I Heard That Song Before (14 page)

Gary Barr was in the kitchen, watching television. He turned it off as soon as he saw me, but not soon enough. On the screen I could see that Philip Meredith was being interviewed. For a moment I was tempted to find out what he was saying, but I quickly changed my mind. Whatever it was, I had heard enough from him today.

“Where would you like me to serve cocktails, Mrs. Carrington?” Gary asked.

I had almost forgotten that I’d invited Elaine and Richard for dinner. “In the front parlor, I guess.”

Elaine and I hadn’t discussed time for the simple reason we hadn’t known what time Peter would be home, but when I’d been at the house for dinner before Peter and I were married, cocktails were always served around seven.

I hurried upstairs to shower and dress. I wondered briefly why Peter had closed the door leading from the parlor to the other bedroom, then decided he must have wanted to lie down for a few minutes. It was late, but I took the time to wash my hair. The mirror told me that my face looked pale and tired, so I took special care with makeup, adding eye shadow, mascara, a touch of blush, and lip gloss. I know Peter likes my hair loose on my shoulders so I decided to wear it that way tonight. I thought my black velvet pants with a print silk shirt would seem a little upbeat, although in reality there was nothing to be upbeat about.

When I was ready, I still hadn’t heard a sound from Peter. Wondering if he had fallen asleep, I went through the parlor and quietly opened the door of the other bedroom. I gasped when I saw Peter standing at the side of the bed, a bewildered expression on his face, staring down at an open suitcase.

“Peter, what is it?” I ran to him.

He clutched my arms. “Kay, when I got up here, I lay down. I just wanted to rest for a few minutes. I must have fallen asleep. I know I was dreaming that I was going somewhere, and then I woke up. And look.”

He pointed to the interior of the suitcase. Underwear and socks were neatly stacked inside.

In the forty minutes since we had been home, he had been sleepwalking again.

A
t seven o’clock, Nicholas Greco was contentedly enjoying dinner with his wife, Frances, in their home in Syosset, Long Island. Normally she would not have asked him about the case he was working on, but after having watched the six o’clock news with the story of the Peter Carrington arraignment, she wanted to know every single detail of what had taken place in court.

She had prepared his favorite meal, a green salad, macaroni and cheese casserole, and baked ham. Greco realized that even though he wanted to put the wrenching day behind him, he owed it to his wife to reflect aloud on his impressions of the day’s events.

“If I were Carrington’s lawyers, I’d be talking a plea bargain,” he said. “That outburst in court made a tremendous impression on people. From what I understand, Philip Meredith isn’t given to emotional demonstrations. I had Beth at the office check on him while I was driving home. He lives in Philadelphia, which is where the Merediths have lived for generations. Nice family background, but no real money. He and his sister, Grace, had academic scholarships when they went to college. Philip’s a midlevel executive with a marketing company, married to his childhood sweetheart; three kids, two of them in college. He’s forty-eight now, his sister was six years younger.”

Frances passed the macaroni casserole to him. “Have a second helping. Running back and forth to Lancaster, you haven’t been eating properly.”

Greco smiled at her and, against his better judgment, reached for the serving spoon. At fifty-five, Frances weighed exactly the same as she had at twenty-five. Her hair was the same shade of ash-blond, but now, of course, was helped along by regular trips to the beauty salon. Even so, in his fond eyes, she hadn’t changed much at all in the last thirty years.

“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.

I
f 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 people 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.

A
s 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.”