Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [111]
The phone rang three times and then a message came on. “This is Alice Mills. I can be reached at 212-555-8456.” She's probably been staying with Katie at the Aldrich apartment, Emily thought.
Emily's mind was filled with the memory of the day Alice Mills had come to her office and had sat across the table from her in her black suit, heartbroken but composed. I put my arms around her before she left, Emily remembered.
I wanted so much to help her stop hurting.
Realizing the incredible irony of dialing the apartment of a de?fendant whom she had just prosecuted and whose case was still open, Emily heard the generic voice say that no one was available and to please leave a message. “Alice, it's Emily. I really need to talk to you. On the stand Gregg testified that he thought that Natalie seemed frightened. You never brought that up so maybe you don't agree. It just occurred to me that she went to Cape Cod right after her last night at the theatre. I know that people she worked with gave statements but I want to look into that area again. I think that maybe we will find something important there.”
A roundabout way of saying that maybe Billy Tryon was dating an actress in Streetcar and had happened to run into Natalie that last night. And maybe she had recognized him from a long time ago.
Her cell phone rang. It was Ted Wesley's secretary. Her voice ner?vous, she said, "Emily, the prosecutor wants you in his office now.
“And he said to bring back any files that you took from this of?fice.”
Just Take My Heart
78
Forty-five minutes later, Emily, Billy Tryon, and Jake Rosen were in Ted Wesley's office. Wesley, white with rage, stared at them with uncontrolled disdain in his expression. “May I say that I have never seen a sloppier, more disorganized, careless, and wasteful series of events than what you three have managed to achieve. Billy, did you in any way help Jimmy Easton to put together the story that he so convincingly delivered on the witness stand?”
“No, Ted, I did not.” Billy's tone and manner were subdued. “But wait. Let me be exact. When Easton told me about writing the letter to Aldrich to say he wasn't going to go through with their contract, but he also wasn't going to return the five thousand that Aldrich had already given him, I said something like you must have considered it a nonrefundable advance. He laughed and then he repeated that phrase on the stand.”
“That's not what I'm talking about,” Wesley snapped. “Are you telling me that he had his whole story ready to spill to you and that all of the details came from him?”
“Absolutely,” Billy replied emphatically. “Ted, look at the facts, even if Emily won't. The minute Easton got grabbed coming out of that burglary, he said to the local cops that he had information on the Aldrich case. They called the office and I went right over there. Everything he said later checked out. He met Aldrich at the bar. Al?drich did call him on his phone. He described the interior of the Aldrich apartment. And he even knew about the infamous squeaky drawer.”
“That's right, he knew about the squeaky drawer,” Emily retorted. "And now Mr. Garcia has come forward to say that he made a deliv?ery with Easton to the Aldrich apartment and that at some point Eas?ton was left alone in the living room. He could have been trying to steal something by pulling out that drawer, then heard the noise.
“And what about the letter that he supposedly sent, the one you just admitted to helping him explain?” Emily asked him. “Was the entire letter your idea? It made Jimmy look better and it strength?ened his story.”
Before Billy could answer, Wesley looked at Jake Rosen. “You went out when Easton got arrested.