We'll Meet Again Read Free Page B

Dad. He was always trying to ingratiate himself with wealthy people. He wanted me to be friends with the girls who came from money or who had family connections.
    “Apart from her appearance, what was Molly like?”
    “She was very sweet,” Fran said. “When my father died and the news came out about what he had done-the embezzling and the suicide and everything-I was avoiding everyone. Molly knew I jogged every day, and early one morning she was waiting for me. She said she just wanted to keep me company for a while. Since her father had been one of the biggest donors to the library fund, you can imagine what her show of friendship meant to me.”
    “You had no reason to be ashamed because of what your father did,” Gus snapped.
    Fran’s tone became crisp. “I wasn’t
ashamed
of him. I was just so sorry for him-and angry too, I guess. Why did he think that my mother and I needed things? After he died, we realized how frantic he must have been in the days just before, because they were about to audit the library fund’s books, and he knew he’d be found out.” She paused, then added softly, “He was wrong to have done all that, of course. Wrong to have taken the money and wrong to think we needed it. He was weak also. I realize now he was terribly insecure. But at the same time, he was an awfully nice guy.”
    “So was Dr. Gary Lasch. He was a good administrator too. Lasch Hospital has a top-drawer reputation, and Remington Health Management isn’t like so many of the cockamamie HMOs that are going bankrupt and leaving patients and doctors high and dry.” Gus smiled briefly. “You knew Molly and you went to school with her, so that gives you some insight. Do you think she did it?”
    “There’s no question that she did it,” Fran said promptly. “The evidence against her was overwhelming, and I’ve covered enough murder trials to understand that very unlikely people ruin their lives by losing control for that one split second. Still, unless Molly changed dramatically after the time I knew her, she’d be the last person in the world I would have said was likely to kill someone. But for that very reason, I can understand why she might have blocked it out.”
    “That’s why this case is great for the program,” Gus said. “Get on it. When Molly Lasch gets out of Niantic Prison next week, I want you to be part of the reception committee welcoming her.”

2
    A week later, the collar of her all-weather coat turned up to cover her neck, her hands shoved in her pockets, her hair covered by her favorite ski hat, Fran waited in the cluster of media people huddled at the gate of the prison on a raw March day. Her cameraman, Ed Ahearn, was beside her.
    As usual, there was grumbling; today it was about the combination of the early hour and the weather-stinging sleet, driven by gusts of icy wind. Predictably there was also a rehashing of the case that five and a half years ago had made headlines across the country.
    Fran already had taped several reports with the prison in the background. Earlier that morning she had done a live report, and as the station ran tape over her voice, she’d announced, “We are waiting outside the gate of Niantic Prison in upstate Connecticut, just a few miles from the Rhode Island border. Molly Carpenter Lasch will emerge shortly, after having spent five and a half years behind bars following her manslaughter plea in the death of her husband, Gary Lasch.”
    Now, waiting for Molly to appear, she listened to the opinions of the others there. The consensus was that Molly was guilty as sin, was damn lucky that she’d gotten out after only five and a half years, and who was she kidding that she couldn’t remember bashing in the poor guy’s skull?
    Fran alerted the control room as she saw a dark blue sedan emerge from behind the main building of the prison. “Philip Matthews’s car is starting to leave,” she said. Molly’s attorney had arrived to pick her up a half-hour