The Second Time Around (21 page)

The lead story was about Nick Spencer. The press had connected the report of his possibly being seen in Switzerland with the disappearance of Vivian Powers. Their pictures were shown side by side, and the news angle was “bizarre new twist to Spencer case.” The gist of the story was that Briarcliff Manor police doubted that Vivian Powers had been abducted.

I decided it was too late to call Lynn but reasoned that, if anything, this story strengthened her contention that she had no part in her husband's plans. But if somebody
did
leave the mansion only a few minutes before the fire, that opened up the distinct possibility that she had an agenda of her own, I decided.

I went to bed with conflicting emotions, and it took me a long time to fall asleep. If Vivian Powers was planning to join Nick Spencer only hours after I saw her, I can only say that she was one hell of an actress. I was glad I hadn't erased her phone message. I intended to keep it, and I intended to go back to Gen-stone and talk to some of the women who answered the mail.

*   *   *

The next morning at eight, Don and I were in Ken's office, clutching mugs brimming with fresh coffee. They looked at me expectantly.

“Chronological?” I suggested.

Ken nodded.

I told them about Vivian Powers's home, how the
open door and overturned lamp and table had a phony, set-up look. Then added, “But having said that, she sure sounded convincing when she phoned me to say she thought she knew who took Dr. Spencer's records from Dr. Broderick.”

I looked at them. “And now I think I know why they were taken and what they may have contained,” I said. “It all came together yesterday.” I laid the picture of the dais at the award dinner on the desk and pointed to Dora Whitman. “I visited her yesterday, and she told me that she had spoken to Nick Spencer at the dinner. She told him that she and her husband were on a cruise to South America early last November. They became friendly with a couple from Ohio who told them their niece lived in Caspien for a short time some thirteen years ago. She had a baby at Caspien Hospital, and it was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis. She brought it to Dr. Spencer for the usual shots, and the day before the family moved back to Ohio, Dr. Spencer came to the house and gave the baby a shot of penicillin because it had a high fever.”

I took a sip of the coffee. The ramifications of what I had learned still stunned me. “According to their story, a few weeks later Dr. Spencer called the mother in Ohio. He was in a terrible state. He said he realized that he'd given the baby an untested vaccine he'd been working on years earlier and that he bore full responsibility for any problems that might have developed.”

“He gave the baby an untested vaccine . . . an old vaccine he'd been working on? It's a wonder he didn't kill it,” Ken snapped.

“Wait until you hear the rest of it. The mother told him that the baby hadn't had any reaction to the shot. And what's unusual in this day and age was that she didn't go rushing to a lawyer with Dr. Spencer's admission. On the other hand, the baby showed no sign of developing a problem. A few months later her new pediatrician in Ohio said the baby had obviously been misdiagnosed, because it was developing normally and there was no sign of the disease. The girl is now thirteen years old and last fall was in a car accident. The MRI diagnostician remarked that if she didn't know it was impossible, she would have said that the result showed the faintest traces of sclerosis in a few cells, a very unusual indication. The mother decided to send to Caspien for the original X rays. They showed extensive sclerosis in both the brain and spinal cord.”

“The X rays were probably mixed up,” Ken said. “That happens too often in hospitals.”

“I know, and no one in Ohio will believe that the X rays weren't mixed up, except the mother. She tried to write Dr. Spencer to let him know about it, but he had died years earlier, and the letter was returned.

“Dora Whitman told those people that Nicholas Spencer was Dr. Spencer's son and she was sure he'd like to hear from their niece. Mrs. Whitman suggested that their niece write to him at Gen-stone. Apparently she did write but never heard from him.”

“That's the story Mrs. Whitman told Spencer at the award dinner?” Don asked.

“Yes.”

“And the next day he rushed back to Caspien to get
his father's early records but found that they were missing,” Ken said, jiggling his glasses. I wondered how often he had to replace the screw that held the frame together.

“Dora Whitman promised to give Spencer the address and phone number of the people who had told her about their niece. Of course she didn't have it at the dinner. He went to see her after he'd visited Dr. Broderick and learned that the records were gone. She said he was visibly upset. He phoned the Ohio couple from Whitman's home, got their niece's phone number, and spoke to her. Her name is Caroline Summers.

“Dora Whitman heard him ask Summers if she had a fax machine available. Apparently she did because he said he was going to go to Caspien Hospital to see if they had retained a set of her daughter's X rays, and if they had, he wanted to have her fax permission for him to pick them up.”

“So that's where he went after he saw Broderick?”

“Yes. I went back to Caspien Hospital after I left Mrs. Whitman. The clerk remembered that Nick Spencer had come in but couldn't help him. They had sent the only set of X rays to Caroline Summers.”

“Then the sequence of events seems to indicate that the Summers woman wrote that letter to Spencer sometime in November, after which someone rushed to collect his father's early records,” Don said.

I could see that he was drawing triangles and wondered what a psychologist would make of that kind of doodling. I knew what I made of it: A third person in the Gen-stone office had taken that letter seriously and
had either taken action on it or passed it along to someone else.

“There's more. Nick Spencer flew to Ohio, met Caroline Summers and her daughter, examined her and took the X rays that had been taken at Caspien Hospital, and went with her to the hospital in Ohio, where the diagnostician claimed he could see traces of sclerosis cells. The MRI report was gone. Someone using Caroline Summers's name had picked it up the week after Thanksgiving. Nick asked Mrs. Summers not to talk about any of these revelations to anyone and said that he would get back in touch with her. Of course, he never did.”

“He has a mole somewhere in his company, and a little over a month later his plane crashes.” Ken put his glasses back on, a sign that we were going to wrap up soon. “Now he's spotted in Switzerland, and his lady friend is missing.”

“No matter how you slice it, millions of dollars are also missing,” Don said.

“Carley, you say you spoke to Dr. Broderick's wife. Did you get any information from her?” Ken asked

“I spoke to her for only a moment. She knew I'd been to his office last week, and I guess he gave her a favorable impression of me. I said there were a few facts I'd like to check with her for the story, and she agreed to talk to me once her husband was out of danger. By then I can only hope that he'll be able to give some impression of what happened to him.”

“Broderick's accident, a plane crash, stolen records, stolen MRI report, a torched mansion, a missing secretary,
a failed cancer vaccine, and a vaccine that may have cured multiple sclerosis thirteen years ago,” Don said as he got up. “To think this started out as a conman-on-the-run story.”

“I can tell you this right now,” Ken said, “no shot of an old vaccine ever cured multiple sclerosis.”

My phone rang, and I ran to answer it. It was Lynn. In view of the reports that Nick had been seen in Switzerland, coupled with the shocking news that he was involved with his secretary, she wanted my help in preparing a statement for the media. Both Charles Wallingford and Adrian Garner were urging her to make one. “Carley, even if the report about Nick doesn't turn out to be true, the fact that he was romantically linked with his assistant will effectively separate me from his activities in people's minds. They'll see me as an innocent wife. That's what we both want, isn't it?”

“We want the truth, Lynn,” I said, but I reluctantly agreed to meet her later for lunch at The Four Seasons.

T
he Four Seasons was, as always, serenely busy at one o'clock, the favored arrival time for at least half the lunch people. I recognized familiar faces, the kind who show up in the “Style” section of the
Times
as well as in the political and business pages.

Julian and Alex, the co-owners, were both at the desk. I asked for Mrs. Spencer's table, and Alex said, “Oh, the reservation is under the name of Mr. Garner. The others are all here. They're seated in the Pool Room.”

So this isn't to be a stepsisters-huddling-to-salvage-a-reputation session, I thought as I followed the escort down the marble corridor to the dining room. I wondered why Lynn hadn't told me that Wallingford and Garner were going to be at the luncheon. Maybe she thought that I would have backed out. Wrong, Lynn, I thought. I can't
wait
to get a real look at them, especially
at Wallingford. But I needed to resist my reporter's instincts. I intended to be all ears and have very little to say.

We reached the Pool Room, so-called because it has a large square pool in the center that is beautifully surrounded with trees that symbolize the season. This being spring, long, slender apple trees, with branches heavily laden with blossoms, were in evidence. It's a lighthearted, pretty room, and I'll bet as many high-powered deals are agreed on there with a shake of the hand as ever take place in boardrooms.

The escort left me with the captain, and I followed him across the room to the table. Even from a distance I could see that Lynn looked beautiful. She was wearing a black suit with white linen collar and cuffs. I couldn't see her feet, but the bandages were gone from her hands. On Sunday she had not been wearing jewelry, but today a wide gold wedding band was on the third finger of her left hand. As people were on their way to their own tables, they were stopping to greet her.

Was she acting, or was I so clinically disposed to dislike her that I found myself scornful of the brave smile and the girlish shake of the head when a man whom I recognized as being the CEO of a brokerage firm reached for her hand? “It still hurts,” she explained to him as the captain pulled out the chair for me. I was glad that her head was turned away from me. It spared me the necessity of going through the motions of air-kissing her.

Adrian Garner and Charles Wallingford made the usual gesture of pushing back their chairs and attempting
to stand as I arrived at the table. I made the usual protest, and we settled in our seats at the same time.

I must say both men were impressive. Wallingford was a genuinely handsome man, with the kind of refined features that happen when generations of bluebloods continue to mate. Aquiline nose, ice blue eyes, dark brown hair that was graying at the temples, a disciplined body and fine hands—he was the essence of the patrician. His dark gray suit with almost indiscernible narrow stripes looked like an Armani to me. The soft-red-and-gray-figured tie on a crisp white shirt completed the picture. I noticed several women looking at him appreciatively as they passed the table.

Adrian Garner might have been roughly the same age as Wallingford, but the resemblance stopped there. He was shorter by a couple of inches, and, as I had noticed on Sunday, neither his body nor his face displayed any of the refinement so apparent in Wallingford. His complexion was ruddy, as though he spent a lot of time outdoors. Today he wore glasses over his deep-set brown eyes, and his gaze was penetrating. I felt when he looked at me that he was able to read my mind. There was an air of power around the man that transcended his rather generic tan sports jacket and brown slacks, which looked as though he might have ordered them from a catalog.

He and Wallingford greeted me. They were drinking champagne, and at a nod from me, the waiter filled the glass at my place. Then I saw Garner shoot an irritated look at Lynn who was still talking with the brokerage guy. She must have sensed it because she
wrapped up the conversation, turned to us, and acted thrilled to see me.

“Carley, it was so good of you to come on such short notice. You can imagine the roller coaster I'm on.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Isn't it a blessing that Adrian warned me about the statement I made on Sunday when we thought a piece of Nick's shirt had been found? And now, after hearing that Nick may have been seen in Switzerland and that his assistant is missing, I just don't know what to think.”

“But that's not what you're going to say,” Wallingford said, his tone firm. He looked at me. “All of this is confidential,” he began. “We've been doing some investigating at the office. It was very clear to a number of the employees that Nicholas Spencer and Vivian Powers were emotionally involved. The feeling is that Vivian remained on the job these past weeks because she wanted to learn the progress of the investigation into the crash. The U.S. attorney's people are checking, of course, but we've hired our own fact-finding agency as well. Obviously it would have been a great comfort to Spencer if the consensus held that he is dead. But once he was seen in Europe, the game was over. He is now established as a fugitive, and it must be assumed that the Powers woman is one as well. There was no need for her to wait any longer once it was known that he survived the crash, and, of course, if she had lingered, the authorities would have questioned her.”