Other times she’d act sca
red about giving birth. Apparently knew she was showing some signs of a toxic pregnancy.”

  “And rather than give birth or face losing the baby, she kills herself?” Richard’s tone was skeptical. He could tell Charley wasn’t buying it either. “Is Phil with you?” he asked. Phil was the other senior member of the Homicide team from the Prosecutor’s office.

  “He’s out around the neighborhood talking to people.”

  “Who found her?”

  “The husband. He just got in from a flight. Called for an ambulance. Called the local cops.”

  Richard stared at the burn marks around Vangie Lewis’ mouth. “She must have really splashed that in,” he said meditatively, “or maybe tried to spit it out but it was too late. Can we talk to the husband, bring him in here?”

  “Sure.” Charley nodded to the young cop, who turned and scampered down the long hallway.

  When Christopher Lewis came into the bedroom, he looked as though he were on the verge of getting sick. His complexion was now a sickly green. Perspiration, cold and clammy, beaded on his forehead. He had pulled open his shirt and tie. His hands were shoved into his pockets.

  Richard studied him appraisingly. Lewis looked distraught, sick, nervous. But there was something missing. He did not look like a man whose life has been shattered.

  Richard had seen death countless times. He’d witnessed some next of kin grieving in dumbstruck silence. Others shrieked hysterically, screamed, wept, threw themselves on the deceased. Some touched the dead hand, trying to understand. He thought of the young husband whose wife had been caught in a shoot-out while they were getting out of their car to do the grocery shopping. When Richard got there, he was holding the body, bewildered, talking to her, trying to get through to her.

  That was grief.

  Whatever emotion Christopher Lewis was experiencing now, Richard would stake his life on the fact that he was not a heartbroken husband.

  Charley was questioning him. “Captain Lewis, this is tough for you, but it will make it easier all around if we can ask you some questions.”