The Second Time Around Read online

  “Did Dr. Broderick tell anyone else about the records being collected?” Ken asked.

  “He said something about talking to the investigators. Since he volunteered to tell me, I would say no.” I realized that I had not directly asked that question of Dr. Broderick.

  “Probably the U.S. Attorney’s Office was up to see him.” Don closed his notebook as he spoke. “They’re the ones trying to trace the money, but my guess is that it’s in a numbered Swiss bank account.”

  “Is that where they think he was planning to end up?” I asked.

  “Hard to say. There are other places that welcome people with big bucks, no questions asked. Spencer liked Europe and spoke fluent French and German, so he wouldn’t have a hard time adjusting wherever he chose to settle.”

  I thought of what Nick said about his son, Jack: “He means the world to me.” How did he reconcile abandoning his son by leaving this country and then not being able to return unless he wanted to end up in prison? I threw that issue on the table, but neither Don nor Ken saw it as a conflict.

  “With the amount of money he took, the kid can hop on a private plane and visit Daddy anytime. I can give you a list of people who can’t come back here but are real family men. Besides, how often would he have seen the kid if he was in the slammer?”

  “There’s still an unknown,” I pointed out. “Lynn. If she’s to be believed, she had no part in his scheme. Was he planning to leave her high and dry when he took off? Somehow I don’t see her living a life in exile. She has wormed her way into being part of the chic crowd in New York. She claims she now has virtually no money.”

  “What is no money to people like Lynn Spencer is probably a lot different from what the three of us consider no money,” Don said dryly as he stood up.

  “One more thing,” I said quickly. “That’s exactly the point I’d like to touch on in this story. I’ve gone over the press coverage about corporate failures, and the emphasis always seems to be on how lavishly the guy who was taking the money was living, usually with planes and boats and a half-dozen homes. We don’t have that kind of story. Whatever Nick Spencer did with the money isn’t visible to us. Instead, I want to interview the little people, including the guy who has been indicted for setting the fire. Even if he’s guilty, which I doubt, he was frantic because his little girl is dying of cancer and he’s going to lose his home.”

  “What makes you think he isn’t guilty?” Don asked. “It looks like a slam-dunk case to me.”

  “I saw him at the stockholders’ meeting. I was practically shoulder to shoulder with him when he had that outburst.”

  “Which lasted how long?” Don raised one eyebrow, a trick I’ve always envied.

  “For about two minutes, if that,” I admitted. “But whether or not he set that fire, he’s certainly an example of what’s happening to the real victims as Gen-stone goes bankrupt.”

  “Talk to some of them. See what you come up with,” Ken agreed. “Okay, let’s all get busy.”

  I went back to my cubicle and went through the file I had on Spencer. After the crash, quotes had been given to newspapers by people close to him at Gen-stone. The one from Vivian Powers, his secretary of six years, had praised him to the skies. I put in a call to her at the Pleasantville office and kept my fingers crossed that she was at work.

  She took my call. She sounded young, but told me firmly that she would not be able to agree to an interview either by phone or in person. I jumped in before she could hang up. “I’m part of a team at Wall Street Weekly writing a cover story on Nicholas Spencer,” I said. “I’ll be honest. I’d like to put in something positive about him, but people are so angry about losing their money that it’s going to be a very negative portrait. At the time of his death you spoke very kindly of him. I guess you’ve changed your mind, too.”

  “I will never believe Nicholas Spencer took a dime for himself,” she said heatedly. Then her voice broke. “He was a wonderful person,” she finished, almost in a whisper, “and that is my quote.”

  I had the sense that Vivian Powers was afraid of being overheard. “Tomorrow is Saturday,” I said hastily. “I could come to your home or meet you anywhere you want.”

  “No, not tomorrow. I’ll have to think about it.” There was a click in my ear and the line went dead. What did she mean that Spencer wouldn’t take any money for himself? I wondered.

  Maybe not tomorrow, but we’re going to talk, Ms. Powers, I vowed. We are going to talk.

  SIXTEEN

  When Annie was alive, she wouldn’t let him have a drink because she said it interfered with his medicine. But on the way home from Greenwood Lake yesterday, Ned had stopped at a liquor store and bought bottles of bourbon, scotch, and rye. He hadn’t taken his medicine since Annie died, so maybe she wouldn’t be mad at him for drinking now. “I need to sleep, Annie,” he explained when he opened the first bottle. “It will help me to sleep.”

  It did help. He had fallen asleep sitting in the chair, but then something happened. Ned couldn’t tell whether he was dreaming or remembering about the night of the fire. He was standing in that clump of trees with the can of gas when a shadow came from the side of the house and rushed down the driveway.

  It was so windy, and the branches of the trees kept moving and swaying. He had thought at first that was what caused the shadow. . . . But now the shadow had become the figure of a man, and in his dream he sometimes thought he could even see a face.

  Was it like his dreams about Annie, the ones that were so real he could even smell the peach body lotion she wore?

  It had to be that, he decided. Because it was just a dream, wasn’t it?

  At five o’clock, just as the first light of dawn was pushing past the shade, Ned got up. His body ached from having fallen asleep in the chair, but even worse was the ache in his heart. He wanted Annie. He needed her—but she was gone. He went across the room and got his rifle. All these years he’d kept it hidden behind a pile of junk in their half of the garage. He sat down again, his hands wrapped tightly around the barrel.

  The rifle would bring him to Annie. When he was finished with those people, the ones who had caused her to die, he would go to her. He would join her.

  Then suddenly he flashed on last night. The face in the driveway at Bedford. Had he seen it or dreamed it?

  He lay down and tried to fall asleep again, but he couldn’t. The burn on his hand was getting messy, and it hurt a lot. He couldn’t go to the emergency room of the hospital. He’d heard on the radio that the guy they arrested for the fire had a burn on his hand.

  He was lucky he had met Dr. Ryan in the hospital lobby. If he had gone to the emergency room, someone might have reported him to the police. And they would have found out that last summer he had worked for the landscaper who took care of the grounds at the Bedford house. But he had lost the prescription Dr. Ryan gave him.

  Maybe if he put butter on his hand it would feel better. That’s what his mother had done once when she burned her hand lighting a cigarette from the stove.

  Could he ask Dr. Ryan for another prescription? Maybe he could phone him.

  Or would that merely remind Dr. Ryan that hours after the fire in Bedford Ned had showed him a burned hand?

  He couldn’t make up his mind what to do.

  SEVENTEEN

  I had cut out all the stories about Nick Spencer in the Caspien Town Journal. After I spoke to Vivian Powers, I went through them and found the picture of the dais at the Distinguished Citizen Award dinner on February 15, at which he’d been honored. The caption listed all the people who were sitting at the table with him.

  They included the chairman of the board of directors of Caspien Hospital, the mayor of Caspien, a state senator, a clergyman, and several men and women who were undoubtedly prominent citizens in the area, the kind of people trotted out regularly for fund-raising dinners.

  I jotted down their names and looked up their phone numbers. What I specifically wanted was to find the person in C
aspien whom Nick Spencer had gone to see after he left Dr. Broderick the next morning. It was a slim possibility, but maybe, just maybe, it was one of those people on the dais with him. For the present I skipped calling the mayor, the state senator, or the chairman of the board of the hospital. Instead I hoped to get one of the women who’d been there.

  According to Dr. Broderick, Spencer had returned unexpectedly to Caspien that morning and had been upset that his father’s early records were missing. I always try to put myself in the shoes of someone I’m trying to understand. If I had been in Nick’s shoes and had nothing to hide, I would have driven straight to my office and started an investigation.

  Last night, after I got back home from dinner with Casey, I changed into my favorite nightshirt, got into bed, propped pillows against the headboard, and spread out on the bed all the articles in the voluminous file I had on Nick. I’m a pretty good speed reader, but no matter how many articles I read, I never saw a single reference to the fact that he had left the notes of his father’s early experiments with Dr. Broderick in Caspien.

  It stands to reason that kind of information would be known by only a very few people. But if Dr. Celtavini and Dr. Kendall were to be believed, they were not aware the old notes existed, and the man with the reddish brown hair was not a regular messenger for the company.

  But why would someone outside the company know about Dr. Spencer’s records, and, even more puzzling, why would he want them?

  I made three phone calls and left messages. The only person I connected with was the Reverend Howell, the Presbyterian minister who had given the invocation at the fund-raiser. He was cordial but said he did not have much conversation with Nick Spencer that evening. “I congratulated him on receiving the award, of course, Miss DeCarlo. Then, like everyone else, I was saddened and dismayed to learn of his alleged misdeeds and also to learn that the hospital suffered a heavy financial loss because of having invested so much of its portfolio in his company.”

  “Reverend, at most of these dinners, between courses, people get up and move around,” I said. “Did you happen to notice if Nicholas Spencer spoke to any one person in particular?”

  “I did not, but I can make inquiries if you like.”

  * * *

  My investigation wasn’t going very far. I called the hospital and was told that Lynn had checked out.

  According to the morning papers, Marty Bikorsky had been indicted for arson and reckless endangerment and released on bail. He was listed in the White Plains phone book. I dialed his number. The answering machine was on, and I left a message. “I’m Carley DeCarlo from Wall Street Weekly. I saw you at the stockholders’ meeting, and you absolutely did not strike me as the kind of man who would set fire to someone’s home. I hope you will call me. If I can, I’d like to help you.”

  My phone rang almost as soon as I hung up. “I’m Marty Bikorsky.” His voice was both weary and strained. “I don’t think anyone can help me, but you’re welcome to try.”

  An hour and a half later I was parking in front of his house, a well-kept older split-level. An American flag flew from a pole on the lawn. The capricious April weather was continuing to play games. Yesterday the temperature had hit 70 degrees. Today it was down to 58 and windy. I could have used a sweater under my light spring jacket.

  Bikorsky must have been watching for me, because the door opened before I could ring the bell. I looked into his face, and my instant reaction was to think, That poor guy. The expression in his eyes was so defeated and tired that I ached for him. But he made a conscious effort to square his slumping shoulders and managed to muster a faint smile.

  “Come in, Ms. DeCarlo. I’m Marty Bikorsky.” He started to extend his hand but then pulled it back. It was heavily bandaged. I knew he’d claimed that he burned it on the stove.

  The narrow entrance vestibule led straight back to the kitchen. The living room was directly to the right of the door. He said, “My wife made fresh coffee. If you’d like some, we could sit at the table.”

  “That would be very nice.”

  I followed him back into the kitchen where a woman with her back to us was taking a coffee cake out of the oven. “Rhoda, this is Ms. DeCarlo.”

  “Please call me Carley,” I said. “Actually it’s Marcia, but in school the kids started calling me Carley, and it stuck.”

  Rhoda Bikorsky was about my age, a couple of inches taller than I am, a shapely size twelve with long dark blond hair and brilliant blue eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, and I wondered if she had natural high color or if the emotional upheaval in her life was taking a toll on her health.

  Like her husband, she was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. She smiled briefly, said, “I wish someone had figured out a nickname for Rhoda,” and shook hands. The kitchen was spotless and cozy. The table and chairs were Early American style, and the brick-patterned floor covering was the kind we had had in our kitchen when I was a kid.

  At Rhoda’s invitation I went to the table and sat down, said, “Yes, thank you,” to the coffee, and willingly reached for a slice of the cake. From where I was sitting, I could look out a bay window into a small backyard. An outdoor gym with a swing and a seesaw gave evidence of the presence of a child in the family.

  Rhoda Bikorsky saw what I was observing. “Marty built that set himself for Maggie.” She sat down across from me. “Carley, I’m going to be straight with you. You don’t know us. You’re a reporter. You’re here because you told Marty you’d like to help us. I have a very simple question for you: Why would you want to help us?”

  “I was at the stockholders’ meeting. My reaction to your husband’s outburst was that he was a distraught father, not a vengeful man.”

  Her face softened. “Then you know more about him than the arson squad does. If I had known what they were fishing for, I never would have talked about the way Marty has insomnia and gets up in the middle of the night to go outside for a cigarette.”

  “You’re always after me to give them up,” Bikorsky said wryly. “I should have listened to you, Rhod.”

  “From what I’ve read, you went directly from the stockholders’ meeting to work at the service station. Is that right?” I asked.

  He nodded. “My hours were three to eleven this week. I was late, but one of the guys was covering for me. I was still so charged up that I went out after work for a couple of beers before I came home.”

  “Is it true that in the bar you said something about setting a torch to the Spencer house?”

  He grimaced and shook his head. “Look, I’m not going to tell you I wasn’t upset at losing all that money. I’m still upset about it. This is our home, and we have to list it for sale. But I’d no more burn someone’s house down than I’d set fire to this house. I’m all talk.”

  “You can say that again!” Rhoda Bikorsky squeezed her husband’s arm, then put her hand under his chin. “This is going to get straightened out, Marty.”

  He was telling the truth. I was sure of it. All the evidence against him was circumstantial. “You went out for a cigarette around two o’clock Tuesday morning?”

  “That’s right. It’s a lousy habit, but when I wake up and know I can’t get back to sleep, a couple of cigarettes calm me down.”

  I happened to glance out the window and noticed how windy it had become. It reminded me of something. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Monday night into Tuesday morning was blustery and cold. Did you just sit outside?”

  He hesitated. “No, I sat in the car.”

  “In the garage?”

  “It was in the driveway. I turned the engine on.”

  He and Rhoda exchanged glances. She was giving him a clear warning not to say anymore. The phone rang. I could tell he was glad to have an excuse to leave the table. When he came back, his face was grim. “Carley, that was my lawyer. He hit the ceiling that I let you come up. He told me I can’t say another word.”

  “Daddy, are you mad?”

  A security blanket trailing behind her, a
little girl about four years old had come into the kitchen. She had her mother’s long blond hair and blue eyes, but her complexion was chalky. Everything about her seemed so fragile that I could only think of the exquisite porcelain dolls I’d seen once in a doll museum.

  Bikorsky bent down and picked her up. “I’m not mad, baby. Did you have a nice nap?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He turned to me. “Carley, this is our Maggie.”

  “Daddy, you’re supposed to say that I’m your treasure, Maggie.”

  He pretended to be horrified. “How could I forget? Carley, this is our treasure, Maggie, and Maggie, this is Carley.”

  I took the small hand she extended. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Carley,” she said. Her smile was wistful.

  I hoped the tears wouldn’t well in my eyes. It was obvious that she was very, very sick. “Hello, Maggie. I’m very pleased to meet you, too.”

  “Why don’t I make some cocoa for you while Mommy says good-bye to Carley?” Marty suggested.

  She patted his bandaged hand. “Promise you won’t burn your hand again when you make the cocoa, Daddy?”

  “I promise, Princess.” He looked at me. “You can print that if you want, Carley.”

  “I intend to,” I said quietly.

  Rhoda walked me to the door. “Maggie has a brain tumor. You know what the doctors told us three months ago? They said take her home and enjoy her. Don’t put her through any chemo or radiation, and don’t let yourself be talked into any crazy treatments by charlatans, because they won’t work. They said that Maggie won’t be here next Christmas.” The color in her cheeks deepened. “Carley, I’m going to tell you something. When you’re storming heaven morning, noon, and night the way Marty and I are, praying that God will spare your only child, you don’t outrage Him by burning down someone else’s home.”

  She bit her lip to stifle a sob. “I talked Marty into getting that second mortgage. Last year I went to the hospice at St. Ann’s to see a friend who was dying. Nicholas Spencer was a volunteer there. That’s where I met him. He told me about the vaccine he was developing and that he was sure it would cure cancer. That’s when I persuaded Marty to put all our money into his company.”