That was late Monday afternoon. I got mad, Glory thought. I told him to go to hell and that I’d walk to the parking lot. I should have taken off my wig and tied my scarf around my neck so I didn’t look like her, but I didn’t. Then when I passed the church, it was crazy, but I stopped in. I don’t know what made me go to confession, or start to anyhow. My God, was I losing it? And I ought to have known that he’d be following me. How else would he have known I was there?
“Glory, can I come in?”
She looked up. Matthew was standing at the door. Focusing on him, Glory could see that he had lost weight. Well, he hadn’t been eating much lately, she thought. “Sure. Come in, Matty.”
“Are we going to move again?”
“I have very good news for you. Mommy is coming to get you in a couple of days.”
“She is?” he said excitedly.
“You bet she is. That’s why I won’t be minding you at all anymore. And the bad people who were trying to steal you are all gone. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“I miss Mommy,” Matthew whispered.
“I know you do. And believe it or not, I’m going to miss you, too.”
“Maybe you’ll come and visit us sometime?”
“Well, we’ll see.” Looking into Matthew’s intelligent, seeking gaze, Glory suddenly thought, In two years if he sees me on television or in a movie, he’ll say, “That’s Glory, the lady who minded me.”
Oh my God, she thought, that’s the way he’s thinking, too. He knows he can’t let Matty be found. Could he possibly… ?
Yes, he could. She already knew that.
I can’t let it happen, Glory thought. I’ve got to call and try to get that reward. But right now, I’ll do what he said. In the morning, I’ll call the real estate woman and tell her I’m leaving Sunday morning. Then I’ll meet him in New York tomorrow night, like we planned, but before that I’ll go to the cops and make a deal with them. They can tape me so that they’ll have absolute proof that I’m on the level.
“Glory, can I go downstairs and get a soda?” Matthew asked.
“Sure, honey, but I’ll go down with you and get you something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry, Glory, and I don’t believe you that I’ll see Mommy soon. You always tell me that.”
Matthew went downstairs for a soda, brought it back up, lay on his bed, and reached for the bar of soap. But then he pushed it away. Glory tells lies, he thought. She’s always telling me that I’ll be seeing Mommy soon. Mommy doesn’t want to come for me.
65
Fr. Aiden made his way from the Friary to the lower church at ten minutes of four on Friday. He walked slowly. He had been sitting at his desk for hours and the arthritis in his back and knees always pained him when he’d been in one position for too long.
Today, as always, there were people queuing up at the two Reconciliation Rooms in the entrance area where confessions would be heard. He could see that someone was paying a visit to the Lady of Lourdes grotto and someone else was at the kneeling bench before St. Jude. A few people were sitting on the bench against the outside wall. Resting their feet, he wondered, or waiting to work up courage to go to confession? It shouldn’t take courage, he thought. It only requires faith.
As he passed the recessed Shrine of St. Anthony, he noticed a man in a trench coat with a thick head of dark hair kneeling there. The thought crossed his mind that maybe this was the man who Alvirah claimed was taking an odd kind of interest in him the other night. Fr. Aiden dismissed that thought. If it is, maybe the fellow simply was working his way up to unburdening himself, he thought. I hope so.
At five of four, he put his name on the outside of the Reconciliation Room, went in, and settled in his chair. His personal prayer before he began to receive the penitents was always the same, that he would meet the needs of those who came for healing.
At four o’clock, he pressed the button so that the green light would go on, and the first person on the line would know it was permissible to enter.
It was an unusually busy afternoon even for the Lenten season, and nearly two hours later, Fr. Aiden decided that since there were only a few others waiting, he would not leave until he had heard all their confessions.
Then, at five minutes of six, the man with the unruly hair came in.
The collar of his trench coat was up around his neck. He was wearing oversized dark glasses. His thick mop of dark hair covered his ears and forehead. His hands were in his pocket.
Fr. Aiden felt an instant sense of fear. This man was not a penitent, he was sure of that. But then the man sat down and, his voice husky, said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Then he paused.
Fr. Aiden waited.
“I’m not sure you’ll want to forgive me, Father, because the crimes I am going to commit are quite a bit more serious than the crimes I have been committing. You see, I am going to kill two women and a child. You know one of them, Zan Moreland. And beyond that I can’t take a chance on you, Father. I don’t know what you have heard, or what you suspect.”
Fr. Aiden tried to rise, but before he could the man drew a gun out of his pocket and held it against the Friar’s robe. “I don’t think they’ll hear this,” he said. “Not with a silencer, and anyway they’re all too busy praying.”
Fr. Aiden felt a fierce, sharp pain in his chest, and then as everything went black, he felt the man’s hands guiding him back into his chair.
Hands. Zan Moreland. That was what he had been trying to remember. Zan had long, beautiful hands.
The woman in confession who he had thought was Zan had smaller hands and short fingers…
Then the image passed out of his mind, leaving him in silent darkness.
66
When they were finally able to leave the courthouse, Willy stepped out through a sea of cameras, ran out into the street, and hailed a cab.
Biting her lip to keep it from trembling, and holding Charley Shore’s hand, Zan raced to get in the taxi. But she could not escape the flashing bulbs and the microphones that were thrust in front of her. “Any statement for us now, Zan?” a reporter called.
Stopping in her tracks, she screamed, “I am not the woman in those photos, I am not, I am not.”
At the curb Willy was holding the cab door open. Charley helped her into it. “The big guy will take care of you now,” Charley said quietly.
For minutes after the cab pulled away, neither Zan nor Willy said anything. Then when they were almost at Central Park, she turned to Willy. “I simply don’t know how to thank you,” she began. “My apartment is a sublet. My bank account is nonexistent. There’s no way I could have made that bail. I’d be in the Tombs tonight in an orange jumpsuit if it weren’t for you and Alvirah.”
“There was no way you were going to be in the Tombs tonight, Zan,” Willy said. “Not on my watch.”
When they reached the apartment, Alvirah was waiting with glasses on the coffee table. She said, “Charley called me, Willy. He said Zan needs something stronger than red wine. What will it be, Zan?”
“I guess a scotch.” Zan tried to smile as she untied her scarf and slipped off her outer jacket, but it was a forlorn effort. “Or maybe two or three,” she added.
As she reached to take the jacket from her, Alvirah wrapped her arms around Zan. “When Charley called to say you were on your way, he asked me to remind you that this is only the first move in a long process and that he is going to fight every step of the way for you.”
Zan knew what she had to say, but she was not sure how to put it. Stalling for time, she sat on the couch and looked around the room. “I’m so glad that you went ahead with these matching club chairs, Alvirah. Remember we debated about having one of them be a wing chair?”
“You told me all along that I should get the matching club chairs,” Alvirah said. “When Willy and I were married we, and everyone we knew, bought a couch, a wing chair, and a club chair. And the end tables matched the cocktail table. And the lamps matched, too. Let’
s face it. There weren’t too many interior decorators running around Jackson Heights, Queens, at the time.”
As she spoke, Alvirah was studying Zan, taking in the deep shadows under her eyes, the alabaster white of her skin, the fact that although she was naturally slender, she now seemed actually frail.
Zan picked up the drink Willy had prepared for her, shook it slightly to rattle the ice cubes against the side of the glass, and began, “This is terribly hard for me to say because it seems so ungrateful.”
She looked up at their concerned faces. “I can read your minds,” Zan said quietly. “You think I’m going to come clean and tell you that yes, I did kidnap and maybe even kill my child, the flesh of my flesh.
“That’s not what I’m going to say. I am going to tell you that I am not bipolar. I am not neurotic. I am not a split personality. I know what it looks like, and I don’t blame you for believing any or all of that.”
Her voice rising with passion, she said, “Someone else took Matthew. Someone who cares enough to look exactly like me is the woman in those photos in Central Park. I just read about a woman who spent a year in prison because two of her ex-fiancé’s friends claimed she had held them up at gunpoint. Finally one of them broke down and admitted he was lying.”
Zan stared into Alvirah’s eyes, beseeching her understanding. “Alvirah, on Matthew’s life, I swear before God, I am innocent. You’re a good detective. I’ve read your book. You’ve solved some pretty important crimes. Now I am going to ask you to rethink this awful mess. Say to yourself, ‘Zan is innocent. Everything she has told me is true. How do I go about proving her innocence instead of just pitying her?’ Is that possible?”
Alvirah and Willy looked at each other, knowing they could read each other’s minds. Ever since they had seen those pictures of Zan — or the woman who strikingly resembled her—they had passed judgment on her. Guilty.
I never even considered that she isn’t the woman in the pictures, Alvirah thought. Maybe there is another explanation for all this. “Zan,” she began slowly, “I am ashamed, and you are right. I am a pretty good detective, and I’ve been too quick to judge you. You are presumed innocent, which is the foundation of justice, something which I, like many people, have forgotten in your case. Where do I look for answers?”
“I swear Bartley Longe is behind this,” Zan said promptly. “I rejected his advances—never smart if you worked for him. I quit and opened my own firm. I’ve taken some of his clients. Today I learned the job of doing the model apartments at Carlton Place is mine.”
She saw the surprised expression that came into both their eyes. “Can you believe that Kevin Wilson, the architect, hired me even though he knew I might be going to jail? Of course, now that I’m out on bail, I can work with Josh, but Kevin hired us knowing that Josh might have had to handle the job himself.”
“Zan, I know how much that assignment means to you,” Alvirah said. “And you won it over Bartley Longe!”
“Yes, but if he hates me now, can you imagine how much more he’ll hate me when he hears this?”
Alvirah had a frightening thought that Zan may have missed something. If she was right and some woman was skillfully impersonating her, and if Bartley Longe had hired a woman to dress up like Zan and kidnap Matthew, what might happen now? And what might Longe do to Matthew given this new insult of Zan getting a prestigious job that he wanted himself? If Longe is guilty and if Matthew is still alive, will Longe be driven even further in his need to harm Zan?
Before Alvirah could speak, Zan said, “I’ve been trying to sort everything out myself. For some reason Nina Aldrich told those detectives that I was to meet her at her apartment on Beekman Place. That simply isn’t true. Maybe the housekeeper was within earshot when Nina told me to meet her at the town house on Sixty-ninth Street that day.”
“All right, Zan, that may be a good lead. I’ll try to get to the housekeeper. I’m good at making friends with someone like that. Don’t forget I was a cleaning woman for years.” Alvirah hurried to get the pad and pen on the shelf under the kitchen phone.
When she returned, Zan said, “And, please talk to Tiffany Shields, the babysitter. She asked for a Pepsi and when I went to get it she followed me into the kitchen. She took it out of the refrigerator and opened it herself. I never touched it. She asked me if I had any cold pills. I gave her a Tylenol for colds. I’ve never had the Tylenol with a sedative in my home. Now she’s decided that’s what I gave her.”
The phone rang. “It always rings when we’re about to have dinner,” Willy grunted, as he went to pick it up.
An instant later his expression changed. “Oh my God! What hospital? We’ll go right over. Thanks, Father.”
Willy replaced the receiver, then turned to Alvirah and Zan who were staring at him.
“Who, Willy?” Alvirah asked, her hand over her heart.
“Fr. Aiden. Some guy with a lot of heavy black hair shot him in the Reconciliation Room. He’s in NYU Hospital, Alvirah. He’s in intensive care. His condition is critical. He may not last through the night.”
67
Alvirah, Willy, and Zan had stayed at the hospital outside the intensive care unit until three in the morning. Two other Franciscan friars were there, keeping watch with them. They had all been allowed to stand at Fr. O’Brien’s bedside for a moment.
His chest was swathed in bandages. A breathing tube covered most of his face. Intravenous fluid was dripping into his arm. But the doctor now was cautiously optimistic. Miraculously, all three bullets had missed his heart. While his condition was extremely critical, his vital signs were improving. “I’m not sure if he can hear you, but talk to him briefly,” the doctor said.
Alvirah whispered, “Fr. Aiden, we love you.”
Willy said, “Come on, Padre. You’ve got to get better.”
Zan covered Fr. Aiden’s hand with hers. “It’s Zan, Father. With all that’s going on, I know it is your prayers that have given me hope. Now I’m praying for you.”
When they left the hospital, Alvirah and Willy took Zan home in a cab. Alvirah waited in it while Willy saw her to the door of her apartment. When he returned, he grunted, “It’s too cold for the vultures. Not a camera in sight.”
* * *
They slept until nine o’clock the next morning. On awakening Alvi-rah grabbed the phone and called the hospital. “Fr. Aiden is holding his own,” she reported. “Oh, Willy, I knew when I saw that guy in the church Monday night that he was trouble. If only we could have gotten a good look at him on the security camera, we might have been able to identify him.”
“Well, the police are sure going over that security camera with a fine-tooth comb now to see if they got a better view of him last night,” Willy assured her.
Over breakfast, they looked at the front page of the tabloids. Both the Post and the News had a picture of Zan, leaving the courthouse with Charley Shore. Her denial, ι AM NOT THE WOMAN IN THOSE PHOTOS, was the headline of the News. “NOT ME,” SCREAMS ZAN, read the Post headline. The Post photographer had gotten a close-up that revealed the agonized expression that accompanied her words.
Alvirah cut the Post front page and folded it. “Willy, it’s Saturday, so maybe that babysitter is home. Anyhow, Zan gave me her address and phone number. But instead of calling, I’m just going to go there. Zan said that Tiffany Shields took the Pepsi from the refrigerator herself. That means there’s no way Zan could have tampered with it. And as for the cold pill, Zan says she never bought the kind that has a sedative. You heard her. That young woman fell asleep when she was minding Matthew and now is trying to throw the blame for doing that on Zan.”
“Why would the girl have made up a story like that?” Willy asked.
“Who knows? Probably to justify herself for falling asleep on the job.”
An hour later, Alvirah was ringing the superintendent’s bell at Zan’s former apartment building. A young woman in a bathrobe answered the door.
“You must be Tiffany Shields,” A
lvirah guessed, plastering her warmest smile on her face.
“So? What do you want?” was the hostile reply.
Alvirah had her card in her hand. “I’m Alvirah Meehan and I’m a columnist for the New York Globe. I’d love to interview you for a story I’m writing about Alexandra Moreland.” That’s not a lie, Alvi-rah told herself. I am going to write a column about Zan.
“You want to write about the stupid babysitter who everybody blamed for falling asleep while all this time it was his mother who was the kidnapper,” Tiffany snapped.
“No. I want to write about a teenage girl who was sick and only agreed to babysit because the child’s mother had to see a client and the new nanny hadn’t showed up.”
“Tiffany, who’s there?”
Looking past Tiffany into the foyer, Alvirah could see a broad-shouldered, balding man approaching them. She was about to introduce herself when Tiffany said, “Dad, this lady wants to interview me for an article she’s writing.”
“My daughter has taken enough of a pounding from you people,” Tiffany’s father said. “Just go home, lady.”
“I don’t intend to pound anyone,” Alvirah said. “Tiffany, listen to me. Zan Moreland has told me how much Matthew loved you, and that you and she were real friends. She told me that she knew you were sick and she blamed herself for insisting that you mind Matthew that day. That’s the story I want to tell.”
Alvirah kept her fingers crossed as the father and daughter looked at each other. Then the father said, “I think you should talk to this lady, Tiffany.”
As Tiffany opened the door wide to allow Alvirah to enter, her father escorted Alvirah into the living room and introduced himself. “I’m Marty Shields. I’ll leave you two. I’ve got to get upstairs to check out someone’s lock.” Then he looked down at the card. “Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t you the lady who won the lottery and wrote a book about solving crimes?”