Let Me Call You Sweetheart Part 5

As she watched, her mind jumped back to another parent and child, to Dr. Smith and Suzanne. She had been the unique result of his and his former wife's genes. In his testimony, Dr. Smith had stated that after their divorce his wife moved to California and remarried, and he had permitted Suzanne to be adopted by the second husband, thinking that was in her best interests.

"But after her mother died, she came to me," he had said. "She needed me."

Skip Reardon had said that Dr. Smith's att.i.tude toward his daughter bordered on reverence. When she heard that, a question that took Kerry's breath away had raced through her mind. Dr. Smith had transformed other women to look like his daughter. But no one had ever asked whether or not he had ever operated on Suzanne.

Kerry and Robin had just finished lunch when Bob called, suggesting he take Robin out to dinner that night. He explained that Alice had taken the children to Florida for a week, and he was driving to the Catskills to look at a ski lodge they might buy. Would Robin want to accompany him? he asked. "I still owe her dinner, and I promise I'll have her back by nine."

Robin's enthusiastically affirmative response resulted in Bob picking her up an hour later.

The unexpected free afternoon gave Kerry a chance to spend more time going over the Reardon trial transcript. Just reading the testimony gave her a certain amount of insight, but she knew that there was a big difference between reading a cold transcript and watching the witnesses as they testified. She hadn't seen their faces, heard their voices or watched their physical reactions to questions. She knew that the jury's evaluation of the demeanor of the witnesses had undoubtedly played a big part in reaching their verdict. That jury had watched and evaluated Dr. Smith. And it was obvious that they had believed him.

Geoff Dorso loved football and was an ardent Giants fan. It was not the reason he had bought a condominium in the Meadowlands, but as he admitted, it certainly was convenient. Nevertheless, on Sunday afternoon, sitting in Giant Stadium, his mind was less on today's very close game with the Dallas Cowboys than on yesterday's visit to Skip Reardon, and Kerry McGrath's reaction to both Skip and the trial transcript.

He had given the transcript to her on Thursday. Had she read it yet? he wondered. He had hoped that she would bring it up while they were waiting to see Skip, but she hadn't mentioned it. He tried to tell himself that it was her training to be skeptical, that her seemingly negative att.i.tude after the visit to Skip didn't have to mean that she was was.h.i.+ng her hands of the case.

When the Giants squeaked through with a last-second field goal as the fourth quarter of the game ended, Geoff shared in the l.u.s.ty cheering but declined the suggestion of his friends that he join them for a couple of beers. Instead he went home and called Kerry.

He was elated when she admitted that she had read the transcript and that she had a number of questions. "I'd like to get together again," he said. Then a thought struck him. She can only say no, he reasoned, as he asked, "By any chance would you be free for dinner tonight?"

Dolly Bowles had been sixty when she moved in with her daughter in Alpine. That had been twelve years ago, when she was first widowed. She had not wanted to impose, but the truth was she had always been nervous about being alone and really didn't think she could go on living in the big house she and her husband had shared.

And, in fact, there was a basis, psychological at least, for her nervousness. Years ago, when she was still a child, she had opened the door for a deliveryman who turned out to be a burglar. She still had nightmares about the way he had tied up both her and her mother and had ransacked the house. As a result, she now tended to be suspicious of any and all strangers, and several times had irritated her son-in-law by pus.h.i.+ng the panic b.u.t.ton on the alarm system when she had been alone in the house and had heard strange noises or seen a man on the street she didn't recognize.

Her daughter Dorothy and her son-in-law Lou traveled frequently. Their children had still been at home when Dolly moved in with them, and she had been a help in taking care of them. But for the last several years they had been off on their own, and Dolly had had almost nothing to do. She had tried to pitch in around the house, but the live-in housekeeper wanted no part of her help.

Left with so much time on her hands, Dolly had become the neighborhood baby-sitter, a situation that worked out wonderfully. She genuinely enjoyed young children and would happily read to them or play games by the hour. She was beloved by just about everyone. The only time people got annoyed was when she made one of her all-too-frequent calls to the police to report suspicious-looking persons. And she hadn't done that in the last ten years, not since she was a witness at the Reardon murder trial. She shuddered every time she thought of that. The prosecutor had made such a fool of her. Dorothy and Lou had been mortified. "Mother, I begged you not to talk to the police," Dorothy had snapped at the time.

But Dolly had felt she had to. She had known Skip Reardon and liked him and just felt she had to try to help him. Besides, she really had seen that car, as had Michael, the five-year-old little boy with all the learning problems she had been minding that night. He had seen the car too, but Skip's lawyer had told her not to discuss it.

"That would only hurt our case," Mr. Farrell had said. "All we want you to do is to tell what you saw, that a dark sedan was parked in front of the Reardon house at nine and drove away a few minutes later."

She was sure she had made out one of the numbers and one of the letters, a 3 and an L. But then the prosecutor had held up a license plate at the back of the courtroom and she hadn't been able to read it. And he had gotten her to admit that she was very fond of Skip Reardon because he had dug out her car one night when she got stuck in a snowdrift.

Dolly knew that just because Skip had been nice to her didn't mean that he couldn't be a murderer, but in her heart she felt that he was innocent, and she prayed for him every night. Sometimes, even now, when she was baby-sitting across the street from the Reardon house, she would look out and think about the night Suzanne was murdered. And she would think about little Michael--his family had moved away several years ago--who would be fifteen now, and how he had pointed to the strange black car and said, "Poppa's car." Dolly could not know that at the same time on that Sunday evening that she sat looking out the window at what used to be the Reardon house, some ten miles away, at Villa Cesare in Hillsdale, Geoff Dorso and Kerry McGrath were talking about her.

By tacit agreement, Kerry and Geoff refrained from any discussion of the Reardon case until coffee was served. During the earlier part of the meal, Geoff talked about spending his youngest years in New York. "I thought of my New Jersey cousins as living in the sticks," he said. "Then after we moved out ourselves and I grew up here, I decided to stay."

He told Kerry that he had four younger sisters.

"I envy you," she said. "I'm an only child, and I used to love to visit my friends' houses where there was a big family. I always thought it would be nice to have some siblings floating around. My father died when I was nineteen and my mother remarried when I was twenty-one and moved to Colorado. I see her twice a year."

Geoff's eyes softened. "That doesn't give you much family support," he said.

"No, I guess not, but Jonathan and Grace Hoover have helped to fill the gap. They've been wonderful to me, almost like parents."

They talked about law school, agreeing that the first year was a horror they would hate to have to endure again. "What made you decide to be a defense lawyer?" Kerry asked.

"I think it went back to when I was a kid. A woman in our apartment building, Anna Owens, was one of the nicest people I ever knew. I remember when I was about eight and ran through the lobby to catch the elevator, I slammed into her and knocked her over. Anyone else would have had a screaming fit, but she just picked herself up and said, 'Geoff, the elevator will come back, you know.' Then she laughed. She could tell how upset I was."

"That didn't make you become a defense lawyer." Kerry smiled.

"No. But three months later when her husband walked out on her, she followed him to his new girlfriend's apartment and shot him. I honestly believe it was temporary insanity, which was the defense her lawyer tried, but she went to prison for twenty years anyway. I guess the key phrase is 'mitigating circ.u.mstances.' When I believe those are present, or when I believe the defendant is innocent, as with Skip Reardon, I take the case." He paused. "And what made you become a prosecutor?"

"The victim and the family of the victim," she said simply. "Based on your theory I could have shot Bob Kinellen and pled mitigating circ.u.mstances."

Dorso's eyes flashed with mild irritation, then became amused. "Somehow I don't see you shooting anybody, Kerry."

"I don't either, unless..." Kerry hesitated, then continued, "Unless Robin were in danger. Then I'd do whatever it took to save her. I'm sure of that."

Over dinner, Kerry found herself talking about her father's death. "I was in my soph.o.m.ore year at Boston College. He had been a Pan Am captain and later went into the corporate end and was made an executive vice president. From the time I was three years old, he took my mother and me all over. To me, he was the greatest man in the world." She gulped. "And then one weekend when I was home from college, he said he wasn't feeling right. But he didn't bother going to the doctor because he'd just had his annual physical. He said he'd be fine in the morning. But the next morning, he didn't wake up."

"And your mother remarried two years later?" Geoff asked softly.

"Yes, right before I graduated from college. Sam was a widower and a friend of Dad's. He'd been about to retire to Vail when Dad died. He has a lovely place there. It's been good for both of them."

"What would your father have thought of Bob Kinellen?"

Kerry laughed. "You're very perceptive, Geoff Dorso. I think he would have been underwhelmed."

Over coffee they finally discussed the Reardon case. Kerry began by saying frankly, "I sat in on the sentencing ten years ago, and the look on his face and what he said were imprinted in my memory. I've heard a lot of guilty people swear they were innocent--after all, what have they got to lose?--but there was something about his statement that got to me."

"Because he was telling the truth."

Kerry looked directly at him. "I warn you, Geoff, I intend to play devil's advocate, and while reading that transcript raises a lot of questions for me, it certainly doesn't convince me that Reardon is an innocent man. Neither did yesterday's visit. Either he's lying or Dr. Smith is lying. Skip Reardon has a very good reason to lie. Smith doesn't. I still think it's damaging that the very day Suzanne died, Reardon had discussed divorce and apparently flipped when he learned what it might cost him."

"Kerry, Skip Reardon was a self-made man. He pulled himself out of poverty and had become very successful. Suzanne had already cost him a fortune. You heard him. She was a big-time shopaholic, buying whatever struck her fancy." He paused. "No. Being angry and being vocal about it is one thing. But there's a h.e.l.l of a difference between blowing off steam and murder. If anything, even though a divorce was going to be expensive, he was actually relieved that his sham marriage was going to be over, so he could get on with his life."

They talked about the sweetheart roses. "I absolutely believe Skip neither brought nor sent them," Geoff said as he sipped espresso. "So if we accept that, we then have the factor of another person."

As Geoff was paying the bill, they both agreed that Dr. Smith's testimony was the linchpin that had convicted Skip Reardon. "Ask yourself this," Geoff urged. "Dr. Smith claimed that Suzanne was afraid of Skip and his jealous rages. But if she were so afraid of him, how could she stand there and calmly arrange flowers another man had sent her, and not only arrange them, but flaunt them, at least according to Skip. Does that make sense?"

"If Skip was telling the truth, but we don't know that for an absolute fact, do we?" Kerry said.

"Well, I for one do believe him," Geoff said with pa.s.sion. "Besides, no one testified in corroboration of Dr. Smith's testimony. The Reardons were a popular couple. Surely if he were abusive to her, someone would have come forward to say so."

"Perhaps so," Kerry conceded, "but then why were there no defense fact witnesses to say that he wasn't insanely jealous? Why were there only two character witnesses called to help counter Dr. Smith's testimony? No, Geoff, I'm afraid that based on the information the jury was given, they had no reason not to trust Dr. Smith and believe him. Besides, aren't we in general conditioned to trust a physician?"

They were quiet on the drive home. As Geoff walked Kerry to her door, he reached for her key. "My mother said you should always open the door for the lady. I hope that's not too s.e.xist."

"No, it isn't. Not for me at least. But maybe I'm just old- fas.h.i.+oned." The sky above them was blue-black and brilliant with stars. A sharp wind was blowing, and Kerry s.h.i.+vered from the chill.

Geoff noticed and quickly turned the key, then pushed open the door. "You're not dressed warmly enough for the night air. You'd better get inside."

As she moved through the entrance, he stayed on the porch, making no move to indicate that he expected her to invite him in. Instead he said, "Before I leave, I have to ask, where do we go from here?"

"I'm going in to see Dr. Smith as soon as he'll give me an appointment. But it's better that I go alone."

"Then we'll talk in the next few days," Geoff said. He smiled briefly and started down the porch steps. Kerry closed the door and walked into the living room but did not immediately turn on the light. She realized she was still savoring the moment when Geoff had taken the key from her hand and opened the door for her. Then she went to the window and watched as he backed his car out of the driveway and disappeared down the street.

Daddy is such fun, Robin thought as she contentedly sat next to him in the Jaguar. They had inspected the ski lodge Bob Kinellen was thinking about buying. She thought it was cool, but he said it was a disappointment. "I want one where we can ski to the door," he had said, and then he'd laughed. "We'll just keep looking."

Robin had brought her camera, and her father waited while she took two rolls of film. Even though there was only a little snow on the peaks, she thought the light on the mountains was fantastic. She caught the last rays of the setting sun, and then they started back. Her father said he knew a great place where they could get terrific shrimp.

Robin knew that Mom was mad at Daddy because he hadn't talked to her after the accident, but he had left a message. And it was true, she didn't get to see him much, but when they were together, he was great.

At six-thirty they stopped at the restaurant. Over shrimp and scallops, they talked. He promised that this year for sure they would go skiing, just the two of them. "Sometime when Mom's on a date." He winked.

"Oh, Mom doesn't date much," she told him. "I kind of liked someone who took her out a couple of times during the summer, but she said he was boring."

"What did he do?"

"He was an engineer, I think."

"Well, when Mommy's a judge, she'll probably end up dating another judge. She'll be surrounded by them."

"A lawyer came to the house the other night," Robin said. "He was nice. But I think it was just business."

Bob Kinellen had been only partially involved in the conversation. Now he became attentive. "What was his name?"

"Geoff Dorso. He brought over a big file for Mommy to read."

When her father suddenly became very quiet, Robin had the guilty feeling that maybe she had said too much, that maybe he was mad at her.

When they got back in the car, she slept the rest of the way, and when her father dropped her off at nine-thirty, she was glad to be home.

... Monday, October 30th

The senate and a.s.sembly of the State of New Jersey were having a busy fall. The twice-weekly sessions were almost one hundred percent attended, and for a good reason: The upcoming gubernatorial election, although still a year away, created a behind-the-scenes electricity that crackled through the atmosphere of both chambers.

The fact that Governor Marshall seemed intent on backing Prosecutor Frank Green as his successor did not sit well with a number of his party's other eager would-be candidates. Jonathan Hoover knew full well that any crack in Green's potential ability to be elected would be welcomed by other contenders. They would seize on it and create as much of a distraction as possible. If it got loud enough, it could easily shake loose Green's hold on the nomination. Right now it was far from a lock.

As president of the senate, Hoover had enormous power in party politics. One of the reasons he had been elected five times to four-year terms was his ability to take the long-range view when making decisions or when casting votes. His const.i.tuents appreciated that.

On days that the senate met, he sometimes stayed in Trenton and had dinner with friends. Tonight he would be dining with the governor.

Following the afternoon session, Jonathan returned to his private office, asked his secretary to take messages and closed the door. For the next hour he sat at his desk, his hands folded under his chin. It was the posture Grace called "Jonathan at prayer."

When he finally got up, he walked over to the window to stare at the darkening sky. He had made an important decision. Kerry McGrath's probing into the Reardon murder case had created a real problem. It was exactly the kind of thing the media would run with, trying to make it into something sensational. Even if in the end it came to nothing, which Jonathan fully expected, it would create a negative perception of Frank Green and would effectively derail his candidacy. Of course, Kerry might just drop the whole thing before it got that far--he certainly hoped she would, for everyone's sake. Still, Jonathan knew it was his duty to warn the governor about her investigation so far and to suggest that, for the present, her name should not be submitted to the senate for approval of her judges.h.i.+p. He knew it would be embarra.s.sing to the governor to have one of his potential appointees effectively working against him.

On Monday morning Kerry found a package in her office, and inside was a Royal Doulton china figurine, the one called "Autumn Breezes." There was a note with it: Dear Ms. McGrath, Mom's house is sold and we've cleared out all our stuff. We're moving to Pennsylvania to live with our aunt and uncle.

Mom always kept this on her dresser. It had been her mother's. She said it made her happy to see it.

You've made us so happy by making sure that the guy who killed Mom pays for his crime that we want you to have it. It's our way of saying thanks.

The letter was signed by Chris and Ken, the teenage sons of the supervisor who had been murdered by her a.s.sistant.

Kerry blinked back tears as she held the lovely object. She called in her secretary and dictated a brief letter: By law, I'm not allowed to accept any gifts, but, Chris and Ken, I promise you, if it were different, this would be one I'd cherish. Please keep it for me and for your mom.

As she signed the letter she thought about the obvious bond between these brothers, and between them and their mother. What would become of Robin if something happened to me? she wondered. Then she shook her head. There's nothing to be gained in being morbid, she thought. Besides, there was another, more pressing, parentIchild situation to investigate.

It was time to pay a visit to Dr. Charles Smith. When she called his office, the answering service picked up. "They won't be in until eleven today. May I take a message?"

Shortly before noon, Kerry received a return call from Mrs. Carpenter.

"I'd like to have an appointment to speak with the doctor as soon as possible," Kerry said. "It's important."

"What is this in reference to, Ms. McGrath?"

Kerry decided to gamble. "Tell the doctor it's in reference to Suzanne."

She waited nearly five minutes, then heard Dr. Smith's cold, precise voice. "What do you want, Ms. McGrath?" he asked.

"I want to talk to you about your testimony at Skip Reardon's trial, Doctor, and I'd appreciate doing it as soon as possible."

By the time she hung up, he had agreed to meet with her in his office at seven-thirty the next morning. She mused that it meant she would have to leave home by six-thirty. And that meant she would have to arrange for a neighbor to phone Robin to make sure she didn't fall back asleep after Kerry had gone.

Otherwise, Robin would be fine. She always walked to school with two of her girlfriends, and Kerry was sure that she was old enough to get herself a bowl of cereal.

Next she phoned her friend Margaret at her office and got Stuart Grant's home phone number. "I talked to Stuart about you and your questions about that plastic surgeon, and he said his wife will be home all morning," Margaret told her.

Susan Grant answered on the first ring. She repeated exactly what Margaret had reported. "I swear, Kerry, it was frightening. I just wanted to have a tuck around the eyes. But Dr. Smith was so intense. He kept calling me Suzanne, and I know that if I had let him have his way, I wouldn't have looked like myself anymore."

Just before lunch, Kerry asked Joe Palumbo to stop by her office. "I have a little extracurricular situation I need your help with," she told him when he slumped in a chair in front of her desk. "The Reardon case."

Joe's quizzical expression demanded an answer. She told him about the Suzanne Reardon look-alikes and Dr. Charles Smith. Hesitantly she admitted that she had also visited Reardon in prison and that, while everything she was doing was strictly unofficial, she was beginning to have her doubts about the way the case was handled.

Palumbo whistled.

"And, Joe, I'd appreciate it if we could keep this just between us. Frank Green is not happy about my interest in the case."

"I wonder why," Palumbo murmured.

"The point is that Green himself told me the other day that Dr. Smith was an unemotional witness. Strange for a father of a murder victim, wouldn't you say? On the stand, Dr. Smith testified that he and his wife had separated when Suzanne was a baby and that a few years later he allowed her to be adopted by her stepfather, a man named Wayne Stevens, and that she grew up in Oakland, California. I'd like you to locate Stevens. I'd be very interested in learning from him what kind of girl Suzanne was growing up, and especially I want to see a picture of her taken when she was a teenager."

She had pulled out several pages of the Reardon trial transcript. Now she shoved them across the desk to Palumbo. "Here's the testimony of a baby-sitter who was across the street the night of the murder and who claims she saw a strange car in front of the Reardon house around nine o'clock that night. She lives--or lived--with her daughter and son-in-law in Alpine. Check her out for me, okay?"

Palumbo's eyes reflected keen interest. "It will be a pleasure, Kerry. You're doing me a favor. I'd love to see Our Leader be the one on the hot seat for a change."

"Look, Joe, Frank Green's a good guy," Kerry protested. "I'm not interested in upsetting things for him. I just feel that there were some questions left open in the case, and frankly, meeting Dr. Smith and seeing his look-alike patients has spooked me. If there's a chance that the wrong man is in jail, I feel it's my duty to explore it. But I'll do it only if I am convinced."

"I fully understand," Palumbo said. "And don't get me wrong. In most ways I agree with you that Green is an okay guy. It's just that I prefer someone who doesn't run for cover every time someone in this office is taking heat."