Fifth Avenue, you looked over Central Park. On East End Avenue, you could see the river. On Park you look at a building filled with people like yourself who can afford the fancy prices.
The view was better in Jersey City, he thought, wryly. I could get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty from the old apartment. But after Mom died, I couldn't get away fast enough. Mom forced herself to stay alive until she'd seen me graduate from St. John's University. I'm glad she's not sitting in that courtroom now, he thought, turning from the window.
It was cool out, and he decided to wear a light running suit. As he dressed, Gregg realized how much he'd been thinking of his mother lately. He found himself remembering how, after she died, he'd invited a few of the close neighbors like Loretta Lewis to come into their five-story walk-up to help themselves to any furnishings they could use.
Why was he thinking that? Because Richard Moore is going to put Mrs. Lewis on the stand as a character witness to say what a "grand" son I was and how helpful to all the old people in the building. He seems to think that will create some sympathy for me. Father dead when I was nine, mother fighting cancer for years, working my way through college . . . Moore will have them in tears for me. But what has that got to do with Natalie's death? Moore says it could cre-ate doubt that I was capable of killing Natalie. Who knows?
At 5:20, after gulping a cup of instant coffee, Gregg opened the door to Katie's bedroom and looked in on her. She was fast asleep, hunched in a ball under the coverlet, only her long blond hair visible. Like him, she loved a cold room for sleeping.
But last night, after she had gone to bed, he heard her sobbing and went to her. "Daddy, why is that Jimmy Easton lying about you? she wailed.
He sat on her bed and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Katie, he's lying because he's going to spend a lot less time in prison by spinning that story."
"But, Daddy, the jury believes him. I can tell that they believe him."
"Do you believe him?"
"No, of course not." She quickly pulled herself up to sitting position. "How can you even ask me that?"
She had been shocked. And I was shocked that I asked her that question, Gregg thought, but if I'd seen any doubt in her eyes, it would have finished me. It had taken a long time before Katie fell asleep. Now he hoped she wouldn't wake up until at least seven o'clock. They had to leave for the courtroom at twenty of eight.
He let himself out of the apartment and began to jog the two blocks to Central Park, taking the path north when he reached it. Try as he would to organize his thoughts to prepare himself for the witness stand, his mind keep hurtling back to the past.
My first job in show business was taking tickets at the Barrymore, he reminisced, but I was smart enough to hang out in Sardi's and some of the other watering holes until Doc Yates offered me a job in his theatrical agency. By then I'd met Kathleen.
Kathleen had a small part in a revival of The Sound of Music at the Barrymore. It had been love at first sight for both of us. We got married the same week I took the job with Doc Yates. We were both twenty-four years old.
Deeply immersed in the past, Gregg jogged northward, aware of neither the chilling wind, nor of the other earlv-morning runners. We had eight years together, he thought. I went up the ladder fast at the agency. Doc groomed me for his job from day one. Kathleen worked pretty steadily but the minute she got pregnant, she said, happily,
"Gregg, when our baby arrives, I'm staying home. You'll be the sole breadwinner in this family."
Gregg Aldrich did not realize that he was smiling.
Those years had been so tender, so satisfying. And then to have Kathleen diagnosed with the breast cancer that had killed his mother and to lose her so quickly, to come home from the funeral to a sobbing three-year-old Katie who was screaming for Mommy had been almost unbearable.
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The view was better in Jersey City, he thought, wryly. I could get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty from the old apartment. But after Mom died, I couldn't get away fast enough. Mom forced herself to stay alive until she'd seen me graduate from St. John's University. I'm glad she's not sitting in that courtroom now, he thought, turning from the window.
It was cool out, and he decided to wear a light running suit. As he dressed, Gregg realized how much he'd been thinking of his mother lately. He found himself remembering how, after she died, he'd invited a few of the close neighbors like Loretta Lewis to come into their five-story walk-up to help themselves to any furnishings they could use.
Why was he thinking that? Because Richard Moore is going to put Mrs. Lewis on the stand as a character witness to say what a "grand" son I was and how helpful to all the old people in the building. He seems to think that will create some sympathy for me. Father dead when I was nine, mother fighting cancer for years, working my way through college . . . Moore will have them in tears for me. But what has that got to do with Natalie's death? Moore says it could cre-ate doubt that I was capable of killing Natalie. Who knows?
At 5:20, after gulping a cup of instant coffee, Gregg opened the door to Katie's bedroom and looked in on her. She was fast asleep, hunched in a ball under the coverlet, only her long blond hair visible. Like him, she loved a cold room for sleeping.
But last night, after she had gone to bed, he heard her sobbing and went to her. "Daddy, why is that Jimmy Easton lying about you? she wailed.
He sat on her bed and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Katie, he's lying because he's going to spend a lot less time in prison by spinning that story."
"But, Daddy, the jury believes him. I can tell that they believe him."
"Do you believe him?"
"No, of course not." She quickly pulled herself up to sitting position. "How can you even ask me that?"
She had been shocked. And I was shocked that I asked her that question, Gregg thought, but if I'd seen any doubt in her eyes, it would have finished me. It had taken a long time before Katie fell asleep. Now he hoped she wouldn't wake up until at least seven o'clock. They had to leave for the courtroom at twenty of eight.
He let himself out of the apartment and began to jog the two blocks to Central Park, taking the path north when he reached it. Try as he would to organize his thoughts to prepare himself for the witness stand, his mind keep hurtling back to the past.
My first job in show business was taking tickets at the Barrymore, he reminisced, but I was smart enough to hang out in Sardi's and some of the other watering holes until Doc Yates offered me a job in his theatrical agency. By then I'd met Kathleen.
Kathleen had a small part in a revival of The Sound of Music at the Barrymore. It had been love at first sight for both of us. We got married the same week I took the job with Doc Yates. We were both twenty-four years old.
Deeply immersed in the past, Gregg jogged northward, aware of neither the chilling wind, nor of the other earlv-morning runners. We had eight years together, he thought. I went up the ladder fast at the agency. Doc groomed me for his job from day one. Kathleen worked pretty steadily but the minute she got pregnant, she said, happily,
"Gregg, when our baby arrives, I'm staying home. You'll be the sole breadwinner in this family."
Gregg Aldrich did not realize that he was smiling.
Those years had been so tender, so satisfying. And then to have Kathleen diagnosed with the breast cancer that had killed his mother and to lose her so quickly, to come home from the funeral to a sobbing three-year-old Katie who was screaming for Mommy had been almost unbearable.
Work
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