But then, frowning, he hesitated. “No, I'm sorry. You know what, she'd kill me if I gave it away.”
Just Take My Heart
51
Emily watched Courtside in her nightshirt, propped up in bed. As she listened to the comments of everyone, her emotions ranged between concern and dismay—concern that there was this much doubt about the verdict, and dismay that she found herself wishing that Dorothy Winters had been in the jury room.
If she had been, I'd be preparing this case for trial all over again. Is that what I really wanted to happen? she asked herself.
She turned off the light as soon as the show ended, but sleep was a long time coming. A heavy feeling of deep sadness had settled like a blanket upon her. She thought about the dozens of psychiatric reports she had read as a prosecutor, in which a doctor would write about a defendant's depression. Many of the symptoms that they dis?cussed were the ones she had been feeling today. Weariness, tears, and pervasive sadness.
And resentment, she added. I've tried so hard to be sensitive to what Natalie's mother had been going through. How could she have turned on me like that today?
At midnight, she opened the drawer of the night table and reached for the mild sedative that she occasionally took when sleep eluded her. Within twenty minutes she had drifted off, but not before she envisioned Gregg Aldrich in a tiny cell, probably shared with another inmate who had also been convicted of a serious crime.
At seven a.m. she woke long enough to let Bess out for a few minutes, then brought her back upstairs and fell asleep again. The ring?ing of the phone at ten a.m. woke her. It was Investigator Jake Rosen.
“Emily, we missed you last night, but I can sure understand how you just wanted to get home. I was sorry the victim's mother lam?basted you the way she did. Don't let it get you down. You did a great job.”
“Thanks, Jake. How was it last night?”
“In a way you were better off not being there. I know that Billy isn't your favorite person.”
Now fully awake, Emily interrupted, “That's putting it mildly.”
Jake chuckled. “I know. Anyhow, he was at his loudmouth best last night, and finally Ted Wesley told him to quit drinking and shut up.”
Instantly reacting, Emily asked, “What was Billy talking about?”
“He was bragging at what a great coaching job he did with Jimmy Easton. He said that he basically handed the case to you on a silver platter. Emily, I wouldn't normally talk like this but that guy's ego is really out of control.”
Emily sat up and slid her feet over the side of the bed. “He was talking the same way at his birthday dinner the other night. Jake, did you ever hear him feed Easton any information, or do you know if he did?”
“When Easton was arrested, I got to the police station just a cou?ple of minutes after Billy,” Jake replied. “Billy was talking to the local police and as far as I know he hadn't seen Easton yet. I was with him when he spoke to him a little while later. I didn't see him do any?thing wrong. As far as I know, I've been there whenever Billy has spoken to Easton since then.”
“Jake, we both know that over the years Billy has been accused of putting words into other people's mouths when it helped his case. Are you positive that he's never been alone with Easton?”
“I think so. And Emily, don't forget, Billy is a blowhard and a bragger, but he also has been investigating homicides for a long time. He's got great instincts and he knows where to look.”
“All right, Jake, let's leave it at that. Maybe I'm getting paranoid. Or maybe I've been watching too much Courtside.”
Jake laughed. “Right. Switch to Fugitive Hunt. It's on tonight. It -pretty good. They should call it Wacko Hunt. I can't believe all the creeps that are on the loose. Good talking to you, Em.”
“You, too, Jake.”
After she hung up, Emily went straight into the shower. As she dried her hair, she planned out her day. I'll see if I can get an ap?pointment for a trim and a manicure, she thought. I've been so busy that my hair is practically in my eyes. Then I want to get over to Nordstrom's to get some stockings and makeup. I'll take a look at their suits. I could use a couple of new ones.
Before she made coffee, she walked out to the driveway to pick up the morning paper. Knowing what awaited her, she took it back into the kitchen and spread it open. A picture of Gregg Aldrich showing him slumped in his chair after the verdict had been deliv?ered covered the top half of the front page. She cringed as she looked at the lower picture which showed a distraught Alice Mills pointing a finger at her.
She skimmed the article then threw the paper down. As she had expected, it had dramatically exploited the irony of Alice Mills's reference to her heart with the reality of Emily's medical history.
Disgusted, she vowed to put it out of her mind, and while she had coffee and toast, she made an appointment at the salon. There had been a noon cancellation and they were able to fit her in. “Something's going right, Bess,” she said. “At least I can get a hair?cut. It's so long, I'm starting to look like you.”
Four hours later, Emily pulled into the Garden State Plaza park?ing lot and headed into Nordstrom's. My luck's holding out, she thought forty-five minutes later as she handed her credit card to the saleslady.
“They're you!” the saleslady beamed cheerfully as she neatly folded the three new suits and placed them in a large shopping bag.
“Thanks very much for your help,” Emily answered pleasantly. “I'm going to enjoy them.”
She had already picked up stockings. Her final stop would be the makeup counter. While she was heading toward that area of the main floor, Emily felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around.
“Emily, it's so good to see you. We met at the Wesleys last week. Marion Rhodes.”
It was the psychologist who had been at the dinner party. Emily thought of her mother, who had always told her never to assume that people she had only met casually would be able to remember either her name or where they had met. Marion's mother must have told her the same thing.
Today Marion was dressed casually in a cardigan and slacks, but she still had that same indefinable air of elegance that Emily had admired. Her smile was as warm as the tone in her voice. Emily was genuinely pleased to run into her.
“You've had quite a week, Emily. I've been reading about your case in the papers. Ted told me how proud he is of the job you did. Congratulations on getting a guilty verdict. You must be very pleased.”
Emily realized that her eyes were suddenly moist. “By any chance did you see this morning's paper with the picture of Natalie Raines's mother pointing at me and basically accusing me of knowing in my heart that Gregg Aldrich is innocent?”
She knew that Marion, as a close friend of the Wesleys, had to have been told by them about her heart transplant.
“I know, Emily. I read the paper. It can't be easy when something like that happens.”
Afraid to answer for fear her voice would break, Emily nodded. She was aware that Marion was studying her intensely.
Marion opened her bag, reached into it, and took out her card. “Emily, I wish you would call me. Maybe if we talked a few times, I could be of some help to you.”
As Emily willingly accepted the card, she managed a half smile. "I remember Ted saying at dinner that you had helped him and Nancy through a rough patch, as he called it, a long time ago.
“I'm not embarrassed to admit that I feel kind of overwhelmed now. I'll call you next week.”
Just Take My Heart
52
Years of evading capture had taught Zach to be cautious. He returned home from Henry Link's smoky kitchen, had an early dinner, and was now thinking about how he would get back there to pick up the car. He would not call for a cab at his house because there would be a record of it.
Instead, he walked a mile to Fair Lawn and got on a bus to the Garden State Plaza in Paramus. From there he walked the half mile to Link's home in Rochelle Park. He hoped that Henry Link wouldn't see h
im and then come out and start talking his ear off again.
But there was no sign of Henry as he unlocked the door and started the van. At Route 17 he turned south and headed for the Turnpike, which would take him to Newark Airport, where he would leave the van in the long-term parking lot. His plan was to take a cab back to Fair Lawn and walk the rest of the way home.
It was 8:45 p.m. when he got back to his neighborhood. He looked over at Madeline Kirk's home. He could tell that the nosy old lady's house had the same layout as his, which meant that the light that was on was coming from her den next to the kitchen. She's probably watching television, he thought, maybe waiting for Fugitive Hunt to come on at nine o'clock.
I wonder if they'll do an update to last week's segment about me? I wonder if they'll talk about tips that have come in?
Zach's feet were turning up his own driveway. But then he stopped. If Kirk did watch the show last week, she couldn't have called in a tip yet because the cops would have been all over me. But if she did watch and she wasn't sure about whether to call, see?ing an update tonight might push her to do it. You never know . . .
He had to be sure. But first he had to get gloves from his house so that there would be no fingerprints. He hurried inside, took tight-fitting leather gloves from his hall closet, and put them on.
It was fairly dark on the street, making it easier to slink along the overgrown hedges that separated Kirk's property from her neighbor without being seen. He crouched as he reached the side window that looked into the den, then cautiously raised his head above the level of the sill.
Wearing a bathrobe and nightgown, the slight figure of Madeline Kirk was settled in a threadbare armchair with an afghan over her lap. He saw a phone, a pencil, and a small writing pad on the wooden end table next to her.
He had a good view of the television and the volume was so high that he could catch most of what was being said. It was a couple of minutes before nine and he heard the promo telling viewers to stay tuned for Fugitive Hunt.
He was certain that his instincts were correct. He couldn't wait any longer to see if she would write down the tip telephone number. If he stayed outside and she did begin to dial the number, he might not be able to stop her in time.
There could be an unlocked window or door somewhere, he thought. As he slithered around the outside of the house, he saw no evidence of wiring on the windows that would indicate an alarm. On the other side of the house, he found what he was looking for, a ground-floor window that was slightly raised. When he looked inside, he could see that it led into a small bathroom. A lucky break, he thought. And the door is closed so she won't be able to see me climbing in. Or hear me. With the television on so loud, she's prob?ably almost deaf.
He used his pocketknife to cut away the netting of the screen. The old window's peeling frame shed paint particles that fell to the ground as he placed his gloved fingers in the small opening at the bottom and pushed upward. When he had it raised as far as it would go, he leaned his body forward, stood on his toes, grasped the sill with his hands, and hoisted himself through the opening.
With noiseless steps he made his way down the short hall to the den. Madeline Kirk's chair was positioned so that he was behind her.
Fugitive Hunt was in progress and the host, Bob Warner, was pre?senting an update on Zach. “We've received dozens of tips since last week's segment, and so far none of them has panned out. But we're still on his trail.”
The computer-enhanced pictures of him, including the one that looked frighteningly similar to him now, were flashed across the screen. “Take a close look at them again,” Bob Warner urged. “And remember, this guy likes to plant yellow mums around his home. And here again is our tip number.”
As the telephone number appeared on the screen, Zach heard Madeline Kirk say aloud, “I was right. I was right.”
As she reached to grab the pencil and pad, Zach tapped her on the shoulder. “You know what, old girl? You were right. Too bad for you.”
As Madeline Kirk let out a horrified gasp, Zach's gloved hands closed around her throat.
Just Take My Heart
53
Michael Gordon had intended to go to Vermont for the weekend and try to concentrate on his book, but he decided to stay in Manhattan for Katie's sake. Besides that, he knew it would be impossible to concentrate on famous crimes of the twentieth century when only one crime, Natalie's murder, was absorbing all of his attention.
The phone call to his office.
The question about a reward.
Was all that on the level? Was there someone out there who might be able to provide proof that Jimmy Easton had been in Gregg's apartment while he was working at some kind of job?
He knew it could be a crank call. But on the other hand, Gregg and the Moores had always believed that if Easton was ever in the apartment, he would have been making some kind of service call or delivery.
What about the reward? Mike asked himself as he went through the motions of exercising at the gym in the Athletic Club on Central Park South. The minute I mention the word “reward” on air, we'll get hundreds of phony tips. And if it is a crank call, talking about it would raise false hope for Gregg and Katie and Alice . . .
He jogged on the treadmill, thinking. He'd been astonished to read in the morning papers that Emily Wallace had had a heart transplant. His people had done a pretty thorough bio of her, with the thought that she might be a Courtside guest, and that fact had not come out. Of course they'd learned that her husband, an army captain, had been the victim of a roadside bomb in Iraq three years ago.
He knew that after the verdict Richard Moore drove to New York to talk further with Katie and Alice. He could have written the script of what he would say. Promising that there would be an appeal. Pointing out that almost half the people who responded to the Courtside voting poll voted for Gregg, not against him. The problem was that, as of now, Moore really didn't have any strong arguments for an appeal—the judge hadn't made any controversial rulings.
But if that call about the reward was on the level, if someone had evidence that Jimmy Easton had been in the apartment at any time before Natalie's death, Richard would certainly file a motion for a new trial. . .
How much of a reward should I offer? Five thousand? Ten thousand? Twenty-five thousand? These thoughts kept churning in his mind as he headed for the locker room.
After Mike left the gym, he had lunch in the club grill. He sat at a table by the window and looked out at Central Park. The leaves were at their peak, scarlet and golden and orange. The horse-drawn carriages were doing a brisk business, he observed. It was the kind of autumn day, sunny but with a cool breeze, that drew people to the park to walk or skate or jog.
If there's no new trial or successful appeal, Gregg will never again walk down this block and meet me at this club, Mike thought. As it is, he'll undoubtedly be expelled from it at the next board meeting. The least of his problems, of course.
As he ordered a hamburger and a glass of wine, the enormity of what had happened to his friend began to seep into his being. I knew the verdict could be guilty, but when I saw the handcuffs go on Gregg, it hit me like a ton of bricks, he mused. Now, watching these people enjoying Central Park, I'm beginning to have some concept of what it must be like to experience the total loss of freedom.
I'm going to put up the reward myself, he decided. I'll post it on the Web site. It will be big enough so that if the person who called feels badly about whoever employed Easton off the books getting in trouble, the money will overcome their qualms.
Twenty-five thousand dollars. That will get everybody's attention. With a gut feeling of having made a good decision, Mike started to eat the hamburger that the waiter had placed in front of him.
On Saturday evening, just before Mike went out to have dinner with friends, he called Gregg's apartment. Alice Mills answered. “After we got back here yesterday, Katie was so upset that Richard Moore called a doctor he knows who lives in the next building.
He sent over a sedative for her. She slept until noon today, woke up, and started crying. But later on some of her girlfriends came over and that helped. They all went to a movie.”
“I'll take both of you out to lunch tomorrow,” Mike said. “Do you know what the visiting hours are at the jail?”
“Richard will let us know when we can see Gregg. Katie is ada?mant that she must see her father again before she goes back up to school in a couple of days. Getting back into some kind of routine is bound to be good for her.”
“How are you doing, Alice?”
“Physically, not bad for someone pushing seventy-one. Emotion?ally, I don't have to tell you. I guess you saw the morning papers?”
“Yes.” Mike thought he knew what was coming.
“Mike, I'm not proud of the scene I made in court. I absolutely couldn't help myself. And I certainly would never have referred to Emily Wallace's heart.”
“I wasn't aware she had a transplant,” Mike told her. “From what I'm hearing now, it wasn't generally known. She had had an aortic valve replaced, and the transplant came so fast after it that even most of her friends didn't realize she'd had a second operation. And ap?parently she's been very quiet about it.”
“I just wish I hadn't mentioned her heart when I blasted her. But, Mike, it doesn't change the fact that I do believe Emily Wallace knows Gregg is innocent.”
“You'd never guess that the way she went for his throat on the stand, Alice.”
“She was trying to convince herself, not the jury, Mike.”
“Alice, honestly, that's taking it pretty far.”
“I can understand why it sounds like that. Mike, Richard did talk about filing an appeal. It helped Katie to hear that, but was it just talk?”