Free As Time Goes By by Mary Higgins Clark Page B

make an additional application to the chancery court for another disbursement?”
    â€œYes, I did. Because the estate is frozen pending the outcome of this trial, I cannot receive my inheritance. I was advised that I could make an application for a partial disbursement because of my expenses.”
    â€œAnd how much did the court approve?”
    â€œOne hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
    â€œMr. Grant, you stand to inherit one half of a fifteen-million-dollar estate if Betsy is not convicted, and you will inherit the full fifteen-million-dollar estate if she is. Is that correct?”
    â€œThat is my understanding, sir.”
    â€œMr. Grant, let me take you back eighteen months to when your father was alive. Is it fair to say that you were in desperate financial straits but also the heir to a multimillion-dollar estate that would be distributed when your father died?”
    â€œYes, but I loved my father and I had nothing to do with his death.”
    Delaney watched Alan Grant squirm in his chair as he answered the questions. He was clearly uncomfortable.
    â€œMr. Grant, after the birthday dinner for your father, where did you go?”
    â€œI went back to New York City. I had plans to meet someone at a bar close to my home.”
    â€œWhat time did you get there?”
    â€œAbout 10 P.M. ”
    â€œHow long did you stay there?”
    â€œA couple of hours. I left around midnight.”
    â€œYou met a former girlfriend there. Is that correct?”
    â€œThat is correct.”
    â€œWhat is her name?”
    â€œJosie Mason.”
    â€œDid you leave together?”
    â€œYes, we did.”
    â€œWhere did you go?”
    â€œWe went to her apartment a couple of blocks away.”
    â€œDid you stay that night at her apartment?”
    â€œYes I did.” Alan’s face turned red and angry. “I know where you are going, Mr. Maynard. My whereabouts are totally accounted for from the time I left my father’s home until the next morning when I received the call from Betsy that my father had passed away. The bar has a surveillance camera and so does her apartment building. The prosecutor checked out all of that.”
    â€œOf course he did,” Maynard said sarcastically. “Tell me, Mr. Grant, did you know the code to the alarm system in your father’s home?”
    â€œNo, I did not.”
    â€œIs there any reason why you didn’t know it?”
    â€œIt just never came up.”
    â€œDid you ever have a key to your father’s home?”
    â€œNo, I did not. Again, it just never came up.”
    â€œSo in the event of an emergency at the home, you didn’t have a key and you didn’t know the alarm code.”
    â€œLike I’ve told you already, it just never came up. There were always other people there, the housekeeper, the caregiver. There was no specific need for me to have a key or know the code.”
    â€œYou saw your father fairly frequently, didn’t you?”
    â€œYes, at least every couple weeks including when he was sick.”
    â€œYour father even in the last couple of years did have lucid moments. Is that correct?”
    â€œYes, I treasured them.”
    â€œDid you ever ask him in these lucid moments what the alarm code was?”
    â€œAbsolutely not.”
    â€œThe evidence will show that one of the several house keys has not been accounted for. It was your father’s key.”
    â€œI know absolutely nothing about that key.”
    â€œYour Honor,” Maynard said with a tone of sarcasm, “I have no further questions of this witness.”
    â€œOkay,” the judge replied. “We’ll take the lunch recess.”

15

    D elaney had been quietly taking notes throughout the morning. It was always her habit to eat in the courthouse cafeteria, where many of the spectators gathered, and try to overhear their opinions on the testimony they had heard. Neither Betsy Grant and her attorneys