Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [59]
“Sal, you were a prince. You moved us without a nickel down and waited two months till we paid you.”
“And I've never delivered anything to Park Avenue where that Aldrich guy lived,” Sal snapped angrily. “And you'll do me a real favor if you don't talk to anyone about Easton. I'll be honest. I paid him off the books. I could get in trouble.”
“Sure, sure,” Rudy replied. “You're my pal. Anyway, I guess there's nothing to it. I thought you'd get a chance to be a hero and maybe get a reward if you could honestly tell them that Easton had made a delivery to Aldrich's apartment. And you know how much Belle would love it if you guys got your picture in the newspaper.”
My picture in the newspaper! Sal thought with dread. That's all I need!
His conversation with Rudy rushed through Sal's mind as Belle finished explaining how Emily, the prosecutor, had just about de?stroyed Gregg on the stand. “She was like one of those avenging an?gels,” Belle said.
At that point in the narration, she sighed, reached down, and pulled over the hassock. She put her feet on it and continued. “Sometimes the cameras were on Alice Mills, Natalie's mother. Oh, I should tell you, Sal. Natalie's real name was Mills but she didn't think it was a good show business name so she changed it to Raines in a tribute to Luise Rainer, an actress who won the first two back-to-back Academy Awards that were ever presented. That was in People magazine today. She didn't want to take exactly the same name, but she wanted it close.”
Just Take My Heart
39
On Monday afternoon, after the disastrous day in court, Cole Moore walked with his father to their cars in the courthouse parking lot. “Why don't you and Robin come over around six thirty and have dinner with your mother and me?” Richard suggested quietly. “And we'll have a couple of drinks. We can both use them.”
“Good idea,” Cole replied. As he opened the car door for his fa?ther, he said, “Dad, you did everything you could. And don't give up yet. I still think we've got a decent shot at a hung jury.”
“We had a decent shot until he admitted to being a Peeping Tom,” Richard said, angrily. “I can't believe he never told me about that. At least we could have gone over it so that he could have ex?plained it somewhat better. And if we'd had a chance to prepare him, he wouldn't have gotten so flustered over it. It makes me won?der what else he didn't tell me.”
“Me, too,” Cole said. “See you later, Dad.”
At seven p.m. Richard and his wife, Ellen, and Cole and his wife. Robin, were at the dinner table, somberly discussing the trial.
Throughout their forty years of marriage, Ellen had always been an invaluable sounding board for Richard about his cases. A sixty-one-year-old woman with silver hair and the trim body of a disci?plined athlete, her hazel eyes were filled with concern. She knew the toll this case was taking on her husband.
It's a blessing that Cole has been working with him, she thought.
Robin Moore, a twenty-eight-year-old real estate lawyer with au?burn hair, had been married to Cole for two years. Now she shook her head in frustration. “Dad,” she said, “I absolutely believe that somewhere along the line Easton had access to that apartment. In my mind that's the difference between a conviction and an acquit?tal. It's that miserable drawer that is going to be the sticking point during the deliberations.”
“I completely agree,” Richard replied. “As you know, we had our investigator, Ben Smith, go through Easton's background with a fine-tooth comb. When he wasn't in prison, he never had a regular job. So when he wasn't stealing enough to keep him going, he has to have been working off the books.”
“Robin, we have a list of every store that regularly delivered to that apartment,” Cole said, his tone frustrated. “You know, the laun?dry, the dry cleaner, the supermarket, the drugstore, you name it. No one admits ever having hired him, either on or off the books.”
He picked up his glass of pinot noir and took another sip.