I'll Walk Alone

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Because you are suggesting it,” Zan cried. “You are insinuating that I stole my own child, brought him back to that house, and hid him there. Why are you wasting your time? Why aren’t you finding out who doctored those photos to make them look as though I’m taking Matthew from the stroller? Don’t you understand that’s the key to finding my son?”

  Detective Dean shot back at her, “Ms. Moreland, our tech people have gone over the photographs very carefully. They are not ‘doctored,’ as you put it. These photos have not been altered.”

  Try as she would, Zan could not hold back the sobs that racked her shoulders. “Then someone is impersonating me. Why is this happening?” she cried. “Why don’t you listen to me? Bartley Longe hates me. From the minute I opened my own firm, I took business from him. And he’s a womanizer. He used to come on to me when I worked for him. He’s the worst kind of sleaze. He can’t stand to be rejected. That was another reason to hate me.”

  Neither Collins nor Dean showed any emotion. Then when Zan, her tearstained face buried in her hands, managed to stifle her anguished reaction to the relentless questions, Jennifer Dean said, “Ms. Moreland, this is a new twist on your story. You never once referred to Bartley Longe as having come on to you sexually.”

  “I didn’t because I didn’t think it was that important at the time. It was only a part of the pattern.”

  “Zan, how often did you suffer fainting spells and memory lapses after your parents died?” Collins asked. Now his voice was concerned and kindly.

  Zan tried to brush away tears, realizing that he, at least, was not openly antagonistic to her. “Everything was a blur for those six months,” she said. “Then I started to be able to think clearly and realized I had been so unfair to Ted. He was putting up with my crying spells and my spending days in bed and he was giving up evenings to be with me when he should have been out at clients’ events and openings, and endless awards events. When you run a public relations firm, you just can’t neglect that.”

  “Did you tell him you were leaving as soon as you decided?”

  “I knew he would be too worried about me and try to talk me out of it. I looked around and found a small apartment. My mother and father had insurance policies, no fortune, fifty thousand dollars in all, but it gave me a safety net to get started. And I took out a small loan.”

  “What was your husband’s reaction when you finally told him you were leaving and wanted a divorce?”

  “He had to go to California for the premiere of Marisa Young’s new movie. He was planning to get a nurse to stay with me. That was when I told him that I was eternally grateful to him, but I couldn’t be a burden to him any longer, that our marriage was a total act of kindness on his part, but now I knew I could go it alone and give him his life back. I told him I had decided to move out. He was kind enough to get me settled.”

  At least they’re not accusing me when they ask me about Ted, she thought.

  “At what point did you realize you were pregnant with Matthew?”

  “I didn’t have a period for several months after my parents died. The doctor told me that wasn’t unusual in cases of extreme stress. Then my periods were irregular. So it was a few months after I left Ted before I realized that I was expecting Matthew.”

  “What was your reaction to finding out you were pregnant?” Dean asked.

  “Shocked, then very happy.”

  “Even though you had taken out a bank loan to start your own business?” Collins asked.

  “I knew it would be hard, but that didn’t bother me. Of course I told Ted, but I told him that he should not feel any financial responsibility.”

  “Why not? He was the father, wasn’t he?”

  “Of course he was,” Zan said heatedly.

  “And he has a very successful public relations firm,” Dean pointed out. “Weren’t you as much as telling him that you wanted no part of him having anything to do with your child?”

  “Our child,” Zan said. “Ted insisted that until I got my business going that he would pay for the nanny I would need to hire, and that if I didn’t need his financial help, he would put the money he would normally pay for support into a trust fund for Matthew.”

  “You paint a rosy picture, Ms. Moreland,” Jennifer Dean observed sarcastically. “Wasn’t it a fact that Matthew’s father was concerned over the amount of time you left Matthew with the nanny? In fact, didn’t he indicate that he was willing to take over full custody of Matthew when you became more and more involved in your business?”

  “That’s a lie,” Zan shouted. “Matthew was my life. In the beginning I only had a part-time secretary and unless I had a client in the office or was outside on appointments, Gretchen, the nanny, would bring Matthew to the office on her way to and from the park. Look at my appointment books from the time he was born till he disappeared. I was home almost every night with him. I didn’t want to be out. I loved him so much.”

  “You loved him so much,” Dean snapped. “Then you do think he is dead.”

  “He is not dead. He called out to me this morning.”

  The detectives could not conceal their astonishment. “He called out to you this morning?” Billy Collins demanded.

  “I mean, early this morning, I heard his voice.”

  “Zan, we’re leaving now,” Charley Shore said, himself clearly rattled. “This inquisition is over.”

  “No. I’m going to explain. Fr. Aiden was so kind when I met him last night. I know that even Alvirah and Willy don’t believe that I’m not the one in those photos in Central Park. But Fr. Aiden gave me a sense of peace that stayed with me all night. Then just as I was waking up this morning, I heard Matthew’s voice as clearly as though he were in the room and I knew he was still alive.”

  This time, when Zan stood up, she pushed back the chair so quickly that it toppled over. “He is alive,” she shouted. “Why are you torturing me? Why aren’t you searching for my little boy? Why won’t you believe me that those photos are not of me? You think I’m crazy. You’re the ones who are blind and stupid.” Her voice now hysterical, she screamed, “ ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’ In case you don’t know, that’s a quote from Jeremiah in the Bible. Two years ago, when the pair of you wouldn’t listen to me about Bartley Longe, I looked it up.”

  Zan turned to Charley Shore. “Am I under arrest?” she demanded. “If not, let’s get the hell out of here now.”

  46

  Alvirah had called Zan’s office and learned from Josh that Charley Shore had taken Zan to the police station for questioning. And then Josh told her about the one-way ticket to Buenos Aires and the orders Zan had placed with their suppliers.

  With a heavy heart, Alvirah filled Willy in on that conversation when he returned from his morning walk in Central Park. “Oh, Willy, I feel so helpless,” she sighed. “There’s no mistake about those pictures. Now Zan has bought herself a one-way ticket to Buenos Aires and is ordering stuff for a job she doesn’t even have.”

  “Maybe she thinks they’re closing in on her, and is planning to run away,” Willy suggested. “Listen, Alvirah, if she did take Matthew out of the stroller, maybe he’s in South America with a friend. Didn’t Zan tell you that she speaks a couple of languages, including Spanish?”

  “Yes. She moved around with her parents a lot when she was growing up. But oh, Willy, that’s as much as saying that Zan is a schemer. I don’t think that’s true. I think the problem is that she has lapses of memory, or is a split personality. I’ve read a lot about people like that. One personality simply has no idea of what the other one is doing. Remember that book The Three Faces of Eve? That woman was three different people and one didn’t know about the other. Maybe Zan, in another persona, took Matthew from the stroller. Maybe she did give him to a friend who took him to South America and in that persona is planning to join him.”

  “This split personality stuff sounds like hocus-pocus to me, honey,” Willy said. “I’d do anything for Zan, but I
honestly think she’s mentally ill. I just hope that when she was irrational, she didn’t do anything to that little kid.”

  While Willy was out on his morning walk, Alvirah had been cleaning the apartment. Even though they had put most of the lottery money they’d won in triple-A bonds and solid stocks so that they had a nice dividend income, she had never been able to bring herself to hire a cleaning woman. Or at least, when she did try one at Willy’s urging, she had immediately realized that she was three times as fast and ten times as thorough as the person they hired to come in once a week.

  Now their three-room apartment overlooking Central Park South was sparkling, and the sun that had finally broken through was cheerfully reflected in the shiny surface of the glass-topped coffee table and the mirror on the back wall that reflected the park. Vacuuming and dusting and mopping up the kitchen had helped calm Alvirah, and while she was working she had put on her “thinking cap,” as she called the imaginary head covering that helped her find solutions to problems.

  It was almost eleven. She turned on the television to the news station just in time to see Zan get out of a car and Charley Shore try to rush her past the media. When Zan stopped and began to speak into the microphone, she could see the dismay on Charley’s face. “Oh, Willy,” Alvirah sighed. “Anyone listening to Zan now would be sure that she knows exactly where Matthew is. She sounds so positive that he’s alive.”

  Willy had settled in his club chair with the morning papers, but looked up at the sound of Zan’s voice. “She sounds so positive because she knows where that kid is, honey,” he said emphatically. “I have to say that judging from her performance when Charley brought her here last night, she’s one hell of an actress.”

  “How was she when you took her home in the car?”

  Willy ran his fingers through his thick mane of white hair and frowned in concentration. “Just the way she was here, like a wounded doe. She said we’ve become her best friends and she doesn’t know what she’d do without us.”

  “Then if she’s hidden Matthew somewhere, she doesn’t know it herself,” Alvirah said positively as she pushed the remote to turn off the television. “I’d be interested to know what impression Fr. Aiden had of Zan. When he said he’d pray for her, I heard what she said to him, to pray for Matthew but that God had forgotten she existed. That almost broke my heart. I just wanted to put my arms around her and hug her.”

  “Alvirah, I think that dollars to donuts, Zan is going to be arrested,” Willy said. “You might as well be prepared for that.”

  “Oh, Willy, that would be awful. Would they let her out on bail?”

  “I don’t know. They sure won’t like the fact that she bought a one-way ticket to South America. That could be reason enough to keep her locked up.”

  The telephone rang. It was Penny Hammel calling to say that she and Bernie would be thrilled to join the Lottery Winners’ Support Group meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

  With her worry about Zan, Alvirah had wished that she had waited to call a Support Group meeting, but the sound of Penny’s cheerful voice lifted her spirits. She knew that she and Penny were kindred spirits in a lot of ways. They both wore size fourteen. They both had a good sense of humor. They both had preserved their lottery windfall. They both were happily married. Of course, Penny had three children and six grandchildren and Alvirah had never been blessed with a child. However, she considered herself a surrogate mother to Willy’s nephew, Brian, and surrogate grandmother to Brian’s kids. Besides that, she had never wasted time wishing her life away for something she could do nothing to change.

  “Solved any crimes lately, Alvirah?” Penny asked.

  “Not a one,” Alvirah admitted.

  “Have you been watching television and seeing that Zan Moreland kidnapped her own kid? I’ve been glued to the set.”

  Alvirah did not intend to get into a discussion with the loquacious Penny about Zan Moreland, nor admit she knew her well. “It’s a pretty sad case,” she said, carefully.

  “I’d say so,” Penny agreed. “But I’ve got a funny story to tell you when I see you next week. I thought I was on my way to uncovering a drug deal or something sinister like that, and then I realized that I was getting excited about nothing. Oh well, I guess I’ll never write a book about solving crimes like you did. Did I ever tell you that I thought the title From Pots to Plots was downright inspired?”

  Every time I see you, you tell me that, Alvirah thought indulgently, but said, “I’m pretty happy about the title myself. I think it’s catchy.”

  “Anyhow, maybe you’ll get a laugh when you hear about the crime that didn’t happen. My best friend in town is Rebecca Schwartz. She’s a real estate agent.”

  Alvirah knew it was impossible to cut off Penny without seeming abrupt. Carrying the phone, she walked across the living room to the club chair where Willy was now attempting to solve the daily puzzle and tapped him on the shoulder.

  When he looked up, she mouthed the name “Penny Hammel.”

  Willy nodded, went to the front door of the apartment, and stepped out into the hall.

  “Anyhow, Rebecca rented a house near me to a young woman and I’ll tell you why I thought there was something strange about her.”

  Willy rang the bell, keeping his finger on it long enough that Penny would be sure to hear it.

  “Oh, Penny, I hate to interrupt but the doorbell is ringing and Willy isn’t in the apartment. I can’t wait to see you next Tuesday. Bye, dear.”

  “I hate to lie,” Alvirah said to Willy. “But I’m too worried about Zan to listen to one of Penny’s long stories, and it wasn’t a lie to say you weren’t in the apartment. You were outside in the hall.”

  “Alvirah,” Willy smiled, “I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. You’d have made a great lawyer.”

  47

  At eleven A.M. Toby Grissom checked out of the Cheap and Cozy Motel where he had spent the night on the Lower East Side and started to walk to Forty-second Street where he could get a bus to LaGuardia Airport. His plane wasn’t until five o’clock, but he had to be out of his room and anyhow he didn’t want to stay in it any longer.

  The weather was cold, but the day was clear and bright and it was the kind of day on which Toby used to enjoy taking long walks. Of course, it had been different since he started getting the chemo treatments. They really knocked the stuffing out of him and now he wondered if there was any point in taking them any longer if all they could do was to keep him out of pain.

  Maybe the doctor could just give me some pills or something so I wouldn’t have to be so tired, he thought, as he trudged up Avenue B. He glanced down at his canvas bag to reassure himself that he hadn’t forgotten it. He had put the manila file with the pictures of Glory in it. They were the most recent ones she had sent him before she disappeared.

  He always carried the postcard Glory had sent him six months ago folded in his wallet. It made him feel near to her, but ever since he came to New York, his sense that she was in trouble had gotten steadily worse.

  That Bartley Longe guy was bad news. You could tell that in a minute. Sure, he wore clothes that any dope could tell were expensive, and he was good looking but in that narrow-nose, thin-lip kind of way. When he looked at you, it was like you were dirt under his feet.

  Bartley Longe had work done on his face, Toby thought. Even a run-of-the-mill guy like me would know that. His hair is too long. Not like those rock stars with those wild mops that make them look like a bunch of bums, but still too long. Bet it cost him four hundred dollars to get a haircut. Like the kind of money those politicians pay to barbers.

  Toby thought about Longe’s hands. You’d never guess he ever did an honest day’s work in his life.

  Toby realized he was gasping for breath. He was walking close to the curb. Slowly, he worked his way through the stream of oncoming pedestrians, until he reached the nearest building and, leaning on it, dropped his bag and took out his inhaler.

  After he used it, he t
ook deep breaths to force more air into his lungs. Then he waited for a few minutes until he felt ready to resume walking. While he waited, he observed the passersby. All kinds of people in New York, he decided. More than half of them were talking on cell phones, even the ones who were pushing strollers. Yak. Yak. Yak. What the devil did they have to say to each other? A group of young women, maybe in their twenties, passed him. They were talking and laughing and Toby eyed them sadly. They were dressed nice. They all were wearing boots that went anywhere from their ankles to past their knees. How did they ever wear those crazy high heels? he asked himself. Some of them had short hair, others had hair down past their shoulders. But they all looked as if they’d just stepped out of the shower. They were so clean they glistened.

  They all probably had pretty good jobs in stores or offices, he thought.

  Toby resumed his walk. I can understand now why Glory wanted to come to New York. I just wish she’d decided to get a job at an office, instead of trying to be an actress. I think that’s what got her into trouble.

  I know she’s in trouble and it’s the fault of that Longe guy.

  Toby thought about how his sneakers had made a stain on the carpet in Longe’s reception area. Hope they can’t get it out, he thought as he dodged a homeless woman pushing a cart laden with clothes and old newspapers.

  Longe’s private office looks phony, too, Toby mused. Real formal. You’d think you were in Buckingham Palace, but not a paper on the desk. Where does he do all that fancy planning of those houses he decorates?

  Deep in thought, Toby almost stepped from the curb after the light turned red. He had to jump back to avoid being sideswiped by a sightseeing bus. I better watch where I’m going, he told himself. I didn’t come to New York to get splattered by a bus.

  His thoughts immediately turned back to Bartley Longe. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know why Longe snowed Glory into going up to his country home. That’s the way he talked about his house in Connecticut. “His country home.” Glory was a sweet, innocent girl when she came to New York. Longe didn’t bring Glory up to Connecticut to play tiddlywinks. He took advantage of her.