Fran left a few minutes later. Every instinct told her that Molly’s outburst was the key to her search for exoneration. This is slam-dunk, she thought. She loved her husband, and she’ll do anything to get someone to tell her that there’s a possibility she didn’t kill him. I think she probably genuinely doesn’t remember, but I still think she did it. It’s a waste of time and money for NAF-TV to try to raise even a serious doubt about her guilt.

I’ll tell Gus that, she thought, but before I do, I’m going to find out everything I can about Gary Lasch.

On impulse she detoured on the way to the Merritt Parkway to drive past Lasch Hospital, which had replaced the private clinic founded by Jonathan Lasch, Gary ’s father. This was where her father had been taken after he shot himself and where he died seven hours later.

She was astonished to see that the hospital was now twice the size that she remembered. There was a traffic light outside the main entrance, and she slowed the car enough to miss the green light. As she waited at the red signal, she studied the facility, noting the wings that had been added to the main structure, the new building on the righthand side of the property, the elevated parking garage.

With a stab of pain she searched out the window of the waiting room on the third floor where she remembered standing while she waited for news about her father, knowing instinctively that he was beyond help.

This will be a good place to come and talk to people, Fran thought. The light changed, and five minutes later she was on the approach to the Merritt Parkway. As she drove south through the swiftly flowing traffic, she mulled over the fact that Gary Lasch had met and become involved with Annamarie Scalli, a young nurse at the hospital, and that reckless indiscretion had cost him his life.

But was that his only indiscretion? she wondered suddenly.

Chances were, it would probably turn out that he’d made one colossal mistake, like her father, but otherwise was the upstanding citizen, fine doctor, and devoted health-care provider that people knew and remembered.

But maybe not, Fran reminded herself as she passed the state line between Connecticut and New York. I’ve been in this business long enough to expect the unexpected.

After she saw Fran Simmons to the door, Molly returned to the study. Edna Barry looked in on her at 1:30. “Molly, unless there’s something else you want me to do, I’ll be leaving now.”

“Nothing else, thank you, Mrs. Barry.”

Edna Barry stood uncertainly at the door. “I wish you’d let me get you some lunch before I go.”

“I’m not hungry yet, really.”

Molly’s voice was muffled. Edna could tell she had been crying. The guilt and fear that had haunted Edna Barry every waking hour for nearly six years suddenly deepened. Oh God, she begged. Please understand. I couldn’t do anything else.

In the kitchen she put on her parka and fastened a scarf under her chin. From the counter she picked up her key ring, stared at it for a moment, and with a convulsive gesture, folded her fist around it.

Not twenty minutes later she was in her modest Cape Cod-style home in Glenville. Her thirty-year-old son, Wally, was watching television in the living room. He did not take his eyes off the set when she came in, but at least he seemed calm. Some days, even when he’s on the medicine, he can be so agitated, she thought.

Like that terrible Sunday when Dr. Lasch had died. Wally had been so angry that day because Dr. Lasch had scolded him earlier in the week when he came to the house, went into the study, and picked up the Remington sculpture.

Edna Barry had omitted one detail from her account of what had happened that Monday morning. She had not told the police that her key to the Lasch house was not on her key ring where it belonged, that she had had to let herself in with the key Molly kept hidden in the garden, and that later she had found the missing key in Wally’s pocket.

When she asked him about it, he started to cry and ran into his room, slamming the door. “Don’t talk about it, Mama,” he had sobbed.

“We must never, never talk about this to anybody,” she had told him firmly, and had made him promise that he wouldn’t. And he never had, not to this day.

She always had tried to convince herself it probably had been just a coincidence. After all, she had found Molly covered with blood. Molly’s fingerprints were on the sculpture.

But suppose Molly did start to remember details of that night?

Suppose she really had seen someone in the house?

Had Wally been there? How could she ever be sure? Mrs. Barry wondered.

Peter Black drove through the darkened streets to his home on Old Church Road. Once it had been the carriage house of a large estate. He had bought it during his second marriage, which, like his first, had ended within a few years. His second wife, however, unlike his first, had had exquisite taste, and after she left him, he had made no effort to change the decor. His only alteration was to add a bar and stock it plentifully. His second wife had been a teetotaler.

Peter had met his late partner, Gary Lasch, at medical school, and they had become friends. It was after the death of Gary ’s father, Dr. Jonathan Lasch, that Gary had come to Peter with a proposition.

“Health management is the new wave of medicine,” he had said. “The nonprofit clinic my father opened can’t go on like this. We’ll expand it, make it profitable, start our own HMO.”

Gary, blessed with a distinguished name in medicine, had taken his father’s place as head of the clinic, which later became Lasch Hospital. The third partner, Cal Whitehall, came on board when together they founded the Remington Health Management Organization.

Now the state was on the verge of approving Remington’s acquisition of a number of smaller HMOs. Everything was going well, but it wasn’t a done deal yet. They had reached the last step on the tightrope. The only problem they could see was that American National Insurance was fighting to acquire the companies too.

But everything still could go wrong, Peter reminded himself as he parked at his front door. He knew he had no intention of going out again tonight, but it was cold, and he wanted a drink. Pedro, his longtime live-in cook and housekeeper, would put the car away later.

Peter let himself in and went directly to the library. The room was always welcoming, with the fire burning and the television set tuned to the news station. Pedro appeared immediately, asking the nightly question: “The usual, sir?”

The usual was scotch on the rocks, except when Peter decided on a change of pace and asked for bourbon or vodka.

The first scotch, sipped slowly and appreciatively, began to calm Peter’s nerves. A small plate of smoked salmon likewise appeased his slight feeling of hunger. He did not like to dine for at least an hour after reaching home.

He took the second scotch with him while he showered. Carrying the rest of the drink into the bedroom, he dressed in chinos and a long-sleeved cashmere shirt. Finally, almost relaxed, and with the worrisome sense that something was going wrong somewhat abated, he went back downstairs.

Peter Black frequently dined with friends. In his renewed status as a single man, he was showered with invitations from attractive and socially desirable women. The evenings he was at home he usually brought a book or magazine to the table. Tonight, though, was an exception. As he ate baked swordfish and steamed asparagus and sipped a glass of Saint Emilion, he sat in silent reflection, thinking through the meetings that were still to come concerning the mergers.