We'll Meet Again

family?… Do you think your memory of that night will ever come back?”

Like the others, Fran held out her microphone, but she deliberately stayed to one side. She was sure that whatever chance she might have for an interview in the future would be ruined if Molly perceived her as the enemy now.

Molly raised her hand in protest. “Please give me a chance to talk,” she said quickly.

She’s so pale and thin, Fran thought. She looks as though she’s been sick. She’s different, and it’s not just about being older. Fran studied her appearance for clues. The once-golden hair was now as dark as Molly’s eyebrows and lashes. Longer than Molly had worn it in school, it was caught with a clip at the nape of her neck. The fair complexion was this morning the shade of alabaster. The lips that Fran remembered as easily smiling were straight and somber, as though they had not smiled in a long time.

Gradually the questions being hurled at her stopped until finally there was silence.

Philip Matthews had left the car and was standing at her side. “Molly, don’t do this. The parole board won’t like it-” he urged, but she ignored him.

Fran studied the lawyer with interest. This generation’s F. Lee Bailey, she thought. What’s he like? Matthews was of average height, sandy haired, thin faced, intense. The image of a tiger protecting its young flashed through her mind. She realized she would not have been surprised if he physically dragged Molly into the car.

Molly cut him off. “I have no choice, Philip.”

She looked directly into the cameras and spoke clearly into the microphones. “I am grateful to be going home. In order to be granted parole, I had to concede that I was the sole cause of my husband’s death. I have admitted that the evidence is overwhelming. And having said that, I now tell all of you that, despite the evidence, I feel in my soul that I am incapable of taking another human being’s life. I know that my innocence may never be proven, but I hope that when I am home, and there is some quiet in my life, maybe then a full memory of that terrible evening may come back. Until that time I’ll never have peace, nor will I be able to start to rebuild my life.”

She paused. When she spoke again, her voice had become firmer. “When my memory of that night finally began to return, even a little, what I recalled was that I found Gary dying in his study. Just lately, another distinct impression from that night has come to me. I believe there was someone else in that house when I arrived home, and I believe that person killed my husband. I do not believe that person is a figment of my imagination. That person is flesh and blood, and I will find him and make him pay for taking Gary ’s life and destroying mine.”

Ignoring the shouted questions that followed her declaration, Molly turned and ducked into the car. Matthews closed her door, hurried around, and got into the driver’s seat. Leaning her head back, Molly closed her eyes as Matthews, his hand resting on the horn, began to inch the car through the mob of reporters and photographers.

“There you have it, Charley,” Fran said into the microphone. “Molly’s statement, a protestation of innocence.”

“A startling statement, Fran,” the anchor replied. “We will follow this closely to see what, if anything, develops. Thank you.”

“Okay, Fran, you’re clear,” the control room told her.

“What’s your take on that speech, Fran?” Joe Hutnik, a veteran crime reporter for the Greenwich Time, asked.

Before Fran could answer, Paul Reilly from the Observer scoffed, “That lady’s not so dumb. She’s probably thinking about her book deal. No one wants a killer to profit from a crime, even if it is legal, and the bleeding hearts will love to believe that somebody else killed Gary Lasch and that Molly is a victim too.”

Joe Hutnik raised an eyebrow. “Maybe, maybe not, but in my opinion, the next guy who marries Molly Lasch should be careful not to turn his back on her if she gets sore at him. What do you say, Fran?”

Fran’s eyes narrowed in irritation as she looked at the two men. “No comment,” she said crisply.

3

As they drove down from the prison, Molly watched the road signs. Finally they left the Merritt Parkway at the Lake Avenue exit. It’s all familiar, of course, but I don’t remember much about the drive to the prison, she thought. I only remember the weight of the chains, and that the handcuffs were digging into my wrists. As she sat in the car now, she looked straight ahead and felt rather than saw Philip Matthews’s sideward glances at her.

She answered his unasked question. “I feel strange,” she said slowly. “No-‘empty’ is a better word.”

“I’ve told you this before: it was a mistake to keep the house, and a bigger one to go back to it,” he said. “And it’s also a mistake not to let your parents come up and be with you now.”

Molly continued to stare straight ahead. The sleet was beginning to coat the windshield faster than the wipers could remove it. “I meant what I said to those reporters. I feel that now that this is over, living at home again I may recover my memory of every detail of that night. Philip, I didn’t kill Gary -I just couldn’t have. I know the psychiatrists think I’m in denial about what happened, but I’m certain they’re wrong. But even if it turned out they are right, I’d find a way to live with it. Not knowing is the worst.”

“Molly, just suppose your memory is accurate, that you found Gary injured and bleeding. That you went into shock, and that your memory of that night will eventually come back to you. Do you realize that if you are right, and you do remember, then you’ll become a threat to the person who did kill him? And that the killer may even now view you as a very real threat, since you’ve just announced that you feel that once you’re home you may remember more about another person being in the house that night?”

She sat in silence for a minute. Why do you think I told my parents to stay in Florida? Molly thought. If I’m wrong, nobody will bother me. If I’m right, then I’m leaving the door wide open for the real killer to come after me.

She glanced at Matthews. “Philip, my father took me duck hunting when I was little,” she said. “I didn’t like it a bit. It was early and cold and rainy, and I kept wishing I were home in bed. But I learned something that morning. A decoy gets results. You see, you, like everyone else in the world, believe I killed Gary in a moment of madness. And don’t deny that that is what you believe. I heard you and my father discussing the fact that you had almost no hope of getting an acquittal by suggesting that Annamarie Scalli had done it. You said I had a good shot at a passion/provocation manslaughter conviction because the jury would probably believe I had killed Gary in a fit of rage. But you also said there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be a murder conviction and that I’d better grab the manslaughter plea if the prosecutor would allow it. You did discuss that, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Matthews acknowledged.

“So if I killed Gary I’m very lucky to get off so easily. Now, if you and everyone else in the world-including my parents-are right, I’m absolutely safe in claiming that I believe I may have felt another presence in the house the night Gary died. Since you don’t believe another person was there, then you don’t really think anyone will come after me. That’s correct, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” he said reluctantly.

“Then no one has to worry about me. If, on the other hand, I’m right, and I do frighten someone enough, it could cost me my life. Well, believe it or not, I’d like that to happen. Because if I’m found murdered, somebody might actually open an investigation that doesn’t automatically assume I killed my husband.”

Philip Matthews did not answer.

“That is right, isn’t it, Philip?” Molly asked, her tone almost cheerful. “If I die, then maybe someone will look closely enough into Gary ’s murder to actually find the real killer.”

4