Promise Me

CHAPTER 57

Jessica Culver did indeed marry Stone Norman at Tavern on the Green.

Myron was in his office when he read about it in the paper. Esperanza and Win were both there too. Win was standing near a full-length mirror, checking out his golf swing. Win did that a lot. Esperanza watched Myron carefully.

“You okay?” she asked him.

“I am.”

“You realize that her getting hitched is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to you?”

“I do.” Myron put the paper down. “I came to a realization that I wanted to share with both of you.”

Win stopped his air swing midway. “My arm isn’t straight enough.”

Esperanza waved him quiet. “What?”

“I’ve always tried to run away from what I now see are my natural instincts,” Myron said. “You know. Playing the hero. You both warn me against it. And I’ve listened. But I’ve figured something out. I’m supposed to do it. I’ll have my defeats, sure, but I’ll have more victories. I’m not going to run away from it anymore. I don’t want to end up being cynical. I want to help people. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

Win turned toward him. “Are you done?”

“I am.”

Win looked at Esperanza. “Should we applaud?”

“I think we should.”

Esperanza stood and applauded wildly. Win put down his air club and offered up a polite golf clap.

Myron bowed and said, “Thank you so very much, you’re a beautiful audience, don’t forget your waitress on the way out, hey, try the veal.”

Big Cyndi popped her head through the doorway. She’d gone heavy on the rouge this morning and looked like a traffic light.

“Line two, Mr. Bolitar.” Big Cyndi batted her eyes. Picture two scorpions trapped on their backs. Then she added, “It’s your new sweetie pie.”

Myron picked up the phone. “Hey!”

Ali Wilder said, “What time are you coming over?”

“I should be there about seven.”

“How about pizza and a DVD with the kids?”

Myron smiled. “Sounds great.”

He hung up. He was smiling. Esperanza and Win exchanged a glance.

“What?” Myron said.

“You’re so doofy when you’re in love,” Esperanza said.

Myron looked at his watch. “It’s time.”

“Good luck,” Esperanza said.

Myron turned to Win. “You want to come along?”

“No, my friend. This one is all yours.”

Myron stood. He kissed Esperanza on the cheek. He hugged Win. Win was surprised by the gesture, but he took it. Myron drove back to New Jersey. It was a glorious day. The sun shone like it’d just been created. Myron fiddled with the radio dial. He kept hitting all his favorite songs.

It was that kind of day.

He did not bother stopping at Brenda’s grave. He thought that she’d understand. Actions speak louder and all that.

Myron parked at St. Barnabas Medical Center. He headed up to Joan Rochester’s room. She was sitting up when he got there, ready to leave.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine,” Joan Rochester said.

“I’m sorry about what happened to you.”

“Don’t be.”

“Are you going home?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not going to press charges?”

“That’s right.”

Myron figured as much. “Your daughter can’t run forever.”

“I know that.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Katie came home last night.”

So much for the happy ending, Myron thought. He closed his eyes. This was not what he’d wanted to hear.

“She and Rufus had a fight. So Katie came home. Dominick forgave her. It’s all going to be okay.”

They looked at each other. It wouldn’t be okay. He knew that. She knew that.

“I want to help you,” Myron said.

“You can’t.”

And maybe she was right.

You help those you can. That was what Win had said. And you always, always keep a promise. That was why he had come today. To keep his promise.

He met up with Dr. Edna Skylar in the corridor outside the cancer ward. He had hoped to see her in her office, but this would be okay.

Edna Skylar smiled when she saw him. She wore very little makeup. The white coat was wrinkled. No stethoscope hung around her neck this time.

“Hello, Myron,” she said.

“Hi, Dr. Skylar.”

“Call me Edna.”

“Okay.”

“I was just on my way out.” She pointed with her thumb toward the elevator. “What brings you here?”

“You, actually.”

Edna Skylar had a pen tucked behind her ear. She took it out, made a note on a chart, put it back. “Really?”

“You taught me something when I was here last time,” Myron said.

“What’s that?”

“We talked about the virtuous patient, remember? We talked about the pure versus the sullied. You were so honest with me — about how you’d rather work with people who seemed more deserving.”

“A lot of talk, yes,” she said. “But at the end of the day, I took an oath. I treat those I don’t like too.”

“Oh I know. But you see, you got me thinking. Because I agreed with you. I wanted to help Aimee Biel because I thought she was… I don’t know.”

“Innocent?” Skylar said.

“I guess.”

“But you learned that she’s not.”

“More than that,” Myron said. “What I learned was, you were wrong.”

“About?”

“We can’t prejudge people like that. We become cynical. We assume the worst. And when we do that, we start to see only the shadows. You know that Aimee Biel is back home?”

“I heard that, yes.”

“Everyone thinks she ran away.”

“I heard that too.”

“So nobody listened to her story. I mean, really listened. Once that assumption came about, Aimee Biel was no longer an innocent. You see? Even her parents. They had her best interests at heart. They wanted so much to protect her that even they couldn’t see the truth.”

“Which is?”

“Innocent until proven guilty. It’s not just for the courtroom.”

Edna Skylar made a production of checking her watch. “I’m not sure I see what you’re getting at.”

“I believed in that girl her whole life. Was I wrong? Was it a lie? But at the end of the day, it’s like her parents said — it’s their job to protect her, not mine. So I was able to be more dispassionate. I was willing to risk learning the truth. So I waited. When I finally got Aimee alone, I asked her to tell me the whole story. Because there were too many holes in the other one — the one where she ran away and maybe killed her lover. That ATM machine, for one. That call from the pay phone, for another. Stuff like that. I didn’t want to just shove it all aside and help her get on with her life. So I talked to her. I remembered how much I loved and cared for her. And I did something truly strange.”

“What?”

“I assumed that Aimee was telling the truth. If she was, then I knew two things. The kidnapper was a woman. And the kidnapper knew that Katie Rochester used the ATM machine on Fifty-second Street. The only people who fit that bill? Katie Rochester. Well, she didn’t do it. Loren Muse. No way. And you.”

“Me?” Edna Skylar began to blink. “Are you serious?”

“Do you remember when I called and asked you to look up Aimee’s medical file?” Myron asked. “To see if she was pregnant?”

Again Edna Skylar checked her watch. “I really don’t have time for this.”

“I said it wasn’t just about one innocent, it was about two.”

“So?”

“Before I called you, I asked your husband to do the same thing. He worked in that department. I thought he’d have an easier time. But he refused.”

“Stanley is a stickler for the rules,” Edna Skylar said.

“I know. But you see, he told me something interesting. He told me that with all the new HIP laws nowadays, the computer date-stamps a patient’s file every time you look into it. You can see the name of the doctor who viewed the file. And you get the time he or she viewed it.”

“Right.”

“So I checked Aimee’s file. Guess what it shows?”

Her smile began to falter.

“You, Dr. Skylar, looked at that file two weeks before I asked you to. Why would you do that?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I didn’t.”

“The computer is wrong?”

“Sometimes Stanley forgets his code. He probably used mine.”

“I see. He forgets his own code but remembers yours.” Myron tilted his head and edged closer. “You think he’ll say that under oath?”

Edna Skylar did not reply.

“Do you know where you were really clever?” he went on. “Telling me about your son. The one who was trouble from day one and ran away to make it big. You said that he was still a mess, do you remember?”

A small, pain-filled sound escaped her lips. Her eyes filled with tears.

“But you never mentioned your son’s name. No reason you should, of course. And there’s no reason why anybody would know. Even now. It wasn’t part of the investigation. I don’t know the name of Jake Wolf’s mother. Or Harry Davis’s. But once I saw that you’d been in Aimee’s medical file, I did a little checking. Your first husband, Dr. Skylar, was named Andrew Van Dyne, am I right? Your son’s name was Drew Van Dyne.”

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. When she opened them again, she shrugged, aiming for nonchalance but not even coming close. “So?”

“Odd, don’t you think? When I asked you about Aimee Biel, you never mentioned that your son knew her.”

“I told you that I was estranged from my son. I didn’t know anything about him and Aimee Biel.”

Myron grinned. “You have all the answers, don’t you, Edna?”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

“No, you’re not. It was yet another coincidence. So many damn coincidences, don’t you think? That’s what I couldn’t shake from the beginning. Two pregnant girls at the same high school? Okay, that one was no big deal. But all the rest — both girls running away, both using the same ATM, all that. Again, let’s assume Aimee was telling the truth. Let’s assume that someone — a woman — did indeed tell Aimee to wait on that corner. Let’s say that this mystery woman did tell Aimee to take money out of that ATM. Why? Why would someone do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sure you do, Edna. Because they weren’t coincidences. None of them. You arranged them all. The two girls using the same ATM? Only one reason for that. The kidnapper — you, Edna — wanted to hook Aimee’s disappearance with Katie Rochester’s.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

“Because the police were sure that Katie Rochester had run away — in part because of what you saw in the city. But Aimee Biel was different. She didn’t have a Mob-connected, abusive daddy, for example. Her disappearance would cause commotion. The best way — the only way — to keep that heat from coming down was to make Aimee look like a runaway too.”

For a moment they both just stood there. Then Edna Skylar shifted to the right as if preparing to pass him. Myron shifted with her, blocking the path. She looked up at him.

“Are you wearing a wire, Myron?”

He raised his arms. “Frisk me.”

“No need. This is all nonsense anyway.”

“Let’s go back to that day on the street. You and Stanley are walking in Manhattan. Fate lends a hand here. You see Katie Rochester, just like you told the police. You realize that she’s not missing or in serious trouble. She’s a runaway. Katie begs you not to tell. And you listen. For three weeks, you say nothing. You go back to your regular life.” Myron studied her face. “You with me so far?”

“I’m with you.”

“So why the change? Why after three weeks do you suddenly call your old buddy Ed Steinberg?”

She folded her arms. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Because your situation changed, not Katie’s.”

“How?”

“You talked about your son being trouble from day one. That you’d given up on him.”

“That’s right.”

“Maybe you did, I don’t know. But you were in touch with Drew. At least somewhat. You knew that Drew fell in love with Aimee Biel. He told you about it. He probably told you that she was pregnant.”

She crossed her arms. “You can prove that?’

“No. That part is speculation. The rest isn’t. You looked up Aimee’s medical files on the computer. That we know. You saw that yes, she was indeed pregnant. But more than that, you saw that she was going to terminate it. Drew didn’t know about that. He thought that they were in love and going to get married. But Aimee just wanted out. Drew Van Dyne had been nothing but a foolish, albeit not uncommon, high school mistake. Aimee was on her way to college now.”

“Sounds like motive for Drew to kidnap her,” Edna Skylar said.

“It does, doesn’t it? If that had been all. But again I kept wondering about all the coincidences. The ATM machine again. Who knew about it? You called your old buddy Ed Steinberg and pumped him for info on the case. He talked. Why not? Nothing was confidential. There wasn’t really even a case. When he mentioned the Citibank ATM, you realized that would be the clincher. Everyone would assume Aimee was a runaway too. And that’s exactly what happened. Then you called Aimee. You said you were from the hospital, which was true enough. You told her what she had to do to terminate the pregnancy in secret. You set up that meeting in New York. She’s waiting at the corner. You drive by. You tell her to pick up some cash at the machine. Your clincher. Aimee does as she’s told. And then she panics. She wants to think it through now. There you are, waiting to grab her, a syringe in your hand, and all of a sudden she runs off. She calls me. I get there. I drive her to Ridgewood. You follow — it was your car I saw that night follow us into the cul-de-sac. When she gets rejected by Harry Davis, you’re waiting. Aimee doesn’t remember much after that. She claims she was drugged. That fits — her memory would be fuzzy. Propofol would cause a lot of the symptoms. You’re familiar with that drug, aren’t you, Edna?”

“Of course I am. I’m a doctor. It’s an anesthetic.”

“You’ve used it in your practice?”

She hesitated. “I have.”

“And that will be your downfall.”

“Really? How’s that.”

“I have other evidence, but it’s mostly circumstantial. Those medical records, for one. They show you not only viewed Aimee’s medical records earlier than you indicated, but you didn’t even bring them up again when I called. Why would you? You already knew she was pregnant. I’ll also have phone records. Your son called you, you called your son.”

“So?”

“Right, so. And I can even show how you called the school and spoke to your son right after I left you the first time. Harry Davis wondered how Drew knew something was up before he confronted him. That’s how. You called and warned him. And you remember the call you made to Claire, the one from that pay phone near Twenty-third Street… first off, that was overkill. It was nice of you, trying to comfort the parents a little. But see, why would Aimee call from there — right where Katie Rochester had been spotted? She wouldn’t know about that. Only you would. And we already checked your E-ZPass records. You went into Manhattan. Took the Lincoln Tunnel twenty minutes before the call was made.”

“Hardly rock-solid,” Edna said.

“No, probably not. But here’s where you’re going down. The Propofol. You can write prescriptions, sure, but you also had to order it. The police at my behest already checked with your office. You did purchase plenty of Propofol, but no one can explain where it went. Aimee was given a blood test. The stuff was still in her bloodstream. You see?”

Edna Skylar took a deep breath, held it, let it loose. “Do you have a motive for this purported kidnapping, Myron?”

“Are we really going to play this game?”

She shrugged. “We’ve played it this far.”

“Fine, okay. The motive. That was the problem for everyone. Why would anyone kidnap Aimee? We all thought that someone wanted to keep her quiet. Your son could lose his job. Jake Wolf’s son could lose everything. Harry Davis, well, he had a ton to lose too. But abducting her wouldn’t help. There was also no ransom demand, no sexual assault, nothing like that. So I kept asking myself. Why would someone kidnap a young woman?”

“And?”

“You talked about the innocent.”

“Right.” There was resignation in her smile now. Edna Skylar knew what was coming next, Myron thought, but she won’t move out of the way.

“Who was more innocent,” Myron said, “than your unborn grandchild?”

She may have nodded. It was hard to tell. “Go on.”

“You said it yourself when we talked about choosing patients. It’s about prioritizing. It’s about saving the innocents. Your motives were almost pure, Edna. You were trying to save your own grandchild.”

Edna Skylar turned and looked down the corridor. When she faced Myron again, the sad smile was gone. Her face was oddly blank. “Aimee was already almost three months pregnant,” she began. Her tone had changed. There was something gentle in it, something distant too. “If I could have held that girl for another month or two, it would have been too late to terminate. If I could just put off Aimee’s decision for a little while longer, I would save my grandchild. Is that so wrong?”

Myron said nothing.

“And you’re right. I wanted Aimee’s disappearance to parallel Katie Rochester’s. Part of it was already there for me, of course. They both went to the same school and both were pregnant. So I added the ATM. I did all I could to make it look like Aimee was a runaway. But not for the reasons you said — not because she was a nice girl with a nice family. Pretty much the opposite, in fact.”

Myron nodded, seeing it now. “If the police started investigating,” he said, “they may have found out about her affair with your son.”

“Yes.”

“None of the suspects owned a log cabin. But you do, Edna. It even has the brown and white fireplace like Aimee said.”

“You’ve been a busy boy.”

“Yes, I have.”

“I had it pretty well planned out. I would treat her well. I would monitor the baby. I made that call to the parents hoping to offer some comfort. I would keep doing stuff like that — leaving hints that Aimee was a runaway and was okay.”

“Like going online?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get her password and screen name?”

“She gave it to me in a drug stupor.”

“You wore a disguise when you were with her?”

“I kept my face covered, yes.”

“And the name of Erin’s boyfriend. Mark Cooper. How did you get that?”

Edna shrugged. “She gave me that too.”

“It was the wrong answer. Mark Cooper was a boy nicknamed Trouble. That was another thing that bothered me.”

“Clever of her,” Edna Skylar said. “Still. I would have held her a few months. I would have kept leaving hints that she ran away. Then I would let her go. She would have told the same story about being abducted.”

“And no one would have believed her.”

“She would have the baby, Myron. That was all I was concerned with. The plan would have worked. Once that ATM charge came in, the police were certain that she was a runaway. So they were out of it. Her parents, well, they’re parents. Their concerns were dismissed just like the Rochesters’.” She met his eye. “Only one thing messed me up.”

Myron spread his hands. “Modesty prevents me from saying it.”

“Then I will. You, Myron. You messed me up.”

“You’re not going to call me a meddlesome kid, are you? Like on Scooby-Doo?”

“You think this is funny?”

“No, Edna. I don’t think it’s funny at all.”

“I never wanted to hurt anyone. Yes, it would inconvenience Aimee. It might even be somewhat traumatic for her, though I’m pretty good at administering drugs. I could have kept her comfortable and the baby safe. And her parents, of course they’d go through hell. I thought if I could convince them that she was a runaway — that she was all right — it might make it easier on them. But add up the pros and cons. Even if they all had to suffer a little, don’t you see? I was saving a life. It was like I told you. I messed up with Drew. I didn’t look out for him. I didn’t protect him.”

“And you weren’t going to make those same mistakes with your grandchild,” Myron said.

“That’s right.”

There were patients and visitors, doctor and nurses, all sorts of people moving to and fro. There were dinging noises from above. Someone walked by with a huge bouquet of flowers. Myron and Edna saw none of that.

“You said it to me on the phone,” Edna went on. “When you asked me to look up Aimee’s records. Protect the innocent. That’s all I was trying to do. But when she vanished, you blamed yourself. You felt obligated to find her. You started digging.”

“And when I got too close, you had to cut your losses.”

“Yes.”

“So you let her go.”

“I had no choice. Everything went to hell. Once you got involved, people started dying.”

“You’re not blaming me for that, are you?”

“No, and I’m not blaming me either,” she said, head high. “I never killed anyone. I never asked Harry Davis to switch transcripts. I never asked Jake Wolf to pay anybody off. I never asked Randy Wolf to sell drugs. I never told my son to sleep with a student. And I didn’t tell Aimee Biel to get pregnant with his baby.”

Myron said nothing.

“You want to take it another step?” Her voice edged up a notch. “I didn’t tell Drew to pull a gun on Jake Wolf. Just the opposite. I tried to keep my son calm, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. Maybe I should have. But Drew had always been such a screw-up. So I just told him to relax. That Aimee would be okay. But he didn’t listen. He thought Jake Wolf must have done something to her. So he went after him. My guess is, the wife was telling the truth. She shot him in self-defense. That’s how my son ended up dead. But I didn’t do any of that.”

Myron waited. Her lips were trembling, but Edna fought through it. She would not collapse. She would not show weakness, not even now when it was all unraveling, when her actions not only failed to produce the desired results but had ended the life of her own son.

“All I wanted to do was save my grandchild’s life,” she said. “How else could I have done it?”

Myron still didn’t reply.

“Well?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please.” Edna Skylar clutched his arm as if it were a life preserver. “What is she going to do about the baby?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“You’ll never be able to prove any of this.”

“That’s up to the police. I just wanted to keep my promise.”

“What promise?”

Myron looked down the corridor and called out, “It’s okay now.”

When Aimee Biel stepped into view, Edna Skylar gasped and put her hand to her mouth. Erik was there too, on one side of Aimee. Claire stood on the other. They both had their arms around their daughter.

Myron walked away then, smiling. His step felt light. Outside the sun would still be shining. He knew that. The radio would play his favorite songs. He had the whole conversation on tape — yes, he’d lied to her about that — and he’d give it to Muse and Banner. They might make a case. They might not.

You do what you can.

Erik nodded at Myron as he passed. Claire reached out to him. There were tears of gratitude in her eyes. Myron touched her hand but he kept moving. Their eyes met. He saw her as a teen again, in high school, in the study hall. But none of that mattered anymore.

He had made a promise to Claire. He had promised to bring back her baby.

And now, at long last, he had.