I'll Walk Alone (26 page)

64

G
loria Evans, born Margaret Grissom, called Glory” by her adoring father, stage name Brittany La Monte, was not sure if she could believe that it really would be over within forty-eight hours. A thousand times in these nearly two years she had whispered, “If only,” to herself during sleepless nights when she had begun to realize the enormity of her crime.

Suppose it doesn’t work out? she thought. Suppose they do track me down? I’ll go to prison for the rest of my life. What’s six hundred thousand dollars? It will only last me a couple of years by the time I get set up, buy new clothes, have new pictures made, take some more acting lessons, and try to get a publicist and an agent. He said he could introduce me to people in Hollywood, but what good were all the people he introduced me to in New York?
Zip.

And Matty. He was such a nice little kid. I knew I’d mess myself up if I got too tight with him, Glory thought, but how can you
not
like the kid?

I love the boy, she thought, as she packed the clothes that were the same as the ones Zan Moreland wore. By God, I’m good, she thought with a tight-lipped grin. I pay attention to detail. Moreland is a little taller than I am. I had an extra lift put on the heels on those sandals just in case anyone got a picture of me when I took the kid.

Warming to her self-congratulatory stream of thought as she packed her suitcases, Glory remembered how she had worked on that wig to get her hair just right, the color and the blunt cut. Glory padded the shoulders of that dress because Moreland was more broad shouldered than she was. I bet right now the cops are doing all that digital stuff and they’ll come back saying that no way was the woman in the picture not Moreland. My makeup was perfect, too.

She looked around the bedroom with its bleak white walls, tired oak furniture, and rag of a carpet. “And what the hell did it all get me?” she asked aloud. Two years of jackassing from one hidden house to another. Two years of leaving Matty locked up in the closet while I went to the store or once in a while to a movie. Or to New York, to make it look like Moreland had been some place or other.

That guy could break into Fort Knox, she thought as she remembered how one day he had met her at Penn Station and thrust the fake credit card into her hand. He had cut out ads of clothes on sale. “This is what I want you to buy,” he said. “She already has duplicates of them.”

Other times he had mailed her a box of clothes that were identical to some that Moreland had bought. “In case I really want to rub it in,” he said.

Glory had been wearing one of those suits, the black one with the fur trimming, and all her makeup when she drove into Manhattan on Monday. He’d told her to buy clothes at Bergdorf’s and charge them to Moreland’s account. She didn’t know exactly what else he planned for her to do, but when she met him, she could tell he was upset. “Just get back to Middletown,” he had told her.

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

F
r. 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

W
hen 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.”