No Place Like Home Part 5

"It still seems to be a pretty strong reaction," Cartwright observed skeptically.

"I agree, but on the other hand, it was a shocking sight. Ted, I tell you, that skull and crossbones on the door with Liza's initials in the eye sockets was just plain chilling, and you'd swear that red paint on the lawn and on the house was real blood. And that doll on the porch with the gun in its hand was scary, too."

Marcella bit her lip when she saw the expression on Cartwright's face. For G.o.d's sake, she told herself, it was his blood all over the place, as well as Audrey's, the night Liza shot them. "I'm sorry," she said, "I mean how stupid can anyone be?" Impulsively she reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

Smiling wryly, Cartwright reached for his gla.s.s and took a long sip of pinot noir. "I can skip hearing those details, Marcella," he said. "I saw the pictures in the newspapers and that was enough for me. Tell me more about your new neighbors."

"Very attractive," Marcella said emphatically. "She could be anywhere from twenty-eight to early thirties. I'd guess he's in his late thirties. The little boy, Jack, is really cute. Very concerned about his mother. He kept hanging on to her when she was lying on the couch. The poor kid was scared that she was dead."

Again Marcella had the feeling of stepping into dangerous territory. Twenty-four years ago, the cops had had to pry Liza away from her mother's body, while Ted was lying on the floor a few feet away. "I dropped over to Georgette Grove's office yesterday afternoon to see how she was feeling," Marcella said hastily. "I mean she was so upset about the vandalism, and I was a little concerned about her." Marcella took the last bite of her Cobb salad and the final sip of her Chardonnay.

Seeing Ted's raised eyebrows and the amused smile on his face, she decided to acknowledge that she knew what he was thinking. "You know me too well," she laughed, "I wanted to see what was going on. I figured the cops would let Georgette know if they'd talked to any of the kids who might have pulled that stunt. Georgette wasn't there so I chatted with Robin, her secretary or receptionist or whatever she is."

"What did you find out?"

"Robin told me that the Nolans have only been married six months and that Alex bought the house as a surprise for Celia's birthday."

Cartwright again raised his eyebrows. "The only surprise a man gives a woman should be measured in carats," he said. "And I don't mean the kind that you find in the vegetable bin."

Marcella smiled across the table at him. The pub at the Black Horse Tavern had been a favorite lunch spot of people in the area for generations. She remembered a day when she and Victor and Audrey and Ted had had lunch here together. It was only a few months before Audrey and Ted had separated. It was obvious then that he was crazy about her, and she certainly acted as if she was in love with him, too. Whatever broke it up? she wondered. But that was twenty-four years ago, and as far as she knew, Ted's last girlfriend was history.

Ted was studying her, too. I know I look darn good, Marcella thought, and if I can judge a man's expression, he thinks so, too.

"Want to know what I'm thinking?" she challenged him. "Of course."

"I'm thinking that a lot of men pushing sixty are starting to lose their looks. Their hair gets thin or disappears. They put on weight. They just go all-around blah. But you're even more attractive now than way back when we were neighbors. I love it that your hair has turned white.

With those blue eyes of yours, it makes a great combination. You've always been a big man, without having an ounce of fat on you. I like that. Victor was such a wimpy-looking guy."

With a shrug she dismissed her husband of twenty-two years, along with the annoying fact that only months after their divorce ten years ago, Victor had remarried, was now the father of two children, and, according to her pipeline, was divinely happy.

"You flatter me and I don't mind a bit," Ted said. "Now how about a cup of coffee, and then, after I drop you off, I've got to get back to the office."

Ted had suggested that she meet him at the Black Horse, but she had asked him to pick her up.

"I know I'll have a gla.s.s of wine, and I don't want to drive afterwards," she had explained. The fact was that she wanted the intimacy of being in a car with him and the opportunity to prolong the time they spent together.

Half an hour later, Ted was pulling into her driveway. He parked, got out of the car and walked around to open the door for her. As she stood up, a car pa.s.sed slowly along the road. They both recognized the driver, the Morris County prosecutor, Jeff MacKingsley.

"What's that all about?" Cartwright asked sharply. "The prosecutor doesn't usually get involved with simple vandalism."

"I can't imagine. Yesterday, Sergeant Earley certainly acted as if he was running the show. I wonder if anything else happened. I'll try to find out. I was planning to make some cinnamon rolls tomorrow morning and take them up to the Nolans," Marcella told him. "I'll give you a call if I hear anything." She looked at him, trying to decide if it was too soon to invite him to dinner. I don't want to scare him away, she thought. Then something in Ted Cartwright's expression took her breath away. He was staring at the prosecutor's car as it disappeared around the bend, and it was as if a mask had dropped. The expression on his face was somber and worried. Why should seeing Jeff MacKingsley's car around here bother him? she wondered.

Then it occurred to her that maybe the only reason Ted had invited her to lunch was to pump information from her about what was going on next door.

Well, two can play at that game, she thought. "Ted, this has been so pleasant," she said. "Why don't you come over for dinner Friday night? I don't know whether you remember, but I'm a great cook."

The mask was back. His expression affable, Ted kissed her on the cheek. "I remember, Marcella," he said. "Is seven o'clock good for you?"

CHAPTER 13.

Jeff MacKingsley spent the better part of the day at Roxiticus Golf Club, partic.i.p.ating in a golf outing that benefited the Morris County Historical Society. An excellent golfer with a six handicap, it was the kind of event that on a normal day he thoroughly enjoyed. Today, despite the perfect weather and the good friends in his foursome, he could not keep his mind on his game. The stories in the morning newspapers about the vandalism at One Old Mill Lane had gotten under his skin.

The picture of Celia Nolan fainting as she tried to run from the media particularly distressed and irritated him. If this had been a bias crime, we'd be combing the town to find out who did it, he kept thinking. Unlike the last episode this is no Halloween prank. This is vicious.

By the end of the morning he had lost to all of his three golfing companions. The result was that he paid for a round of b.l.o.o.d.y Marys at the bar before the festive luncheon.

The club was decorated with sketches and paintings borrowed from the museum at George Washington's headquarters at Morristown. Jeff, a history buff, never failed to appreciate the fact that so much of the surrounding countryside had been fought over during the Revolutionary War. But today during the luncheon he glanced unseeingly at the historical artifacts. Before coffee was served he called his office and was a.s.sured by Anna that it was a quiet day. She did not let him end the call until she commented on the newspapers she had read that morning: "The pictures they took of Little Lizzie's Place show that somebody really did a job on it this time," she said, with a certain amount of relish in her voice. "I'm going to drive by and take a look at it on my way home."

Jeff did not let her in on the fact that he was planning to do the exact same thing. He only hoped that he would not b.u.mp into his omnipresent secretary, but then consoled himself with the realization that he'd be there around three o'clock, and Anna wouldn't dream of leaving her desk until five.

The luncheon finally over, and with a last apology for his dismal game, Jeff escaped to his car, and less than ten minutes later was turning onto Old Mill Lane. As he drove he was remembering the night twenty-four years ago when he'd been at his desk exceptionally late catching up on school a.s.signments, and on impulse had turned on the radio that was his prize possession. It was equipped with the police shortwave band the squad cars used. That was when he heard the intense report. "Male calling for help at One Old Mill Lane. Says he's been shot and his wife murdered. Neighbors reporting sounds of gunshots."

It had been about one in the morning, Jeff remembered. Mom and Dad were asleep. I got on my bicycle and rode over there and stood with some of the Bartons' neighbors on the road. G.o.d, it was a lousy, cold night, October 28th, twenty-four years ago. Within minutes, the media was swarming around the place. I saw the stretcher with Ted Cartwright being carried out of the house, two EMTs holding IVs that were attached to him. Then they brought out the body bag with Audrey Barton's corpse and put it in the meat wagon. I even remember what I was thinking-seeing her ride in the horse show and how she took first prize in jumping. He had stayed at the scene until he saw the squad car with Liza Barton inside speeding away. Even then I wondered what was going through her mind, Jeff recalled.

He still wondered that same thing. From what he understood, after she had thanked Clyde Earley for the blanket he wrapped around her, she didn't say another word for months.

As he pa.s.sed the house at 3 Old Mill Lane, he saw a man and a woman standing in the driveway. The next-door neighbor, he thought, the one who had so much to say to the reporters.

And that's Ted Cartwright with her. Wonder why he's around here?

Jeff was tempted to stop and talk to them, but he decided against it. It was obvious from the way she'd talked to the media that Marcella Williams was a gossip. I don't need her spreading the word that I have some kind of personal interest in this case, Jeff thought.

He slowed the car down almost to a crawl. Here it was, the Barton house. Little Lizzie's Place.

A commercial-type van was in the driveway, and a man dressed in overalls was ringing the doorbell.

At first blush, the nineteenth-century, two-story mansion, with its unusual combination of a frame structure and a limestone foundation, did not seem damaged. But after Jeff stopped the car and got out, he could see where a base coat had been applied to many vandalized shingles, and splashes of red were still visible on the foundation. The newly laid sod also stood out from the rest of the lawn, and Jeff grimaced as he realized just how large the lettering of the painted message must have been.

He watched as the door opened and a woman appeared. She looked to be fairly tall and very slender. It had to be Celia Nolan, the new owner. She spoke to the workman for a moment, then closed the door, and the workman returned to the van and began to pull out a drop cloth and tools.

Jeff had not intended to do more than drive past the vandalized house, but on a sudden impulse decided to walk up the driveway and see for himself the remaining damage before it was repaired. That, of course, meant that he would have to speak to the new owners. He hated to disturb them, but there was no way the Morris County prosecutor could be walking around on their property without an explanation.

The workman turned out to be a mason who had been hired by the real estate agent to polish the limestone. Skinny, in his late sixties, with weathered skin and a prominent Adam's apple, he introduced himself as Jimmy Walker.

"Like the mayor of New York in the 1920s," he said with a hearty laugh. "They even wrote a song about him."

Jimmy Walker was a talker. "Last Halloween, Mrs. Harriman, she was the owner then, had me here, too. Boy, was she mad. The stuff the kids used that night came right off, but I guess the doll with the gun in its hand sitting in a chair on the porch really spooked her. When she opened the door in the morning that was the first thing she saw."

Jeff turned to go up to the porch, but Walker kept talking. "Guess the women who own this house all get nervous living here. I seen the newspaper this morning. We get the Daily Record delivered. It's good to get the local paper. You know what's going on. They had a big story about this house. Did you read it?"

I wonder if he gets paid by the hour, Jeff thought. If so, the Nolans are being ripped off. I bet if he doesn't catch somebody's ear, he talks to himself.

"I have the newspapers," he said shortly as he walked up the final step to the porch. He had seen the picture of the skull and crossbones in the papers, but even so, to be standing in front of it was entirely different. Someone had dug into the beautiful mahogany doors, someone talented enough to have carved the skull with excellent symmetry, to have placed the letters L and B exactly in the middle of the eye sockets. But why? He pushed the doorbell and heard the faint sound of chimes echoing inside the house.

CHAPTER 14.

I tried to calm myself down after Alex left and to calm Jack as well. I could see that the events of the past few days were overwhelming him-the move from the only home he'd ever known, the police and reporters here, the pony, my fainting, the first day of pre-K, and now the tension between Alex and me.

I suggested that instead of having another ride on Lizzie-how I hated that name!-he should curl up on the couch in the den and I would read to him. "Lizzie wants a nap, too," I added, and maybe that did it. He helped me take off her saddle, and then willingly selected one of his favorite books. Within minutes he was asleep. I covered him with a light blanket, then sat watching him as he slept.

Minute by minute, I went over the mistakes I had made today. A normal wife, finding that picture in the barn, would have called her husband and told him about it. A normal mother would not have attempted a conspiracy with a four-year-old to keep his father or stepfather in ignorance. No wonder Alex had been both angry and disgusted. And what could I say to him by way of explanation that would make sense?

The sound of the telephone ringing in the kitchen did not cause even a stir in Jack. He was in the deep sleep that tired four-year-olds can achieve so easily. I ran from the den to the kitchen.

Let it be Alex, I prayed.

But it was Georgette Grove. Her voice hesitant, she said that if I decided that I did not want to live in this house, she had several others in the area that she wanted to show me. "If you saw one of them you liked, I would forego my sales commission," she offered. "And I will make every effort to sell your house also without commission."

It was a very generous offer. Of course, it did a.s.sume that we could afford to buy a second house without first having the money that Alex had put in this one, but then I am sure Georgette realized that as Laurence Foster's widow, I had my own resources. I told Georgette that I'd be very interested in looking at other houses with her, and was surprised at the relief I could hear in her voice.

When I hung up the phone, I felt more hopeful. When Alex came back, I would tell him about the conversation with Georgette, and that if she found a suitable house, I would insist on laying out the money to purchase it myself. Alex is generous to a fault, but after growing up with adoptive parents who had to watch their money carefully, and then living with a wealthy husband who never wasted money, I could understand why Alex might not want to buy another house until this one was sold.

I was too restless to read, so I just wandered through the first-floor rooms. Yesterday the movers had arranged the furniture marked for the living room before I came downstairs, and the placement was all wrong. I am not into feng shui, but I am, after all, an interior designer. Before I was even aware of what I was doing, I was shoving the couch across the room and rearranging the chairs and tables and area carpets so that the room, though still stark, no longer looked like a furniture store. Fortunately the movers had happened to place the antique highboy that had been Larry's favorite piece of furniture against the appropriate wall. That I could never have moved.

After Alex left without having lunch, I hadn't bothered to eat, either. I'd covered both plates and put them in the refrigerator, but now I realized I had the beginning of a headache. I wasn't hungry, but I knew a cup of tea would help stave it off.

The doorbell rang before I could take my first step toward the kitchen, and I stopped in my tracks. Suppose it was a reporter? But then I remembered that before she hung up, Georgette Grove had told me that a mason was on his way to repair the limestone. I looked out the window and with relief saw the commercial vehicle parked in the driveway.

I opened the door, spoke to the man who introduced himself as Jimmy Walker-"The same name as a mayor of New York in the 1920s. They even wrote a song about him." I told him that he was expected and closed the door, but not before I had to see from inches away the damage that was on the open side of the double door.

For a moment after I closed the door, I kept my hand on the handle. With every fiber of my being I wanted to open it again and shout out to Jimmy Walker and the whole world that I was Liza Barton, the ten-year-old child who was terrified for her mother's life, and to tell them that there had been a split second when Ted Cartwright had looked at me and seen the pistol in my hand and then decided to throw my mother at me, knowing the gun might go off. That split second had made the difference between Mother's life and her death. I leaned my head against the door. Even though the house was pleasantly cool, I could feel perspiration on my forehead.

Was that interval something I actually remembered, or merely something I wanted to remember? I stood there, transfixed. Till this moment, my memory had been of Ted turning and yelling "Sure," then throwing Mother in a single motion.

The door chimes sounded again. The mason had a question, I was sure. I waited for half a minute, the time it would take to answer if I'd been in the next room, and then opened the door to find a man in his late thirties with an air of authority about him. He introduced himself as Jeffrey MacKingsley, the prosecutor of Morris County, and, almost witless with worry, I invited him in.

"I would have phoned if I had planned to stop by, but I was in the vicinity and decided to express my personal regrets at the unfortunate incident yesterday," he said following me into the living room.

As I mumbled, "Thank you, Mr. MacKingsley," his eyes were darting around the living room and I was glad that I had rearranged the furniture. The slipper chairs were facing each other on either side of the couch. The love seat was in front of the fireplace. The area carpets are all mellow with age, and their muted but rich colors were caught in the rays of the afternoon sun.

The highboy with its fine lacquering and intricate carving is a beautiful example of eighteenth-century craftsmanship. The room needed more furniture, and, despite the fact that there were no window treatments or paintings or bric-a-brac in place, it still suggested that I was a normal owner with good taste settling into a new home.

That realization calmed me, and I was able to smile when Jeffrey MacKingsley said, "This is a lovely room, and I only hope that you will be able to get past what happened yesterday and enjoy it and this home. I can a.s.sure you that my office and the local police department will work together to find the culprit, or culprits. There won't be any more incidents, Mrs. Nolan, if we can help it."

"I hope not." Then I hesitated. Suppose Alex walked in now and brought up the photo I had found in the barn. "Actually..." I hesitated. I didn't know what to say.

The prosecutor's expression changed. "Has there been another incident, Mrs. Nolan?"

I reached in the pocket of my slacks and pulled out the newspaper photo. "This was taped to a post in the barn. My little boy found it when he went out to see his pony this morning."

Choking at the deception, I asked, "Do you know who these people are?"

MacKingsley took the picture from me. I noticed that he was careful to hold it by its edge. He examined it, then looked at me. "Yes, I do," he said. I felt that he was attempting to sound matter-of-fact. "This is a picture of the family who restored this house."

"The Barton family!" I hated myself for managing to sound genuinely surprised. "Yes," he said. He was watching for my reaction.

"I guess I suspected that," I said. I know my voice was nervous and strained.

"Mrs. Nolan, we might be able to lift some fingerprints from this picture," MacKingsley said.

"Who else has handled it?"

"No one else. My husband had already left this morning when I found it. It was taped to the post too high up for Jack to reach it."

"I see. I want to take it and have it examined for fingerprints. Do you by any chance have a plastic bag that I could drop it in?"

"Of course." I was grateful to be able to move. I did not want this man to be studying me face-to-face any longer.

He followed me into the kitchen and I took a sandwich bag out of the drawer and handed it to him.

He dropped the picture into it. "I won't take anymore of your time, Mrs. Nolan," he said. "But I have to ask you this: Were you or your husband planning to let the police know that you'd had another trespa.s.ser on your property?"

"This seemed so trivial," I hedged.

"I agree that it doesn't compare with what happened yesterday. However, the fact remains that someone was trespa.s.sing on your property again. There may be fingerprints we can get off this picture, and that may prove helpful in finding who is responsible for all this. We'll need your fingerprints for comparison purposes. I know that you have had a lot of stress, and I don't want you to have to come down to the office. I'll arrange for a Mendham police officer to come over in a few minutes with a fingerprint kit. He can take them right here."

A frightening possibility occurred to me. Would they just use my fingerprints to distinguish them from any others on the picture, or would they also run them through the system? Some kid in town had admitted the vandalism last Halloween. Suppose the police decided to check the juvenile files. Mine might be on record there.

"Mrs. Nolan, if you find any evidence of someone being on this property, please give us a call.

I'm also going to ask the police to ride past the house regularly."

"I think that's a very good idea."

I had not heard Alex come in, and I guess MacKingsley hadn't either, because we both turned abruptly to find Alex standing in the doorway of the kitchen. I introduced the two men, and MacKingsley repeated to him that he would check the picture I'd found in the barn for fingerprints.

To my relief, Alex did not ask to see it. Surely MacKingsley would have found it odd if he had known that I hadn't shown it to my husband. He left immediately after that, then Alex and I looked at each other. He put his arms around me. "Peace, Ceil," he said. "I'm sorry I blew up.

It's just that you've got to let me in on things. I am your husband, remember? Don't treat me as a stranger who has no business knowing what's going on."

He took up my offer to get out the salmon that he had left on the lunch table. We ate together on the patio and I told him about the offer Georgette Grove had made. "Certainly, start looking," he agreed. "And if we end up with two houses for awhile, so be it." Then he added, "Who knows, we may end up needing both of them."

I knew he meant it as a joke, but neither one of us smiled, and the old truism rushed through my mind. "Many a true word is spoken in jest." The doorbell rang. I opened the door, and the Mendham police officer with the fingerprint kit stepped inside. As I rolled the tips of my fingers in the ink, I thought of having done this before-the night I killed my mother.