Just Take My Heart (3 page)

As Alice Mills was getting off the bus down the block from the courthouse, Emily was reviewing her notes for the interview with Bill}' Tryon and Jake Rosen, the two homicide detectives who had worked on the Natalie Raines case from its inception. They had been among the prosecutor's team which responded to the call from the Closter police after they had arrived at Natalie's home and found her body.

Tryon and Rosen had settled in chairs opposite her desk. As usual, when Emily looked at them, she couldn't help but feel the stark contrast in her reaction to the two men. Jake Rosen, age thirty-one, six feet tall, with a trim body, close-cropped blond hair, and an intelligent demeanor, was a smart, diligent investigator. She had worked with him several years before, when they both had been assigned to the juvenile division, and they had gotten along well. Unlike a cou-ple of his colleagues, including Billy Tryon, he had never seemed to resent having a woman as his supervisor.

Tryon, however, had been cut from a different cloth. Emily and other women in the office had always felt his thinly veiled hostility. They all resented the fact that because he was Prosecutor Ted Wesley's cousin, no complaints, however justified, had ever been filed against him.

He was a good investigator, Emily didn't dispute that. But it was common knowledge that in the methods that he sometimes used to obtain convictions, he walked the line. There had been numerous accusations over the years by defendants who angrily denied that they had made the incriminating verbal statements he described in his sworn testimony at trials. While she understood that all detectives receive that kind of complaint at some point, there was no doubt that Tryon had much more than his share of them.

He was also the detective who had been the first to respond to Easton's request to talk to someone from the prosecutor's office after his arrest for the burglary.

Emily hoped the distaste she felt for Tryon did not show in her expression as she looked at him, slouched in his chair. With his weather-beaten face, shaggy haircut, and eyes perpetually half closed, he looked older than his fifty-two years. Divorced, and known to consider himself a ladies' man, she knew that some women outside the office found him appealing. Her distaste was magnified when she heard that he was telling people she wasn't tough enough to try this case. But after studying the file she had to admit that he and Rosen had done a thorough job of investigating the crime scene and of interviewing the witnesses.

She did not waste time on pleasantries. She opened the manila folder on top of the file on her desk. "Natalie Raines's mother will be here in a little while," she said crisply. "I've been going over your reports and her initial statement to you the night Natalie died and her written statement a few days later."

She looked up at the two of them. "From what I see here, the mother's first reaction was that she absolutely refused to believe that Gregg Aldrich could have anything to do with this."

"That's right," Rosen confirmed quietly. "Mrs. Mills said she loved Gregg like a son and had begged Natalie to go back to him. She thought Natalie worked much too hard and wanted to see her give more time to her personal life."

"You'd think she'd want to kill him," Tryon said sarcastically. "Instead she's all worried and upset about him and his kid."

"I think she understood Aldrich's frustration," Rosen said, turning to Emily. "The friends we interviewed all agreed that Natalie was a workaholic. The irony of it is that what drove him to murder could make the jurors feel sorry for him. Even his own mother-inlaw felt sorry for him. She didn't even believe he did it."

"When was the last time either one of you spoke to her?" Emily asked.

"We called her just before Easton's statement hit the papers. We didn't want her to read about it. She was really shocked. Before that, she called a few times to see if anything had developed in the investigation," Rosen said.

"The old lady wanted someone to talk to," Tryon interjected, his voice indifferent, "so we talked to her."

"How nice of you," Emily snapped. "I see in her statement that Mrs. Mills talked about Natalie's roommate, Jamie Evans, being murdered in Central Park fifteen years before Natalie died. You asked her if she thought there could be any connection to this?"

"She said that would be impossible," Tryon replied. "She told us Natalie never met the roommate's boyfriend. She did know that he was married and supposedly getting a divorce. Natalie had urged her roommate to break it off because she knew he was conning her. Natalie said she did see his picture once, and when it was missing from the roommate's wallet after the murder, she thought there could be a connection, but the detectives on the case didn't buy it. There had been a series of muggings in the park about that time. Jamie Evans's wallet was on the ground with her credit cards and money gone, and her watch and earrings were missing, too. The cops believe she resisted the robbery and ended up dead. Anyway, they never did figure out who the boyfriend was, but the bottom line is they thought it was a robbery gone bad."

The phone rang. Emily picked it up. "Emily, Mrs. Mills is here," the receptionist said.

"Okay. We'll be right there."

Rosen stood up. "Why don't I get her, Emily?"

Tryon did not move.

Emily looked at him. "We'll need another chair," she said. "Would you mind pulling one in?"

Tryon ambled to his feet. "Do you really need both of us here for this? I'm finishing my report on the Gannon case. I don't think Momma is going to come up with any surprises."

"Her name is Mrs. Alice Mills." Emily made no effort to hide her irritation. "I would appreciate it if you would be a little more sensitive."

"Lighten up, Emily. I don't need any instructions." He looked her in the eye. "And keep in mind I was working on cases in this of-fice when you were in the third grade."

As Tryon left, Rosen walked in with Alice Mills. In a quick moment, Emily observed the sorrow etched in the older woman's face, the slight tremor in her neck, the fact that the suit she was wearing seemed too big for her. Still standing, Emily introduced herself, expressed her condolences, and invited her to sit down. When she sat back in her own chair, Emily explained to Natalie Raines's mother that she would be handling the trial and would do her best to convict Gregg Aldrich and obtain justice for Natalie.

"And please call me Emily," she concluded.

"Thank you," Alice Mills said softly. "I must tell you that the people from your office have been very kind. I only wish they could bring my daughter back."

An image of Mark saying good-bye to her that last time flashed through Emily's mind. "I wish I could bring her back," Emily replied, hoping that the catch in her throat was not apparent.

For the next hour, her voice conversational, her manner unhurried, Emily reviewed the statements that Mills had given two years before. To her dismay, it soon became clear that Natalie's mother still was torn about whether Gregg Aldrich could have committed the crime. "When they told me about Easton, I was stunned and devastated, but at least it was a relief to know the truth. But the more I read about this fellow Easton, the more I wonder."

If the jury thinks like that, I'm cooked, Emily thought, and moved on to the next area she wanted to discuss. "Mrs. Mills, Natalie's roommate, Jamie Evans, was killed in Central Park many years ago. I understand that Natalie thought that the mystery guy she was see-ing might be responsible?"

"Jamie and Natalie both gone," Alice Mills said, shaking her head as she tried to blink back tears. "And both murdered . . . Who could possibly have imagined such unspeakable tragedy?" She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and then continued.

"Natalie was wrong," she said. "She saw that man's picture in Jamie's wallet once, but that was at least a month before Jamie was killed. For all Natalie knew, Jamie might have thrown it out herself. I think Natalie's reaction was like what I feel right now. She and Jamie were so close. She needed to blame someone, to punish someone for her death."

"As you want to punish Gregg Aldrich?" Emily asked.

"I want to punish her murderer, whoever he is."

Emily averted her eyes from the naked pain on the other woman's face. This was the part of her job that she dreaded. She realized that the empathy she felt when she saw the anguish of a victim's fam-ily was what drove her to present the best possible case in court. But today, for some reason, more than ever before, the grief she was witnessing touched her to her very soul. She knew it was useless to try to assuage this mother's grief with words.

But I can help her by proving not only to a jury but to her that Gregg Aldrich was responsible for Natalie's death and deserves the harshest sentence the judge can give him --life in prison without parole.

Then she did something she had not expected to do. As Alice Mills got up to leave, Emily stood up, hurried around her desk, and put her arms around the heartbroken mother.

Michael Gordon's desk in his office on the thirtieth floor of Rockefeller Center was heaped with newspapers from all over the country', a usual sight in the morning. Before the end of the day, he would have scanned all of them looking for interesting crimes to cover on his nightly program, Courtside, on channel 8.

A former defense attorney, Michael's life had changed dramatically at age thirty-four, when he had been invited to be on that same program, one of a panel of experts analyzing ongoing criminal trials in Manhattan. His perceptive comments, quick wit, and black Irish good looks had ensured his frequent invitations to be a guest on the show. Then when the longtime host retired, he was asked to take over, and now, two years later, it was one of the most popular programs in the country.

A native of Manhattan, Mike lived in an apartment on Central Park West. Though a sought-after bachelor, and despite the many invitations that were showered on him, he spent many nights quietly at home working on the book he had contracted to write, an analysis of great crimes of the twentieth century. He planned to open it with Harry Thaw's killing of the architect Stanford White in 1906 and end with the first O. J. Simpson trial in 1995.

It was a project that fascinated him. He had come to believe that most domestic crimes were rooted in jealousy. Thaw was jealous that

White had been intimate with his wife when she was a very young woman. Simpson was jealous that his wife was being seen with someone else.

What about Gregg Aldrich, a man he had admired and liked? Michael had been a close friend of both Gregg and Natalie even before they were married. He had spoken eloquently at Natalie's memorial service and had frequently invited Gregg and his daughter, Katie, to his skiing lodge in Vermont on weekends during the two winters since Natalie's death.

I always believed that the cops rushed to judgment by publicly referring to Gregg as "a person of interest," Michael thought, as he absentmindedly glanced at and pushed aside the newspapers on his desk. What do I believe now? I just don't know.

Gregg had called the same day he was indicted. "Mike, I assume you'll be covering the trial on your program?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to make it easy for you. I'm not going to ask you if you believe Easton's story. But I think it best if we avoid each other until after the trial."

"I think you're right, Gregg." An uncomfortable silence settled between them.

They had not seen each other much in these past six months. Occasionally they'd been in the theatre or at a cocktail party and had only nodded in passing. Now the trial was scheduled to start on September 15th, next Monday. Mike knew he would cover it the usual way, highlights of the day's testimony every evening, followed by discussion with his panel of legal experts. It was a real break that the judge was allowing cameras inside the courtroom. Clips of the actual proceedings made for good viewing.

Knowing Gregg, he was sure that on the surface he would be composed no matter what accusations the prosecutor threw at him. But Gregg's emotions ran deep. At the memorial service he had been composed. Later that evening in his apartment, with only Natalie's mother and Katie and Mike present, he had suddenly started sobbing inconsolably, then, embarrassed, had rushed from the room.

There was no question he had been crazy about Natalie. But had that outburst been pure grief, or had it been remorse? Or was it terror at the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison? Mike wasn't sure anymore. For some reason the image of Scott Peterson tacking up posters with pictures of his missing wife when he had in fact murdered her and tossed her body in the Pacific Ocean surfaced whenever he thought of the evening that Gregg had broken down.

"Mike."

His secretary was on the intercom. Startled out of his reverie, Michael said, "Oh, uh, yes, Liz."

"Katie Aldrich is here. She'd like to see you." "Katie! Of course. Send her in."

Mike rushed to get up and around his desk. As the door opened, he greeted the slender, golden-haired fourteen-year-old with open arms. "Katie, I've missed you." He could feel her trembling as he embraced her.

"Mike, I'm so scared. Tell me there's no way they'll find Daddy guilty."

"Katie, your dad has a good lawyer, the best. Everything rests on the testimony of a convicted crook."

"Why haven't we seen you in six months?" She searched his face carefully.

Mike led her over to the comfortable chairs in front of the windows that overlooked the Rockefeller Center skating rink. After they were both seated, he reached over and took her hand. "Katie, that was your dad's idea, not mine."

"No, Mike. When he called you with that suggestion, it was his way of testing you. He said that if you were convinced he was innocent, you wouldn't have taken him up on that offer."

Mike realized he was ashamed to see the anger and hurt now in her eyes. Was she right? "Katie, I'm a journalist. I should not be privy to your dad's defense and if I were in and out of your apartment, it might be inevitable that I hear things that I shouldn't know. As it is, I will have to tell my audience repeatedly that I am and have been a close friend of your dad, but will not speak to him until the proceedings are over."

"Can you help influence public opinion so that if he is acquitted" --Katie hesitated --

"when he is acquitted, people will understand he is an innocent man who was unfairly accused?"

"Katie, the public will have to make that decision for themselves."

Katie Aldrich pulled her hands from his and stood up. "I'm supposed to go back to Choate for the fall semester, but I'm not going. I'll get a tutor to keep up with the schoolwork. I'm going to be at that trial every day. Dad needs someone rock solid in his corner. I'd hoped you'd be there, too. Dad always said that you were an awesome defense attorney."

Without waiting for his answer she hurried to the door. As she put her hand on the knob she turned back to him. "Hope you have a big audience, Mike," she said. "If you do, I'm sure they'll give you a big bonus."