Authors: Mary Higgins Clark
I'll Walk Alone (33 page)
89
D
etectives Billy Collins, Jennifer Dean, and Wally Johnson were standing in the lobby of the late Ted Carpenter’s trendy apartment building. The detectives from the local precinct had cordoned off the area around Carpenter’s body and were waiting for the arrival of the crime scene unit and the medical examiner’s van.
Their expressions grim, they were desperate to hear the outcome of Billy’s urgent call to the Middletown police to respond to the possibility that Matthew Carpenter was being held in the Owens farmhouse.
Was Alvirah Meehan’s friend in Middletown correct? Was it possible that a woman who strongly resembled Zan Moreland was hiding Matthew Carpenter all this time? And following Kevin Wilson’s phone call about the camera in Zan’s apartment, where was Larry Post now? They had just run his name through the computer at headquarters, and discovered that he had served time for manslaughter. It’s a sure bet that he’s got some part in this whole scenario about Matthew and not just the bugging of Moreland’s apartment, Billy thought.
Billy’s cell phone rang. Holding their breath, Jennifer Dean and Wally Johnson watched as a broad smile came over Billy’s face. “They’ve got the kid,” he said, “and he’s okay.”
Jennifer Dean and Wally Johnson answered in unison. “Thank God,” they said, “thank God.”
Jennifer, her voice low, said, “Billy, we were
all
wrong about Zan Moreland. Don’t beat yourself up. Everything pointed to her.”
Billy nodded. “I know it did. And I’m very happy to be wrong. Now let’s call Matthew’s mother. The Middletown police are on their way to our precinct with him.”
Fr. Aiden O’Brien heard the breaking news from the police officer who was guarding him at the hospital. His condition now upgraded to “critical but stable,” he whispered a prayer of thanksgiving. The sacred seal of the confessional that had cloaked his sure and certain knowledge that Zan Moreland herself was a victim would no longer haunt him. Her innocence had been proven in another way. And her child was coming home.
90
Z
an and Kevin raced to the Central Park Precinct to find Alvirah and Willy already there. Billy Collins, Jennifer Dean, and Wally Johnson were waiting for them. Billy had told Zan on the phone that the Middletown Police assured him that while Matthew was very pale and thin, he looked okay. He’d explained to her that while ordinarily the police would want to have Matthew checked out by a doctor right away, that could be done later today or tomorrow. Billy had told them to get him home.
“Zan,” he cautioned her, “from what they know so far, Matthew has never forgotten you. Penny Hammel, the woman we can thank for finding him, showed the police a drawing that they think Matthew made. She found it in the backyard of that farmhouse. I hear it looks a lot like you and it has the word ‘Mommy’ printed on the bottom. But it would be a good idea if you brought a toy or a pillow or something that he loved. It might comfort him after what he’s been through.”
From the moment she entered the precinct, other than fiercely thanking and hugging Alvirah and Willy, Zan had not said another word. Kevin Wilson, his arm protectively around her, was carrying a large shopping bag. When they heard the sound of sirens approaching the entrance to the precinct, Zan reached into the bag and pulled out a blue bathrobe. “He’ll remember this,” she said. “He loved to cuddle with me inside of it.”
Billy Collins’s phone rang. He listened and smiled. “Come into this private room,” he said gently to Zan. “They’re bringing him in downstairs now. I’ll go get him.”
Less than a minute later, the door opened and little Matthew Carpenter stood bewildered and looked around. Zan, with the robe draped over her arm, ran to him and dropped to her knees. Trembling, she folded him into the robe.
Tentatively, Matthew reached for the lock of hair that was falling over her face and held it against his cheek. “Mommy,” he whispered, “Mommy, I missed you.”
Epilogue
One year later
Z
an, Alvirah, Willy, Penny, Bernie, Fr. Aiden, Josh, Kevin Wilson, and his mother, Cate, watched with hearts overflowing as six-year-old Matthew, now restored to being a fiery redhead, blew out the candles of his birthday cake.
“I got them all,” he announced proudly. “With only one breath.”
Zan ruffled his hair. “Good for you. Do you want to open your presents before I cut the cake?”
“Yes,” the boy answered decisively.
He’s made a remarkable recovery, Alvirah thought. Zan had brought him regularly to a child therapist and he had blossomed from the timid child whom Zan had wrapped in her bathrobe when Penny brought him home to an outgoing, happy little boy who would occasionally still cling to Zan saying, “Mommy, please don’t leave me.” Most of the time he was an enthusiastic first-grader who couldn’t wait to go to school and be with his friends.
Zan knew that as Matthew got older and began to ask questions, she would have to deal with his inevitable anger and sadness about what his father had done and how he had died. It will be one step at a time, she and Kevin had agreed. And they would handle it together.
The party was being held in Zan’s apartment in Battery Park City, but she and Matthew wouldn’t be there much longer. she and Kevin had chosen their wedding day to be just four days from now, on the anniversary of Matthew’s return home. Fr. Aiden would be presiding at the ceremony. After the wedding, they would be moving into Kevin’s apartment. His mother, Cate, who had already become Matthew’s trusted babysitter, relished her soon-to-be role as grandmother.
Alvirah thought of the tabloids she had read this morning over breakfast. On page three they were rehashing the story of Matthew’s kidnapping, the impersonation of Zan, the suicide of Ted Carpenter and the sentencing of Larry Post and Margaret Grissom/Glory/ Brittany La Monte. Post had received life in prison and La Monte got twenty years.
As Matthew began to open his packages, Alvirah turned to Penny. “If it weren’t for you, this wouldn’t be happening.”
Penny smiled. “Thank my blueberry muffins and the truck I saw in the foyer that day and then the drawing that I found stuck in the bush behind Sy’s farmhouse. As Bernie had to admit, sometimes being nosy can pay off. The most important thing, the only thing, is that Matthew is safe. The reward money from Melissa Knight is a bonus.”
She means it, Alvirah thought indulgently. Penny really means it. Melissa Knight had used every trick in the book to weasel out of paying the reward, but in the end she had written the check.
Now Alvirah watched as Matthew, suddenly serious, finished opening his presents and put his arms around Zan. He brushed a lock of her hair against his cheek.
Then he said contentedly, “Mommy, I just had to make sure you’re still here.” Matthew smiled. “Now, Mommy, can we please cut the cake?”
Read About the Inspiration Behind Other Classic Novels by Mary Higgins Clark
Stillwatch
When I was about twelve years old, there was a murder in the rectory of our local parish. The priests were lingering over coffee. The housekeeper, a young woman of twenty-eight, lived in the basement with her husband and five-year-old daughter.
Suddenly shots were heard. The priests rushed downstairs. The housekeeper’s husband had murdered her and killed himself. The next day the newspaper read, “Their five-year-old daughter, bathed in the blood of her mother, was screaming and screaming.”
That was the basis for
Stillwatch.
I wondered how much the little girl remembered of the terrible scene after she grew up. I decided to set the book in Washington because it is obviously the center of the political world in America and I wanted to use that background as well.
Weep No More My Lady
At the time I wrote that book I had just gone to a famous spa, Maine Chance in Arizona. It was the ultimate in luxury and something I could never have afforded if I hadn’t by then become a successful writer. I asked myself, wouldn’t it be interesting if in a place like this, where everyone is waited on and pampered, that a killer is stalking his victims and waiting in a wet suit at the bottom of the pool to drown them? The prospect gave me the shivers, and I was on my way. Incidentally, that was the first book that Alvirah Meehan appeared in, and she’s been my good friend ever since.
While My Pretty One Sleeps
When I was eighteen, I worked on Saturdays in a Fifth Avenue department store because I have always loved clothes. At that time, Dior had just changed the fashion landscape when he came out with his new look. I thought, suppose a talented young woman is murdered for the fashion look she has created and twenty years later her daughter uses fashion to find her mother’s killer. Just for the record, when I wrote that book I was a widow. Many people have asked if my husband was the inspiration for it because of my description of the man who is the father of the main character. My answer was no. I dreamed up the man I wanted and twenty years later I found him.
The Anastasia Syndrome
I took a course years ago in which the instructor hypnotized people and brought them back to previous lifetimes. I took it out of curiosity, not because I believe in reincarnation. When I heard startlingly vivid descriptions of former lifetimes from people under hypnosis, it didn’t make me a believer, but it did make me realize that I was going to write a book on that subject. Since I’m a history buff, I loved setting the back story in the time of Charles the First and Charles the Second of England.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
I love jewelry and have a few pieces that once belonged to my mother-in-law. One pin especially is unique. I thought it would be interesting if that pin could get someone on a path to murder. As a secondary theme, the idea of a plastic surgeon giving a number of women the same face, I thought offered a meaty plot because why would any doctor do that? A third plot element was the idea of a young man in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. I threw these together — the jewelry, the plastic surgeon, and the innocent prisoner.
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
was the result.
Silent Night
A friend of mine was nineteen years old when he was in the Battle of the Bulge. A bullet hit the Saint Christopher Medal he was wearing, and the medal saved his life. I always knew that there was a story within that story, and when I was asked to write a Christmas novel, I knew the Saint Christopher Medal had to be part of it. The other plot element involved a young woman who had been in prison, sees a wallet, picks it up and may be accused of having stolen it. I thought that is the kind of predicament that people can sometimes get into. Afraid to tell and afraid not to tell is a desperate situation for a lone young woman with a dependent child. That situation tied to the Saint Christopher Medal produced
Silent Night.
Moonlight Becomes You
My mother-in-law had a recurring nightmare perhaps twice a year. It was that she was in a funeral home in a casket. She was alive, and all the other people in the other caskets were dead. It is easy to trace the origin of that dream. Her mother was a young girl in England when the flu epidemic killed thousands of people. People were buried immediately, and later it was found that some of them were still alive. The coffins had scratch marks as they frantically tried to lift the lid and escape. In those days the rich people would have a string around the supposedly dead person’s finger and would have a bell on the ground at the end of the string. They paid watchers to sit by the grave for a week just in case the person was not yet dead and tried to signal them. I thought that is a darn good basis for a suspense novel.
Pretend You Don’t See Her
So often an article I have read triggers a book. For this one I read a long article about a family in the Federal Witness Protection Plan and the excruciating loneliness that they were experiencing living in a strange place, unable to discuss their backgrounds and only contacting the rest of the family through a Federal Marshal. I ask myself why a young woman would be forced into that position and what it would be like if an assassin breaks through the code of secrecy and learns where she is.
All titles by Mary Higgins Clark are also available as ebooks.
