I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [96]
Her feet leaden, Zan allowed herself to be walked through a nearby door. It opened onto a narrow passage. At the end of it was an empty cell with an open toilet and a bench. At the slight prodding of the uniformed officer, she stepped inside the cell and heard the key turn in the lock behind her.
No Exit, she thought wildly, remembering the Sartre play by that name. I played the role of the adulteress in it in college. No exit. No exit. She turned and looked at the bars, then tentatively put her hands on them. My God, how can it have come to this? she thought. Why? Why?
She stood there unmoving for nearly half an hour, then Charley Shore returned. “I spoke to the bail bondsman, Zan,” he said. “Willy should be here in a few minutes. He has to sign a few papers, turn over the deed, pay the fee, and you’ll be out of here. I know how it must feel for you, but this is the moment your lawyer, meaning me, knows what we’re up against and starts to fight.”
“An insanity defense? Isn’t that what you’re thinking, Charley? I’ll bet it is. In the office before you got there, Josh and I had the television in the back room on. The CNN anchor was interviewing a doctor who specialized in multiple personalities. In his brilliant opinion, I may be a very likely candidate for that kind of defense. Then he cited a case where the defense pleaded that the core person did not know what the personality who committed crimes was doing.
“You know what the judge said to that defense argument, Charley?” Zan shrieked. He said, “I don’t care how many personalities that woman has. They all have to obey the law!”
Charley Shore looked into Zan’s blazing eyes and knew there was no way he could either reassure or comfort her.
He decided not to insult her by attempting to do either.
64
Gloria Evans, born Margaret Grissom, called Glory” by her adoring father, stage name Brittany La Monte, was not sure if she could believe that it really would be over within forty-eight hours. A thousand times in these nearly two years she had whispered, “If only,” to herself during sleepless nights when she had begun to realize the enormity of her crime.
Suppose it doesn’t work out? she thought. Suppose they do track me down? I’ll go to prison for the rest of my life. What’s six hundred thousand dollars? It will only last me a couple of years by the time I get set up, buy new clothes, have new pictures made, take some more acting lessons, and try to get a publicist and an agent. He said he could introduce me to people in Hollywood, but what good were all the people he introduced me to in New York? Zip.
And Matty. He was such a nice little kid. I knew I’d mess myself up if I got too tight with him, Glory thought, but how can you not like the kid?
I love the boy, she thought, as she packed the clothes that were the same as the ones Zan Moreland wore. By God, I’m good, she thought with a tight-lipped grin. I pay attention to detail. Moreland is a little taller than I am. I had an extra lift put on the heels on those sandals just in case anyone got a picture of me when I took the kid.
Warming to her self-congratulatory stream of thought as she packed her suitcases, Glory remembered how she had worked on that wig to get her hair just right, the color and the blunt cut. Glory padded the shoulders of that dress because Moreland was more broad shouldered than she was. I bet right now the cops are doing all that digital stuff and they’ll come back saying that no way was the woman in the picture not Moreland. My makeup was perfect, too.
She looked around the bedroom with its bleak white walls, tired oak furniture, and rag of a carpet. “And what the hell did it all get me?” she asked aloud. Two years of jackassing from one hidden house to another. Two years of leaving Matty locked up in the closet while I went to the store or once in a while to a movie. Or to New York, to make it look like Moreland had been some place or other.
That guy could break into Fort Knox, she thought as she remembered how one day he had met