I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [70]
“That was by far the longest.”
“Wouldn’t it have been reasonable to phone and ask if you had been mistaken about the time and place of your meeting?”
“I knew the time and place she had told me. You don’t remind the Nina Aldriches of this world that they may have made a mistake.”
“So you stood or sat there for an hour or more before she finally called you?”
“I was going over my sketches and the pictures of antique furniture and chandeliers and sconces that I was planning to show her. In a few cases, I was choosing between several selections as my top recommendations. The time went quickly.”
“I understand there was almost no furniture in the town house,” Collins commented.
“A card table and two folding chairs,” Zan answered.
“So you sat at the card table for more than an hour going over your sketches?”
“No. I went up to the master bedroom on the third floor. I wanted to check once more and see how the patterns I had chosen worked in the strong sunlight. Remember the day was unusually warm and sunny.”
“Would you have heard Mrs. Aldrich if she had come in while you were on the third floor?” Jennifer Dean asked.
“She would have seen my portfolio and sketches as soon as she walked through the door,” Zan said.
“You had your own key to the town house, Ms. Moreland?”
“Of course. I was submitting plans to decorate the entire house from top to bottom. I went back and forth regularly for weeks.”
“You got to know the house pretty well, then, didn’t you?”
“I would think that’s obvious,” Zan snapped.
“Including the basement with its second kitchen, wine cellar, and storage room. Were you planning to decorate the storage room?”
“That space was large and dark and virtually inaccessible. It was really a kind of subcellar reached by a door at the back of the wine cellar. There were plenty of other storage areas in closets throughout the house. I suggested painting the room, putting in good lighting, and building shelves to accommodate items like skis for Mrs. Aldrich’s step-grandchildren.”
“It would have made a pretty good hiding place if someone wanted to hide something—or someone — wouldn’t it?” Jennifer Dean asked.
“Don’t answer that question, Zan,” Charley Shore ordered.
Billy Collins did not look disturbed. “Ms. Moreland, when did you give Mrs. Aldrich her key back?”
“It was about two weeks after Matthew disappeared. That was when she wrote the note saying that she thought the stress of Matthew’s disappearance would be too much for me to handle the job.”
“In those two weeks, did you still think you had the job?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Could you have handled it, given the fact that your son was missing?”
“Yes, I could have handled it. In fact, concentrating on it was the only way I thought I could preserve my sanity.”
“Then you went back and forth often to that empty house after your son disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Did you go there to visit Matthew?”
Zan jumped up from the chair. “Are you crazy?” she demanded.
“Are you trying to tell me that you think I kidnapped my own child and hid him in that storage room?”
“Zan, sit down,” Charley Shore said firmly.
“Ms. Moreland, as you have said several times, that is a large town house. Why would you suggest that we think you hid Matthew in the storage room?”
“Because you are suggesting it,” Zan cried. “You are insinuating that I stole my own child, brought him back to that house, and hid him there. Why are you wasting your time? Why aren’t you finding out who doctored those photos to make them look as though I’m taking Matthew from the stroller? Don’t you understand that’s the key to finding my son?”
Detective Dean shot back at her, “Ms. Moreland, our tech people have gone over the photographs very carefully. They are not ‘doctored,’ as you put it. These photos have not been altered.”
Try as she would, Zan could not hold back the sobs that racked her shoulders. “Then someone is impersonating me. Why is this happening?” she cried. “Why don’t you listen to me? Bartley Longe hates me. From the minute I opened my own firm, I took business