“I read about how Grace Carrington’s body was found in the pool,” Frances said, as she bit into a bread stick. “There were a lot of stories about it four years ago when it happened. People magazine did a big spread on it. I remember that they brought up the fact that Peter Carrington had been ‘a person of interest’ in the disappearance of Susan Althorp. But at the time, I’m almost certain that the Meredith family made a statement to the effect that ‘Grace’s death is not a mystery. It is a tragedy.’ Why do you think the brother is starting to make accusations now?”
Nicholas Greco would have loved to steer the conversation in another direction, but he reminded himself that, as with her figure and her hair color, Frances had retained her lively curiosity.
“From what I understand, Grace Carrington’s parents were upset themselves about her drinking, and they also liked Peter very much. They didn’t suspect foul play at the time, but now that the father’s dead, and the mother is in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s, Philip Meredith may have decided that it’s time to express his own feelings.”
“Well, if you hadn’t tracked down Maria Valdez, there wouldn’t have been an arraignment today,” Frances observed. “I hope Mrs. Althorp appreciates that you were able to do what no one else could.”
“Maria had absolutely dropped out of sight when the prosecutor’s office was looking to talk to her again. The guy we work with in the Philippines went over her old connections, and it just so happened that she was back in touch with a distant cousin. It took a lot of luck to find her.”
“Even so, it was your idea to have Mrs. Althorp accuse Peter Carrington in Celeb magazine. All my friends agreed he would sue her for that. If you hadn’t located Maria Valdez, you still would have made Peter Carrington answer questions under oath. And I’m sure he would have tripped himself up somehow.”
Would he have tripped himself up? Greco wondered. There was still a nagging and unanswered part of the puzzle: the missing evening purse. Did Susan take it with her when she got out of Carrington’s car? For some reason, that question wouldn’t go away.
“Thank you for being my number one fan, dear,” he told his wife. “Now, if you don’t mind, let’s talk about something else.”
The telephone rang. Frances ran to get it and was back with the receiver on the third ring. “I don’t recognize the number,” she told him.
“Then let the answering machine pick it up,” Greco said.
The message began: “Mr. Greco, this is Philip Meredith. I know you were in court today with Mrs. Althorp. I have been speaking with her. I would very much like to engage you to investigate the death of my sister, Grace Meredith Carrington. I have always believed she was murdered by her husband, Peter Carrington, and if it is at all possible, I want you to find evidence to support that fact. I hope you will return my call. My number is-.”
Greco took the phone from his wife’s hand and pushed TALK. “This is Nicholas Greco, Mr. Meredith,” he said.
29
If anyone had peered into the window that evening and observed us having cocktails in the parlor of the mansion, I am sure they would have thought how lucky we were. Of course Peter and I said nothing about the brief sleepwalking episode but sat side by side on the couch that faced the fireplace. Elaine and her son, Richard Walker, were in the fireside chairs, and Vincent Slater, who always preferred a straight chair, had pulled one over to join the group.
Gary Barr was serving drinks. Peter and I had a glass of wine, the others cocktails. Without being asked, Gary had drawn the doors that separated the parlor into two rooms, making our half more intimate, if you can call a twenty-seven-foot-long room intimate.
On our honeymoon, Peter had told me that he wanted me to hire a decorator to do anything I wanted to refurbish the house. He seldom talked about Grace, but I did remember one comment about her, apropos of decorating: “When Elaine was married to my father, she did a lot of redecorating, and I must say she knew what she was doing. She had a great decorator working with her. Of course she hemorrhaged money in the process. You should have heard my father complain about it. Grace really didn’t change anything. She preferred staying in the New York apartment. During the eight years we were married, she spent most of her time there.”
All of that was going through my mind as we sat in that lovely room, staring at the fire in the fireplace. Elaine was beautiful as always, carefully made up, her sapphire eyes sympathetic and loving as she looked at Peter.
I liked Richard Walker. He was not good-looking in the traditional sense, but there was magnetism about him that I am sure attracted women. Except for his eyes, you would never have dreamt that, given his rugged features and stocky frame, he had come from the womb of Elaine Walker Carrington. Peter had told me that Richard’s father, Elaine’s first husband, had been born in Romania and moved to the United States with his parents when he was five or six years old. He anglicized his name when he went to college and was a successful entrepreneur by the time she married him.
“Elaine would never have married a guy without big bucks,” Peter had told me, “but in a way she lucked out both times. I gather Richard’s father was smart and rather charming but gambled everything away. The marriage didn’t last long, and he died when Richard was a teenager. Then Elaine married my father, who was so frugal, the joke about him among his friends was that he still had his First Holy Communion money.”
Obviously, Richard must have gotten most of his physical traits from his father, and something of his charm, too, I suppose. Over cocktails, he told us about the first time he had come to the mansion for dinner, and how formidable Peter’s father had seemed to him. “Peter was a freshman at Princeton, Kay,” he told me, “so he was away at school. I had just graduated from Columbia and had my first job as a trainee at Sotheby’s. Peter’s father was not impressed. He offered me a trainee job in one of the divisions of Carrington’s. I forget which one.”
Vincent Slater, who certainly is no conversationalist, began to laugh. “It was probably in the brokerage division. That’s where I started.”
“Anyhow, I turned him down,” Richard said, “and that was the beginning of the end of a beautiful relationship. Your dad always thought I was wasting my time, Peter.”
“I know.” Peter smiled, too, and I could see that Richard’s attempt to divert him from the grim reality of the day was working at least a little.
We went into dinner, and I was grateful to see that Peter responded to Jane Barr’s pot roast by saying, “I didn’t think I was hungry, but this looks awfully good.”
As we ate, Richard talked about his first tour of the mansion. “Your father told me to have a look around,” he said. “He told me about the chapel, and I went up to see it. It’s unbelievable to think that a priest actually lived in it in the seventeenth century. I remember wondering if it was haunted. What do you think, Kay?”
“The first time I saw it, I was six years old,” I said. Noting his astonished expression, I explained, “I told Peter about it the night my grandmother fell at the reception, and he stayed with me at the hospital and brought me home.”
“Yes, Kay was an adventurous child,” Peter said.
He hesitated, and I sensed he didn’t want to talk about my father. I made it easy for him. “My dad had come back on a Saturday to check on the lighting. There were a lot of guests coming that night for a formal dinner party. I was left on my own for awhile, so I went exploring.”
The atmosphere at the table changed. I had stumbled into talking about the night Susan Althorp disappeared. Trying to divert the subject, I rushed on: “It was so cold and damp in the chapel, and then I heard some people coming so I hid between the pews.”
“You did?” Vincent Slater exclaimed. “Did you get caught?”
“No. I knelt down. I hid my face in my hands. You know how dopey kids are. ‘If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.’ ”
“Did you catch a pair of lovers?” Vincent asked.
“No, the peopl
e were arguing about money.”
Elaine began to laugh, a harsh, sarcastic sound. “Peter, your father and I were arguing about money all over the house that day,” she said. “I don’t particularly remember that we were in the chapel, though.”
“The woman was promising him that it would be the last time.” I was desperate to change the subject.
“That sounds like me, too,” Elaine said.
“Well, it’s certainly not important. I wouldn’t have thought about it, except that you began talking about the chapel, Richard,” I said.
Gary Barr was standing behind me about to pour wine into my glass. An instant later, to our mutual dismay, the wine was cascading down my neck.
30
As Barbara Krause had promised Tom Moran, the evening of the arraignment they had a celebration dinner at the Stony Hill Inn, one of their favorite restaurants in Hackensack. Over rack of lamb, they discussed the sudden appearance and emotional tirade of Philip Meredith.
“You know, if we could get Carrington to admit to his wife’s murder as well as to murdering Susan Althorp, I’d be tempted to offer him a plea,” Krause said suddenly.
“I thought that was the last thing you said you’d do, boss,” Moran protested.
“I know. But much as I think we’ll get a conviction in the Althorp case, it’s not a slam dunk by any means. The fact remains that Maria Valdez did flip-flop on her testimony. And Carrington’s got the best defense counsel money can buy. It’ll get rough.”
Moran nodded. “I know. I saw the two of them with Carrington today. What they’re getting paid for one day’s work would pay for the braces on my kids’ teeth.”
“Let’s talk about it,” Krause said. “If he pled to both Susan’s case and to killing his wife, we could offer him thirty years, without parole, on concurrent sentences. Let’s face it, we don’t have enough to charge him with his wife’s death now, but he knows other evidence could develop. He would be released in his early seventies and still have plenty of money. If he took this offer, we would get the convictions and, assuming he lives that long, he’d have the hope of getting out.
“You know perfectly well that I’d love to try this case,” Krause said. “But there’s another issue. Right now, I’m thinking of the victims’ families. You saw and heard both of them today. Mrs. Althorp won’t live to see the trial, but if Carrington confesses, she’ll probably live to see him sentenced. And there’s another angle. If he confesses, it opens the door to civil suits.”
“I don’t think the Althorps need money,” Moran said flatly.
“They’re poor millionaires,” Barbara Krause said. “Don’t you love that designation? It applies to anyone with under five million. I read it in one of the magazines. A civil settlement would mean they could make a significant contribution in Susan’s name to a hospital or her college. From what we know about Philip Meredith, he’s never set the world on fire, and he has three kids to support.”
“Then you are serious about offering a plea to Carrington’s lawyers?” Moran asked.
“Let us say I’m turning it over in my mind. Kind of like being ‘engaged to be engaged.’ Anyhow, the lamb was delicious. Damn the calories. Full speed ahead. Let’s have dessert.”
31
I know that dinner relaxed Peter somewhat. As soon as it was over, and we’d had coffee in his library, the others got up to leave. Sometimes Richard stayed over at Elaine’s house, but he told us that he was on his way to Manhattan for an after-theatre drink at the Carlyle with a young artist. “She’s very gifted I think,” Richard told us, “and very pretty, I might add. It so seldom goes together.”
“Just don’t fall in love, Richard,” Elaine said tartly. “And if you decide to have a party for her at the gallery, let her pay for the champagne.”
When she said that, Vincent raised his eyebrows to Peter and he responded with a trace of a smile. Peter and I walked with the three of them to the door. Both Richard’s and Vincent’s cars were parked directly in front of the mansion. The men opened umbrellas, and Elaine held on to her son’s arm as they dashed down the steps to the cars.
Peter locked the door behind them, then, as we turned to the staircase, Gary Barr appeared. “Mrs. Carrington, we’re leaving now. I had to tell you again how sorry I am about your blouse. I can’t believe I was so clumsy. I don’t think I’ve ever had an accident like that in all the years I’ve been serving.”
Of course, when the wine spilled on me, I had accepted his apologies, gone upstairs, and quickly changed to another blouse. I think Peter had had enough of the apologizing, because before I could once again reassure Gary, he said brusquely, “I think Mrs. Carrington has made it clear that she understands it was an unfortunate accident. I don’t really care to hear any more about it. Good night, Gary.”
I had only seen glimpses so far of the formal-make that formidable-side of Peter, and in a way I was glad to witness it. These next months, until the trial, were going to be so humiliating and frightening for him. He had exposed his vulnerability to me because he trusted me. But in that moment I realized that the role I was assuming, less wife than protector, was unworthy of the essence of the man.
As we walked up the stairs, for some incongruous reason, I thought about an evening, maybe ten years ago, when I was home from college. Maggie and I had watched the old movie To Catch a Thief, starring Grace Kelly and Cary Grant, on television. During one of the commercials, she told me that Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier when she was making that movie in Monaco.
“Kay, I read about the time the prince came to visit her at her parents’ home in Philadelphia. That was when he asked her father for her hand in marriage. The next day her mother told a reporter what a very nice person Rainier was and how easy it was to forget that he was a prince. A society reporter sniffed, “Doesn’t Mrs. Kelly understand that marrying a reigning monarch is not like marrying someone who’s just another prince?”
Today I had seen the hounded Peter in court, followed by the frightened Peter standing over a suitcase that he could not remember having begun to pack. Just now, I had seen an imperial Peter who had heard enough of an employee’s explanations. Who is the complete Peter? I asked myself when we were getting ready for bed.
I realized I did not have an answer.
32
The weather the next morning was almost unchanged. The temperature had risen so it was no longer sleeting, but the rain continued, a steady, dismal downpour.
“Looks as though our dogs get another day off,” Moran observed when he went into Krause’s office a few minutes after nine A.M. “No use having them sniffing around the Carrington estate today.”
“I know. It would only be a waste of the taxpayers’ money,” Krause agreed. “Besides, we’re not going to find anything there. I’ve been going over the little evidence they took from the mansion and the stepmother’s house. The entire search seems to have resulted in a big nothing. But I don’t suppose we really expected to find much after twenty-two years. If Peter Carrington was smart enough to get rid of his formal shirt right after he killed Susan, the odds are that there was nothing else for him to worry about.”
“I’d guess if there had been anything, we would have found it the first time around,” Moran shrugged.
“Just one thing kind of interests me. Take a look at this.” Krause handed a sheet of paper to Moran. It was a landscaping design sketch.
Moran looked at it carefully. “What about it?”
“It was in a file drawer in a room on the top floor of the mansion. Apparently, over the years, the family has treated a couple of rooms there as an attic, the place where you stick things that you don’t want to be bothered going through. The guys tell me that you could furnish a house with the stuff that’s up there, from couches and chairs and carpets and china and silverware and pictures and bric-a-brac, to family letters that go back to the nineteenth century.”
“I guess they never heard of yard sales or eBay,” Moran commented. “Wait a mi
nute, I see what this is. It’s a drawing of the outside area of the Carrington estate, the place where the girl’s body was found, except that there are plantings on it.”
“That’s right. Actually, it’s a copy of an original sketch.”
“What about it?”
“Look at the name in the corner.”
Moran held it closer to the lamp on Barbara Krause’s desk. “Jonathan Lansing! That was the landscaper, the guy who took a dive into the Hudson not long after Susan Althorp disappeared. He was the present Mrs. Carrington’s father.”
“That’s right. He was fired by the Carringtons a few weeks after Susan went missing, and he apparently committed suicide. I say ‘apparently,’ because his body was never recovered.”
Moran stared at his boss. “You’re not suggesting there’s a connection between him and Susan Althorp?”
“No, I’m not. We’ve got the guy who killed her. What I’m seeing is that Lansing was the one who suggested that the fence be moved those fifty feet back from the street. Looking at this, it would seem as though he didn’t intend to leave the area between the fence and the curb untended. This sketch is a design for some perennials to be planted on the outer side of the fence.”
“Then he was fired, and the family didn’t bother to do anything but throw some grass seed on it,” Moran said matter-of-factly.
“Looks like it,” Barbara Krause agreed. She put the sketch back in the file folder… “I don’t know,” she said, more to herself than to Moran. “I just don’t know…”
33
On Tuesday morning, the day after the arraignment, Philip Meredith took the train from Philadelphia to New York. Aware that his picture might be splashed on the front page of the tabloids, he took the precaution of wearing dark sunglasses. He had no desire to be recognized and perhaps spoken to by strangers. He did not want sympathy from anyone. He had not laid eyes on Peter Carrington since his sister’s funeral. He had gone to court simply for the pleasure of seeing him in handcuffs and charged with murder. His outburst had startled him as much as anyone else in court.
I 've Heard That Song Before Page 11
