I'll Walk Alone Read online

  While they waited, Billy Collins asked, “Father, Alvirah Meehan was worried because she thought somebody was observing you too carefully the other night. Are you aware of anyone who might be antagonistic to you?”

  “No one, absolutely no one,” Fr. Aiden replied emphatically.

  After Paul escorted the detectives to show them the tapes, Fr. Aiden put his head in his hands. She must be guilty, he thought. She was planning to escape.

  But what is it about Zan Moreland’s hands that I can’t remember?

  Two hours later, Fr. Aiden was at his desk when Zan called him again. Still holding out hope that he might be able to prevent the murder she had told him would happen, he said, “I was hoping to hear from you, Zan. Do you want to come in and talk with me? Maybe there is some way I can really help you?” Fr. Aiden said.

  “No, I don’t think so, Father. My lawyer just called. I’m going to be arrested. I have to go with him to the police precinct at five o’clock today. So maybe, if you don’t mind, pray for me, too.”

  “Zan, I have been praying for you,” Fr. Aiden said fervently. “If you…” He did not get to finish the sentence. Zan was no longer on the phone.

  He was scheduled to be in one of the Reconciliation Rooms at four o’clock. I’ll wait till after I’m finished there, then call Alvirah after six, he thought. By then she may know whether or not Zan is going to be released on bail.

  At that moment Fr. Aiden O’Brien had no inkling that someone would be coming into the Reconciliation Room, and that his purpose would be not to confess to a crime but to commit one.

  61

  At 4:15 on Friday afternoon, Zan called Kevin Wilson. I don’t know how to begin to thank you for taking responsibility for everything that was ordered for the apartments,” she said, her voice calm, “but I can’t let that happen. I’m about to be arrested. My lawyer thinks I’ll be given bail, but whether or not I am, I won’t be of much use to you as an interior designer.”

  “You’re going to be arrested, Zan?” Kevin could not keep the shock out of his voice even though Louise had warned him that she was surprised the arrest had not already happened.

  “Yes. I’m to be at the police precinct at five o’clock. The way it was explained to me is that I’ll be processed after that.”

  Kevin could hear the effort Zan was making to keep her voice from breaking. “Zan, this doesn’t change the fact that—” he began.

  She interrupted him. “Josh will call the suppliers and explain that everything must go back, and that I’ll try to work out some sort of settlement with them,” she told him.

  “Zan, please don’t think that my decision to accept the deliveries was some random act of kindness. I like your designs and I don’t like Bartley Longe’s. That’s the beginning and the end of it. Before you came in, Josh told me that you and he worked on two jobs concurrently, and that while you were at one, he was at the other. Isn’t that true?”

  “Yes. It is. Josh is truly gifted.”

  “All right, then. On the business level, I am hiring Moreland Interiors to take over the decorating of my model apartments. Whether or not you receive bail, my decision is firm. And, of course, I need a separate bill for your usual fees over and above the actual cost of the furnishings.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Zan protested. “Kevin, you’ve got to be aware of the kind of publicity my case is generating and it is bound to get worse. Are you sure that you want people to know that a woman accused of kidnapping and maybe murdering her own child works for you?”

  “Zan, I know how bad it looks, but I believe in your innocence, and that there is another explanation for everything that has happened to you.”

  “There is, and please God, it will be found.” Zan attempted to laugh. “I want you to know that you have the distinction of being the first person to express any belief at all in my innocence.”

  “I’m glad if I’m the first, but I’m sure I won’t be the last,” Kevin said firmly. “Zan, you’ve been on my mind constantly. How are you able to handle all this? When I saw you, you were so upset that I was heartsick for you.”

  “How am I now?” Zan asked. “I’ve been questioning myself about that, and I think I have the answer. Years ago, when my parents were stationed in Greece, we flew to Israel and visited the Holy Land. Have you ever been there, Kevin?”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve always wanted to go. For a long time I didn’t have the money. Now I don’t have the time.”

  “What do you know about the Dead Sea?”

  “Not much other than that it’s in Israel.”

  “Then to explain how I feel, I swam in it when we were there. It’s a salt lake that is twelve hundred and ninety-three feet below sea level. That means it’s the lowest point on earth. It’s so thick with salt that you’re warned not to get the water in your eyes because if you do, they’ll be terribly burned.”

  “Zan, how does that relate to you now?”

  Zan’s voice broke as she said, “I feel as if I’m at the bottom of the Dead Sea with my eyes wide open. Does that answer your question, Kevin?”

  “Yes, it does. Oh, God, Zan, I’m sorry.”

  “I really believe you are. Kevin, my lawyer just came in. Time to go get fingerprinted and booked. Thanks again.”

  Kevin replaced the phone on the cradle, then turned away so that Louise Kirk, who was opening the door of his office, would not see the tears in his eyes.

  62

  Friday afternoon he called Glory. When she answered, as he had expected, her voice was sullen and angry. “It’s about time I heard from you,” she snapped. “Because your one-week-or-ten-day plan just isn’t going to pan out. I probably have to get out of here within thirty days, and Sunday afternoon the real estate broker is going to come trooping in here with the guy who’s buying the house. And if you think you’re going to dump me in another godforsaken hole like this, you’re wrong. By Sunday morning, you’d better have the money in my hands or I go to the police and claim that five-million-dollar reward.”

  “Gloria, we can wind this up by Sunday. But if you think you can make a deal to collect that reward, you’re dumber than I thought. Remember Son of Sam? If not, look him up. He killed a couple of people and shot three or four others. He was writing a book about his crime spree and they passed a law saying that no criminal can profit from his crime. Lady, whether you know it or not, you’re up to your neck in this one. You kidnapped Matthew Carpenter and you’ve been holding him captive for two years. You get caught, you go to prison. Got it?”

  “Maybe they make exceptions,” Gloria said defiantly. “But this little kid is bright. If you think that once they find him, he won’t tell them that Mommy didn’t take him that day, you are wrong. I’m pretty sure he remembers. When he woke up in the car, I was still wearing the wig. He started shrieking when I took it off. He remembers that. And once, when I thought the door was locked, I tried on the wig after I washed it. My back was to him. He opened the door and came in before I could get it off. He asked me, ‘Why do you try to look like my Mommy?’ Suppose he tells them that Glory took him out of the stroller? Won’t that be great for me?”

  “You haven’t let him see any of the tapes they’ve been showing on television, have you?” he asked, as the appalling truth washed over him. If Matthew tells the police he knew his mother had not taken him, every plan I have made would collapse.

  “You do ask stupid questions, don’t you? Of course I haven’t,” she said.

  “I think you’re crazy, Brittany. That happened almost two years ago. He’s too little to remember.”

  “Just don’t count on him being a dumb bunny when they find him. And don’t call me Brittany. I thought we agreed on that.”

  “All right, all right. Look, we’re going to change our plan. Forget about making yourself up to look like Zan and going back to that church. I’ll take care of that myself. Pack your car with everything you own. We’ll meet tomorrow night instead at LaGuardia Airport. I’ll ha
ve the money for you, and a plane ticket home to Texas.”

  “What about Matthew?”

  “Do what you’ve always done, only this time it will have to be a little longer. Put him to bed in the closet, leave the light on, and give him enough cereal or sandwiches and soda to last him. You say those people are coming in on Sunday to go through the house?”

  “Yes. But suppose they don’t come? We can’t leave that little boy locked in the closet.”

  “Of course not. Tell that real estate agent that you’re leaving Sunday morning and that you’ll notify her where to send your refund. You can be sure that by noon on Sunday she’ll be checking out that house, whether or not she has the new buyer with her. And then she’ll find Matthew.”

  “Six hundred thousand dollars, five thousand in cash, the rest wired to my father’s bank account in Texas. Get out your pen. I’ll give you the account number now.”

  His hand was perspiring so much that he couldn’t keep the pen from slipping, but he managed to jot down the numbers she was snapping at him.

  It was the one possibility that he had never considered — that Matthew would remember it was not his mother who had kidnapped him that day.

  If that happened, Zan’s story would be believed. All his carefully laid plans would be useless. Even if he killed her, as he had planned to do, they would still start looking to see who else might have planned this hoax and kidnapping.

  And somehow they would get to the truth. The same vigilance with which they were hounding Zan would be turned from her in other directions.

  He was sorry. He was truly sorry, but Matthew could not be found in that closet. He had to be gone when the real estate agent arrived on Sunday afternoon.

  I never intended to kill him, he thought regretfully. I never thought that it would have to end like this. He shrugged. And now it was time to go to church.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he thought grimly.

  63

  This time, Zan did not respond to the media when she and Charley Shore arrived at the Central Park Precinct. Instead, ducking her head, she ran from the car to the front door with Charley’s arm under her elbow. They were escorted to the now familiar interrogation room, where Detectives Billy Collins and Jennifer Dean were waiting for them.

  Without greeting her, Collins said, “I hope you didn’t forget to bring your passport, Ms. Moreland.”

  Charley Shore answered for her. “We have the passport.”

  “Good, because the judge will want it,” Billy said. “Ms. Moreland, why didn’t you share with us that you were planning to fly to Buenos Aires next Wednesday?”

  “Because I wasn’t,” Zan said calmly. “And before you ask, neither did I clean out my bank account. I’m sure you’ve checked that by now.”

  “What you are saying is that the same imposter who stole your child also bought you a one-way ticket to Argentina and helped herself to your bank account?”

  “That is exactly what I am saying,” Zan said. “And in case you don’t know it yet, that same person ordered clothes at the stores where I have an account, and also ordered all the supplies I would have needed for the interior design job I bid on.”

  The frown on Charley Shore’s face reminded her that he had told her to answer questions, but not to volunteer any information. She turned to him. “Charley, I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t have anything to hide. Maybe if these detectives look into all those activities, they’ll discover that even just one of them couldn’t have been done by me. And maybe then it is possible they will look at each other and one of them will say, ‘Well, maybe she was telling the truth.’ “

  Zan looked back at the detectives. “Clap if you believe in miracles,” she said. “I am here to be arrested. Can we possibly begin the process?”

  They stood up. “We do that downtown at the courthouse,” Billy Collins told her. “We’ll drive you there.”

  It doesn’t take long to be an accused felon, she thought an hour later, after the arrest warrant was issued, a number was assigned to it, and she had been fingerprinted and had her mug shot taken.

  From there she was taken into a courtroom to stand in front of a stern-faced judge. “Ms. Moreland, you are being charged here with kidnapping, obstruction of justice, and interference with parental custody,” he told her. “If you can make bail, you cannot leave the country without the permission of the court. Do you have your passport with you?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Charley Shore answered for her.

  “Surrender it to the court clerk. Bail is set at two hundred fifty thousand dollars.” The judge stood up and walked out of the courtroom.

  Zan turned to Charley, panic-stricken. “Charley, I can’t raise that much money. You know I can’t.”

  “Alvirah and I spoke about this possibility. She’s putting up the deed to her apartment for security with a bondsman and will lend you the bondsman’s fee. As soon as I call Willy, he’ll be on his way here with it. When the bail is straightened out, you’ll be free to go.”

  “Free to go,” Zan whispered, looking down at the black smudges she had not been able to scrub from her fingers, “free to go.”

  “This way, ma’am.” A court officer took her arm.

  “Zan, you have to wait in a holding cell until Willy puts up the bail. As soon as I talk to him, I’ll come back and wait with you,” Charley told her. “You’ve got to understand this is all routine stuff.”

  Her feet leaden, Zan allowed herself to be walked through a nearby door. It opened onto a narrow passage. At the end of it was an empty cell with an open toilet and a bench. At the slight prodding of the uniformed officer, she stepped inside the cell and heard the key turn in the lock behind her.

  No Exit, she thought wildly, remembering the Sartre play by that name. I played the role of the adulteress in it in college. No exit. No exit. She turned and looked at the bars, then tentatively put her hands on them. My God, how can it have come to this? she thought. Why? Why?

  She stood there unmoving for nearly half an hour, then Charley Shore returned. “I spoke to the bail bondsman, Zan,” he said. “Willy should be here in a few minutes. He has to sign a few papers, turn over the deed, pay the fee, and you’ll be out of here. I know how it must feel for you, but this is the moment your lawyer, meaning me, knows what we’re up against and starts to fight.”

  “An insanity defense? Isn’t that what you’re thinking, Charley? I’ll bet it is. In the office before you got there, Josh and I had the television in the back room on. The CNN anchor was interviewing a doctor who specialized in multiple personalities. In his brilliant opinion, I may be a very likely candidate for that kind of defense. Then he cited a case where the defense pleaded that the core person did not know what the personality who committed crimes was doing.

  “You know what the judge said to that defense argument, Charley?” Zan shrieked. He said, “I don’t care how many personalities that woman has. They all have to obey the law!”

  Charley Shore looked into Zan’s blazing eyes and knew there was no way he could either reassure or comfort her.

  He decided not to insult her by attempting to do either.

  64

  Gloria Evans, born Margaret Grissom, called Glory” by her adoring father, stage name Brittany La Monte, was not sure if she could believe that it really would be over within forty-eight hours. A thousand times in these nearly two years she had whispered, “If only,” to herself during sleepless nights when she had begun to realize the enormity of her crime.

  Suppose it doesn’t work out? she thought. Suppose they do track me down? I’ll go to prison for the rest of my life. What’s six hundred thousand dollars? It will only last me a couple of years by the time I get set up, buy new clothes, have new pictures made, take some more acting lessons, and try to get a publicist and an agent. He said he could introduce me to people in Hollywood, but what good were all the people he introduced me to in New York? Zip.

  And Matty. He was such a
nice little kid. I knew I’d mess myself up if I got too tight with him, Glory thought, but how can you not like the kid?

  I love the boy, she thought, as she packed the clothes that were the same as the ones Zan Moreland wore. By God, I’m good, she thought with a tight-lipped grin. I pay attention to detail. Moreland is a little taller than I am. I had an extra lift put on the heels on those sandals just in case anyone got a picture of me when I took the kid.

  Warming to her self-congratulatory stream of thought as she packed her suitcases, Glory remembered how she had worked on that wig to get her hair just right, the color and the blunt cut. Glory padded the shoulders of that dress because Moreland was more broad shouldered than she was. I bet right now the cops are doing all that digital stuff and they’ll come back saying that no way was the woman in the picture not Moreland. My makeup was perfect, too.

  She looked around the bedroom with its bleak white walls, tired oak furniture, and rag of a carpet. “And what the hell did it all get me?” she asked aloud. Two years of jackassing from one hidden house to another. Two years of leaving Matty locked up in the closet while I went to the store or once in a while to a movie. Or to New York, to make it look like Moreland had been some place or other.

  That guy could break into Fort Knox, she thought as she remembered how one day he had met her at Penn Station and thrust the fake credit card into her hand. He had cut out ads of clothes on sale. “This is what I want you to buy,” he said. “She already has duplicates of them.”

  Other times he had mailed her a box of clothes that were identical to some that Moreland had bought. “In case I really want to rub it in,” he said.

  Glory had been wearing one of those suits, the black one with the fur trimming, and all her makeup when she drove into Manhattan on Monday. He’d told her to buy clothes at Bergdorf’s and charge them to Moreland’s account. She didn’t know exactly what else he planned for her to do, but when she met him, she could tell he was upset. “Just get back to Middletown,” he had told her.