Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [21]
"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Richard Moore. My son Cole Moore and I represent Gregg Aldrich. We want to start off by saying thank you for the several weeks that you have taken from your personal lives to serve on this panel. It is most appreciated by both of us. It is also most important. You literally have the life and future of Gregg in your hands. We spent a long time picking this jury, and when I said that the jury was 'satisfactory,' I was saying that Gregg and I knew that the peo?ple seated here were going to be fair. And that's all we ask of you.
"The prosecutor just spent nearly an hour going through what she represents as the evidence in the case. You heard it the same way I did. There was no arrest in this case for nearly two years. Up until that time, all the police knew was that Gregg and Natalie, like so many other couples, were in the midst of a divorce. Like so many other people involved in a divorce, Gregg was heartbroken. I promise you that he will testify in this case. He will tell you, as he told the police long before he was arrested, that he went to Cape Cod because he wanted to know if she was involved with anyone else. He did that because he wanted to see if there was any point in continu?ing to seek reconciliation.
"You will hear that he saw that she was alone, then left Cape Cod and returned to New York. He never even spoke to her.
“Assistant Prosecutor Wallace told you with emphasis about the two hours that Gregg Aldrich was out of his apartment the morning that Natalie was killed. You will hear, however, that his morning jog was a matter of longtime daily routine. The prosecutor's office would have you believe that on that morning, he managed to drive in rush hour traffic to New Jersey, kill Natalie, and then return in rush hour traffic to New York all within these two hours. They would have you believe that he murdered the woman whom he knew was not in?volved with anyone else, and with whom he still desperately wanted to reconcile. That was pretty much the totality of the evidence until Jimmy Easton came along. This model citizen, this savior of their case—a man who has spent half of his adult life in prison and much of the rest of it on parole.”
Moore shook his head and continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Jimmy Easton was arrested yet again while fleeing from the burglary of a house in this county. Once again he had invaded the sanctity of a family's home and ransacked it. Fortunately the si?lent alarm alerted the police and he was captured. But all was not lost for Jimmy Easton. His ticket out of a lengthy habitual-offender prison term was Gregg Aldrich. You will hear how this pathological liar, this sociopath, transformed a casual chance encounter in a bar with Gregg Aldrich, where the brief conversation was about base?ball, into a sinister plot to murder the woman Gregg loved. You will hear how Gregg supposedly offered this total stranger twenty-five thousand dollars to commit this crime. You will hear how Easton ac?cepted this proposal, then you will hear how Easton was shortly thereafter stricken with a guilty conscience, apparently for the first time in his useless life, and then backed out of the deal.
“This is the garbage the state is asking you to swallow. This is the evidence on which they ask you to destroy Gregg Aldrich's life. Ladies and gentlemen, I represent to you that Gregg Aldrich will testify and he will explain to you, and to your satisfaction, how Easton could describe his living room and why there was a phone call to him.”
Turning and pointing his finger at Emily, Moore thundered, “For the first time in over twenty encounters with the criminal justice system, Easton is testifying for the state instead of being prosecuted by them.”
As Moore strode back to his chair, the judge addressed Emily. “Prosecutor, call your first witness.”
Just Take My Heart
14
From the moment she found Natalie, Suzie Walsh had been a celebrity among her friends. She