I'll Be Seeing You by Mary Higgins Clark Page B

statement. Otherwise the only thing the public is going to see is women bolting out of here.”
    As the door closed behind Steve, Walters looked up. “I can’t talk anymore,” she said hurriedly and clicked down the receiver.
    Meghan did not speak until she was settled in the chair across from Walters’ desk. The situation required tact and careful handling. She had learned not to fire questions at a defensive interviewee. “This is a pretty rough morning for you, Mrs. Walters,” she said soothingly.
    She watched as the receptionist brushed a hand over her forehead. “You bet it is.”
    The woman’s tone was guarded, but Meghan sensed in her the same conflict she had noticed yesterday. She realized the need for discretion, but she was dying to talk to someone about all that had been going on. Marge Walters was a born gossip.
    â€œI met Dr. Petrovic at the reunion,” Meghan said. “She seemed like a lovely person.”
    â€œShe was,” Walters agreed. “It’s hard to believe she wasn’t qualified for the job she was doing. But her early medical training was probably in Rumania. With all the changes in government over there, I’ll bet anything they find out she had all the degrees she needed. I don’t understand about New York Hospital saying she didn’t trainthere. I bet that’s a mistake too. But finding that out may come too late. This bad publicity will ruin this place.”
    â€œIt could,” Meghan agreed. “Do you think that her quitting had something to do with Dr. Manning’s decision to cancel our session yesterday?”
    Walters looked at the camera Steve was holding.
    Quickly Meghan added, “If you can tell me anything that will balance all this negative news I’d like to include it.”
    Marge Walters made up her mind. She trusted Meghan Collins. “Then let me tell you that Helene Petrovic was one of the most wonderful, hardest working people I’ve ever met. No one was happier than she when an embryo was brought to term in its mother’s womb. She loved every single embryo in that lab and used to insist on having the emergency generator tested regularly to be sure that in case of power failure the temperature would stay constant.”
    Walters’ eyes misted. “I remember Dr. Manning telling us at a staff meeting last year how he’d rushed to the clinic during that terrible snowstorm in December, when all the electricity went down, to make sure the emergency generator was working. Guess who arrived a minute behind him? Helene Petrovic. And she hated driving in snow or ice. It was a special fear of hers, yet she drove here in that storm. She was that dedicated.”
    â€œYou’re telling me exactly what I felt when I interviewed her,” Meghan commented. “She seemed to be a very caring person. I could see it in the way she was interacting with the children during the picture session on Sunday.”
    â€œI missed that. I had to go to a family wedding that day. Can you turn off the camera now?”
    â€œOf course.” Meghan nodded to Steve.
    Walters shook her head. “I wanted to be here. But my cousin Dodie finally married her boyfriend. They’ve only been living together for eight years. You should have heard my aunt. You’d think a nineteen-year-old out of convent school was the bride. I swear to God the nightbefore the wedding I bet she told Dodie how babies come to be born.”
    Walters grimaced as the incongruity of her remark in this clinic occurred to her. “How most of them come to be born, I mean.”
    â€œIs there any chance I can see Dr. Manning?” Meghan knew if there was a chance it was through this woman.
    Walters shook her head. “Just between us, an assistant state attorney and some investigators are with him now.”
    That wasn’t surprising. Certainly they were looking into Helene Petrovic’s abrupt departure from