“You’d better get going, Maggie,” I said. “I don’t like you driving alone at night, and I know you don’t want to run into Peter.”

“Kay, I don’t want to leave you alone with him. My God, why are you so blind and so foolish?”

“Because there’s another explanation for everything that has happened, and I am going to find it. Maggie, as soon as we know when Daddy’s body will be released, we’ll have a private funeral Mass. You must have the deed to the grave.”

“Yes, it’s in the safe-deposit box. I’ll get it. Don’t bring your husband to the funeral, Kay. You’d be thumbing your nose at your dad if Peter Carrington was there pretending to mourn him.”

It took courage for Maggie to make that statement, knowing that it might cause me never to speak to her again. “Peter won’t be allowed to attend Daddy’s funeral,” I said, “but if he were, he’d be there with me.” As we walked to the front door, I said, “Maggie, listen to me. You thought Daddy was fired because of his drinking. That wasn’t true. You thought he committed suicide because he was depressed. That wasn’t true, either. I know that when Daddy disappeared, you were in charge of selling the house and getting rid of a lot of the stuff in it.”

“I moved the living room and bedroom and dining room furniture over to my house,” Maggie said. “You know that, Kay.”

“And you stuck most of your own stuff in the attic. But what else did you move to your house? What happened to my father’s business files?”

“There’s just one. Your father was never a saver. I had the mover put the file cabinet in the attic, too. It was too tall, though, so he laid it down flat. My old couch is upside down on top of it.”

No wonder I had never noticed it, I thought. “I want to go through that file soon,” I said. We stopped at the guest closet and got her coat. I helped her put it on, buttoned it for her, and kissed her. “Now get home safe,” I cautioned. “There still may be some black ice on the road. Be sure to lock the car. And mark my words, one of these days you and Peter are going to be the best of friends.”

“Oh, Kay,” she said, sighing deeply as she opened the door and let herself out. “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

39

For the last few days, Pat Jennings had not known what to make of her employer, Richard Walker. On Monday he had come in with the familiar look of relief which usually signaled that his mother had paid his gambling debts. That same day, his stepbrother, Peter Carrington, was arraigned on a charge of murder. The next day, on Tuesday, Walker had spoken freely about him: “We had dinner with Peter after he got home,” he told Pat.

Pat asked him about the former maid, Maria Valdez.

“Naturally Peter’s depressed by what has happened,” Walker explained. “It is despicable that that woman changed her story, and now is tainting the memory of my stepfather. I hope they put me on the stand. I’d be able to tell them firsthand how the old man had bursts of spontaneous generosity. I remember one night I was having dinner at 21 with him and Mother. Somebody came to the table to talk about some worthy cause or another, and Carrington senior pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check for ten thousand dollars then and there. Then he stiffed the waiter with a cheap tip.”

Walker also talked to Pat about Peter’s wife, Kay. “Absolutely wonderful girl,” he raved. “Just what Peter has needed for years. From what I’ve seen, even with all his money, he’s never had much happiness.”

On Wednesday morning, Walker came into the gallery with a pretty young artist, Gina Black, in tow. Like her predecessors, Gina was introduced to Pat as a brilliant talent, one whose career was going to flourish under Walker’s guidance.

Uh-huh, was Pat’s reaction.

She had heard about the skeletal remains found on the grounds of the estate on Wednesday night when she and her husband were watching the evening news. The fact that it was the body of Kay Carrington’s father was revealed to her the next morning by Walker.

“They’re not releasing any details yet,” he confided, “but he was wearing a chain and locket with a picture of Kay’s mother in it. My mother is freaking out. She was in her New York apartment and heard about it when she turned on the television. She said that when they were searching the grounds with the dogs before the rain started the other day, she asked the detectives if they thought the place was a cemetery.”

“Two bodies found on the estate,” Pat said. “You couldn’t pay me to live there.”

“Nor me,” Walker agreed, as he passed her desk to go into his own office. “I’ll be on the phone for a while. Hold any other calls.”

Jennings watched as Walker closed the door firmly enough that she could hear a decisive click. He’ll be on the phone with his bookie, she thought. He’ll be head over heels in debt again in no time. I wonder when his mother will finally throw up her hands and tell him to figure it out for himself.

She reached for her copy of the New York Post which she’d tucked in the bottom file drawer in her desk. On the bus down to Fifty-seventh Street, she’d skimmed Page Six, but now she read it line by line. That poor Kay Carrington, she thought. What must it be like to be married to a man who’s obviously a serial killer? She must worry that she’ll wake up dead someday.

There was only one phone call in the next hour, that one from a woman who gave her name as Alexandra Lloyd. She had called last week and Walker had not called her back. Had he received her message? she asked.

“He definitely received the message,” Jennings said firmly. “But I’ll remind him.”

“Please take my number again, and will you tell him that it’s very important?”

“Of course.” Thirty minutes later, when Walker opened the door of his office, Pat could see the flush of excitement on his face. There isn’t a horse running anywhere today that he hasn’t bet on, she thought. “Richard,” she said, “I left a note on your desk last week that an Alexandra Lloyd phoned. She just called again and said that it’s important you get in touch with her.”

She held out the paper with the woman’s number. Richard took it from her, tore it up, and went back into his office. This time he slammed the door shut.

40

The force of the blow that killed Jonathan Lansing was so powerful that the back of his skull was caved in,” Barbara Krause said, as she read the autopsy report. “I wonder what Kay Carrington is thinking when she looks at her husband now.”

Tom Moran shrugged. “If she isn’t getting nervous being alone in the house at night with that guy, I’d wonder if she’s legally sane.”

“This time we can be sure that Carrington had someone helping him,” Krause said. “He didn’t leave Lansing’s car in that godforsaken spot and then hitchhike home. Somebody had to drive him home.”

“I looked at our file from when Lansing disappeared and was reported as a possible suicide. The insurance company suspected it was a phony. They had their investigators all over the area where his car was found. A guy like Peter Carrington gets noticed. He has a look about him. I wouldn’t care if he was wearing clothes from the Salvation Army, he would have been noticed. No one of Carrington’s description got on a bus, or rented a car around there. At the very least, if he drove Lansing’s car there, somebody was waiting to pick him up.”

“Lansing was supposed to have been fired because of his drinking problem,” Krause said, “but suppose there was another reason. Suppose someone was afraid that he was a threat. He was fired two weeks after Susan Althorp disappeared. He supposedly committed suicide two weeks later. By then the police had thoroughly searched the grounds with the cadaver dogs, and I include the property outside the fence.”