I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [37]
The detectives looked at each other. Was Moreland possibly that manipulative? they both wondered. “Tiffany, you never suggested the day Matthew disappeared — or any time after that when we spoke to you — that you had been drugged,” Jennifer Dean reminded her calmly.
“I was hysterical. I was so scared. All those people and cameras around and then Zan and Mr. Carpenter coming, and I knew they were blaming me.”
Because of the heat, the park had been unusually crowded that day, Billy thought. If Moreland had waited her chance, then casually walked past the stroller and picked up Matthew, no one would have thought it unusual. Even if Matthew had awakened, he wouldn’t have cried. We attributed Moreland’s calm to shock. When Ted Carpenter arrived on the scene, he did what most fathers in his position would have done. He tore into the babysitter for falling asleep.
“I’ve got a class,” Tiffany said, as she stood up. “I can’t be late for it.”
“We don’t want you to be late for it, Tiffany,” Billy agreed, as he and Jennifer rose from the hallway bench where they had been sitting.
“Detective Collins, those photos prove that Zan Moreland took Matthew and set me up to be the fall guy. You don’t have a clue how miserable these two years have been for me. Try listening to my 911 call to you. You can still find it on the Internet.”
“Tiffany, we can understand how you feel.” Jennifer Dean’s tone was soothing.
“No, you can’t. No one can. But do you think Matthew might still be alive?”
“We have no reason to think that he is not alive,” Billy hedged.
“Well, if he’s not, I just hope that that lying, lousy mother of his spends the rest of her rotten life in a jail cell. Just promise me that I get a front seat at her trial. I’ve earned it.”
Tiffany spat out the words.
27
He had put the plan in motion. Step by step he was now bringing it to a head. He knew it was time. Gloria was getting too restless. Also, he had made a terrible mistake when he told her that it would be necessary to kill Zan and make it look like a suicide. Gloria had only gotten into it for the money he promised her. She didn’t understand that it would not be enough simply to make Alexandra Moreland dangle in the wind to public ridicule.
He would not be happy until Zan was dead.
Last night when he called Gloria, he told her that he was planning to have her come back to the church with him soon, but he didn’t tell her why. She started to object, and he shouted her down. He didn’t tell her that he planned to get rid of the old priest and that she had to be caught looking like Zan on the security cameras.
Zan’s suicide would be believable.
The plan was that on the same day, Gloria would abandon Matthew in a public place where he would be noticed. He could see the headlines already: MISSING CHILD FOUND HOURS AFTER MOTHER’S SUICIDE.
He could savor the story that would follow. “Alexandra ‘Zan’ Moreland was found dead in her apartment in Battery Park City, an apparent suicide. The troubled interior designer, suspected of kidnapping her own child …”
Those photos that the tourist has taken. Why had they come to light now? The timing couldn’t be worse. On the other hand, they could be a magnificent, unexpected gift.
He had pored over them himself, studied them, enlarged them on his computer. Gloria looked just like Zan. If the cops believed they were authentic, Zan’s denials about making all the purchases to her credit cards would only be one more proof that she was crazy, that she had staged the kidnapping herself.
By now they were undoubtedly wondering if she might have done away with her own child.
But if the cops, or anyone else, could find one single discrepancy in those photos, they wouldn’t believe that any of the rest was true. The whole thing would fall apart.
Would they interview the babysitter again?
Of course they would.
Would they interview Nina