I Heard That Song Before (26 page)

Judge Smith had listened intently to both sides. He looked up, and our eyes locked for just a second before he addressed the courtroom. What did he see when he looked at me? I wondered. Did he see the way I am pleading with him to understand? I felt my heart pounding as he began to speak.

“I can candidly state that this is the most unusual set of circumstances that I have ever encountered with respect to a bail hearing,” he said. “I am fully aware that sleepwalking may be an issue in Mr. Carrington’s upcoming trial. I, of course, am taking no position at this time regarding the merits of the state’s case, or the validity of any sleepwalking defense. The sole issue today is whether Mr. Carrington deliberately attempted to violate the conditions of his bail, and whether he should forfeit the twenty-five million dollars he posted. Defense counsel does not dispute that Mr. Carrington attempted to leave the hospital room in which he was confined.”

I looked at the prosecutor. An angry frown was forming on her face. Dear God, let that mean that the judge isn’t going to make Peter forfeit that bail. Because if he
does
make him forfeit it, it will mean he believes Peter was putting on an act.

The judge continued: “The defense counsel has proffered substantial indication that the medical testing has revealed a serious sleepwalking disorder. It is also a fair argument that Peter Carrington was fully aware of the intense security surrounding him, which would have made any attempt to escape a virtual impossibility. It is also true, as defense counsel notes, that Mr. Carrington had both agreed to and paid for this intense security. Under all of these circumstances, and again recognizing that the entire purpose of the hospital’s evaluation was focused on whether there was or was not a sleepwalking disorder, this court is not convinced that Mr. Carrington consciously tried to escape, or otherwise deliberately violated conditions of his bail. The state’s concern about flight is legitimate, and the defendant will remain in jail pending his trial. But given the information before me, I will not order the forfeiture of the twenty-five million dollars bail.”

At last we had a sort of victory. I felt myself slump in my seat. Vincent Slater patted my shoulder, an unusual gesture for him to make. “Kay, this is
really
important,” he said, his voice full of relief and concern.

Slater so seldom showed any emotion that I was both surprised and touched. I had always thought of him as someone who was efficient and devoted to Peter’s interests, but otherwise was basically cold and unresponsive. His reaction offered an unexpected glimpse into the interior Vincent Slater. Of course, I reminded myself, he was undoubtedly thrilled about the return of the twenty-five-million-dollar bail.

I was allowed a few minutes with Peter while he was in the holding cell. “Kay,” he said, “last night I was dreaming of kneeling on the Althorps’ lawn, the way I was when the cops arrested me. When I was trying to open the door, it was because, in my dream, I had to go there again.” His voice dropped to a whisper so that the guard standing nearby could not hear him. “But last night was different.” He paused. “I thought that Gary Barr was sitting in the room watching me.”

N
icholas Greco heard on his car radio that Peter Carrington might have tried to break out of the sleep center. Knowing there would be a bail hearing, he called Barbara Krause’s office and learned what time it would be held.

That was why he was in the courtroom during the hearing, and why he waited outside in the hall after it was over, hoping to speak to Carrington’s wife, Kay.

When she came out, she was accompanied by Vincent Slater. When Slater saw Greco, he tried to rush Kay Carrington past him, but Greco blocked his way. “Mrs. Carrington,” he said, “I would very much like to speak with you. There is a possibility I might be of assistance to you.”

“Assistance!” Slater snapped. “Kay, this is the investigator who located the maid and got her to change her testimony.”

“Mrs. Carrington, I am seeking the truth.” Greco handed her his card. “Please take this. Please call me.” Satisfied that she had slipped it in her pocket, he turned and walked in the opposite direction from the elevators.

He knew by now that he had become something of a familiar figure in the prosecutor’s office. Barbara Krause’s door was closed, but Tom Moran was standing in the hall outside, talking to a police officer. Greco managed to catch Moran’s eye, then waited until Moran came over to speak to him.

Moran waved aside Greco’s apologies for dropping in without an appointment. “Come in my office,” he suggested. “The boss is not a happy camper after losing the motion for bail forfeiture.”

“I understand,” Greco said, with a silent prayer of thanks that he had not intruded on Barbara Krause. He knew there was a thin line between her considering him helpful and deciding he was a pest. He also knew that he should not take up much of Moran’s time.

Once inside Moran’s office, Greco got to the point. “I have been speaking with Susan Althorp’s closest friend, Sarah Kennedy North. As you know, Gary Barr used to chauffeur Susan and her friends to parties. But according to Sarah North, it seems he had an unusually close relationship with Susan.”

Moran raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

“Susan apparently referred to Barr as ‘her pal.’ Rather unusual, don’t you think, for an eighteen-year-old and a servant who was then in his early forties? Also, the atmosphere in the Althorp home does not suggest familiarity ever existed between the family and the employees. If anything, I would say quite the opposite.”

“Mr. Greco, we have always suspected that Peter Carrington had help in both hiding and later in burying Susan Althorp’s body. We knew, of course, about the chauffeuring Gary Barr did. The police also spoke to Susan’s friends at the time of her disappearance. None of them mentioned Barr as having an unusual relationship with Susan. Perhaps it’s time for us to talk to him again. Maybe
his
memory has improved over the years as well.”

Greco got up. “I won’t take any more of your time. May I also suggest that you thoroughly investigate Gary Barr’s background to see if there may have ever been any problem with the law. A possibility has occurred to me which I am not yet ready to share. Good day, Mr. Moran. It is always a pleasure to see you.”

I
despised Elaine for her trickery, but in an odd way, it was also a relief that I was not in possession of the infamous shirt. Even though she was blackmailing us, she also was postponing a moral dilemma for me. As Peter’s wife, by law, I did not have to testify against him. To actively withhold or destroy evidence was, however, something else again. But now, I told myself, I was not withholding evidence because I did not possess it.

The media had a field day after the bail hearing. The cover of one of the tabloids had a picture of Peter standing before the judge, his back to the camera. The judge was looking down. The headline was,
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. IS THE JUDGE ASLEEP, TOO
? A cartoon in another newspaper depicted Peter with electrodes hanging from his forehead, a breathing tube over his shoulder, and a hatchet in his hand that he was aiming at a door.

I didn’t know what access Peter had to the newspapers and didn’t ask him. On my next visit, I did question him about the dream he had at the sleep center, when he tried to open the door because he wanted to go to the Althorp home again. “Do you think there was a possibility that you actually
saw
Gary hanging around Susan’s house the night she disappeared?” I asked him.

“Absolutely not, Kay! If I had, I wouldn’t have let him come within a mile of you!”

Of course he wouldn’t. He was convinced it was just a confusing twist to his dream—but I was not.

Our visits were so painful: We looked at each other through a Plexiglas panel and spoke by telephone. He could sit down with his lawyers at a conference table but was not allowed to touch me. I longed to put my arms around him, to feel the strength of his arms around me. It wasn’t going to happen.

Conner Banks’s suggestion that Peter married me because of what I had heard in the chapel was always in the back of my mind. Then, when I saw the way Peter looked at me, the way his face lit up at his first glimpse of me, I was again certain that he loved me and had loved me from the beginning.

But a few hours later, when I was by myself at home, it did not seem impossible that he and Susan might have been quarreling about money in the chapel that afternoon. Peter was in college at that time. What kind of allowance did he get from a father who was a notorious skinflint? If Susan had something on him, was he driven to desperation—perhaps by fear of his father—to keep her quiet?

These questions haunted me, but when visiting day finally came around again, I felt wretched for ever doubting him.

A dozen times during the weeks after the hearing, I took Nicholas Greco’s card from my desk and considered calling him. I had this crazy feeling that somehow he could help Peter. But each time I would remind myself that Peter might not have been indicted had Greco not tracked down Maria Valdez, and I always put the card back in the drawer, and slammed the drawer shut.

We were enjoying a mild February, and I started jogging again, running every morning around the estate. I often stopped at the place where they had found my father’s remains. This grave seemed more real to me than the one he now shares with my mother in MaryRest Cemetery. The police had dug at least ten feet in every direction around the spot where the dogs had started their frantic barking. That area had been filled in now, but it still stood out from the dormant grass around it, and I knew the dirt would start to sink when the spring thaw began.

I decided I wanted to plant rosebushes here, but then I realized I was too new in my position as Mrs. Peter Carrington to know who attended to the landscaping.

Sometimes I would stand at the fence and look out at the area where Susan’s body had been found. I would try to imagine the twenty-year-old Peter thinking that it was safe to put her body there, because the cadaver dogs had already been through the estate. I even called Public Service Electric & Gas Company. One of their employees told me that there was a gas line near the curb of our property beyond the fence, and that PSE&G had a perpetual easement to service or replace the line. He told me that normally they would never have any need to disturb the ground nearly fifty feet from the curb.

“When there’s a suspected leak, we move right in without notification,” he said. “The day the Althorp girl’s body was found, an odor of gas had been reported, and our people went right over. Our detectors bored test holes much closer to your fence than they might ever do again, he told me.

Which might answer why, even if he were guilty, Peter had not looked particularly upset when he saw the emergency crew digging near the curb.

I thought back to what I knew about that night. Elaine claimed she had seen Peter come in at two
A.M
. There is no question that he drove Susan home at midnight. Would she have had the nerve to sneak out immediately, or would she wait twenty minutes or half an hour to be sure one of her parents didn’t look in on her? I asked myself. And where between twelve thirty and two o’clock in the morning—whether in a sleepwalking state or not—would Peter have managed to hide Susan’s body?

And if he did do that, then someone had to have been helping him. My suspicion that Gary Barr was involved in all this was becoming stronger and stronger. It would explain why lately Gary had been acting so nervous, and had been trying to eavesdrop. He must be terribly worried that if, out of loyalty, he tried to help Peter, he might still be charged with being an accessory to murder.

Conner Banks gave me a copy of a tape from The Learning Channel showing reenactments of crimes committed in the United States by two men who were sleepwalking at the time. Both are serving life sentences. The same tape shows reenactments of a homicide and an aggravated assault committed by two men in Canada under the same circumstances. They were both acquitted. Watching the tape, I was heartsick. Two of the men had been bewildered when they were woken by the police, and had no memory of what had happened. The other awoke in his car, and drove to the police station himself because he was covered with blood.

One way that I occupied myself—and it was something that I
did
enjoy—was to make some changes around the mansion. From what Peter had told me, Grace hadn’t done anything much to the mansion, but had completely redecorated the Fifth Avenue apartment. I’d only been at the apartment a few times during those weeks between the literacy reception and our wedding. Now, I had no desire to go there without Peter. It’s silly, but I would have felt like an intruder. If Peter was sent to prison, I knew that a major decision would have to be made about all the property.

In the meantime, however, I began to make some small changes in this home—my home, I reminded myself. I had Gary bring down the crate of Limoges china that I had told Peter about. Jane washed and I dried the plates and cups and saucers and all the wonderful extra dishes that were used at lavish dinner parties in the late nineteenth century. “You don’t see anything like this anymore, Mrs. Carrington,” Jane marveled.

There was a magnificent eighteenth-century breakfront in the formal dining room. We displayed the Limoges there, and packed away the china that Elaine had chosen. Good riddance, I thought.

In one room on the third floor, I found a heavy chest filled with blackened antique table silver. When Jane and Gary had polished it, we found that all the pieces were monogrammed. “Whose initials are ASC?” I asked Peter during one of my visits.

“ASC? That’s probably my great-great-, whatever she is, grandmother. Her name was Adelaide Stuart when she married my great-great-, whatever, grandfather in 1820. I remember my mother telling me that Adelaide claimed some remote relationship to King Charles, and never let my paternal ancestor forget that she was a cut above him socially. She was the one behind moving the mansion from Wales.”