We'll Meet Again

68

Lucy Bonaventure took an early morning plane from Buffalo to New York ’s La Guardia Airport and by ten o’clock was entering Annamarie’s garden apartment in Yonkers. In the nearly six years that Annamarie had lived there, Lucy had never seen the place. Annamarie had told her the apartment was small-it had only one bedroom, and besides, it was always more convenient for Annamarie to drive to Buffalo for visits.

Lucy knew that the police had searched the apartment after Annamarie died, and she understood that was why it had a disheveled appearance. The bric-a-brac on the coffee table was shoved together; books were piled haphazardly on the shelves, as if they’d been pulled out and replaced at random. In the bedroom it was obvious that the contents of drawers had been examined, then just tossed back carelessly by uncaring hands.

She had arranged for the manager of the condo units to handle the sale of the apartment. All Lucy had to do was to clear it out. She would like to get that done in one day, but realistically she knew it would be at least an overnight job. It was painful for her even to be there, to see Annamarie’s favorite perfume on the dresser, to see the book she’d been reading still on the night table, to open the closet and see her suits and dresses and uniforms, and to know she would never wear them again.

All the clothing, as well as the furniture, would be picked up by charities. At least, Lucy reasoned, some needy people would be helped. It was small comfort, but it was something.

Fran Simmons, the reporter, was due to arrive at 11:30. While she waited for her, Lucy began clearing out Annamarie’s dresser, folding the contents neatly, then placing them in cartons the handyman had given her.

She wept over the photographs she found in a bottom drawer, showing Annamarie holding her infant son, pictures obviously taken minutes after he was born. She looked so young in the photos and was looking at the baby so tenderly. There were other pictures of him, each marked on the back, “first birthday,” “second birthday,” until the last one, the fifth. He was a beautiful child, with sparkling blue eyes, dark brown hair, and a warm merry smile. It broke Annamarie’s heart to give him up, Lucy thought. She deliberated over whether to show the photos to Fran Simmons, then decided she would. They might help her to understand Annamarie and the terrible price she had paid for her mistakes.

Fran rang the doorbell promptly at 11:30, and Lucy Bonaventure invited her in. For a moment the two women took each other’s measure. Fran saw a buxom woman in her mid-forties, with swollen eyes, even features, and skin that seemed blotched from weeping.

Lucy saw a slender woman in her early thirties with collar-length, light brown hair and blue-gray eyes. As she explained to her daughter the next day, “It wasn’t that she was all dressed up-she had on a dark brown pants suit with a brown and yellow and white scarf at her neck, and simple gold earrings-but she looked so New York. She had a nice way about her, and when she told me how sorry she was about Annamarie, I knew it wasn’t just talk. I’d made coffee, and she said she’d like a cup, so we sat down at Annamarie’s little dinette table.”

Fran knew it would be wise to get straight to the point. “Mrs. Bonaventure, I began to investigate Dr. Lasch’s murder because Molly Lasch, whom I knew from school, asked me to do a show on the case for the True Crime program I work with. She wants to uncover the truth about these murders as much as you do. She has spent five and a half years in prison for a crime she doesn’t remember and, I have come to believe, she did not commit. There are far too many unanswered questions about Dr. Lasch’s death. No one ever really investigated it at the time, and I’m trying to do it now.”

“Yes, well, her lawyer tried to make it look as if Annamarie killed Dr. Lasch,” Lucy said with remembered anger.

“Her lawyer did what any good lawyer would do. He pointed out that Annamarie said she was alone in her apartment in Cos Cob the night of the murder, but that she had no one who could corroborate it.”

“If that trial hadn’t been stopped, he was going to cross-examine Annamarie and try to make her out to be a murderer. I know that was his plan. Is he still Molly Lasch’s lawyer?”

“Yes, he is. And a good one. Mrs. Bonaventure, Molly did not kill Dr. Lasch. She did not kill Annamarie. She certainly did not kill Dr. Jack Morrow, whom she hardly knew. Three people are dead, and I believe the same person is responsible for their murders. Whoever took their lives should be punished, but it was not Molly. That person is the reason Molly went to prison. That person is the reason she has been arrested for Annamarie’s murder. Do you want Molly Lasch sent to prison for something she didn’t do, or do you want to find your sister’s murderer?”

“Why did Molly Lasch track down Annamarie and ask to meet her?”

“Molly had believed she had a happy marriage. Obviously she did not, or Annamarie wouldn’t have been in the picture. Molly was trying to find the answer to why her husband was murdered, and to why her marriage failed. Where better than to start with the woman who had been her husband’s lover? This is where you can help. Annamarie was afraid of someone, or of something. Molly saw that when they met that night, but you must have seen it long before then. Why did she change her name and take your mother’s maiden name? Why did she give up hospital nursing? From everything I hear she was a marvelous bedside nurse and loved doing it.”

“Yes, she was,” Lucy Bonaventure said sadly. “She was punishing herself when she gave it up.”

But what I need to know is why she gave it up, Fran thought. “Mrs. Bonaventure, you said that something had happened in the hospital-something that was terribly upsetting to Annamarie. Have you any idea what it was, or when it happened?”

Lucy Bonaventure sat silently for a moment, obviously struggling with her desire to protect Annamarie versus the fervent need to punish her murderer.

“I know it was not long before Dr.Lasch was murdered,” she said, speaking slowly, “and it was over a weekend. Something went wrong with a young woman patient. Dr. Lasch and his partner, Dr. Black, were involved. Annamarie thought Dr. Black had made a terrible mistake, but she didn’t report it because Dr. Lasch begged her to keep quiet, saying that if word of the mishap got out, it would destroy the hospital.”

Lucy held up the coffeepot and gave Fran a questioning look. Fran shook her head, and Lucy poured more coffee into her own cup. She replaced the pot on the burner and sat staring into her coffee cup a few moments before speaking again. Fran knew she was trying to choose her words carefully.

“Honest mistakes do happen in hospitals, Ms. Simmons. We all know that. According to what Annamarie told me, the young woman had been running when she was injured and was dehydrated when they brought her in to the hospital. Dr. Black gave her some kind of experimental drug instead of the normal saline solution, and she slipped into a vegetative state.”

“How awful!”

“It was Annamarie’s duty to report it, and she didn’t, having been asked not to by Dr. Lasch. But then a few days later, she overheard Dr. Black say to Dr. Lasch, ‘I gave it to the right person this time. It took her right out.’ ”

“You mean they were deliberately experimenting on patients?” Fran asked, shocked at this revelation.

“I can only tell you what I’ve put together from the little bit Annamarie told me. She wouldn’t talk about any of it much, and usually only if she had a couple of glasses of wine and needed to unburden herself.” Lucy paused and sat once more staring into her cup.

“Was there something else?” Fran asked gently, anxious to get the woman to talk, but not wanting to prod her too hard.

“Yes. Annamarie told me that the very next night after the young woman was given the wrong drug, an old lady who’d had a couple of heart attacks and had been in the hospital for a while, died. Annamarie told me she couldn’t be sure, but she suspected the old lady was given that experimental drug and apparently was the one who was ‘the right person’ she had heard Dr. Black refer to, because she was the only one who died in the hospital that week, and because Dr. Black was in and out of the room and didn’t mark the chart.”

“Wasn’t Annamarie even tempted to report that death?”

“She had absolutely no proof of anything being wrong in the second incident, and when tests were done on the young woman, the results indicated no trace of a suspicious substance. Annamarie did talk to Dr. Black, and she asked him why he hadn’t marked the old woman’s chart when he treated her. He told her she didn’t know what she was talking about and warned her that if she started spreading such unfounded rumors, she would be sued for slander. When she asked him about the young woman who was now in a coma, he said she’d gone into cardiac arrest in the ambulance.”

Lucy paused and once more filled her coffee cup. “Try to understand. Annamarie originally believed that the first incident was an honest mistake. She was in love with Gary Lasch and at that point even knew she was pregnant by him, although she hadn’t yet told him. She didn’t want to believe that he would have anything to do with hurting someone, and she didn’t want to cause him or the hospital any trouble. But then, while she was agonizing over what she should do, Jack Morrow was murdered, and suddenly she became frightened. She believed that he had begun to suspect something was going wrong at the hospital, but it was only a suspicion. He apparently had wanted to give her something to hold for him for safekeeping, a file or papers or something, but he never got the chance. He was murdered first. Then, two weeks later, Gary Lasch was murdered. By then, Annamarie was terrified.”

“Did Annamarie ever fall out of love with Gary Lasch?” Fran asked.

“At the end. He was avoiding her, and she had started to fear him. When she told him she was pregnant, he told her to get an abortion. If it weren’t for DNA testing, she was sure he would have sworn it wasn’t his child.

“Jack Morrow’s death was a terrible blow to Annamarie. Even though she had gone into an affair with Dr. Lasch, I think she always loved Jack. Afterwards, she showed me Dr. Lasch’s picture. She said, ‘I was obsessed with him. He does that to women. He uses people.’ ”

“Did Annamarie think that things at the hospital were still going wrong, even after Gary Lasch was killed?”

“I don’t think she had any way of knowing. And besides, her energies were soon focused on taking care of the child she was carrying. Ms. Simmons, we begged Annamarie to keep her baby. We would have helped her raise it. She gave it up because she didn’t think she was worthy of it. She said to me, ‘What do I tell my child-that I had an affair with his father, who was then murdered because of our affair? When he asks me to tell him what his father was like, do I tell him he was a danger to his patients and betrayed the people who trusted him?’ ”

“Annamarie told Molly that as both a doctor and a husband, Gary Lasch wasn’t worth going to prison for,” Fran said.

Lucy Bonaventure smiled. “That sounds like Annamarie,” she said.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you, Mrs. Bonaventure,” Fran said. “And I know how hard this is for you.”

“Yes, it is. But let me show you something before you go.” Lucy Bonaventure went into the bedroom and picked up the photographs she had placed on the dresser top. She showed them to Fran. “This is Annamarie with her baby. You can see how young she was. The adoptive family sent her a birthday picture of him for the first five years. This is the little boy she gave up. She paid such a terrible price for her mistakes. I hope, if Molly Lasch is innocent, that you can prove it. But tell her that in her own way, Annamarie was in prison too, a self-imposed one perhaps, but still one filled with pain and deprivation. And if you want to know who she was afraid of, you’re right, I don’t think it was Molly Lasch. I think the person she really feared was Dr. Peter Black.”