No Place Like Home Part 19

And I've got to find out who Zach is. If his name sent her into spasms of grief when she was in detention, maybe she has a grudge against him, too.

CHAPTER 51.

Even as Ted Cartwright was being introduced to me I was sure that seeing me was triggering something inside him. He could not take his eyes off my face, and I am certain that in looking at it, he was seeing my mother. I knew that for some reason tonight I looked very much like her.

"It's very nice to meet you, Mrs. Nolan," he said.

His voice was jarring-hearty, resonant, commanding, confident, the same voice that rose to an ugly jeer as he shoved my mother at me.

Over the twenty-four years since then, I have heard his voice in my mind at times when I would have done anything to forget it, and at other times when I wanted desperately to reconstruct those last words he and my mother shouted at each other before I reached them.

And all these years my last words to him have echoed in my soul: "Let go of my mother!"

I looked up at him. I did not touch his extended hand, but neither did I want to raise questions by being overtly rude. I murmured, "How are you?" and turned back to Alex. Alex, unaware of what was going on, did what most people do when there is an awkward silence. He covered it with polite conversation, telling me that Ted is also a member of the Peapack Club, and that they'd run into each other occasionally.

Of course, Marcella Williams could not leave without trying to find out why I had been dabbing at my eyes. "Celia, is there anything at all I can do to help you?" she asked.

"Perhaps minding your own business would be a start," I said.

Marcella's sympathetic smile froze on her face. Before she could say anything, Ted took her arm and pulled her away.

I looked at Alex and saw the distress in his face. "Ceil, what was that all about? There was absolutely no reason to be so rude."

"I think there was," I said. "We were having a private conversation. That woman saw that I'm upset, and couldn't wait to find out what is upsetting me. As for Mr. Cartwright, you saw as well as I did that long interview he so happily gave the newspapers, raking up that lurid story about the house you want us to live in."

"Ceil, I read what he said," Alex protested. "He answered a few questions a reporter asked him, that's all. I barely know Cartwright, but he's very well thought of at the club. I think Marcella was genuinely trying to be helpful. My G.o.d, she drove you home yesterday when she learned I had a time problem."

"You told me Zach saw you!"

My mother's voice was shouting in my mind. I was sure that was part of what she had said that night. Hearing Ted's voice again had verified the flash of memory I had this past week. Mother had spoken Zach's name, and now I had a few words more: "You told me Zach saw you!"

What did Zach see Ted do? And then I said aloud, "Oh, no."

"Ceil, what is it? You look pale as a ghost."

A possible answer to the meaning of my mother's words occurred to me. The day my father died, he had ridden ahead of Zach, and then taken the wrong trail. At least that was the story Zach had told me and everyone else. But Zach had also bragged to me that he was a longtime friend of Ted Cartwright. Had Ted Cartwright also been riding those trails that day? Did he have anything to do with my father's accident? Had Zach seen it?

"Ceil, what is it?" Alex insisted.

I had literally felt the blood drain from my face, and quickly searched my mind for a plausible explanation. At least I could tell Alex a half-truth. "Before Marcella barged over, I was about to tell you that I had been talking to my mother. She tells me that my dad is in bad shape."

"Is the Alzheimer's getting worse?" I nodded.

"Oh, Ceil, I'm so sorry. Is there anything we can do?"

The "we" was so comforting to hear. "I've told Kathleen to hire a full-time aide immediately. I told her I'd take care of it."

"Let me do that."

I shook my head as I thanked him. "That's not necessary, but I love you for wanting to help."

"Ceil, you have to know that I'd give you the world on a platter if you'd take it." He reached over, took my hands, and entwined our fingers.

"I just want a tiny piece of the world," I said, "a nice, normal piece of it, with you and Jack."

"And Jill and Junior," Alex said, smiling.

Our check came. As we got up, Alex suggested that we stop by Marcella and Ted's table and say goodnight. "It wouldn't hurt to smooth things over," he urged. "Marcella is our neighbor and she meant well. When we start going to affairs at the Peapack Club, you'll be b.u.mping into Ted, like it or not."

I was on the verge of an angry reply, but then something occurred to me. If Ted had recognized me, he might be worried that I would remember what my mother had shouted at him. If he had not recognized me, but I had stirred something in his subconscious, there might be a way I could force a reaction from him.

"I think that's a good idea," I said.

I was pretty sure Marcella and Ted had been looking over at us, but when we turned in their direction, they looked at each other and acted as if they were deep in conversation. I walked over to their table. Ted was holding an espresso cup that looked lost in his powerful right hand.

His left hand was on the table, the long, thick fingers splayed out over the white surface. I had felt the strength of those hands when he had flung my mother against me like a weightless toy.

I smiled at Marcella even as I realized how thoroughly I despised her. I had a clear memory of how she had always flirted with Ted after he married my mother, then rushed to support his version of my mother's death with her own recollections of me. "Marcella, I'm so sorry," I said. "I got very bad news about my father today. He's quite ill." I looked at Ted. "I've been taking riding lessons from a man who claims he's a great friend of yours. His name is Zach.

He's a wonderful teacher. I'm so glad to have lucked onto him."

Later, when we were home and getting ready for bed, Alex said, "Ceil, you looked so beautiful tonight, but I'll be perfectly honest. The way you went so pale, I thought you were going to faint. I know you haven't been sleeping well lately. Is it this Detective Walsh guy who's upsetting you, as well as your Dad being sick?"

"Detective Walsh hasn't helped," I said.

"I'll be on the prosecutor's doorstep at nine o'clock. I'll go straight to the airport from there, but I'll call and tell you how it went."

"Okay."

"As you well know, I'm not much for sleeping pills, but I do think you'd do yourself a favor to take one now. A decent night's sleep makes the whole world look different."

"I think that's a good idea," I agreed. Then I added, "I'm not being much of a wife to you these days."

Alex kissed me. "There are thousands of days ahead of us." He kissed me again. "And nights."

The sleeping pill worked. It was nearly eight o'clock when I woke up. My first awareness was that sometime during my dreams I had heard the first part of what my mother screamed at Ted that night.

"You admitted it when you were drunk."

CHAPTER 52.

Jeff MacKingsley was at his desk promptly at eight thirty on Wednesday morning. He had a sense that it was going to be a long day and not a good one. Both his Scottish and his Irish grandmothers had cautioned him that everything comes in threes, especially death.

First Georgette Grove, then Charley Hatch. The superst.i.tious part of Jeff's Celtic nature warned him that the specter of violent death was still hovering over Morris County, waiting to claim a third victim.

Unlike Paul Walsh, who remained fixated on the belief that Celia Nolan had murdered Georgette for her own unbalanced reasons, and that she had both motive and opportunity to kill Charley Hatch, Jeff believed that Celia Nolan was a victim of circ.u.mstance.

That was why, when Anna came into his office to tell him a Mr. Alex Nolan was at her desk, insisting that he had to see the prosecutor, Jeff's immediate instinct was to welcome the opportunity to have a talk with Celia Nolan's husband. On the other hand, he did not want to have a meeting after which he might be misquoted. "Is Mort Sh.e.l.ley in his office?" he asked Anna.

"He just went by with a container of coffee." "Tell him to put it down and come in here at once. Ask Mr. Nolan to wait five minutes, then send him in." "Fine."

As Anna turned to go, Jeff added, "If Walsh stops at your desk, I don't want him to know that Alex Nolan is here. Understood?"

Anna's response was to raise her eyebrows and put her finger to her lips. Jeff knew that Walsh was no favorite of hers. Barely a minute later, Mort Sh.e.l.ley came in.

"Sorry to tear you away from your coffee, but Celia Nolan's husband is here, and I need a witness to the conversation," Jeff told him. "Don't take notes in front of him. I get the feeling that this is not going to be a friendly chat."

It was clear from the moment Alex Nolan entered the room that he was both angry and spoiling for a fight. He barely acknowledged Jeff's greeting and the introduction to Sh.e.l.ley, and then demanded, "Why is one of your detectives following my wife around?"

Jeff admitted to himself that if he had been Celia Nolan's husband, he would have reacted exactly the same way. Even given his total focus on Celia Nolan, Walsh had been grandstanding by openly following her when she was shopping. He thought making her aware of his scrutiny would rattle her enough to make her confess to killing Georgette. Instead it had produced hostility, and now Nolan's lawyer husband was on the attack.

"Mr. Nolan, please sit down and let me explain something," Jeff said. "Your new home was vandalized. The agent who sold it to you was murdered. We have evidence that seems to prove that the man who was shot yesterday committed the vandalism. I'm going to lay my cards on the table. You know, of course, the history of your house-that Liza Barton fatally shot her mother and wounded her stepfather in it twenty-four years ago. There was a picture of the Barton family taped to a post in your barn the day after you moved in."

"The one of them on the beach?" Alex asked.

"Yes. There were no fingerprints on it except those of your wife, which was to be expected since she was the one who took it down and gave it to me."

"That's impossible," Alex Nolan protested. "Whoever put it up must have left fingerprints."

"That's exactly the point. That picture had been wiped clean of fingerprints. Georgette Grove had a picture in her shoulder bag of your wife in the process of fainting. It had been cut out of the Star-Ledger. It also had no fingerprints on it. Finally, Charley Hatch, the landscaper who was shot yesterday in the yard of a house very close to the Washington Valley Riding Club where your wife was taking a riding lesson, had a picture of Audrey Barton in the pocket of his vest. Like the others, it had no fingerprints on it."

"I still fail to see what that has to do with my wife," Alex Nolan said flatly.

"It may not have anything to do with your wife, but it has everything to do with your house, and we have to find the connection. I a.s.sure you that we are pursuing this investigation on a very broad scale, and we have a number of people we are questioning."

"Celia seems to feel that a great deal is being made of the fact that she got home quickly after finding Georgette Grove's body. Mr. MacKingsley, I'm sure you are aware of the feats of physical strength that people have been known to perform when under great stress. I remember an incident of a man lifting a car to rescue his child who was trapped under it. My wife is a young woman who was absolutely shocked by the vandalism. Two days later she found the body of a woman she barely knew in a house she had never set foot in. For all she knew, the person who shot Georgette Grove was still in that house. Don't you think it is possible that, in a catatonic state, and with a terrible sense of being in danger, her subconscious mind retraced her route?"

"I take your point," Jeff said candidly. "But the fact remains, two people are dead, and we are questioning anyone who might contribute any information at all to help us solve these crimes.

We know Mrs. Nolan had to have driven past the house on Sheep Hill Road where Charley Hatch was shot. We know that she was on that road within the time frame of his death. We have checked at the riding club. She arrived there at approximately eight minutes of two. She may have seen another car when she came down that road. She may have seen someone walking on it. She told us yesterday that she's never met Charley Hatch. Don't you think it's reasonable that we question her for any impressions she may have subconsciously registered?"

"I am sure that Celia would want to cooperate in any way with your investigation," Alex Nolan said. "Obviously she has nothing to hide. My G.o.d, she was never even in this town until her birthday last month, and the second time was last week when we moved in. But I insist that you call off this Detective Walsh. I will not have her hara.s.sed and distressed. Last night when we were out for dinner, Celia broke down. Of course, I blame myself for being so shortsighted as to buy a house without showing it to her."

"It is a rather curious thing to do in this day and age," Jeff commented.

Alex Nolan's narrow hint of a smile had no mirth in it. "Maybe idealistic rather than curious,"

he said. "Celia has gone through a lot in the last several years. Her first husband was terminally ill for almost a year before he died. Eight months ago she was. .h.i.t by a limousine and suffered a severe concussion. Her father has Alzheimer's, and she just heard yesterday that he's declining rapidly. She was perfectly happy to move out of the city into this area, but kept delaying house hunting. She wanted me to do it. When I saw the one I bought, I thought it was exactly what she would enjoy. It's everything we were looking for-a fine, s.p.a.cious older house, with large rooms, in good condition and with a lot of property."

Jeff noticed that Nolan's eyes softened when he spoke about his wife.

"Ceil told me about a beautiful house she had visited years ago, and it sounded just like this one. Should I have brought her out to see it before I bought it? Of course. Should I have listened to the history of the house? Of course. But I'm not here to second guess myself, or to explain why we're in the house. I'm here to make sure my wife is not bullied by people on your staff."

He got up and extended his hand. "Mr. MacKingsley, do I have your word that Detective Walsh will stay away from my wife?"

Jeff got up. "Yes, you do," he said. "I do need to ask her about driving past the house on Sheep Hill Road where Charley Hatch died, but I will do it myself."

"Do you consider my wife to be a suspect in either of these homicides?" "Based upon the evidence we have now, I do not."

"In that case, I will advise my wife to talk with you."

"Thank you. That will be very helpful. I'll try to arrange a meeting for later today. Will you be around, Mr. Nolan?"

"Not for the next few days. I've been taking depositions in Chicago on a case I'm involved in pertaining to a will. I just came home last evening, and I'm going straight back to Chicago now."

The door had barely closed behind Nolan when Anna came in. "That is one good-looking guy,"

she said. "All the girls under the age of fifty were asking if he's single. I told them to forget it.

He seemed a lot calmer when he left than when he came in."

"I think he was," Jeff agreed, even as he wondered if he had played it fair with Celia Nolan's husband. He looked at Mort Sh.e.l.ley. "What do you think, Mort?"

"I agree with you. I don't consider her a suspect, but I think there's something she hasn't told us yet. I swear, when she opened the door yesterday dressed in those riding clothes, I thought for a minute that she had posed for the picture we found in Charley Hatch's pocket."

"I had the same reaction, but, of course, when you compare that picture of Audrey Barton with Mrs. Nolan, the difference is obvious. Nolan is much taller, her hair is darker, the shape of her face is different. She just happened to be wearing exactly the same kind of outfit that Barton was wearing in the picture-the riding coat, breeches, and boots. Even the way she wore her hair was similar."

The difference was obvious, Jeff told himself, but there was still something about Celia Nolan that reminded him of Audrey Barton. And it was more than the fact that they were both beautiful women in riding clothes.

CHAPTER 53.

On Wednesday morning, Ted Cartwright made a stop at the Cartwright Town Houses Corporation in Madison. At 10:30, he opened the door into the reception area that led to his office. There, a smiling Amy Stack greeted him by chirping, "How are things at the North Pole, Santa Claus?"

"Amy," Cartwright said irritably, "I don't know what that's supposed to mean, and I'm not interested in finding out. I've got a busy day lined up and I had to take time to come over here and talk to Chris Brown again. He doesn't seem to be able to get it into his head that I'm not paying any more overtime to that crew of his."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Cartwright," Amy said apologetically. "It's just that I can't help thinking how few people would be so generous, even to someone who saved their life."

Cartwright had been about to pa.s.s her desk to go into his office, but stopped suddenly. "What are you talking about?"

Amy looked up at him and swallowed nervously. She liked working for Ted Cartwright, but she was always mentally moving on tiptoe, trying to do everything exactly the way he wanted it.