Read Online Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Mary Higgins Clark - Free Book Online Page A

Geoff waiting for her in the area where visitors were registered. "I m really glad you made it," he said. They talked little while they waited for their scheduled meeting. Geoff seemed to understand that she did not want his input at this time.
Promptly at three o'clock a guard approached them and told them to follow him.
Kerry did not know what she expected Skip Reardon to look like now. It had been ten years since she had sat in at his sentencing. The impression she had retained of him was of a tall, good-looking, broad-shouldered young man with fiery red hair. But more than his appearance, it was his statement that had been burned into her mind: Dr. Charles Smith is a liar. Before God and this court, I swear he is a liar!
"What have you told Skip Reardon about me?" she asked Geoff as they waited for the prisoner to be escorted into the visiting area.
"Only that you've unofficially taken some interest in his case and wanted to meet him. I promise you, Kerry, I said 'unofficially.'"
"That's fine. I trust you."
"Here he is now."
Skip Reardon appeared, dressed in prison denims and an open- necked prison-issue shirt. There were streaks of gray through the red hair, but except for the lines around his eyes he still looked very much as Kerry recalled him. A smile brightened his face as Geoff introduced him.
A hopeful smile, Kerry realized, and with a sinking heart wondered if she shouldn't have been more cautious, perhaps waiting until she knew more about the case, instead of agreeing so readily to this visit.
Geoff got right to the point. "Skip, as I told you, Ms. McGrath wants to ask you some questions."
"I understand. And, listen, I'll answer them no matter what they are." He spoke earnestly, although with a hint of resignation. "You've heard that old saying, I have nothing to hide."
Kerry smiled, then went straight to the question that was to her the crux of this meeting. "In his testimony, Dr. Smith swore that his daughter, your wife, was afraid of you and that you had threatened her. You have maintained that he was lying, but what purpose would he have in lying about that?"
Reardon's hands were folded on the table in front of him. "Ms. McGrath, if I had any explanation for Dr. Smith's actions, maybe I wouldn't be here now. Suzanne and I were married four years, and during that time I never saw that much of Smith. She'd go into New York and have dinner with him occasionally, or he'd come out to the house, but usually when I was away on a business trip. At that time my construction business was booming. I was building all over the state and investing in land in Pennsylvania for future development. I'd be gone a couple of days at a time on a fairly regular basis. Whenever I was with Dr. Smith, he seemed not to have much to say, but he never acted as though he didn't like me. And he certainly didn't act as though he thought his daughter's life was in danger."
"When you were with both him and Suzanne, what did you notice about his attitude toward her?"
Reardon looked at Dorso. "You're the guy with the fancy words, Geoff. What's a good way to put it? Wait a minute. I can tell you. When I was in parochial school, the nuns got mad at us for talking in church and told us we should have reverence for a holy place and holy objects. Well that's the way he treated her. Smith showed 'reverence' for Suzanne."
What an odd word to use about a father's attitude toward his daughter, Kerry thought.
"And he was also protective of her," Reardon added. "One night the three of us were driving somewhere for dinner and he noticed that Suzanne hadn't put on her seat belt. So he launched into a lecture about her responsibility to take care of herself. He actually got fairly agitated about it, maybe even a little angry."
It sounds like the same way he lectured Robin and me, Kerry thought. Almost reluctantly she admitted to herself that Skip Reardon certainly gave the appearance of being candid and honest.
"How did she act toward him?"
"Respectful,