38

At nine A.M. Thursday, Ted Carpenter arrived at the Central Park Precinct. Haggard and worn from the events and the emotional seesaw of the past day and a half, his tone was brusque when he said he had an appointment with Detective Billy Collins. “And I believe he said something about his partner would be with him,” Ted added before the desk sergeant could respond.

“Detectives Collins and Dean are expecting you,” the sergeant said, ignoring the hostility in Carpenter’s voice. “I’ll let them know that you’re here.”

Less than five minutes later, Ted was sitting at a conference table in a small office, facing Billy Collins and Jennifer Dean.

Billy thanked him for coming in. “I hope you’re feeling better, Mr. Carpenter. I know that when your secretary phoned yesterday to make an appointment, she said you were ill.”

“I was and I am,” Ted replied. “And it’s not just physical. Knowing what I’ve gone through for almost two years, to see those photos and realize that my ex, Matthew’s mother, has been guilty of abducting my son, just about drove me over the edge.”

An unmistakable note of anger crept into his voice. “I have wasted my time blaming that babysitter who fell asleep when she was supposed to be minding my son. Now I have begun to wonder if she wasn’t in collusion with my ex-wife. I know Zan regularly gave Tiffany clothes she no longer wore.”

Billy Collins and Jennifer Dean were trained not to show surprise at anything that was said to them, but each knew the other’s thoughts. Was this an angle they had not considered? And if there was any truth to it, what made Tiffany Shields turn on Zan to the point of suggesting that both she and Matthew had been deliberately drugged that day?

Billy chose not to follow up on Ted Carpenter’s reasoning that Shields was involved. “Mr. Carpenter, you and Ms. Moreland were married for how long?”

“Six months. What has that got to do with it?”

“Her mental health is what we’re getting at. At the time of Matthew’s disappearance, she told us that after her parents’ death, you flew to Rome and saw her through the funeral, the packing of their personal items, the usual details following a demise. She made it clear that she was very grateful to you.”

“Grateful! That’s one way of putting it. She didn’t want me out of the room. She had hysterical crying fits and fainting spells. She blamed herself for not having visited her parents sooner. She blamed Bartley Longe for not letting her take a vacation. She blamed the traffic in Rome for causing her father’s heart attack.”

“But with that kind of emotional baggage, you still chose to marry her?” Jennifer Dean asked quietly.

“Zan and I had been dating, somewhat casually, but we were definitely becoming interested in each other. I guess I was half in love with her then. She is a beautiful woman, as I’m sure you’ve observed, and very intelligent. She is a gifted interior designer, thanks, I might add, to the fact that Bartley Longe took her on after she graduated from FIT and gave her the chance to be his right-hand apprentice.”

“Then you don’t feel that Ms. Moreland was fair when she blamed Bartley Longe for making it impossible to visit her parents earlier?”

“No, I don’t. She knew perfectly well that much as he might rant and rave if she took a few weeks off, he never would have fired her. She was far too valuable to him.”

“You say you were dating and half in love with Ms. Moreland during that time. Did you express your feelings about her job with Longe at that time?”

“Of course I did. The fact is, Longe had given her the chance of a lifetime for a young designer. He had taken on a high-profile job to decorate the TriBeCa penthouse of Toki Swan, the rock star, but because he was up to his elbows doing a Palm Beach mansion, he virtually turned the job over to Zan. She was thrilled. You couldn’t have dragged her onto a plane at that point.”

“Did Ms. Moreland show any signs of overwork, or of approaching a breakdown, before she flew to Rome?”

“From what I understand, after she finished that job Longe wanted her to stay a few weeks longer and help him finish the Palm Beach place. That’s when the big quarrel took place and she quit. As I just told you, that so-called firing was a joke.”

“After her parents’ death, couldn’t you have helped her without marrying her?” Jennifer Dean asked.

“That’s like asking a bystander watching someone trapped in a burning car, why didn’t you dial 911 instead of taking immediate action? Zan needed to feel as if she had a home and a family. I gave that to her.”

“But she left you very quickly.”

Ted bristled. “I didn’t come in here to have a consultation about my brief marriage to the woman who abducted my son. Zan felt that she had taken advantage of me, and decided to move out. It was only after she was gone that she realized she was pregnant.”

“What was your reaction?”

“I was pleased. By then I realized there was nothing between us, and I told her I would give her generous support so that she could always live comfortably and raise our child. She told me she intended to open her own interior design business. I understood that, but after my son was born, I did insist on meeting the nanny she planned to hire so I could judge for myself if that person was competent.”

“Did you do that?”

“Yes. And the nanny, Gretchen Voorhees, was a blessing. Frankly, I would say that she was more of a mother to Matthew than Zan. Zan was consumed with her need to beat out Bartley Longe for jobs. I can tell you the amount of time she spent working to get that job with Nina Aldrich was unconscionable.”

“How do you know that?”

“Gretchen told me that on the last day she worked for Zan. I was picking Matthew up for the afternoon. Gretchen was flying back to Holland because she was getting married.”

“Had Ms. Moreland hired a new nanny, and if so, did you meet her?”

“I met her once. Her references were good. She seemed perfectly pleasant. However, she was obviously not reliable. She didn’t show up the first day for work, and Zan grabbed Tiffany Shields to take my son to Central Park so she could fall asleep on the grass, if indeed she did fall asleep.”

Ted Carpenter’s face turned a deep crimson red. He swallowed, unable to go on. Then, his hands clenched into fists, his voice raised, he said, “I’ll tell you what happened that day. Zan realized that Matthew was going to be in her way. Maybe she had realized it for a long time before that. Gretchen told me of the many times she had to work on her day off because Zan was too busy to stay home with her child. Zan was, and is, all about becoming a famous interior designer. That’s it! She’s well on her way to it. That baloney about spending every cent she can scrimp to have private detectives search for Matthew is strictly PR. If anyone should know, it’s me. I’m in the business. Take a look at that article People magazine did on her last year on the first anniversary of Matthew’s disappearance. She’s showing them her modest three-room apartment, whining about how she walks rather than take cabs so that every cent she makes is saved to try to find Matthew and so on … Then notice how she always talks about what a great interior designer she is.”

“You are saying that you believe your ex-wife got rid of your child because he had become a liability?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. She’s a born martyr. How many people have lost their parents in an accident and even though they’re grieving, have gone on with their lives? If she had asked me to take full custody of Matthew, I would have done it in a heartbeat.”

“Did you request full custody?”

“That would have been like asking the earth to stop revolving around the sun. How would that have looked in the newspapers?”

Ted stood up. “I have nothing more to say to you except this. I assume that by now you have checked out those photos that were taken in Central Park. Unless they are doctored — and you have given me no indication that you think that is the case — then I want to know why Alexandra Moreland has not been arrested. You have proof positive that she stole my son. Clearly she lied to you every step of the way. I’m sure there is a law about withholding a child from the other parent who has visitation rights. But the charge you really should be pursuing now is that Matthew was abducted and murdered by his own mother. What are you waiting for?”

As he pushed back his chair and stood up, Ted Carpenter, tears running down his cheeks, again demanded, “What are you waiting for?”