Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [38]
“Notwithstanding that you were becoming Natalie Raines's agent, therefore replacing him, did Gregg Aldrich ever exhibit any animosity to you?” Moore asked.
“No. Never. The only difference Gregg and I had was in our opinions of how Natalie's career should progress.”
“Had you ever competed for a client with Gregg Aldrich be?fore?”
“In the past, two of my clients switched to him. Then one of his switched to me. We both understood the game. Gregg is a consum?mate professional.”
Aldrich's secretary, Louise Powell, testified that no matter how frantic events in the office could get, Gregg never lost his temper. “I've never heard him even raise his voice,” she swore. She testified about his relationship with Natalie. “He was crazy about her. I know he phoned her a lot after they broke up but he did that when they were married, too. She told me once that she loved having him so attentive. I think those calls were his way of showing her that he was still attentive to her. Natalie craved attention and Gregg knew it.”
At 12:10, after Powell left the stand, Judge Stevens asked Moore if he had any further witnesses.
“My next and final witness will be Mr. Gregg Aldrich, Your Honor.”
“In that case, we will recess now and resume at 1:30,” the judge decreed.
The witnesses were pretty good, Emily admitted to herself. During the lunch break she brought a sandwich and coffee to her office and closed her door. She realized that she was suddenly experiencing a drop in her emotional level. I'm going in for the kill and right now I feel sorry for him, she thought. The loving son, the single father, the guy who has a second chance at happiness and then it blows up in his face.
Planning his activities around his daughter's schedule certainly doesn't match with my image of the playboy agent, she thought.
If Mark and I had ever been blessed enough to have a child, would she look at me the way Katie Aldrich looks at her father? She certainly knows him better than anyone else in the world.
Her sandwich tasted like cardboard. Is this what prison food was like? Yesterday after Jimmy was escorted back to prison, the guard had told her that Jimmy had said if he was around today he wanted a second cup of coffee and a pickle.
He'd been a fantastic witness, Emily thought now—but what a piece of work he is!
Gregg Aldrich looked as though he was going to faint when Jimmy talked about the drawer that squeaked. That piece of evi?dence clinched Easton's testimony. It was the first nail in the coffin, deciding the way Gregg would spend the rest of his life.
The crazy question that kept coming through Emily's mind was, why did Gregg Aldrich go so pale when Jimmy talked about the drawer? Was it because he knew he was finished, or was it because it was so incredible to him that Jimmy Easton would have remem?bered that detail?
Would I have remembered it? Emily asked herself, as she visual?ized Easton standing in the Park Avenue living room, contracting to commit a murder, and greedily waiting for the five thousand dollars that was about to be placed in his hands.
Impatiently shrugging off her own questions, Emily picked up the notes she would use when she cross-examined Gregg Aldrich.
Just Take My Heart
25
Step by step, Richard Moore led Gregg Aldrich through the story of his life, growing up in Jersey City, moving to Manhattan after his mother's death, success as a theatrical agent, his first marriage and the death of his first wife, then his marriage to Natalie.
“You were married four years?” Moore asked.
“Actually, for almost five years. We were separated, but not yet divorced, when Natalie died a year after she moved out of our apartment.”
“How would you describe your relationship with your wife?” “Very happy.”
“Then why did you separate?”
“That was Natalie's choice, not mine,” Gregg explained, his voice even, his manner quiet, but seemingly confident. “She decided that our marriage