No Place Like Home Part 4

"Yes, I have. You're up early."

"I was worried about you. I know how upset you were yesterday."

Georgette was grateful for the concern she heard in Robin's voice.

"Thanks. Yes, I read all the articles."

"What scares me is that some other real estate broker is bound to contact Celia Nolan and let her know that she could easily break the contract, and then tell her they'd be happy to help her find a new home," Robin said.

The last hope Georgette had that somehow everything would work out vanished.

"Of course. You're right; someone is likely to do that," she said slowly. "I'll see you at the office, Robin."

Georgette replaced the phone on the receiver. "There's no out," she said aloud. "There's simply no out."

Then her mouth tightened. This is my livelihood somebody's ruining, she thought. Maybe the Nolans don't want to file charges, but if I lose that sale, somebody's going to suffer. She picked up the phone, called the police station and asked for Sergeant Earley. Even as she was told that he would not be in for another hour, she realized that it was not seven o'clock yet. "This is Georgette Grove," she told Brian Shields, the desk officer whom she had known since he was a child. "Brian, as you must certainly be aware, I sold the house on Old Mill Lane that was vandalized. I may lose that sale because of what happened there, and I want Clyde Earley to understand that you people have got to find out who has done this and make an example of them. Mike Buckley admitted he painted the sign on the lawn and left the doll last Halloween. I want to know if you've questioned him yet."

"Ms. Grove, I can answer that," Shields responded hastily. "Sergeant Earley went over to Mike Buckley's school and pulled him out of cla.s.s. He has an alibi. His father backed up his story that he never left the house the night before last."

"Was his father sober?" Georgette asked caustically. "From what I understand about Greg Buckley, he ties one on pretty regularly." She did not wait for an answer. "Ask Sergeant Earley to call me at my office when he gets in," she said.

She replaced the phone, started to walk to the staircase, the cup of coffee in her hand, then stopped abruptly as a faint hope occurred to her. Alex Nolan is a member of the riding club. In the process of looking for a house, he had told her that his law firm had asked him to head up their new office in Summit, so there are a couple of good reasons why he wants to be in this area. There are a few other listings available that might interest him and his wife. If I offer to show Celia Nolan other houses, and even forgo my sales commission, maybe she'll go along with me. After all, Alex Nolan did publicly admit that I tried to tell him about the history of the house.

It was a possibility-maybe a forlorn one she realized, but at least a possibility.

Georgette went into her bedroom and began to untie the knot of her robe. Or is it time to close the agency? she wondered. I can't keep on losing money. The frame house on Main Street that she had bought so cheaply twenty-five years ago would sell in a minute. All the other houses around it were now offices. But what would I do? she asked herself. I can't afford to retire, and I don't want to work for anyone else.

I'll try to interest the Nolans in another house, she decided. As she showered and dressed, another possibility occurred to her. One Old Mill Lane started out as a very happy home when Audrey and Will Barton bought it. He saw the possibilities in that broken-down mansion and turned it into one of the most charming residences in town. I remember driving by to watch the progress of the renovation, and seeing Will and Audrey working together, planting flowers with Liza standing in her playpen on the lawn.

I never believed for a minute that Liza intended to kill her mother or tried to kill Ted Cartwright that night. She was a child, for heaven's sake. If that ex-girlfriend of Ted's hadn't testified that he roughed her up after they split, Liza probably would have been raised in a juvenile detention home. I wonder where she is now, and how much she remembers about that night. I never could understand what Audrey saw in Ted in the first place. He wasn't fit to carry Will Barton's hat.

But some women need a man, and Audrey was one of them, I guess. If only I hadn't encouraged Will to take riding lessons...

Half an hour later, reinforced with juice, toast, and a final cup of coffee, Georgette left her house and got into her car. As she backed out of the driveway onto Hardscrabble Road, she gave an appreciative glance at the pale yellow, clapboard house that had been her home for the last thirty years. Despite her business worries, she never failed to feel cheered by the cozy appeal of the former carriage house with its quirky arch over the front door, an unexplainable add-on to the original building.

I want to spend the rest of my life here, she thought, then tried to brush off the sudden chill that washed over her.

CHAPTER 11.

My mother and father were buried from St. Joseph's Church. It was built on West Main Street in 1860. A school wing was added in 1962. Behind the church there is a cemetery where some of the early settlers of Mendham are buried. Among them are my ancestors.

My mother's maiden name was Sutton, a name that goes back to the late eighteenth century, when gristmills and sawmills and forges were dotted among the rolling acres of farmland. Our original home once stood near the Pitney homestead on Cold Hill Road. The Pitney family still owns that house. In the late eighteen hundreds, the original Sutton house was demolished by a new owner.

My mother grew up on Mountainside Road, the child of older parents who fortunately for them did not live to suffer her death at age thirty-six. That home, like so many others, has been gracefully restored and expanded. I have the vaguest of childhood memories of being in that house. One firm memory I do have is that of my grandmother's friends telling my mother in no uncertain terms that my grandmother never approved of Ted Cartwright.

When I was enrolled at St. Joseph's, there were still mostly nuns on the staff. But this morning, as I walked down the hall to the pre-K cla.s.s, Jack's hand in mine, I could see that the teachers were almost all members of the laity, as the non-religious are called.

Jack already had been to nursery school in New York, and he loves to be with other children.

Even so, he clung to my hand as the teacher, Miss Durkin, came over to greet him, and with a worried note in his voice, he asked. "You will come back for me, won't you, Mom?"

His father has been dead two years. Surely by now whatever memory he has of Larry has faded, replaced probably by a vague sense of anxiety about losing me. I know, because after the day a priest from St. Joseph's, accompanied by the owner of the Washington Valley stables came to our home to tell us that my father's horse had bolted, and that he had died instantly in a fall, I was always afraid that something would happen to my mother.

And it did. By my hand.

My mother blamed herself for my father's accident. A born rider, she had often said she wished he could ride with her. Looking back, I believe he had a secret fear of horses, and, of course, horses sense that. For my mother, it was as necessary to ride as it was to breathe. After she dropped me off at school she inevitably headed to the stable at the Peapack Riding Club, where she could find some solace for her grief.

I felt a tug on my hand. Jack was waiting for me to rea.s.sure him. "What time is cla.s.s over?" I asked Miss Durkin.

She knew what I was doing. "Twelve o'clock," she said.

Jack can tell time. I knelt down so that our faces would be even. Jack has a sprinkle of freckles across his nose. His mouth is quick to smile, but his eyes sometimes hold a hint of worry, even of fear. I held up my watch. "What time is it?" I demanded with mock seriousness.

"Ten o'clock, Mom."

"What time do you think I'm going to be back?"

He smiled. "Twelve o'clock on the dot."

I kissed his forehead. "Agreed."

I got up quickly, as Miss Durkin took his hand. "Jack, I want you to meet Billy. You can help me cheer him up."

Tears were streaming down Billy's face. It was clear he'd rather be anywhere than in this pre-K cla.s.s.

When Jack turned toward him, I slipped out of the cla.s.sroom and made my way back down the hall. As I pa.s.sed the door of the office, I saw an older woman behind the secretarial desk who somehow quickened something in my memory. Was I wrong, or had she been here all those years ago? She had. I was sure of it, and sure that I would recall her name.

In the month since my birthday, I had avoided coming to Mendham. When Alex suggested that we measure the rooms for furniture and carpets and window treatments, I used every excuse in the book to delay being put in the position of ordering any household trappings that would be suitable for my former home. I said that I wanted to live in the house and get the feel of it before I made any final selections.

I resisted the temptation to walk in the graveyard and visit my parents' graves. Instead I got in the car and drove a few minutes down Main Street, intending to go into the small shopping center for a cup of coffee. Now that I was alone, my mind felt as though the events of the past twenty-four hours were racing through it, endlessly replaying.

The vandalism. The sign on the lawn. Sergeant Earley. Marcella Williams. Georgette Grove.

The newspaper photo in the barn this morning.

Reaching the shopping center, I parked, bought the newspapers, and went into the coffee shop where I ordered black coffee. I forced myself to read every word of the stories about the house, and cringed at the picture of me, my knees buckling under me.

If there was any morsel of comfort, it was clear that all the newspapers referred to us only as "the new owners of the house." The only personal information was the brief mention that I was the widow of the philanthropist Laurence Foster, and that Alex was a member of the riding club and about to open a branch of his law firm in Summit.

Alex. What was I doing to him? Yesterday, typical of his thoughtfulness, he had hired enough extra help so that by six o'clock the house was in as good shape as it could possibly be on move-in day. Of course, we did not have enough furniture, but the table and chairs and armoire were in place in the dining room, as were the couches and lamps and tables and occasional chairs in the living room. The bedrooms - Alex's and mine, and Jack's - were in relatively good order. Our hanging bags were in the closets and the suitcases were unpacked.

I remembered how hurt Alex had been and how puzzled the movers were by my refusal to allow them to unpack the good china and silver and crystal. Instead I had them placed in one of the guest bedrooms along with other boxes marked "Fragile," a word that I thought was more appropriate to use describing me than the china.

I could see the disappointment growing in Alex's eyes as I sent more and more boxes to be stacked in the guest bedroom. He knew that it meant our stay in the house would probably be measured in weeks, not months or years.

Alex wanted to live in this area, and I knew that when I married him. I sipped my coffee and reflected on that simple fact. Summit is only half an hour from here, and he was already a member of the Peapack Club when I met him. Is it possible that subconsciously I have always wanted to come back here to the familiar scenes that are embedded in my memory? Generations of my ancestors have lived here, after all. Certainly I could not in my wildest dreams have imagined that Alex would happen to buy my childhood home, but the events of yesterday and the pictures in these newspapers have proved to me that I'm tired of running.

I sipped the coffee slowly. I want to clear my name. I want to somehow learn the reason that my mother became deathly afraid of Ted Cartwright. What happened yesterday has given me the cover to investigate that need, I thought. As the new owner of the house, it would not seem inappropriate for me to go to the courthouse and make inquiries, saying that I would like to learn the truth of that tragedy, devoid of the rumors and sensationalism. In attempting to clear the stigma on the house, I might even find a way to clear my own name.

"Excuse me, but aren't you Celia Nolan?"

I judged the woman who was standing at the table to be in her early forties. I nodded.

"I'm Cynthia Granger. I just wanted to tell you how terrible the townspeople feel about the vandalism to your house. We want to welcome you here. Mendham is a beautiful town. Do you ride?"

I skirted the answer. "I'm thinking of starting."

"Wonderful. I'll give you a chance to get settled, and then I'll drop a note. I hope you and your husband will join us for dinner sometime."

I thanked her and, as she left the coffee shop, repeated her surname to myself: Granger.

Granger. There had been a couple of Granger kids in the upper cla.s.ses of St. Joe's when I was there. I wondered if any of them belonged to Cynthia's husband's family.

I left the coffee shop and for the next hour drove around town, up Mountainside Road to get a look at my grandparents' home, around Horseshoe Bend, along Hilltop Road. I drove past the Pleasant Valley Mill, the property better known as "the pig farm." Sure enough, there was a sow grazing in the enclosure. Like every child in town, my parents had taken me to observe the litter of piglets in the spring. I wanted to show it to Jack as well.

I did some quick food shopping and got back to St. Joe's well before twelve to be sure that Jack would spot me the minute his pre-K session ended. Then we went home. After Jack had gulped down a sandwich, he begged for a ride on Lizzie. Even though I refused to ride after my father died, the knowledge of how to saddle the pony seemed to be second nature as my hands moved to tighten the girth, to check the stirrups, to show Jack how to hold the reins properly.

"Where did you ever learn that?"

I whirled around. Alex was smiling at me. Neither one of us had heard the car pull in. I guess he'd left it in front of the house. If he had caught me going through his pockets, I could not have been more embarra.s.sed or chagrined.

"Oh," I stammered, "I told you. My friend Gina loved to ride when we were kids. I used to go and watch her when she took lessons. Sometimes I'd help her saddle up."

Lies. Lie following lie.

"I don't remember you mentioning that at all," Alex said. "But who cares?" He picked up Jack and hugged me. "The client I was supposed to spend the better part of the afternoon with canceled. She's eighty-five and wanted to change her will again, but she wrenched her back.

When I knew she wasn't coming, I beat it out fast."

Alex had opened the top b.u.t.ton of his shirt and pulled down his tie. I kissed the nape of his neck and his arm tightened around me. I love the outdoorsy look he has, with his tanned skin and the sun-bleached highlights in his brown hair.

"Tell me about your first day at school," he teasingly demanded of Jack.

"First, can I have a ride on Lizzie?"

"Sure. And then you're going to tell me about your day."

"I'll tell you about how they asked us to talk about our most exciting day this summer, and I talked about moving here and the cops coming and everything and how today I went out to see Lizzie and there was a picture-"

"Why don't you tell Alex all about it after your ride, Jack?" I interrupted.

"Good idea," Alex said. He checked the saddle, but found nothing to adjust. I thought he looked at me quizzically, but didn't make any comment. "Jack just had a sandwich, but I'll start lunch for us," I said.

"How about having it on the patio?" Alex suggested. "It's too nice to be inside."

"That would be fun," I said hurriedly and headed into the house. I rushed upstairs. My father had redesigned the second floor to have two large corner rooms that could be used for any purpose. When I was little, one of them was his office, the other a playroom for me. I had directed the movers to place my desk in Daddy's office. The desk is a nondescript antique I purchased when I had my interior decorating business, and I chose it for one primary reason.

One of the large file drawers has a concealed panel that is secured by a combination lock that looks like a decoration. The panel can only be opened if you know the combination.

I yanked the files out of the drawer, tapped out the code with my index finger, and the panel opened. The thick file about "Little Lizzie Borden" was there. I pulled it out, opened it, and grabbed the newspaper photo that had been taped to the post in the barn.

If Jack ended up telling Alex about it, Alex, of course, would ask to see it. If Jack then realized he had promised me not to talk about it to Alex, he'd probably blurt that out, too. "I forgot, I promised Mommy I wouldn't tell..."

And I would have to cover with yet more lies.

Putting the picture in the pocket of my slacks, I went downstairs. Knowing Alex loved it, I had bought smoked salmon at the supermarket. In these six months, he'd given Jack a taste for it, too. Now I fixed it on salad plates with capers and onions and slices of the hard boiled eggs I had prepared while Jack was having his sandwich. The wrought-iron patio set Alex had bought so that we could celebrate my birthday with champagne and tea sandwiches was now on the patio. I set out place mats and silver, then the salads and iced tea, along with heated French bread.

When I called out that everything was ready, Alex left the pony tethered to a post of the enclosure. She was still saddled, so that meant that he was planning to give Jack more time with the pony.

When they came to the patio, I could have cut with a knife the change in the emotional atmosphere. Alex looked serious, and Jack was on the verge of tears. There was a moment of silence, then, in a level tone, Alex asked, "Was there any reason you weren't planning to tell me about the picture you found in the barn, Ceil?"

"I didn't want to upset you," I said. "It's only one of the pictures of the Barton family that was in the newspaper."

"You don't think it upsets me to learn by chance that someone was trespa.s.sing here during the night? You don't think the police should know about that?"

There was only one answer that might be plausible: "Have you seen today's papers?" I asked Alex quietly. "Do you think I want any follow-up on it? For G.o.d's sake, give me a break."

"Ceil, Jack tells me he went out to see his pony before you woke up. Suppose he had come across someone in the barn? I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't some kind of nut loose around here."

Exactly the worry I had but could not share. "Jack wouldn't have been able to get out if you had reset the alarm," I said sharply.

"Mommy, why are you mad at Alex?" Jack asked. "Why indeed, Jack?" Alex asked as he pushed back his chair and went into the house.

I didn't know whether to follow him and apologize, or to offer to show him the crumpled newspaper picture that was in my pocket. I simply didn't know what to do.

CHAPTER 12.

The morning after her new neighbors moved in, Marcella Williams was enjoying a second cup of coffee and devouring the newspapers when her phone rang. She picked it up and murmured, "h.e.l.lo."

"By any chance, would a beautiful lady be free for lunch today?"

Ted Cartwright! Marcella felt her pulse begin to race.

"No beautiful ladies around here," she said coyly, "but I do know someone who would very much enjoy lunching with the distinguished Mr. Cartwright."

Three hours later, having carefully dressed for the date in tan slacks and a vivid, printed silk shirt, Marcella was sitting opposite Ted Cartwright in the pub of the Black Horse Tavern on West Main Street. In breathless detail she told him all about her new neighbors. "When they saw the vandalism, Alex Nolan was furious, and his wife, Celia, was really upset. I mean it's obvious isn't it? She fainted, for heaven's sake. I can understand that she probably was worn out from getting ready for the move. No matter how much help you have, there's always so much you have to do yourself."