I'll Walk Alone (20 page)

48

M
s. Moreland, you are not under arrest, at least not at the present,” Billy Collins told Zan as she started for the door. “But I would suggest you wait.”

Zan looked at Charley Shore and he nodded. As she sat back down, to give herself time, Zan asked for a glass of water. While she waited for Collins to get it, she tried to steel herself against making another outburst. Charley had immediately put his arm over the back of her chair again and for a brief moment pressed his hand on her shoulder. But this time she did not find the gesture reassuring.

Why wasn’t he objecting to their insinuations? she asked herself. No, they’re not insinuations. They’re accusations. What good is it to have a lawyer if he won’t defend me against these people?

She turned her chair a little to the left to avoid having to look directly at Detective Dean, then realized that Dean was looking down into a notebook that she had taken from her pocket.

Billy Collins returned with the glass of water and took his seat across the table from Zan. “Ms. Moreland — “

Zan interrupted him. “I would like to speak with my lawyer privately,” she said.

Collins and Dean stood up immediately. “We’ll get a cup of coffee,” Collins told her. “Why don’t we come back in fifteen minutes?”

The second the door closed, Zan yanked her chair to face Charley Shore directly. “Why are you letting them attack me with those accusations?” she demanded. “Why aren’t you taking my part? You’re just sitting there and patting my shoulder and letting them suggest that I kidnapped my child and brought him back to that town house and locked him in the storage room.”

“Zan, I understand how you feel,” Charley Shore said. “I have to do it this way. I need to know everything they’ll be using to try to build a case against you. If they don’t ask those questions, we won’t be able to start building a defense.”

“Do you think they’re going to arrest me?”

“Zan, I’m sorry to tell you that I believe they will get a warrant for your arrest. Maybe not today but definitely within the next few days. My concern is what charges they may bring against you. Obstruction of justice. Perjury. Depriving your ex of his parental rights. I don’t know whether they’d go so far as to charge you with kidnapping since you’re the mother, but they may. You just told them that Matthew spoke to you today.”

“They knew what I meant.”

“You
think
that they know what you meant. They may be deciding that you were on the phone with Matthew.” Looking at Zan’s stunned expression, Charley added, “Zan, we have to anticipate the worst-case scenario. And I need you to trust me.”

They passed the next ten minutes in silence. When the detectives returned to the room, Collins asked, “Do you want more time?”

“No, we don’t,” Charley Shore answered.

“Then let’s talk about Tiffany Shields, Ms. Moreland. How often did she babysit for Matthew?”

It was an unexpected question, but easy to answer. “Not that often, just sometimes. Her father is the superintendent of the apartment building where I lived when Matthew was born and until six months after he disappeared. His original nanny, Gretchen, was off on weekends, which was fine with me, because I liked to take care of Matthew myself. But after he was past the infant stage, if I did go out for the evening after he was in bed, Tiffany stayed with him.”

“Did you like Tiffany?” Detective Dean asked.

“Of course I did. I thought she was a very intelligent, sweet girl and it was clear she loved Matthew. Sometimes on a weekend if I was taking him to the park, she’d come along to keep me company.”

“Was your friendship so close that you gave her presents?” Collins asked.

“I wouldn’t call them presents. Tiffany is pretty much my size, and sometimes when I was going through my closet and realized I had a jacket or scarf or blouse that I hadn’t worn in a while and that I thought she’d like to have, I’d offer it to her.”

“Did you consider her to be a careful babysitter?”

“I never would have left my child with her if I didn’t think so. That is, of course, until that terrible day when she fell asleep in the park.”

“You knew Tiffany had a cold, wasn’t feeling well, and did not want to babysit that day,” Detective Dean snapped. “Wasn’t there anyone else you could have called to help you out?”

“No one who lives close enough to drop everything and rush over. Besides that, almost all of my friends are in the same business I’m in. They’re working. You have to realize I was frantic. You just don’t call someone like Nina Aldrich and break an appointment at the last minute. I had put untold hours into my sketches and designs for the town house and it wouldn’t have been unlike her to dismiss me if I had made that call. I only wish to God I
had
made it.”

Zan knew that even though she was trying to follow Charley Shore’s instructions that he wanted to know where the detectives were going with their questions, it was impossible to conceal the nervous tremor in her voice. Why were they asking her all these questions about Tiffany Shields?

“So Tiffany reluctantly said she would help you out, and came to your apartment?” Detective Dean said, her tone level and without emotion.

“Yes.”

“Where was Matthew?”

“He was asleep in the stroller. Because the weather was so warm overnight I had left his window open, and he woke up that morning at five o’clock from the racket the sanitation trucks were making. He usually sleeps until seven, but he didn’t go back to sleep that morning and we got up and had breakfast very early. That was why I gave him an early lunch, and because Tiffany was coming to get him, I laid him down in the stroller and he was out like a light.”

“What time would you say it was when you put him in the stroller?” Collins asked.

“I would say about noon. Right after I fed him.”

“And what time did Tiffany come to your apartment?”

“Around 12:30.”

“He was asleep when Tiffany came to get him, and he was still asleep when he was lifted out of the stroller approximately an hour and a half later.” Now there was no mistaking the sneer in Jennifer Dean’s voice. “But you didn’t bother to strap him in, did you?”

“I had planned to fasten the strap when Tiffany came.”

“But you didn’t do it.”

“I had covered Matthew with a light cotton blanket. I asked Tiffany to make sure the strap was fastened before we left the apartment.”

“You were in too much of a rush to make sure your only child was secure in the stroller?”

Zan knew she was about to start screaming in frustration at the detective.
She’s twisting everything I’m telling her,
she thought. But then she again felt the firm pressure of Charley Shore’s hand on her shoulder and knew he was warning her. She looked straight into Dean’s impassive face. “When Tiffany came up, it was obvious she didn’t feel well. I told her that I had put an extra blanket at the foot of the stroller so that if she couldn’t find a bench in a quiet place where Matthew could nap, she could spread it on the grass and sit on it.”

“Didn’t you also offer her a Pepsi?” Detective Collins asked.

“Yes, Tiffany said she was thirsty.”

“What else was in the Pepsi?” Dean snapped.

“Nothing. What are you getting at?” Zan demanded.

“Did you give Tiffany Shields anything else? She believes you put something in that soda to make her pass out once she sat down on the grass in Central Park. And you gave her a sedative instead of a cold pill.”

“You’ve got to be out of your minds,” Zan shouted.

“No, we’re not,” Detective Dean said scornfully. “You portray yourself as being so kind, Ms. Moreland. Isn’t it a fact that this child was getting in the way of your precious career? I’ve got kids. They’re in high school now, but I remember the nightmare it was if they woke up too early and were cranky for the day. Your career was all that mattered to you, wasn’t it? This unexpected little treasure from heaven was getting to be a pain in the butt, and you knew you had the ideal situation to take care of it.”

Detective Dean stood up and pointed her finger at Zan. “You deliberately went to Nina Aldrich’s town house when she was expecting you at her home on Beekman Place. You went to the town house with all your sketches and fabrics and left them there. Then you walked to the park knowing that it wouldn’t be long before Tiffany passed out. You saw your chance and you got it. You grabbed your child and took him back to that nice big, empty town house and hid him in that storage space behind the wine cellar. The question is, what did you do to him, Ms. Moreland? What did you do to him?”

“I object!” Charley Shore shouted and pulled Zan up from her chair. “We’re out of here now,” he said. “Are you two through with us?”

Billy Collins smiled indulgently. “Yes, counselor. But we do want the names and addresses of the two people you mentioned, Alvirah and the priest. And let me offer a suggestion. Maybe if Ms. Moreland hears her son’s voice again real soon, she can tell him—and whoever is hiding him—that it’s time for him to come home.”

49

T
he real estate business in Middletown, as in most of the country, had been miserable for months. Rebecca Schwartz’s thoughts were glum as she sat in her office and stared out at the street. The windows were filled with taped pictures of houses for sale. A number of the pictures had the word
SOLD
slashed across the front, but some of them were of houses that had been sold five years ago.

Rebecca was a master at describing available housing. The smallest, dingiest Cape Cod was depicted in the flyers she tacked up around town, as “cozy, intimate, and utterly charming.”

Once she got prospective buyers to take a look at that kind of house, she painted a verbal picture of how special it would be when a talented homemaker brought out its latent beauty.

But even with her spectacular ability to bring out the hidden virtues of a house that needed a lot of work, Rebecca was experiencing tough sledding. Now, as she anticipated another fruitless day, she reminded herself that she was a lot better off than most of the people in this country. Unlike other fifty-nine-year-olds who were having a lean time, she could afford to keep going until the economy improved. An only child, her parents deceased, she had inherited from them the split level that had been her home all her life and the income from the two rental properties they owned on Main Street.

It isn’t just about the money, she thought. I like to sell houses. I like to see people’s excitement the day they move in. Even if the house needs a lot of work, it’s a new chapter in their lives. I always bring over a present for the new owners on moving day. A bottle of wine, and cheese and crackers, unless I know they’re teetotalers. In that case I bring a box of Lipton tea bags and a crumb cake.

Her part-time secretary, Janie, wasn’t due in until twelve. The other agent, Millie Wright, who worked with her on a commission-only basis, had had to give up and take a job in the A&P. As soon as the market picked up, she had promised Rebecca that she’d be back.

So lost was Rebecca in her thoughts that she jumped when the phone rang. “Schwartz Real Estate, Rebecca speaking,” she said, keeping her fingers crossed that this was a potential buyer, not just someone else wanting to sell their house.

“Rebecca, this is Bill Reese.”

Bill Reese, Rebecca thought, and then felt a surge of hope. Bill Reese had come back twice last year to look at the Owens farm, then decided against buying it.

“Bill, it’s good to hear from you,” she said.

“Did that Owens place ever sell?” Reese asked.

“No, not yet.” Rebecca switched immediately into real estate jargon. “We have several people very interested in it, and one of them seems to be ready to make an offer.”

Reese laughed. “Come on, Rebecca. You don’t have to try to snow me. On your honor as a girl scout, how many potential buyers are ready to be reined in at this minute?”

Rebecca pictured Bill Reese as she laughed with him. He was a smart, pleasant, heavyset guy in his late thirties with a couple of young kids. An accountant, he lived and worked in Manhattan, but he had been raised on a farm and last year had told her that he missed that kind of life. “I like to grow things,” he’d said. “And I’d like my kids on weekends to be able to have the fun of being around horses, the way I did.”

“There aren’t any offers on Sy’s farm,” she admitted, “but I’m telling you this right now, and this isn’t the usual sales pitch: that is a beautiful piece of property, and when you get rid of all those heavy shades and tired furniture and do some painting and update the kitchen, you’ll have a lovely, roomy house that you’ll be proud to own. This bad market isn’t going to last forever, and somebody is going to come along sooner or later and realize that twenty acres of prime property with a basically sound house is a good investment.”

“Rebecca, I tend to agree with you. And Theresa and the kids fell in love with it. Do you think Sy will budge on the price?”

“Do you think an alligator will start singing love songs?”

“All right. I get you,” Bill Reese laughed. “Look, we’ll take a ride up on Sunday and if it’s what we all think we remember, we’ll go into contract.”

“We have a tenant there now,” Rebecca said, “it’s a year’s lease and she paid it all in advance, but that doesn’t matter. In the contract, it clearly says that with one day’s notice, we can show the place to a potential buyer, and if the place is sold, the tenant has to be out within thirty days. Of course, her money will be refunded on a per diem basis. But it won’t be a problem. Even though this woman has a year’s lease, she told me she only planned to stay for three months.”

“That’s fine,” Reese said. “If we decide to buy it, I want to take over by the first of May so I can do some planting. How’s this Sunday around one o’clock in your office?”

“It’s a date,” Rebecca said happily. But when she hung up, some of the exhilaration faded. She did not relish the thought of phoning Gloria Evans to tell her she may have to move. On the other hand, Rebecca reassured herself, the contract was clear and Gloria Evans would have thirty days’ notice to get out. I can show her some other places, Rebecca thought, and I’m sure I can find one that will rent on a month-to-month basis. She said she only needed three months to finish her book. This way I can point out that she’ll be refunded for the whole time she doesn’t use Sy’s place.

Gloria Evans answered on the first ring. Her voice sounded annoyed when she said, “Hello.”

I’ve got good news and bad news, Rebecca thought, as she drew in her breath and began to explain the new development.

“This
Sunday? You want people marching through here this Sunday?” Gloria Evans demanded.

Rebecca caught the unmistakable anxiety in her voice. “Ms. Evans, I can show you at least half a dozen very nice houses that are more up-to-date, and you can save a lot of money by going on a month-to-month basis.”

“What time are those people coming on Sunday?” Gloria Evans asked.

“Sometime after one o’clock.”

“I see. When I was willing to pay a year’s lease for only the three months I plan to use this house, you could have pointed out that you might have people trooping in and out of here.”

“Ms. Evans, it was clearly there in the lease you signed.”

“I asked about that. You told me that I didn’t have to worry about anyone coming near it for the three months I planned to be here. You said the market would be dead until at least early June.”

“I honestly thought that. But Sy Owens would not have allowed you to rent the house without that provision in the lease.” Rebecca realized she was talking to herself. Gloria Evans had clicked off. Too bad about her, she thought as she picked up the phone to give Sy the good news that she might have a sale on the house.

His reaction was exactly what she had expected. “You made it clear that I’m not budging five cents off the price, didn’t you, Rebecca?” he asked.

“Of course that’s what I told him,” she replied, silently adding, you old skinflint.