I Heard That Song Before (19 page)

“Did she confide in you?”

“ ‘Confide’ is too strong a word. Just one time she let her guard slip and called Peter a rich genius and a stickin-the-mud.”

“Then you don’t think she was depressed?”

“Grace was worried about her drinking. She knew she had a problem. She wanted this baby desperately, and she was always aware that she’d previously had three miscarriages. My guess is that she’d already had a drink by the time we got there, then, one way or another, was sneaking others.”

For a number of reasons, she wanted her baby to live, Greco thought. Not the least of which, perhaps, was that the baby was her ticket to a lifetime income of twenty million dollars a year. He turned to Jeffrey Hammond. “What do
you
think, Mr. Hammond?”

Jeffrey Hammond looked thoughtful. “I keep going over that evening in my mind,” he said. “I agree that Grace seemed restless when we got there, and then, sadly, in the course of the evening began to slur her words and became unsteady on her feet.”

“Did anyone attempt to stop her from imbibing?”

“By the time I noticed, it was too late. She went to the bar and openly poured straight vodka into her glass. Before dinner, she was claiming to be drinking only club soda with a twist of lime.”

“That was for our benefit,” Nancy Hammond said dryly. “Like most problem drinkers, she must have had a bottle stashed somewhere. Maybe in the powder room.”

“Did she expect her husband to be home in time for the dinner?” Greco asked.

“Remember, this dinner wasn’t a planned event,” Jeffrey Hammond said. “Grace only called Nancy the day before to see if we were free. Early in the evening she told us that Richard Walker’s birthday was coming up, so we’d call it a birthday celebration for him. There wasn’t a place at the table set for Peter.”

“Did Grace refer to an article she had read in
People
magazine about the actress Marian Howley?” Greco asked.

“Yes, she did,” Nancy Hammond replied promptly. “In fact, she had it open to that page when we arrived, and she left it open. She commented on what a marvelous actress Marian Howley was, and said that she was going to get tickets to her new play, that she had met Howley at some benefits, and that she had marvelous taste. After dinner, when we were having coffee, she rambled on again about Howley, and repeated herself the way drunks do, going on about what great taste the actress had. Then Grace tore that page out of the magazine and stuck it in the pocket of her jacket, and dropped the magazine on the floor.”

“I didn’t see her do that,” Jeffrey Hammond said.

“By then the rest of you were ignoring her. That was just seconds before Peter walked in, and all hell broke loose. We left a few minutes later.”

Greco realized he was disappointed. He had come hoping to glean something further, to learn if there was some significance in the crumbled page in Grace Carrington’s pocket. He stood up to leave. “I won’t take up any more of your time,” he told them. “You have been very kind.”

“Mr. Greco,” Nancy Hammond said, “these past four years, I didn’t believe for one minute that Grace’s death was anything but an accident, but after seeing that tape of Peter Carrington slugging the cop in front of the Althorp home, I’ve changed my mind. The man is a psycho, and I can just picture him picking up Grace when she’d passed out on the sofa, and carrying her out to the pool and dropping her in. I wish I could tell you something that would pin her death on him.”

“I do, too,” Jeffrey Hammond agreed firmly. “It’s just too bad that New Jersey is almost certainly going to eliminate the death penalty.”

Greco was about to agree when he saw something that jolted him. It was a look of pure anguish in Hammond’s eyes. With the instinct that seldom failed him, Greco calculated that he had stumbled upon the identity of the man who had been Grace Carrington’s lover.

A
fter the arraignment, the prosecutor allowed me to go back to the holding cell where Peter was being kept before he was transported back to the jail.

He was still handcuffed and shackled, and was standing in the middle of the cell. His head was down, his eyes were closed, and as I studied him, my heart was breaking. His whole body seemed so gaunt that he appeared to have lost twenty pounds overnight. His hair was untidy and his pallor was ghastly white against the stubble of beard on his face.

The cell had a grimy toilet in the corner and an unpleasant odor lingered in the closed area where the cell was located.

Peter must have sensed my presence because he lifted his head and opened his eyes. His voice composed, but his eyes pleading for understanding, he said, “Kay, I wasn’t trying to escape last night. I was dreaming that I had to find something, and then I thought someone was attacking me. Kay, I did punch that cop last night. I hurt him. Maybe I am…”

I interrupted him. “I know you weren’t trying to escape, Peter. We’ll make them understand that.”

Peter had taken a step back as if he was afraid I would reject him. But then he came forward to the bars, and raised his hands to entwine his fingers with mine. I noticed that the electronic bracelet was gone. It had served its purpose, I thought bitterly, alerting the police that Peter had left the grounds. Money well spent by the State of New Jersey.

“Kay, I want you to divorce me and get on with your life.”

That was when I broke down completely, sobbing uncontrollably, angry at myself that I was only making it worse for him. “Oh, Peter, oh Peter, don’t say that, don’t even
think
that.”

He shushed me. “Kay, they’ll be here for me in a minute. Listen to me. I don’t want you alone in the house. Get your grandmother to stay with you.”

I shook my head. “No!”

That was when a sheriff’s officer came in. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Carrington, you’ll have to leave,” he told me.

Still trying to stifle my sobs, I said to Peter, “I’ll find out when I can visit you. I’ll…”

“Kay, you must take care of this immediately,” Peter said. “I want you to tell Vince to hire a security firm today. I want a twenty-four-hour guard around the house.
You are not to be alone there without it
.”

It was the statement of a protective husband. Peter was afraid for me.

I looked at him closely. The officer put his hand under my elbow to ease me out of the detention area. I didn’t budge. I had something I had to say, and it was perfectly okay for the guard to hear me. “Peter, I’m going to throw one hell of a homecoming party for you when this nightmare is over.”

I was rewarded by a sad smile. Then Peter said, “Oh, Kay, would to God I could believe that would happen.”

The next morning, the full contingent of Peter’s legal defense team gathered at the mansion. Walter Markinson and Conner Banks were there, of course. The other two chief counselors had flown in as well, Saul Abramson from Chicago and Arthur Robbins from Boston.

Vincent Slater took his usual place at the dining table. The Barrs had set out the usual coffee and pastries and bottles of water on the sideboard. Everything was the same, except that Peter was not sitting at the head of the table. I took his place instead.

If the atmosphere had been heavy the previous week, today it was positively grim. Conner Banks opened the discussion. “Kay, if there’s any comfort in all of this for you, the police report from the other night indicated that Peter was disoriented and dazed, that he had a blank expression in his eyes, and was unresponsive to their orders to move after they cuffed him. When they were in the squad car he started to ask them what happened and why was he there. He even said, ‘I’m not allowed to leave my property, I don’t want to get in trouble.’ They tested for drugs and there were none in his system, so at least I don’t believe they think he was putting on an act.”

“He wasn’t.”

“We’ve got to get his complete medical background,” Markinson said. “Does he have a history of sleepwalking?”

Before I could answer, Vincent Slater said, “Yes, he does.”

I could see beads of sweat on Slater’s forehead and upper lip. “Horses sweat; men perspire; ladies glow.”—Maggie would recite that old chestnut to me during my teenage years if I ever came in after a game of tennis and said something about sweating. To remember it at this moment made me think that I was the one who was in some kind of fugue state.

“What do you know about Peter’s sleepwalking?” Markinson was asking Slater.

“As you are aware, I’ve been working for the Carrington family since the day after I graduated from college. Peter’s mother died when he was twelve. At the time I was twenty-four and Mr. Carrington senior appointed me as a kind of big brother to Peter. Rather than have him chauffeured back and forth to prep school, I would drive him and help him get settled. That sort of thing. When there were school breaks, his father would often be away, and if Peter wasn’t invited to visit a friend, I would take him skiing or sailing.”

I listened, my heart sick, to the story about the boy who had to have someone appointed to keep him occupied during the times when most kids came home to their families. I wondered whether Slater had enjoyed that job, or merely used it to ingratiate himself with Peter’s father and then, eventually, with Peter.

“This is something I would never have discussed, except in the hope of helping Peter now,” Vincent said. “I witnessed at least three episodes of sleepwalking.”

“How old was Peter then?” Banks shot the question at him.

“He was thirteen the first time. It was here, at the house. He had gone to bed, and I was watching television in the room that I now use as an office. I heard a noise and went out to investigate. Peter was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a glass of milk and some cookies in front of him. His father had warned me that he’d had a few episodes of sleepwalking, and I guessed immediately that I was witnessing one of those episodes. Peter drank the milk, ate the cookies, put the plate and glass in the sink, and left the kitchen. He passed inches away from me and never saw me. I followed him upstairs and watched him get back into bed.”

“Was there ever an episode during which he exhibited violence?” Conner Banks demanded.

“When Peter was sixteen, he and I were in Snowbird, skiing during a school break. We had a two-bedroom suite in the lodge. We’d skied all day and went to bed around ten o’clock. About an hour later, I heard him moving around and looked into his room. He was fully dressed in ski clothes. I realized I shouldn’t wake him up, so I followed him to make sure he’d be okay. He went downstairs. There were still people at the bar, but he ignored them and went outside. I had thrown on a heavy jacket over my pajamas, so I followed him out—in bare feet. His skis were locked outside, but he had the key and unlocked them.”

“He unlocked his skis when he was asleep?” Markinson asked, his tone incredulous.

“Yes. Then he started to walk toward the lift. I couldn’t let him go. I was sure the lift was secured, but, on the other hand, I didn’t know what he might do. Remember, I was in my bare feet. I ran behind him and called his name.”

I was afraid to hear what Vincent was going to tell us.

“Peter spun around and, much as he attacked the cop last night, he attacked me. I managed to jump aside, but the tip of his ski caught me on the forehead over the eye.” Slater pointed to his left eyebrow. “This scar is proof of what happened that night.”

“Were there any other episodes of Peter sleepwalking after that?” This time the question came from Arthur Robbins, the defense attorney from Boston.

“None that I’m aware of. I’m only talking about this because maybe in some way it might show a pattern that would be helpful to Peter’s defense.”

“Was he treated by a doctor after that alarming incident at the ski resort?” Conner Banks asked.

“Yes, by an elderly doctor at Englewood Hospital. That was twenty-five or -six years ago, so I doubt he’s still alive, but maybe his medical records are stored somewhere.

“From what I understand, boys are more likely to be sleepwalkers than girls, and I gather that it often starts in adolescence,” Markinson said. “However, I’m not sure that making the prosecutor aware of Peter having experienced a violent sleepwalking incident twenty-six years ago would necessarily help him in any way.”

“There was another incident last week” I told them. “It was right after Peter got home from the first arraignment.” I explained how he had taken a nap, and when I went to check on him, I found him standing up with a suitcase open and partially packed on the bed.

I did not tell them about Peter’s sleepwalking incident the night we came back from our honeymoon. I could not put into words the fact that his arm had been in the pool as though he was pushing or pulling an object. I reasoned that these lawyers were being paid handsomely to defend my husband, but also that my information might make them actually believe that he had been responsible for Grace’s death.

I was afraid that, even as they worked to acquit him, in their minds they would be thinking, Guilty, as charged.

T
he lawyers are staying for lunch,” Jane Barr told her husband when he returned from the errands she had sent him to complete. “Wouldn’t you think three straight hours would be enough? Mrs. Carrington looks absolutely terrible. I swear that girl is getting sick.”

“It’s been a lot of strain on her,” Gary Barr agreed as he hung his coat in the closet by the kitchen door.

“I made chicken soup,” Jane said unnecessarily. The aroma of simmering chicken and onions and celery was permeating the kitchen. “I’ll bake some biscuits and have a salad and cheese. None of them are vegetarians.”

Gary Barr knew his wife. For the last two weeks, since Susan Althorp’s remains had been found, Jane had been unraveling. He watched as she went over to the sink and began washing lettuce. He came up behind her. “Do you feel okay?” he asked timidly.

Jane swung around, her face contorted with guilt and rage. “There never was a finer human being in the world than Peter Carrington, and he’s in jail right now because—”

“Don’t say it, Jane,” Gary Barr ordered, his own face mottled with anger. “Don’t say it, and don’t
think
it. Because it isn’t true. I swear on my immortal soul that it isn’t true. You believed me twenty-two years ago. You’d better keep believing me now, or else we both may be living under the same roof as Peter Carrington again, and I don’t mean on this estate.”