No Place Like Home (24 page)

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. Liza 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.”

“Are you saying that Audrey was having an affair with him while she was married?” Dru asked quickly.

“No, I'm not saying that, because I don't know if it's true. I
am
saying that she saw him at the club practically every day, that they'd often go on the trails together or take the jumps together. At the time, Ted was expanding his construction business and starting to make lots of money.”

“You're suggesting that Audrey may have regretted her marriage to Will Barton?”

“I'm not suggesting it. I'm
saying
it. I heard that
from a half-dozen people at the club when I was preparing for the trial. If it was such an open secret, wouldn't a smart kid like Liza have caught on to it, too?”

Fletcher picked up the unlit cigar from the ashtray at his elbow, put it between his lips and took it out again. “Trying to break the habit,” he remarked, then continued his explanation to Dru. “From the time Audrey buried her husband, she was seeing Ted Cartwright. She waited a couple of years to marry him because the kid resented him from the get-go.”

“Then why did Audrey file for divorce? Why was she so afraid of him?”

“We'll never know for sure, but my guess is that life with the three of them under the same roof was unbearable, and obviously Audrey couldn't dump her child. But don't forget one more point that kept coming up.” Benjamin Fletcher looked sharply at Dru, challenging her scholarship on the Barton case.

“I understand there was a question about the alarm system,” Dru suggested.

“That's right, the alarm, Ms. Perry. One of the things we managed to get out of Liza was that her mother set the alarm that night before the two of them went upstairs. But when the cops came, the alarm was turned off. Cartwright didn't break in. If he'd disconnected the alarm from the outside, there'd be a record of a malfunction. I believed him when he said Audrey had called him and invited him over to discuss a reconciliation. And
now, Ms. Perry, I have to tell you I'm planning to leave a little early today.”

“Just one more thing, Mr. Fletcher. I read an article that was printed in one of those trashy tabloids about two years after the trial. It was an interview with Julie Brett. She testified at the trial that Ted Cartwright physically abused her.”

Fletcher chuckled. “She sure did, but the abuse she got from Cartwright was that he dropped her for another woman. Don't get me wrong. That guy has an explosive temper and has been known to swing a punch, but not at Julie.”

“You mean she was lying?”

“Now I didn't say that, did I? I think the real truth is that they'd had an argument. He was on his way out. She grabbed him and he shoved her. But in sympathy for Liza, Julie dressed up her story a little. She's got a good heart. That's off the record, of course.”

Dru looked at Fletcher. The elderly lawyer had a satisfied smile on his face. Clearly he was amused by his memory of Julie Brett. Then his face became stern. “Ms. Perry, Julie made a big impression on the judge. Trust me, if it wasn't for her, Liza Barton would have been confined in a juvenile detention center until she was twenty-one.”

“What about Diane Wesley, another of Cartwright's girlfriends?” Dru asked quickly. “She told the media that Ted had dinner with her the night before the tragedy, during which he blamed Liza for the problem he was having with Audrey.”

“She told that to the press, but she didn't get to say it in court. But anyhow, she was just another voice confirming that Liza caused the rift.” Fletcher stood up and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Perry. When you write up your article, have some kind words for this former underpaid public defender. That little girl got one hell of a good defense from me.”

Dru shook his hand. “Many thanks for your time, Mr. Fletcher. Have you any idea where Liza is now?”

“No. I wonder about her from time to time. I just hope she got the psychiatric help she needed. If she didn't, I wouldn't put it past her to sneak back around here someday and blow Ted's brains out. Good luck to you, Ms. Perry.”

L
ate Monday afternoon, Charley Hatch sat in his living room, drinking a beer and waiting nervously for the call he'd been told to expect. He was going over in his mind how he would explain that there was a problem.

It's not my fault, he thought. After that cop, Earley, left on Friday afternoon, I tried to call the usual number, but it had been disconnected, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then, a minute later, my phone rings. I'm told to go out and buy one of those cell phones with minutes on it so nobody can trace it.

Then, in an effort to show that I was being careful, I mentioned that I'd noticed some spots of paint on my jeans and sneakers, and had managed to change them before I let the cop in. I thought that would show that I'm on the ball, but instead I'm told to get rid of the jeans and sneakers, and to make sure there's no paint spots on the truck. Then I have to listen to more bull about how dumb I was to do the carving in that door.

So over the weekend I left the jeans and sneakers bundled with my carvings on a shelf in the garage, and then, trying to be extra careful, I decided I'd better get rid of them for good. I even took the trouble to pull out some old clothes I've been meaning to throw out, and dumped them, along with the jeans and sneakers and my nice carvings, in a big trash bag. Then I tied up the bag real tight and put it in the barrel. I even cleaned out the refrigerator so that the bag on top of the one with the clothes was gloppy with things like old Chinese food, and slices of dried up pizza, and coffee grinds, and those oranges that had turned green.

My garbage is supposed to be picked up every Tuesday and Friday. I thought putting it in the garbage bin Sunday night would be okay. How am I supposed to know that some jerk is going to rummage through my stinking garbage? I'll bet it was that nosy cop, Sergeant Earley, who did it and found my jeans and sneakers and carvings. Anyway, now they're gone. I admit I was a dope to put on those heavy corduroy pants on a hot day. Earley noticed it; he even said something about it.

Charley's regular cell phone rang. His throat suddenly tight, he took a deep breath, then answered. “Hello.”

“Did you buy the other phone?”

“You told me to buy it. I bought it.”

“Give me the number.”

“973-555-0347.”

“I'll call you on it.”

Charley took a long swig of beer, draining the bottle. When his new phone rang, he picked it up. Instead of giving his carefully rehearsed explanation, he nervously blurted out, “I threw my sneakers, jeans, and my carved figures in the garbage. Someone fished them out. I think it was that cop who came to see me Friday.”

The long silence that followed was worse than the angry tirade he'd been subjected to because of the skull and crossbones he'd carved into the door of the house on Old Mill Lane.

When his caller spoke, the voice was calm and even. “Why did you put that stuff in the garbage?”

“It was supposed to be picked up tomorrow. I was too nervous having the stuff in the barn,” Charley said defensively.

“I didn't ask for the garbage pickup schedule. Putting those items in your own trash bin more than a day before collection was idiotic. You should have just thrown them in a Dumpster behind some store, and that would have been the end of it. Listen and try to keep straight what I'm telling you. I don't know who shot Georgette Grove, but if the cops have evidence that shows that you did the job on the Nolan house, they'll blame you for it.”

“Blame
us
for it,” Charley corrected.

“Don't threaten me, Charley. I'm pretty sure that cop had no right to go through your garbage and remove anything from it without a search warrant,
so even if they found something incriminating, they can't use it against you. They can, however, try to wear you down. So get a lawyer, and refuse to answer any questions.”