45

Zan remembered keenly the kindness with which Detectives Billy Collins and Jennifer Dean had treated her when Matthew disappeared. That day, after Ted’s outburst about leaving Matthew with a young babysitter, they had even said to her, “At times like these, some people have to handle tragedy by blaming it on someone. Try to understand that.”

She knew they had then interviewed Nina Aldrich, who had verified their appointment that day. When Tiffany Shields had finally calmed down, she had told the detectives that the new nanny had not shown up, and that Zan had called her at the last minute and begged her to watch Matthew because she had an important client she could not risk losing.

Zan had told them that the only person who she felt honestly hated her was Bartley Longe, but even then she had realized that they were dismissing him as a possibility.

They had tried to suggest that Ted’s outburst about hiring an inexperienced babysitter might suggest some underlying hostility, a scenario Zan had dismissed. She had told them that Ted had approved both Matthew’s first nanny and the new one she had hired just before Matthew disappeared.

The photos. Of course they had to be doctored! With her new found strength in the sure knowledge that she had heard Matthew’s voice early that morning, Zan, with Charley Shore guiding her arm, followed Detectives Collins and Dean into the room where they would be questioning her.

They all took seats, Charley Shore next to her, Billy Collins and Jennifer Dean across from them. In the weeks immediately following Matthew’s disappearance, Zan realized she had originally seen the detectives only in a blur. This time she studied them carefully. They were both in their early forties. Billy Collins had the kind of face that blended into the crowd. He had no distinguishing features. His eyes were narrowly set, his ears a little too large for his long, thin face. His eyebrows shaggy. His manner low-key. He looked slightly rumpled, as though he hadn’t taken the time to straighten his tie. When they were settled in the seats, Billy solicitously asked if they would like to have coffee or water.

On the other hand, Jennifer Dean, his attractive African-American partner, immediately made Zan feel uncomfortable today. There was a crisp, no-nonsense air about her now. Zan remembered the warmth of her touch when Zan almost fainted shortly after she arrived in Central Park that day. Jennifer had been the one who rushed forward and grabbed her before she fell. Today she was wearing a dark green suit with a white turtleneck sweater. Her only jewelry was a wide gold wedding band and small gold earrings. Streaks of gray were untouched in her midnight black hair. Unsmiling, she looked appraisingly into Zan’s face as though she were seeing her for the first time.

Zan had shaken her head at the offer of coffee, but the unexpected change in Dean’s attitude startled her. “Maybe I will have that coffee,” she said.

“Sure thing,” Collins said. “Anything in it?”

“Nothing, thanks,” Zan said.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

It was a long minute. Detective Dean made no attempt to start a conversation.

In a casual gesture, Charley Shore gently placed his arm over the back of Zan’s chair, a reassuring move that signaled to her he was there to protect her.

But protect her from what?

Billy Collins was back with a paper cup filled with coffee that was little more than tepid. “Starbucks it’s not,” he commented.

Zan nodded her thanks as Collins took his seat and handed her the enlarged photographs of a woman taking the sleeping Matthew from his stroller in Central Park. “Ms. Moreland, is that you in these pictures?”

“No, it isn’t,” Zan said firmly. “It may look like me, but it isn’t me.”

“Ms. Moreland, is this your picture?” He held up another one.

Zan glanced at it. “Yes, that must have been taken right after I got to Central Park after you called me and said that Matthew was missing.”

“Can you see any difference in the women in these pictures?”

“Yes. The woman taking Matthew out of the stroller is an imposter. The one of me arriving in the park after he was kidnapped is genuine. You certainly must know that by now. I was with a client, Nina Aldrich. I know you checked that out immediately.”

“You did not tell us that instead of meeting Mrs. Aldrich at her Beekman Place home where she waited for you for well over an hour, you were in her town house on East Sixty-ninth Street alone for all that time,” Jennifer Dean said, her tone accusing.

“I was there because she told me to meet her there. I was not surprised she was late. Nina Aldrich was chronically late for our appointments whether they were in the town house she was decorating or the apartment where she still lived.”

“The town house is minutes from the spot in Central Park from which Matthew disappeared, isn’t it, Ms. Moreland?” Billy Collins asked.

“I would guess it’s about a fifteen-minute walk. When I got the call from you, I ran all the way.”

“Ms. Moreland, Mrs. Aldrich is very sure that she told you to meet her on Beekman Place,” Detective Dean said.

“That’s not true. She told me to meet her at the town house,” Zan said heatedly.

“Ms. Moreland, we’re not trying to attack you,” Collins said, his voice soothing. “You say Mrs. Aldrich was chronically late for appointments.”

“Yes, she was.”

“Do you know if she has a cell phone?” Collins asked.

“She has a cell phone, of course she does,” Zan answered.

“Do you have the number of her cell phone?” As he spoke, Billy Collins took a sip of his own coffee and made a face. “Even worse than usual,” he commented amiably.

Zan realized she was still holding the cup in her hand and took another sip of it. What had Collins just asked her? Of course. He asked me if I had Nina Aldrich’s cell phone number. “Her number is in my phone,” she said.

“How long since you’ve spoken to Mrs. Aldrich?” Dean asked, her voice steely.

“Almost two years. She wrote me a note about Matthew and said she knew that it would be far too much responsibility for me to take on such a major project as decorating her large home, meaning, of course, she was afraid to take a chance on me concentrating on the job.”

“Who got the job of decorating her town house?” Collins asked.

“Bartley Longe.”

“Isn’t he the person you claim might be responsible for kidnapping Matthew?”

“He is the only person I know who thoroughly hates me and is jealous of me.”

“Where are we going with these questions?” Charley Shore asked as he applied slight pressure to Zan’s shoulder.

“We’re simply asking if Ms. Moreland was frequently in touch with Mrs. Aldrich at the time she was bidding for the job of decorating her town house.”

“Of course I was,” Zan broke in.

Again she felt the light pressure of Charley’s hand on her shoulder.

“Were you friendly with Mrs. Aldrich?” Dean asked.

“In a client-relationship kind of way, I guess you’d call it. She liked my vision for how I saw the town house should be decorated to best show off, or rather emphasize, some of the architectural features that exist in those wonderful late nineteenth-century homes.”

“How many rooms are in that town house?” Jennifer Dean asked.

I can’t imagine why they’re so interested in the layout of that place, Zan thought as she mentally retraced the rooms in the Aldrich home. “It’s very large,” she said. “Forty feet wide, which I assure you is unusual. There are five stories. The top floor is an enclosed roof garden. There are eleven rooms as well as the wine cellar, and a second kitchen and storage room in the basement.”

“I see. So you went there to meet Nina Aldrich. Were you surprised she didn’t show up?” Collins asked.

“Surprised? No, not really. She was always late. The one time she wasn’t and I was five minutes late, she let me know how important her time was and that she wasn’t in the habit of being kept waiting.”

“Didn’t the fact that the babysitter minding Matthew had a cold and didn’t feel well make you anxious enough to pick up your cell phone and call her?” Dean asked.

“No.” Zan felt as though she were in a morass where everything she said made her sound as though she were lying. “Nina Aldrich would have resented my reminding her that she was late.”

“How often did she keep you waiting as long as an hour or more?” Dean asked.

“That was by far the longest.”

“Wouldn’t it have been reasonable to phone and ask if you had been mistaken about the time and place of your meeting?”

“I knew the time and place she had told me. You don’t remind the Nina Aldriches of this world that they may have made a mistake.”

“So you stood or sat there for an hour or more before she finally called you?”

“I was going over my sketches and the pictures of antique furniture and chandeliers and sconces that I was planning to show her. In a few cases, I was choosing between several selections as my top recommendations. The time went quickly.”

“I understand there was almost no furniture in the town house,” Collins commented.

“A card table and two folding chairs,” Zan answered.

“So you sat at the card table for more than an hour going over your sketches?”

“No. I went up to the master bedroom on the third floor. I wanted to check once more and see how the patterns I had chosen worked in the strong sunlight. Remember the day was unusually warm and sunny.”

“Would you have heard Mrs. Aldrich if she had come in while you were on the third floor?” Jennifer Dean asked.

“She would have seen my portfolio and sketches as soon as she walked through the door,” Zan said.

“You had your own key to the town house, Ms. Moreland?”

“Of course. I was submitting plans to decorate the entire house from top to bottom. I went back and forth regularly for weeks.”

“You got to know the house pretty well, then, didn’t you?”

“I would think that’s obvious,” Zan snapped.

“Including the basement with its second kitchen, wine cellar, and storage room. Were you planning to decorate the storage room?”

“That space was large and dark and virtually inaccessible. It was really a kind of subcellar reached by a door at the back of the wine cellar. There were plenty of other storage areas in closets throughout the house. I suggested painting the room, putting in good lighting, and building shelves to accommodate items like skis for Mrs. Aldrich’s step-grandchildren.”

“It would have made a pretty good hiding place if someone wanted to hide something—or someone — wouldn’t it?” Jennifer Dean asked.

“Don’t answer that question, Zan,” Charley Shore ordered.

Billy Collins did not look disturbed. “Ms. Moreland, when did you give Mrs. Aldrich her key back?”

“It was about two weeks after Matthew disappeared. That was when she wrote the note saying that she thought the stress of Matthew’s disappearance would be too much for me to handle the job.”

“In those two weeks, did you still think you had the job?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Could you have handled it, given the fact that your son was missing?”

“Yes, I could have handled it. In fact, concentrating on it was the only way I thought I could preserve my sanity.”

“Then you went back and forth often to that empty house after your son disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“Did you go there to visit Matthew?”

Zan jumped up from the chair. “Are you crazy?” she demanded.

“Are you trying to tell me that you think I kidnapped my own child and hid him in that storage room?”

“Zan, sit down,” Charley Shore said firmly.

“Ms. Moreland, as you have said several times, that is a large town house. Why would you suggest that we think you hid Matthew in the storage room?”

“Because you are suggesting it,” Zan cried. “You are insinuating that I stole my own child, brought him back to that house, and hid him there. Why are you wasting your time? Why aren’t you finding out who doctored those photos to make them look as though I’m taking Matthew from the stroller? Don’t you understand that’s the key to finding my son?”

Detective Dean shot back at her, “Ms. Moreland, our tech people have gone over the photographs very carefully. They are not ‘doctored,’ as you put it. These photos have not been altered.”

Try as she would, Zan could not hold back the sobs that racked her shoulders. “Then someone is impersonating me. Why is this happening?” she cried. “Why don’t you listen to me? Bartley Longe hates me. From the minute I opened my own firm, I took business from him. And he’s a womanizer. He used to come on to me when I worked for him. He’s the worst kind of sleaze. He can’t stand to be rejected. That was another reason to hate me.”

Neither Collins nor Dean showed any emotion. Then when Zan, her tearstained face buried in her hands, managed to stifle her anguished reaction to the relentless questions, Jennifer Dean said, “Ms. Moreland, this is a new twist on your story. You never once referred to Bartley Longe as having come on to you sexually.”

“I didn’t because I didn’t think it was that important at the time. It was only a part of the pattern.”

“Zan, how often did you suffer fainting spells and memory lapses after your parents died?” Collins asked. Now his voice was concerned and kindly.

Zan tried to brush away tears, realizing that he, at least, was not openly antagonistic to her. “Everything was a blur for those six months,” she said. “Then I started to be able to think clearly and realized I had been so unfair to Ted. He was putting up with my crying spells and my spending days in bed and he was giving up evenings to be with me when he should have been out at clients’ events and openings, and endless awards events. When you run a public relations firm, you just can’t neglect that.”

“Did you tell him you were leaving as soon as you decided?”

“I knew he would be too worried about me and try to talk me out of it. I looked around and found a small apartment. My mother and father had insurance policies, no fortune, fifty thousand dollars in all, but it gave me a safety net to get started. And I took out a small loan.”

“What was your husband’s reaction when you finally told him you were leaving and wanted a divorce?”

“He had to go to California for the premiere of Marisa Young’s new movie. He was planning to get a nurse to stay with me. That was when I told him that I was eternally grateful to him, but I couldn’t be a burden to him any longer, that our marriage was a total act of kindness on his part, but now I knew I could go it alone and give him his life back. I told him I had decided to move out. He was kind enough to get me settled.”

At least they’re not accusing me when they ask me about Ted, she thought.

“At what point did you realize you were pregnant with Matthew?”

“I didn’t have a period for several months after my parents died. The doctor told me that wasn’t unusual in cases of extreme stress. Then my periods were irregular. So it was a few months after I left Ted before I realized that I was expecting Matthew.”

“What was your reaction to finding out you were pregnant?” Dean asked.

“Shocked, then very happy.”

“Even though you had taken out a bank loan to start your own business?” Collins asked.

“I knew it would be hard, but that didn’t bother me. Of course I told Ted, but I told him that he should not feel any financial responsibility.”

“Why not? He was the father, wasn’t he?”

“Of course he was,” Zan said heatedly.

“And he has a very successful public relations firm,” Dean pointed out. “Weren’t you as much as telling him that you wanted no part of him having anything to do with your child?”

“Our child,” Zan said. “Ted insisted that until I got my business going that he would pay for the nanny I would need to hire, and that if I didn’t need his financial help, he would put the money he would normally pay for support into a trust fund for Matthew.”

“You paint a rosy picture, Ms. Moreland,” Jennifer Dean observed sarcastically. “Wasn’t it a fact that Matthew’s father was concerned over the amount of time you left Matthew with the nanny? In fact, didn’t he indicate that he was willing to take over full custody of Matthew when you became more and more involved in your business?”

“That’s a lie,” Zan shouted. “Matthew was my life. In the beginning I only had a part-time secretary and unless I had a client in the office or was outside on appointments, Gretchen, the nanny, would bring Matthew to the office on her way to and from the park. Look at my appointment books from the time he was born till he disappeared. I was home almost every night with him. I didn’t want to be out. I loved him so much.”

“You loved him so much,” Dean snapped. “Then you do think he is dead.”

“He is not dead. He called out to me this morning.”

The detectives could not conceal their astonishment. “He called out to you this morning?” Billy Collins demanded.

“I mean, early this morning, I heard his voice.”

“Zan, we’re leaving now,” Charley Shore said, himself clearly rattled. “This inquisition is over.”

“No. I’m going to explain. Fr. Aiden was so kind when I met him last night. I know that even Alvirah and Willy don’t believe that I’m not the one in those photos in Central Park. But Fr. Aiden gave me a sense of peace that stayed with me all night. Then just as I was waking up this morning, I heard Matthew’s voice as clearly as though he were in the room and I knew he was still alive.”

This time, when Zan stood up, she pushed back the chair so quickly that it toppled over. “He is alive,” she shouted. “Why are you torturing me? Why aren’t you searching for my little boy? Why won’t you believe me that those photos are not of me? You think I’m crazy. You’re the ones who are blind and stupid.” Her voice now hysterical, she screamed, “ ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’ In case you don’t know, that’s a quote from Jeremiah in the Bible. Two years ago, when the pair of you wouldn’t listen to me about Bartley Longe, I looked it up.”

Zan turned to Charley Shore. “Am I under arrest?” she demanded. “If not, let’s get the hell out of here now.”