The Cradle Will Fall

CHAPTER SIX

RICHARD Carroll was in his office just after nine. Twice he tried phoning Katie, hoping to catch her between court sessions. He wanted to hear the sound of her voice. For some reason he'd felt edgy about leaving her alone in that big house last night. Why did he have a hunch that something was troubling her?

He went out on a case. When he returned to his office at four thirty, he was absurdly pleased to see that Katie had returned his calls. Quickly he phoned her, but the switchboard operator said that she had left for the day.

That meant he wouldn't get to talk to her today. He was having dinner in New York with Clovis Simmons, a TV actress. Clovis was fun, but the signs were that she was getting serious.

Richard made a resolve. This was the last time he'd take Clovis out. It wasn't fair to her. Refusing to consider the reason for that sudden decision, he turned his thoughts again to the Lewis case.

He had not been exaggerating when he'd said that if Vangie Lewis had not delivered her baby soon, she wouldn't have needed cyanide. How many women got into that same condition under the Westlake Maternity Concept? Had there been anything unusual about the ratio of deaths among Westlake's patients? Richard asked his secretary to come in.

Marge was in her mid-fifties, an excellent secretary who thoroughly enjoyed the drama of the department.

"Marge," he said, "I want to do some unofficial investigating of Westlake Hospital's maternity section. I'd like to know how many patients died either in childbirth or from complications during pregnancy. I also want to know the ratio of deaths to the number of patients treated there. Do you know anybody at Westlake who might look at the hospital records for you on the quiet?"

His secretary frowned. "Let me work on it." "Good. And check into any malpractice suits that have been filed against either of the doctors."

Satisfied at getting the investigation under way, Richard dashed home to shower and change. Seconds after he left his office a call came for him from Dr. David Broad at Mount Sinai Hospital. Marge took the message asking Richard to contact Dr. Broad in the morning. The matter was urgent.

KATIE was a few minutes early for her appointment with Dr. Highley. The other receptionist, Mrs. Fitzgerald, was coolly pleasant, but when Katie asked about Edna's illness, the woman seemed nervous. "It's just a virus," she replied stiffly.

A buzzer sounded. The receptionist picked up the phone. "Mrs. DeMaio, Dr. Highley will see you now," she said.

Katie walked quickly down the corridor to Dr. Highley's office. She knocked, then opened the door and stepped inside. The office had the air of a comfortable study. Bookshelves lined one wall; pictures of mothers with babies nearly covered another. A club chair was placed near the doctor's elaborately carved desk. The doctor stood up to greet her. "Mrs. DeMaio." His tone was courteous, the faint British accent barely perceptible. His face was round and smooth-skinned. Thinning sandy hair, streaked with gray, was carefully combed in a side part. Eyebrows and lashes, the same sandy shade, accentuated protruding steel-gray eyes. Not an attractive man, but authoritative.

As they sat down, Katie thanked him for the phone call. He dismissed her gratitude. "If you had told the emergency-room doctor that you were my patient, he would have given you a room in the west wing. Far more comfortable, I assure you. And about the same view."

Katie fished in her shoulder bag and took out her notebook and pen. She looked up quickly. "Anything would be better than the view I thought I had the other night…" She stopped. She was here on official business, not to talk about her nightmares. "Doctor, if you don't mind, let's talk about Vangie Lewis." She smiled. "I guess our roles are reversed for a few minutes. I get to ask the questions."

His expression became somber. "That poor girl. I've thought of little else since I heard the news."

Katie nodded. "When was the last time you saw her?"

He leaned back in the chair. His fingers interlocked under his chin. "It was last Thursday evening. I'd been having Mrs. Lewis come in weekly since the halfway point of her pregnancy."

"How was she," Katie asked, "physically and emotionally?"

"Her physical condition was a worry. There was danger of toxic pregnancy, which I was watching very closely. But every additional day she carried increased the baby's chance of survival."

"Could she have carried the baby to full term?"

"Impossible. In fact, I warned Mrs. Lewis last Thursday that we'd have to bring her in soon and induce labor." "How did she respond to that news?" He frowned. "I expected her to be concerned for the baby's life.

But the closer she came to delivery, the more it seemed to me that she was morbidly fearful of giving birth."

"Did she show any specific depression?"

Dr. Highley shook his head. "I did not see it. But Dr. Fukhito should answer that. He saw her on Monday night, and he's better trained than I to recognize the symptoms." "A last question," Katie said. "Your office is right next to Dr. Fukhito's. Did you see Mrs. Lewis at any time Monday night?"

"I did not."

"Thank you. You've been very helpful." She slipped her notebook back into her bag. "Now it's your turn to ask questions." "You answered them last night. Now, when you've finished talking with Dr. Fukhito, please go to room 101. You'll be given a trans fusion. Wait about half, an hour before driving after you've received it. Also…" He reached into the side drawer of his desk and selected a bottle containing a number of pills. 'Take one of these tonight. Then one every four hours tomorrow; the same on Friday. I must stress that this is very important. If this operation does not cure your problem, we must consider more radical surgery, perhaps a hysterectomy."

"I'll take the pills," Katie said.

"Good. You'll be checking in around six o'clock Friday evening. I'll look in on you." He opened the door for her. "Till Friday, then, Mrs. DeMaio," he said softly.

THE investigative team of Phil Cunningham and Charley Nugent returned to the prosecutor's office at four p.m. exuding the excitement of hounds who have treed their quarry. Rushing into Scott's office, they proceeded to lay their findings before him.

"The husband's a liar," Phil said crisply. "He wasn't due back till yesterday morning, but his plane developed engine trouble. The passengers were off-loaded in Chicago, and he and the crew deadheaded back to New York. He got in Monday evening."

"Monday evening!" Scott exploded.

"Yeah. We talked to his crew on the Monday flight. Lewis gave the purser a ride into Manhattan. Told him his wife was away and he was going to stay in the city overnight and take in a show. He parked the car and checked in at the Holiday Inn on West Fifty-seventh Street; then he and the purser had dinner together. The purser left him at seven twenty. After that, Lewis got his car. The garage records show he brought it back at ten. And get this. He took off again at midnight and came back at two."

Scott whistled. "He lied to us about his flight. He lied to the purser about his wife. He was somewhere in his car between eight and ten and between midnight and two a.m. And Vangie Lewis died between eight and ten."

"There's more," Charley Nugent said. "Lewis has a girl friend, a Pan Am stewardess. Name's Joan Moore. Lives on East Eighty-seventh Street. Her doorman told us that Captain Lewis drove her home from the airport yesterday morning. She left her bag with him and they went for, coffee in the drugstore across the street."

"It's four o'clock," Scott said crisply. "The judges will be leaving soon. Phil, get one of them on the phone and ask him to wait around for fifteen minutes. Tell him we'll need a search warrant. Charley, you find out what funeral director picked up Vangie Lewis' body in Minneapolis. Get to him. The body is not to be interred. Did Lewis say when he was coming back?"

Charley nodded. "Tomorrow, after the service." "Find out what plane he's on and invite him here for questioning. And I want to talk to Miss Moore. What do you know about her?"

"She shares an apartment with two other stewardesses. She's planning to switch to Pan Am's Latin American division and fly out of Miami. She's down there now, signing a lease on an apartment. She'll be back Friday afternoon."

"Meet her plane too," Scott said. "Bring her here for a few questions. Where was she Monday night?"

"In flight on her way to New York."

"All right." He paused. "Something else. I want the phone records from the Lewis house, particularly from the last week. See if they had an answering service, since he's with an airline. And look again for cyanide. We've got to find out fast where Vangie Lewis got the stuff that killed her. Or where Captain Lewis got it."

DR. FUKHITO'S office was spacious and bright. There was a long writing table, graceful cane-backed chairs with upholstered seats, and a matching chaise. A series of exquisite Japanese woodcuts decorated the walls.

Dr. Fukhito was conservatively dressed: pin-striped suit, light blue shirt, blue silk tie. His jet-black hair and small, neat mustache complemented pale gold skin and brown eyes. He was a strikingly handsome man, Katie thought as she reached for her notebook. "Doctor, you saw Vangie Lewis at about eight o'clock Monday night. How long did she stay?"

"About forty minutes. She phoned Monday afternoon and asked for an appointment. She sounded quite distressed. I told her to come in at eight."

"Why was she so distressed, Doctor?"

He chose his words carefully. "She had quarreled with her husband. She was convinced he did not love her or want the baby. And, physically, the strain of the pregnancy was beginning to tell on her. She was quite immature, really-an only child who had been inordinately spoiled and fussed over. The physical discomfort was appalling to her, and the prospect of the birth had become frightening."

His eyes shifted away. This man was nervous, Katie thought. What advice had he given Vangie that had sent her rushing home to kill herself? Or had sent her to a killer?

Leaning forward, Katie said, "Doctor, I realize that Mrs. Lewis' discussions with you are confidential, but we need to know all you can tell us about the quarrel she had with her husband."

He looked at Katie. "Mrs. Lewis told me that she believed her husband was in love with someone else. She'd accused him of that. She'd warned him that when she found out who the woman was, she'd make her life hell. She was angry, bitter and frightened."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her that the baby might be the instrument to give her marriage more time. She began to calm down. But then I felt it necessary to warn her that if her marriage did not improve, she should consider the possibility of divorce. She became furious. She swore that she would never let her husband leave her, that I was on his side, like everyone else. She got up, grabbed her coat and left. She used my private entrance to go out the back way."

"And you never heard from her again?"

"No."

"I see." Katie got up and walked over to the wall with the pictures. Dr. Fukhito was holding something back. "I was a patient here myself Monday night, Doctor," she said. "I had a minor automobile accident and was brought here around ten o'clock. Can you tell me, is there any chance that Vangie Lewis did not leave the hospital shortly after eight thirty? That after I was brought in, semiconscious, I might have seen her?"

Dr. Fukhito stared at Katie. "I don't see how," he said. But Katie noticed that his knuckles were clenched and white, and something-was it fury or fear?-flashed in his eyes.