All these thoughts and memories were leaping through my mind as I watched Jack finish the last crumb of his sandwich, a hint of a smile on his lips. Was he thinking about Maggie, the four-year-old he was planning to marry?
It’s strange how, in the midst of having my life dissolve into chaos, I can still find moments of peace and normalcy, like having lunch with Jack. When I signaled for the check, he told me that he had been invited for a play date the next day, and would I call his friend Billy’s mom. He fished in his pocket and gave me the number.
“Isn’t Billy the little boy who was crying the first day?” I asked.
“That was another Billy. He’s still crying.”
We started to drive home, but then I remembered I hadn’t bought the new answering machine tape. We backtracked, and as a result, it was twenty of two by the time we got to the house. Sue was already there, and I rushed upstairs to trade my sneakers for boots that would work well enough for my first riding lesson.
It’s funny that it didn’t occur to me to cancel the lesson. I was distraught at the dual threat that somebody knew I was Liza Barton, and that Detective Walsh, even if he was not aware of my other identity, was suspicious of me.
But every instinct in my being said that by getting to know Zach, I might learn why my mother had screamed his name that night she and Ted fought.
On the way to the Washington Valley Riding Club, I was flooded with vivid memories of my mother. I remember her impeccably outfitted in her beautifully tailored black jacket and cream-colored breeches, her smooth blond hair in a chignon, mostly hidden under her riding helmet, as my father and I watched her take the jumps at Peapack.
“Doesn’t Mommy look like a princess?” I remember my father asking as she cantered by. Yes, she did. I wondered now if by then he had begun to take riding lessons.
I left the car in the parking lot of the club, went inside, and told the receptionist I had an appointment with Zach Willet. I caught her disapproval of my makeshift riding gear and made a silent promise to myself that I would be more suitably dressed in the future.
Zach Willet came into the reception room to fetch me. I judged him to be about sixty. His lined face suggested long exposure to the elements, and the broken capillaries in his cheeks and nose made me suspect that he liked his liquor. His eyebrows were bushy, and drew attention to his eyes. They were an odd shade of hazel, more green than brown, almost faded in color, as though they, too, had known long years under bright sunshine.
As he looked me over, I detected a hint of insolence in his manner. I was sure I knew what he was thinking: I was one of those people who thought it would be glamorous to learn how to ride a horse, and I probably would end up being a nervous wreck and quitting after a couple of lessons.
Introductions over, he said, “Come on back. I tacked up a horse that’s used to beginners.” As we walked back to the stables, he asked, “Ever ridden before, and I don’t mean one pony ride when you were a kid?”
I had my answer ready for him, but now it sounded stupid: “My friend had a pony when I was little. She’d let me have rides on it.”
“Uh-huh.” Clearly he was unimpressed.
There were two horses saddled and tied to the hitching post. The large mare was obviously his. A smaller, docile-looking gelding was there for me. I listened attentively to Zach’s first instructions about riding: “Remember, you always mount a horse from the left side. Here, I’ll boost you up. Get your foot in the stirrup, then point your heel down. That way it won’t slip. Hold the reins between these fingers and, remember, don’t ever yank on them. You’ll hurt his mouth His name is Biscuit, short for Sea Biscuit. That was the original owner’s idea of a joke.”
It had been a long time since I had sat on a horse, but I immediately felt at home. I held the reins in one hand and patted Biscuit’s neck, then turned to Zach for approval. He nodded, and we started to walk the horses side by side around the ring.
I was with him for an hour, and while he was far from gregarious, I did get him to talk. He told me about working at the club from the time he was twelve, how being around horses was a lot more satisfying than being around most of the people he knew. He told me that horses were herd animals and liked each other’s company, that often they will calm down a racehorse by putting a familiar stablemate near it before a race.
I remembered to make the mistakes new riders do, like letting the reins slide, letting out a squeal when Biscuit unexpectedly picked up the pace.
Of course Zach was curious about me. When he realized that I lived on Old Mill Lane, he immediately connected me with Little Lizzie’s Place. “Then you’re the one who found Georgette’s body!”
“Yes, I am.”
“Lousy experience for you. Georgette was a nice lady. I read that your husband bought that house as a birthday present. Some present! Ted Cartwright, the stepfather the kid shot that night, used to keep his horses here,” Zach went on. “We’re old friends. Wait till I tell him I’m giving you lessons. Have you seen any ghosts yet in that house?”
I made myself smile. “Not a single one, and I don’t expect to either.” Then, trying to sound casual, I said, “Didn’t I hear that Liza—or Lizzie as everyone calls her—didn’t I hear that her father died as a result of a riding accident somewhere around here?”
“That’s right. Next time you come, I’ll show you the spot. Well, not the exact spot. That’s on a trail only the real experts take. Nobody can understand why Will Barton went on it. He knew better. I was supposed to be with him that day.”
“Were you?” I tried to sound casually interested. “What happened?”
“He’d had about ten lessons and could tack up his own horse. My horse had picked up a stone in its hoof and I was trying to get it out. Will said he’d start walking his horse on the trail. I think he was excited about going alone, but I tell you, that man was scared of horses and the horses knew it. Makes them nervous and jittery. But Will was bound and determined to go ahead. Anyhow, I was about five minutes behind him, and I started to get worried that I wasn’t catching up with him. Never occurred to me to look for him on that trail. As I said, Will knew enough not to go on it, or so I thought.
“But I couldn’t find him anywhere, and by the time I got back to the stable, the word was all over the place. He and the horse had gone over the cliff. Will was dead, and the horse had broken legs. He was finished, too.”
“Why do you think he went on the trail?”
“Got confused.”
“Weren’t there signs to warn him?”
“Sure there were, but I bet the horse got frisky, and Will was so nervous he didn’t notice them. Then when the horse chose that path and Will saw what he was up against, my bet is that he yanked on the reins and the horse reared. The dirt and rocks are loose over there. Anyhow, they both went over, and in a way I’ve blamed myself all these years. I should have made Will Barton wait for me.”
So that was how it happened, I thought. The sequence of events began with a stone in the hoof of a horse. Knowing that story, Mother might have blamed Zach Willet for not being with my father when he rode from the stable, but why would she have screamed his name at Ted?
Unless Ted Cartwright had brought my father to Zach to take the riding lessons that had caused his death.
“We’ll turn back to the stable,” Willet told me. “You’re okay. Stick to it and you’ll make a good rider.”
The answer came before I asked the question. “You know,” Willet said, “you told me Georgette Grove suggested me as a teacher. She was also the one who brought Will Barton here to take lessons from me. And now you’re living in his house. That’s a real coincidence, or fate, or something.”
On the way home, I was appalled by the thought that if Detective Walsh knows, or manages to learn that I am Liza Barton, he would have one more reason to think I hated Georgette Grove. By suggesting Zach Willet to my father as a riding teacher, she had directly contributed to his death.
I can’t a
nswer any more of Walsh’s questions, I thought. I can’t be trapped by the lies I tell him. I’ve got to hire a criminal lawyer.
But how would I explain that to my lawyer husband?
36
Dru Perry wrote a brief story about Georgette Grove’s memorial service, turned it in to her boss at the Star-Ledger, and then went back to work on the “Story Behind the Story” feature. It was her favorite kind of reporting, and by now she was thoroughly intrigued with the prospect of taking a fresh look at the Liza Barton/Little Lizzie Borden case.
She had left a message on the answering machine of Benjamin Fletcher, the lawyer who had defended Liza at her trial. He finally called her back on her cell phone as she was walking up the steps of the Hilltop Church on her way to the service. They had arranged that she would come to his office in Chester at four o’clock.
She intended to ask him about Diane Wesley, Ted Cartwright’s one-time girlfriend, who, as the trial began, had called the press and given an interview. She said that she’d been at dinner with Ted the night before the tragedy, and he had told her that Liza’s hatred of him was the reason for the separation.
Dru had also found an interview that had come out in one of the trashy tabloids, on the second anniversary of the tragedy. In that one, a scantily clad Julie Brett, another of Ted’s girlfriends, revealed that she had been subpoenaed by the defense to refute Ted’s claim that he had never physically abused a woman. “I got on the witness stand in court,” she had told the reporter, “and I made it clear to them that when Ted Cartwright gets drunk, he’s a mean, vicious guy. He starts talking about people he hates and works himself into a fury. Then he’ll get it out of his system by throwing something or by taking a swing at the nearest person. Believe me, if I’d had a gun the night he roughed me up, he wouldn’t be here right now.”
Too bad she didn’t tell the media that at the time of the trial, Dru thought wryly, but the judge probably had a gag order on her at the time.
Benjamin Fletcher, Diane Wesley, and Julie Brett—she wanted to talk to all three of them. After that, she intended to find people who had been friends of Audrey Barton at the Peapack Riding Club both before and after she married Will Barton.
From all the reports I’ve read, that marriage was very happy, Dru thought, but I’ve heard that song before. She thought about her close friends who had split after forty-two years of marriage. Afterward, Natalie, the wife, had confided to her, “Dru, I knew as I was walking down the aisle that I was making a mistake. It’s taken me all this time to have the courage to do something about it.”
At one thirty, Dru picked up a ham and cheese sandwich and a container of black coffee from the cafeteria. Having noticed that Ken Sharkey was in line ahead of her, she carried the bag with her lunch back to his desk. “Would my editor be pleased if I have lunch with him?” she asked.
“What? Oh, sure, Dru.”
From Ken’s expression, Dru was not convinced that he welcomed her company, but she liked to bounce ideas off Ken, and this seemed like a good time to do it. “Paul Walsh was at the service today,” she began.
Ken shrugged. “I’m not surprised. He’s heading up the investigation into the Grove homicide.”
“Am I wrong, or do I detect a little friction between him and Jeff?” Dru asked.
Sharkey, a beanpole of a man whose quizzical expression seemed permanently etched on his features, frowned. “Of course you detected it, because it’s there. Walsh is jealous of Jeff. He’d like to be the one shooting for the gubernatorial spot. Failing that, he’s eligible to retire soon and wouldn’t mind a nice, plush job as head of security somewhere. Obviously it would help if he grabbed some notoriety by solving a big case, and now he’s got one. But whatever is going on behind the scenes, the rumors are that he and MacKingsley are close to being on the outs, and that the split is becoming fairly open.”
“I’ll have to have a talk with Jeff’s secretary,” Dru said. “She doesn’t mean to gossip, but she has a way of saying things that allow me to read between the lines.” She took several healthy bites of her sandwich and sipped her coffee, then continued to think out loud: “Ken, I’ve been keeping in touch with Marcella Williams, or maybe it’s more accurate to say that she’s been keeping in touch with me. She’s the one who lives in the house next to the Nolans on Old Mill Lane, and had so much to say to the media when the vandalism was discovered. She told me that she saw Jeff MacKingsley drive past her place last Wednesday. Then, being Marcella, she walked up the road and saw his car parked in the Nolans’ driveway. Isn’t it kind of unusual for the Morris County prosecutor to get involved in a vandalism case? I mean, that was before Georgette was murdered.”
“Dru, figure it out,” Sharkey said. “Jeff’s ambitious, and soon he’s going to be beating the drums about how safe he’s kept Morris County for the four years he’s been prosecutor. That latest vandalism case made front-page news. That’s why he was there. From what I understand, people are starting to believe that some nut who’s fixated on the story of Little Lizzie defaced the house, then murdered Georgette because she was involved with it. Jeff’s naturally taking a special interest in seeing that both cases are solved quickly. I hope that happens. If he does get to run for governor, I’ll vote for him.”
Sharkey finished his sandwich. “I don’t like Paul Walsh. He’s contemptuous of the media, but at the same time he’ll use us to float stories about imminent arrests, just to squeeze people he thinks are hiding something. Remember the Hartford case? When Jim Hartford’s wife disappeared, Walsh did everything except accuse him of being an axe murderer. Turns out the poor woman must have pulled her car off the road because she didn’t feel well. Autopsy showed she died of a massive heart attack. But until someone finally spotted that car, Hartford wasn’t just dealing with his wife of forty years being missing; he was reading every day in the paper that the police suspected she had been the victim of foul play, and that he was ‘a person of interest,’ meaning, they thought he had killed her.”
Sharkey folded up the paper his sandwich had been wrapped in and tossed it into the basket at his feet. “Walsh is a smart guy, but he doesn’t play fair with anyone—not with innocent people, not with the media, and not even with his own team. If I were Jeff MacKingsley, I’d have sent him packing long ago.”
Dru stood up. “Well, I’m going to send myself packing,” she said. “I’ve got some calls to make, then, at four o’clock, I have an appointment with Benjamin Fletcher, the lawyer who defended Liza Barton at her trial.”
Sharkey’s face registered surprise. “That was twenty-four years ago, and from what I remember, Fletcher was in his fifties then. Is he still practicing law?”
“He’s seventy-five now, and he’s still practicing law, but he’s no Clarence Darrow. His Web site doesn’t offer his services as an expert in criminal defense.”
“Keep me posted,” Sharkey told her.
Dru smiled to herself as she walked across the news room. I wonder if Ken has ever said, “See you later,” or “Take it easy,” or “Have fun,” or even “Goodbye” to anyone. I bet when he leaves his house in the morning, he kisses his wife, then says to her, “Keep me posted.”
* * *
Two hours later, Dru was sitting in Benjamin Fletcher’s cubbyhole office, staring at him across a desk that was a jumble of files and family pictures. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t that he’d be a giant of a man, six feet three or four, and at least a hundred pounds overweight. His few remaining strands of hair were damp with perspiration, and his forehead glistened as if he were ready to break into a sweat.
His jacket was hung over the back of his chair, and he had opened the top button of his shirt and pulled down his tie. Rimless glasses magnified his already wide gray-green eyes. “Do you have any idea how many times over the years some reporter has called me about the Barton case?” he asked Dru. “Don’t know what you people think you’re going to find to write about that hasn’t been written before. Li
za thought her mother was in danger. She got her father’s pistol. She told Cartwright to let go of her mother, and the rest is history.”
“I guess we all know the basic facts of the case,” Dru agreed. “But I’d like to talk about your relationship with Liza.”
“I was her lawyer.”
“I mean, she didn’t have close relatives. Did she bond with you? In those months after you were appointed by the court to defend her, how much did you see of her? Is it true that she never spoke to anyone?”
“From the time she thanked that cop for putting a blanket around her in the squad car, she didn’t say a single word for at least two months. Even after that, the psychiatrists couldn’t get much out of her, and what she did tell them didn’t help her case any. She mentioned her father’s riding teacher and got all upset. They asked her about her stepfather, and she said, ‘I hate him.’ ”
“Isn’t that understandable, since she blamed him for her mother’s death?”
Fletcher pulled a wrinkled handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbed his face with it. “New medicine I’m on causes me to perspire as if I’m in a steam bath,” he said matter-of-factly. “Goes with the territory. Since I turned seventy, I’ve been a walking drugstore. But listen, I’m still around, which is more than I can say about a lot of people my age.”
His easygoing manner vanished. “Ms. Perry, I’m going to tell you something. That little girl was very, very smart. She never intended to kill her mother. Far as I’m concerned, that’s a given. But Ted Cartwright, the stepfather, is something else. I was always surprised that the press didn’t dig a little more into Audrey Barton’s relationship with him. Oh, sure they knew she’d been engaged to him, then broke it off when she married Will Barton, and that the old flame got rekindled after she was widowed. What they all missed was what went on during that marriage. Barton was an intellectual, a fine architect, but not a particularly successful one. There wasn’t much money in that house, and what there was came from Audrey. She came from money. From the time she was a child, Audrey rode every day. She still was riding every day after she married Barton, and guess who was in that Peapack club riding with her? Ted Cartwright. And her husband never went with her because he was terrified of horses.”
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