The Cradle Will Fall

CHAPTER ONE

IF HER mind had not been on the case she had won, Katie might not have taken the curve so fast, but the intense satisfaction of the guilty verdict was still absorbing her. It had been a close one. Roy O'Connor was one of the top attorneys in New Jersey. The defendant's confession had been suppressed by the court, a major blow for the prosecution. But still she had convinced the jury that Teddy Copeland had viciously murdered eighty-year-old Abigail Rawlings during a robbery.

Miss Rawlings' sister, Margaret, was in court to hear the verdict. "You were wonderful, Mrs. DeMaio," she'd said to Katie afterward. "You look like a young college girl. I never would have thought you could do it. But you proved every point; you made them feel what he did to Abby." Her eyes filled with tears. "I keep thinking how frightened Abby must have been. It would have been awful if he'd gotten away with it"

"He didn't get away with it!" Katie said. The memory of that reassurance distracted her now, made her press her foot harder on the accelerator. As she rounded the curve, the car fishtailed on the sleet-covered road.

"Oh… no!" She gripped the wheel frantically. The car raced across the divider and spun completely around. She could see headlights approaching.

She turned the wheel into the skid, but the car careened onto the shoulder of the road, poised for an instant at the edge and slammed down the embankment into the woods. Katie felt the sickening crunch as metal tore into bark. Her body was flung forward against the wheel, then backward. She raised her arms to protect her face from the glass that exploded from the windshield. Biting pain attacked her wrists and knees. Velvety blackness was closing over her as she heard a siren in the distance.

The car door opening; a blast of cold air. "It's Katie DeMaio!" A voice she knew. Tom Coughlin, that nice young cop. He had testified at a trial last week. "She's unconscious."

She tried to protest, but her lips wouldn't form words. She couldn't open her eyes.

"Looks like she's cut an artery."

Something tight was being pressed against her arm.

A different voice: "She may have internal injuries. Westlake's right down the road. I'll call for an ambulance."

Hands lifting her onto a stretcher, a blanket covering her, sleet pelting her face. She was being carried. An ambulance. Doors opening and closing. If only she could make them understand. I can hear you. I'm not unconscious.

Tom was giving her name. "Kathleen DeMaio, lives in Abbington. She's an assistant prosecutor. Judge DeMaio's widow."

John's widow. A terrible sense of aloneness. The blackness was starting to recede. A light was shining in her eyes. "She's coming around. How old are you, Mrs. DeMaio?"

The question, so practical, so easy to answer. "Twenty-eight." The tourniquet Tom had wrapped around her arm was being removed. Her arm was being stitched. Needles of pain.

X rays. The emergency-room doctor. "You're fortunate, Mrs. DeMaio. Some severe bruises but no fractures. I've ordered a transfusion. Your blood count is very low. Don't be frightened."

"It's just-" She bit her lip, managed to stop herself before she blurted out that terrible, childish fear of hospitals.

Tom asking, "Do you want us to call your sister?"

"No. Molly's just over the flu. They've all had it" Her voice was so weak that Tom had to bend over to hear her. "All right. Don't worry, Katie. I'll have your car hauled out"

She was wheeled into a curtained-off section of the emergency room. Blood began dripping through a tube inserted into her right arm. A nurse was smoothing her hair back from her forehead. "You're going to be fine, Mrs. DeMaio. Why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying." But she was.

She was wheeled into a room. The nurse handed her a paper cup of water and a pill. "This will help you rest, Mrs. DeMaio." It must be a sleeping pill. Katie was sure it would give her nightmares. The nurse turned off the light as she left.

Katie slid into sleep knowing a nightmare was inevitable. This time it took a different form. She was on a roller coaster and she couldn't control it. It kept climbing higher and higher, and then it went off the tracks and it was falling. She woke up trembling just before it hit the ground.

Sleet rapped on the window. She sat up. The window was open a crack and the shade, which was pulled halfway down, was rattling. She'd close the window and raise the shade. Then maybe she'd be able to sleep.

Unsteadily she walked over to the window. The hospital gown they'd given her barely came to her knees. Her legs were cold. She leaned against the windowsill, looked out. Sleet was mixed with rain now. The parking lot was running with streams of water.

Katie gripped the shade and stared down into the lot one story below. The trunk lid of a car was going up slowly. She was so dizzy now. She let go of the shade. It snapped up. Was something white floating down into the trunk? A blanket? A large bundle?

She must be dreaming, she thought. Then she pushed her hand over her mouth to muffle the shriek that tore at her throat. The trunk light was on. Through the waves of sleet-filled rain that slapped against the window, she watched the white substance part As the trunk closed, she saw a face-the face of a woman grotesque in the uncaring abandon of death.

THE alarm had awakened him promptly at two o'clock. He was instantly alert. Getting up, he went over to the examining-room sink, splashed cold water on his face, pulled his tie into a smooth knot, combed his hair and put on his steel-rimmed glasses. His socks were still wet when he took them off the radiator. Grimacing, he pulled them on and slipped into his shoes. He reached for his overcoat. It was soaked through.

He'd wear the old Burberry raincoat he kept in the closet. It was unlined. He'd freeze, but it was the only thing to do. Besides, it was so ordinary that if anyone saw him, there was less chance of being recognized.

He hurried to the closet, put on the raincoat and hung up the heavy wet chesterfield. He went over to the window and pulled the shade back an inch. There were still enough cars in the parking lot so that the absence of his own would hardly be noticed. He bit his lip as he realized that the back of his car was silhouetted by the light at the far side of the lot. He would have to walk in the shadows of the other cars and get the body into the trunk as quickly as possible.

It was time. Unlocking the medical supply closet, he bent down and picked up the body. She had once weighed around one hundred ten pounds, but she had gained a lot of weight during her pregnancy. His muscles felt every ounce as he carried her to the examining table. There he wrapped a blanket around her. Noiselessly he opened the door to the parking lot. Grasping the trunk key in two fingers, he moved to the table and picked up the dead woman. Now for the twenty seconds that could destroy him.

Eighteen seconds later he was at the car. Sleet pelted his cheek; the blanket-covered burden strained his arms. Shifting the weight, he inserted his key into the trunk lock. The lid rose slowly. He glanced up at the hospital windows. From the center room on the second floor a shade snapped up. Was anyone looking out? Impatient to have the blanketed figure out of his arms, he moved too quickly. The instant his left hand let go of the blanket, the wind blew it open, revealing her face. Wincing, he dropped the body and slammed the trunk closed.

The trunk light had been on the face. Had anyone seen? He looked up again at the window where the shade had been raised. Was someone there? He couldn't be sure. Later he would have to find out who was in that room.

Driving swiftly from the lot, he kept the headlights off until he was well along the road. Incredible that this was his second trip to Chapin River tonight. Suppose he hadn't been leaving the hospital when Vangie Lewis burst out of Dr. Fukhito's office and hailed him. Vangie had been close to hysteria as she limped down the covered portico to him. "Doctor, I'm going to Minneapolis tomorrow. I'm going to see the doctor I used to have, Dr. Emmet Salem. Maybe I'll even stay there and let him deliver the baby."

If he had missed her, everything would have been ruined.

Instead he had persuaded her to come into the office with him, talked to her, calmed her down, offered her a glass of water. At the last minute she'd suspected. That beautiful, petulant face had filled with fear.

And then the horror of knowing that even though he'd managed to silence her, the chance of discovery was still so great. He had locked her body in the medical supply closet and tried to think.

Her bright red Lincoln Continental had been the immediate danger. It would surely have been noticed in the hospital parking lot after visiting hours.

He knew she lived on Winding Brook Lane in Chapin River. She'd told him that her husband, a United Airlines pilot, wasn't due home until tomorrow. He'd leave her body in the closet while he took her car and handbag to the house, to make it seem as though she'd driven home. He'd dispose of the body later.

It had been unexpectedly easy. The houses in Chapin River were placed far back from the road and reached by winding driveways. He'd parked the car inside her garage.

The door from the garage to the den was unlocked. There were lamps on throughout the house, probably on a timing device. He'd hurried through the den and down the hall. The master bedroom was the last one on the right. There were two other bedrooms, one a nursery, with colorful elves and lambs on the wallpaper and an obviously new crib and chest.

That was when he realized he might be able to make her death look like a suicide. If she'd begun to furnish the nursery three months before the baby was expected, the threatened loss of that baby would provide a powerful motive. He would have to get her body back here, put it on top of her own bed! It was dangerous, but not as dangerous as dumping her body in the woods somewhere. That would have meant an intensive police investigation.

He had left her handbag on the chaise longue in the master bedroom and then walked the four miles back to the hospital. There he skirted the main entrance and let himself into his office through the door from the parking lot. It was just ten o'clock.

His coat and shoes and socks were soaked. He was shivering. He realized it would be too dangerous to carry the body out until there was a minimal chance of encountering anyone. He'd set the alarm for two o'clock, then lain down on the examining table and managed to sleep until the alarm went off.

Now for the second time that night he was pulling into Vangie's driveway. Turn off the headlights; back the car up to the garage; put on surgical gloves; open the garage door; open the trunk; carry the wrapped form past the storage shelves to the inside door. He stepped into the den. In a few minutes he'd be safe.

He hurried down the hall to the master bedroom and placed the body on the bed, pulling the blanket free. In the adjoining bathroom, he shook crystals of cyanide into the flowered blue tumbler, added water and poured most of the contents down the sink. He rinsed the sink carefully and returned to the bedroom. Placing the glass next to the dead woman's hand, he allowed the last drops of the mixture to spill on the spread. He folded the white blanket carefully.

The body was sprawled face up on the bed, eyes staring, lips contorted in an agony of protest. That was all right. Most suicides changed their minds when it was too late.

Had he missed anything? No. Her handbag, with the keys, was on the chaise; there was a residue of the cyanide in the glass. Coat on or off? He'd leave it on. The less he handled her the better. Shoes off or on? Would she have kicked them off?

He lifted the long caftan she was wearing and felt the blood drain from his face. The swollen right foot wore a battered moccasin. Her left foot was covered only by her stocking. The other moccasin must have fallen off. Where? He ran from the bedroom, searching, retracing his steps. The shoe was not in the house or garage. Frantic, he ran out to his car and looked in the trunk. The shoe was not there. It had probably come off when he was carrying her in the parking lot. Because of her swollen foot, she'd been wearing the moccasins recently. He'd heard the receptionist joke with her about them.

He would have to go back and search the parking lot. Suppose someone said, "Why, I saw her moccasin lying in the parking lot. She must have lost it on her way home Monday night"? But if she had walked even a few feet off the portico without a shoe, the sole of her stocking would be badly soiled. The police would notice that it was not.

Rushing back to the bedroom, he opened the door of the walk-in closet. A jumble of women's shoes were scattered on the floor. Most of them had impossibly high heels for a woman in her condition to wear. Then he saw a pair of sensible low-heeled shoes, the kind most pregnant women wore. They looked fairly new. Relieved, he grabbed them. Hurrying to the bed, he pulled the one moccasin from the dead woman's foot and placed the shoes on her feet. The right one was tight, but he managed to lace it. Jamming the moccasin into the wide, loose pocket of his raincoat, he picked up the white blanket and strode quickly to the garage.

At the hospital parking lot, he drove to a far corner and parked the car. Then he hurried to retrace his steps from the space where he'd kept the car to the door of the office. The shoe might have fallen off when he'd shifted the body to open the trunk. Bending forward, he searched the ground, working his way closer to the hospital.

Headlights came around the bend into the parking lot. A car screeched to a halt. The driver, probably looking for the emergency entrance, made a U-turn and raced out of the lot.

He had to get out of here. He fell forward as he tried to straighten up. His hand slid across the slippery macadam. And then he felt leather under his fingers. He had found the shoe.

Fifteen minutes later he was turning the key in the lock of his home. Peeling off the raincoat, he hung it in the foyer closet. The full-length mirror on the door reflected his image. Shocked, he realized that his trouser knees were wet and dirty. His hair was badly disheveled. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were bulging and dilated. He looked like a caricature of himself. Rushing upstairs, he undressed, bathed, got into pajamas and a robe. He was too keyed up to sleep, and savagely hungry.

The housekeeper had left slices of lamb on a plate. Crisp, tart apples were in the fruit bin of the refrigerator. Carefully he prepared a tray and carried it into the library. From the bar he poured a generous whiskey and sat at his desk. As he ate, he reviewed the night's happenings. If he had not stopped to check his calendar, he would have missed her, been unable to stop her.

Unlocking his desk, he opened the large center drawer and slid back the false bottom, where he kept his current special file. He took out a single manila folder. Then he reached for a fresh sheet of paper and made a final entry:

February 15

At 8:40 p.m. this physician was locking the rear door of his office. Subject patient had just left Fukhito. She approached this physician and said she was going home to Minneapolis and would have her former doctor, Emmet Salem, deliver her baby. Hysterical patient was persuaded to come inside. Obviously patient could not be allowed to leave. Getting her a glass of water, this physician dissolved cyanide crystals into the glass and forced patient to swallow the poison. Patient expired at 8:51 p.m. Fetus was 26 weeks old. Had it been born it might have been viable.

Laying down the pen, he slipped the final entry into the manila folder, then walked over to a panel on the bookcase. Reaching behind a book, he touched a button, and the panel swung open, revealing a wall safe. Quickly he opened the safe and inserted the file, subconsciously noting the growing number of folders. He could have recited the names on them by heart. Elizabeth Berkeley, Anna Horan, Maureen Crowley, Linda Evans-over six dozen of them: the successes and failures of his medical genius.

He closed the safe, snapped the panel back into place, then went upstairs and got into bed. Had he overlooked anything? He'd put the vial of cyanide in the safe. He'd get rid of the moccasins tomorrow night. The events of the last hours whirled furiously through his mind.

He'd drop his suit at the cleaners on the way to the hospital. He'd find out what patient was in the center room on the second floor of the hospital's east wing, what that patient could have seen. Now he must sleep.

"IF YOU don't mind, we'd like you to leave through the rear entrance," the nurse told Katie. "The front driveway froze over terribly, and the workmen are trying to clear it. The cab will be waiting in back."

"I don't care if I climb out the window, just as long as I can get home," Katie said fervently. "And the misery is that I have to come back here Friday. I'm having minor surgery on Saturday."

"Oh." The nurse looked at her chart. "What's wrong?" "I seem to have inherited a problem my mother used to have. I practically hemorrhage every month during my period." "That must be why your blood count was so low when you came in. Who's your doctor?"

"Dr. Highley."

"Oh, he's the best. He's top man in this place, you know." She helped Katie with her coat.

The morning was cloudy and bitterly cold. Katie shivered as she stepped out into the parking lot. In her nightmare, this was the area she had been looking at from her room. A cab pulled up. Gratefully she got in, wincing at the pain in her knees. "Where to, lady?" the driver asked, and pressed the accelerator.

From the window of the room that Katie had just left, a man was observing her departure. Her chart was in his hand. It read: "Kathleen N. DeMaio, 10 Woodfield Way, Abbington. Place of Business: prosecutor's office, Valley County, New Jersey."

He felt a thrill of fear go through him. Katie DeMaio.

There was a note on the chart that the night nurse had found her sitting on the edge of the bed at two eight a.m. in an agitated state and complaining about nightmares. The chart also showed she had been given a sleeping pill, so she would have been pretty groggy. But how much had she seen? Even if she thought she'd been dreaming, her professional training would nag at her. She was a risk, an unacceptable one.