No Place Like Home Part 8

"That's right," Alex said, and I caught the edge in his voice. "Georgette didn't stay long on Tuesday. She wanted to get back to her office and arrange for the house and the lawn to be restored. When I got home yesterday, Celia told me that Georgette had phoned to say she wanted to show her other houses, and late yesterday afternoon I was here when she called back to make the appointment for this morning."

Walsh was taking notes. "Mrs. Nolan, if I may, let's go through this step by step. You had an appointment to meet Ms. Grove this morning."

There's no reason for me not to be absolutely cooperative, I warned myself. Don't look as if you're fumbling for answers, just describe exactly what happened. "Georgette offered to pick me up, but I told her I wanted to have my own car so I could be sure to be on time to pick Jack up after school at Saint Joe's. I dropped him off about quarter of nine, went into the diner in the shopping center for a cup of coffee, then drove to meet Georgette."

"She had given you directions to Holland Road?" Walsh asked. "No. I mean YES, of course she did!"

I caught a flicker of surprise on both their faces. I was contradicting myself. I could feel them trying to read my thoughts, weighing and measuring my responses.

"Did you have any trouble finding the house?" Walsh asked. "Holland Road isn't that clearly marked."

"I drove slowly," I said. Then I described finding the gate open, seeing Georgette's car, walking through the entry floor, calling her name, going downstairs, smelling the turpentine, finding the body.

"Did you touch anything, Mrs. Nolan?" This time the question came from MacKingsley.

In my mind I retraced my steps. Was it only a few hours ago that I had been in that house? "I turned the handle on the front door," I said. "I don't think I touched anything else until I pushed open the door leading to the lower level. In the recreation room I went over to the gla.s.s doors that lead to the patio. I thought that Georgette might have gone outside. But they were locked, so I guess I might have touched them too, because how else would I have known they were locked? Then I walked down that hall because of the turpentine odor, and I found Georgette."

"Do you own a pistol, Mrs. Nolan?" Walsh asked suddenly.

The question came out of the blue. I knew it was intended to startle me. "No, of course not," I protested.

"Have you ever fired a pistol?"

I looked at my inquisitor. Behind his round gla.s.ses, his eyes were a muddy shade of brown. The expression in them was intense now, probing. What kind of question was that to ask of an innocent person who had been unfortunate enough to discover the victim of a deadly crime? I knew Walsh had picked up something in what I had said, or not said, that alerted his investigative instincts.

Of course, once again I lied. "No, I have not."

Finally Walsh pulled out a newspaper clipping that was in a plastic bag. It was the photograph of me in the process of fainting.

"Would you have any idea why this photograph would be in Ms. Grove's shoulder bag?" he asked me.

I was grateful that Alex answered for me. "Why in the name of G.o.d would my wife know what Georgette Grove was carrying in her shoulder bag?" He stood up. Without waiting for an answer, he said, "I am sure you can understand that this has been another stressful day for our family."

Both men got up immediately. "We may need to talk to you again, Mrs. Nolan," the prosecutor said. "You're not planning any trips are you?"

Only to the ends of the earth, I wanted to say, but instead, with bitterness I could not hide, I said, "No, Mr. MacKingsley, I'll be right here, at home."

CHAPTER 21.

Zach Willet's leathery face, hard-muscled body, and callused hands gave mute testimony to the fact that he was a lifelong outdoorsman. Now sixty-two, Zach had worked at the Washington Valley Riding Club from the time he was twelve years old. He started by mucking out the stables on weekends, then, at age sixteen, quit school to work at the club full time.

"I know everything I need to know," he had told the teacher who protested that he had a good mind and should continue his education. "I understand horses and they understand me."

A pervasive lack of ambition had kept him from progressing beyond the role of all-around handyman at Washington Valley. He liked grooming and exercising horses and was content just to do that. He could take care of any minor ailments his equine friends suffered from, and he could skillfully clean and repair tack. On the side he ran a tidy business reselling the artifacts of the horsey set. He dealt with two types of customers: people who were replacing tack and people whose enthusiasm for riding had waned and were glad to unload the pricey trappings of the expensive sport.

When the regular instructors were booked, Zach would sometimes give riding lessons, but that wasn't one of his favorite activities. It annoyed him to see people who had no business on a horse nervously pulling at the reins and then being scared out of their wits when the horse protested by throwing back its head.

Thirty years ago, Ted Cartwright had kept his horses at Washington Valley. A couple of years later, he had moved them to the nearby but more prestigious Peapack stables.

Early Thursday afternoon, the word of Georgette Grove's death spread through the club. Zach had known and liked Georgette. From time to time she had recommended him to people looking to board a horse. "Introduce yourself to Zach at Washington Valley. Take care of him, and he'll treat your horse like a baby," she'd tell them.

"Why would anybody want to kill a nice lady like Georgette Grove?" was the question everyone was asking.

Zach did his best thinking when he was out riding. Frowning thoughtfully, he saddled up one of the horses he was paid to exercise and took off on the trail that led up the hills behind the club.

When he was near the top, he veered off onto a trail in which very few riders ever ventured.

The descent was too steep for anyone but an experienced rider, but that was not the reason Zach usually avoided it. What pa.s.sed for his conscience did not need reminding of what had happened there so many years ago.

If you can do that to one human being who's in your way, you can do it to another, he reasoned, as he kept the horse to a walk. No question, I heard enough around town to know that Georgette was in his way. He needs that land she owned on Route 24 for the commercial buildings he wants to put up. Bet the cops get on his tail fast. If he did it, wonder if he'd be stupid enough to use the same gun?

Zach thought of the bent cartridge he had hidden in his apartment on the upstairs floor of a two-family house in Chester. Last night, when Ted Cartwright had slipped him the envelope in Sammy's Bar, there was no mistaking the threat Ted had whispered: "Be careful, Zach. Don't push your luck."

Ted's the one pushing his luck, Zach thought, as he stared down into the valley. At the precise spot where the trail turned sharply, he tightened his fingers on the reins and the horse stopped.

Zach fished in his vest pocket for his cell phone, pulled it out, pointed it, and clicked. A picture is worth a thousand words, he thought with a satisfied smile, as he pressed his knees against the horse's body, and it began to pick its way obediently along the treacherous path.

CHAPTER 22.

Because she had been covering a trial in the Morris County courthouse, Dru Perry did not learn immediately about Georgette Grove's death. When the judge declared a lunch break, she checked messages on her cell phone and promptly called Ken Sharkey, her editor. Five minutes later, she was on her way to the crime scene on Holland Road in Peapack.

She was there when Jeff MacKingsley held a brief press conference in which he confirmed that Georgette Grove, a lifetime resident of Mendham and a well-known real estate agent, had been found shot to death on the lower level of the farmhouse at which she had arranged to meet a potential buyer.

The bombsh.e.l.l news was that Celia Nolan, and not the locksmith, had been the first one to find the body and it raised a barrage of questions. Dru was furious at herself when another reporter asked about the law stating that a real estate agent must disclose to a potential buyer if the house has a stigma on it. I should have known about that law, Dru thought. How did I miss it?

The facts that Jeff MacKingsley shared were bare fundamentals: Celia Nolan had arrived at quarter of ten for the ten o'clock meeting. She found the door unlocked and went inside, calling Georgette's name. When she found the body, she ran back to her car, drove home, and dialed 911, but then went into shock and could not speak.

Jeff then told them about the locksmith who called the police shortly after eleven thirty. "Our investigation is continuing," he emphasized. "It is possible that Georgette Grove was followed into the house, or that someone was already there, waiting for her. The gun that killed her was found near the body."

Sensing there was nothing more to be learned on Holland Road, Dru next headed to the Nolan home. Here again, her timing was good. She arrived only a few minutes before Alex Nolan made his brief statement.

"Did you know about the law regarding a stigmatized house?" Dru called out, but Nolan was already on his way back inside the house.

On a hunch, Dru did not leave with the rest of the media, but instead waited in her car a few hundred feet past the Nolans' home. She was there when Prosecutor MacKingsley and Detective Walsh drove up the road, parked behind the Nolans' car, rang the bell, and were admitted into the house.

She immediately got out of her car, went up the driveway, and waited. The two men stayed inside a scant twenty minutes, but when they came out both were grim faced and closemouthed.

"Dru, I'm holding a press conference at five," MacKingsley told her firmly. "I'll answer what questions I can at that time. I a.s.sume I'll see you there."

"You bet you will," she called after him, as he and Detective Walsh sped away.

Her next stop was the Grove Real Estate Agency on East Main Street. She drove there, half-expecting to find it closed, but when she parked the car and walked over to it, she could see that there were three people in the reception area, even though the CLOSED sign was on the door.

To her astonishment, one of them was Marcella Williams. Of course she'd be here, Dru thought. She wants to get the dirt firsthand. But Marcella could be useful, she conceded a moment later, when she unlocked the door, invited her in, and introduced her to Georgette Grove's a.s.sociates.

Both the man and the woman looked annoyed, and were obviously about to refuse her request for an interview, even though she put it as innocently as possible, saying, "I want to write a fitting tribute to Georgette Grove, who was a pillar of this community."

Marcella intervened on her behalf. "You really should talk to Dru," she told Robin Carpenter and Henry Paley. "In her story in the Star-Ledger yesterday, she wrote very sympathetically about Georgette, how distressed she was at the vandalism, and even told how Georgette had dragged the hose out trying to clean it up before the Nolans arrived."

That was before I knew that Georgette may have been in violation of the law, selling that house to the Nolans and not telling them about the stigma, Dru thought. "Georgette Grove was important to Mendham," she said. "I think she deserves to be remembered for all her community activities."

As she spoke she was studying both Carpenter and Paley.

Despite the fact that Carpenter's blue eyes were swollen and her face blotched from recent tears, there was no mistaking the fact that she was beautiful, Dru decided. She's a natural blond, but those highlights came from the hairdresser. Lovely face. Big, wide-set eyes. If that nose is her own, she was born lucky. Come-hither lips. Wonder if she gets injections to keep them puffed up. Great body. Could easily have been a model, although since she's only about five four, she's not tall enough to have ever made the big money in fashion. She also knows how to dress, Dru thought, noting Robin's well-tailored, cream-colored gabardine pant suit and the lowcut neckline of her frilly pink and cream print blouse.

If she's trying to be s.e.xy, though, she's wasting her efforts here, Dru decided as she concentrated on Henry Paley. The thin, nervous-looking, sixtyish real estate agent appeared to be more worried than grieved, a thought she tucked away for later consideration.

They told her they were just about to have coffee and invited her to join them. Cup in hand, Dru followed Robin across the room to the couch and chairs that were grouped around a television set.

"When I came to work here last year, Georgette told me that she had redesigned this reception area so that she could have a friendly visit with potential clients and then show them the videos of houses she thought might be right for them," Robin explained sadly.

"Did she have a video of the house on Holland Road?" Dru asked, hoping the question didn't come across as too abrupt.

"No," Henry Paley said. "That house was sold the minute it came on the market. We never even got a chance to look at it. But the sale fell through, and it went into multiple listing only last week."

"Did you inspect it?" Dru asked, mentally crossing her fingers that they would be able to answer some questions about the house where Georgette Grove had been murdered.

"I did last week," Paley replied. "In fact, I took potential buyers to see it, but then they admitted it was way out of their price range."

"I was there covering the story for my newspaper a couple of hours ago," Dru said. "We were only outside, of course, but it's obviously a beautiful home. I can't help wondering why Georgette Grove was so quick to show it to Celia Nolan. Did Celia tell her that she wouldn't stay in the house on Old Mill Lane, or did it have anything to do with the real estate law about a stigmatized house? If the Nolans had sued Georgette, wouldn't she have had to refund their money?"

Dru did not miss the way Henry Paley's lips tightened. "The Nolans wanted to stay in the area,"

Henry said, his voice frosty. "Georgette told me that she phoned Mrs. Nolan and offered to show her other houses, foregoing her commission."

Dru decided to take a chance on asking another thin-ice question. "But after Georgette Grove betrayed them in a way by not giving full disclosure, wouldn't it have been reasonable for them to demand their money back and go to a different broker?"

"I heard Georgette, right here in this room, try to tell Alex Nolan about the history of the house, and he brushed it off," Robin said heatedly. "Whether or not she should have insisted on telling Mrs. Nolan about it is something else, of course. I've got to be honest. If I were in Celia Nolan's shoes, I'd have been d.a.m.n mad about the vandalism, but I wouldn't have pa.s.sed out.

Georgette was worried that her legal position was vulnerable. That's why she was so anxious to find another house for Celia Nolan. And that urgency cost her her life."

"What do you think happened to her?" Dru asked.

"I think somebody found a way to get into that house and was surprised when Georgette showed up, or else somebody followed her in with the idea of robbing her, then panicked."

"Did Georgette come into the office this morning?"

"No, and we didn't expect her. When Henry and I were leaving yesterday, she told us she was planning to go directly to the farmhouse."

"Did Georgette stay after you left because she was meeting someone here?"

"This was Georgette's second home. She often stayed late."

Dru had gotten more information than she had dared to expect. She could tell that Henry Paley was about to object to her questions, and Robin Carpenter's answer gave her the escape route she needed.

"You say this was her second home. Let's talk about the kind of person Georgette was. I know she's been a leader in community affairs."

"She kept a sc.r.a.pbook," Robin said. "Why don't I get it for you?"

Fifteen minutes later, her notebook filled with jottings, Dru was ready to leave. Marcella Williams got up to go with her. Outside the office, when Dru started to say goodbye, Marcella said, "I'll walk you to your car."

"It's terrible isn't it?" she began. "I mean I still can't believe Georgette is dead. I don't think most people in town even know about it yet. The prosecutor and a detective were just leaving when I got to the office. I guess they'd been questioning Robin and Henry. I went over because I wanted to see if there was anything I could do, you know, make phone calls to notify people or something.

"That was nice of you," Dru said drily.

"I mean it's not as if Georgette was popular with everybody. She had very strong feelings about what should and shouldn't be built around town. You remember Ronald Reagan's great remark that if the environmentalists had it their way, they'd be building bird cages in the White House.

Some people think that if Georgette had her way, we'd be driving over cobblestone roads and reading by gaslight in Mendham."

What is Marcella getting at? Dru wondered.

"Robin told me that Henry cried like a baby when he heard about Georgette, and I believe it,"

Marcella continued. "From what I understand, ever since his wife died a few years back, he's had a thing for Georgette, but she apparently wasn't interested. I also heard that since he's been getting ready to retire, his att.i.tude has really changed. He's told a lot of people that he'd like to close the agency and sell the office. You were just there. Originally it was a pleasant family home but now, because that block is a commercial zone, it's really gone up in value. In addition to that, Henry bought property on Route 24 with Georgette as an investment years ago. He's been wanting to sell it, but she wanted to deed it to the state."

"What will happen to it now?" Dru asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine. Georgette has a couple of cousins in Pennsylvania she was close to, so I bet she remembered them in her will." Marcella's laugh was sardonic. "One thing I'm sure of. If she left that land to her cousins, the state can whistle for that property. They'll sell it in a heartbeat."

Dru had left her car in the parking lot next to Robinson's, the nineteenth-century pharmacy that was one of the landmarks of the town. When they reached the car, she said goodbye to Marcella and agreed to keep in touch. As she drove away, she glanced at the pharmacy and reflected that the sight of the quaint building had probably given great pleasure to Georgette Grove.

Dru also reflected on the fact that Marcella Williams had gone out of her way to tell her that Henry Paley would profit by Georgette Grove's death. Does she have a personal grudge against Henry, Dru wondered-or is she trying to protect someone else?

CHAPTER 23.

Charley Hatch lived in one of the smallest houses in Mendham, a nineteenth-century, four-room cottage. He had bought it after his divorce. The attraction of the property was that it had a barn that housed all his landscaping and snowplowing equipment. Forty-four years old and mildly attractive with dark blond hair and an olive complexion, Charley made a good living out of the residents of Mendham, but had a deep-seated resentment toward his wealthy clients.

He cut their lawns and trimmed their hedges from spring until fall, and then plowed their driveways in the winter, and always he wondered why their positions weren't reversed, why he hadn't been the one to be born into money and privilege.

A handful of his oldest customers trusted him with a key, and paid him to check their homes after a heavy rain or snowstorm when they were away. If he was in the mood, he sometimes took his sleeping bag to one of those houses and spent the night watching television in the family room and helping himself to whatever he liked from their liquor cabinets. Doing this gave him a satisfying feeling of one-upmanship-the same feeling he had when he agreed to vandalize the house on Old Mill Lane.