Billy was about to respond when Maria Garcia gasped, “Mrs. Aldrich is on the way down. I have to go.”
There was a click in his ear, and Billy Collins was processing this new chink in the evidence in the case against Alexandra Moreland when, accompanied by his lawyer, a furious Bartley Longe arrived at the precinct.
77
At quarter of one on Saturday afternoon, Melissa phoned Ted. “Have you seen the papers?” she asked. “They’re all talking about how generous I am to offer that wonderful reward for your son.”
Ted had managed to beg off from seeing her again on Friday night on the basis of his ongoing flu-like symptoms. At Rita’s loyal insistence, he had called Melissa after her announcement to the media and groveled his gratitude to her.
Now, clenching his teeth, his voice robotic, he said, “Beautiful lady, I predict that a year from now, you’ll be the number one star on this planet, maybe in the universe.”
“You’re sweet.” Melissa laughed. “I think so, too. Oh, good news. Jaime-boy had a fight with his publicist again. Isn’t that a riot? The big all-is-forgiven scene lasted only twenty-four hours. He wants to meet you.”
Ted was standing in the living room of his handsomely furnished duplex apartment in the Meatpacking district, the apartment where he had lived for eight years. It had been his crowning achievement when he had been established enough to buy and furnish it. Bartley Longe and Zan Moreland, his assistant, had done the interior decorating. That was how he had met Zan.
That was running through his head as he reminded himself that he could not afford to offend Melissa. “When does Jaime-boy want to meet me?” he asked.
“Monday, I guess.”
“That would be great.” Ted’s reaction was genuinely enthusiastic. He was not up to meeting Jaime-boy today. And Melissa was flying to London to attend a celebrity birthday party. He knew that, concerned as she was with catching a flu bug, she still did not want to go unescorted to the party.
He felt an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. Wouldn’t it be perfect if someone did somehow find Matthew, and Melissa had to shell out five million dollars?
“Ted, if you start feeling better, hop a plane to London, or else I’ll find someone else at the party. British guys are soooooooooooo attractive.”
“Don’t you dare.” His slightly stern voice, his “Daddy knows best,” was a good sign-off. Finally he was able to get off the phone. He opened the door of the terrace and went outside. The cold air snapped at him. He looked down.
Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be good to jump and be done with it, he thought.
78
When Willy got back from his daily walk in Central Park, he realized that he was hungry. The problem was that he and Alvirah often liked to have lunch out on Saturdays, then drop in on a museum or go to a movie.
He tried to call her cell phone, but she didn’t answer. I should think that whatever that Tiffany Shields kid has to say, it would be said by now, he thought, but maybe Alvirah stopped to do a little shopping.
I won’t spoil my appetite, he decided when she still hadn’t returned. But fifteen minutes later, he was wavering. And then the phone rang.
“Willy, you just won’t begin to guess what I’m going to tell you,” Alvirah began. “I’m so excited, I can hardly stand it. But listen, I just left Detective Collins and Detective Dean at the Central Park Precinct. Let’s meet at the Russian Tea Room for lunch.”
“I’m on my way,” Willy promised. He knew that if he began to ask Alvirah questions, she would spill the beans immediately about what was exciting her and he’d rather hear it over the lunch table.
“See you there,” Alvirah confirmed.
Willy replaced the receiver and headed for the closet in the foyer. He pulled out his jacket and gloves. As he was opening the front door of their apartment, the phone rang. He waited in case it was Alvirah calling back. Instead, when he did not pick up, he heard the beginning of a message. “Alvirah, this is Penny Hammel. I tried you on your cell phone but you’re not answering. You won’t believe what I’m going to tell you, Alvirah,” she began. “I swear I think I’m right. This morning—”
Willy let the door close behind him on Penny’s message. Later, Penny, he thought as he rang for the elevator.
The message he did not wait to hear was Penny telling Alvirah that she was willing to bet that Matthew Carpenter was the child Gloria Evans was hiding in the farmhouse.
“What should I do?” Penny asked the answering machine. “Call the cops now? But I guess it would be better to hear from you because I have absolutely no proof. Alvirah, call me!”
79
Kevin, what does this mean?” Zan asked. “You’re telling me that my bedroom has had a camera recording every minute I’m here?”
“Yes.” Kevin Wilson did not waste time thinking about the terrible sense of invasion that Zan would be feeling when the full awareness of all that this discovery involved sank in on her. “Zan, somebody installed this or had it installed. Somebody probably bugged your other apartment as well. That’s why it was possible for your look-alike to dress in exactly the same clothes.”
From staring into the camera, he turned to look at her. Zan’s face was ghastly white. She was shaking her head in protest. “My God, my God. Ted sent that guy he knew from his hometown in Wisconsin, Larry Post,” she cried. “He’s Ted’s driver, cook, and handyman. He does everything for him. He installed the lighting fixtures and set up the television here and in the other apartment and my computer system in my office. Maybe that is how my accounts were hacked into. And all this time I’ve been blaming Bartley Longe.
“Ted has done this to me!” she shrieked, her voice rising with every word. “It’s Ted. But what has he done to my son?”
80
Shortly after two o’clock Larry Post reached Middletown. The job that Ted had laid out for him was not easy. I’m supposed to make it look like Brittany shot the boy and then killed herself. That’s easier said than done.
Larry had not been surprised that Ted had changed his mind about driving up there and finishing them off himself. Ted was worried sick that Brittany would go to the police, and he now realized that the boy might be able to convince the cops that Zan had not taken him from the park. If that happened, Ted knew the police would eventually come to him.
Larry could understand why Ted couldn’t bring himself to kill his own son, but why was it at this point even necessary? I’m no bleeding heart, but I can’t say that I ever thought that working for Ted would ever end up like this, Larry thought. But he did point out to me that if the cops keep digging and find those cameras in Zan’s apartment, she’ll know that I was the one who installed all the lighting and set up her computer.
When Zan decided to leave Ted and take that apartment on East Eighty-sixth Street, and then again when she moved to Battery Park City after Matthew disappeared, big-hearted Ted was the one who had helped her get settled both times. He sent a plumber to check all the pipes and me to install new lighting fixtures. And the cameras. The day she moved from Eighty-sixth Street I got rid of the original cameras. I had already installed the second cameras in her new apartment.
For the first three years it was enough for Ted to just spy on her anytime he wanted. But then she was getting successful in her business and she and Matthew were such a team that he couldn’t stand it. And that was just the time when he met Brittany at a party and hatched this whole crazy plan.
Ted is right. If we don’t act now, the cops will be knocking on my door before too long. I’m not going back to prison. I’d rather be dead. And he’s going to give me the money he’s already put in Matthew’s trust fund. Let’s face it. Ted needs me and I need him.
Ted had said that Brittany had become too much of a loose cannon and was now a big threat to both of us. He said that she’s nutty enough to think that she might be able to make a deal with the police and still get the five-million-bucks reward that witch Melissa has put up in her bi
g publicity stunt.
Larry laughed out loud. If that kid ever got home safely, Melissa would have a coronary. But that’s not going to happen. He and Ted had figured out how he would get this done.
Brittany will recognize the truck when I pull up the driveway, he thought. Hopefully she won’t panic when she sees me because she knows that I’ve been in on everything all along. When I’m near the house I’ll phone her and say that I’ve got two big boxes full of cash, six hundred thousand dollars. I’ll say that Ted wanted me to show her that he wouldn’t double-cross her about the money and give her time to send it to Texas. In case she gets suspicious and is scared to open the door, I’ll be carrying one of the boxes and she can look through the window and see the hundred-dollar bills on the top layer of the box. She won’t be able to tell that the rest of the box is stuffed with newspapers.
When she lets me in, I’ll do what I have to do. If she doesn’t let me in, I’ll blow the lock off the door. If that happens, it won’t look like a murder-suicide, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The main thing is that neither one of them will ever be able to talk.
81
Billy Collins was unimpressed by Bartley Longe’s show of bravado. “Mr. Longe,” he said, “I’m glad you have your lawyer with you. Because before we exchange a meaningful word, I am telling you that you are a person of interest in the disappearance of the woman known as Brittany La Monte. Her roommates kept a tape of your threat to her.”
Billy had no intention of telling Longe that he had just come under suspicion of hiring Brittany La Monte to impersonate Zan Moreland and to kidnap her child. That possibility he was hugging to his vest.
“I never saw Brittany La Monte after she left my home in early June almost two years ago,” Longe snapped. “That so-called threat was made because she had vandalized my property.”
Wally Johnson and Jennifer Dean were sitting with them. “Your wigs and toupees, Mr. Longe?” Johnson asked. “By any chance have you replaced them with a set that includes one with a thick mop of black hair?”
“Absolutely not,” Longe snapped. “Let’s get this straight. I never saw Brittany after that day. Give me a lie detector test. I’ll pass it with my eyes closed.” He turned to Wally Johnson. “Have you followed up on any of those names my secretary gave you?”
“Two are out of the country,” Wally Johnson shot back. “Perhaps you knew they’re not easily reachable.”
“I don’t keep track of my many friends who are successful producers.” Longe turned to his lawyer. “I would like to insist on having a lie detector test immediately. I will not be hounded by these detectives any longer.”
Jennifer Dean had not said anything. Sometimes they worked an interrogation that way. Billy asking the questions, she listening to the answers. Billy Collins felt that his partner was sometimes better than a lie detector test for spotting the liars.
But not always, he reminded himself. If Zan Moreland is right about being impersonated, we both sure missed it.
And if she was, it didn’t answer the question, Where is Matthew Carpenter? Is he still alive?
His telephone rang. It was Kevin Wilson.
Billy picked up his phone and listened, his face impassive. “Thank you, Mr. Wilson. We’ll get right on it.”
He turned to Bartley Longe. “You can leave at any time, Mr. Longe,” he said. “We will not press any charges against you for the threatening phone call. Good-bye.”
Billy jumped from his chair and headed out of the room. Trying not to show their surprise, Jennifer Dean and Wally Johnson followed him. “We’ve got to get to Ted Carpenter’s apartment,” Billy told them tersely. “My guess is that if he happens to be looking into his computer, he’ll know that it’s all over.”
82
She couldn’t wait any longer. She had to hear her father’s voice. She had to tell him that she was coming home. But first… Glory tiptoed upstairs to make sure that Matthew’s door was closed.
She had expected that he’d be watching one of the movies, but he was asleep on the bed, under a blanket. He looks so pale, she thought, as she bent over him. He’s been crying again. The realization of what she had done to him swept over her as, careful not to awaken him, she tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Standing in the kitchen, she picked up the last of the unregistered cell phones that he had given her and dialed her father’s home in Texas. The call was answered by a stranger.
“Uh, is Mr. Grissom there?” Panicked, Glory knew that she was going to hear bad news.
“Is this a family member?”
“It’s his daughter.” Glory’s voice became high-pitched and breathless. “Is he sick?”
“I’m sorry. I’m with the EMT service. He called 911 and we got here immediately but it was too late to save him. He had a massive heart attack. Are you Glory?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Well, ma’am, I hope what I am going to say is some comfort to you. Your father’s final words were, ‘Tell my Glory that I love her.’ “
She pushed the button to disconnect the call. I have to go home now, she thought wildly. I have to put my arms around him one last time. What was the reservation that had been made for her? Yes, 10:30 tomorrow morning at LaGuardia, Continental Airlines to Atlanta. I’ll change the reservation. I’ll go straight home. I have to see him. I have to tell Daddy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
She opened her laptop. Half out of her mind with grief and regret, her fingers moved automatically to the Continental Airlines Web site. For a few minutes her fingers raced over the keys. Then she stopped. I should have known, she thought. I should have known.
There was no reservation in the name of Gloria Evans to Atlanta at 10:30 A.M.
There was no Continental Airlines plane leaving at that time to Atlanta.
Margaret/Glory/Brittany closed the computer. He’ll be here soon. He won’t have the money. I’ll never escape him. He’ll hunt me down with the same hatred he has hunted Zan Moreland. Her sin was not to want him and mine is that I am a threat to him.
He would be here soon. She knew it. She was standing at the window facing the road. A white truck was slowly passing the house. She gasped. Larry Post had been waiting in a white truck when she left Central Park with Matthew. If he was coming here now, it was to make sure she never had the chance to give Ted up to the cops.
It was too late to get Matthew and go to the car. Her eyes wild, she knew what might work. Rushing upstairs, she picked up Matthew, who was still asleep on the bed. The same way he was when I took him out of the stroller, she thought. She carried him downstairs and put him on the inflated mat in the closet.
“Are you going now?” Matthew asked drowsily.
“Very soon, Matty.” She knew she didn’t have to warn him not to make a sound until she came back for him. I taught him well, poor kid, she thought.
The sound of the bell ringing resonated through the house.
She locked the door of the closet and dropped the key behind the server in the dining room on her way to the door.
A smiling Larry Post was looking in the kitchen window. “Brittany, I’ve got a present for you from Ted,” he called out.
83
That was a good lunch,” Willy said complacently as he sipped the last of his cappuccino.
“Yes, it was. And, oh, Willy, I just know that Detective Collins is looking at all this in a different way. I mean, it’s going to be as plain as the nose on your face that no woman about to kidnap her own child would bother to change her shoes for an almost identical pair. But what scares me is that whoever is behind this might start to panic if he finds out that the detectives are starting to believe Zan.
“And the question is whether after all this, even if Zan can prove her innocence, there’s a limit on how much longer she can keep herself going if Matthew isn’t found.”
Willy agreed, his expression now weighted with concern. Then, as he reached for his wallet, he said, “Honey, just as I was
leaving the apartment to meet you, Penny Hammel called. I didn’t pick up.”
“Oh, Willy, I feel kind of mean. I had my cell phone turned off when I was meeting Detective Collins, but when I called you I saw there was a message from Penny and frankly I didn’t want to be bothered listening to it. I was too excited thinking about the fact that maybe the tide was turning for Zan.”
She looked around. “I know it’s not polite to use your cell phone in the restaurant, but I won’t be talking, just listening.” Alvirah turned away from the table, trying to give the impression she was reaching down for her pocketbook. She opened her phone and pressed the number to receive her messages. Then as she listened her face went pale.
“Willy,” she said, her voice shaking. “I think Penny may have found Matthew! Oh, sweet Lord, it makes sense. But the woman who looks like Zan is packing to leave, oh, Willy…”
Not waiting to complete the sentence, Alvirah sat up straight and dialed Billy Collins’s cell phone number.
A number she now knew by heart.
84
Would it work? Ever since he had sent Larry to Middletown over an hour ago, Ted Carpenter had agonized over what he had set in motion. He knew he had no choice. If Brittany went to the cops, he’d spend the rest of his life in prison. Even that wouldn’t be as bad as watching the joyful reunion of Zan and Matthew.