“Forget Jaime-boy. He made up with his publicist. But don’t worry. He’ll break up with him again before the week is over. Listen, I’ve figured out a great way to get publicity. Call the media and tell them to be in your office for a three o’clock news release. I’ll be with you, and I’ll announce that I’m offering a five-million-dollar reward for anyone who finds your kid alive.”
“Melissa, are you totally crazy?” Ted’s raised voice made Larry Post look quickly into the rearview mirror.
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that. I’m trying to help you.” Melissa made no attempt to hide her fury at Ted’s response. “Think about it. Suppose that Bartley Longe, that miserable snob who I hate — you know the remarks he made about my last album, when he told the paparazzi why he hadn’t invited me to that big party he threw. … Anyhow, you told me your ex keeps saying Longe took your kid. Maybe he did.”
“Melissa, think this through. You’re on record as saying, not once but many times, that you believe that Matthew was molested and killed by a predator the same day he was abducted. Why would anyone believe you would change your mind now? That kind of offer will only look like a cheap publicity stunt and will hurt your career. They’ll compare it with O. J. Simpson putting up a reward to find the person who killed his wife and her friend. Added to that, it will open the door to hundreds of people calling in claiming they saw a child who looks like Matthew. I put up a million-dollar reward myself when Matthew disappeared, and the police ended up wasting valuable time tracking down the bunch of lunatics who called.”
“Look,” Melissa insisted, “they’ve got those pictures of your ex taking the kid. Suppose she doesn’t break down? Suppose the kid is alive somewhere and someone is minding him? Don’t you think that person would jump at the chance to get five million bucks?”
“That same person would have a long time to wait in prison before being able to spend that money.”
“That’s not true. Look at that mob guy who killed a zillion people and didn’t even go to jail because he helped the cops convict his buddies. Maybe there’s more than one person in on it. Maybe one of them will confess and help the cops find your son. Then that person gets a good deal from the DA and a lot of money from me. Listen, Ted, I like my idea. Your kid is going to be in the headlines when your ex is arrested and for a long time after until she goes to trial. My sister’s husband, no great shakes of a guy, is a public defender. God help the poor slobs he defends, but he does know law. You know how much money I make. If I had to pay the five million, I can afford it, and just the offer makes me look like a saint. Angelina Jolie and Oprah get all that publicity doing good for kids. Why not me? So be at your office at three o’clock and have a statement for us to give them.”
Without any good-bye, Melissa’s phone went dead.
Ted leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. Think, he told himself. Think. Get control of yourself. Consider the consequences if she goes ahead with this. If I could only afford to quit right now. If I could only afford to kiss her good-bye. If only I didn’t have to put up with her moods and tantrums and outbursts and have to cover her backside when she makes a fool of herself …
He touched the REDIAL button on his cell phone. As he expected, Melissa did not answer. “Leave a message” was the response he heard. At the signal he took a deep breath. “Baby,” he began, his tone wheedling, “you know how much I love you and how every minute of my life is dedicated to building you up to be the number one star that you deserve to be. But I also want the public to know the sweet and generous side of you. I can’t begin to thank you for this breathtaking offer, but as your lover, your best friend, your publicist, I want you to think about making this offer in a different way.”
A beep told him that his allotted time to leave a message was up. Gritting his teeth, Ted pressed REDIAL again. “Sweetheart, I have an idea that will have a long-lasting effect. We’ll call a press conference tomorrow or whenever you want to arrange the meeting. At it, you announce that you are donating five million dollars immediately to the Foundation for Missing Children. Every parent of a missing child will love you and that way you won’t have to respond to the sleazes who will try to turn your generosity into something it isn’t. Think about it, darling. And call me.”
Ted Carpenter turned off his cell phone and managed to wait until he reached home before he went into the bathroom and became violently sick to his stomach. Minutes later, chilled and shaking, he went into the bedroom and picked up the phone.
Rita Moran answered, her voice motherly and concerned. “Ted, I saw you on the breaking news on the Internet. You look terrible. How are you doing now?”
“Just as bad as I look. I’m going to bed. No calls at all unless …”
Rita finished the sentence for him. “Unless the witch dials from her broom.”
“She won’t for a while. Some commonsense advice I gave her may be filtering into her brain as we speak.”
“How about your appointment with that Jaime-boy nut?”
“It’s been canceled, or maybe just postponed.” He knew that Rita understood the financial ramifications of losing that potential client.
“Maybe it’s just been postponed.”
Ted caught the false hardiness in her tone. She was the only one of his employees who knew the degree to which the purchase of the building had been a big drain and a horrible mistake. “Who knows?” he asked. “I’ll talk to you later. Zan is being questioned by the detectives right now. If Collins or Dean happens to call, tell them they can reach me here.”
Stripping off his clothes to his underwear, he got into bed and pulled the covers around him until only the top of his head was showing.
For the next four hours, he dozed intermittently.
Then at three o’clock, his phone rang again.
It was Detective Collins.
45
Zan remembered keenly the kindness with which Detectives Billy Collins and Jennifer Dean had treated her when Matthew disappeared. That day, after Ted’s outburst about leaving Matthew with a young babysitter, they had even said to her, “At times like these, some people have to handle tragedy by blaming it on someone. Try to understand that.”
She knew they had then interviewed Nina Aldrich, who had verified their appointment that day. When Tiffany Shields had finally calmed down, she had told the detectives that the new nanny had not shown up, and that Zan had called her at the last minute and begged her to watch Matthew because she had an important client she could not risk losing.
Zan had told them that the only person who she felt honestly hated her was Bartley Longe, but even then she had realized that they were dismissing him as a possibility.
They had tried to suggest that Ted’s outburst about hiring an inexperienced babysitter might suggest some underlying hostility, a scenario Zan had dismissed. She had told them that Ted had approved both Matthew’s first nanny and the new one she had hired just before Matthew disappeared.
The photos. Of course they had to be doctored! With her new found strength in the sure knowledge that she had heard Matthew’s voice early that morning, Zan, with Charley Shore guiding her arm, followed Detectives Collins and Dean into the room where they would be questioning her.
They all took seats, Charley Shore next to her, Billy Collins and Jennifer Dean across from them. In the weeks immediately following Matthew’s disappearance, Zan realized she had originally seen the detectives only in a blur. This time she studied them carefully. They were both in their early forties. Billy Collins had the kind of face that blended into the crowd. He had no distinguishing features. His eyes were narrowly set, his ears a little too large for his long, thin face. His eyebrows shaggy. His manner low-key. He looked slightly rumpled, as though he hadn’t taken the time to straighten his tie. When they were settled in the seats, Billy solicitously asked if they would like to have coffee or water.
On the other hand, Jennifer Dean, his attractive African-American partner, immediatel
y made Zan feel uncomfortable today. There was a crisp, no-nonsense air about her now. Zan remembered the warmth of her touch when Zan almost fainted shortly after she arrived in Central Park that day. Jennifer had been the one who rushed forward and grabbed her before she fell. Today she was wearing a dark green suit with a white turtleneck sweater. Her only jewelry was a wide gold wedding band and small gold earrings. Streaks of gray were untouched in her midnight black hair. Unsmiling, she looked appraisingly into Zan’s face as though she were seeing her for the first time.
Zan had shaken her head at the offer of coffee, but the unexpected change in Dean’s attitude startled her. “Maybe I will have that coffee,” she said.
“Sure thing,” Collins said. “Anything in it?”
“Nothing, thanks,” Zan said.
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
It was a long minute. Detective Dean made no attempt to start a conversation.
In a casual gesture, Charley Shore gently placed his arm over the back of Zan’s chair, a reassuring move that signaled to her he was there to protect her.
But protect her from what?
Billy Collins was back with a paper cup filled with coffee that was little more than tepid. “Starbucks it’s not,” he commented.
Zan nodded her thanks as Collins took his seat and handed her the enlarged photographs of a woman taking the sleeping Matthew from his stroller in Central Park. “Ms. Moreland, is that you in these pictures?”
“No, it isn’t,” Zan said firmly. “It may look like me, but it isn’t me.”
“Ms. Moreland, is this your picture?” He held up another one.
Zan glanced at it. “Yes, that must have been taken right after I got to Central Park after you called me and said that Matthew was missing.”
“Can you see any difference in the women in these pictures?”
“Yes. The woman taking Matthew out of the stroller is an imposter. The one of me arriving in the park after he was kidnapped is genuine. You certainly must know that by now. I was with a client, Nina Aldrich. I know you checked that out immediately.”
“You did not tell us that instead of meeting Mrs. Aldrich at her Beekman Place home where she waited for you for well over an hour, you were in her town house on East Sixty-ninth Street alone for all that time,” Jennifer Dean said, her tone accusing.
“I was there because she told me to meet her there. I was not surprised she was late. Nina Aldrich was chronically late for our appointments whether they were in the town house she was decorating or the apartment where she still lived.”
“The town house is minutes from the spot in Central Park from which Matthew disappeared, isn’t it, Ms. Moreland?” Billy Collins asked.
“I would guess it’s about a fifteen-minute walk. When I got the call from you, I ran all the way.”
“Ms. Moreland, Mrs. Aldrich is very sure that she told you to meet her on Beekman Place,” Detective Dean said.
“That’s not true. She told me to meet her at the town house,” Zan said heatedly.
“Ms. Moreland, we’re not trying to attack you,” Collins said, his voice soothing. “You say Mrs. Aldrich was chronically late for appointments.”
“Yes, she was.”
“Do you know if she has a cell phone?” Collins asked.
“She has a cell phone, of course she does,” Zan answered.
“Do you have the number of her cell phone?” As he spoke, Billy Collins took a sip of his own coffee and made a face. “Even worse than usual,” he commented amiably.
Zan realized she was still holding the cup in her hand and took another sip of it. What had Collins just asked her? Of course. He asked me if I had Nina Aldrich’s cell phone number. “Her number is in my phone,” she said.
“How long since you’ve spoken to Mrs. Aldrich?” Dean asked, her voice steely.
“Almost two years. She wrote me a note about Matthew and said she knew that it would be far too much responsibility for me to take on such a major project as decorating her large home, meaning, of course, she was afraid to take a chance on me concentrating on the job.”
“Who got the job of decorating her town house?” Collins asked.
“Bartley Longe.”
“Isn’t he the person you claim might be responsible for kidnapping Matthew?”
“He is the only person I know who thoroughly hates me and is jealous of me.”
“Where are we going with these questions?” Charley Shore asked as he applied slight pressure to Zan’s shoulder.
“We’re simply asking if Ms. Moreland was frequently in touch with Mrs. Aldrich at the time she was bidding for the job of decorating her town house.”
“Of course I was,” Zan broke in.
Again she felt the light pressure of Charley’s hand on her shoulder.
“Were you friendly with Mrs. Aldrich?” Dean asked.
“In a client-relationship kind of way, I guess you’d call it. She liked my vision for how I saw the town house should be decorated to best show off, or rather emphasize, some of the architectural features that exist in those wonderful late nineteenth-century homes.”
“How many rooms are in that town house?” Jennifer Dean asked.
I can’t imagine why they’re so interested in the layout of that place, Zan thought as she mentally retraced the rooms in the Aldrich home. “It’s very large,” she said. “Forty feet wide, which I assure you is unusual. There are five stories. The top floor is an enclosed roof garden. There are eleven rooms as well as the wine cellar, and a second kitchen and storage room in the basement.”
“I see. So you went there to meet Nina Aldrich. Were you surprised she didn’t show up?” Collins asked.
“Surprised? No, not really. She was always late. The one time she wasn’t and I was five minutes late, she let me know how important her time was and that she wasn’t in the habit of being kept waiting.”
“Didn’t the fact that the babysitter minding Matthew had a cold and didn’t feel well make you anxious enough to pick up your cell phone and call her?” Dean asked.
“No.” Zan felt as though she were in a morass where everything she said made her sound as though she were lying. “Nina Aldrich would have resented my reminding her that she was late.”
“How often did she keep you waiting as long as an hour or more?” Dean asked.
“That was by far the longest.”
“Wouldn’t it have been reasonable to phone and ask if you had been mistaken about the time and place of your meeting?”
“I knew the time and place she had told me. You don’t remind the Nina Aldriches of this world that they may have made a mistake.”
“So you stood or sat there for an hour or more before she finally called you?”
“I was going over my sketches and the pictures of antique furniture and chandeliers and sconces that I was planning to show her. In a few cases, I was choosing between several selections as my top recommendations. The time went quickly.”
“I understand there was almost no furniture in the town house,” Collins commented.
“A card table and two folding chairs,” Zan answered.
“So you sat at the card table for more than an hour going over your sketches?”
“No. I went up to the master bedroom on the third floor. I wanted to check once more and see how the patterns I had chosen worked in the strong sunlight. Remember the day was unusually warm and sunny.”
“Would you have heard Mrs. Aldrich if she had come in while you were on the third floor?” Jennifer Dean asked.
“She would have seen my portfolio and sketches as soon as she walked through the door,” Zan said.
“You had your own key to the town house, Ms. Moreland?”
“Of course. I was submitting plans to decorate the entire house from top to bottom. I went back and forth regularly for weeks.”
“You got to know the house pretty well, then, didn’t you?”
“I would think that’s obvious,” Zan snapped.
>
“Including the basement with its second kitchen, wine cellar, and storage room. Were you planning to decorate the storage room?”
“That space was large and dark and virtually inaccessible. It was really a kind of subcellar reached by a door at the back of the wine cellar. There were plenty of other storage areas in closets throughout the house. I suggested painting the room, putting in good lighting, and building shelves to accommodate items like skis for Mrs. Aldrich’s step-grandchildren.”
“It would have made a pretty good hiding place if someone wanted to hide something—or someone — wouldn’t it?” Jennifer Dean asked.
“Don’t answer that question, Zan,” Charley Shore ordered.
Billy Collins did not look disturbed. “Ms. Moreland, when did you give Mrs. Aldrich her key back?”
“It was about two weeks after Matthew disappeared. That was when she wrote the note saying that she thought the stress of Matthew’s disappearance would be too much for me to handle the job.”
“In those two weeks, did you still think you had the job?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Could you have handled it, given the fact that your son was missing?”
“Yes, I could have handled it. In fact, concentrating on it was the only way I thought I could preserve my sanity.”
“Then you went back and forth often to that empty house after your son disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Did you go there to visit Matthew?”
Zan jumped up from the chair. “Are you crazy?” she demanded.
“Are you trying to tell me that you think I kidnapped my own child and hid him in that storage room?”
“Zan, sit down,” Charley Shore said firmly.
“Ms. Moreland, as you have said several times, that is a large town house. Why would you suggest that we think you hid Matthew in the storage room?”