We'll Meet Again

39

On Monday afternoon, waitress Gladys Fluegel willingly accompanied Detective Ed Green to the courthouse in Stamford, where she related what she had observed of the meeting between Annamarie Scalli and Molly Carpenter Lasch.

Trying to contain her pleasure at the level of deferential treatment accorded her, Gladys allowed herself to be led into the courthouse by Detective Green. There they were met by another youngish man who introduced himself as Assistant State Attorney Victor Packwell. He led them to a room with a conference table and asked Gladys if she’d like coffee or a soda or water.

“Please don’t be nervous, Ms. Fluegel. You can be a great help to us,” he assured her.

“That’s why I’m here,” Gladys responded with a smile. “Soda. Diet.”

Fifty-eight-year-old Gladys had a face that was creased with wrinkles, the result of forty years of heavy smoking. Her bright red hair showed gray roots. Thanks to her slavish devotion to on-line shopping, she was always in debt. She had never married, never had a serious boyfriend, and she lived with her contentious elderly parents.

As her thirties had yielded to her forties, and then her forties blended almost unnoticeably into her fifties, Gladys Fluegel found her outlook on life souring. Eventualities no longer seemed to hold even possibilities. She was no longer sure that someday something wonderful would happen to her. She had waited patiently for excitement to enter her life, but it never had. Until now.

She genuinely enjoyed waitressing, but over the years she had become impatient and abrupt with customers, at least on occasion. It hurt her to see couples linking hands across tables, or to watch parents having a festive night out with their kids, knowing that she had missed that kind of life.

As her resentful attitude had deepened, it had cost her a number of jobs, until finally Gladys had become a fixture at the Sea Lamp, where the food was poor and the patronage sparse. The place seemed to fit her personality.

On Sunday evening she had felt particularly edgy, due to the fact that the other regular waitress had called in sick and Gladys had been forced to cover for her.

“A woman came in sometime around 7:30,” she explained to the detectives, enjoying the feeling of importance it gave her to have these policemen pay such close attention, not to mention the clerk, who was taking down her every word.

“Describe her, please, Ms. Fluegel.” Ed Green, the young detective who had driven her to Stamford, was being very polite.

I wonder if his parents are divorced, Gladys thought. If they are, I wouldn’t mind meeting his father. “Why don’t you just call me Gladys? Everybody does.”

“If that’s what you prefer, Gladys.”

Gladys smiled, then touched her hand to her mouth as though she were thinking, trying to remember. “The woman who came in first…Let’s see…” Gladys pursed her lips. She wasn’t going to tell them that she’d been irritated at that woman because she’d insisted on a booth way in the back. “She looked like she was somewhere around thirty, she had short, dark hair, was maybe a size 14. It was hard to tell for sure. She was wearing slacks and a parka.”

She realized that they certainly knew what that woman looked like and that her name was Annamarie Scalli, but she understood also that, step by step, they needed to nail down the facts. Besides, she was enjoying all this attention.

She told them that Ms. Scalli had ordered only coffee, not even so much as a roll or a piece of cake, which of course meant that the tip wouldn’t be enough for Gladys to buy a stick of gum.

They smiled when she said that, but their smiles were benign, and she took them as encouragement.

“Then that really classy-looking lady came in, and right away you could tell there was no love lost between the two of them.”

Detective Green held up a picture. “Is this the woman who joined Annamarie Scalli?”

“Absolutely!”

“What exactly was their attitude to each other, Gladys? Think carefully-this could be important.”

“They were both nervous,” she said emphatically. “When I brought the tea to the second lady, I heard the other one call her Mrs. Lasch. I couldn’t hear what they said to each other, except little bits of talk when I brought the tea and when I tidied up a table near them.”

Gladys could tell that this information had disappointed the detectives, so she rushed to add, “But business was real slow, and since I was just moping around and there was something about those two women that made me curious, I sat on a stool at the counter and watched them. Of course, later I realized I’d seen Molly Lasch’s picture in the paper last week.”

“What did you observe going on between Molly Lasch and Annamarie Scalli?”

“Well, the dark-haired woman, I mean the one named Annamarie Scalli, started looking more and more nervous. Honest to God, it was almost like she was afraid of Molly Lasch.”

“Afraid, Gladys?”

“Yeah, I mean it. She wouldn’t look her in the eye, and, actually, I don’t blame her. The blonde, I mean Mrs. Lasch-well, believe me, as Annamarie Scalli talked, you should have seen the look on Mrs. Lasch’s face. Cold, like an iceberg. She sure didn’t like what she was hearing.

“Then I saw Ms. Scalli start to get up. You could tell she wanted to be a million miles away from there. So I headed over to see if they wanted anything more-you know, refills.”

“Did she say anything?” Detective Green and Assistant State Attorney Victor Packwell asked in unison.

“Let me explain,” Gladys said. “Annamarie Scalli got up. Mrs. Lasch grabbed her wrist so she couldn’t leave. Then Ms. Scalli broke away from her and rushed to get out. Practically knocked me down, she was in such a hurry.”

“What did Mrs. Lasch do?” Packwell demanded.

“She couldn’t leave fast enough either,” Gladys said firmly. “I gave her the check. It was for a dollar thirty. She tossed five dollars down and went running after Ms. Scalli.”

“Did she seem upset?” Packwell asked.

Gladys narrowed her eyes in a dramatic effort to remember and to describe Molly Lasch as she had appeared at that moment. “I would say she had a funny look on her face, kinda like she’d been punched in the gut.”

“Did you see Mrs. Lasch get in her car?”

Gladys shook her head emphatically. “No, I did not. When she opened the door leading out to the parking lot, she seemed to be talking to herself, and then I heard her call out, ‘Annamarie,’ and I figured she still had something to say to the other woman.”

“Do you know if Annamarie Scalli heard her?”

Gladys sensed that the detectives would be terribly disappointed if she said she couldn’t be sure. She hesitated. “Well, I’m pretty sure that she must have gotten her attention, because Mrs. Lasch called her name again, and then called out ‘Wait.’ ”

“She called for Annamarie to wait!”

It was like that, wasn’t it? Gladys asked herself. I was half expecting Mrs. Lasch to come back looking for change, but then I could tell that all she cared about was to catch up with the other woman.

Wait.

Did Molly Lasch say that, or did that couple who had just taken a table call Waitress?

Gladys saw the excitement on the detectives’ faces. She did not want this moment to end. This was part of what she had waited for. All her life. Finally it was her turn. She looked again at the eager faces. “What I mean is, she called Annamarie’s name twice, then when she said ‘Wait,’ I got the feeling that she’d attracted her attention. I remember thinking that Annamarie Scalli had probably waited out in the parking lot to talk to Mrs. Lasch.”

That was kind of the way it was, Gladys told herself, as the two men smiled broadly.

“Gladys, you’re very important to us,” Victor Packwell said gratefully. “I have to tell you that down the line you’ll be needed for further testimony.”

“I’m glad to help,” Gladys assured him.

Within the hour, having read and signed her statement, Gladys was on her way back to Rowayton in Detective Green’s car. The only thing that marred her happiness was Green’s response to her probing about his father’s marital status.

His parents had just celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary.

At the same time, at the courthouse in Stamford, assistant state attorney Tom Serrazzano, was appearing before a judge to request a search warrant authorizing them to search Molly Carpenter Lasch’s home and automobile.

“Judge,” Serrazzano said, “we have probable cause to believe that Molly Lasch murdered Annamarie Scalli. We believe that evidence relevant to this crime may be found in these two locations. If there are bloodstains or hairs or fibers on her clothes or on a weapon or in her car, we want to seize them before she cleans or otherwise disposes of them.”