The Cradle Will Fall

way.'

'And you never heard from her again?'

'No.'

'I see.' Katie got up and walked over to the wall with the pictures. Dr. Fukhito was holding something back. 'I was a patient here myself Monday night, Doctor,' she said. 'I had a minor automobile accident and was brought here around ten o'clock. Can you tell me, is there any chance that Vangie Lewis did not leave the hospital shortly after eight thirty? That after I was brought in, semiconscious, I might have seen her?'

Dr. Fukhito stared at Katie. 'I don't see how,' he said. But Katie noticed that his knuckles were clenched and white, and something-was it fury or fear?-flashed in his eyes.

CHAPTER SEVEN

AT FIVE o'clock Gertrude Fitzgerald turned the phone over to the answering service and locked the reception desk. Nervously she dialed Edna's number. Again there was no answer. There was no doubt. Edna had been drinking more and more lately. She was such a good person. They had both worked for Dr. Highley for several years and often had lunch together. Sometimes Edna would want to go to a pub for a manhattan. Gertrude understood her need to drink, understood that hollow feeling when all you do is go to work and then go home and stare at four walls.

Gertrude was a widow, but at least she had the children and grandchildren to care about her. She had her own lonely times, but it wasn't the same as it was for Edna. She'd lived. She had something to look back on.

She could swear Dr. Highley had known she was lying when she said Edna had called in sick. But suppose Edna hadn't been drinking? Suppose she was sick or something? She'd have to find out. She'd drive over to her house right now.

Her mind settled, Gertrude left the office briskly and drove the six miles to Edna's apartment. She parked in the visitors' area and walked around to the front. As she neared Edna's door, she heard the faint sound of voices. The television set, of course.

Gertrude rang the bell and waited. There was no familiar voice calling 'Right with you.' Gertrude firmly pushed the bell again. Maybe Edna was sleeping it off.

By the time she'd rung the bell four times, Gertrude was thoroughly alarmed. Something was wrong. The superintendent, Mr. Krupshak, lived across the court. Hurrying over, Gertrude told her story. The super was eating dinner and looked annoyed, but his wife, Gana, reached for the keys. 'I'll go with you,' she said.

The two women hurried across the courtyard together. 'Edna's a real friend,' Gana Krupshak volunteered. 'Sometimes in the evening I pop in on her. Just last night I stopped over at about eight. I had a manhattan with her, and she told me that one of her favorite patients had killed herself. Well, here we are.'

They were on the small porch leading to Edna's apartment. The superintendent's wife inserted the key into the lock, twisted it and pushed open the door.

The two women saw Edna at the same moment: lying on the floor, her legs crumpled under her, her graying hair plastered around her face, her eyes staring, crusted blood making a crimson crown on the top of her head.

'No. No.' Gertrude's voice rose, high and shrill. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth.

In a dazed voice Gana Krupshak said, 'It's just last night I was sitting here with her. And she was talking about a patient who killed herself. And then she phoned the woman's husband.' Gana began to sob. 'And now poor Edna is dead too!'

CHRIS Lewis stood next to Vangie's parents at the right of the coffin, numbly acknowledging the sympathetic utterances of friends. When he'd phoned her parents about her death, they had agreed that they would view her body privately and have a memorial service the next morning followed by a private interment.

Instead, when he'd arrived in Minneapolis, he found that they had arranged for a public viewing that night. 'So many friends will want to say good-by to our little girl,' her mother sobbed. Our little girl. If only you had let her grow up, Chris thought, it might all have been so different.

Vangie's parents looked old and tired and shattered with grief. They were plain, hardworking people who had brought up their unexpectedly beautiful child to believe her wish was law.

Would it be easier for them when it was revealed that someone had taken Vangie's life? Or did he owe it to them to say nothing, to keep that final horror from them? He wanted badly to talk to Joan. She'd been so upset when she heard about Vangie. 'Did she know about us?' He'd finally had to admit to her that Vangie suspected he was interested in someone else.

Joan would be back from Florida on Friday, two days away. He was going to return to New Jersey tomorrow right after the funeral. He would say nothing to the police until he had warned Joan that she might be dragged into this. The police would be looking for a motive for him to kill Vangie. In their eyes, Joan would be the motive.

Chris glanced over at the coffin, at Vangie's now peaceful face, the quietly folded hands. He and Vangie had scarcely lived as man and wife in the past few years. They'd lain side by side like strangers, he emotionally drained from the endless quarreling, she wanting to be cajoled, babied.

A suspicion that had been sitting somewhere in his subconscious sprang to life. Was it possible that Vangie had become involved with another man, a man who did not want to take responsibility for her and a baby? Had she confronted that other man, hurled hysterical threats at him?

He realized that he was shaking hands, murmuring thanks to a man in his mid-sixties. He was slightly built but sturdily attractive, with gray hair and bushy brows over keen, penetrating eyes. 'I'm Dr. Salem,' he said. 'Emmet Salem. I delivered Vangie and was her first gynecologist. She was one of the prettiest things I ever brought into this world, and she never changed. I only wish I hadn't been away when she phoned my office Monday.'

Chris stared at him. 'Vangie phoned you Monday?'

'Yes. My nurse said she was quite upset. Wanted to see me immediately. I was teaching a seminar in Detroit, but the nurse made an appointment for her for today. She was planning to fly out yesterday. Maybe I could have helped her.'

Why had Vangie called this man? Chris tried to think. What would make her go back to a doctor she hadn't seen in years? A doctor thirteen hundred miles away?

'Had Vangie been ill?' Dr. Salem was looking at him curiously.

'No, not ill,' Chris said. 'As you probably know, she was expecting a baby, and it was a difficult pregnancy.'

'Vangie was pregnant?' The doctor stared in astonishment.

'I know. She had just about given up hope. But in New Jersey she started the Westlake Maternity Concept. You may have heard of it, or of Dr. Highley-Dr. Edgar Highley.' 'Captain Lewis, may I speak with you privately?' The funeral director had a hand under his arm.

“Excuse me,” Chris said to the doctor. He allowed the funeral director to guide him into the office. The director closed the door. “I’ve just received a call from the prosecutor’s office in Valley County, New Jersey,” he said. “Written confirmation is on the way. We are forbidden to inter your wife’s body. It is to be flown back to the medical examiner’s office in Valley County immediately after the service tomorrow.”

They know it wasn’t suicide, Chris thought. Without answering the funeral director, he turned and left. He wanted to see Dr. Salem, find out what Vangie had said to the nurse on the phone.

But Dr. Salem was already gone. Vangie’s mother rubbed swollen eyes with a crumpled handkerchief. “What did you say to Dr. Salem that made him leave like that?” she asked. “Why did you upset him so terribly?”

WEDNESDAY evening Edgar Highley arrived home at six o’clock. Hilda was just leaving. He knew she liked this job. Why not? A house that stayed neat; no mistress to constantly give orders; no children to clutter it.

No children. He went into the library, poured a Scotch and watched from the window as Hilda disappeared down the street.

He had gone into medicine because his own mother had died in childbirth. His birth. “Your mother wanted you so much,” his father had told him again and again. “She knew she was risking her life, but she didn’t care.”

Sitting in the chemist’s shop in Brighton, watching his father prepare prescriptions, asking questions: “What is