Just Take My Heart

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Mike, Alice Mills called while Katie and I were having dinner. Alice told me that when I was on the stand today, she understood what I was saying. She absolutely believes that I was looking out for Natalie, not spying on her. She was crying and said how much she has missed Katie and me, and that she bitterly regrets ever thinking that I could have hurt Natalie.”

  Mike saw that there was a difference in Gregg; a sort of calm had come over him.

  “Alice told me that she has always considered Katie as her granddaughter. If I am convicted, she wants to be with Katie. She wants to take care of her. I told Alice that she was like a gift from heaven. W talked for a few minutes. Alice agreed that she would move here if things don't go well in court.”

  “Gregg, I guess that I should be stunned, but I'm really not,” Mi?chael said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I could tell when Alice testified, and as I have watched her every day in court, that her guts were being torn out. I could almost sense her wanting to help you when Emily Wallace was beating on you.”

  “I know it sounds insane, Mike,” Gregg said quietly, “but what so upset me today was I felt as if I were trying to explain to Natalie why I followed her to Cape Cod.”

  Just Take My Heart

  41

  Zach had concocted a story to tell Emily and any of the other neighbors who might nosily inquire about the change of plants in his walkway. He planned to say it was the first time he had ever planted mums, that they had brought on a severe asthma attack, and that one of his friends had dug them up for him. He was almost sure that since it had been dark when he removed them, no one could have seen him.

  It's a pretty believable excuse, he decided nervously—anyway, it was the best he could do.

  On Tuesday morning he watched Emily having breakfast just before seven a.m. As usual, she was talking to Bess. The recording device he had planted over the refrigerator was acting up, but he could still hear most of what she was saying.

  “Bess, after the judge instructs the jury this morning, then they start to deliberate. I'm fairly certain that they're going to convict him, but I wish I could feel good about it. For some reason I keep thinking about the other side of the picture. I hate knowing h much depends on Jimmy Easton's testimony. I wish I had one speck of DNA to prove that Gregg Aldrich is guilty.”

  If I ever come to trial, the prosecutor won't have that problem. Zach thought, as he remembered the Fugitive Hunt episode. The host had talked about the DNA that connected him to the murders of his three wives.

  As Emily's voice began to crackle and fade, he fiddled with the volume on his receiver. I'm losing her, he thought, frustrated. I'm going to have to get back in there somehow and adjust the micro?phone.

  He waited until seven forty, when Emily left for court, before he got into his own car to drive to work. Madeline Kirk, the elderly woman who lived directly across the street from him, was sweeping her walk. He gave her a friendly wave as he backed out of his driveway.

  She did not return it. Instead she turned her head and looked away.

  Another woman rejecting him. They're all alike, Zach thought bitterly. That old bag wouldn't even give me the time of day. The couple of other times he had seen her outside, he thought she had at least nodded in his direction.

  He pressed his foot on the accelerator, and the cat roared past her. Then a chilling possibility occurred to him. Maybe she saw that show? She's certainly got nothing else to do. She lives alone and never seems to have any visitors. Maybe she noticed the mums when I planted them, and wondered why they were gone.

  Would she call in a tip to the show? Or would she think about it before she did it? Does she talk to anybody on the phone? Would she bring it up?

  He was driving too fast. All I need is to be stopped by a cop, he thought nervously. As he slowed to the twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit, he was going over and over the way Madeline Kirk had rebuffed him.

  And deciding what to do about it.

  Just Take My Heart

  42

  On Tuesday morning at nine a.m. Judge Stevens began his leg instructions to the jury. He explained, as he had done when the jury was initially being selected, that Gregg Aldrich was charged with the burglary of Natalie Raines's home, the murder of Natalie Rail and possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose. He instructed them that in order to convict Gregg Aldrich, they must be unani?mously convinced that the prosecutor had proven his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

  “I will define for you what we mean by the phrase 'beyond a rea?sonable doubt,' ” the judge continued. “It means that in order to convict, you must be firmly convinced that the defendant is guilty. If you are not firmly convinced of guilt, then you must find him not guilty.”

  Emily listened as the judge explained this burden of proof.

  You must be firmly convinced that Gregg Aldrich is guilty, Emily thought. Am I firmly convinced? Do I have a reasonable doubt? I have never felt this way trying a case. I have never argued to a jury to convict someone when I wasn't completely sure myself. But the truth here, she thought, is that sometimes I have a reasonable doubt about Aldrich, and sometimes I don't.

  She looked over at him. For a man who had been so distraught yesterday, and who was facing the possibility of being in a jail cell tonight if there was a quick verdict, he seemed remarkably com?posed. He was wearing a jacket and slacks, with a blue shirt and a striped blue and red tie, a somewhat more casual outfit than he had been wearing during the trial. It becomes him, she thought reluc?tantly.

  Judge Stevens continued to address the jurors: “You must care?fully weigh and evaluate the credibility of each of the witnesses. You should consider the manner in which they testified and whether they had any interest in the outcome of this case.”

  He paused, his tone becoming even more serious. “You have heard the testimony of Jimmy Easton. You have heard about his prior criminal record. You have learned that he has cooperated with the prosecutor and that he will receive a benefit as a result of his cooperation. He will receive a substantial reduction in his own sen?tence.”

  Emily was studying the seven men and seven women in the jury box. She wondered which two would be randomly selected to be?come the alternates after Judge Stevens was finished. She hoped that jurors number four and eight would end up as the alternates. Both women seemed to cringe when the judge referred to the reduction in Easton's sentence. She knew that they could picture him ransack?ing their own homes. She doubted very much that they would be?lieve a word that he said.

  She looked back up at Judge Stevens. She was grateful for his businesslike tone when he spoke about Jimmy Easton. If the jurors detected even a hint of disapproval of his testimony, it could be very-damaging.

  “You will consider that substantial reduction,” the judge was say?ing, “as well as all of the surrounding circumstances, when evaluat?ing his testimony. This testimony must be scrutinized carefully. As with any other witness, you may believe all of it or you may believe none of it. Or, you may believe some of it and reject the remainder. Again, ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate determination of the cred?ibility of his testimony is completely up to this jury.”

  This morning the courtroom was less than half full. There is no excitement for spectators in hearing the legal instructions to the jury. Emily thought. The real drama is in the testimony during the trial — and in that moment when the jury files back in with the verdict.

  Judge Stevens smiled at the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have completed my legal instructions to you. We now have reached the point where I know that it's going to be very disappointing for two of you. We are now going to select the alternates. Your juror cards have been placed in this box, and the court clerk will now randomly select two cards. If your name is called, please have a seat in the front row and I will then give you further instructions.”

  Emily crossed her fingers under the table and prayed that the num?bers four and eight would come up. The court clerk, a slight woman of about fifty, her express
ion emotionless and professional, rotated the box and, when it had stopped, opened the top, looked away so that the jurors could be assured this was random, and took out the first card. “Juror number fourteen,” she read, “Donald Stern.”

  “Mr. Stern, please sit in the front row of the courtroom,” Judge Stevens directed. “The clerk may now indicate the second alter?nate.”

  Once again looking away, the clerk reached in the box and retrieved a second card. “Juror number twelve, Dorothy Winters,” she read.

  “Ms. Winters, please sit in the front row of the courtroom,” Judge Stevens said.

  An obviously reluctant and visibly frustrated Dorothy Winters rose from her juror chair and, shaking her head, walked to the front row and sat down next to Donald Stern.

  Turns out I really dodged a bullet getting rid of that lady, Emily thought. From the way she's been looking sympathetically at Aldrich and Katie, she probably would have led the charge to acquit.

  Emily only half listened as Judge Stevens addressed the alter?nates, telling them that they would remain with the case. He ex?plained that if any of the deliberating jurors became ill or had a family emergency that prevented them from continuing, it was important that alternates still be available to deliberate.

  “You are instructed not to discuss the case between yourselves or with anyone else until all of the proceedings are finished. You can remain in the central jury room on the fourth floor while the delib?erations are ongoing.”

  God forbid that any juror has a problem and Winters ends up deliberating, Emily thought. Unless I'm totally misreading her, she would have ended up causing a hung jury, at the very least. And I think both of the Moores know that. They look as if they've just lost their best friend.

  Judge Stevens then addressed juror number one, a heavyset, bald?ing man in his early forties. “Mr. Harvey, our rules of court provide that juror number one serves as the foreperson of the jury. You will be responsible for overseeing the deliberations and for delivering the verdict when the jury has reached its decision. When the jury has reached its verdict, you will send me a note by handing it to the sher?iff's officer who will be stationed just outside the jury deliberation room. Do not indicate in this note what the verdict is, but only that you have reached a verdict. The verdict will be announced by you in open court.”

  The judge glanced at his watch. “It is now eleven fifteen. Lunch will be delivered to you around twelve thirty. Today you may delib?erate until four thirty. If you have not reached a verdict by that time, and I stress that you should take all the time that you reasonably need to be fair to both sides, I will release you overnight and you will resume your deliberations at nine o'clock tomorrow morning.”

  He turned to Emily. “Ms. Wallace, is all of the evidence ready to go into the jury room?”

  “Yes, Your Honor, it's all here.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you may now go into the jury room. The officer will immediately bring the evidence in to you. As soon as he leaves the room, you may begin your deliberations.”

  Almost in unison, the jurors stood up and slowly filed into the immediate adjacent jury room. Emily watched intently to see if there were backward glances, either sympathetic or hostile, directed at Gregg Aldrich by any of them. But they all looked straight ahead and gave no clues at that moment as to how they might be thinking.

  Judge Stevens then quickly reminded the attorneys and Gregg Aldrich that they must all be on a ten-minute call for any jury request, or for a verdict. “Court is adjourned,” he concluded, lightly, tapping his gavel on the bench.

  The remaining spectators began to file out. Emily waited until the Moores, Gregg Aldrich, and Katie had left the courtroom. Then she got up to go. Outside in the corridor, she felt a tug on her sleeve and turned. It was Natalie's mother, Alice Mills. She was alone.

  “Ms. Wallace, may I speak to you?”

  “Of course.” Compassion filled Emily as she looked at the red-rimmed eyes of the older woman. She's been doing a lot of crying she thought. It's got to have been agony for her to sit here day after day and listen to all of this. “Why don't we go down to my office and have a cup of tea?” she suggested.

  The elevator was crowded. Emily caught the interested looks of the other people in it as they recognized Natalie's mother.

  As they walked into her office, Emily said, “Mrs. Mills, I know this has been torture for you. I'm so glad that we're near the end.”

  “Ms. Wallace . . . ,” Alice Mills began.

  “Please call me Emily, Mrs. Mills,” Emily smiled. “I thought we had agreed on that.”

  “All right,” Alice Mills replied. “It's Emily. And remember I had asked you to call me Alice.” Alice's lips were quivering.

  “Why don't I get us that tea?” Emily asked. “How do you take it?”

  When she returned a couple of minutes later, Alice Mills seemed composed. With a murmured thank-you, she accepted the cup and took a sip.

  Emily waited. Obviously Natalie's mother was nervous about whatever she was going to say.

  “Emily, I don't know quite how to put this. And I know you've worked so hard and I know you want justice for Natalie. Heaven knows, so do I. But yesterday when you were questioning Gregg, I know that to a lot of people he came off terribly. But I was seeing something different.”

  Emily could feel her throat closing. She had thought Alice Mills was coming to tell her how much she had appreciated Emily's efforts to convict Gregg. That obviously wasn't going to happen.

  “I was remembering all the times when Natalie was in rehearsal and was upset or anxious about how it was going. Gregg would qui?etly slip into the theatre and watch her. Sometimes she didn't even know it because he didn't want to interrupt her or distract her. Other times, when she was on the road, he would drop everything and fly out to see her because he knew she needed reassurance. Yesterday, when he was on the witness stand, explaining what he did in Cape Cod, I realized it was Gregg doing what he had always done. He was protecting Natalie.”

  “But, Alice, didn't all that happen under very different circum?stances? Wasn't that before Natalie separated from him and then filed for divorce?”

  “Gregg never stopped loving Natalie and never stopped trying to protect her. The Gregg that I saw on the witness stand yesterday is the Gregg that I have always known. Emily, I have thought this whole thing through until I almost can't think anymore. There is absolutely no way that Gregg could have ever hurt Natalie and then left her to die. I will go to my grave believing that.”

  “Alice,” Emily said, gently, “I'm going to say this with the deepest respect for you. When a tragedy like this happens, and a family member is accused, it is often almost impossible to accept that the family member could be responsible. In a terrible and sad sort a way, in a crime like this, it is more merciful if it had been committed, by a stranger. At least then the victim's family endures it together.”

  “Emily, I don't care about other cases. I beg you, if Gregg is found guilty, to investigate this further. Can't you see for yourself what can so plainly see? Jimmy Easton is a liar.”

  Alice stood up defiantly and glared at her.

  “And why do I think that you know that, too, Emily?” she asked.

  Just Take My Heart

  43

  On Tuesday night, Michael Gordon opened the discussion on Courtside by indicating that the jury had completed its first day of deliberations without reaching a verdict. “We're now going to reveal the results of the voting on our Web site and where our viewers stand on whether Gregg Aldrich is guilty or not guilty.”

  He looked around at the other members of the panel. “And quite frankly, I think we are all surprised. Last night after Aldrich was cross-examined, and we believed that he had stumbled badly, we fully expected that the poll numbers would weigh heavily for a guilty verdict.”

  Clearly buoyed by what he was saying, Gordon announced that forty-seven percent of the four hundred thousand respondents had actually voted not guilty. �
�Only fifty-three percent are ready to convict,” he said dramatically.

  “After all these years in the business, you think you have a pretty good feel for how people are reacting and then you get a result like this,” Judge Bernard Reilly said, shaking his head. “But there's an?other thing being in the business a long time also teaches you: You just never know.”

  “If the prosecutor, Emily Wallace, happens to be watching, she can't be too thrilled. A bare majority doesn't cut it in the criminal courts,” Michael Gordon said. "Any verdict, guilty or not guilty, must be unanimous, twelve to zero either way.

  “If the jurors are thinking like our viewers, we are headed hung jury and a retrial.”

  Just Take My Heart

  44

  The jurors resumed their deliberations at nine o'clock on Wednesday morning. Emily tried to concentrate on some of her other files but could not. Her exchange with Alice Mills yesterday had caused her a troubled night's sleep.

  At noon, she went to the courthouse cafeteria to pick up a sandwich and bring it back to her desk. But when she got there she was sorry she had not asked someone else in the office to go for her. Gregg Aldrich, his daughter, Katie, Richard and Cole Moore, and Alice Mills were seated at a table she had to pass to get to the lunch counter.

  “Good afternoon,” she murmured quietly as she went by. She tried to avoid making direct eye contact with them but could not help but see the tearful anguish on young Katie's face.

  She doesn't deserve this, Emily thought. No fourteen-year-old does. She's smart enough to understand that at any moment we could be summoned back to the courtroom and hear a verdict that may send her father to prison for the rest of his life.

  Emily ordered a turkey sandwich and a diet soda. Back in her of?fice, she nibbled at the sandwich, then put it down. Though she had felt hungry a few minutes ago, seeing Katie Aldrich had taken away any semblance of an appetite.