Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [79]
As Madeline Kirk let out a horrified gasp, Zach's gloved hands closed around her throat.
Just Take My Heart
53
Michael Gordon had intended to go to Vermont for the weekend and try to concentrate on his book, but he decided to stay in Manhattan for Katie's sake. Besides that, he knew it would be impossible to concentrate on famous crimes of the twentieth century when only one crime, Natalie's murder, was absorbing all of his attention.
The phone call to his office.
The question about a reward.
Was all that on the level? Was there someone out there who might be able to provide proof that Jimmy Easton had been in Gregg's apartment while he was working at some kind of job?
He knew it could be a crank call. But on the other hand, Gregg and the Moores had always believed that if Easton was ever in the apartment, he would have been making some kind of service call or delivery.
What about the reward? Mike asked himself as he went through the motions of exercising at the gym in the Athletic Club on Central Park South. The minute I mention the word “reward” on air, we'll get hundreds of phony tips. And if it is a crank call, talking about it would raise false hope for Gregg and Katie and Alice . . .
He jogged on the treadmill, thinking. He'd been astonished to read in the morning papers that Emily Wallace had had a heart transplant. His people had done a pretty thorough bio of her, with the thought that she might be a Courtside guest, and that fact had not come out. Of course they'd learned that her husband, an army captain, had been the victim of a roadside bomb in Iraq three years ago.
He knew that after the verdict Richard Moore drove to New York to talk further with Katie and Alice. He could have written the script of what he would say. Promising that there would be an appeal. Pointing out that almost half the people who responded to the Courtside voting poll voted for Gregg, not against him. The problem was that, as of now, Moore really didn't have any strong arguments for an appeal—the judge hadn't made any controversial rulings.
But if that call about the reward was on the level, if someone had evidence that Jimmy Easton had been in the apartment at any time before Natalie's death, Richard would certainly file a motion for a new trial. . .
How much of a reward should I offer? Five thousand? Ten thousand? Twenty-five thousand? These thoughts kept churning in his mind as he headed for the locker room.
After Mike left the gym, he had lunch in the club grill. He sat at a table by the window and looked out at Central Park. The leaves were at their peak, scarlet and golden and orange. The horse-drawn carriages were doing a brisk business, he observed. It was the kind of autumn day, sunny but with a cool breeze, that drew people to the park to walk or skate or jog.
If there's no new trial or successful appeal, Gregg will never again walk down this block and meet me at this club, Mike thought. As it is, he'll undoubtedly be expelled from it at the next board meeting. The least of his problems, of course.
As he ordered a hamburger and a glass of wine, the enormity of what had happened to his friend began to seep into his being. I knew the verdict could be guilty, but when I saw the handcuffs go on Gregg, it hit me like a ton of bricks, he mused. Now, watching these people enjoying Central Park, I'm beginning to have some concept of what it must be like to experience the total loss of freedom.
I'm going to put up the reward myself, he decided. I'll post it on the Web site. It will be big enough so that if the person who called feels badly about whoever employed Easton off the books getting in trouble, the money will overcome their qualms.
Twenty-five thousand dollars. That will get everybody's attention. With a gut feeling of having made a good decision, Mike started to eat the hamburger that the waiter had placed in front of him.
On Saturday evening, just before Mike went out to have dinner with friends, he called Gregg's apartment. Alice Mills answered. “After we got back here yesterday, Katie was so upset that