Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [58]
Just Take My Heart
38
It got really bad today,“ Belle Garcia glumly told her husband, Sal, as Michael Gordon said good night to his viewing audience. I mean, only last Friday, Michael came out and said that he thought: Gregg was innocent. But tonight, he admits that Gregg's perfor?mance didn't help him one bit.”
Sal looked up over his glasses. “Performance? I thought actors performed.”
“You know what I mean. I mean he didn't come across like didn't do it. He got confused and tripped up on what he was saying. He started crying when Emily got after him about Jimmy Easton and that loud drawer. I bet he wishes now he had had it oiled. And to make matters worse, he really started blubbering and they had to take a break. I felt sorry for him but, being totally neutral, I have to say this: I think today he was coming across as sorry that he had killed his wife.”
Fully aware that Belle was geared to have a serious discussion about the trial right now, Sal knew that it was time to put down his newspaper. He asked Belle a question that he was sure would evoke a lengthy response and require only minimal reaction from him “Belle, if you were on the jury, as of right now how would you vote?”
Looking pensive and troubled, Belle shook her head. “Well . . . It's so hard . . . It's all so sad. I mean, what's going to happen to Katie? But, oh, Sal, if I were a member of that jury, I'm forced to say, with my heart breaking, I'd vote guilty. On Friday I really thought that Gregg was starting to make sense out of what had looked, even to a real dope, to be so suspicious. That squeaky drawer worried me, but anyone can tell Jimmy Easton is a born liar. But just now, when I saw those clips of Gregg on Courtside, I felt as if I was looking at a man who was going to confession. You know what I mean, not quite confessing as in admitting you did something you're not proud of, but kind of confessing by explaining how it happened, if you know what I mean.”
Jimmy Easton, Sal thought.
Belle was looking straight at him and he hoped he didn't show the worry that the sound of Jimmy's name evoked in him. He had not told Belle that Rudy Sling had phoned him this afternoon. Nearly three years ago, his crew had moved his old friends Rudy and Reeney from their apartment on East Tenth Street up to Yonkers.
“Hey, Sal, by any chance have you been watching that Courtside show about the big-shot agent who shot his wife in the Garden State?” Rudy had asked.
“I'm not really paying attention to it, but Belle wouldn't miss a moment of it. And then I have to hear all about it.”
“That guy Jimmy Easton was one of your crew when you moved us to Yonkers three years ago.”
“I don't remember. He was an occasional backup when we were busy,” Sal answered cautiously.
“The reason I'm telling you is because of something Reeney talked about this morning. She reminded me that when you moved us, you said we could tape the dresser drawers closed so we didn't have to unload everything.”
“That's right. I told you that.”
“My point is that when your guy Easton was pulling the tape off the drawers of the bedroom furniture, Reeney caught him going through them. She couldn't find anything missing, but she's always believed he was looking for something that was worth stealing. That's why we both remembered his name. You weren't on the job that day. Remember I called and told you to watch out for him?”
"Rudy, I never hired him again. So all I can say now is, so what?
“So nothing. I mean, it just makes it kind of interesting that a guy who worked for you is making the headlines testifying he was hired by Aldrich to kill his wife. Reeney wondered if he maybe delivered something to that Aldrich guy's apartment for you and maybe opened that drawer, and that's how he knew it squeaked.”
Easton is also one of the many guys I've paid off the books, Sal thought,