No Place Like Home Part 10

Martin and Kathleen Kellogg of Santa Barbara, California, were the distant cousins who adopted me. At the time of Mother's death, they had been living in Saudi Arabia where he was with an engineering firm. They did not learn anything about what had happened until the company relocated them back to Santa Barbara. By then the trial was over and I was living in the juvenile shelter here in New Jersey while the Division of Youth and Family Services, DYFS for short, decided where to place me.

In a way, it was good that they hadn't had any contact with me until that time. Childless themselves, they learned of what had happened, then, quietly and without a hint of publicity, came to Morris County and pet.i.tioned to adopt me. They were interviewed and checked out.

The court readily approved them as being suitable to become the guardians and adoptive parents of a minor who had not spoken more than a few words in over a year.

At that time, the Kelloggs were in their early fifties, not too old to parent an eleven-year-old.

However distant the connection, Martin was a blood relative. More important, though, they were genuinely compa.s.sionate. The first time I met Kathleen, she said that she hoped I would like her and, in time, come to love her. She said, "I always wanted to have a little girl. Now I want to give you back the rest of your childhood, Liza."

I went with them willingly. Of course, no one can give you back something that has been destroyed. I was no longer a child; I was an acquitted killer. They desperately wanted me to get beyond the "Little Lizzie" horror, and so coached me in the story we told to anyone who had known them before they returned to Santa Barbara.

I was the daughter of a widowed friend who, when she learned she was terminally ill with cancer, asked them to adopt me. They chose my new name, Celia, because my grandmother had been Cecelia. They were wise enough to understand that I needed some link to the past, even though it would be secret.

I lived with them for only seven years. During all that time, I saw Dr. Moran once a week. I trusted him from the beginning. I think he, rather than Martin, became a real father figure for me. When I could not speak, he had me draw pictures for him. Over and over, I drew the same ones. Mother's sitting room, a ferocious apelike figure, his back to me, his arms holding a woman against the wall. I drew the picture of a gun poised in midair with bullets flying from it, but the gun was not held by any hand. I drew a picture that was the reverse of the Piet. Mine depicted the child holding the dead figure of the mother.

I had lost a year of grammar school but made it up quickly and went to a local high school in Santa Barbara. In both places I was known as being "quiet but nice." I had friends, but never let anyone get close to me. For someone who lives a lie, truth must always be avoided, and I was constantly having to guard my tongue. I also had to fiercely conceal my emotions. I remember in a soph.o.m.ore English cla.s.s, the surprise test was for the students to write an essay about the most memorable day of their lives.

That terrible night flashed vividly before my eyes. It was as if I were watching a movie. I tried to pick up my pen but my fingers refused to grasp it. I tried to breathe, but I couldn't pull air into my lungs. And then I fainted.

The cover story we used was that I had almost drowned as a small child, and had occasional flashbacks. I told Dr. Moran that what had happened that night had never been so clear, that for a split second I had remembered what Mother had been screaming at Ted. And then it was gone again.

The same year I moved to New York to attend the Fashion Inst.i.tute, Martin reached compulsory retirement at his company, and they gladly moved to Naples, Florida, where he took a position with an engineering firm. He has since fully retired, and now, past eighty, has become what Kathleen calls "forgetful," but which I fear is the beginning stages of Alzheimer's.

When we married, Alex and I had a quiet wedding in the Lady Chapel of St. Patrick's Cathedral, just the two of us and Jack, Richard Ackerman, the elderly lawyer who is the senior partner of Alex's law firm, and Joan Donlan who was my right hand when I had the interior design business and who is the closest I have to an intimate friend.

Shortly after that, Alex and Jack and I flew down to Naples to visit Martin and Kathleen for a few days. Thank G.o.d we stayed at a hotel, because Martin often became disoriented. One day when we were lingering over lunch on the patio, he called me "Liza." Fortunately, Alex was not within earshot because he had headed to the beach for a swim, but Jack heard. It puzzled him so much that it became embedded in his memory, and from time to time he still asks me, "Why did Grandpa call you Liza, Mom?"

Once, at the apartment in New York, Alex was in the room when Jack asked that question, but his reaction was to explain to Jack that sometimes people who are old begin to forget and mix up people's names. "Remember, your grandpa called me 'Larry' a couple of times. He mixed me up with your first daddy."

After my outburst over the pony's name, I had followed Jack into the house. He had run to Alex and was sitting on his lap, tearfully telling him that Mommy scared him. "She scares me too, sometimes, Jack," Alex said, and I know he meant it to be a joke, but the underlying truth was undeniable. My fainting spell, my crying episodes, even the state of shock I'd been in after finding Georgette's body-all those things had frightened him. And the fear might as well have been stamped on Alex's forehead: he obviously thought I was having some sort of breakdown.

He listened to Jack's story about how I had yelled at him, saying he couldn't call the pony Lizzie, and then he tried to explain: "You know, Jack, a long time ago a little girl named Lizzie lived in this house and she did some very bad things. n.o.body liked her and they made her go away. We think about that bad girl when we hear that name. What's something you hate more than anything else?"

"When the doctor gives me a booster shot."

"Well think about it this way. When we hear the name Lizzie, it reminds Mommy and me of that bad girl. Would you want to call your pony 'Booster Shot?'"

Jack began to laugh. "Nooooooooo."

"So now you know how Mommy feels. Let's think about another name for that pretty pony."

"Mommy said we should call her 'Star' because she has a star on her forehead."

"I think that's a great name, and we should make it official. Mommy, don't we have some birthday wrapping paper?"

"Yes, I think so." I was so grateful to Alex for calming Jack down, but oh, dear G.o.d, the explanation he gave him!

"Why don't you make a big star and we'll put it on the door of the barn so everyone will know a pony named 'Star' lives there?"

Jack loved the idea. I drew the outline of a star on a section of glittery wrapping paper and he cut it out. We made a ceremony of pasting it on the door of the barn, and then I recited for them the poem I remembered from childhood: "Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight."

By then it was six o'clock, and the evening shadows were beginning to settle in.

"What is your wish, Mommy?" Jack asked.

"I wish that the three of us will be together forever."

"What do you wish, Alex?" Jack asked.

"I wish that you'll start to call me 'Daddy' soon, and that by this time next year you'll have a little brother or sister."

That night, when Alex tried to draw me close to him, he sensed my resistance and immediately released me. "Ceil, why don't you take a sleeping pill?" he suggested. "You need to relax. I'm not sleepy. I'll go downstairs and read for a while."

When I take a sleeping pill, I usually break it in half, but after the day I had just gone through, I swallowed a whole one and for the next eight hours slept soundly. When I awakened, it was almost eight o'clock, and Alex was gone. I pulled on a robe and rushed downstairs. Jack was up and dressed and at the table, having breakfast with Alex.

Alex jumped up and came over to me. "That was some sleep," he said. "I don't think you stirred all night." He kissed me with that gesture I love, cupping my face in his hands. "I've got to be off. You okay?"

"I'm good." And I was. As the remnants of sleep left me, I felt physically stronger than I've felt since the morning we first pulled up to this driveway. I knew what I was going to do. After I dropped Jack at school, I would go to one of the other real estate agents in town and try to find a house that we could rent or buy immediately. I didn't care how suitable it was. Getting out of this house would be the first step toward regaining something approaching normality.

At least it seemed like the best thing to do. Later that morning, however, when I went to the Mark W. Grannon Agency and Mark Grannon himself took me around, I learned something about Georgette Grove that took my breath away. "Georgette was the one who got the exclusive listing on your house," he told me as we drove along Hardscrabble Road. "None of the rest of us wanted to touch it. But Georgette always had a guilty feeling about the place. She and Audrey Barton had been good friends at one time. They went to Mendham High at the same time, although Georgette was a couple of years older than Audrey."

I listened, hoping Grannon could not sense the tension rushing through my body.

"Audrey was a great rider, you know. A real horsewoman. Her husband, Will, though, was deathly afraid of them and embarra.s.sed about it. He wanted to be able to ride with Audrey. It was Georgette who suggested that he ask Zach at Washington Valley Riding Club to give him lessons, something they agreed to keep secret from Audrey, which they did. Audrey knew nothing about it until the police came to tell her Will was dead. She and Georgette never spoke again."

Zach!

The name hit me like a thunderbolt. It was one of the words my mother had screamed at Ted the night I killed her.

Zach: It was part of the puzzle!

CHAPTER 28.

On Friday afternoon, Ted Cartwright's secretary informed him t In a way, Ted had been expecting the visit, but now that it actually had happened, he felt perspiration form on the palms of his hands. Impatiently, he wiped them dry on his jacket, pulled open his desk drawer, and took a quick look in the mirror that he always kept there. I look fine, he thought. In a split second he decided that showing cordiality might be construed as a sign of weakness.

"I wasn't aware that Mr. Walsh had made an appointment to see me," he spat into the intercom.

"However, send him in."

Paul Walsh's suit-off-the-rack, slightly rumpled look immediately triggered Cartwright's contempt, which put him somewhat at ease. The round frame of Walsh's gla.s.ses reminded Cartwright of the color of his tan riding boots. He decided to be condescendingly cordial to his visitor.

"I really don't like unexpected drop-ins," he said. "And I'm going to be on a conference call in ten minutes, so we'd better get to the point, Mr. Walsh. It is Mr. Walsh, isn't it?"

"That's right," Walsh replied, his firm, steely tone of voice out of sync with his mild-mannered appearance. He handed Cartwright his card and, uninvited, sat down in the chair facing Cartwright's desk.

Feeling that he had somehow lost control, Cartwright sat down again himself. "What can I do for you?" This time his tone was brusque.

"I am, as I would presume you have guessed, investigating the murder yesterday morning of Georgette Grove. I a.s.sume you've heard about it."

"You would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to have heard about it," Cartwright snapped.

"You knew Ms. Grove?"

"Of course, I knew her. We both lived in this area all our lives."

"Were you friends?"

He's heard about Wednesday night, Cartwright thought. Hoping to disarm Walsh, he said, "We had been friendly enough." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "In recent years, Georgette became very confrontational. When she was on the zoning board, she made it extremely difficult for anybody trying to get any kind of variance. Even when she wasn't appointed to another term, she still never missed a meeting, and continued to be an obstructionist. For that reason, I, along with a number of other people, ended any semblance of friendship with her."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"On Wednesday night, at the Black Horse Tavern."

"What time was that, Mr. Cartwright?"

"Somewhere between nine fifteen and nine thirty. She was alone, having dinner."

"Did you approach her?'

"We made eye contact. She beckoned to me and I went over to greet her and was astonished when she all but accused me of being the one responsible for the vandalism of the house on Old Mill Lane."

"The house in which you lived at one time."

"That's correct."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her that she was turning into a crackpot and demanded to know why she would think that I had anything to do with it. She said that I was working with Henry Paley to put her out of business so that she'd have to sell the property on Route 24. She said she'd see me in h.e.l.l before she sold it."

"What was your response?"

"I told her I was not working with Henry Paley. I told her that while I would certainly like to develop that property by putting in tasteful, commercial offices, I had plenty of other projects I was working on. And that was the end of it."

"I see. Where were you yesterday morning between eight and ten o'clock, Mr. Cartwright?"

"At eight o'clock I was riding my horse on a trail at the Peapack Riding Club. I rode until nine o'clock, showered at the club, and drove here, arriving at about nine thirty."

"The house on Holland Road in which Ms. Grove was shot has wooded property behind it, all part of the acreage attached to the house. Isn't there a riding path on that property that connects to a Peapack trail?"

Cartwright stood up. "Get out of here," he ordered angrily. "And don't come back. If I have to talk further with you or anyone from your office, I'll do it in the presence of my lawyer."

Paul Walsh stood and walked to the door. As he turned the handle, he said quietly, "You will be seeing me again, Mr. Cartwright. And if you're speaking to your friend Mr. Paley, you can tell him that he'll be seeing me as well."

CHAPTER 29.

At four o'clock on Friday afternoon, Charley Hatch pulled his van into the dirt driveway behind his barn, then unhitched the trailer he'd used to haul his riding mower and other landscaping equipment. Some nights he didn't bother to do that, but tonight he was going out again, meeting some pals for dinner at a bar where they would watch the Yankee game. He was looking forward to it.

It had been a long day. The sprinkler system at one of the places he serviced had broken down and the gra.s.s was parched. Not that the sprinkler failure was his fault, but the owner was due home from vacation soon and would be furious if the grounds weren't up to snuff. It was one of Charley's easier jobs, and he didn't want to lose it, so he had spent extra time getting the sprinkler guy out to fix the system, then hung around until he was sure the gra.s.s was getting properly soaked.

Still upset by his phone conversation with Ted Cartwright the previous night, he'd used the time while he was waiting for the sprinkler guy to carefully examine the clothes he had worn on Monday night when he was on Old Mill Lane. He was wearing the same jeans as he had then, and found three drops of red paint on the right knee and traces of it in the back of the van. The jeans were old but very comfortable, and he didn't want to dump them. He'd have to see if he could get the paint off with turpentine.

He had to be especially careful since the Grove woman had been shot while she was trying to clean up the paint he'd spilled putting the cans away Monday night.

Still in a foul mood, Charley finished putting away the trailer and went into the house, heading straight to the refrigerator. He pulled out a beer, flipped off the top, and began to drink. A glance out the front window made him withdraw the bottle from his lips. A squad car was turning into his driveway. The cops. He knew they would be coming to ask questions eventually, because he took care of the place on Holland Road where the real estate agent had been murdered.

Charley glanced down. The three drops of red paint on the right knee on his jeans suddenly looked as if they were billboard size. He rushed into his bedroom, pulled off his sneakers, and was dismayed to see that the sole of his left one was smeared with red paint. He grabbed a pair of corduroy pants from the floor of his closet, put them on, shoved his feet into well-worn loafers, and was able to answer the door after the second ring.

Sergeant Clyde Earley was standing there. "Mind if I come in, Charley?" he asked. "Just want to ask you a few questions."

"Sure, sure, come on in, Sergeant." Charley stood aside and watched as Earley's eyes swept the room. "Sit down. I just got home. Opened a beer for myself first thing. It's hot out there. Funny how the other day you could feel the cool in the air, but then all of a sudden, bang, it's back to summer. How about a beer?"

"Thanks, but I'm on duty, Charley." Earley selected a straight chair, one of two at the butcher block table at which Charley ate his meals.

Charley sat on the edge of the worn club chair that had been part of the decor of the living room in the house he had shared with his wife before their divorce.

"Terrible thing, what happened on Holland Road yesterday," Earley began.

"I should say so. It gives you the creeps, doesn't it?" Charley took a sip of his beer, then was sorry he had. Earley's face was flushed. He had removed his uniform hat and his sandy hair was damp. Bet he'd love a slug of this brew, Charley thought. He probably doesn't like me sitting in front of him and drinking it. Casually, he put the bottle on the floor.

"You just get home from work, Charley?"

"That's right."

"Any reason you changed into corduroy pants and leather shoes? You didn't work in them, did you?"

"Trouble with a sprinkler system. My jeans and sneakers were soaked. I'd just taken them off and was heading for the shower when I saw your car, so I pulled these on."

"I see. Well, I'm sorry to keep you from your shower, but I just need to get a few facts. You do the landscaping for 10 Holland Road, right?"

"Yeah. I started when the Carrolls bought the place eight, nine years ago. When Mr. Carroll got transferred, they asked me to keep up the place until it's sold."

"What do you mean by 'keeping up the place,' Charley?"

"The grounds, you know-mow the lawn, trim the bushes, sweep the porch and the walk."