Just Take My Heart (27 page)

Where better to hide than in his own house? On Tuesday morning, the idea struck Zach like a thunderbolt. He knew the routine. The police would have stormed in there like gangbusters looking for him. He could just picture them, guns drawn, afraid for their lives, going from room to room, then disappointed that they didn't reel in the big fish.

If it weren't for the worry over Henry Link's nosy son-in-law going to the police about the van, he could have lasted for awhile in this shabby motel thirty miles north of Glen Rock. He'd had a fairly de-cent sleep last night and he felt pretty safe. The owner, a shuffling old guy with thick glasses, would never connect him with the picture on his smallscreen television.

But what good was that when the van got reported and every cop within a hundred miles was looking for it?

He still had the option of driving straight down to North Carolina right now and trying to disappear into the waves of newcomers settling there. But the need to go back to Emily was overwhelming. He'd sleep here tonight, he decided, pay for the next few days and leave the van here. In the morning, he would take a bus to the Port Authority in New York, then another one out to Glen Rock after dark.

He'd slip through the backyards in his neighborhood, and with any luck his extra key to the rental house would still work. He could go in the back door and wait it out. Of course they'd have a guard for Emily. He knew that routine. Of course she would have had her locks changed. But she always opened the door to let Bess out in the backyard for a minute or two before she went to bed.

Of course Bess would bark when she saw him. But he'd buy those treats she loved so much and throw a couple of them on the ground. That's all the time he'd need to force his way in.

It was a good plan.

And he knew he could pull it off.

Emily drove directly home after she left the DA's office. I have to be very careful, she thought, and I have to be very sure. Page by page, word by word, I'll compare the reports that Billy brought back two and a half years ago to the entire Jamie Evans homicide file that I have now.

The sketches are completely different. Steve Murphy confirmed that only one sketch had been done during the Evans investigation and that was the one that I saw this morning. What other reports didn't Billy bring back? What else am I going to find?

As she turned onto her block, she saw that the yellow tape was still around Madeline Kirk's home, but it had been completely removed from both the front of Zach's rental and her own house. I can't wait to see who the new tenant will be, she thought wearily. Whoever it is has to be a vast improvement over the last one.

She waved to the police officer in the squad car at the curb, admitting to herself that it was very comforting to see him there. The locksmith and the alarm people were scheduled to come later in the day. Yesterday she had arranged it that way so she would have a few quiet hours with the Aldrich file before they arrived.

Richard's call last night certainly changed all that, Emily mused as she parked and got out of the car. Before that call I never would have dreamt that I'd be in Ted Wesley's office this morning, then moving to have Gregg Aldrich released on bail. And when I drove to New York, I certainly never thought I'd find out that my detective has been tampering with evidence.

She went into the house and was greeted with a noisy welcome from Bess. "Bark as loud as you want, Bess," she said, as she scooped the little dog up in her arms. "And no, we're not going for a walk. I'll let you out in the back and that's it for now."

She unbolted the door from the porch and stood on the steps as Bess raced around the yard, her paws making scraping sounds on the fallen leaves. The day had started out with brilliant sunshine but now the sky was becoming overcast and there was a feeling of impending rain.

Emily waited for five minutes then called, "Want a treat, Bess?" That does the trick every time, she thought as Bess willingly scam-pered back inside. After carefully rebolting the door, Emily rewarded Bess with the promised treat and put the kettle on.

She knew that she needed a jolt of coffee. If I don't have some I'll fall asleep standing up. And I'm hungry. I never did eat dinner last night. Richard's call took care of that.

Thanks to Sunday's food shopping, the refrigerator was well stocked. She decided on a ham and cheese sandwich. When she'd made it and poured the coffee, she sat at the kitchen table to have a quick lunch. By the time she finished the second cup of coffee, the caffeine had kicked in and she felt clearheaded as she considered what to do next.

She knew what would happen if she confronted Billy with the sketch he had brought back from New York. He would explode and rant that it wasn't the one he had put in the Aldrich file and obviously some stupid clerk had mixed them up. But why would our office have a second sketch from the Manhattan DA with the same date from nearly twenty years ago unless Billy had brought it back?

He could certainly say that the sketch I have now may have a general resemblance to him but also to loads of other people. He would also point out scathingly that the artist had worked from a description given by a woman who had never even met the person she was talking about.

If I go to Ted now, especially since he's so angry about the Jimmy Easton mess, he'll probably tell me that I somehow mixed them up myself.

I have considered every possibility, Emily concluded. For whatever reason, Billy removed the copy of the original sketch when he brought the file back to New Jersey and then managed to get a sec-ond one created as a substitute. That's called tampering with evidence. He never expected that I would ever go to New York to look at the file myself. But I did.

However this turns out, when I'm done with it, I am going to go back through every file that he has ever handled where there have been complaints about him. And that's whether his cousin, our about-to-be attorney general, likes it or not.

The front doorbell rang.

Bess began barking frantically. Emily carried her to the door. It was the locksmith, a man in his sixties wearing jeans and a Giants football sweatshirt. "I understand you want me to check everything, ma'am, all the doors and windows."

'Yes, I do. And I want the strongest locks you can give me."

"Don't blame you. People need them these days. That's for sure. Just look at what happened to your neighbor across the street. Poor old lady. Hear the nut who killed her got in a back window, no problem, and she didn't have a security system."

"I'm having a new one put in today," Emily said. "The technician should be here soon. I wanted both of you to meet my dog so that she won't bother you while you're working."

The locksmith eyed Bess. "In the old days a barking dog was considered all the protection you needed. He reached down to rub her head. "Hello, Bess. Hey, you don't scare me."

Emily went back into the kitchen and put the dishes she had used in the dishwasher and then, not wanting to be around the locksmith, whom she suspected of being a talker, went up to her bedroom and shut the door. While she changed into slacks and a sweater, she continued to go back and forth in her mind about how deeply Billy Tryon might be involved, not only with Easton in the Aldrich case but also in the death of Jamie Evans.

Was it possible that Billy Tryon was Jamie's mystery boyfriend?

He definitely resembles the man Natalie described to the police art-ist. He's been divorced twice. The rumor is that both wives got sick of his affairs. Jamie Evans was a young actress. I understand from the scuttlebutt that his girlfriends are usually in some kind of show business. For heaven's sake, I just met one of them last week.

Billy was assigned to head the Raines murder investigation from the beginning. And then it came up that her roommate had been murdered many years before. He made sure that he was the one who would go to New York and go through that file.

If he did kill Jamie Evans, he must have been frantic when he saw that sketch. So he decided to replace it before he brought back the file.

The doorbell rang again. This time it was the alarm company team. After making the necessary introductions to Bess, Emily decided that there was no way that she was going to get any work done at home this afternoon. My bones are aching, she thought. Maybe I can get an appointment for a massage.

I'm just not sure what to do next. One thing I can do is try to find out if anyone knows if Billy ever used the nickname "Jess."

And there is one other thing that I can follow up on, she thought. If Natalie Raines was really as frightened as Gregg Aldrich testified she appeared to be when he was looking through the window at the Cape house, could that be why she drove there at midnight after her final performance in Streetcar? Not just to get away from it all, but because she was escaping from somebody who terrified her?

There's only one person who might be able to help me find the answer to that question, Emily thought. Natalie's mother. I never re-ally asked her if she was surprised that Natalie had gone to the Cape so suddenly.

Her cell phone rang before she could try to reach Alice Mills. It was Jake Rosen. "Emily, we just got a call from Newark. Jimmy Eas-ton is dead."

"Jimmy Easton dead! Jake, what happened to him?" Emily could hear Jimmy telling the judge only twenty-four hours ago that he was afraid to go back to prison because the other inmates hated a snitch.

"They're pretty sure he was poisoned. The autopsy will tell." Jake paused, then said,

"Emily, you know as well as I do that we're going to have a lot of problems over this. Some people will believe it was prison justice for cooperating. Others will think that someone took care of him because he wouldn't keep his mouth shut about the Aldrich case."

"And they'll be right," Emily said. "Plenty of defendants cooperate to get reduced sentences and they don't end up dead. Jake, I'd stake my life that Billy Tryon had something to do with this."

"For God's sake, Emily, be careful. You can't go around making statements like that!" Jake's tone was both shocked and worried.

"All right," Emily answered. "Consider it unsaid. But I'm allowed to think it. Jake, let me know whatever else you hear. I suppose that I should come into my office but I am not going to. I'll get a lot more done here. Bye."

Emily broke the connection and then dialed 411. She knew that Alice's number was in the Manhattan directory and that it was easier to just dial information than to go back downstairs and pull it out of the file. As she was dialing, she thought, Wait a minute, I do remember it. 212-555-4237! She pressed the numbers, thinking that while she usually had a pretty good memory, this was really good. But on the other hand, maybe I'll get connected to a dry cleaner.

The phone rang three times and then a message came on. "This is Alice Mills. I can be reached at 212-555-8456." She's probably been staying with Katie at the Aldrich apartment, Emily thought.

Emily's mind was filled with the memory of the day Alice Mills had come to her office and had sat across the table from her in her black suit, heartbroken but composed. I put my arms around her before she left, Emily remembered.

I wanted so much to help her stop hurting.

Realizing the incredible irony of dialing the apartment of a defendant whom she had just prosecuted and whose case was still open, Emily heard the generic voice say that no one was available and to please leave a message. "Alice, it's Emily. I really need to talk to you. On the stand Gregg testified that he thought that Natalie seemed frightened. You never brought that up so maybe you don't agree. It just occurred to me that she went to Cape Cod right after her last night at the theatre. I know that people she worked with gave statements but I want to look into that area again. I think that maybe we will find something important there."

A roundabout way of saying that maybe Billy Tryon was dating an actress in Streetcar and had happened to run into Natalie that last night. And maybe she had recognized him from a long time ago.

Her cell phone rang. It was Ted Wesley's secretary. Her voice nervous, she said,

"Emily, the prosecutor wants you in his office now.

"And he said to bring back any files that you took from this of-fice."

Forty-five minutes later, Emily, Billy Tryon, and Jake Rosen were in Ted Wesley's office. Wesley, white with rage, stared at them with uncontrolled disdain in his expression.

"May I say that I have never seen a sloppier, more disorganized, careless, and wasteful series of events than what you three have managed to achieve. Billy, did you in any way help Jimmy Easton to put together the story that he so convincingly delivered on the witness stand?"

"No, Ted, I did not." Billy's tone and manner were subdued. "But wait. Let me be exact. When Easton told me about writing the letter to Aldrich to say he wasn't going to go through with their contract, but he also wasn't going to return the five thousand that Aldrich had already given him, I said something like you must have considered it a nonrefundable advance. He laughed and then he repeated that phrase on the stand."

"That's not what I'm talking about," Wesley snapped. "Are you telling me that he had his whole story ready to spill to you and that all of the details came from him?"

"Absolutely," Billy replied emphatically. "Ted, look at the facts, even if Emily won't. The minute Easton got grabbed coming out of that burglary, he said to the local cops that he had information on the Aldrich case. They called the office and I went right over there.

Everything he said later checked out. He met Aldrich at the bar. Aldrich did call him on his phone. He described the interior of the Aldrich apartment. And he even knew about the infamous squeaky drawer."

"That's right, he knew about the squeaky drawer," Emily retorted. "And now Mr. Garcia has come forward to say that he made a delivery with Easton to the Aldrich apartment and that at some point Eas-ton was left alone in the living room. He could have been trying to steal something by pulling out that drawer, then heard the noise.

"And what about the letter that he supposedly sent, the one you just admitted to helping him explain?" Emily asked him. "Was the entire letter your idea? It made Jimmy look better and it strengthened his story."

Before Billy could answer, Wesley looked at Jake Rosen. "You went out when Easton got arrested. What do you have to say?"

"Sir, I was there for most of that first meeting with Easton in the Old Tappan police station," Jake replied. "Billy didn't coach him." Jake looked at Emily. "Emily, I'm going to be frank. You and Billy have always rubbed each other the wrong way. But I really think that you are being unfair to him now."

"That's all I needed to hear, Jake. Thanks. You can go now," Wes-ley said sharply.

When the door closed behind Jake, Wesley looked at Emily. "I think it's clear Easton didn't need help putting together his story. He didn't need help because he was telling the truth about what he and Aldrich had done. And now, because of your total lack of judgment in responding to his genuine fear about going back to prison after cooperating, he is dead. Not to mention that Aldrich is out on bail and our case is probably wrecked. Why didn't you just agree to time served as his sentence and all of this could have been avoided?"

"Because he is a career criminal and he would have just gone back to breaking into people's homes," Emily replied firmly. "Maybe this time around someone would have gotten hurt."

Emily stiffened her back and continued. "And there's something else you apparently haven't considered. The jury heard he was going to get four years. If I had later agreed to time served as his sentence, Moore would file a motion for a new trial and argue that I knew and Jimmy knew all along he would get time served, and that the jury should have known that when they were evaluating his testimony. Moore would further argue that Easton would have said anything if he knew he would be getting out. There's no way the judge wouldn't grant that motion."

"Then you should have thought about that when you were negotiating with him before trial," Wesley snapped. "You knew he was a loose cannon and that he could turn on you later on. You should have just given him probation from the beginning. There was a lot of corroboration to his story, no matter what sentence he was going to get. Now the integrity of this office will not only be questioned, but actively maligned. The media is going to annihilate us."

Not knowing when she had first come to this meeting whether she would reveal them, Emily had kept the two sketches in a folder. She took them out and placed them in front of Wesley. "Maybe Detective Tryon can satisfactorily explain this. The sketch that I found yesterday in the New York file on Jamie Evans, the murdered roommate of Natalie Raines, was not the one that he brought back to this office. It has the same date on it but that's where the similarity ends. It's of an entirely different person."

As Wesley and Tryon angrily glared at her, Emily continued. "I know perfectly well Billy will claim that it was just a mix-up. But the detective at the Manhattan DA's office who showed me this file is sure there was only one sketch. I suggest to you that it was a deliberate attempt by Billy to keep the right sketch out of the Aldrich file."

Emily paused, not immediately knowing if she was going to say what she was thinking. She took a deep breath. "I also want to point out that the original sketch bears a rather obvious resemblance to Billy Tryon, which may be why he desperately wanted it to never reach our file."

Ted Wesley took the sketches and studied them. "Emily, you are now making not only serious accusations, but also scurrilous and even hysterical ones. Do I understand correctly that Natalie Raines never even met this man, and that this sketch was drawn from her recollection of a supposed wallet picture she may have seen once?"

"This is exactly what I expected that you would say," Emily responded defiantly, "It is my position that not only does this sketch strongly resemble Billy, but that there is no question these sketches were deliberately switched by him to hide something terribly important. And I'm not going to stop until I find out what that is."

"I have had enough of this," Wesley shouted. "I've had enough of your attempts to vilify my finest detective. I've had enough of your attempts to destroy the Aldrich case, which you have almost certainly accomplished. And did it ever occur to you that the detective in New York could be wrong about there being only one sketch?

"I am ordering you to leave these files in my office. And don't touch them again! Go home and stay away from this office until I decide the appropriate sanctions for you. If the media calls you at home, you are forbidden to talk to them. Refer the calls directly to my office."

Wesley stood up. "Now get out."

Emily was surprised that he had not already fired her. "I'll get out, Ted. But just one more thought. Ask around and see if Detective Tryon was ever known by the nickname

'Jess.' And think back yourself if you ever heard that. After all, he is your cousin."

For several moments they stared at each other, with no words being spoken. Then, ignoring Billy Tryon, Emily left Ted's office and walked out of the courthouse.