Elaine Carrington looked at her son, fury in her eyes. “Richard, you’ve drained me dry. I get one million dollars a year from the estate. Last year, between your gambling and the expense of the gallery, you got nearly half of it.”
“Mother, I’m begging you.”
She looked away. He knows I have to give it to him, Elaine thought. And he knows where, if I’m desperate, I can get whatever amount I need.
17
Former ambassador Charles Althorp knocked at the door of his wife’s bedroom. Yesterday, after the funeral, she had come home and gone straight to bed. He did not yet know whether or not she had heard that Maria Valdez, the former maid at the Carrington estate, had recanted the version of events she had given at the time of Susan’s disappearance.
He found her propped up in bed. Even though it was nearly noon, Gladys Althorp had clearly not attempted to get up. Her breakfast tray, virtually untouched, was on the bedside table. The television was on, although the sound was turned down so low it was only a murmur.
Looking at the emaciated woman from whom he had been estranged for years, Althorp felt an unexpected and overwhelming wave of tenderness toward her. At the funeral parlor, the casket had been surrounded by pictures showing moments from Susan’s nearly nineteen years. I traveled so much, he thought. So many of the pictures, especially the later ones, were just of Gladys and Susan.
He pointed to the television. “You’ve obviously heard about Maria Valdez.”
“Nicholas Greco phoned me, and then I saw it on CNN. He said that her testimony could be the key to convict Peter Carrington of Susan’s death. I only wish I could be in court to see him led away in handcuffs.”
“I hope you are there, my dear. And I can assure you that I will be.”
Gladys Althorp shook her head. “You know perfectly well that I am dying, Charles, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Now that I know where Susan is, and that I’ll be with her soon, I have to confess something. I’ve always believed that Peter took Susan’s life, but there’s also been one tiny doubt in my mind. Did you hear her go out that night? Did you follow her? You were very angry with her. Had the two of you quarreled because she learned that you were involved with Elaine? Susan was so protective of me.”
“Elaine was a mistake, and it was over by the time she married Peter’s father,” Charles said bitterly. “When I saw her, she was divorced and unattached, and that is the truth.”
“She may have been unattached, but you weren’t, Charles.”
“Isn’t it a bit late in the game to discuss that, Gladys?”
“You still haven’t answered me. What did you and Susan quarrel about that night?”
“Try to rest, Gladys,” Charles Althorp said as he turned and left his wife’s room.
18
For the first time, the lawyers were staying for lunch. With skilled fingers, Jane Barr prepared a tray of sandwiches and made fresh coffee. Aghast, she had watched the television reports that Maria Valdez had changed her story. It’s all Elaine’s fault, she thought. If she hadn’t let us go, I’d have been here to pick up the laundry that morning. I would have known exactly what was or wasn’t in the hamper, and what did or didn’t go to the cleaner. How can that Valdez woman dare to change her story now? Who is paying her? she wondered.
It’s too bad that I wasn’t here when that detective, Nicholas Greco, came by and spoke to Gary. He’s been nervous ever since. He thinks he may have done some harm to Peter by telling Greco that Peter was shocked when he learned Susan’s purse wasn’t in his car.
“What harm can that do?” she had asked Gary at the time, but now she wondered. Maybe that bit of information did have significance. But she knew Peter Carrington, and it wasn’t as though he could ever hurt anyone.
She and Gary had attended Susan Althorp’s funeral Mass. Such a sweet, pretty girl she was, Jane thought as she took plates and cups from the cupboard. I used to love to see her dressed up and going out when we would work the dinner parties for Mrs. Althorp.
Outside the church, before the hearse and family limousines left for the private burial, the Althorps had stood in the vestry and accepted the condolences of their friends. Why did Gary duck around behind the crowd instead of speaking to them? Jane wondered. Susan was always so nice to him. At least a half dozen times that last year he chauffeured her to parties when the ambassador didn’t want her or her friends to be driving home late on their own. But she knew her husband was not one to show emotion, and perhaps he felt it wasn’t his place to be talking to the Althorps with all the dignitaries in the church around them.
Gary had been vacuuming the upstairs hallways while Jane was preparing the lunch. He came into the kitchen in time to save her the trouble of getting him. “Good timing,” Jane said. “You can take the plates and cups and silverware inside now. But be sure to knock before you open the door.”
“I think I know enough to do that,” he said sarcastically.
“Of course you do,” she said, sighing. “I’m sorry. I don’t have my wits about me. I keep thinking about yesterday and the funeral. Susan was such a beautiful girl, wasn’t she?”
As she watched, her husband’s face turned a deep shade of red and he turned away. “Yes, she was,” he mumbled as he took the tray and left the kitchen.
19
The lawyers didn’t leave until three o’clock, following five straight hours of questioning Peter in preparation for what seemed to be the inevitable—a charge of murder in the death of Susan Althorp. We didn’t even take a break for lunch, only pausing to nibble on sandwiches and to sip coffee. All the while, every detail of the dinner party and the brunch all those years ago was dragged out.
Occasionally Vincent Slater contradicted Peter about some detail. One in particular surprised me. “Peter, Susan was sitting next to you at the dinner and Grace was at another table.”
Until then I hadn’t realized that Grace Meredith, the woman Peter married when he was thirty years old, had been at that party. But then, why not? Some twenty of Peter’s friends from Princeton had been there. Peter explained that she had come as someone else’s date.
“Who was that someone else?” Conner Banks asked.
“Gregg Haverly, an eating-club brother at Princeton.”
“Had you met Grace Meredith at any point before that evening?” Banks asked.
I could tell by then that Peter was getting worn down by the constant barrage of questions. “I never met Grace before that evening,” he said, his tone frosty. “In fact, I didn’t see her again for over nine years. I bumped into her at a Princeton-Yale game. We were both with a group of friends, but neither one of us had a specific date and we paired off.”
“Are there other people who know that you hadn’t seen her in all those years?” Banks asked.
I guess that Banks saw the expression on Peter’s face because he added, “Peter, I’m trying to anticipate the prosecutor. This is the kind of question they’ll be asking you. Since your first wife was at the party, they could think that maybe you became interested in her and Susan noticed. Then maybe you and Susan had a fight about it later on and it turned violent.”
That was when Peter pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I think it’s time to call it a day.” I noticed that he was deliberately cool to Conner Banks when good-byes were being exchanged.
After the lawyers were gone, Peter said, “I don’t think I want that Banks character on my defense team. Get rid of him, Vince.”
I knew Peter was making a mistake, and fortunately Vincent did, too. He understood that Banks was only preparing Peter for the kind of stinging questions that were coming his way. “Peter, they’ll question you about everything,” he said. “And they’ll make insinuations. You have to get used to it.”
“What you’re telling me is that the fact that I met Grace that night can be used against me, that maybe I fell madly in love with her and decided to kill Susan?” He obviously didn’t expect an answe
r.
I hoped Vincent Slater would go home; I wanted some quiet time, alone with Peter. We both needed it. But then Peter announced that he was going into the office. “Kay, I have to step aside as CEO and chairman of the company although I will continue to have a major voice in decisions. All my attention has to be given to trying to stay out of prison.” Then he added almost helplessly, “That woman is lying. I swear to you, I remember putting my dress shirt in that hamper.”
He came over to kiss me. I guess I looked pretty worn out myself because he suggested, “Why don’t you try to take a nap, Kay? It’s been one hell of a day.”
Resting was the last thing on my mind. “No,” I said. “I’m going to see Maggie.”
I guess the day had really gotten to Peter, because he said, “Be sure to give her my best, and ask her if she’d like to be a character witness for me at my trial.”
20
Joining Nicholas Greco and Tom Moran, Barbara Krause flew to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where they rented a car and drove to Maria Valdez Cruz’s home, a modest ranch-style house not far from the airport. It had been snowing there and the roads were slippery, but Greco, because he had already visited the former maid, did the driving. Krause was furious that information about Maria Valdez recanting her previous statement had been leaked to the press. She had vowed to discover the source of the leak and fire the person responsible for it.
“When I was here two days ago, I advised Maria to have her own attorney with her when we come to see her,” Greco reminded them as they rang the doorbell.
And it was that lawyer, Duncan Armstrong, a tall, thin man in his early seventies, who answered the door. Once the visitors were inside, he stood protectively next to his petite client and immediately expressed outrage at the leak to the press.
Moran had been present when they questioned Maria Valdez twenty-two years ago. She was a kid then, he thought, nineteen or so, the same age as Susan Althorp. But she had been stubborn, and wouldn’t budge from her story that she gave that shirt to the cleaner.
Oddly, the firmness and determination she had shown then was missing now. She seemed nervous as she invited her visitors to sit down in the cozy, spotlessly clean living room. “My husband took our daughters to the movies,” she said. “They’re teenagers. I told them you were coming, and explained to them that I had made a mistake and lied to the authorities when I was a young girl, but that it’s never too late to set the record straight.”
“Maria means that she may have been mistaken when you questioned her at the time Susan Althorp disappeared,” Armstrong interjected. “Before we do any further talking, I must see what papers you have prepared.”
“We are offering Mrs. Cruz immunity from prosecution for her full and truthful cooperation regarding this investigation,” Barbara Krause said firmly.
“I’ll take a look at those papers,” Armstrong said. He read them carefully. “Now, Maria, you know this means that at a trial you’ll be called to testify, and the defense attorneys will argue that you’re lying now. But the important thing is that you will not be prosecuted on a charge of giving a false statement originally.”
“I have three daughters,” Cruz replied. “If one of them disappeared and then was found dead, my heart would be broken. When I heard that girl’s body had been found, I felt terrible that my statement may have helped her murderer go free. I admit, though, that I would not have had the courage to speak up if Mr. Greco had not found me.”
“Are you saying you never saw that shirt, and that you did not give it to the cleaner?” Moran asked.
“I never saw the shirt. I knew Mr. Peter Carrington had said it was in the hamper, and I was afraid to contradict him. I was new in the country, and I didn’t want to lose my job. I sent the shirts that were in the hamper to the cleaners, but I was almost certain that his dress shirt had not been there. At that time the police were questioning me, and I thought I could be wrong, but deep down I knew I wasn’t. There was no dress shirt in his hamper. But I told the police that it was there, and that it must have been lost by the cleaner.”
“The man who owned the laundry always swore they never received that shirt,” Barbara Krause said. “Let’s hope he’s still around.”
“If I have to testify, will they think I’m lying now?” Maria asked timidly. “Because I can prove I’m not.”
“Prove? What do you mean prove?” Moran asked.
“I quit the job about a month after I was questioned by the police. I went back to Manila because my mother was very sick. Mr. Carrington senior knew that, and gave me a five thousand dollars ‘bonus,’ as he called it, before I left. He was so grateful I had backed up his son’s story. In fairness to him, I believe he really thought I was telling the truth.”
“I think you’re being too charitable,” Krause said. “That money was a payoff.”
“I cashed the check, but I was afraid that when I came home with so much money, people might say that I had stolen it, so I made a copy of the check, front and back, before I took it to the bank.” Maria reached into the pocket of her jacket. “Here it is,” she said.
Barbara Krause took the copy of the check, reviewed it intently, then handed it to Moran. It was obvious to Greco that they believed it to be bombshell evidence. “Now we know that shirt never went into the hamper,” Krause said. “It’s time to arrest him and go to the grand jury.”
21
For the first time in days, there was no media hanging around the main gate when I left. I guess if there had been, they had seen Peter and Vincent leave, maybe even had followed them. I had called Maggie and told her I was on my way to see her. She sounded chastened, probably having realized that what she said to the reporter was a low blow, and that I’d be furious.
But it had been over three weeks now since I’d seen her, and the minute I walked in the door I realized how much I’d missed her. The living room was even more cluttered than usual, but Maggie looked great. She was sitting in her favorite chair, watching Judge Judy, nodding in agreement with the just-rendered verdict, a smile on her face. She loved Judge Judy’s outbursts to defendants. The TV was loud because Maggie never will put in her hearing aid, but she heard the door close behind me and sprang up so we could hug each other.
Of course, being Maggie, she got in the first word. “How is he?” she asked.
“By ‘he,’ I assume you mean my husband, Peter. He’s under a great deal of stress and handling it beautifully.”
“Kay, I’m worried about you. He’s a…”
I interrupted her. “Maggie, if you ever use the word to describe Peter that I think you were about to use, I’m out of here, for good.”
She knew I meant what I said. “Let’s have a cup of tea,” she suggested.
A few minutes later I was propped up on the couch and she was back in her chair. We were both holding teacups, and it felt familiar and comfortable and good. I asked about her friends and told her about our honeymoon.
We didn’t talk about Gladys Althorp’s accusation, or the fact that the former maid had changed her story. I was sure Maggie would be on top of those facts. But I did lead the conversation where I wanted it to go. “Maggie, as awful as it is for the Althorps, I’m glad Susan’s body was found. At least it will give her mother some measure of peace.”
“It was found on Carrington property.” Maggie couldn’t resist that one.
“Technically on the property, but outside the fence. Anyone could have put it there.” I didn’t give Maggie a chance to respond before I said, “Did you know it was Daddy’s idea to move the fence back so that none of the landscaping would be affected if there was any public work in that area?”
“Yes. I remember your dad talking about that at the time. He intended to do something with that property outside the fence, but he never got to do it.”
“Maggie, you were wrong about something. Daddy was not fired because he had a drinking problem. He was fired because Elaine Carrington started flirting with him, and when he did
n’t respond she got rid of him. Peter told me that. Where did you get the idea that it was because of his drinking?”
“I don’t care what your husband told you. Your father had a drinking problem, Kay.”
“Well, according to Peter, he certainly wasn’t drinking when he was working.”
“Kay, when your father told me that he’d been fired, he was upset, terribly upset.”
“That was only a few weeks after Susan Althorp disappeared, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, as I remember it was exactly fifteen days later.”
“Then the police must have questioned Daddy as well. He was still working there.”
“They questioned everybody who worked on the estate or even visited it. You were staying here with me the night Susan disappeared. Your father had some of his friends in for a poker game at your house. They were at it till midnight, and I gather when it broke up they were all feeling pretty good. That Greco fellow was way off base insinuating your father’s suicide had anything to do with Susan Althorp.”
“I’m sure of that, but he did have a point. Daddy’s body was never recovered. Why were you so sure he committed suicide?”
“Kay, I went with him to the cemetery on the sixth anniversary of your mother’s death. That was only a month before he killed himself. Six years and still he broke down and cried like a baby. He told me he missed her every single day, and it wasn’t letting up. Something else. He loved working on the Carrington estate. Sure, he had other families up there he worked for, but the Carringtons were the only one who would let him do exactly what he wanted. It was a terrible blow to be thrown out of that job.”
Maggie got up from her chair, walked over, and put her arms around me. “Kay, he loved you like crazy, but your dad was in serious depression, and when you drink and are depressed, terrible things happen.”