Let Me Call You Sweetheart Page 9

  Beth’s question yanked him back to the present. She was referring to one aspect of the case that had never come out in court. Just prior to Suzanne Reardon’s death. Skip and Beth had started to see each other again. A few weeks earlier, they had bumped into each other, and Skip had insisted on taking her to lunch. They had ended up talking for hours, and he had confessed to her how unhappy he was and how much he regretted their breakup. “I made a stupid mistake,” he had told her, “but for what it’s worth, it’s not going to last much longer. I’ve been married to Suzanne for four years, and for at least three of them I’ve been wondering how I ever let you go.”

  On the night Suzanne died, Beth and Skip were scheduled to have dinner together. She had had to cancel at the last minute, however, and it was then that Skip had gone home to find Suzanne arranging the roses.

  At the time of the trial, Geoff had agreed with Skip’s chief counsel, Tim Farrell, that to put Beth on the stand was a double-edged sword. The prosecution no doubt would try to make it seem that in addition to avoiding the expense of a divorce, Skip Reardon had another compelling reason for killing his wife.

  On the other hand, Beth’s testimony might have been effective in dispelling Dr. Smith’s contention that Skip was insanely jealous of Suzanne.

  Until Kerry had told him about Dr. Smith, and about the look-alikes, Geoff had been sure that they had made the right decision. Now he was less sure. He looked squarely at Beth. “I didn’t tell Kerry about you yet. But now I want her to meet you, and to hear your story. If we have any chance at all for a new and successful appeal, all the cards have to be on the table.”

  Tuesday, October 31st

  35

  When she was ready to leave the house for her early morning appointment with Dr. Smith, Kerry shook awake a protesting Robin. “Come on, Rob,” she urged. “You’re always telling me I treat you like a baby.”

  “You do,” Robin mumbled.

  “All right. I’m giving you a chance to prove your independence. I want you to get up now and get dressed. Otherwise you’ll fall asleep again. Mrs. Weiser will phone at seven to be sure you didn’t let yourself fall back asleep. I left cereal and juice out. Make certain the door is locked when you leave for school.”

  Robin yawned and closed her eyes.

  “Rob, please.”

  “Okay.” With a sigh Robin swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her hair fell forward over her face as she rubbed her eyes.

  Kerry smoothed it back. “Can I trust you?”

  Robin looked up with a slow, sleepy smile. “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay.” Kerry kissed the top of her head. “Now remember, same rules as any other time. Don’t open the door for anyone. I’ll set the alarm. You deactivate it only when you’re ready to leave, then reset it. Don’t take a ride from anyone unless you’re with Cassie and Courtney and it’s one of their parents.”

  “I know. I know.” Robin sighed dramatically.

  Kerry grinned. “I know I’ve given you the same spiel a thousand times. See you tonight. Alison will be here at three.”

  Alison was the high school student who stayed with Robin after school until Kerry came home. Kerry had thought about having her come over this morning to see Robin off but had acceded to her daughter’s vigorous protest that she wasn’t a baby and could get herself off to school.

  “See you, Mom.”

  Robin listened to Kerry’s steps going down the stairs, then went over to the window to watch the car pull out of the driveway.

  The room was chilly. By seven o’clock, when she usually got up, the house was toasty warm. Just for a minute, Robin thought as she slipped back into bed. I’ll just lie here for a minute more.

  At seven o’clock, after the phone had rung six times, she sat up and answered it. “Oh, thanks, Mrs. Weiser. Yes, I’m sure I’m up.”

  I am now, she thought as she hurried out of bed.

  36

  Despite the early hour, the traffic into Manhattan was heavy. But at least it was moving at a reasonable clip, Kerry thought. Nevertheless it took her a full hour to drive from New Jersey, down what was left of the West Side Highway and across town to Dr. Smith’s Fifth Avenue office. She was three minutes late.

  The doctor let her in himself. Even the minimal courtesy he had shown on Robin’s two visits was lacking this morning. He did not greet her except to say, “I can give you twenty minutes, Ms. McGrath, and not a second more.” He led her to his private office.

  If that’s the way we’re going to play it, Kerry thought, then fine. When she was seated across his desk from him, she said, “Dr. Smith, after seeing two women emerge from this office who startlingly resembled your murdered daughter, Suzanne, I became curious enough about the circumstances of her death to take time this last week to read the transcript of Skip Reardon’s trial.”

  She did not miss the look of hatred that came over Dr. Smith’s face when she mentioned Reardon’s name. His eyes narrowed, his mouth tightened, deep furrows appeared on his forehead and in vertical slashes down his cheeks.

  She looked directly at him. “Dr. Smith, I want you to know how terribly sorry I am that you lost your daughter. You were a divorced parent. I’m a divorced parent. Like you, I have an only child, a daughter. Knowing the agony I was in when I received the call that Robin had been in an accident, I can only imagine how you felt when you were told about Suzanne.”

  Smith looked at her steadily, his fingers locked together. Kerry had the feeling that there was an impenetrable barrier between them. If so, the rest of their conversation was entirely predictable. He would hear her out, make some sort of statement about love and loss, and then usher her to the door. How could she break through that barrier?

  She leaned forward. “Dr. Smith, your testimony is the reason Skip Reardon is in prison. You said he was insanely jealous, that your daughter was afraid of him. He swears that he never threatened Suzanne.”

  “He’s lying.” The voice was flat, unemotional. “He truly was insanely jealous of her. As you said, she was my only child. I doted on her. I had become successful enough to give her the kinds of things I could never give her as a child. It was my pleasure from time to time to buy her a piece of fine jewelry. Yet, even when I spoke to Reardon, he refused to believe that they had been gifts from me. He kept accusing her of seeing other men.”

  Is it possible? Kerry wondered. “But if Suzanne was in fear for her life, why did she stay with Skip Reardon?” she asked.

  The morning sun was flooding the room in such a way that it shone on Smith’s rimless glasses, making it so that Kerry could no longer see his eyes. Could they possibly be as flat as his expressionless voice? she thought to herself. “Because unlike her mother, my former wife, Suzanne had a sense of deep commitment to her marriage,” he responded after a pause. “The grave mistake of her life was to fall in love with Reardon. An even graver mistake was not to take his threats seriously.”

  Kerry realized she was getting nowhere. It was time to ask the question that had occurred to her earlier, but that possibly held implications she wasn’t sure she was prepared to face. “Dr. Smith, did you ever perform any surgical procedures of any kind on your daughter?”

  It was immediately clear that her question outraged him. “Ms. McGrath, I happen to belong to the school of physicians who would never, except in dire emergency, treat a family member. Beyond that, the question is insulting. Suzanne was a natural beauty.”

  “You’ve made at least two women resemble her to a startling degree. Why?”

  Dr. Smith looked at his watch. “I’ll answer this final question, and then you will have to excuse me, Ms. McGrath. I don’t know how much you know about plastic surgery. Fifty years ago, by today’s standards, it was quite primitive. After people had nose jobs, they had to live with flaring nostrils. Reconstructive work on victims born with deformities such as a harelip was often a crude procedure. It is now very sophisticated, and the results are most satisfying. We’ve learned a great deal. Plastic
surgery is no longer for only the rich and famous. It is for anyone, whether he or she needs it, or simply wants it.”

  He took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache. “Parents bring in teenagers, boys as well as girls, who are so conscious of a perceived defect that they simply can’t function. Yesterday I operated on a fifteen-year-old boy whose ears stuck out so much that they were the only thing one saw when looking at him. When the bandages come off, all his other quite pleasing features, which had been obscured by this offending problem, will be what people see when they look at him.

  “I operate on women who look in the mirror and see sagging skin or baggy eyes, women who had been beautiful girls in their youth. I raise and clamp the forehead under the hairline, I tighten the skin and pull it up behind the ears. I take twenty years off their appearance, but more than that, I transform their self-deprecation into self-worth.”

  His voice rose. “I could show you before-and-after pictures of accident victims whom I have helped. You ask me why several of my patients resemble my daughter. I’ll tell you why. Because in these ten years, a few plain and unhappy young women came into this office and I was able to give them her kind of beauty.”

  Kerry knew he was about to tell her to leave. Hurriedly, she asked, “Then why several years ago did you tell a potential patient, Susan Grant, that beauty sometimes is abused, and the result is jealousy and violence? Weren’t you talking about Suzanne? Isn’t it a fact that Skip Reardon may have had a reason to be jealous? Perhaps you did buy her all the jewelry Skip couldn’t account for, but he swears he did not send Suzanne those roses she received on the day of her death.”

  Dr. Smith stood up. “Ms. McGrath, I should think in your business you ought to know that murderers almost inevitably plead innocence. And now, this discussion is over.”

  There was nothing Kerry could do except follow him from the room. As she walked behind him, she noticed that he was holding his right hand rigidly against his side. Was that a tremor in his hand? Yes, it was.

  At the door he said, “Ms. McGrath, you must understand that the sound of Skip Reardon’s name sickens me. Please call Mrs. Carpenter and give her the name of another physician to whom she can forward Robin’s file. I do not want to hear from you or see you or your daughter again.”

  He was so close to her that Kerry stepped back involuntarily. There was something genuinely frightening about the man. His eyes, filled with anger and hatred, seemed to be burning through her. If he had a gun in his hand right now, I swear he’d use it, she thought to herself.

  37

  After she locked the door and started down the steps, Robin noticed the small dark car parked across the street. Strange cars weren’t common on this street, especially at this hour, but she didn’t know why this one gave her an especially funny feeling.

  It was cold. She shifted her books to her left arm and zipped her jacket the rest of the way to her neck, then quickened her steps. She was meeting Cassie and Courtney at the corner a block away and knew they probably were already waiting. She was a couple of minutes late.

  The street was quiet. Now that the leaves were almost gone, the trees had a bare, unfriendly look. Robin wished she had remembered to wear gloves.

  When she reached the sidewalk, she glanced across the street. The driver’s window in the strange car was opening slowly, stopping after it had been lowered only a few inches. She stared at it as hard as she could, hoping to see a familiar face inside, but the bright morning sun reflected in such a way that she could see nothing. Then she saw a hand reach out, pointing something at her. Suddenly panicked, Robin began to run. With a roar, the car came rushing across the road, seemingly aimed right toward her. Just as she thought it was going to come up the curb and hit her, it swerved into a U-turn and then raced down the block.

  Sobbing, Robin ran across the lawn of their neighbor’s house and frantically rang the doorbell.

  38

  When Joe Palumbo finished his investigation of a break-in in Cresskill, he realized that it was only nine-thirty. Since he was a scant few minutes away from Alpine, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to look up Dolly Bowles, the babysitter who had testified at the Reardon murder trial. Fortunately, he also happened to have her phone number with him.

  Dolly initially sounded a little guarded when Palumbo explained that he was an investigator with the Bergen County prosecutor’s office. But after he told her that one of the assistant prosecutors, Kerry McGrath, very much wanted to hear about the car Dolly had seen in front of the Reardon house the night of the murder, she announced that she had been following the trial Kerry McGrath recently had prosecuted and was so glad that the man who shot his supervisor had been convicted. She told Palumbo about the time she and her mother had been tied up in their home by an intruder.

  “So,” she finished, “if you and Kerry McGrath want to talk to me, that’s fine.”

  “Well, actually,” Joe told her somewhat lamely, “I’d like to come over and talk to you right now. Maybe Kerry will talk to you later.”

  There was a pause. Palumbo could not know that, in her mind, Dolly was seeing again the derisive expression on the face of Prosecutor Green when he cross-examined her at the trial.

  Finally she spoke. “I think,” she said, with dignity, “that I would be more comfortable discussing that night with Kerry McGrath. I think it’s best we wait until she is available.”

  39

  It was 9:45 before Kerry got to the courthouse, much later than she normally arrived. Anticipating the possibility of receiving a bit of flack about it, she had phoned to say she had an errand and was going to be late. Frank Green was always at his desk promptly at seven o’clock. It was something they joked about, but it was obvious he believed that his entire staff should be on board with him. Kerry knew he would have a fit if he learned that her errand was to see Dr. Charles Smith.

  When she punched in the code that admitted her to the prosecutor’s office, the switchboard operator looked up and said, “Kerry, go right into Mr. Green’s office. He’s expecting you.”

  Oh boy, Kerry thought.

  As soon as she walked into Green’s office, she could see he was not angry. She knew him well enough to be able to read his mood. As usual he came directly to the point. “Kerry, Robin is fine. She’s with your neighbor, Mrs. Weiser. Emphatically, she is all right.”

  Kerry felt her throat tighten. “Then what’s wrong?”

  “We’re not sure and maybe nothing. According to Robin, you left the house at six-thirty.” There was a glint of curiosity in Green’s eyes.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “When Robin was leaving the house later, she said she noticed a strange car parked across the street. When she reached the sidewalk, the window on the driver’s door opened slightly, and she was able to see a hand holding some kind of object. She couldn’t tell what it was, and she wasn’t able to see the driver’s face. Then the car started up and veered across the street so suddenly she thought it would come up on the sidewalk and hit her, but it quickly went into a U-turn and took off. Robin ran to your neighbor’s house.”

  Kerry sank into a chair. “She’s there now?”

  “Yes. You can call her, or go home if that would reassure you. My concern is, does Robin have an overactive imagination, or is it possible someone was trying to frighten her and ultimately frighten you?”

  “Why would anyone want to frighten Robin or me?”

  “It’s happened before in this office after a high-profile case. You’ve just completed a case that got a lot of media attention. The guy you convicted of murder was clearly an out-and-out sleaze and still has relatives and friends.”

  “Yes, but all of them I met seemed to be pretty decent people,” Kerry said. “And to answer your first question, Robin is a levelheaded kid. She wouldn’t imagine something like this.” She hesitated. “It’s the first time I let her get herself out in the morning, and I was bombarding her with warnings about what to do and n
ot do.”

  “Call her from here,” Green directed.

  Robin answered Mrs. Weiser’s telephone on the first ring. “I knew you’d call, Mom. I’m okay now. I want to go to school. Mrs. Weiser said she’d drive me. And Mom, I’ve still got to go out this afternoon. It’s Halloween.”

  Kerry thought quickly. Robin was better off in school than sitting at home all day, thinking about the incident. “All right, but I’ll be there at school to pick you up at quarter of three. I don’t want you walking home.” And I’ll be right with you when you trick-or-treat, she thought. “Now let me talk to Mrs. Weiser, Rob,” she said.

  When she hung up, she said, “Frank, is it all right if I leave early today?”

  His smile was genuine. “Of course it is. Kerry, I don’t have to tell you to question Robin carefully. We have to know if there’s any chance someone really was watching for her.”

  As Kerry was leaving, he added, “But isn’t Robin a bit young to see herself off to school?”

  Kerry knew he was fishing to find out what had been so important that she had left Robin alone at home at six-thirty.

  “Yes, she is,” she agreed. “It won’t happen again.”

  * * *

  Later that morning, Joe Palumbo stopped by Kerry’s office and told her about his call to Dolly Bowles. “She doesn’t want to talk to me, Kerry, but I’d still like to go with you when you see her.”

  “Let me phone her now.”

  Her six-word greeting, “Hello, Mrs. Bowles, I’m Kerry McGrath,” led to being on the receiving end of a ten-minute monologue.

  Palumbo crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair as with some amusement he watched Kerry try to interject a word or question. Then he was irritated when, after Kerry finally got an opportunity to say that she would like to bring her investigator, Mr. Palumbo, with her, it was obvious the answer was no.