37
After she locked the door and started down the steps, Robin noticed the small dark car parked across the street. Strange cars weren’t common on this street, especially at this hour, but she didn’t know why this one gave her an especially funny feeling.
It was cold. She shifted her books to her left arm and zipped her jacket the rest of the way to her neck, then quickened her steps. She was meeting Cassie and Courtney at the corner a block away and knew they probably were already waiting. She was a couple of minutes late.
The street was quiet. Now that the leaves were almost gone, the trees had a bare, unfriendly look. Robin wished she had remembered to wear gloves.
When she reached the sidewalk, she glanced across the street. The driver’s window in the strange car was opening slowly, stopping after it had been lowered only a few inches. She stared at it as hard as she could, hoping to see a familiar face inside, but the bright morning sun reflected in such a way that she could see nothing. Then she saw a hand reach out, pointing something at her. Suddenly panicked, Robin began to run. With a roar, the car came rushing across the road, seemingly aimed right toward her. Just as she thought it was going to come up the curb and hit her, it swerved into a U-turn and then raced down the block.
Sobbing, Robin ran across the lawn of their neighbor’s house and frantically rang the doorbell.
38
When Joe Palumbo finished his investigation of a break-in in Cresskill, he realized that it was only nine-thirty. Since he was a scant few minutes away from Alpine, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to look up Dolly Bowles, the baby-sitter who had testified at the Reardon murder trial. Fortunately, he also happened to have her phone number with him.
Dolly initially sounded a little guarded when Palumbo explained that he was an investigator with the Bergen County prosecutor’s office. But after he told her that one of the assistant prosecutors, Kerry McGrath, very much wanted to hear about the car Dolly had seen in front of the Reardon house the night of the murder, she announced that she had been following the trial Kerry McGrath recently had prosecuted and was so glad that the man who shot his supervisor had been convicted. She told Palumbo about the time she and her mother had been tied up in their home by an intruder.
“So,” she finished, “if you and Kerry McGrath want to talk to me, that’s fine.”
“Well, actually,” Joe told her somewhat lamely, “I’d like to come over and talk to you right now. Maybe Kerry will talk to you later.”
There was a pause. Palumbo could not know that, in her mind, Dolly was seeing again the derisive expression on the face of Prosecutor Green when he cross-examined her at the trial.
Finally she spoke. “I think,” she said, with dignity, “that I would be more comfortable discussing that night with Kerry McGrath. I think it’s best we wait until she is available.”
39
It was 9:45 before Kerry got to the courthouse, much later than she normally arrived. Anticipating the possibility of receiving a bit of flack about it, she had phoned to say she had an errand and was going to be late. Frank Green was always at his desk promptly at seven o’clock. It was something they joked about, but it was obvious he believed that his entire staff should be on board with him. Kerry knew he would have a fit if he learned that her errand was to see Dr. Charles Smith.
When she punched in the code that admitted her to the prosecutor’s office, the switchboard operator looked up and said, “Kerry, go right into Mr. Green’s office. He’s expecting you.” Oh boy, Kerry thought.
As soon as she walked into Green’s office, she could see he was not angry. She knew him well enough to be able to read his mood. As usual he came directly to the point. “Kerry, Robin is fine. She’s with your neighbor, Mrs. Weiser. Emphatically, she is all right.”
Kerry felt her throat tighten. “Then what’s wrong?”
“We’re not sure and maybe nothing. According to Robin, you left the house at six-thirty.” There was a glint of curiosity in Green’s eyes.
“Yes, I did.”
“When Robin was leaving the house later, she said she noticed a strange car parked across the street. When she reached the sidewalk, the window on the driver’s door opened slightly, and she was able to see a hand holding some kind of object. She couldn’t tell what it was, and she wasn’t able to see the driver’s face. Then the car started up and veered across the street so suddenly she thought it would come up on the sidewalk and hit her, but it quickly went into a U-turn and took off. Robin ran to your neighbor’s house.”
Kerry sank into a chair. “She’s there now?”
“Yes. You can call her, or go home if that would reassure you. My concern is, does Robin have an overactive imagination, or is it possible someone was trying to frighten her and ultimately frighten you?”
“Why would anyone want to frighten Robin or me?”
“It’s happened before in this office after a high-profile case.
You’ve just completed a case that got a lot of media attention. The guy you convicted of murder was clearly an out-and-out sleaze and still has relatives and friends.”
“Yes, but all of them I met seemed to be pretty decent people,” Kerry said. “And to answer your first question, Robin is a level-headed kid. She wouldn’t imagine something like this.” She hesitated. “It’s the first time I let her get herself out in the morning, and I was bombarding her with warnings about what to do and not do.”
“Call her from here,” Green directed.
Robin answered Mrs. Weiser’s telephone on the first ring. “I knew you’d call, Mom. I’m okay now. I want to go to school. Mrs. Weiser said she’d drive me. And Mom, I’ve still got to go out this afternoon. It’s Halloween.”
Kerry thought quickly. Robin was better off in school than sitting at home all day, thinking about the incident. “All right, but I’ll be there at school to pick you up at quarter of three. I don’t want you walking home.” And I’ll be right with you when you trick-or-treat, she thought. “Now let me talk to Mrs. Weiser, Rob,” she said.
When she hung up, she said, “Frank, is it all right if I leave early today?”
His smile was genuine. “Of course it is. Kerry, I don’t have to tell you to question Robin carefully. We have to know if there’s any chance someone really was watching for her.”
As Kerry was leaving, he added, “But isn’t Robin a bit young to see herself off to school?”
Kerry knew he was fishing to find out what had been so important that she had left Robin alone at home at six-thirty.
“Yes, she is,” she agreed. “It won’t happen again.”
Later that morning, Joe Palumbo stopped by Kerry’s office and told her about his call to Dolly Bowles. “She doesn’t want to talk to me, Kerry, but I’d still like to go with you when you see her.”
“Let me phone her now.”
Her six-word greeting, “Hello, Mrs. Bowles, I’m Kerry McGrath,” led to being on the receiving end of a ten- minute monologue.
Palumbo crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair as with some amusement he watched Kerry try to interject a word or question. Then he was irritated when, after Kerry finally got an opportunity to say that she would like to bring her investigator, Mr. Palumbo, with her, it was obvious the answer was no.
Finally she hung up. “Dolly Bowles is not a happy camper about the way she was treated by this office ten years ago. That was the gist of the conversation. The rest is that her daughter and son-in-law don’t want her
