I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [100]
“All right, Zan, that may be a good lead. I’ll try to get to the housekeeper. I’m good at making friends with someone like that. Don’t forget I was a cleaning woman for years.” Alvirah hurried to get the pad and pen on the shelf under the kitchen phone.
When she returned, Zan said, “And, please talk to Tiffany Shields, the babysitter. She asked for a Pepsi and when I went to get it she followed me into the kitchen. She took it out of the refrigerator and opened it herself. I never touched it. She asked me if I had any cold pills. I gave her a Tylenol for colds. I’ve never had the Tylenol with a sedative in my home. Now she’s decided that’s what I gave her.”
The phone rang. “It always rings when we’re about to have dinner,” Willy grunted, as he went to pick it up.
An instant later his expression changed. “Oh my God! What hospital? We’ll go right over. Thanks, Father.”
Willy replaced the receiver, then turned to Alvirah and Zan who were staring at him.
“Who, Willy?” Alvirah asked, her hand over her heart.
“Fr. Aiden. Some guy with a lot of heavy black hair shot him in the Reconciliation Room. He’s in NYU Hospital, Alvirah. He’s in intensive care. His condition is critical. He may not last through the night.”
67
Alvirah, Willy, and Zan had stayed at the hospital outside the intensive care unit until three in the morning. Two other Franciscan friars were there, keeping watch with them. They had all been allowed to stand at Fr. O’Brien’s bedside for a moment.
His chest was swathed in bandages. A breathing tube covered most of his face. Intravenous fluid was dripping into his arm. But the doctor now was cautiously optimistic. Miraculously, all three bullets had missed his heart. While his condition was extremely critical, his vital signs were improving. “I’m not sure if he can hear you, but talk to him briefly,” the doctor said.
Alvirah whispered, “Fr. Aiden, we love you.”
Willy said, “Come on, Padre. You’ve got to get better.”
Zan covered Fr. Aiden’s hand with hers. “It’s Zan, Father. With all that’s going on, I know it is your prayers that have given me hope. Now I’m praying for you.”
When they left the hospital, Alvirah and Willy took Zan home in a cab. Alvirah waited in it while Willy saw her to the door of her apartment. When he returned, he grunted, “It’s too cold for the vultures. Not a camera in sight.”
* * *
They slept until nine o’clock the next morning. On awakening Alvi-rah grabbed the phone and called the hospital. “Fr. Aiden is holding his own,” she reported. “Oh, Willy, I knew when I saw that guy in the church Monday night that he was trouble. If only we could have gotten a good look at him on the security camera, we might have been able to identify him.”
“Well, the police are sure going over that security camera with a fine-tooth comb now to see if they got a better view of him last night,” Willy assured her.
Over breakfast, they looked at the front page of the tabloids. Both the Post and the News had a picture of Zan, leaving the courthouse with Charley Shore. Her denial, ι AM NOT THE WOMAN IN THOSE PHOTOS, was the headline of the News. “NOT ME,” SCREAMS ZAN, read the Post headline. The Post photographer had gotten a close-up that revealed the agonized expression that accompanied her words.
Alvirah cut the Post front page and folded it. “Willy, it’s Saturday, so maybe that babysitter is home. Anyhow, Zan gave me her address and phone number. But instead of calling, I’m just going to go there. Zan said that Tiffany Shields took the Pepsi from the refrigerator herself. That means there’s no way Zan could have tampered with it. And as for the cold pill, Zan says she never bought the kind that has a sedative. You heard her. That young woman fell asleep when she was minding Matthew and now is trying to