Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [107]
Two and a half years ago, in the early stages of the investigation into Natalie's murder, Billy Tryon had gone to the Manhattan Dis?trict Attorney's Office to review the reports in the Evans case and determine if there could be even a remote connection. He had cop?ied the major reports and had brought them back to New Jersey. In?cluded had been a police artist's sketch of a possible suspect, which had been drawn from Natalie's description of the picture she had seen in Jamie's wallet.
The sketch depicted a white male in his midthirties with longish blond hair. He was attractive in a scholarly way, with thick brows and rimless glasses covering oval-shaped brown eyes.
The District Attorney's Office was located in lower Manhattan at 1 Hogan Place. Emily parked in a garage nearby and walked through the crowded streets to that address. She had phoned ahead to the Captain of Detectives, who had assigned veteran Detective Steve Murphy to retrieve the Jamie Evans file and assist Emily when she arrived.
In the lobby, a clerk called up to Murphy, who verified the ap?pointment. Emily was then permitted to pass through security. The detective was waiting for her when she got off the elevator on the ninth floor. A pleasant-faced man of about fifty with close-cropped hair, he greeted her with a warm smile.
“Haven't you got enough crime in New Jersey without coming over here to solve our twenty-year-old cases?” he asked genially.
Emily liked him immediately. “We've got more than enough crime in New Jersey,” she agreed. “Feel free to solve ours anytime.”
“I have the Evans file in one of our offices near the squad room.”
“Fine.”
“I took a look at it while I was waiting for you,” Murphy said, as they walked down the hall. “We figured it was a robbery gone wrong. She probably resisted giving him anything. Three other women were mugged in the park around that same time. Evans was the only one killed.”
“That's what I understand,” Emily told him.
“Here we are. Not the most palatial surroundings.”
“I assure you, neither are ours.” Emily followed Murphy into a small room furnished with only a battered desk, two unsteady-looking chairs, and a file cabinet.
“The Evans file is on the desk. Take your time. We can copy any?thing you want. I'll be back in a minute. I need to make a couple of calls.”
“Of course. I promise I won't be too long.”
Emily didn't know quite what she was looking for. I'm like the judge who was trying to decide a pornography case, she thought. He said, “I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.”
She read quickly through the stack of detective reports in the file. She had already seen a number of them, since they had been in the packet that Billy Tryon had brought back. Jamie Evans had been at?tacked early in the morning and strangled. She had been dragged from the jogging path to an area behind thick bushes. Her watch, pendant, and ring were gone. Her wallet was emptied of cash and credit cards, and was discovered on the grass beside her. Her credit cards have never been used.
At the time of her roommate's murder, Natalie Raines gave the police a physical description of the man in the picture she had seen only once in Jamie's wallet. She told them that Jamie had confided to her that the man she was secretly seeing was married, but had promised to get a divorce. Natalie had indicated that she believed the man, whom she had never met and whose name she didn't even know, was stringing Jamie along.
Natalie had suspected so strongly that Jamie's death may have been caused by this mysterious boyfriend that the detectives had taken her down to the District Attorney's Office so that they could do the sketch.
So far, nothing, Emily thought. I've seen all this before. But then when she got to the police artist's sketch, her mouth went dry. The sketch in the folder Billy Tryon had brought to New Jersey was not the same as the one in the New York file.
This man was handsome, about thirty years old with blue eyes,