“I know you did,” I said, “but the important thing is that you did get me off.”
“The verdict was not guilty,” he continued, “but it was based on reasonable doubt. Most people, including the judge, including me, felt that you were probably guilty. When we get this latest episode behind us, I’m going to see that everyone understands what you have been through, so that everyone will know that you are and have been an innocent victim.”
I could feel my eyes brighten, and I guess Fletcher noticed. “No charge,” he added, “and it rattles my soul to utter those words.”
I laughed, which was what he wanted. I suddenly felt comfortable, confident that this hulking septuagenarian would take care of me.
“I’m Anna Malloy, Mr. MacKingsley’s secretary. Will you follow me, please?”
The sixtyish woman had a sweet face and a firm, quick step. As I followed her down the corridor, I had a hunch that she was one of those motherly-type secretaries who think they know better than their boss.
Jeff MacKingsley’s corner office was large and pleasant. I had always instinctively liked this man, even when I resented him showing up unannounced on my doorstep. Now he got up from his desk and came around it to greet us. I had done the best possible makeup job I could, trying to disguise my swollen eyes and eyelids, but I don’t think I fooled him much, if at all.
With Benjamin Fletcher sitting beside me like an aging lion, ready to pounce at the scent of danger, I told Jeff everything I knew about Zach. I told him that as a ten-year-old in lockdown detention I would have spasms of grief at the sound of his name. I told him that it was only in these last two weeks that I had remembered clearly my mother’s last words: “You told me when you were drunk. You killed my husband. You told me Zach saw you.”
“That’s why my mother threw him out,” I told Jeff. Detective Ortiz and a stenographer were in the room, but I ignored them. I wanted this man who was sworn to protect the safety of the people of this county to understand that my mother was wise to be afraid of Ted Cartwright.
He let me talk almost without interruption. I guess in my own way, I was answering all the questions he had planned to ask me. When I described going to Zach’s house, ringing the bell, and then seeing Zach in the car, he did prod me for additional details.
When I was finished, I looked at Benjamin Fletcher and, knowing he would be displeased, I said, “Mr. MacKingsley, I want you to ask me any questions you may have about Georgette Grove and Charley Hatch. I guess you know now why I made it home so fast from Holland Road. I knew that route from my childhood. My grandmother lived very near it.”
“Wait a minute,” Benjamin Fletcher interrupted. “We agreed we were not going to discuss those cases.”
“We have to,” I said. “It’s going to get out that I’m Liza Barton.” I looked at Jeff MacKingsley. “Does anyone in the media know yet?”
“In fact, it was a person in the media, Dru Perry, who first disclosed it to us,” Jeff admitted. “At some point you may want to talk with her. I think she’d be very sympathetic.” Then he added, “Is your husband aware that you are Liza Barton?”
“No he is not,” I said. “It was a terrible mistake, but I promised Jack’s father, my first husband, that I would not reveal my past to anyone. Of course, I will tell Alex now, and I can only hope that our relationship will survive.”
For the next forty minutes I answered every question the prosecutor asked me about my brief acquaintance with Georgette Grove, and about my absolute lack of information on Charley Hatch. I even told him about the Little Lizzie phone calls and messages I had received.
At ten of five, I stood up. “If there’s nothing more, I must get back,” I said. “My little boy gets quite anxious if I’m away too long. If any other questions come up, just call. I’ll be glad to answer them.”
Jeff MacKingsley and Fletcher and Detective Ortiz got up, too. I don’t know why, but I had the feeling that all three were hovering around me as though they thought I needed protection. Fletcher and I said goodbye and left the private office. There was a woman with wild gray hair at Jeff’s secretary’s desk. She was obviously very angry. I recognized her and remembered she had been at the house the day of the vandalism, a part of the media that surged onto the place.
Her back was to me, and I heard her say, “I told Jeff about Celia Nolan because I thought it was my duty to warn him about her. My thanks is that I lose my exclusive. The New York Post is giving all of page 3, and possibly its headline, to the ‘Return of Little Lizzie’ story, and they’re practically going to accuse her of committing all three murders.”
Somehow I made it to my car. Somehow I remained poised when I said goodbye to Benjamin Fletcher. Somehow I got home. I paid Sue and thanked her and turned down her offer to fix dinner for us, an offer she made because, as she said, I looked awfully pale to her. I’m sure she was right.
Jack was listless. I think he was starting to get a cold, or perhaps it was the heavy weight of my troubled aura that was making him ill. I sent out for a pizza, and before it came, I got him into pajamas and changed into my own pajamas and robe.
I decided I would go to bed after I tucked Jack in. All I wanted to do was to sleep and sleep and sleep. There were several phone calls. First from Mr. Fletcher, and then from Jeff MacKingsley. I did not answer either of them, and on the answering machine they both left messages expressing concern at how upset I must be.
Of course I’m upset, I thought. Tomorrow I’ll be starring in “The Return of Little Lizzie.” From this day forward, I will never travel far enough or hide deep enough to escape being called Little Lizzie.
When the pizza came, Jack and I each had a couple of slices. Jack definitely was catching some kind of bug. I took him upstairs at eight o’clock. “Mom, I want to sleep with you,” he said fretfully.
That was fine with me. I locked up and set the alarm; then I called Alex’s cell phone. He didn’t answer, but I expected that. He had said something about a dinner meeting. I left a message saying that I was going to turn off the phone because I was going to bed early, and to please call me at six o’clock A.M., Chicago time. I said there was something important I had to tell him.
I took a sleeping pill, got into bed, and with Jack cuddled in my arms, I fell fast asleep.
I don’t know how long I slept, but it was pitch dark when I felt my head being raised and heard a shadowy voice whispering, “Drink this, Liza.”
I tried to close my lips, but a strong hand was forcing them open, and I was gulping a bitter liquid that I knew contained crushed sleeping pills.
From a distance, I heard Jack’s wail as someone carried him away.
74
“Dru, that leak did not come from this office,” Jeff snapped, finally out of patience with the reporter. “You seem to forget that Clyde Earley, among others, knows that Celia Nolan is Liza Barton. We don’t know how many other people may have recognized her or been told who she is. Frankly, I think that whoever planned that vandalism at the Old Mill Lane house was well aware of Celia Nolan’s identity. The Post is going to be rehashing an old story and trying to tie it to three recent homicides, but they’re barking up the wrong tree. Hang around, and I may be able to give you the true story, and you’ll have some real news for yourself.”
“You’re playing straight with me, Jeff?” Dru’s anger began to subside, as her eyes relaxed and her lips became less compressed.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been known not to play it straight with you,” Jeff replied in a tone that reflected both annoyance and understanding.
“You’re suggesting I wait around?”
“I’m suggesting that there’s going to be a big story soon.”
They were standing at the door of Jeff’s office. Jeff had come out at the first sound of Dru’s raised voice.
Anna came up to them. “You don’t know what you did to that poor girl, Dru,” she scolded. “You should have seen the look on her face when you were shouting about ‘The Return
of Little Lizzie.’ She’s stuck living in Little Lizzie’s house, poor thing. She was devastated.”
“Are you talking about Celia Nolan?” Dru asked.
“She walked right behind you on her way out,” Anna snapped. “She was with her lawyer, Mr. Fletcher.”
“Liza, I mean Celia, went back to him? He’s representing her?” Too late Dru realized that Jeff had not told Anna who Celia was. “I’ll hang around, Jeff,” she added, an apologetic note in her voice.
“I’m expecting Henry Paley and his lawyer,” Jeff told Anna. “It’s five o’clock. You can go.”
“Not a chance,” Anna told him. “Jeff, is Celia Nolan really Liza Barton?”
Jeff’s look made her next question die in her throat. “I’ll send Mr. Paley in when he gets here,” she said. “And whether you appreciate it or not, I do know when something is really confidential.”
“I wasn’t aware there was a difference between ‘confidential’ and ‘really confidential,’ ” Jeff said.
“Oh, there absolutely is,” Anna assured him crisply. “Look, is that Mr. Paley heading this way?”
“Yes, it is,” Jeff said. “And that’s his lawyer behind him. Send them right in.”
Henry Paley read a statement into the record that had obviously been prepared by his attorney.
He had been Georgette Grove’s junior partner in the agency for more than twenty years. While he and Georgette had disagreed over the joint property they owned on Route 24, and about whether it was time for him to consider retirement, they had always been good friends. “It was personally very disappointing to me to realize that Georgette had gone through my desk and taken out the file of notes outlining my agreements with Ted Cartwright,” he said, in a wooden voice.
Henry admitted that he had been at the Holland Road house several times more than he had indicated, but he insisted that it was only carelessness in keeping his daily reminder.
He went on to acknowledge that about a year ago he had been offered one hundred thousand dollars from Ted Cartwright if he was able to persuade Georgette to sell the land on Route 24 to make room for commercial development. He said she wasn’t interested, so it never came to pass.
“There has been a question as to my whereabouts on or around the time of the demise of Charley Hatch, the landscaper,” Henry read. “I left my office at one fifteen and went directly to the Mark Grannon Real Estate Agency. There I met Thomas Madison, who is Georgette Grove’s cousin. Mr. Grannon had made an offer to buy our agency.
“As for the late Charley Hatch—I may have seen Mr. Hatch when I was showing properties where he was engaging in landscaping services. I do not remember ever exchanging a word with him.
“Referring to the most recent homicide that may have some connection to the Barton family, I never met the victim, Zach Willet, nor have I ever ridden a horse or taken riding lessons.”
Looking pleased with himself, Henry folded his statement neatly and looked at Jeff. “I trust that covers the situation.”
“Maybe,” Jeff said pleasantly. “But I do have one question: Don’t you think that Georgette Grove, knowing of your cozy relationship with Ted Cartwright, would have lived out her life holding onto the Route 24 property rather than go along with you and sell it commercially? From what I hear about her, that’s exactly what she would do.”
“I object to that question,” Paley’s lawyer said heatedly.
“You were in the vicinity of Holland Road when Georgette was shot, Mr. Paley, and her death made it possible for you to get a better deal than Cartwright was offering. That will be all for today. Thank you for coming in to make your statement, Mr. Paley.”
75
The heavy frame that had once surrounded a mirror and then became the repository of Zach Willet’s twenty-fifth anniversary memorabilia had been placed on top of a wide desk in a vacant office just down the hall from Jeff MacKingsley.
Investigator Liz Reilly had only been in the prosecutor’s office a few months, and was champing at the bit to be involved in a murder case. She had been instructed to review every card and note pasted on the frame and to look carefully for any photograph that might show a bullet lodged in a tree, or in a structure such as a fence or shed. The photo, or photos, might have been enlarged, she was told. There also might be riding trails shown in them, and perhaps a sign indicating danger in front of one of the trails. Investigators were also going through everything found in Willet’s apartment, hoping to find an actual spent bullet and casing.
Liz had a feeling that something important could emerge from this hopelessly cluttered object. She welcomed every chance she got to be at crime scenes because she loved the process of collecting evidence, and had arrived at the Zach Willet home shortly after the initial forensic team.
She was certain that the collage would be a perfect place to secrete a picture or any small object that might otherwise be easily discovered in a drawer or file.
The tape on the pictures and notes was cracked and dry, and easily separated from the corkboard that Zach had inserted for backing. Soon she had neat stacks of pictures around the frame. Liz got a kick out of reading the first several notes of congratulation: “Here’s to another 25, Zach”; “Ride ’em cowboy”; “Happy trails to you.”
She quickly got into a routine of glancing at them as she removed them, one by one.
It seemed to be turning into a useless exercise. Liz continued until only the caricature itself remained in the frame. It had been drawn in crayon on heavy cardboard, and was tacked rather than taped to the corkboard. Might as well take this one off, too, Liz thought. When she removed it, she turned the caricature over; taped to the back was a sealed 5-by-8 envelope. Liz decided to have a witness when she opened it.
She went down the hall to the prosecutor’s office. The door was open and Jeff MacKingsley was standing at the window, stretching.
“Mr. MacKingsley, can I show you something?”
“Sure, Liz, what is it?”
“This envelope was taped behind that caricature of Zach Willet.”
Jeff looked from the envelope to Liz and back to the envelope. “If this is what I hope it is . . . ” he said. Without finishing the sentence, he went to his desk and got a letter opener from the drawer. He slit the tape, opened the envelope and shook it. Two metal objects clanked onto his desk.
Jeff reached into the envelope and pulled out a handwritten letter and a half dozen photographs. The first one was a close-up showing a bony hand pointing to a tree in which a bullet was clearly embedded. A newspaper was positioned below the hole to display the date—May 9th—and the year, which was the year Will Barton had died. A second picture, taken from the newspaper on that date, showed Ted Cartwright proudly displaying his pistol.
A two-page letter, neatly printed but filled with misspellings, and addressed to “Whoever it could concern,” contained Zach’s graphic yet oddly dignified description of how he had watched Will Barton die.
He described how Ted Cartwright, on his powerful horse, had charged the high-strung mare that the nervous and inexperienced Will Barton was riding. He related watching Ted’s horse force the mare onto the dangerous trail. After she got close to the edge of the cliff, he saw Ted fire the shot that caused the panicking horse to bolt, sending both the horse and its doomed rider into the fatal plunge.
Jeff turned to Liz. “Good work. This is enormously important, and just might be the break we need.”
Liz left Jeff’s office, delighted with the prosecutor’s reaction to the evidence she had found.
As Jeff stood alone, realizing that everything Celia had told him was true, he was interrupted again as Investigator Nan Newman rushed into his office. “Boss, you’re not going to believe this. Rap Corrigan, the kid who found Zach Willet’s body, came in to meet with me and give a statement. While he was there, Ted Cartwright came into the outer office with his attorney. Rap did a double take when he saw Cartwright, and practically pulled me down the hall to talk to me.
&nb
sp; “Jeff, Rap swears that Ted Cartwright, minus a dopey looking blond wig, is one of the two so-called moving men he let into Zach Willet’s apartment yesterday.”
76
Ted Cartwright was dressed in an impeccably tailored dark blue suit, a light blue shirt with French cuffs, and a red and blue tie. With his crown of white hair, piercing blue eyes, and imposing carriage, he was every inch the powerful executive as he strode ahead of his lawyer into Jeff’s office.
Seated behind his desk, Jeff calmly observed the arrival and deliberately waited until Cartwright and his lawyer were standing in front of him before he got up. He did not offer to shake the hand of either man, but indicated the chairs that were pulled close to the desk.
As witnesses to this meeting, Jeff had invited Detectives Angelo Ortiz and Paul Walsh, who were already seated in chairs to the side of the prosecutor. The court reporter was in place, her face expressionless as always. It had been said of Louise Bentley that even if she had recorded the confession of Jack the Ripper, she would not have allowed a single muscle of her face to show reaction.
Cartwright’s attorney introduced himself. “Prosecutor MacKingsley, I am Louis Buch, and I am counsel to Mr. Theodore Cartwright. I wish to state for the record that my client is extremely distressed by the death of Zach Willet, and has, in response to the request of your office, appeared here today voluntarily and with the strong desire to assist you in any way in your investigation of Mr. Willet’s death.”
His face impassive, Jeff MacKingsley looked at Ted. “How long have you known Zach Willet, Mr. Cartwright?”
“Oh, I think about twenty years,” Ted answered.
“Think again, Mr. Cartwright. Isn’t it well over thirty years?”