wheel, with a man beside her and some kids in the back.
I drove around for ten minutes or so, then went back to the house and rang the bell. A man in his early seventies answered the door. He obviously had no idea who I was but his smile was cordial. I introduced myself, and said that Bruce had told me his family was visiting. “Come in,” he said. “You must be a friend of Barbara’s.”
“Mr. Hanover,” I said, stepping across the threshold, “I’m Mack MacKenzie’s sister. I need to talk to her about him.”
His expression changed. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” he said.
“It’s not a matter of its being a good idea,” I said. “I’m afraid it’s necessary.” Not giving him a chance to reply, I walked past him into the living room.
The house was one of those early Cape Cods that had been expanded over the years. The living room wasn’t large, but it was charming, with Early American furniture and a hooked rug. Overhead, I could hear the sound of running feet and shrieks of laughter. The children sounded young. I thought I remembered hearing that Barbara and Bruce Galbraith had a boy and twin girls.
Richard Hanover had disappeared, presumably to tell his daughter I was here. While I waited, three little girls came pounding down the stairs, followed by a girl of about eleven. The little ones rushed over to me. Two of them were obviously twins. The girls crowded around me, pleased to be greeting a guest.
“What’s your name?” I pointed to one of the twins.
“Samantha Jean Galbraith,” she said proudly. “Everybody calls me Sammy, and we took the ferry to Cape Cod today.”
They’d been on an all-day excursion to the Cape, I thought. I pointed to the other twin. “What’s your name?”
“Margaret Hanover Galbraith. I’m named after my grandmother who is in heaven, and everybody calls me Maggie.” Both girls have their mother’s blond hair, I thought to myself.
“And is this your cousin or your friend?” I asked, indicating the other little girl.
“This is Ava Grace Gregory, our very best friend,” Samantha explained. Ava Grace took a step closer to me and beamed. Samantha turned and tugged at the older girl’s hand. “And this is Victoria Somers. She visits us here and sometimes we visit her at her ranch in Colorado.”
“I go with them sometimes,” Ava Grace told me earnestly. “And my daddy took all of us to the White House.”
“I’ve never been there myself,” I told her. “That’s wonderful.” I love kids, I thought to myself. Someday I’m going to have at least four of my own, I hope.
“Okay, you guys. Go upstairs and get cleaned up before it’s time to go out for dinner.” The tone was light and the children were facing me, so they could not see the expression on Barbara Hanover Galbraith’s face. She looked at me with such intense dislike that the only emotion I could feel was astonishment.
I had met her once at dinner when I was sixteen years old. I had been heartbroken, because it had looked as if Nick had a crush on her, but now he claims that it was she who had a crush on Mack. Suddenly I wondered if I was reading her expression correctly. Was it scorn that I was seeing in her narrowed eyes and tense body language, or something else?
With a chorus of good-byes, the girls were on their way upstairs. Barbara said, “I’d rather talk in the den.”
I followed her down the narrow hall. There was a large country kitchen at the end that spilled into a family room. The den was to the left before the kitchen. If I were to guess, I would say that this was where Richard Hanover spent his evenings when he was alone. It had cheery wallpaper, a patterned carpet, a medium-sized desk and chair, and a recliner that faced a wall-mounted television. There was a reading lamp to the left behind the recliner, and a basket of books and magazines within easy reach.
I could visualize my father in that room.
Barbara closed the door and sat behind the desk, leaving me only the reclining chair, which seemed too big and too deep for me. I knew she was Mack’s age, thirty-one, but she was one of those women whose early beauty doesn’t last. Her face, which I remembered as being flawless, was too thin now, her lips too narrow. The cascade of blond hair that I had once both admired and envied was now drawn tight in a chignon. But she was still compelling in a slender, autocratic way. I imagined that her commanding presence must be a comfort to the parents of her pediatric patients.
“Why did you come here, Carolyn?” she demanded.
I looked at her, trying to reflect the same hostility that was emanating from her. “Barbara,” I said, “from what I understand you and Mack were dating ten years ago when he disappeared. Frankly, I’ve been told that you were pretty crazy about him. If, as the police believe, and as you surely have read in the newspapers, Mack is committing crimes, there can only be one reason for it, and that is that he’s had a complete mental breakdown. I need to know if you saw any sign of it.”
She said nothing.
I stared back at her. “I’m telling you right now that when I met your husband at his office, he showed such hostility about Mack that I was floored. What did Mack ever do to Bruce, and did it have anything to do with his disappearance? What reason do you have for rushing up here to avoid questioning? If you think you can hide out up here, you’re wrong. The media is camped outside our home on Sutton Place. Every time I go in or out, they try to shove a microphone in my face. Unless I can get some honest answers from you, and I am satisfied that you know nothing about the reason for Mack’s disappearance, then the next time I’m hounded by the media I’m going to tell them you and your husband are holding back information that may be helpful in finding Leesey Andrews.”
I watched as the color drained from her face. “You wouldn’t dare to do that!”
“Oh, yes, I would,” I assured her. “I will do anything to find Mack and stop him, if he is committing these crimes, or clear his name if he is innocent. For all I know, he’s a victim of amnesia and may be living three thousand miles away.”
“I don’t know where he is, but I do know why he walked away.” Barbara Galbraith’s chin began to tremble. “If I tell you, will you swear to leave us alone? Bruce had nothing to do with his disappearance. Bruce loved me and saved my life. It’s because of what Mack did to me that he hates him.”
“What did he do to you?” I could almost not form the words. I had been wrong. I hadn’t been seeing only hatred from Dr. Barbara Hanover Galbraith. I had been witnessing pain that she had been trying not to unleash.
“I was crazy about Mack. We were going out together. To him, it was casual, I know that. But then I got pregnant. I was frantic. My mother was dying. The health insurance was pitiful, and all the money that had been put aside for medical school had been spent. I had been accepted at Columbia Presbyterian, and I knew I couldn’t go. I told Mack.”
She gulped to avoid sobbing. “He said he would take care of me. He said we’d get married, and I could defer school for one year, then start.”
That sounds like Mack, I thought.
“I believed him. I knew he didn’t love me, but I was also sure I could get him to love me. Then he disappeared. Just like that. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Why didn’t you go to my parents?” I demanded. “They would have taken care of you.”
“Maybe give me a handout to support their son’s child? No, thank you.” Barbara bit her lip. “I am a pediatric surgeon. I thrill to touch a tiny baby and save its life. I have saved babies so small that they fit in the palm of my hand. I have the gift of healing. But there is one baby I didn’t save. My own. I had an abortion because I was desperate.” She averted her eyes, and continued. “You know something, Carolyn? Sometimes in the pediatric nursery, when a little one is crying, I go over and pick it up and comfort it, and when I do, I think of the baby I had scraped out of my own womb.”
She stood up. “Your brother wasn’t that sure about being a lawyer. He told me that he’d get the degree to please his father, but that he’d really have liked to try his hand at acting. I don’t think he’s crazy-I think he’s out there somewhere and maybe even has the grace to be ashamed of himself by now. Do I think he’s committing these crimes? Absolutely not. I loathe him for what he did to me, but he is not a serial killer. I’m surprised you’d even give that possibility a second thought.”
