Just Take My Heart

by Mary Higgins Clark

  My first job in show business was taking tickets at the Barrymore, he reminisced, but I was smart enough to hang out in Sardi's and some of the other watering holes until Doc Yates offered me a job in his theatrical agency. By then I'd met Kathleen.

  Kathleen had a small part in a revival of The Sound of Music at the Barrymore. It had been love at first sight for both of us. We got married the same week I took the job with Doc Yates. We were both twenty-four years old.

  Deeply immersed in the past, Gregg jogged northward, aware of neither the chilling wind, nor of the other earlv-morning runners. We had eight years together, he thought. I went up the ladder fast at the agency. Doc groomed me for his job from day one. Kathleen worked pretty steadily but the minute she got pregnant, she said, happily, “Gregg, when our baby arrives, I'm staying home. You'll be the sole breadwinner in this family.”

  Gregg Aldrich did not realize that he was smiling.

  Those years had been so tender, so satisfying. And then to have Kathleen diagnosed with the breast cancer that had killed his mother and to lose her so quickly, to come home from the funeral to a sob?bing three-year-old Katie who was screaming for Mommy had been almost unbearable.

  Work was the answer, and in those first years after Kathleen was gone, he had worked almost constantly. As much as possible, he handled things from home in the morning until Katie went to nurs?ery school at noon. Then he arranged his hours to be with her in the late afternoon. He'd go to cocktail parties and first nights, and film openings with clients, only after they'd had a good amount of time together.

  Then when Katie was seven, he had met Natalie at the Tony Awards. She was a nominee and was wearing an emerald green gown and jewelry that, she confided to him, was purely on loan from Cartier. “If I lose this necklace, promise to shoot me,” she'd joked.

  Promise to shoot me. Gregg felt his guts twist with pain.

  She didn't win that night, and the guy who escorted her got drunk. I took Natalie back to her place in the Village, he remem?bered. I went upstairs for a nightcap and she showed me the play she'd been asked to read. I knew it and told her to forget it, that it had been bounced off half the major actresses in Hollywood and it was a lousy script. She told me her agent was really pushing her to sign for it and I told her in that case to drop her agent, then I fin?ished my drink and gave her my card.

  Two weeks later Natalie had called for an appointment, he re?called. And that was the beginning of a whirlwind romance that cul?minated in the Actors' Chapel of St. Malachy's Church. Three months after their first meeting, he and Natalie were married. By then he had taken over as her agent. In the four years we were to?gether, I did everything I could to help her make her big break?through, Gregg thought. But didn't I always suspect that our marriage couldn't last?

  He circled around the reservoir and began to run south. How much of trying to reconcile with her had to do with real love and how much did it have to do with obsession? he asked himself. I was obsessed with her. But I was also obsessed with the idea of recaptur?ing what I had, a wife who loved me, a good mother for Katie. I didn't want to lose Natalie and begin all over again.

  I didn't want Natalie to throw away her career and it was going to happen. Leo Kearns is a good agent but he would have tried to cash in on her, do what her first agent was doing all over again.

  Why did I follow her to Cape Cod? What was I thinking? What was I thinking the morning that she died?

  Without realizing it, Gregg had run all the way to Central Park South and started north again.

  When he got back to the apartment, he found Katie, dressed and frantically worried. “Daddy, it's seven thirty. We've got to leave in ten minutes. Where were you?”

  “Seven thirty! Katie, I'm sorry. I was thinking things through. I had no idea of the time.”

  Gregg rushed to shower. That's what happened the morning Natalie died, he thought. I had no idea of the time. And I didn't drive to New Jersey then any more than I drove there now.

  For the first time he felt certain of it.

  Almost certain! he corrected himself.

  Just Take My Heart

  24

  At nine o'clock Emily called the first of her two corroborating witnesses. Eddie Shea was a representative from Verizon, who testi?fied that their records showed that a call had been made from Gregg Aldrich's cell phone at 6:38 p.m. to Natalie Raines on the evening of March 2nd two and a half years ago and a call to Jimmy Easton was made that same evening at 7:10 p.m.

  The second witness was Walter Robinson, the Broadway investor who had spoken to Gregg at Vinnie's-on-Broadway and remembered seeing Easton sitting next to him at the bar.

  When Robinson left the witness stand, Emily turned to the judge. “Your Honor, the state rests.”

  The courthouse is packed, she thought, as she took her seat at the prosecutor's table. She recognized some familiar faces in the audi?ence, people whose names popped up on Page Six of the New York Post. As usual the proceedings were being videotaped. Yesterday she had been stopped in the corridor by Michael Gordon, the host of Courtside, complimenting her on the job she was doing and asking her to be a guest on his program after the trial was over.

  “I'm not sure,” she had answered, but later, Ted Wesley had told her that it would be a great boost for her reputation to make a guest appearance on a national program. “Emily, if there's any advice I hope you take from me, it's to get any good publicity that comes your way.”

  We'll see, she thought, as she turned her head to look at the de?fense table. Today Gregg Aldrich was wearing a well-tailored pin?stripe dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a blue and white tie. He had more color in his face than yesterday and she wondered if he had been jogging earlier. He seemed more confident, too, than he had appeared to be yesterday. I don't know what you have to be con?fident about, she thought, with just a tinge of fear.

  Today, his daughter, Katie, was sitting in the first row directly be?hind her father. Emily knew she was only fourteen but she seemed oddly mature as she sat there, her carriage erect, her expression grave, her blond hair soft on her shoulders. She was a very pretty girl, Emily thought, not for the first time. I wonder if she looks like her mother.

  “Mr. Moore, call your first witness,” Judge Stevens directed.

  For the next three hours, Moore called both character and fact witnesses. The first one, Loretta Lewis, had lived next door to Gregg when he was growing up. “You couldn't meet a nicer young man,” she said earnestly, her voice hoarse with emotion. “He did every?thing for his mother. She was never well. He was so responsible al?ways. I remember one winter when our building lost electricity, he went from one apartment to another, there were twenty in the build?ing, knocking on doors and carrying candles so that people could see. He even made sure that everyone was warm. The next day his mother told me that he took the blankets from his own bed and brought them down to Mrs. Shellhorn because the ones she had were so thin.”

  One of Katie's retired nannies told the jury that she'd never known a more devoted father. “Most two-parent families don't give the time and the love Mr. Gregg gave to Katie,” she testified.

  She had been there four of the five years that Natalie and Gregg had been married. “Natalie was more of a pal than a mother to Katie. When she was around, she'd let her stay up later than her usual bed?time, or if she helped her with her homework, she'd just give her the answers instead of making her work out a problem. Gregg would tell her not to do that, but he didn't get angry about it.”

  The new agent Natalie had hired prior to her death, Leo Kearns, was a surprising witness for the defense. He was on the witness list but Emily had not expected that Richard would call him. Kearns explained that he and Gregg differed fundamentally about the course Natalie's career should take. “Natalie was thirty-seven years old,” he said. “She had received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress but that was three years earlier. Not enough people go to Tennessee Williams plays for Natalie to stay in the limelight. She ne
eded a few well-publicized action movies. I was sure they would create a buzz for her. She was a great actress but it's pretty common knowledge that turning forty in show business can be the beginning of the end unless you're hot by then.”

  “Notwithstanding that you were becoming Natalie Raines's agent, therefore replacing him, did Gregg Aldrich ever exhibit any animosity to you?” Moore asked.

  “No. Never. The only difference Gregg and I had was in our opinions of how Natalie's career should progress.”

  “Had you ever competed for a client with Gregg Aldrich be?fore?”

  “In the past, two of my clients switched to him. Then one of his switched to me. We both understood the game. Gregg is a consum?mate professional.”

  Aldrich's secretary, Louise Powell, testified that no matter how frantic events in the office could get, Gregg never lost his temper. “I've never heard him even raise his voice,” she swore. She testified about his relationship with Natalie. “He was crazy about her. I know he phoned her a lot after they broke up but he did that when they were married, too. She told me once that she loved having him so attentive. I think those calls were his way of showing her that he was still attentive to her. Natalie craved attention and Gregg knew it.”

  At 12:10, after Powell left the stand, Judge Stevens asked Moore if he had any further witnesses.

  “My next and final witness will be Mr. Gregg Aldrich, Your Honor.”

  “In that case, we will recess now and resume at 1:30,” the judge decreed.

  The witnesses were pretty good, Emily admitted to herself. During the lunch break she brought a sandwich and coffee to her office and closed her door. She realized that she was suddenly experiencing a drop in her emotional level. I'm going in for the kill and right now I feel sorry for him, she thought. The loving son, the single father, the guy who has a second chance at happiness and then it blows up in his face.

  Planning his activities around his daughter's schedule certainly doesn't match with my image of the playboy agent, she thought.

  If Mark and I had ever been blessed enough to have a child, would she look at me the way Katie Aldrich looks at her father? She certainly knows him better than anyone else in the world.

  Her sandwich tasted like cardboard. Is this what prison food was like? Yesterday after Jimmy was escorted back to prison, the guard had told her that Jimmy had said if he was around today he wanted a second cup of coffee and a pickle.

  He'd been a fantastic witness, Emily thought now—but what a piece of work he is!

  Gregg Aldrich looked as though he was going to faint when Jimmy talked about the drawer that squeaked. That piece of evi?dence clinched Easton's testimony. It was the first nail in the coffin, deciding the way Gregg would spend the rest of his life.

  The crazy question that kept coming through Emily's mind was, why did Gregg Aldrich go so pale when Jimmy talked about the drawer? Was it because he knew he was finished, or was it because it was so incredible to him that Jimmy Easton would have remem?bered that detail?

  Would I have remembered it? Emily asked herself, as she visual?ized Easton standing in the Park Avenue living room, contracting to commit a murder, and greedily waiting for the five thousand dollars that was about to be placed in his hands.

  Impatiently shrugging off her own questions, Emily picked up the notes she would use when she cross-examined Gregg Aldrich.

  Just Take My Heart

  25

  Step by step, Richard Moore led Gregg Aldrich through the story of his life, growing up in Jersey City, moving to Manhattan after his mother's death, success as a theatrical agent, his first marriage and the death of his first wife, then his marriage to Natalie.

  “You were married four years?” Moore asked.

  “Actually, for almost five years. We were separated, but not yet divorced, when Natalie died a year after she moved out of our apartment.”

  “How would you describe your relationship with your wife?” “Very happy.”

  “Then why did you separate?”

  “That was Natalie's choice, not mine,” Gregg explained, his voice even, his manner quiet, but seemingly confident. “She decided that our marriage wasn't working.”

  “Why did she decide that?”

  “On three occasions during our marriage, she had accepted roles in a movie or play that required her to be on location or on tour. I will certainly admit that I was sad about those separations, but I flew out frequently to see her. Katie went with me on a couple of those occasions, if they occurred during a school break or summer vacation.”

  He looked directly at the jury as he continued, “I'm a theatrical agent. I certainly knew that a successful actress has to be away from home for extended periods of time. When I objected to Natalie insisting on going into a play that would take her on the road, it was because I thought the play was wrong for her, not because I wanted her home to cook dinner for me. That was her interpretation, not mine.”

  Oh, sure, Emily thought as she scribbled a question that she would ask Aldrich when it was her turn to cross-examine him: “Weren't her career decisions smart enough that she was already a star when she met you?”

  “Did that cause tension in your home?” Moore asked.

  “Yes, it did. But not for the reason Natalie believed. I will say it again. When I objected to the quality of a script, she thought I was using that as an excuse to keep her home. Would I have missed her? Of course. I was her husband and her agent and her biggest fan, but I knew I had married a successful actress. The fact that I would miss her was not why I objected to some of the contracts she insisted on signing.”

  “Couldn't you make her understand that?”

  “That was the problem. She understood how much Katie and I missed her when she was away, and came to believe that it would be less painful if we separated and remained friends.”

  “In the beginning, isn't it true that after the separation, she planned to retain you as her agent?”

  “Initially, yes. I truly believe Natalie loved me almost as much as I loved her, and that she wanted to remain close to Katie and me. I really think she was quite sad after we had separated but while I was still her agent, when we would meet for business, then leave at the end of the meeting to go our separate ways. It became painful for both of us.”

  How about the pain in your wallet when you lost her as a client? Emily scribbled on her pad.

  “A number of Natalie's friends have testified that she was upset by your frequent phone calls to her after your separation,” Moore stated. “Would you please tell us about that?”

  “It's exactly what you heard from my secretary, Louise Powell, this morning,” Aldrich replied. “Natalie may have acted as if she didn't want me pursuing her, but I really believe she had very mixed emotions about whether to go through with the divorce. While we were together, she loved the fact that I called her frequently.”

  Moore asked about the noisy drawer where Jimmy Easton had claimed Gregg kept the money that was a down payment on his con?tract to kill Natalie.

  “That piece of furniture has been in my home since Kathleen and I bought it at an estate sale seventeen years ago. The squeak in it is something of a family joke. We called it a message from the de?parted spirits. How Jimmy Easton heard of it, I'll never know. He was never in my living room when I was there and as far as I know he was never there under any circumstances.”

  Moore asked Gregg about meeting Easton at the bar.

  “I was sitting at the bar by myself having a couple of drinks. I completely acknowledge that I was pretty down in the dumps. Easton was sitting on the stool next to me and he just started talking to me.”

  “What did you talk about?” Moore inquired.

  “We talked about the Yankees and the Mets. The baseball season was close to starting.”

  “Did you tell him that you were married to Natalie Raines?”

  “No, I did not. It was none of his business.”

  “While you were there, did he find out that yo
u were married to Natalie Raines?”

  “Yes, he did. Walter Robinson, a Broadway investor, saw me and came over. He said that he just wanted to tell me how wonderful he thought Natalie was in Streetcar. Easton heard him and picked right up on the fact that I was Natalie's husband. He told me that he had read in People magazine that we were getting a divorce. I politely told him that I did not want to discuss it.”

  Moore asked about the calls from Gregg's cell phone to Natalie and then to Easton the night they were in the bar. “I called Natalie to say hello. She was resting in her dressing room. She had a head?ache and was very tired. She was annoyed at the interruption and did raise her voice, as Mr. Easton testified. But as I said, she had mixed emotions. The day before she had stayed on the phone for twenty minutes while she told me how tough the separation was for her.”

  Moore then asked about the call to Easton's phone.

  Emily's stomach tightened because she didn't know how Aldrich would try to explain it away. His lawyer had supplied one alternate theory during cross-examination, but Gregg had given no further statements after Easton had come forward. She knew that this piece of testimony could make or break the case.

  “A little while after he asked about Natalie, Easton said he was going to the men's room. I certainly didn't care what he did, particu?larly after he asked about Natalie. At that point, I felt hungry and decided to order a hamburger and eat right at the bar. About five minutes later, Easton came back and told me that he couldn't find his cell phone and thought he might have left it somewhere in the bar. He asked me to dial his number so that the phone would ring and hopefully he would find it.”

  Gregg paused and looked toward the jury. “He gave me his num?ber and I dialed it. I could hear it ring on my phone but there was no ringing sound in the bar area. I let it ring about fifteen times so that he could walk around and see if he could locate it. I remember that no voice mail message came on, it just kept ringing. About thirty seconds later, as it was still ringing, he answered it and thanked me. He said he had found it in the men's room. That was the last I saw or heard of him until he got arrested for the house burglary and then gave the police that ridiculous story.”