No Place Like Home (14 page)

“We have to talk to her,” Jeff said. “She must have been the client Georgette Grove was expecting to meet.”

“Well, I don't think she'll be in the mood to buy this place now,” Earley commented. “Looks like she has her hands full living in
one
crime scene.”

“Did she say what time she got here?”

“Quarter of ten. She was early.”

Then we lost over an hour from the time she saw the body until Jarrett Alberti called us, Jeff thought.

“Jeff, we found something in the victim's shoulder bag that might be interesting.” With gloved hands, Detective Spaulding was holding a newspaper clipping. She brought it over for him to see. It was the picture of Celia Nolan fainting that had appeared in the newspaper the day before. “It looks as if it was put in Georgette's bag after she was killed,” Spaulding said. “We've already checked it for fingerprints and there aren't any on it.”

I
think what really calmed me down was the absolute panic I saw in Jack's face. When he came into the emergency room cubicle where they had settled me, he was still sobbing. He usually goes willingly into Alex's arms, but after his scare when I wasn't there to pick him up at school, he would only cling to me.

We rode home in the back seat of the car, Jack's hand in mine. Alex was heartsick for both of us. “God, Ceil,” he said. “I can't even imagine what a horrible experience that was for you. What's going
on
in this town?”

What indeed? I thought.

It was nearly quarter to two, and we were all hungry. Alex opened a can of soup for us and made Jack his favorite, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The hot soup helped me shake off the grogginess caused by the sedative the doctor had injected into my arm.

We had barely finished eating when reporters started ringing the doorbell. I glanced out the
window and noticed that one of them was an older woman with wild gray hair. I remembered that she had been running toward me just as I had fainted on the day we moved in.

Alex went outside. For the second time in forty-eight hours, he made a statement to the press: “After the vandalism that we found when we moved into this house on Tuesday, we decided it would be better for us to choose a different home in the area. Georgette Grove arranged to meet my wife in a house being offered for sale on Holland Road. When Celia arrived, she found Ms. Grove's body and rushed home to notify the police.”

When he was finished, I could see that he was being bombarded with questions. “What did they ask you?” was my question to him when he came back inside.

“I guess the ones you'd expect: Why didn't you call the police immediately? Weren't you carrying a cell phone? I pointed out that for all you knew the killer might still have been in the house, and you did the smartest thing possible—you got out of there.”

A few minutes later, Jeffrey MacKingsley called and asked to come over and speak to me. Alex wanted to put him off, but I immediately agreed to see him. Every instinct told me that it was important I give the appearance of being a cooperative witness.

MacKingsley arrived with a man I'd guess to be in his early fifties. Chubby-faced, with thinning
hair and a serious demeanor, he was introduced as Detective Paul Walsh. MacKingsley told me that Detective Walsh would be in charge of the investigation into Georgette Grove's death.

With Alex sitting on the couch beside me, I responded to their questions. I explained that we wanted to stay in the area, but the history of this house and the vandalism was too upsetting for us to remain here. I told them that Georgette had offered to forgo her commission if she found a suitable house for us, and that she said she would make every effort to resell this one, also forgoing her commission.

“You were not aware of the background of this house before you saw it for the first time last month?” Detective Walsh asked.

I felt my palms begin to sweat. I chose my answer carefully. “I was not aware of the reputation of this house before I saw it last month.”

“Mrs. Nolan, do you know about the law in New Jersey that mandates that a real estate broker must inform a prospective buyer if a house has a stigma on it, meaning if a crime has been committed here, or a suicide, or even if a house is reputed to be haunted?”

I did not have to feign my astonishment. “I absolutely did not know that,” I said. “Then Georgette really wasn't being all that generous when she offered to forgo her commission?”

“She
did
try to tell me that the house had a history, but I cut her off,” Alex explained. “As I told
her, when I was a kid, my family used to rent a run-down house on Cape Cod that the natives swore was haunted.”

“Nevertheless, from what I read in yesterday's papers, you bought this house as a gift for your wife. It's in her name only, so Ms. Grove had a responsibility to disclose the history to her,” Mac-Kingsley informed us.

“No wonder Georgette was so upset about the vandalism,” I said. “When we arrived here Tuesday morning, she was trying to drag the hose out of the garage to wash the paint away.” I felt a flash of anger. I should have been spared the horror of moving back into this house. Then I thought of Georgette Grove as I had seen her in that split second before I ran, the blood crusting her forehead, the rag in her hand. She'd been trying to get rid of that splash of red paint on the floor.

Red paint is like blood. First it spills, then it thickens and hardens . . .

“Mrs. Nolan, did you ever meet Georgette Grove before you moved into this house?”

The red paint on the floor near Georgette's body . . .

“Celia,” Alex murmured, and I realized Detective Walsh had repeated his question. Had I ever met Georgette Grove when I was a child? My mother might easily have known her, but I had no memory of her.

“No,” I said.

“Then you only saw her the day you moved in, and that was for a brief time?”

“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 glass 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 glasses, 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 God 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.”

Z
ach 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 passed for his conscience did not need reminding of what had happened there so many years ago.