We'll Meet Again

86

Lou should have been back by 9:30. As he did with everything, Calvin Whitehall had calculated the precise amount of time it would take for his henchman to go to West Redding, take care of business, and return. As he watched the clock in his library with intense awareness, he acknowledged to himself that unless Lou returned soon, something must have gone terribly wrong.

Too bad, because this was an all-or-nothing game. There was no such thing as cutting his losses if he failed.

By ten o’clock he had begun to consider how quickly he could distance himself from his aide-de-camp, Lou Knox.

At ten minutes after ten the front doorbell rang. He had told the housekeeper to take the night off, something he frequently did. It annoyed him to have household help around all the time. Cal understood that, of course, this feeling was the product of his origins. In most cases, no matter how much you achieve in life, humble beginnings trigger humble responses, he thought.

He headed down the hall toward the door, catching his reflection in a mirror along the way. What he saw was a barrel-chested man with a ruddy complexion and thinning hair. For some reason a remark he had heard about himself when he was fresh out of Yale flashed into his mind. The mother of one of his Yale friends had whispered, “ Cal does not look comfortable in his Brooks Brothers suit.”

He was not surprised to find not one but four people at the door. The spokesman said, “Mr. Whitehall, I’m Detective Burroughs from the prosecutor’s office. You are under arrest for conspiracy to murder Frances Simmons and Dr. Adrian Lowe.”

Conspiracy to murder, he thought, letting the phrase echo in his mind.

It was worse than he expected.

Cal stared at Detective Burroughs, who cheerfully returned his gaze. “Mr. Whitehall, for your information, your coconspirator, Lou Knox, is singing like a bird from his hospital bed. And another piece of good news-Dr. Adrian Lowe is making a statement at the police station right now. It seems he can’t praise you enough for all you did to make his criminal research possible.”