Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [91]
“You're absolutely right, Mama,” Belle said. “I'm really glad I talked to you about it.”
“And I want you to tell Sal he can confide in me. I don't mind saying I have a good head on my shoulders.”
Belle knew that was never going to happen.
Sal left early Monday morning. Hauling her laundry cart with her, Belle immediately went down to the basement, where the little storage area that came with their apartment was located. It was there that Sal kept cardboard boxes filled with records of his moving com?pany from the last twenty years. She knew that Sal hated paperwork, but at least he marked the boxes with the years that the records cov?ered.
Natalie Raines is dead two and a half years, Belle thought. I want to start at that point and work backward. She hoisted the two boxes containing records for the two years prior to the murder onto the cart and got into the elevator.
Back in her living room she began to go through the first box. Forty-five minutes later she found what she was looking for. Sal had a company receipt for delivering a marble standing lamp to “G. Aldrich” at the apartment address that she had heard several times on television. The receipt was dated March 3rd, thirteen days before Natalie's death.
Holding the receipt, Belle collapsed into a chair. With her total recall of all important dates in the case, she knew that March 3rd was the day Easton had claimed he had met with Gregg in the apart?ment and had received the down payment to kill Natalie.
She shivered as she looked at the clear signature of the person who had accepted the delivery. Harriet Krupinsky. She was the Aldrich housekeeper who had retired a few months later and then passed away suddenly about a year after Natalie's murder.
In her bones Belle was sure that Jimmy Easton had made that delivery. How could Sal know this and live with himself? she won?dered sadly. What that poor man and his daughter must be going through.
Continuing her search, she soon found absolute proof that Eas?ton had worked for Sal. It was in a crumpled pocket telephone book that contained a couple of dozen names. Some of them Belle recog?nized as people who had worked part-time for Sal. There was noth?ing under tab E but then she turned to J. Scribbled at the top of the page was “Jimmy Easton.” And a telephone number for him.
Nearly crushed by disappointment in Sal, and equally anxious about how revealing this information would impact on him, Belle repacked the boxes but kept the receipt and the phone book. She lifted the boxes back into the laundry cart and returned them to the basement. Then deciding that it would be better for Sal if he was the one to make the call, she slumped back down in the chair and again dialed her mother.
“Mama,” she said, her voice breaking, “Sal lied to me. I went through his records. Jimmy Easton did work for him and there's a receipt for a delivery to the Aldrich apartment thirteen days before Natalie died.”
“My God, Belle. No wonder Sal has been such a wreck. What are you going to do?”
“As soon as Sal gets home, I'm going to tell him what I know and that we're going to call Michael Gordon's tip line. And you know something, Mama? In a way I bet Sal will be relieved. He's a good man. It's just that he's so frightened. I am, too. Mama, do you think there's any chance they'll put Sal in jail?”
Just Take My Heart
62
Tom Schwartz, the executive producer of Fugitive Hunt, called the Bergen County prosecutor's office on Monday, just after four o'clock. He reached the prosecutor's secretary and told her that it was extremely urgent for him to talk to the prosecutor about a serial killer they had recently profiled and who might be living in Bergen County.
Ten seconds later Ted Wesley was on the phone. “Mr. Schwartz, what's this about a serial killer?”
“We have good reason to believe that a