Just Take My Heart

by Mary Higgins Clark

  He's probably wishing her luck, Gregg thought. Let's face it. If I'm convicted, it's a victory for both of them. Another notch in their belts. I'm sure they'll all go out and celebrate together.

  It's going to be today, he thought.

  I know it's going to be today.

  Richard and Cole Moore picked up their briefcases. Now we're off to our home away from home, Gregg thought.

  The cafeteria.

  At eleven thirty, as they were sitting at a table near the busy coffee section, Richard Moore's cell phone began to ring. Gregg and Katie had been playing Hearts. Alice Mills had been attempting to read a magazine. Cole and Richard had been reviewing other cases.

  Richard answered the phone, listened, and looked around the table. “We have a verdict,” he said. “Let's go.”

  Emily got the call as she was attempting to concentrate once again on a different file. She pushed it aside and called Ted Wesley, then, her footsteps clicking on the marble floor, she rushed out to the hall and decided to take the stairs rather than wait for the ele?vator.

  When she reached the third floor, she could see that word was already spreading that the verdict was in. People were scrambling to get a seat in the courtroom before they were all gone. She arrived at the door at the exact moment Gregg Aldrich came from the other direction. They almost collided, then both stepped back. For an instant they stared at each other, then Aldrich motioned her to precede him.

  Ted Wesley surprised Emily by sitting down next to her at the prosecutor's table. Now that he knows we've got a verdict, not a hung jury, he's pretty certain that we've got a conviction, she thought. Sc now he's front and center. She noticed that Ted had taken the time to change his tie and jacket. All spruced up for the cameras, she thought, with a trace of resentment.

  Judge Stevens came out and formally announced what everybody already knew. “Counsel, fifteen minutes ago I received a note from the jury indicating they have reached a verdict.” He turned to the sheriff's officer and said, “Bring in the jury.”

  As the jurors filed back in, everyone in the courtroom looked at them, seeking some hint of what their decision was.

  Judge Stevens addressed juror number one, Stuart Harvey. "Mr . Harvey, would you please rise? Has the jury reached verdicts in this case?

  “Yes, we have, Your Honor.”

  “And are the verdicts unanimous?”

  “Yes, they are, Your Honor.”

  The courtroom was absolutely silent.

  Judge Stevens looked at Gregg. “The defendant will rise.”

  His face impassive, Gregg Aldrich and the Moores stood up.

  Judge Stevens asked, “On count one, which charged burglary. Is your verdict guilty or not guilty?”

  “Guilty, Your Honor.”

  There was a collective gasp in the courtroom. If he's guilty o going into her home, then we've got him on everything, Emily thought. This is all or nothing.

  “On count two, murder, is your verdict guilty or not guilty?”

  “Guilty, Your Honor.”

  “No . . . no . . .” Katie Aldrich jumped up from her seat next to Alice Mills and before anyone could stop her, ran around the railing and threw her arms around her father.

  Judge Stevens looked at her, motioned gently for her to return to her seat, waited as she obeyed, then turned back to the foreman. “On count three, possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, is your verdict guilty or not guilty?”

  “Guilty, Your Honor.”

  As Emily watched, Gregg Aldrich turned and tried to comfort his sobbing daughter. Over the buzz in the courtroom she could hear him say, “Katie, it's all right. It's only the first round. I promise you that.”

  Judge Stevens, in a firm but sympathetic tone, looked at Katie and said, “Ms. Aldrich, I must ask that you compose yourself as we finish these proceedings.”

  Katie cupped her hands over her mouth and buried her face in Alice's shoulder.

  “Mr. Moore, do you wish to have the jury polled?” Judge Stevens asked.

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, your foreman has announced that you have found the defendant guilty on all counts,” the judge said. “As your name is called, please indicate how you voted, guilty or not guilty.”

  “Guilt.”

  “Guilty.”

  “Guilty.” . . . “Guilty.” . . . “Guilty.” . . .

  Two of the women jurors had tears running down their cheeks as they responded.

  Gregg Aldrich, his face deathly pale, shook his head in denial as the final juror echoed the word that had condemned him.

  His tone now brisk, Judge Stevens formally confirmed that the verdict was unanimous. He ordered that the sheriffs officer go into the jury room with the foreman, bring out the evidence, and return it to the attorneys.

  When they emerged a minute later from the jury room, Emil quickly reviewed the state's exhibits and Richard Moore the defense exhibits. Both indicated that they had everything back.

  For the last time, the judge addressed the jury. “Ladies and gen?tlemen, with the return of your verdicts, your service in this case is complete. On behalf of the judiciary and everyone connected with this case, I want to thank you very much. You have been most atten?tive. I instruct you that under our rules of court, no one connected with this case may engage in any conversation with you about your deliberations in this case or your role in the outcome. I also caution you about speaking to other people about your deliberations. Do not say anything that you would not be willing to repeat in the presence of the other jurors. Again, thank you. You are dismissed.”

  As the jurors stood up to leave, Alice Mills sprang to her feet and shouted, "I don't thank you. You have it wrong, all of you. My daugh?ter was shot and left on the floor to die, but her murderer is not in this courtroom. Gregg, my son-in-law, is innocent. He didn't do it.'

  Enraged, Alice pointed her finger at Emily. “Your witness is a liar and you know it. I saw that in your face yesterday. And don't you deny it. You know that this is a travesty and in your heart you're ashamed to be part of it. Emily, for God's sake!”

  The judge banged the gavel. “Mrs. Mills, I fully understand how sad and upset you are, and I am very sorry for you. But I must insist that you remain quiet as the jurors leave the courtroom.”

  Clearly shaken by what they had witnessed, the jurors departed.

  There was one more motion left to make. Emily stood up. “Your Honor, Mr. Aldrich has been convicted of three offenses, burglary, possession of a firearm, and murder. He is now facing life in prison and he state submits that he is a serious risk of flight. He certainly has the financial means to flee. The state moves to revoke his bail.”

  Richard Moore, his own complexion gray, responded. Knowing that his argument would be futile, he pleaded that Gregg Aldrich be allowed to go home until sentencing so that he could put his affairs in order and make arrangements for his motherless child.

  “I must agree with the prosecutor that there is considerable risk of flight,” Judge Stevens said. “Mr. Aldrich had to know that this verdict was possible and he should have made any necessary arrangements before today. The sentence will be imposed on December fifth at nine a.m. Bail is revoked. Mr. Aldrich will be taken into cus?tody.”

  His face deadly pale, Gregg Aldrich quietly obeyed the officer's instructions to place his hands behind his back. He did not change his expression as the handcuffs were placed around his wrists and snapped shut.

  As he was led from the courtroom into the holding cell, the two impressions that were burned into his mind were the intensely troubled face of Emily Wallace, and the openly satisfied smile of Prose?cutor Ted Wesley.

  Just Take My Heart

  48

  Emily did not join the victory celebration Friday night at Solari’s. Pleading exhaustion, she told Ted Wesley that before he left for Washington, she wanted to take him and Nancy out to dinner Though her fatigue was certainly real, she could not bear the thought of celebratin
g a verdict that had devastated not only Gregg Aldrich, but also his young daughter and Natalie's mother.

  “You know that this is a travesty and in your heart you're ashamed to be part of it.” The agonized accusation Alice Mills had screamed court repeated itself over and over in Emily's mind. Her sympathy Alice was mixed with anger. I've given seven months of my life to this case, she thought as she left the courthouse. Mercifully, all of the media had left and no one approached her on her way to the car.

  I wanted justice for an extraordinarily gifted human being who gave so much pleasure to so many people and who walked into her own home and was shot by an intruder, she thought.

  “I know in my heart. ...”

  What does Alice Mills know about my heart? For that matter, what do I know about my heart? It isn't even my own. My own heart was put in a dish on a surgical table, then discarded.

  The tears she had fought since Alice Mills's attack began to fall as she got into her car. She remembered what one of the reporters had said during the media barrage after the verdict. “You're going to be famous, Emily. Everybody is going to write about you. I didn't know until this morning that you'd had a heart transplant. A couple of people were talking about it. And another thing. I didn't know that your husband died in Iraq. I'm really sorry.”

  All of this is going to be splattered all over the media, Emily thought. Oh, God, I wouldn't even care that much about the heart transplant stuff, but I'd give anything to be going home to Mark right now. I could handle anything if he was with me . . .

  When she arrived home and opened the front door, the frenzied barking she could hear from the back porch was a welcome greeting that instantly lifted her spirits. As she hurried to Bess, she thought with gratitude of the unconditional love that her little dog always gave to her.

  Just Take My Heart

  49

  On Friday evening, nine hours after the verdict had been delivered, Courtside went on the air. Michael Gordon began with the dramatic clips of the guilty verdict and the outbursts of Katie Aldrich and Alice Mills. “We have a terrific show for you tonight,” he ex?claimed. “Not only will you hear from our distinguished panelists, you will also hear from members of the deliberating jury, the alter?nates who didn't get to participate, and the witness who was with Natalie Raines when she died.”

  The panelists —retired judge Bernard Reilly, former prosecutor Peter Knowles, and criminal psychologist Georgette Cassotta—all expressed surprise that the jury had been able to reach a unanimous verdict. Cassotta acknowledged that she had not thought that una?nimity was possible, given all of the problems with Jimmy Easton.

  Dorothy Winters, the disappointed alternate, did not wait for an invitation to speak. “I am furious,” she said. “This would never have happened if I had been in there. There's nothing that anybody could have said that would have changed my mind. I think the judge let the prosecutor badger Mr. Aldrich when that poor man was trying to explain why he went to Cape Cod. If you ask me, he was too good to Natalie. I didn't think she treated him very well. It was always all about her career, but he was still devoted to her and always trying to take care of her.”

  Juror number three, Norman Klinger, a civil engineer in his mid-forties, shook his head. “We examined this case from every angle,” he said flatly. “Whether or not Mr. Aldrich was too good to Natalie is not the bottom line. Jimmy Easton is what he is, but everything he said was corroborated.”

  Suzie Walsh had been thrilled to receive the phone call asking her to be on the program. She had rushed out to get her hair done and even paid to have her makeup put on at the beauty parlor. She had learned only when she arrived that there was a hair and makeup person in the studio. I could have saved the money, she thought, wistfully, especially since the lady here rebrushed my hair and toned down the makeup.

  Michael Gordon then asked her a question. “Ms. Walsh, you were the last person to see Natalie Raines alive. What are your thoughts about this verdict?”

  “At first I thought he was definitely guilty,” she said earnestly. “But then I realized that something has been bothering me all along. You see, she was still alive when I found her. She didn't open her eyes but she was moaning. I think she understood that I was calling to get help for her. If she knew who had shot her, and by that 1 mean her husband, why didn't she whisper that to me? In my opinion she knew she was dying. Wouldn't she want the person who did this to her to get caught?”

  “Exactly,” Dorothy Winters chimed in.

  “Ms. Walsh, you must understand that all of this was thoroughly discussed in the jury room,” Klinger told her. “You say yourself that Natalie Raines was dying. You said she never opened her eyes. The fact that she was moaning does not mean that she had any ability to communicate with you.”

  “She was aware of me. I'm sure of it,” Suzie insisted. “And any?how, I didn't think people could moan when they were uncon?scious.”

  “I am not saying she was necessarily completely unconscious. But she was gravely injured, and again, we did not think that she had any ability to communicate.”

  “They were separated for over a year. Maybe there was another boyfriend in the picture nobody knew about,” Dorothy Winters said stubbornly. “Don't forget she had hinted to Gregg Aldrich there someone else. That's why he went to Cape Cod to check it out. Or maybe it was some crazy fun? She may have had an unlisted tele?phone number, but anybody could have gotten her address and a map to her house off the Internet. Just look it up. It's the easiest thing in the world to do.”

  “The defense attorney didn't talk much at all about the possibil?ity of another boyfriend,” Donald Stern, the other alternate juror, pointed out. “If there was such a guy, even if he wasn't at Cape Cod, it still doesn't mean that he didn't know his way around the house in New Jersey. Frankly, I was still leaning to a guilty vote, but if I'd been in the deliberations with Mrs. Winters, I might have been persuaded to change my mind. And listening here, I'm very sure she wouldn't have changed hers.”

  Hearing this exchange, Michael Gordon wondered aloud at the monumental twist of fate that had occurred when the court clerk pulled out Dorothy Winters's card, making her an alternate. “Gregg Aldrich is in a jail cell tonight,” he said, “facing a life sentence. If Dorothy Winters had been in that jury room, he would have had a hung jury and he'd be having dinner at home with his daughter to?night.”

  “Life is full of twists and turns that end up having enormous con?sequences,” Judge Reilly agreed. “The cards that a court clerk ran?domly pulls out, keeping two jurors like Mrs. Winters and Mr. Stern out of the deliberations, have undoubtedly changed the outcome of some criminal trials, as we're seeing here.”

  When the program ended and Mike was back in his office, he found a note propped up on his phone. It read: “Mike, some woman phoned. Wouldn't give her name. Had no caller I.D. Wants to know if there's a reward for information about who Jimmy Easton was working for when he was in the Aldrich apartment. Would you find out and mention it on your show next week?”

  Just Take My Heart

  50

  With an ever increasing sense of urgency, Zach spent most Saturday searching for a car. He had no intention of going to a dealership where there would be a trail of documents for the Motor Vehicle Department. Instead he responded to the classified ads list used cars and the owners' telephone numbers.

  He had seen the television news last night and the newspaper t morning, all filled with pictures and stories about the Aldrich verdict. He worried that there was so much publicity about Emily. He knew what could happen. Some reporter could do a follow-up story on her standing in front of her house and catch me on camera when I'm outside and didn't notice them coming. I could end up in the national news. Somebody, somewhere, could recognize me.

  I have to be ready to leave.

  The last ad he had responded to turned out to be exactly what wanted. The dark brown van was eight years old but in pretty decent shape. It was the kind of vehicle that wouldn't attract
attention, one would even look at it twice. Just like me, he thought bitterly.

  The owner, Henry Link, lived in Rochelle Park, a nearby town. He was an elderly man who liked to chat. “This was my wife, Edith’s car,” he explained. “She's been in a nursing home for six month always hoped she would be able to come home, but that's never going to happen. We had a lot of good times in it.”

  He was smoking a pipe. The air in the small kitchen was heavy with the odor of stale smoke. “Not that we went very far,” he emphasized. “That's why the mileage is so low. We just drove up the Hud?son a little way in good weather, then found a place to have a picnic lunch. She made the best fried chicken and potato salad in the world! And . . .”

  Zach had been sitting across from him at the kitchen table for fifteen minutes, listening to the seemingly endless details of Henry's life with Edith. Unable to waste any more time, he stood up abruptly. “Mr. Link, your ad said four thousand dollars for the van, as is. I'll give you three thousand in cash right now. I'll take care of turning in the license plates and registering the other paperwork. You won't have to be bothered with any of it.”

  “All right,” Henry said, sensing that, as usual, he had lost his audience. “That's fair, seeing that you have the cash. Thanks for doing the paperwork. I hate standing in those long lines at the Motor Ve?hicle place. When do you want to pick it up? I mean, you can't drive two cars at once. You gonna come back with a friend?”

  I don't have any, Zach thought, and if I did, they wouldn't know about this. “Leave it in the driveway and give me the keys. I'll get a ride back later tonight and pick it up. I won't even have to ring the doorbell.”

  “That'll work fine,” Henry Link answered, heartily. “That will give me time to take Edith's things out of the car. You know, like her St. Christopher medal that's hanging from the visor. Unless you'd like to have it yourself. It kept her safe.”