We'll Meet Again

77

Fran knew that if she tried to read in bed, she would fall asleep, so she opted instead to change into a pair of comfortable old pajamas and then settled in her leather chair, her feet on the hassock.

She tackled Gary Lasch’s file first. It reads like a slightly sophisticated Beaver Cleaver profile, she thought. He attended a good prep school and a good college, but not Ivy League. Couldn’t make one, I’ll bet, she told herself. He finished college with a B minus average, then went to Meridian Medical School in Colorado. After that he joined his father’s practice. Soon thereafter his father died, and Gary was made head of the hospital.

And here we start to shine, Fran noticed. Engagement to socialiteMolly Carpenter. More and more articles about Lasch Hospital and its charismatic CEO. Then stories about Gary and his partner, Peter Black, starting Remington HMO with financier Calvin Whitehall.

Next came his dazzling wedding to Molly. Then clippings about the beautiful couple-Gary and Molly at benefits and charity balls and other top-drawer social events.

Interspersed there were more items about the hospital and the HMO, including pieces about Gary being invited to make speeches at medical conventions. Fran read some of them. The usual fluff, she decided, putting them to one side.

Everything else in the Gary Lasch folder had to do with his death. Reams of newspaper articles about the murder, the trial, Molly.

Reluctantly, Fran decided that there was absolutely nothing in all the material on Gary Lasch to indicate that he was anything more than an average doctor who was smart enough to marry well and to get in on the health maintenance organization circus. Until he was murdered, of course.

Well, on to the almighty Calvin Whitehall, Fran told herself with a sigh. Forty minutes later, her eyes burning with fatigue, she said aloud, “Now this guy is a horse of a different color. I think the proper adjective to describe him would be ‘ruthless,’ not ‘almighty.’ It’s a miracle he’s stayed out of jail.”

The list of lawsuits filed against Cal Whitehall over the years took up pages. The notations showed that a few were settled “for an undisclosed sum,” while most were dismissed or resulted in a favorable verdict for Whitehall.

There were many recent articles about the proposed acquisition by Remington Health Management of smaller HMOs, and there was mention as well of the potential for a hostile takeover of Remington itself.

That merger deal really is in trouble, Fran reflected, as she continued to read. Whitehall has big bucks, but according to these articles, some of the biggest stockholders of the competing American National are powerhouses too. From what I see here, they all believe that the future of medicine in this country calls for the guidance of American National’s president, the former surgeon general. If these quotes are accurate, they’re willing to make sure that happens.

Unlike Gary Lasch’s, Whitehall ’s file contained no long list of charities or sponsorship of charitable events to his credit. There was one civic trusteeship, however, that drove the sleepiness from Fran. Calvin Whitehall had been a member of the library fund committee with her father! His name was mentioned in newspaper articles in the file about the theft. I never knew he was part of that, Fran thought. But how would I? I was just a kid then. Mom wouldn’t talk about the theft, and she and I left Greenwich soon after Dad committed suicide.

The articles included a number of blurry photostated pictures of her father. The captions weren’t flattering.

Fran got up and walked to the window. It was after midnight, and even though there were lights still on in many of the apartments, it was clear that the city was settling into sleep.

When I do finally get to meet Whitehall, I’m going to ask him some hard questions, she thought angrily. For example, how did Dad manage to steal that much money from the fund without it being noticed? Maybe he can tell me where I can find records to show whether Dad took the money over a period of time, or if he went for it all at once.

Calvin Whitehall is a financier, she thought. Even all those years ago he was successful and wealthy. He should be able to give me some answers about my father, or at least tell me how I can find them.

She was tempted to go to bed, but decided to at least skim a few of the magazines she had taken from Molly. First she glanced at the dates on the covers. Molly had said they were old, but Fran was surprised to see that the earliest one went back over twenty years. The most recent were dated thirteen years ago.

She looked at the oldest one first. An article entitled “A Plea for Reason” was checked on the index page. The author’s name seemed vaguely familiar, but perhaps not. Fran began to read. I don’t like the way this guy thinks, she thought, horrified at what he had written.

The second magazine, eighteen years old, had an article by the same author. It was entitled “Darwin, Survival of the Fittest, and the Human Condition in the Third Millennium.” Accompanying this entry was a picture of the author, a professor of research at Meridian Medical School. He was shown in the laboratory with two of his most promising student assistants.

Fran’s eyes widened with shock as she matched the face of the professor to his vaguely familiar name, then recognized the two students.

“Bingo!” she said. “That explains it all.”