Just Take My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

the state has gathered in the matter of State versus Gregg Aldrich. As Judge Stevens has also told you, what I say now and what Mr. Moore may say in his opening statement is not evidence. The evidence will come from the witnesses who will testify and from the exhibits that are marked into evidence. The purpose of my opening statement is to give you an overview of the state's case so that as each witness testifies, you will have a better understanding of where that testimony fits within the total scheme of the state's case.
    "After all of the testimony is completed, I will have another opportunity to speak to you
    --in my summation--and, at that time, I respectfully submit to you, I will be able to say to you that the state's witnesses and the physical exhibits have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that Gregg Aldrich brutally murdered his wife."
    For the next forty-five minutes, Emily meticulously detailed the investigation and the circumstances that had led to Aldrich's indictment. She told them that by all accounts Natalie Raines and Gregg Aldrich had been very happy early on in their five-year marriage. She spoke of Natalie's success as an actress and of Aldrich's prominence as her theatrical agent. She explained to them that the evidence would show that as time passed, the demands of Natalie's career, including long separations when her shows took her on the road, began to cause substantial strain.
    Her voice lowered, she sketched Aldrich's growing frustration at these circumstances and his disappointment, which evolved into deep anger, that Natalie was not home much more often with him and his young daughter. With a tone of sympathy, she related that Aldrich's first wife had died when his little girl, Katie, had been only three years old and that he had hoped and expected that Natalie would be a second mother to her. Katie had been seven years old at the time that they married. Emily indicated that she would produce witnesses who had been friends of the couple who would testify to Gregg's repeated statements of anger and frustration that Natalie was consumed by her career, and was not there emotionally for ei-ther one of them.
    She then informed the jury that Natalie and Aldrich had a pre-nuptial agreement which kept their finances generally separate. However, she stated, much of Gregg Aldrich's income was earned as Natalie's agent. When, a year before her death, she had separated from him, she told him that she still cared deeply for him and wanted him to continue as her agent. But as the months went by, and Natalie became convinced that because of Aldrich's resentment a total break would be necessary, he faced the loss of the substantial in-come from his most successful client.
    Emily related that the evidence would show that Gregg made repeated requests to Natalie to reconcile but was rebuffed. She told the jurors that after the separation, Natalie had bought her childhood home in Closter, New Jersey, a thirty-minute drive from the midtown Manhattan apartment where Gregg continued to reside with his daughter. Emily explained that Natalie was comfortable and happy in her home, which provided close proximity to the New York theatre, but both emotional and physical distance from Gregg. Shortly after this move, and sure of her decision, Natalie filed for divorce. Witnesses would testify that Gregg had been devastated, but still not convinced that the marriage was over.
    Emily continued. The evidence would demonstrate that Gregg Aldrich, growing more desperate, began to stalk Natalie. On the Fri-day night prior to the early Monday morning death of Natalie, he attended the final Broadway performance of A Streetcar Named De-sire, sitting in the last row so that she could not see him. He was observed by others who would testify that he had appeared stone-faced throughout the performance and had been the only person in the audience not to rise for a standing ovation at the end.
    As the jurors listened intently, their