“I moved the living room and bedroom and dining room furniture over to my house,” Maggie said. “You know that, Kay.”
“And you stuck most of your own stuff in the attic. But what else did you move to your house? What happened to my father’s business files?”
“There’s just one. Your father was never a saver. I had the mover put the file cabinet in the attic, too. It was too tall, though, so he laid it down flat. My old couch is upside down on top of it.”
No wonder I had never noticed it, I thought. “I want to go through that file soon,” I said. We stopped at the guest closet and got her coat. I helped her put it on, buttoned it for her, and kissed her. “Now get home safe,” I cautioned. “There still may be some black ice on the road. Be sure to lock the car. And mark my words, one of these days you and Peter are going to be the best of friends.”
“Oh, Kay,” she said, sighing deeply as she opened the door and let herself out. “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
39
For the last few days, Pat Jennings had not known what to make of her employer, Richard Walker. On Monday he had come in with the familiar look of relief which usually signaled that his mother had paid his gambling debts. That same day, his stepbrother, Peter Carrington, was arraigned on a charge of murder. The next day, on Tuesday, Walker had spoken freely about him: “We had dinner with Peter after he got home,” he told Pat.
Pat asked him about the former maid, Maria Valdez.
“Naturally Peter’s depressed by what has happened,” Walker explained. “It is despicable that that woman changed her story, and now is tainting the memory of my stepfather. I hope they put me on the stand. I’d be able to tell them firsthand how the old man had bursts of spontaneous generosity. I remember one night I was having dinner at 21 with him and Mother. Somebody came to the table to talk about some worthy cause or another, and Carrington senior pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check for ten thousand dollars then and there. Then he stiffed the waiter with a cheap tip.”
Walker also talked to Pat about Peter’s wife, Kay. “Absolutely wonderful girl,” he raved. “Just what Peter has needed for years. From what I’ve seen, even with all his money, he’s never had much happiness.”
On Wednesday morning, Walker came into the gallery with a pretty young artist, Gina Black, in tow. Like her predecessors, Gina was introduced to Pat as a brilliant talent, one whose career was going to flourish under Walker’s guidance.
Uh-huh, was Pat’s reaction.
She had heard about the skeletal remains found on the grounds of the estate on Wednesday night when she and her husband were watching the evening news. The fact that it was the body of Kay Carrington’s father was revealed to her the next morning by Walker.
“They’re not releasing any details yet,” he confided, “but he was wearing a chain and locket with a picture of Kay’s mother in it. My mother is freaking out. She was in her New York apartment and heard about it when she turned on the television. She said that when they were searching the grounds with the dogs before the rain started the other day, she asked the detectives if they thought the place was a cemetery.”
“Two bodies found on the estate,” Pat said. “You couldn’t pay me to live there.”
“Nor me,” Walker agreed, as he passed her desk to go into his own office. “I’ll be on the phone for a while. Hold any other calls.”
Jennings watched as Walker closed the door firmly enough that she could hear a decisive click. He’ll be on the phone with his bookie, she thought. He’ll be head over heels in debt again in no time. I wonder when his mother will finally throw up her hands and tell him to figure it out for himself.
She reached for her copy of the New York Post which she’d tucked in the bottom file drawer in her desk. On the bus down to Fifty-seventh Street, she’d skimmed Page Six, but now she read it line by line. That poor Kay Carrington, she thought. What must it be like to be married to a man who’s obviously a serial killer? She must worry that she’ll wake up dead someday.
There was only one phone call in the next hour, that one from a woman who gave her name as Alexandra Lloyd. She had called last week and Walker had not called her back. Had he received her message? she asked.
“He definitely received the message,” Jennings said firmly. “But I’ll remind him.”
“Please take my number again, and will you tell him that it’s very important?”
“Of course.” Thirty minutes later, when Walker opened the door of his office, Pat could see the flush of excitement on his face. There isn’t a horse running anywhere today that he hasn’t bet on, she thought. “Richard,” she said, “I left a note on your desk last week that an Alexandra Lloyd phoned. She just called again and said that it’s important you get in touch with her.”
She held out the paper with the woman’s number. Richard took it from her, tore it up, and went back into his office. This time he slammed the door shut.
40
The force of the blow that killed Jonathan Lansing was so powerful that the back of his skull was caved in,” Barbara Krause said, as she read the autopsy report. “I wonder what Kay Carrington is thinking when she looks at her husband now.”
Tom Moran shrugged. “If she isn’t getting nervous being alone in the house at night with that guy, I’d wonder if she’s legally sane.”
“This time we can be sure that Carrington had someone helping him,” Krause said. “He didn’t leave Lansing’s car in that godforsaken spot and then hitchhike home. Somebody had to drive him home.”
“I looked at our file from when Lansing disappeared and was reported as a possible suicide. The insurance company suspected it was a phony. They had their investigators all over the area where his car was found. A guy like Peter Carrington gets noticed. He has a look about him. I wouldn’t care if he was wearing clothes from the Salvation Army, he would have been noticed. No one of Carrington’s description got on a bus, or rented a car around there. At the very least, if he drove Lansing’s car there, somebody was waiting to pick him up.”
“Lansing was supposed to have been fired because of his drinking problem,” Krause said, “but suppose there was another reason. Suppose someone was afraid that he was a threat. He was fired two weeks after Susan Althorp disappeared. He supposedly committed suicide two weeks later. By then the police had thoroughly searched the grounds with the cadaver dogs, and I include the property outside the fence.”
Krause had the copy of Lansing’s landscape design on her desk. “The question is, did he submit it after Susan’s body was buried on the site. If so, he signed his own death warrant.”
She looked at her watch. “You’d better be on your way. Lansing’s funeral is at eleven o’clock. Keep your eyes open to see who’s there.”
41
I arranged to have my father’s funeral Mass in the church nearest to MaryRest Cemetery where my mother is buried. It’s in Mahwah, a town about twenty minutes northwest of Englewood. I had hoped to keep the time and place of the Mass and funeral private, but when we arrived at the church, the photographers were there in force.
Maggie and I had been picked up by the driver from the funeral home. On the way down the aisle, I saw familiar faces: Vincent Slater, Elaine, Richard Walker, the Barrs. I knew they were planning to be there, but I didn’t want to arrive in a group with them. I was not part of their world when my father died. For these last hours I wanted to separate myself from them. I wanted to keep my father to myself.
In my grief I even felt isolated from Maggie. I knew she had loved my father, and had been very happy when he and my mother were married. I believe that after my mother’s death, Maggie had encouraged Daddy to date other women, but knowing her, I am sure she was secretly pleased that he could not or would not do it.
On the other hand, Maggie had always bad-mouthed Daddy to me about his drinking, although I think she exaggerated those stories to help make sense of his disappearance.
The church was spars
ely filled, mostly with Maggie’s friends, so I knew she hadn’t been able to keep her promise not to tell where the funeral would be held. But then I saw the tears in her eyes and my heart ached for her. She had told me once that she never attended a funeral without reliving the grief of my mother’s death.
I sat in the front pew of the church, inches from the coffin, my fingers touching the pendant that until now had been on Daddy’s body all these years. I kept thinking over and over again, I should have known he couldn’t have killed himself. He never would have forsaken me.
Maggie began to cry when the soloist sang, “Ave Maria,” just as it had been sung at my mother’s Mass.
“Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria.” How many times over the years had I heard that song? I wondered. I heard that song before. As the last beautiful notes faded into silence, for some reason, I began to think about that episode years ago in the chapel at the mansion. Could the scene between the man and woman possibly have had more significance than I had realized?
The thought passed through my mind, then was gone. The Mass ended. I followed Daddy’s coffin down the aisle.
Once outside the church, the media closed around me. One of the reporters asked, “Mrs. Carrington, does it bother you that your husband can’t be with you on this difficult day in your life?”
I looked straight into the camera. I knew Peter would have the television on just in case the media did cover the funeral. “My husband, as you must be aware, is not permitted to leave our property. He is innocent of the death of Susan Althorp, innocent of the death of his first wife, innocent of the death of my father. I challenge Barbara Krause, the Prosecutor of Bergen County, to remember the legal and moral principle that in this country, a person is still presumed innocent until found guilty. Ms. Krause, presume my husband is innocent of any crime, then take a fresh look at the facts of these three deaths. I assure you, I intend to do just that myself.”
That night, when we went to bed, Peter wept as I held him in my arms. “I don’t deserve you, Kay,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve you.”
Three hours later, I woke up. Peter was no longer in bed. With a terrible sense of foreboding, I ran through the parlor into the other bedroom. He wasn’t there, either. Then from the driveway I heard the sound of screeching tires. I rushed to the window in time to see Peter’s Ferrari racing toward the gate.
Fifteen minutes later, squad cars, alerted by the Global Monitor System that tracked his electronic bracelet, converged on him as he knelt on the frozen lawn of the Althorp residence. When a cop tried to arrest him, Peter jumped up and punched him in the face.
“He was sleepwalking,” I told Conner Banks later that morning at Peter’s arraignment. “He never would have left the grounds otherwise.”
Once more Peter was brought into court wearing an orange prison suit. This time, in addition to the handcuffs, there were shackles on his ankles. I listened numbly as the new charges were read: Bail jumping…assault on an officer…proven risk of flight.”
The judge did not take long in coming to a decision. The twenty-million-dollar bail was forfeited. Peter would remain in custody.
“He’s a sleepwalker,” I insisted to Banks and Markinson. “He’s a sleepwalker.”
“Keep your voice down, Kay,” Banks urged. “Sleepwalking in this country is no defense. As a matter of fact, there are two guys in this country who are currently serving life sentences because they killed someone while they were sleepwalking.”
42
The shocking tape the police had made of Peter Carrington kneeling on the lawn of the Althorp home, and then attacking the police officer who reached him first, made Nicholas Greco wonder if there was any point in keeping his appointment with Nancy and Jeffrey Hammond, the couple who had been guests at dinner the night Grace Carrington drowned.
Explaining that they had been away, visiting relatives in California, Nancy Hammond called when she heard Greco’s message on the answering machine and invited him to stop in.
The couple lived on a pleasant street in Englewood, where most of the houses were older and had wide porches and shutters, the kind of houses that had been built in the late nineteenth century. Greco climbed the five steps from the sidewalk and rang the doorbell.
Nancy Hammond answered the door, introduced herself, and invited him in. She was a small woman who appeared to be in her early forties, with silver hair that becomingly framed and softened her sharp-featured face.
“Jeff just got home a minute ago,” she said. “He’ll be right down. Oh, here he is,” she added.
Jeffrey Hammond was on his way down from the second floor. “That’s the way my wife introduces me?” he said with raised eyebrows. “ ‘Here he is’?”
Greco’s immediate impression was of a tallish man in his late forties who reminded him of the astronaut John Glenn. Like Glenn, he had smile wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He was balding, and made no attempt to disguise the fact. A particular peeve of Greco’s was to see men not coming to grips with the inevitability of their DNA structure. He could spot a hairpiece a mile away, and even worse in his eyes was to see a man with a comb-over, long strands of hair combed over a shiny pate.
Greco had done a thorough profile on the couple ahead of time, and found the background to be about what he would expect of friends of Grace Carrington. Good solid family on either side: Her father had been a state senator; his great-grandfather, a presidential cabinet member. Both were well educated, and they had a sixteen-year-old son who was presently in boarding school. Jeffrey Hammond was employed as a fund-raiser for a foundation. Nancy Hammond worked part-time at the local congressman’s office in some kind of administrative capacity.
He had explained in both the message he left and in his telephone conversation why he wanted to talk to them. As he followed them into the living room, he absorbed the details of their surroundings. One of them was obviously a musician. A grand piano with books of sheet music dominated the room. Family pictures covered the surface of the piano. The coffee table had copies of magazines, neatly stacked: National Geographic, Time, Newsweek. Greco could see that the magazines looked as though they’d been read. The couch and chairs were of good quality, but in need of reupholstering.
His overall impression was of a pleasant home with intelligent people. As soon as they were seated, he got to the point of his visit. “Four years ago, you gave statements to the police about Grace Carrington’s demeanor at the dinner you shared with her the night of her death.”
Jeffrey Hammond looked at his wife. “Nancy, I thought that Grace seemed perfectly sober when we got there. You didn’t agree.”
“She was restless, even agitated,” Nancy Hammond said. “Grace was seven-and-a-half-months pregnant, and had had some false labor pains. She was making an effort to stay off the booze. She was torn. Most of her friends were in the city and were in and out of the apartment all the time. And Grace loved to party. But the doctor had told her to get plenty of rest and I think she felt safer at the mansion than in New York. Of course, then she was bored out here.”
“Obviously you knew her very well,” Greco commented.
“She was married to Peter for eight years. All that time we were members of the same gym in Englewood. Whenever she stayed at the mansion, she exercised at the gym. We got friendly.”
“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 stick-in-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 millio
n 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.”