Just Take My Heart

by Mary Higgins Clark

Michael Gordon decided that he would not tell her about the phone call from a possible new witness until they met for lunch to?morrow. “Alice, as it stands now, I don't think there are any decent grounds for an appeal. But we're going to establish a reward for any information that could lead to a new trial. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. Let's leave it at that.”

  “I agree. Good night, Mike.”

  Mike snapped off his cell phone. There was something that he couldn't initially discern in Alice Mills's voice. But now he realized what it was: her abiding certainty that Emily Wallace believed that Gregg was innocent.

  Shaking his head, he dropped the phone into his pocket, and headed for the door.

  At that same moment, alone in the Park Avenue apartment, Alice Mills went into the guest room that was now hers, and where she had sometimes stayed overnight when Gregg and Natalie were married. She opened a drawer and looked at the picture of Emily Wal?lace that she had cut out of the paper this morning.

  Her eyes brimming with fresh tears, with a trembling finger she traced the contour of the heart that had saved Emily's life.

  Just Take My Heart

  54

  The chance meeting with Marion Rhodes on Saturday afternoon had lifted Emily's spirits. For the most part she knew that she was a private person and not given to sharing her problems with others. But she had felt instantly comfortable with Marion, both last week and today, and looked forward to talking to her.

  For that reason, when she got home just in time to catch the ring?ing phone, she was able to sound upbeat.

  It was her father calling from Florida. He had e-mailed her yesterday, congratulating her on the verdict and asking her to call him when she got a chance. She had intended to call him last night, but she knew he would detect that she was upset and she didn't want to worry him.

  Then this morning, after she had read the paper, she put off call?ing him again.

  “Em, I was so happy for you about the verdict. That's one big feather in your cap. How come you didn't call your old man last night? I figured you must be out celebrating.”

  “Dad, I'm sorry. I meant to call you last night, but when I got home I didn't have the energy to pick up the phone. I went straight to bed. I would have called you when I was running around today, but I forgot my cell phone. I just walked in the door. How's Joan?”

  “Great. But we're both upset about those newspaper articles. We saw them online. We know you have never wanted to talk about the transplant. And the mother of that lady who got killed really wasn't fair to you.”

  She tried to sound reassuring. “Oh sure, I was a little upset, Dad. But I'm okay about it now and I truly do feel sorry for that poor woman.”

  “I hope now that this trial is done that you'll relax and maybe even have some fun. And you know you can hop on a plane anytime and come down here. Joan would cook you some decent meals, not that crummy take-out stuff I know you live on.”

  “I'll definitely get down there for Thanksgiving, Dad, but you wouldn't want to look at my desk right now. It's a disaster. I've got a lot of catching up to do.”

  “I understand. Em . . .”

  I know what's coming, she thought.

  “Em, I'm always afraid to ask because I know you miss Mark. But it has been three years. Is there anybody you have any interest in?”

  “It's okay to ask, Dad. The answer is no, but I'm not saying it can't happen. Since I was assigned to this trial seven months ago, I've barely even had time to take Bess for a walk.”

  Emily surprised herself by making an additional comment, but then realized that the sentiment she was expressing was honest. “I know it's been three years, Dad, and I know I have to get on with my own life. I'm beginning to understand that I not only miss Mark, but I very much miss sharing my life. And I want to have that back again.”

  “That's good to hear, Emily. I really do understand. After your mother died, I never thought I'd ever look at another woman. But after a while it does get very lonely, and when Joan came along, I was sure it was right.”

  “It was right, Dad. Joan is a doll. And it's a comfort for me that she takes such good care of you.”

  “That she does, honey. Okay, talk to you in a couple of days.”

  After Emily hung up, she played back the seven messages that had been left today on her answering machine. One was from her brother, Jack. The others were friends congratulating her on the out?come of the trial. Several were invitations for dinner very soon and one was actually for tonight. A couple of them, in a very caring way, expressed shock that what they had thought had only been valve sur?gery had ended up in a transplant.

  She decided to call Jack and the friend who had invited her for tonight. The rest could wait until tomorrow. She got Jack's voice mail, left a message, then made the second call to Karen Logan, a law school classmate who was married and had two children. “Karen, I really need to veg out tonight,” she said. “But let's make a date for next Saturday if you're free.”

  “Emily, tonight would have been just a plate of pasta at our house. But 1 really wanted to ask about next Saturday anyway.” There was hope and trepidation in her voice. “We'd like to go out to a nice restaurant and bring along someone who very much wants to meet you. He's an orthopedic surgeon, thirty-seven, and, if you can believe it, has never been married. He's brilliant but he's so normal and he's such a nice-looking guy.”

  Emily knew that Karen was pleasantly surprised by her answer. “Sounds pretty good. I'm up for it.”

  It was almost six o'clock. Emily took Bess for a ten-minute walk, fed her, and decided to run out to the video store and rent a couple of movies. The last thing I want to watch tonight is Fugitive Hunt, she decided. I'd feel as though I were still at the office. And I think I'll get some of that “crummy take-out stuff” that Dad was accusing me of living on, she thought, smiling.

  She never did get to watch the second movie. By ten o'clock she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer and went to bed. The movie she did watch had been okay, but not great. She'd kept dozing on and off as it played. She woke up on her own at eight thirty Sunday morning, surprised and grateful that Bess had let her sleep.

  It was October 12th and an anniversary of sorts. It was on that day seven years ago that she had met Mark at a tailgate party at Giants Stadium. She had gone there with her date, who had invited some of his fellow alumni from Georgetown to join them. One of them had been Mark.

  It was unseasonably cold that day, Emily remembered as she got out of bed and reached for her robe. I wasn't dressed nearly warm enough. My date was so into the game he never noticed that my lips were blue. Mark took off his jacket and told me to put it on. When I tried to refuse, he said, “You must understand, I'm from North Da?kota. To me this weather is mild.”

  It was only later that I found out he spent most of his growing-up years in California. His father, a West Point graduate, had been ca?reer army. Like him, Mark was an engineer and when he moved to Manhattan after graduate school had joined the Army Reserve. Mark's parents now lived in Arizona and kept in touch with her regularly.

  We were married three years, and he's been gone three years, Emily thought, as she went downstairs for the familiar routine of let?ting Bess out and turning on the coffeepot. Is that part of the prob?lem, that I've been wanting to have that wonderful feeling of looking forward to the end of the day and being with someone who loves me and whom I love? She answered herself: Yes, it is.

  Sunday morning. I haven't gone to church much lately, Emily thought. They had moved to an apartment in Fort Lee after they were married. Mark had volunteered as the leader of song at their church. He had a wonderful voice. That's one of the reasons I've gone so seldom, she acknowledged. When we went together, he was always up there on the altar.

  “I will go unto the altar of God, the God who gave joy to my youth.”

  She was on the verge of tears again.

  No way, she thought, resolutely, no crying.

  A little more than an hour
later, she was at the ten thirty Mass at St. Catharine's. It made it easier that the leader of song was a young woman. The prayers and responses, familiar since she was a child, came back easily to Emily's lips.

  It is right to give Him thanks and praise . . .

  For Thine is the power and the glory . . .

  During Mass she prayed not only for Mark but to him: I'm so glad we had that time together, we were both so blessed.

  On the way home, she stopped and did some real shopping at the supermarket. Gladys, her weekly cleaning woman, had left a long list and added an impassioned plea: “Emily, I'm running out of everything.”

  There's another job I've been putting off that I'm going to do today, Emily decided, as she paid at the checkout counter and then begged some empty boxes from a clerk. I'm going to pack Mark's clothes and give them away. It's wrong to have them go unused when they'd be a godsend to someone else.

  Unable to part with anything that had been Mark's when she moved from Fort Lee to the house in Glen Rock, she had put his dresser in the small guest room and hung his suits and coats in the closet there. She thought of all the times that first year when she had buried her face in one of his jackets, trying to find a trace of the scent of his shaving lotion lingering in the fabric.

  At home, she changed into jeans and a sweater and took the boxes to the guest room. As she was folding the jackets and suits she tried not to dwell on the special occasions when Mark had worn them.

  When the closet and dresser drawers were emptied, she thought of something else that should not be kept any longer. She went into her own room, opened the bottom drawer, and scooped up the frilly nightgowns that had been her shower presents. She added them to the last box, then, anxious to get away from the sight of the packed clothes, she closed the door of the guest bedroom and went down?stairs.

  An always-willing Bess jumped up and down when she saw Emily take the leash from the hook on the back porch. Before they went out, Emily took a quick side glance to make sure that Zach was not puttering in his backyard, but there was no sign of him. Even so she crossed the street immediately. A few steps later she was passing the house of Madeline Kirk, the reclusive old lady whom she had only glimpsed at her mailbox or sweeping her walk. She's so alone, Emily mused. I never see any sign of cars in her driveway as if she has com?pany.

  And for the two years I've lived here, you could just about say the same for me, she added, ruefully.

  “It's clearly time for a change,” she told Bess, as they continued down the block. “I don't want to end up like that poor soul.”

  They walked for almost an hour. Emily felt that her brain was beginning to clear. So what if people know I've had a heart trans?plant? she asked herself. I'm certainly not ashamed of it. And since it was two and a half years ago, I doubt that anyone will look at me now as if I'm about to keel over.

  And as far as Alice Mills telling me that in my heart I know Gregg Aldrich is innocent, I think my problem is that he comes through as a very nice guy and I'm sorry for his daughter. I'll take one more look at his file and put it away. He has absolutely no grounds for an ap?peal.

  That evening as she watched the second movie she had rented and ate lamb chops and a salad on a tray in the living room, she found herself trying to remember what it was that had bothered her when she was packing up the nightgowns she intended to give away.

  Just Take My Heart

  55

  From his front window, Zach had watched Emily cross the street with Bess on Sunday afternoon. He correctly surmised that she had not walked past his house because she didn't want to run into him. Just wait, he warned her silently, just wait.

  The satisfaction he had felt when he squeezed the life out of Madeline Kirk had been replaced by the certain knowledge that he was running out of time. She had recognized him. Maybe it had been because she paid attention to the fact that he'd planted mums around his other houses. But even without knowing about the flow?ers, someone from work or around here might have zeroed in on that computer image that looked like him.

  Something else, in the next day or two someone would notice that Kirk's newspaper was still on the porch or that her mail hadn't been taken out of the box. He had thought about trying to buy more time by getting her newspaper and her mail when it was dark but he decided it was too risky. Somebody might notice him.

  Or maybe some relatives who were hoping she'd die and leave the house to them might get excited when she didn't answer the phone. Even if they lived on the other side of the country, they still could call the police and ask them to check her out. The minute the cops started nosing around, they'd spot the cut-out screen and the peeling paint on the ground. There was just no way he could make it look as if she had taken off on her own.

  After he killed her, he had wrapped her body in garden-sized gar?bage bags and tied the bundle together with twine. He'd carried her into the kitchen and picked up her car key from a dish on the coun?ter. Then he took her into the attached garage and dropped her in the trunk of her car. After that, he'd gone through her house and found some surprisingly good jewelry and eight hundred dollars in cash hidden in the refrigerator. He'd smirked at the thought of her wrapping her diamonds and money in aluminum foil.

  Then, careful to see that no one was outside walking, or no car coming in either direction, he had hurried across the street and back into his house. Before he went to bed, he packed his clothes, his radio, and his television and put them in his car. Instinct kept warn?ing him that he only had a little time. Somebody was bound to come looking for the old lady in the next couple of days, and they'd find her body when they went through her car.

  Wherever he had moved, he'd always managed to find a job, and always had a cash reserve. Now, after buying the car, the reserve still added up to almost eighteen thousand dollars, enough to live on until he was settled again. Online, and using yet another phony name, he'd rented a motel cabin near Camelback Mountain in Pennsylvania. Only a few hours away, it would be easy to drive back here in a couple of weeks when the police weren't swarming around here 24/7.

  Satisfied with his plans, Zach had slept well. On Sunday morn?ing, he had savored watching Emily in her kitchen, delighting in how unaware she was of his plans for her. When she left her house at about ten fifteen, he'd wondered if she was going back to the office, but then decided that she looked too dressed up for that. Maybe she was going to church? he thought. That would be good. She doesn't know how much she needs to pray. Just before he'd finished off Mad?eline Kirk she got religion. “Oh . . . God . . . help . . . me . . .”

  He knew he should leave right away. He could call the boss in the morning and say his mother had taken a turn for the worse and he had to go to Florida now. He would tell him how much he'd en?joyed working there and would miss everybody. He could call the rental agent and say the same thing, and that he'd leave the key to the house under the mat. They wouldn't care. I'm paid up till the end of the month, and they'll be just as glad to get me out early so they can get the house ready for the next tenant.

  Of course, even though he would disappear from this house, he would soon have to make one trip back to take care of Emily. Whether or not anyone who saw Fugitive Hunt phoned in a tip, as soon as they find Kirk's body, and realize I'm gone, they'll connect me to everything pretty quick. Charlotte and her family, Wilma and Lou . . .

  Emily Wallace was all over the newspapers today. I didn't know she had a transplant. I would have been very sympathetic if she had confided in me. But she didn't. It's really a shame that her new heart is going to stop beating so soon.

  Making a careful inspection of every room in the house to be sure he hadn't forgotten anything except what he intended to leave, Zach left his rented house and closed the door behind him.

  As he got into his car, he glanced at the new flowers he had planted along the driveway. In a week they had grown and spread. He started to laugh. If I only had a little more time, I'd dig these up and put in mums again!

  What
a joke that would be on the amateur detectives around here.

  Just Take My Heart

  56

  On Monday morning, Jimmy Easton's public defender, Luke Byrne, went to the Bergen County Jail to talk to his client. After the Aldrich verdict came in on Friday, Judge Stevens had scheduled Easton's sentencing for today at one thirty. “Jimmy, I just want to go over what we're going to say in court today,” he said.

  Easton looked at him sourly. “You made a lousy deal for me, and I intend to complain about that to the judge.”

  Byrne looked at Easton, astonished. “A lousy deal? You can't be serious. They caught you running out of that house carrying the jew?elry. What kind of a defense did you expect me to come up with?”

  “I'm not talking about beating the charge. I'm talking about the lousy sentence they want to give me. Four years is way too much. I want you to talk to that prosecutor and tell her I'll take five years probation with time served.”

  “Oh, I'm sure Wallace will jump at that,” Byrne snapped. “Jimmy, you made a deal to take four years. Otherwise you'd be getting ten years for being an habitual offender. We're past the point of negotiat?ing. Four years was their bottom line.”

  “Don't tell me four years was the best you could do. They needed me to get Aldrich. If you had been tougher, I could have gotten pro?bation. They'd be letting me out today.”

  “If you want me to ask the judge for probation, I will. But I can guarantee that he will never do that unless the prosecutor consents. And I guarantee she won't. You're going to do four years.”

  “I don't care what you guarantee,” Easton snarled. “You just tell Emily Wallace that if I don't get what I want, she won't be taking any more bows for being such a hotshot prosecutor. Not when they hear what else I have to say.”

  Not wanting to debate it any further, Luke Byrne signaled to the guard that he was ready to leave.