We'll Meet Again

He was getting ready to hit on her, Molly thought. Was she the first? Probably not. The tenth? she wondered. She’d never know. “Was he involved with any other nurses?”

“None that I knew of, but then I’d only been working at the hospital a few months when I became involved with him. He did stress the need for absolute discretion, which suited me fine. I come from a strict Italian Catholic family, and my mother would have been heartbroken if she’d known I was carrying on with a married man.

“Mrs. Lasch, I want you to know-” Annamarie stopped as the waitress returned with the tea and more coffee. She didn’t slam the cup down in front of Molly Lasch, Annamarie noticed.

When the waitress was out of earshot, she continued: “Mrs. Lasch, I want you to know that I absolutely, profoundly regret what happened. I know it destroyed your life. It ended Dr. Lasch’s life. I gave up my baby because I wanted him to have a clean start with people who would give him a happy, two-parent home. Maybe someday, when he’s an adult, he’ll want to see me. If he does, I hope he’ll be able to understand and even forgive me. You may have taken his father’s life, but my actions set this entire tragedy in motion.”

“Your actions?”

“If I hadn’t gotten involved with Dr. Lasch, none of this ever would have happened. If I hadn’t called him at home, you probably would never have known.”

“Why did you call him at home?”

“Well, first of all, he told me that you and he had been discussing divorce, but that he didn’t want you to know there was another woman in the picture. He said it would complicate things for him with the divorce, and it would just make you jealous and vindictive.”

So that’s what my husband was telling his girlfriend about me? Molly thought. He said that we were talking about divorce, and that I was jealous and vindictive? That’s the man I went to prison for killing?

“He said it was just as well that you lost the baby; he said a baby would only have complicated the breakup.”

Molly sat in stunned silence. Dear God, could Gary really have said that? she thought. He said it was just as well I lost the baby.

“But when I told him I was pregnant, he freaked out. Told me to get rid of it. He stopped coming to see me and even ignored me at the hospital. His lawyer phoned and offered a settlement, provided I signed a nondisclosure statement. I called your home because I had to talk to him, and he wouldn’t see me at the hospital. I was desperate; I wanted to discuss with him whether or not he planned to be involved with his child. At that time I had no intention of giving it up for adoption.”

“And I picked up the phone and overheard the call.”

“Yes.”

“Did my husband ever talk about me to you, Annamarie? I mean, other than to say we were talking about divorce?”

“Yes.”

“Please, tell me what he said. I have to know.”

“I realize now that anything he said to me about you then was because he thought it was what I wanted to hear.”

“I’d still like to know exactly what that was.”

Annamarie paused uncertainly, then looked directly at the woman across from her, a woman who at first she had disdained, then hated, and now, finally, was beginning to feel some compassion for. “He called you a boring Stepford wife.”

A boring Stepford wife, Molly thought. For a moment it seemed to her that she was once more in prison, eating the tasteless food, hearing the click of locks, lying awake for sleepless night after sleepless night.

“As a husband-and as a doctor-he wasn’t worth the price you paid for killing him, Mrs. Lasch,” Annamarie said quietly.

“Annamarie, you’ve made it very clear that you believe I killed my husband, but, you see, I’m not so sure myself. I genuinely don’t know what happened. I’m not convinced that I won’t regain some memory of that night. At least, that’s what I’m working toward. Tell me, where were you on that Sunday evening?”

“In my apartment, packing.”

“Was anyone with you at the time?”

Annamarie’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Lasch, you’re wasting your time if you came here with the purpose of suggesting I had anything to do with your husband’s death.”

“Do you know of anyone who might have had a reason to kill him?” Molly could see the startled look in the eyes of the other woman. “Annamarie, you’re afraid of something. What is it?”

“No I’m not. I don’t know anything more. Look, I have to go now.” Annamarie put her hand on the table, preparing to stand.

Molly reached over and grasped her wrist. “Annamarie, you were only in your early twenties then. Gary was a sophisticated man. He wronged both of us, and we both had reason to be angry. But I don’t think I killed him. If you have any reason to think there was someone else who might have had a grudge against him, please, please, tell me who it is. At least it would give me a starting point. Did he quarrel with anyone?”

“There was one quarrel I know of. With Dr. Jack Morrow.”

“Dr. Morrow? But he died before Gary.”

“Yes, and before he died, Dr. Morrow was acting strange and asked me to hold a copy of a file for him. But he was murdered before he gave it to me.” Annamarie pulled her hand away from Molly’s grasp. “Mrs. Lasch, I don’t know whether you did or didn’t kill your husband, but if you didn’t, then you’d better be very careful how you go around asking questions.”

Annamarie almost crashed into the waitress, who was returning to offer refills. Instead, Molly asked for the check and hastily paid it, hating the lively curiosity in the woman’s eyes. Then she quickly grabbed her coat, anxious to catch up with Annamarie. Boring Stepford wife, she thought bitterly as she hurried from the diner.

As she drove back to Greenwich, Molly mentally reviewed the short talk with Annamarie Scalli. She knows something she’s not telling me, Molly thought. It’s almost as if she were afraid. But of what…?

That night, Molly stared in shock at the breaking story on the CBS eleven o’clock news, of the just-discovered body of an unidentified woman who had been stabbed to death in her car in the parking lot of the Sea Lamp Diner in Rowayton.

35

Assistant State Attorney Tom Serrazzano had not been the one who prosecuted Molly Carpenter Lasch, but he’d always wished he’d had the chance. It was obvious to him that she’d been guilty of murder, and that because of who she was, she’d been given the sweetheart deal of all sweetheart deals-only five and a half years served for taking her husband’s life.

Tom had been in the office when Molly had been prosecuted for Gary Lasch’s death. He had been appalled when the trial prosecutor had allowed a plea to the manslaughter charge. He believed that any prosecutor worth his salt would have continued the trial and gone for the murder conviction.

It particularly bugged him when the perpetrators had money and connections, like Molly Carpenter Lasch.

In his late forties, Tom’s entire legal career had been spent in law enforcement. After clerking for a judge, he had joined the state attorney’s office and, over a period of time, had earned the reputation of being a tough prosecutor.

On Monday morning the stabbing of a young woman, first identified as Annamarie Sangelo, from Yonkers, took on new meaning when the investigation revealed that her real name was Annamarie Scalli, the “other woman” in the Dr. Gary Lasch murder case.

The statement given by the waitress from the Sea Lamp Diner, describing the woman Scalli had met there,