The next week, Pat discussed Elaine Carrington: “Richard told me that his mother has been staying in her New York apartment most of the time. Her feelings are hurt because she thinks that Peter Carrington’s new wife, Kay, really doesn’t want her stopping in the mansion unless she’s specifically invited to be there.
“I don’t think Richard has gone to New Jersey much, either,” she continued. “He told me that he understands how difficult it must be for Kay, knowing that in all likelihood her husband killed her father, even though he may not remember it. Richard said that he believes it must have been like the way Peter attacked that cop. Well, we both saw the tape on television. You could tell Peter Carrington was absolutely out of it. He looked scary.”
“He sure did,” Trish agreed. “What a shame to marry a guy with all that money and then find out he’s insane. Other than that young artist, are there hints of anything new in Richard’s love life?”
“Well, there are hints, but I’m not sure it’s anything new. There’s a woman who’s been calling him who must be an old flame. Her name is Alexandra Lloyd.”
“Alexandra Lloyd. That’s a fancy name,” Trish commented. “Unless it’s one she made up. Maybe she’s in show business. Did you ever meet her?”
“No. My bet is that she’s an artist. Anyhow, he’s ignoring her calls.”
Three days later, Pat Jennings couldn’t wait until their next lunch to talk to Trish, so she called her. “Richard is an absolute wreck,” she whispered into the phone. “I know he’s had a couple of big losses on the ponies. This morning his mother stopped in to see him. When I got here they were in his office with the door closed, and boy, were they going at it! He was telling her that he absolutely had to have money, and she was screaming she didn’t have it. Then he yelled something about how she knew perfectly well where she could get it, and she screamed, “ ‘Richard, don’t make me play that card.’ ”
“What did she mean?” Trish asked breathlessly.
“I have no idea,” Pat admitted, “but I’d sure love to know. If I find out, I’ll call you first thing.”
50
The nurse who met him at the door of Gladys Althorp’s bedroom cautioned Nicholas Greco not to stay too long. “She’s very weak,” the nurse told him. “Talking tires her.”
His former client was lying in a hospital bed that had been set up next to her regular queen-sized bed. Her hands were resting on the coverlet, and Greco noticed that the wedding ring she had always worn was missing.
Is her finger too thin now to keep the ring from sliding off, or is this one final rejection of her husband? he wondered.
Gladys Althorp’s eyes were closed, but she opened them a moment after Greco reached the side of the bed. Her lips moved and her voice was very low when she greeted him.
Greco got right to the point. “Mrs. Althorp, I didn’t want to disturb you, but there is something I’d like to follow up on. It might even have to do with someone who may have helped Peter Carrington hide Susan’s body.”
“I heard the police sirens the night he came here. I made the nurse take me to the window. I saw them drag him into the car…and…” Gladys Althorp’s chest began to heave as she gasped for air.
The nurse rushed to her side. “Mrs. Althorp, please don’t try to talk. Just breathe slowly.”
I should not be here, Greco thought. He laid his own hand over the woman’s emaciated hand. “I am so sorry. I should never have troubled you, Mrs. Althorp.”
“Don’t go. You came for a reason. Tell me.”
Greco knew that it was best to be blunt. “I would very much like to know the names of your daughter’s best friends, the ones who used to go with her to parties when Ambassador Althorp had them chauffeured.”
If Gladys Althorp was surprised at the request, she did not show it. “There were three other girls. They went to Elisabeth Morrow School with Susan.”
Mrs. Althorp was speaking more slowly, giving herself time to take a long breath between every word. “Susan’s closest friend was Sarah Kennedy. She married Stuart North. Vernie Bauer and Lenore Salem were the others. I’m afraid I can’t…” She sighed and closed her eyes.
“Mr. Greco, I really think you must not ask any more questions right now,” the nurse said firmly.
Susan would be only forty now, Greco thought. The others would be the same age, within a year or two. He would expect their parents to be in the midsixties to midseventies age range. He wanted to ask Susan’s mother if the families of those women still lived locally, but instead he nodded to the nurse and turned to go. Then he saw Gladys Althorp open her eyes again.
“The girls were all at Susan’s funeral,” Gladys Althorp said. A hint of a smile played at the corners of her lips. “They used to call themselves the four musketeers…”
“Then they still live here?” Greco asked quickly.
“Sarah does. When she married Stuart, they bought the house next door. They’re living there now.”
When Greco left the Althorp home, he doubted that he would ever see Gladys Althorp again. On one hand, he chided himself for disturbing her even for those few minutes. On the other hand, however, he recognized that he felt a growing sense of uneasiness about how neatly everything had fallen into place, which made him believe that there were important pieces of the puzzle that still had not been put in place.
Some of the facts that did not add up were beginning to command all his attention. He had come to the conclusion that Peter Carrington must have had help in hiding Susan’s body until after the cadaver dogs had completed their search.
And if Peter did kill Jonathan Lansing, he must have had someone follow him to the place miles up the Hudson where he left Lansing’s car, Greco mused.
And there was significance to the missing copy of People magazine that had been on the table the night Grace Carrington died. He thought he knew what that might have been about. Nancy Hammond saw Grace tear that page out of the magazine. Her husband, Jeffrey, claimed he hadn’t noticed her do that. Nancy Hammond said that the attention of the other guests was diverted by Peter’s sudden arrival home. She thinks that she is the only one who saw Grace tear out the page and jam it in her pocket.
Did someone who later took that magazine believe that page was still in the magazine?
If so, that would answer a lot of questions.
It would also raise another question, however. Peter Carrington did not know about the magazine. According to all of them—Elaine, her son Richard, Vincent Slater, and the Hammonds, Peter went straight upstairs after he took the glass out of Grace’s hand and berated her for drinking.
Greco looked at his watch; it was five o’clock. He picked up his cell phone and dialed information. He had been afraid that the phone number for Stuart and Sarah North would be unlisted, but it was not. He heard a computerized voice saying, “We are dialing 201-555-1570 for you. If you wish to send a text message…”
The phone in the North home was answered on the second ring. The woman’s tone of voice was warm. Greco hurriedly introduced himself and explained that he had just left Gladys Althorp. “I was hired to reopen the investigation into Susan’s death. Are you Sarah Kennedy North?” he asked.
“Yes, I am. And you must be the investigator who located the maid. The ambassador told us about you.”
“Perhaps this is an impossible request, but I am in my car outside the Althorp home. I know you live next door. May I stop in now, for just a few minutes? Mrs. Althorp said that you were Susan’s best friend. I would very much like to ask you a few questions about Susan.”
“I was Susan’s best friend. Of course you can stop in now. We’re the first house to the right of the Althorps.”
Three minutes later, Nicholas Greco was walking along the path from the street to the North home. Sarah North was waiting for him, holding the door partially open.
She was a tall woman with wide-set eyes, dark-red hair, and had the look of an athlete about her. She was dressed casually in a sweater an
d jeans. Her warm smile seemed genuine as she invited him into the study off the foyer. Greco’s immediate impression of the interior of the home was that it had been furnished with taste and money.
“My husband doesn’t get home until six thirty,” North explained as she sat down on the couch and indicated the chair next to it for Greco. “His office is way downtown in Manhattan, and he insists on driving back and forth. During rush hours, as I’m sure you know, it can take forever.”
“I understand that in the early twentieth century, Englewood was referred to as ‘the Bedroom of Wall Street.’ ”
“It was, and to a certain extent that’s still true. How is Mrs. Althorp doing?”
“Not well, I’m afraid. Mrs. North, I have located the maid whose testimony may help convict Peter Carrington, but I am not satisfied. Some things don’t add up, and I now feel he must have had an accomplice. I am interested in that year before Susan died. I understand that, at times, her father hired a chauffeur to drive her and her friends around. Weren’t you all old enough to drive yourselves?”
“Sure we were, but if we were going to a party that was any distance away, the ambassador insisted that Susan be driven. My parents loved that idea, of course. They didn’t want us riding with teenage guys who might have had a couple of drinks, and would then speed on the way home. Of course, a lot of the time we all were at college, and the ambassador couldn’t control what we did there. But at home that was the way it was.”
“Yet the night of the party at the Carrington estate, he allowed Susan to be driven home by Peter Carrington.”
“He loved Peter. He trusted him. He felt Peter was different. In the summer, when the rest of us were at the club playing tennis or golf, Peter had a shirt and tie on and was at the office with his father.”
“So when you were chauffeured, it was Susan and you and two other girls in the car?”
“Yes. Susan sat in front with Gary, and Vernie and Lenore and I sat in the back.”
“Gary?” Greco did not want Sarah North to suspect that this was the very person he had come to learn more about.
“Gary Barr. He and his wife would help with dinners when the Althorps had guests. He was also the chauffeur whenever we were driven somewhere.”
“What was his manner? Did he become friendly?”
“Oh, yes. Susan referred to him as her pal.”
“Was there any chance that there was a…” Greco hesitated, “a romantic interest there? Did Susan have what in my day we called a ‘crush’ on him?”
“On Gary! Oh, no, nothing like that. She said he made her feel good, but by that she meant safe, secure.”
“Mrs. North, I hope you understand that I don’t wish to pry when I ask questions that you, as Susan’s friend, may not want to answer. But I am just not satisfied. I believe that Peter Carrington must have had help in disposing of Susan’s body. Is there anything you can tell me about Susan that may help me to understand why she would have left her home that night after telling her parents she was in?”
“I’ve spent twenty-two years trying to figure that out,” Sarah North said frankly. “It didn’t ring true that Peter would be a party to her deceiving her parents. In fact, until I heard the police sirens the night he showed up in the Althorps’ yard, I had doubted his guilt. But that night we grabbed our robes and ran outside to see what was going on. I saw the cop he punched. He was badly hurt. It makes sense that the same sort of thing may have happened if he hurt Susan while he was sleepwalking.”
“Were you at the party at the Carrington home that night?”
“We all were.”
“How late did you stay?”
“Till 12:30 or quarter of one. I had to be home by one o’clock.”
“But Susan was Cinderella that night. She was told to be home at midnight.”
“I could tell at the dinner that night that her father was furious at her. I think he was just being mean.”
“Why was he being mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was Susan upset by her father’s attitude?”
“Yes. In fact, Susan was not herself all night. Although, you had to know her well to realize that.”
“The ambassador has a reputation for having a very quick temper, doesn’t he, Mrs. North?”
“When we were kids, we called him the diplo-NOT. We could always hear him yelling at Susan and her brothers. He’s a pill.”
“Have you ever wondered what he might have done if he had seen Susan sneaking out of the house?”
“I think he’d have killed her.” Sarah North looked startled at her own words. “Of course, I didn’t mean that literally.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Greco assured her. He got up to leave. “You have been very kind. May I call you again if I feel it necessary?”
“Certainly. I don’t think any of us will be happy until the entire truth comes out about both Susan’s death and her father’s death.”
“Her father’s! You mean Mrs. Carrington’s father?”
“Yes.” An expression of distress came over Sarah North’s face. “Mr. Greco, Kay Carrington came to see me. She asked the same kinds of questions you’ve been asking. I promised her that I would not tell anyone she was here.”
“You have my word that I will not reveal it to anyone, Mrs. North.”
As Nicholas Greco walked back to his car, he realized he was deeply troubled. He found himself asking the two questions that he always asked himself in the process of solving a case: “Suppose?” “What if?”
Suppose Peter Carrington is completely innocent of any involvement in all three deaths?
What if there is someone else out there, someone connected to the Carringtons, who is the real killer? What would that person do if he learned that Peter Carrington’s young wife was asking questions that might lead to the truth being uncovered?
Kay Carrington may not want to speak to me, but I am going to meet with her, Greco decided as he got in his car. She must be warned.
51
The fact that I was expecting a baby both thrilled and saddened Peter: “It’s wonderful, Kay, but you must get plenty of rest. This terrible stress you’re under could hurt both you and the baby. Oh, God, why did all this happen? Why can’t I be home with you, taking care of you?”
He also had decided that the defense he had chosen would help explain him to our child: “Kay, when our child is growing up, I want him or her to understand that the crimes I probably committed happened when I had absolutely no control of myself.”
He pressed the lawyers to make a motion to the court to have him tested at a sleep disorder center. He wanted to have it on record that he was, indeed, prone to sleepwalking, and that, while he was in that state, was unaware of his actions.
The issue became a battle between him and his legal staff. “To have it out in open court that sleepwalking is or may be your defense is the same as saying, ‘Not guilty by reason of insanity,’ ” Conner Banks told Peter. “It’s skywriting so everyone can see it. ‘Guilty. I did it, but I can explain it.’ ”
“Make the motion,” Peter told him.
It meant another day in court before Judge Smith. I pressed my hand against my abdomen, seeking comfort in that tiny being growing inside me, as I saw my child’s father led into court once again, manacled and shackled, wearing his orange jail jumpsuit.
It was Conner Banks who made the argument. “Your Honor,” he addressed the court, “I know these are extraordinary circumstances, and I am not denying that Mr. Carrington left his premises, which, on the surface, is a violation of the conditions of his bail.”
Vincent Slater was sitting with me; I knew he did not approve of having the lawyers make this motion.
“However, Your Honor,” Banks continued, “I believe that even the police reports explicitly detailed Peter Carrington’s dazed condition at the time of his arrest. Subsequent tests have shown that there was no evidence of either alcohol or drugs in his system. It is imperative to our de
fense to have Mr. Carrington properly evaluated at a sleep disorder clinic at Pascack Valley Hospital. That would require an overnight stay in which his sleep patterns would be monitored.”
“Imperative to our defense,” Vincent whispered to me. “Those are the words that the media is going to leap on.”
“We implore Your Honor to allow this test. We would be willing to post twenty-five million dollars in bail if this test is allowed. We recognize that it is not the Sheriff’s responsibility to escort the defendant while he investigates possible defenses in his case, and so we would compensate the state for the salaries of the sheriff’s officers assigned to guard him. We are also willing to retain a private security firm which will hire several retired police officers who will restrain Mr. Carrington if there should be any attempts to escape, which I assure you there will not be.
“Your Honor, one in two hundred people is a sleepwalker. The potential danger of a sleepwalker to himself and to others has not been recognized or understood by the general population. I doubt that many in this courtroom realize that sleepwalkers are not allowed to serve in the armed forces of the United States. The fear is that they may be a risk both to themselves and to others because they may have access to weapons or vehicles and are unaware of what they are doing when they move about while asleep.”
Conner Banks’s voice became stronger and firmer as he punched those last words home. Then, when he spoke again after a brief pause, his voice was quieter. “Allow Peter Carrington to establish once and for all that his brain waves indicate that he is the victim of sleepwalking disturbance. Give him this chance.”
Judge Smith’s face was impassive. I didn’t know what to expect. But I knew what Peter was feeling, and it was satisfaction. He was getting his message out. He was beginning to try his own case in the media.
Banks and Markinson were worried; I could see it. During the recess following the request, they came over to talk to me. “The judge is not going to grant this request, and we’ve tipped our hand. There isn’t a person in this room who doesn’t think that this is just an insanity defense with a new twist.”