When I walked in the house, Sue was watching television in the family room. Her back was to me. The light wasn’t on in the hall. “Sue,” I called. “I’m late phoning my mother. I’ll be down in just a minute.”
Upstairs, I rushed into the bathroom, stripped, and turned on the shower. I felt as though my whole body had been washed with Zach’s blood. I threw my slacks into the shower and watched as the water turned red at my feet.
I don’t think I was acting rationally. I only knew that I had to establish some kind of alibi. I dressed hurriedly and went back downstairs. “The person I was supposed to see wasn’t home,” I said.
I know Sue saw that I had changed clothes, but she was happy when I gave her the equivalent of three hours babysitting pay. After she left, I poured a stiff scotch into a cup and sat in the kitchen sipping it, wondering what I was going to do. Zach was dead, and I had no way of knowing if the evidence he had for me was gone.
I should not have run away. I knew it. But Georgette had sent my father to Zach for riding lessons. Zach had let my father ride out alone. Suppose they find out that I am Liza Barton? If I had called the police, how could I explain to them why I had once again come upon the body of a person who had contributed to my father’s death?
I finished the scotch, went upstairs, undressed, got into bed, and realized I was facing a sleepless night of worry, even of despair. Knowing it was the wrong thing to do, I took a sleeping pill. Somewhere around eleven, I was aware that the phone was ringing. It was Alex. “Ceil, you must be in a dead sleep. I’m sorry I woke you up. I had to let you know that no matter what you say you have to tell me, it won’t change one iota of the way I feel about you.”
I was so sleepy, but also so glad to hear his voice, to hear his words. “I believe that’s true,” I whispered.
Then with a smile in his tone, Alex said, “I wouldn’t even care if you told me you were Little Lizzie Borden. Goodnight, sweetheart.”
65
The body of Zachary Eugene Willet was found by a sixteen-year-old drummer, Tony “Rap” Corrigan, at 6 A.M., as he was preparing to leave on his bicycle to do his morning paper route.
“I thought old Zach had tied one on,” he explained excitedly to Jeff MacKingsley and Angelo Ortiz, who had rushed to the scene after the Chester police notified them of the 911 call. “But then, I could see all that dried blood. Yuck. I thought I’d throw up.”
No one in the Corrigan family remembered seeing Zach park the car. “It had to be after dark,” said Sandy Corrigan, Rap’s mother, a trim woman of about forty. “I know because there was an SUV parked there when I got home from work last evening at about quarter past seven. I’m a nurse at Morristown Hospital. The girls were with me when I came in. They go to my mother’s after school, and I pick them up on the way home.”
The three girls, ten, eleven, and twelve, were sitting next to their mother. In response to Jeff’s questions, it was clear that none of them had noticed anything unusual when they returned home. They had dashed past the SUV and spent the rest of the evening watching television.
“We do our homework with Nana,” the twelve-year-old explained.
Sandy’s husband, Steve, a fireman, had come home from work at ten o’clock. “I drove right into the garage without a glance at the street,” he explained. “We had a real busy shift, a fire in a house that was about to be pulled down. We think some kids did it. Thank God I’ve got four good kids. We encourage them to have their friends here. Rap is a great drummer. He practices all the time.”
“Zach was planning to move over the weekend,” Sandy Corrigan volunteered. “He was always complaining about Rap’s drums, and anyhow I told him that when his lease was up, we wouldn’t renew it. We need the room. This was my mother-in-law’s house. We moved in after she died. I felt kind of sorry for Zach. He was such a loner. But I have to tell you, I was delighted when he said he was leaving.”
“Then he didn’t have much company?” Jeff asked.
“Never,” Sandy Corrigan said emphatically. “He’d get here around six or seven at night, and almost never went out. Weekends he’d stay upstairs if he wasn’t going back to the riding club, but as often as not, he was there. That was more his home than this place.”
“Did he tell you where he was moving?”
“Yes. He was taking the model unit at Cartwright Town Houses in Madison.”
“Cartwright?” Jeff exclaimed.
“Yes, Ted Cartwright, the developer, is building them.”
“What isn’t he building?” her husband asked sourly.
“I would think that one of those town houses would be quite expensive,” Jeff said casually, trying not to let his excitement show. Cartwright, again, he was thinking.
“Especially if it comes furnished,” Sandy Corrigan agreed. “Zach claimed Mr. Cartwright was going to give it to him because he saved his life once.”
“Two moving men came by to pack for Zach yesterday, Mr. MacKingsley,” Rap volunteered. “I let them in at about three o’clock. I told them one of them could probably have done the whole job in an hour. Zach didn’t have much stuff up there. They didn’t stay long, and only took out a couple of boxes that didn’t weigh much.”
“Did they give you their cards?” Jeff asked.
“Well, no. I mean they had uniforms on and a truck. Anyway, why would anyone come to pack for Zach who wasn’t on the level?”
Jeff and Angelo looked at each other. “Can you describe these men?” Jeff asked.
“One of them was a big guy. He had dark glasses on, and had kind of funny looking blond hair. I think it was dyed. He was kind of old—I mean, more than fifty. The other guy was short, and maybe about thirty or so. To be honest, I didn’t pay too much attention to them.”
“I see. Well if anything comes back to you about them, I’m leaving my card with your mother.” Jeff turned to Sandy Corrigan. “Have you got a key to Zach’s apartment, Mrs. Corrigan?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“May I have it please? Thank you all very much for your cooperation.”
The forensic unit was dusting the handle of the door to Zach’s apartment and the doorbell. “Oh, we’ve got a nice clean one here,” Dennis from the lab commented. “We got a partial off the door of the car, too. That one someone tried to wipe off.”
“I haven’t had a chance to tell you,” Jeff told Angelo as he turned the key in the door from the porch to the apartment and pushed it open. “I spoke to Zach Willet by phone at five o’clock last night.”
They started up the stairs, which creaked under the weight of their feet. “What kind of guy did he seem to be?” Ortiz asked.
“Cocky. Very sure of himself. When I asked if I could come over and have a talk with him, he told me that, as a matter of fact, he was thinking of arranging a meeting with me. He said he might have some interesting things to tell me, but there’d be a few details we’d have to work out. He said that between the three of us, he was sure we could come to an understanding.”
“The three of us?” Angelo asked.
“Yes, the three of us—Celia Nolan, Zach, and me.”
There was a narrow hallway at the top of the stairs. “The old railroad flat layout,” Jeff commented. “All the rooms off the hall.” They walked a few steps and looked into what was meant to be a living room.
“What a mess,” Angelo said.
The couch and chairs had been slit in every direction. Stuffing oozed out from the faded upholstery. The rug had been rolled up and flipped over. Shelves of knickknacks had been dumped onto a blanket.
Silently, the men walked into the kitchen and the bedroom. Everywhere it was the same—contents of drawers and dressers had been tossed onto towels or blankets; the mattress on the bed had been sliced open. In the bathroom, the medicine chest had been emptied into the tub. Loose tiles were stacked on the floor.
“The self-proclaimed moving men,” Jeff said quietly. “Looks more like a wrecking crew.”
They went
back into the bedroom. Ten or twelve photo albums were thrown together in a corner. It was obvious that pages had been yanked from them. “I think the first album was sold the day the camera was invented,” Ortiz observed. “I never could understand the fixation with old photos. When old people die, the next generation keeps the photos for sentimental reasons. The third generation keeps a few pictures of the great-grandparents to prove that they had ancestors, and deep-sixes the rest.”
“Along with the medals and prizes the grandparents treasured,” Jeff said in agreement. “I wonder if those guys who were here found what they were looking for?”
“Time to talk to Mrs. Nolan?” Angelo asked.
“She’s hiding behind her lawyer, but maybe she’ll agree to answer some questions with him present.”
They stopped again in the living room. “The kid downstairs said the moving men took out some boxes. What do you think was in them?”
“What could possibly be missing around here?” Jeff asked.
“Who knows?”
“Papers,” Jeff said briefly. “Do you see a single bill or letter or any scrap of paper in this place? I say that whoever was here didn’t find what he wanted. Maybe he’s looking for safe-deposit-box or storage-room receipts.”
“How’s this for artwork?” Ortiz asked dryly, lifting a broken picture frame. “Looks as though this was the mirror over the couch, and Zach took the mirror out and made this monstrosity.” In the center of the frame there was a large caricature of Zach Willet, which was surrounded by dozens of pictures with inscriptions that had been taped around it. Ortiz read the inscription under the caricature. “ ‘To Zach, on the occasion of your twenty-fifth anniversary at Washington Valley.’ I guess everybody was asked to give their pictures that night with a sentiment written on it. I’d also bet they sang ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ to the poor guy.”
“Let’s take that with us,” Jeff said. “We might find something interesting in it. And now, it’s past eight o’clock, not too early to pay a little visit to Mrs. Nolan.”
Or a little visit to Liza Barton, he corrected himself silently.
66
“Mommy, can I stay home with you today?” Jack asked.
The request was so unexpected that I was taken aback. But I soon had an explanation.
“You were crying. I can tell,” he said matter-of-factly.
“No, Jack,” I protested. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night, and my eyes are tired.”
“You were crying,” he said simply.
“Want to bet?” I tried to sound as if we were playing a game. Jack loved games. “What kind of bet?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you what. After I drop you off at school, I’ll come back and take a nap, and if my eyes are nice and bright when I pick you up, you owe me a hundred trillion dollars.”
“And if they’re not nice and bright, you owe me a hundred trillion dollars.” Jack began to laugh. We usually settled those bets with an ice cream cone or a trip to the movies.
The wager decided upon, Jack willingly let me drop him off at school. I managed to get home before I started to break down again. I felt so trapped and helpless. For all I knew, Zach had told other people I was meeting him. How could I explain that he told me he had proof that Ted Cartwright had killed my father? And where was that proof now? They were practically accusing me of murdering Georgette Grove and that landscaper. I had touched Zach. Maybe my fingerprints were on his car.
I was dead tired, and decided that maybe I should do what I had told Jack I would do, and that was to try to take a nap. I was halfway up the stairs to the second floor when the bell rang. My hand froze on the banister. My instinct was to keep going upstairs, but when the bell rang again, I started back down. I was sure it was going to be someone from the prosecutor’s office. All I have to tell them is that I will not answer questions unless my attorney is present, I reminded myself.
When I opened the door, it was a relief to see that at least Detective Walsh was not there. The prosecutor, Jeff MacKingsley, was standing on the porch with the younger detective with black hair who’d been very polite to me.
I had left my dark glasses in the kitchen, and so could only imagine what they were thinking when they saw me with my red-rimmed, swollen eyes. For a moment, I don’t think I cared. I was tired of running, tired of fighting. I wondered if they had come to arrest me.
“Mrs. Nolan, I know you are represented by an attorney, and I assure you I am not going to ask you any questions about either the Georgette Grove or Charley Hatch homicides,” Jeff Mac-Kingsley said. “But I believe that you may have some information that could help us regarding a crime that was just committed. I know you have been taking riding lessons from Zach Willet. Zach was found shot to death early this morning.”
I did not say anything. I could not go through the charade of pretending I was surprised. Let them think that my silence indicated shock and distress—that is if they didn’t decide it meant that they were telling me something I already knew.
MacKingsley waited for some response from me, but when he didn’t get it, he said, “We know that you took a riding lesson with Zach yesterday afternoon. Did he indicate to you that he had plans to meet anyone? Anything you can remember is potentially very important.”
“Was he planning to meet anyone?” I repeated, and I heard my voice rising into near hysteria. I clasped my hand against my mouth. “I have an attorney.” I managed to lower the pitch of my voice. “I won’t speak to you without him being present.”
“I understand. Mrs. Nolan, this is a simple question. The picture of the Barton family that you found taped to your barn. Did you ever show it to your husband?”
I thought of finding the picture in the barn, of hiding it in the secret drawer, then Jack telling Alex about it, and Alex being so upset because I wasn’t planning to tell him about it. That picture was one more item in the string of occurrences that was driving a wedge between Alex and me.
At least MacKingsley’s question was one I could answer without fear. “My husband had already gone to work when I found it. He came home as I was giving it to you. No, Mr. MacKingsley, he did not see it.”
The prosecutor nodded and thanked me, but then, as he turned to go, he said in a tone that sounded strangely sympathetic, “Celia, I really think that everything is falling into place. I think that you are going to be all right.”
67
Jeff MacKingsley was quiet on the drive back to the office, and Angelo Ortiz knew better than to intrude. It was clear to Angelo that his boss was deeply troubled, and he was sure he knew why. Celia Nolan seemed to be on the verge of a total breakdown.
The forensic group was waiting for them when they arrived. “We’ve got nice prints for you, Jeff,” Dennis, the fingerprint expert from the lab, announced with great satisfaction. “A nice index finger from the doorbell, and a thumbprint from the car.”
“Were there any in Zach’s apartment?” Jeff asked.
“Lots and lots and lots of Zach’s. Nobody else. I understand there were some moving men in there. They sure did turn that place upside down. Funny—they must have had on gloves the whole time.”
“You mean funny as in peculiar?” Jeff confirmed.
“You know I do, Boss. What moving man have you ever met who wears gloves?”
“Dennis, I have two sets of fingerprints I want you to check for me,” Jeff said. He hesitated, then added firmly, “And check them against the ones you got off Zach’s car and doorbell.”
Inwardly, Jeff was having a struggle. If the fingerprints Clyde had kept of Liza Barton matched the ones on the picture that had been in the barn, it was conclusive proof that Liza Barton was Celia Nolan. If those fingerprints matched the ones Dennis had lifted from Zach Willet’s car and doorbell, it was conclusive proof that Celia had been at the crime scene where Zach Willet had lost his life.
The juvenile prints are illegally retained evidence, Jeff reminded himself, which means I could never use it
in court. But it doesn’t matter, he told himself stubbornly. I do not believe that Celia Nolan had anything to do with Zach Willet’s death.
Dennis got back to him in half an hour. “You’ve got yourself a match, Prosecutor,” he said. “The three sets of prints belong to the same person.”
“Thanks, Dennis.”
Jeff sat quietly for almost twenty minutes, twirling a pencil as he weighed the pros and cons of the decision he was struggling to make. Then, with a decisive snap, he broke the pencil, sending splinters across his desk.
He reached for his phone, and without going through Anna, dialed information to get the number of Benjamin Fletcher, Attorney-at-Law.
68
Jimmy Franklin was a newly appointed detective, and unofficially under the guidance of his good friend, Angelo Ortiz. On Thursday morning, with his cell phone camera and following Angelo’s instructions, he stopped at the Grove Real Estate office, ostensibly to inquire about the availability of a small starter house in the Mendham area.
Jimmy was twenty-six, but like Angelo, had a boyish look that was very appealing. Robin responded to him by explaining pleasantly that there were very few starter houses available in Mendham, but that she did have some in neighboring towns.
While she marked pages for him to study in the loose-leaf book that was filled with listings, Jimmy pretended to be on the phone. What he was doing was taking close-up pictures of Robin, which he then rushed to the office to download, after, of course, he had dutifully looked at the listings she thought might interest him.
The night before he had managed to get a picture of Charley Hatch from Charley’s former wife, Lena, a picture that she assured him really did not do poor Charley justice.
He enlarged several of the pictures he took of Robin, as well as the one that did not do Charley justice, and took them with him when he drove into Manhattan, parking on West 56th Street near Patsy’s Restaurant.