No Place Like Home (27 page)

“My guess is that someone paid Charley to mess up the Old Mill Lane house, Jeff. He doesn't come through as the kind of guy who would do something like that on his own.”

“That's my guess, too.” Jeff hung up the phone and went on the intercom. “Come in please, Anna. I've got a complaint to dictate.”

She had barely settled in the chair across from his desk when the phone rang again. “Take a message,” Jeff said. “I want to get this arrest warrant out ASAP.”

The call was from Clyde Earley. “We just heard from the 911 dispatcher. A hysterical woman on Sheep Hill Drive reported that she found her landscaper, Charley Hatch, lying on the ground at the north end of her property. He was shot in the face, and she thinks he's dead.”

A
t twelve thirty on Tuesday afternoon, Henry Paley walked from his office to the Black Horse Tavern to meet Ted Cartwright, who had called and insisted they have lunch together. When he arrived, he glanced around the dining room, half-expecting to see either Detective Shelley or Ortiz at a table there. Over the weekend, both of them had separately stopped by the office to ask again about what Georgette had said to him that last evening. They'd been particularly interested to know if he had happened to figure out what Georgette meant when Robin overheard her say, “I'll never tell anyone that I recognized her.”

I told them both that I have no idea who she recognized, Henry thought, and they both acted as if they didn't believe me.

As usual, most of the tables were occupied, but to his relief, Henry did not see either Shelley or Ortiz seated at any of them. Ted Cartwright was already at a corner table. He had chosen to sit facing the wall, but his white hair made him easy
to spot. He's probably halfway through his first scotch, Henry thought as he made his way across the room.

“Do you think this meeting is a good idea, Ted?” he asked as he pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Hello, Henry. To answer your question, yes, I happen to think it's an excellent idea,” Cartwright said. “As the owner of twenty percent of the Route 24 property, you had every right to be in contact with someone interested in buying it. I could wish that you hadn't put our bonus arrangement on paper for Georgette—and then the prosecutor—to find, but there's nothing that can be done about that now.”

“You sound a lot less upset about those notes that I kept than you did the other day,” Henry commented, then realized that the waiter was standing at his side. “A glass of Merlot, please,” he said.

“Bring another one of these while you're at it,” Cartwright told the waiter. Then, as the man reached for his glass, he added irritably, “I'm not finished with this one yet. Leave it alone.”

He's drinking fast even for him, Henry thought. He's not as calm as he wants me to think he is.

Cartwright looked across the table at Henry. “I do feel somewhat better, and I'll tell you why. I've hired a lawyer, and the reason for this lunch is not only to let people see we have nothing to hide, but to tell you you'd better hire a lawyer, too. The prosecutor's office wants to solve this case, and one approach they're going to take is to try to prove
that we agreed to get rid of Georgette, and that one of us actually shot her, or hired someone else to do it.”

Henry stared at Cartwright, but said nothing until the waiter returned with the drinks. Then he took a sip of the Merlot and said reflectively, “I had not even considered that the prosecutor would be looking at me as a possible suspect in Georgette's death. Not, to be perfectly honest, that I am burdened with grief about it. At one time I was quite fond of her, but the older Georgette got, the more set in her ways she became, as you well know. However, it simply isn't in my nature to hurt anyone. I have never even held a gun in my hand.”

“Are you practicing for your defense?” Cartwright asked. “If so, you're wasting it on me. I know your type, Henry. You're a sneak. Were you behind what happened to the house on Old Mill Lane? It's just the sort of trick I'd expect of you.”

“Shall we order?” Henry suggested. “I have an appointment to take some people house hunting this afternoon. It's quite interesting that Georgette's death gave our agency a shot in the arm. We've suddenly had quite a few drop-ins who are interested in buying a home in this area.”

The two men did not speak again until the steak sandwiches they both ordered were served. Then, in a conversational tone, Henry said, “Ted, now that I've persuaded Georgette's nephew to sell the Route 24 property, I'd appreciate the bonus check
you offered me. I believe the sum we agreed on is one hundred thousand dollars.”

Cartwright stopped the fork he was holding in midair. “You have
got
to be kidding,” he said.

“No, I am not kidding. We made a deal, and I expect you to uphold your end of it.”

“The deal was that you would persuade Georgette to sell that property instead of deeding it to the state.”

“The deal was, and is, that the property is for sale. Somehow, I anticipated that you might not wish to pay the bonus you owe me. Over the weekend I have been in touch with Georgette's nephew, Thomas Madison. I pointed out to him that while your offer was reasonable, other offers for that property have also been made over the past few years. I suggested to Tom that I go over those offers, contact the people who made them and see if they would like to begin negotiations with us.”

“You're bluffing,” Cartwright said, anger rising in his face.

“I really am
not
bluffing, Ted. But you are. You're scared to death that you'll be arrested for Georgette's murder. You were horseback riding near the house on Holland Road. You're a proud member of the National Rifle Association and have a pistol permit. You had a quarrel with Georgette in this very room the night before her death. Now, shall I pursue those other interested parties in the Route 24 property, or shall I expect your check within forty-eight hours?”

Without waiting for an answer, Henry stood up. “I really must get back to the office, Ted. Thanks for lunch. Oh, by the way, why not satisfy my curiosity? Are you still seeing Robin, or was she only last year's diversion for you?”

L
orraine Smith was the woman whose hysterical 911 call about Charley Hatch had brought not only the police, but an ambulance, the medical examiner, the media, and the team from the Morris County prosecutor's office, including the prosecutor himself, Jeffrey MacKingsley.

Fifty years old and the mother of eighteen-year-old twins, Lorraine gradually regained her composure sufficiently to join the investigative team in the breakfast room of her Federal-style home on Sheep Hill Road. “Charley got here about one o'clock,” she told Jeff, Paul Walsh, Angelo Ortiz, and Mort Shelley. “He comes every Tuesday to do the lawn.”

“Did you talk to him at all?” Jeff asked.

“Today I did. Normally I might not run into him for a month at a time. I mean, he just arrives, unloads his equipment, and gets to work. In a couple of weeks he'll be, I mean, he
would have been,
taking out the impatiens and the other annuals and putting in the fall flowers, and normally I'd go over everything
with him then. But when he's just doing the lawn, I don't necessarily talk to him.”

Lorraine knew she was talking rapidly and excessively. She took a sip of coffee and resolved to calm down and just answer the questions the prosecutor was asking.

“Why did you go out to speak to him today?”

“Because I was annoyed at him for being late. Charley's supposed to come at nine o'clock in the morning, and I had friends over for lunch today. We were on the patio and had to listen to the roar of his power mower. I finally went outside and told him to come back and finish tomorrow.”

“What did he say?”

“He kind of laughed and said something like, ‘You know, Mrs. Smith, it's okay for me to be tired and sleep in once in a while. You better take advantage of my services while you still have the chance.' ”

“Then what happened?”

“His cell phone rang.” Lorraine Smith paused. “Or I should say, one of his cell phones rang.”

“He had
two
of them?” Paul Walsh asked quickly.

“I was surprised, too. He took one phone out of his breast pocket, but then, when the ringing kept going, he rushed to get the other one out of his back pocket.”

“Did you happen to hear the name of the person who called him?”

“No. In fact he obviously did not want to talk in
front of me. He told the person who called him to wait a minute, then said, ‘I'll load my stuff and get out of here now, Mrs. Smith.' ”

“That was at one thirty?”

“Twenty-five of two at the latest. Then I went back inside. My friends and I finished lunch, and they left at about two fifteen. They were parked in the circular driveway in the front of the house, so I didn't realize that Charlie's pickup truck was still in the back by the garage. When I saw it, I went looking to see where he was.”

“How long was that after your friends left, Mrs. Smith?” Angelo Ortiz asked.

“Only a few minutes. I could see he wasn't in the backyard, so I walked around the fenced area where the pool and tennis court are. Just past them is that row of boxwoods that we planted for privacy, because on that side, our property ends at Valley Road. Charley was lying on his back in the little space between two of them. His eyes were open and staring, and there was a lot of blood on the right side of his face.” Smith rubbed her hand over her forehead as if to erase the memory.

“Mrs. Smith, when you dialed 911, you said you
thought
he was dead. Was there any reason why you thought he might still be alive when you found him?”

“I don't think I knew what I was saying.”

“That's understandable. Let's go back to one thing, Mrs. Smith. You say that Charley Hatch made some reference to your taking advantage of
his services while you still had the chance. Have you any idea what he meant by that?”

“Charley was a very touchy guy. He did a good job, but I never had the feeling that he enjoyed what he did. You know how some landscapers love working with growing things? To Charley it was a job, and I think the fact that I was annoyed with him meant he was going to quit working for us.”

“I see.” Jeff stood up. “We'll ask you to sign a statement later, but thank you for being so helpful. It makes our job easier.”

“Mom, what's going on? Are you okay?”

Two identical teenage girls who, like their mother, had auburn hair and slim athletic bodies rushed into the room. Lorraine Smith jumped up as they ran to embrace her. Both were traumatized. “When we saw the police cars and all the people here, we thought something happened to you,” one of them said.

“She may have been lucky that she wasn't talking to Charley Hatch when he was hit,” Mort Shelley commented to Jeff as they walked through the foyer to the front door. “What do you think?”

“I think that whoever paid Charley Hatch to mess up the house on Old Mill Lane got nervous and was afraid that if we started putting the screws on Charley, he'd tell us who he was working for.”

Detective Lola Spaulding from the forensic unit had been gathering evidence. She met the four men as they came out of the house. “Jeff, his wallet is in the truck. Doesn't look touched. No sign of a cell
phone. But we did find something in his pocket that I think you'll find interesting. It hasn't been tested for fingerprints yet.”

The photograph she was offering him, like the one that had been in Georgette Grove's shoulder bag, had been cut out of a newspaper. It showed a stunningly attractive woman in her early thirties. She was wearing riding breeches and a hunt coat and holding a silver trophy.

“This was in Charley Hatch's vest pocket,” Lola said. “Any idea who it is?”

“Yes,” Jeff said. “This is Liza Barton's mother, Audrey, and this is one of the pictures the newspapers used last week when they carried the story of the vandalism.”