Two days later Peter Carrington’s picture was on the cover of Celeb, a national weekly gossip rag. It showed him coming out of the police station twenty-two years ago, after being questioned about the disappearance of eighteen-year-old Susan Althorp, who had vanished following the formal dinner dance she had attended at the Carrington mansion. The blaring headline, IS SUSAN ALTHORP STILL ALIVE?, was followed by the caption under Peter’s picture: “Industrialist still a suspect in the disappearance of debutante Susan Althorp, who would be celebrating her fortieth birthday this week.”
The magazine had a field day rehashing details of the search for Susan and, since her father had been an ambassador, comparing the case to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby.
The article included a summary of the circumstances surrounding the death of Peter Carrington’s pregnant wife, Grace, four years ago. Grace Carrington, known for drinking heavily, had given a birthday party for Carrington’s stepbrother, Richard Walker. Carrington had arrived home after a twenty-three-hour flight from Australia, observed her condition, grabbed the glass out of her hand, dumped the contents on the carpet, and angrily demanded, “Can’t you have a little mercy on the child you’re carrying?” Then, claiming exhaustion, he went up to bed. In the morning, the housekeeper found the body of Grace Carrington, still dressed in a satin evening suit, at the bottom of the swimming pool. An autopsy showed that she was three times over the limit of being legally drunk. The article concluded, “Carrington claimed he went to sleep immediately and did not awaken until the police responded to the 911 call. MAYBE. We’re conducting an opinion poll. Go to our Web site and let us know what you think.”
A week later, at the library, I received a call from Vincent Slater, who reminded me that I had met him when I had an appointment with Peter Carrington.
“Mr. Carrington,” he said, “has decided to permit the use of his home for your fund-raiser. He suggests that you coordinate the details of the event with me.”
2
Vincent Slater put down the phone and leaned back, ignoring the faint squeak of his desk chair, a sound that had begun to annoy him and that several times he’d made a mental note to get fixed. His office in the mansion had originally been one of the seldom-used sitting rooms at the back of the house. In addition to its remoteness, he had chosen it because of the French doors that not only gave a view of the formal gardens but also served as a private entrance from which he could come and go without being observed.
The problem was that Peter’s stepmother, Elaine, who lived in a house on the grounds, thought nothing of coming up to his office and entering without knocking. At that moment, she had done exactly that again.
She did not waste time on a greeting. “Vincent, I’m glad I caught you. Is there any way you can persuade Peter to give up the idea of having that charity reception here? One would think that after all the terrible publicity last week in that trashy Celeb magazine, rehashing Susan’s disappearance and Grace’s death, he would know enough to attract as little attention as possible.”
Vincent stood up, a courtesy he wished he could forego when Elaine barged in on him. Now, even though he was intensely irritated by the intrusion, he could not resist noticing begrudgingly how exquisitely attractive she was. At sixty-six, Elaine Walker Carrington, with her ash-blond hair, sapphire blue eyes, classic features, and willowy body, could still turn heads. She moved with the grace of the fashion model she had once been, even as, uninvited, she settled herself in the antique armchair on the other side of Vincent’s desk.
She was wearing a black suit that Slater guessed was an Armani, whom he knew to be her favorite designer. Her jewelry consisted of diamond earrings, a narrow strand of pearls, and the wide diamond wedding ring that she still wore even though her husband, Peter’s father, had been dead for nearly twenty years. Her faithfulness to his memory, Vincent well knew, had everything to do with the terms of her prenuptial agreement, which allowed her to live here for the rest of her life, unless she remarried, and ensured her a million-dollar-a-year stipend. And, of course, she liked to be referred to as Mrs. Carrington, with all the attendant privileges.
Which does not give her the right to walk in here and act as if I hadn’t considered very carefully the pluses and minuses of having a public event in this house, Vincent thought. “Elaine, Peter and I have discussed this thoroughly,” he began, his tone revealing his irritation. “Of course the publicity is terrible and embarrassing, which is why Peter has to make some move to show he’s not in hiding. That is precisely the perception which must be changed.”
“Do you really think that having strangers milling around in this house will change the perception most people have of Peter?” Elaine asked, her tone laced with sarcasm.
“Elaine, I suggest you stay out of this,” Slater snapped. “May I remind you that the family company went public two years ago, and there is a negative side to having to answer to stockholders. Even though Peter is by far the largest stockholder, the fact remains that there’s a growing opinion that he should step down as chairman and CEO. Being ‘a person of interest’ in the disappearance of one woman and the death of another is hardly a good image to have as the head of an international company. Peter may not talk about it, but I know he’s deeply concerned. That’s why, from now on, he’s got to be seen as active in community affairs and, even if he hates it, his very generous philanthropies have got to be publicized.”
“Really?” Elaine got up as she spoke. “Vincent, you’re a fool. Mark my words, this won’t work. What you’re doing is exposing Peter, not protecting him. Socially, Peter comes across as a zero. He may be a genius at business, but as you certainly know, he isn’t comfortable with small talk. Away from the office he’s much happier with a book in his hand and the door of the library closed than at some cocktail party or dinner. ‘Never less alone than when alone,’ as the saying goes. When is this affair going to take place?”
“Thursday, December sixth. Kay Lansing, the woman who’s running it, needed about seven weeks lead time to publicize it.”
“Is there any limit to how many tickets can be sold?”
“Two hundred.”
“I’ll be sure to buy one of them. So will Richard. I’m on my way to the gallery. He’s having a reception for one of his new artists.” With a dismissive wave of her hand, she pulled open the French doors and walked out.
Slater watched her go, his mouth drawn in a thin, tight line. Richard Walker was Elaine’s son by her first marriage. She’s paying for that reception, he thought. Carrington money has been supporting that loser son of hers since he was twenty years old. He remembered how it drove Grace crazy that Elaine assumed she could walk into the main house anytime she wanted. The one thing Peter was smart enough to do was to not let Elaine move back in here after Grace died.
Not for the first time, Vincent Slater wondered whether there was more to Peter Carrington’s tolerance of his stepmother than met the eye.
3
I was at the library when I received the call from Vincent Slater. It was late Wednesday morning and I was about to commit to having our fund-raiser at the Glenpointe Hotel in Teaneck, a neighboring town to Englewood. I’ve attended affairs there, and they do a really good job, but I was still disappointed I’d been turned down by Peter Carrington. Needless to say, I was absolutely delighted by Slater’s message and decided to share my excitement with Maggie, the maternal grandmother who raised me and who still lives in the same modest house in Englewood where I grew up.
I’m a reverse commuter. I live on West Seventy-ninth Street in Manhattan, in a small second-floor apartment in a converted town house. It’s about as big as a minute, but it has a working fireplace, high ceilings, a bedroom large enough for a bed and dresser, and a kitchen area that is separate from the living room. I furnished it from garage sales held in the tonier parts of Englewood and I love the way it looks. I also love working at the library in Englewood, and, of course, that means I get to see a lot of my grandmother, Mar
garet O’Neil, whom my father and I have always called Maggie.
Her daughter, who was my mother, died when I was only two weeks old. It happened in the late afternoon. She was propped up in bed nursing me, when an embolism hit her heart. My father called shortly after and was alarmed she did not answer the phone. He rushed home to find her lifeless body, her arms still cradling me. I was asleep, my lips contentedly suckling her breast.
My father was an engineer who, after a year with a bridge-building company, had quit and made gardening, previously his avocation, his full-time career. He used his keen mind to achieve a different kind of engineering triumph in the local estates, creating gardens with rock walls, and waterfalls, and winding paths. Which is why he was hired by Peter Carrington’s stepmother, Elaine, who disliked the unyielding rigidity of her predecessor’s taste in landscaping.
Daddy was eight years older than my mother, thirty-two when she died. By then he had established a solid reputation in his field. All might have been well enough except that after my mother’s death, Daddy began to drink too much. Because of it, I began to spend more and more time with my grandmother. I can remember her pleading with him, “For God sake, Jonathan, you’ve got to get help. What would Annie think of what you are doing to yourself? And how about Kathryn? Doesn’t she deserve better?”
Then one afternoon after Elaine Carrington fired him, he did not come to my grandmother’s house to collect me. His car was found parked on a bank of the Hudson River, some twenty miles north of Englewood. His wallet and house keys and checkbook were on the front seat. No note. No good-bye. Nothing to indicate he knew how much I needed him. I wonder how much he blamed me for my mother’s death, if he thought that somehow I sucked the life from her. But surely not. I had loved him fiercely, and he always had seemed to love me the same way. A child can tell. His body was never recovered.
I still remember how, when we got home from Maggie’s, he and I would cook dinner together. He would reminisce about my mother. “As you well know, Maggie’s no cook, Kathryn,” he would say, “so your mother opened a cookbook and learned out of sheer desperation. She and I used to try recipes together, and now it’s you and me.”
Then he would talk to me about my mother. “Always remember, she would have given anything to watch you grow up. She kept the bassinet by our bed for a month before you were born. You’ve missed so much by not having her, by not knowing her.”
I still can’t forgive him for not remembering all that when he decided to end his life.
All of these thoughts were going through my mind as I drove from the library to Maggie’s house to tell her the news. She has a beautiful red maple tree on her small lawn. It gives a special air to the whole place. I was sorry to see the last of its leaves blowing away in the wind. Without their protection, the house looked somehow exposed, and a bit shabby. It is a one-story Cape Cod, with an unfinished attic where Maggie stores the accumulated paraphernalia of her eighty-three years. Boxes of pictures she’s never gotten around to putting in photo albums, boxes of letters and treasured Christmas cards she will never live to wade through, the furniture that she replaced with the contents of my parents’ home but couldn’t bear to throw out, clothes that she hasn’t worn in twenty or thirty years.
Downstairs isn’t much better. Everything is clean, but Maggie creates clutter just by walking into a room. Her sweater lies on one chair, the newspaper articles she always means to read on another; books are piled by her easy chair; the shades she pulled up in the morning are always uneven; the slippers she can’t find are tucked between the chair and the hassock. It’s a real home.
Maggie wouldn’t meet Martha Stewart’s idea of good housekeeping, but she’s got plenty going for her. She retired from teaching to raise me, and still tutors three kids every week. As I found out through experience, she can make learning a joyful thing.
But when I went inside and told her my news, she let me down. I could see the look of disapproval on her face as soon as I mentioned the Carrington name.
“Kay, you never told me you were thinking of asking them to let you hold the literacy fund-raiser in that place.”
Maggie has lost a couple of inches in height in the last few years. She jokes that she’s disappearing, but as I looked down at her, she suddenly seemed very formidable. “Maggie, it’s a great idea,” I protested. “I’ve been to a couple of events in private homes, and they’ve been sellouts. The Carrington mansion is bound to be a big draw. We’re going to charge three hundred dollars a ticket. We wouldn’t get that anywhere else.”
Then I realized that Maggie was worried, genuinely worried. “Maggie, Peter Carrington couldn’t have been nicer when I met with him to talk about the event.”
“You didn’t tell me you saw him.”
Why hadn’t I told her? Maybe because I knew instinctively that she would not approve of my going there, and then, when he turned me down, there was no need to talk about it. Maggie was convinced that Peter Carrington was responsible for Susan Althorp’s disappearance, and that he may very well have been involved in his wife’s drowning. “Maybe he didn’t push his wife into the pool, Kay,” she had told me, “but I bet if he saw her fall in, he didn’t make it his business to save her. And as for Susan, he was the one who drove her home. I’d bet anything she sneaked out and met him after her parents thought she was going to bed.”
Maggie was eight years old in 1932 when the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, and she considers herself the world’s leading expert on that subject, as well as on the disappearance of Susan Althorp. From the time I was little, she had talked to me about the Lindbergh kidnapping, pointing out that Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the baby’s mother, was raised in Englewood, not a mile from our home, and that Anne’s father, Dwight Morrow, had been ambassador to Mexico. Susan Althorp was also raised in Englewood, and her father had been ambassador to Belgium. To Maggie, the parallels were obvious—and scary.
The Lindbergh baby kidnapping was one of the most sensational crimes of the twentieth century. The golden child of the golden couple, and all the unanswered questions. How did Bruno Hauptmann learn that the Lindberghs had decided to stay in their new country home that evening because the baby had a cold, rather than return to the Morrow estate as initially planned? How did Hauptmann know exactly where to place the ladder to reach the open window of the baby’s room? Maggie was always seeing similarities between the two cases. “The Lindbergh baby’s body was found by accident,” she would point out to me. “It was terrible, but at least it meant that the family didn’t spend the rest of their lives wondering if he was growing up somewhere with someone who might be harming him. Susan Althorp’s mother has to wake up every morning wondering if this is the day the phone will ring and it will be her daughter. I know that’s the way I would feel if my child was missing. At least if her body had been found, Mrs. Althorp could visit her grave.”
Maggie hadn’t talked about the Althorp case in a long time, but I’ll bet anything that if she was at the supermarket checkout and saw that Celeb magazine with Peter Carrington’s picture on the cover, she would buy it. Which explains her sudden uneasiness at the thought of my being in his presence.
I kissed the top of her head. “Maggie, I’m hungry. Let’s go out and have some pasta. My treat.”
When I dropped her home an hour and a half later, she hesitated, then said, “Kay, come back inside. I want to go to that affair. I’ll write you a check for a ticket.”
“Maggie, that’s crazy,” I protested. “That’s too much money for you.”
“I’m going,” she said. Her determined expression left no room for argument.
A few minutes later I was driving over the George Washington Bridge, back to my apartment, her check in my wallet. I knew the reason she had insisted on attending. Maggie had appointed herself as my personal bodyguard while I was under the roof of the Carrington mansion.
4
As she waited for her visitor to arrive, Gladys Althorp studied the picture of her missin
g daughter. It had been taken on the terrace of the Carrington mansion the night Susan disappeared. She was wearing a white chiffon evening gown that clung to her slender body. Her long blond hair, slightly tousled, tumbled onto her shoulders. She had been unaware the camera was on her, and her expression was serious, even pensive. What was she thinking at that moment? Gladys asked herself once again, as her fingers traced the outline of Susan’s mouth. Did she have a premonition that something was going to happen to her?
Or did she finally realize that night that her father had been involved with Elaine Carrington?
Gladys sighed as she slowly stood, resting one hand on the armchair for support. Brenda, the new housekeeper, had served her dinner on a tray and then headed back to her apartment over the garage. Unfortunately, Brenda wasn’t much of a cook. Not that I’m really hungry, Gladys thought as she carried the tray to the kitchen. The sight of the uneaten food made her feel slightly nauseous, and she quickly scraped it into the compactor, rinsed the dishes, and placed them in the dishwasher.
“Just leave it for me, Mrs. Althorp,” she knew Brenda would protest in the morning. And I’ll say it only takes a minute to tidy up, Gladys thought. Tidy. That was the way to describe what I’m doing now. Trying to tidy up the most important piece of business in my life before I leave it.
“Maybe six months,” the doctors had agreed when they delivered the verdict that she hadn’t yet shared with anyone.
She went back into the study, her favorite of the seventeen rooms in the house. I’ve been wanting to downsize for years, and I know Charles will once I’m gone. She knew the reason she hadn’t. Susan’s room was here, everything still exactly as it had been when she left that night after knocking on the bedroom door to let Charles know she was home.