I Heard That Song Before (33 page)

Long ago, Maggie had told me that you can love a person without loving everything about that person. “Monsignor Fulton Sheen was a great speaker who had a television program about fifty years ago,” she had reminisced. “One day he said something that really impressed me. He said, ‘I hate communism, but I love the communist.”

I think that was a good comparison to the way Peter felt about Richard. He loved the person and despised his weakness.

After I closed the door behind Elaine and Richard and Vincent, I walked back to the kitchen. The Barrs were about to leave. “The cups are all washed and put away, Mrs. Carrington,” Jane said anxiously.

“Mrs. Carrington, if you need anything during the night, you know we’ll be there in a minute for you,” Gary Barr said.

I ignored his remark, but did say that I thought everyone had enjoyed the dinner very much. I bid them good night and they left by the kitchen door; I double-locked it behind them.

It had become my habit at the end of the day to sit for a while in Peter’s library. It made me feel close to him. I could relive the moment I walked into this room for the first time and saw him sitting in his chair. I could smile as I remembered the way his reading glasses slipped from his face when he stood up to greet me.

But tonight I didn’t stay there long. I was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. I was beginning to fear that Nicholas Greco would not be able to come up with anything that would help in Peter’s defense. He was so cautious when I asked him about what he had learned. Maybe he was even finding information that would
hurt
Peter.

I got up from the chair and walked over to the desk. I wanted to be sure to take the page from
People
magazine upstairs with me. I didn’t want to forget it. Greco had been so insistent that I show it to Peter on the next visiting day.

I had anchored the page with Peter’s handsome antique magnifying glass, and it was covering a section of the background in the picture of Marian Howley.

Part of the section magnified included a painting on the wall behind Howley. I lifted the magnifying glass and studied the painting intently. It was a pastoral scene, identical to the one I had replaced in the dining room. Taking the page and magnifying glass with me, I ran upstairs to the third floor. I had changed a number of the paintings, and had to dig it out from within a stack I had placed on the floor, each painting covered and carefully wrapped.

The frame was heavy, and I was cautious not to overdo the pulling and lifting, but finally I got it out. I propped it against the wall and then sat cross-legged on the floor in front of it. Using the magnifying glass, I slowly began to examine it.

I’m not an art expert, so the fact that this painting did not in any way stir me was not a test of its value. It was signed in the corner—Morley—with the same flourish as the one now hanging in the dining room. The two paintings were essentially identical in content. But the other one compelled attention; this one did not. The date on this one was 1920.

In 1920, had Morley painted this scene and then gone on to create other similar scenes, only with greater skill? It was possible. But then I saw what could only be visible by careful examination: There was another name under Morley’s signature.

“What do you think you’re doing, Kay?”

I whirled around. Vincent Slater was standing in the doorway, staring at me, his face white, his lips a thin hard line. He began walking across the room to me, and I shrank away from him.

“What do you think you are doing?” he asked again.

I
n Barbara Krause’s office, a court stenographer had been summoned to take down the statement given by Ambassador Charles Althorp. More composed now than he had been when he entered the office, Althorp’s voice was steady when he began to speak again.

“At the time of her disappearance, I did not reveal that I had learned my daughter, Susan, had developed an addiction to cocaine. As investigator Nicholas Greco pointed out to me the other day, had I told that to the police when Susan disappeared, the investigation might have moved in another direction.”

He looked down at his folded hands as if contemplating them. “I thought that by keeping a tight rein on Susan, and cutting off her allowance, I would force her to stop using drugs. Of course, I was wrong. Greco told me that the afternoon of the party in the Carrington mansion, the present Mrs. Carrington, who was then six years old, overheard a woman blackmailing a man because she needed money. Greco believes—and now I do as well—that it was Susan she heard. Hours later, Susan disappeared.

“For years I have kept the secret of Susan’s addiction. I told my sons about it as we stood next to their mother’s grave. Had I revealed it earlier, a great injustice might have been avoided.” Althorp closed his eyes and shook his head. “I should have…” His voice trailed off.

“What exactly
did
you tell your sons, Ambassador?” Tom Moran asked.

“I told them that I believed Susan started taking drugs when she returned from college the beginning of the last summer she was alive, and that she may have been blackmailing someone to get the money she needed. My confession prompted them to open up in turn, telling me things they knew about their sister, things that take on new meaning in context with recent developments.

“My son David had come home for a visit the Christmas before Susan disappeared. Susan had been spending a lot of time at the Carrington mansion. David told me that she confided to him she had noticed that several of the paintings downstairs in the Carrington mansion had been replaced with copies. She was studying art, you know, and knew a lot about the subject. She was sure she knew who was doing the copying, because on one occasion that person invited a young artist to a party in the house, and Susan saw her taking photographs of several paintings.

“David advised Susan to forget what she had discovered and not breathe a word of it to anyone. He said he knew what would happen if Mr. Carrington Sr. found out about it. It would end up as a very messy court case, and Susan might have to testify. David told her that our family had had enough grief with that family because of my earlier affair with Elaine Carrington.”

“So Susan did as David suggested, but that summer, when she needed money, she may have used her knowledge of the theft of the art to try to get it,” Krause suggested.

“I believe that’s exactly what she did,” Althorp confirmed.

“Was it Peter Carrington, Ambassador?” Moran asked. “Was he stealing from his own father?”

“No, of course not. Don’t you see why this is tormenting me? Peter is in jail right now, accused of killing Susan. He had no reason to kill her. David told me that he believes if Susan had asked Peter for the money, he would have given it to her without question, and then would have tried to get her help. But Susan would never have asked Peter because she was in love with him. David said that my silence has been a curse on Peter. When I spoke to David this afternoon, he said that if I didn’t come here tonight, he would never speak to me again.”

“Then who was stealing the paintings?”

“Elaine Carrington’s son, Richard Walker.”

P
at Jennings put down the book she was reading, picked up the television remote control, and flipped on the ten o’clock news. “Have to see what’s going on in the world,” she told her husband, who was dozing over a magazine. Not expecting a response, she turned her attention to the screen.

“We have a breaking news story,” the Fox News anchor was saying. “The body of forty-six-year-old Alexandra Lloyd has been found floating in the East River. The victim had been stabbed numerous times. A neighbor and close friend described her as an art teacher who had recently lost her job at a local high school because of budget cuts. Anyone with information should phone the tipster line, 212-555-7000.”

“Alexandra Lloyd!” Pat exclaimed, just as the phone rang.

It was Trish. “Pat, I was just watching the news, and—”

“I know,” Pat said, “I was watching it, too.”

“Are you going to call that tip line and tell them about her calls to Richard Walker?”

“You bet I am, and right now.”

“That poor woman. That’s so awful, to be stabbed and dumped in the river. My God, do you think he did it?”

“I don’t know, but that’s for the police to figure out.”

“Keep me posted,” Trish urged as she hung up.

A
fter Charles Althorp had completed his statement and departed with his lawyer, Barbara Krause and Tom Moran stayed in her office, discussing the impact of what they had heard, and assessing how it affected their case against Peter Carrington.

“Even if Walker was stealing good paintings and substituting copies, it doesn’t mean that he killed Susan. And much of what Althorp told us is hearsay,” Barbara Krause said, flatly.

“And it doesn’t answer why Carrington hid his dress shirt that night and why his father handed Maria Valdez a check for five thousand dollars,” Moran pointed out. “Anyhow, the statute of limitations has run out on prosecuting Walker for theft, even if we can prove that he was an art crook.”

Barbara Krause stood up. “I’m tired. Let’s give it a rest.”

Her phone rang. “My family probably thinks I ran off with you,” she told Moran as she picked up the phone. Then, as she listened, her expression changed, and she began to pepper the caller with questions: “When did you find her?…The secretary is sure she was threatening him?…He’s leaving for London tomorrow?…Okay. Thanks.”

She hung up and looked at Moran. “Richard Walker’s name has turned up again. The body of a woman who frequently called Walker at work, and who left an angry, almost threatening message a few days ago, has been found floating in the East River. Her name was Alexandra Lloyd. The information about Lloyd calling Walker came from his secretary. My God, I wonder if the two stepbrothers are both killers.”

“How did she die?” Moran asked.

“She was stabbed at least a dozen times,” Krause said.

“Walker’s mother, Elaine Carrington, lives in a house on that estate. He may be there now,” Moran said.

“We’ll alert the Englewood cops and have them send a squad car over there immediately,” Krause replied, a worried tone in her voice. “I know they have some private security outside the estate, but Kay Carrington is alone in that house at night.”

W
hat are you doing here?” I asked Vincent Slater as I scrambled to get up from where I had been sitting on the floor. “How did you get in?”

“
How did I get in
? I cannot describe to you the indignity of your asking how I got in. After thirty years of having a key to my own office in this house, after all the years I have spent protecting Peter, including protecting him from prosecution, I arrived here earlier this evening to find that the locks had been changed.”

“What do you mean, protecting Peter from prosecution?” I screamed.
“Peter is innocent!”

“No, he is not. He was sleepwalking the night Susan disappeared. He didn’t know what he was doing. I’m sure of that.”

“You believe that!”

“His father must have known what happened,” Vincent replied. “That’s why he paid off the maid. I have the shirt; it has blood on it. That’s why I know that he must have done it. You know, Kay, you really had me fooled. At first I thought you really loved Peter, and that you would be good for him. But then you hired Greco, the very man who had located Maria Valdez, whose testimony about a bribe from Peter’s father will put another nail in Peter’s coffin. Weren’t you really hoping that Greco would dig up more evidence, so you could bury Peter once and for all? I know you would have given the shirt to Greco, so that’s why I kept it. Admit it. You married Peter to get your hands on his money. Now that you’re carrying his child, you’ve got a lock on it. Or, is it really Peter’s child?”

I was too dumbfounded to even respond.

“Or is it the child of the man to whom you’ve given a key to my office? I just saw someone coming into the house through my office. He left the door open, and that is how I came in. I came back for two reasons: one, because I had to tell you what I thought about your humiliating me by changing the locks, without even a warning.”

“And the second reason?” I asked scornfully.

“The second reason,” he replied with equal scorn, “is that, if by some remote possibility, I am wrong about Peter having killed Susan, you were inviting disaster this evening by flaunting that page from
People
magazine in the library. I just can’t fathom why you did that. I don’t know what significance that page has, but I suspect it must have some. Why else would Grace have kept it?”

“Vince, you just told me you saw a man come into this house through your office. Who was it? That door should have been locked.”

“It was dark, and I couldn’t tell who it was. But I think you know damn well who it was. Where is he now—in your bedroom?”

“No, I’m right here. Kay, you shouldn’t have left the new keys in the kitchen drawer.”

Startled, we both turned and looked in the direction from which the voice had come. Richard Walker was moving toward us, a pistol in his hand.

D
eciding not to use the patrol car’s overhead lights or sirens that would alert Richard Walker if he was at the Carrington estate, Englewood police officer Steven Hausenstock pulled his squad car up to the gate and spoke to the guard. “Do you know if Richard Walker is here?” he asked.

“He arrived around five o’clock,” the guard replied. “He’s still here. He sometimes stays overnight at his mother’s house.”

“Who else is here?”

“Mr. Carrington’s assistant, Mr. Slater, left about half an hour ago, but then came back in the last few minutes.”

“All right. I need to check on Mrs. Kay Carrington.”

“You can drive up to the front door and ring the bell. If she doesn’t answer, the other guard is stationed there and has a key. He can let you in.”