Just Take My Heart (21 page)

From his front window, Zach had watched Emily cross the street with Bess on Sunday afternoon. He correctly surmised that she had not walked past his house because she didn't want to run into him. Just wait, he warned her silently, just wait.

The satisfaction he had felt when he squeezed the life out of Madeline Kirk had been replaced by the certain knowledge that he was running out of time. She had recognized him. Maybe it had been because she paid attention to the fact that he'd planted mums around his other houses. But even without knowing about the flowers, someone from work or around here might have zeroed in on that computer image that looked like him.

Something else, in the next day or two someone would notice that Kirk's newspaper was still on the porch or that her mail hadn't been taken out of the box. He had thought about trying to buy more time by getting her newspaper and her mail when it was dark but he decided it was too risky. Somebody might notice him.

Or maybe some relatives who were hoping she'd die and leave the house to them might get excited when she didn't answer the phone. Even if they lived on the other side of the country, they still could call the police and ask them to check her out. The minute the cops started nosing around, they'd spot the cut-out screen and the peeling paint on the ground. There was just no way he could make it look as if she had taken off on her own.

After he killed her, he had wrapped her body in garden-sized garbage bags and tied the bundle together with twine. He'd carried her into the kitchen and picked up her car key from a dish on the counter. Then he took her into the attached garage and dropped her in the trunk of her car. After that, he'd gone through her house and found some surprisingly good jewelry and eight hundred dollars in cash hidden in the refrigerator. He'd smirked at the thought of her wrapping her diamonds and money in aluminum foil.

Then, careful to see that no one was outside walking, or no car coming in either direction, he had hurried across the street and back into his house. Before he went to bed, he packed his clothes, his radio, and his television and put them in his car. Instinct kept warn-ing him that he only had a little time. Somebody was bound to come looking for the old lady in the next couple of days, and they'd find her body when they went through her car.

Wherever he had moved, he'd always managed to find a job, and always had a cash reserve. Now, after buying the car, the reserve still added up to almost eighteen thousand dollars, enough to live on until he was settled again. Online, and using yet another phony name, he'd rented a motel cabin near Camelback Mountain in Pennsylvania. Only a few hours away, it would be easy to drive back here in a couple of weeks when the police weren't swarming around here 24/7.

Satisfied with his plans, Zach had slept well. On Sunday morning, he had savored watching Emily in her kitchen, delighting in how unaware she was of his plans for her. When she left her house at about ten fifteen, he'd wondered if she was going back to the office, but then decided that she looked too dressed up for that. Maybe she was going to church? he thought. That would be good. She doesn't know how much she needs to pray. Just before he'd finished off Madeline Kirk she got religion. "Oh . . . God

. . . help . . . me . . ."

He knew he should leave right away. He could call the boss in the morning and say his mother had taken a turn for the worse and he had to go to Florida now. He would tell him how much he'd enjoyed working there and would miss everybody. He could call the rental agent and say the same thing, and that he'd leave the key to the house under the mat. They wouldn't care. I'm paid up till the end of the month, and they'll be just as glad to get me out early so they can get the house ready for the next tenant.

Of course, even though he would disappear from this house, he would soon have to make one trip back to take care of Emily. Whether or not anyone who saw Fugitive Hunt phoned in a tip, as soon as they find Kirk's body, and realize I'm gone, they'll connect me to everything pretty quick. Charlotte and her family, Wilma and Lou . . .

Emily Wallace was all over the newspapers today. I didn't know she had a transplant. I would have been very sympathetic if she had confided in me. But she didn't. It's really a shame that her new heart is going to stop beating so soon.

Making a careful inspection of every room in the house to be sure he hadn't forgotten anything except what he intended to leave, Zach left his rented house and closed the door behind him.

As he got into his car, he glanced at the new flowers he had planted along the driveway. In a week they had grown and spread. He started to laugh. If I only had a little more time, I'd dig these up and put in mums again!

What a joke that would be on the amateur detectives around here.

On Monday morning, Jimmy Easton's public defender, Luke Byrne, went to the Bergen County Jail to talk to his client. After the Aldrich verdict came in on Friday, Judge Stevens had scheduled Easton's sentencing for today at one thirty. "Jimmy, I just want to go over what we're going to say in court today," he said.

Easton looked at him sourly. "You made a lousy deal for me, and I intend to complain about that to the judge."

Byrne looked at Easton, astonished. "A lousy deal? You can't be serious. They caught you running out of that house carrying the jewelry. What kind of a defense did you expect me to come up with?"

"I'm not talking about beating the charge. I'm talking about the lousy sentence they want to give me. Four years is way too much. I want you to talk to that prosecutor and tell her I'll take five years probation with time served."

"Oh, I'm sure Wallace will jump at that," Byrne snapped. "Jimmy, you made a deal to take four years. Otherwise you'd be getting ten years for being an habitual offender. We're past the point of negotiat-ing. Four years was their bottom line."

"Don't tell me four years was the best you could do. They needed me to get Aldrich. If you had been tougher, I could have gotten probation. They'd be letting me out today."

"If you want me to ask the judge for probation, I will. But I can guarantee that he will never do that unless the prosecutor consents. And I guarantee she won't. You're going to do four years."

"I don't care what you guarantee," Easton snarled. "You just tell Emily Wallace that if I don't get what I want, she won't be taking any more bows for being such a hotshot prosecutor. Not when they hear what else I have to say."

Not wanting to debate it any further, Luke Byrne signaled to the guard that he was ready to leave.

He walked the couple of blocks back to the courthouse and went directly to Emily's office. "Got a minute?" he asked.

Emily looked up and smiled. Luke was one of the best public defenders in the courthouse. Six foot five, with carrot-red hair and an easygoing manner, he did his level best for his clients, but was al-ways professionally cordial to the prosecutors.

"Come on in, Luke. How are you?" As she spoke she slid her hand over the name on the file she had been reviewing.

"Well, Emily, actually, I could be better. I just saw your star witness at the jail and I'm afraid he is in a foul mood, to put it mildly. He thinks I sold him out with the four-year deal. I'm supposed to deliver a message to you that he wants probation and he wants to get out today."

"Are you kidding?" Emily asked, her voice rising.

"I wish I were. And there's more. He's threatening that if he doesn't get what he wants, he'll have more to say and it will somehow hurt you. He didn't give me any more details than that."

Luke Byrne could see that Emily was both shocked and upset.

"Luke, I appreciate the heads-up. He can say whatever he wants, then he'll get his four years. And be out of my sight."

"And mine," Luke said smiling. "See you later."

At one thirty, Jimmy Easton, shackled and dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, was led from the holding cell into the courtroom. After the attorneys had entered their appearances, Judge Stevens asked Luke Byrne to speak.

"Your Honor, Jimmy Easton's testimony was critical to obtaining a conviction of Gregg Aldrich for the brutal murder of his wife. The jury obviously accepted his testimony as credible. The state agreed that his maximum sentence would be four years. Your Honor, he has already spent eight months in jail, and it has been very difficult for him. Many of the other inmates ostracized him because he cooperated with the prosecutor and he is always in fear of being harmed because of that."

Byrne paused and then continued, "Your Honor, I am asking that Mr. Easton be sentenced to probation and time served. He is willing to be very closely supervised and he is willing to do community service. Thank you."

"Mr. Easton, you have a right to speak on your own behalf," Judge Stevens said. "Is there anything you want to say?"

His face flushed, Jimmy Easton drew in a deep breath. "Your Honor, I'm being railroaded. My lawyer didn't do nothin' for me. If he had called their bluff and kept fighting, they would have given me probation. They needed me for their case. I did what I was supposed to do and now they just want to dump me in the garbage."

Judge Stevens nodded to Emily. "Prosecutor, I'll hear you."

"Your Honor, it is absurd for Mr. Easton to claim that he is being railroaded. Our first plea offer was six years, and after much negotia-tion, we lowered it to four years. We believe that Mr. Easton, who has a long criminal record, must be sentenced to prison. There was nothing more his attorney could have done to persuade us to offer probation. It was never going to happen."

Judge Stevens turned to Jimmy Easton. "Mr. Easton, your case was assigned to me from the beginning. The proofs against you on this burglary charge were very strong. Your attorney vigorously negotiated with the prosecutor. You received and accepted a plea offer that was much lower than you would have gotten under any other circumstances. The state undoubtedly received a substantial benefit from your testimony and you will now receive a substantial benefit for your cooperation. But under no circumstances can I accept that you are an appropriate candidate for probation. You will be committed to the Department of Corrections for a period of four years. You have a right to appeal if you are dissatisfied with your sentence."

As the sheriff's officer took his arm to lead him away, Jimmy Eas-ton started screaming,

"Dissatisfied? Dissatisfied? I'll show everybody what it means to be dissatisfied. Just wait! You'll all hear from me soon.

"And you won't like it."

On Monday morning, Phil Bracken, the foreman at the Pine Electronics warehouse on Route 46, was sorry to hear from Zach Lanning that it was necessary for him to leave the job ahead of time because his mother was dying.

"Zach, I couldn't be sorrier, both for your trouble, and because you do such a good job. Anytime you want to come back, you've got a job here."

It was absolutely the truth, Phil thought, as he replaced the phone in his office. Zach never goofed off, never ran out for cigarette breaks, always put the merchandise where it belonged, not on the wrong shelves like some of these dopes who only worked here until they could get a better job.

On the other hand, there was something about Zach that made me uncomfortable, Phil admitted to himself. Maybe it was because he seemed way too smart for the job. I always felt that about him. And he never shot the breeze at the end of his shift or went out for a beer with the other guys. Zach had told him he was divorced and had no kids so it wasn't as though he was rushing home to a family.

Betty Tepper, a forty-something divorcee, worked in the account-ing office. When she had learned that Zach was single, she had invited him to a couple of parties but he'd always made some excuse not to go. He just didn't seem interested in having any friends.

What are you going to do? Phil asked himself. In this economy, there are dozens of guys who'll jump at the chance for a steady job here with good benefits.

And Zach Lanning had been kind of weird, he thought. He never looked me in the eye when I talked to him. It was like he was always checking to see if anyone else was coming near him.

Ralph Cousins, one of the newer guys, stopped in the office after he punched out at four o'clock. "Phil, got a minute?"

"Sure. What's up?" Not another one quitting, Phil hoped. Ralph, a twenty-three-year-old African-American, worked the day shift and was going to college at night. He was smart and dependable.

"Phil, something's been bothering me. It's about that guy Lanning."

"If it's about Lanning, relax. He quit this morning."

"He quit!" Cousins repeated, excitement in his voice.

Surprised at Ralph's reaction, Phil said, "He was planning to leave at the end of the month. Didn't you know that? He was going to move to Florida to take care of his mother. But now she's dying, so he left this morning."

"I knew I should have played my hunch. I hope it's not too late."

"What hunch?"

"I was watching Fugitive Hunt the other night and I told my wife that the composite of the guy who's a serial killer looked a lot like Lanning."

"Oh, come on, Ralph, that guy is no more a serial killer than you or me."

"Phil, last May when Mother's Day was coming up, I asked him about his mother. He told me that he never knew her, he'd been raised in a bunch of foster homes. He was lying to you. I bet he's out of here because he's afraid somebody who saw that program will identify him."

"I've seen that program a couple of times myself. I think you're crazy, but if you are right, why didn't you call right away? They're always offering rewards for tips."

"I didn't call because I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to make a fool of myself. And I wanted to talk to you. Because if the police came here to question him and it turned out not to be him, I thought maybe you could be sued if I had given the tip. But I'm going to call them now. I wrote down the number Saturday night."

As Ralph Cousins was dialing his cell phone, Betty Tepper came into Phil's office.

"What's this I hear?" she asked. "Is it true that Zach Lanning quit?"

"This morning," Phil snapped. Although trying to digest the mind-boggling fact that he may have been rubbing elbows with a se-rial killer for two years, he was still able to be irritated that Betty-could never learn to knock before she barged into his office.

She did not try to hide her disappointment. "I thought I was wearing him down and he was going to ask me out. He was a plain-look-ing guy, but I always felt there was something mysterious and exciting about him."

"You may be right, Betty, you may be right," Phil responded, as Ralph Cousins dialed the number of Fugitive Hunt.

After his call went through, Ralph began by saying, "I know you get plenty of tips, but I honestly believe that my coworker here is Charley Muir, the serial killer."