Officer Hausenstock got on his car radio. “Richard Walker is here,” he said. “The guard last saw him a half hour ago, walking toward his mother’s house on the grounds. Send backup units, but don’t use sirens or lights. Hopefully he hasn’t spotted me yet.” Still holding the radio in his hand, the officer asked the guard, “Does Slater’s office lead into the interior of the house?”

“Yes,” the guard replied.

The officer continued to talk into his radio as he walked. “I’m going around to the back of the house to see if Carrington’s assistant, a guy named Slater, is there. If he is, I’ll get into the house that way and check it out. I don’t want to ring the doorbell in case Walker has somehow gotten back into the house without the guard seeing him.”

Officer Hausenstock turned back to the guard. “Richard Walker may be dangerous, and he may be armed. More police officers will be here soon. If you see Walker, try to avoid any contact with him, and alert the other officers as soon as they get here. He may try to drive out. Tell the guard at the gate what is happening and make sure he closes the gates as soon as the other police arrive.”

83

I stood virtually frozen with fear as Richard Walker moved toward us, but then stopped far enough away so that neither of us would have a chance to grab the gun away from him. Vince stepped in front of me; I knew he was attempting to shield me. Richard was pointing the gun directly at us.

“Richard, don’t do anything stupid,” Vince said calmly. “What is this all about?”

“What is it about?” Walker’s voice was choked with emotion. “I’ll tell you what it’s all about. It’s about the fact that, in the very short time that the present Mrs. Peter Carrington has been here, my life has been destroyed. My mother, for all these years, has protected Peter by hiding that shirt. She saw him wearing it when he came home that night. She could see the bloodstains on it, and she believed he had gotten into some kind of trouble. If she had turned it over to the police the next day, when everybody realized that Susan was missing, Peter would have spent the last twenty-two years in prison.”

The telephone on the table at the bottom of the stairs leading to the third floor began to ring. Walker made a gesture to us to be quiet so that he could hear if a message was left on the answering machine.

I had put the volume on high that afternoon so that I could hear any messages while I was on the third floor. A moment later, Maggie’s voice, sounding anxious and frightened, said, “Kay, it’s late. Where are you? I just remembered who it was your father told me he’d heard whistling that song. It was Richard Walker, Elaine’s son. Kay, wasn’t he going to be at your house for dinner tonight? Kay, please be careful. I’m so worried about you. Call me back as soon as you get this message.”

I could sense that Richard knew that it was all over for him. I stepped away from Vincent. Whatever was going to happen, I wanted to confront Richard. “It was you who killed Susan Althorp,” I said, my calm tone masking the fear I felt. “It was you and Susan that I heard in the chapel that afternoon, wasn’t it?”

I pointed to the painting I had been examining. “You’re the art dealer with the gambling problem. I think you’re the one who switched this painting-and God knows how many others. Peter told me that the best art was on the walls downstairs. Well, this one was hung in the dining room, but it’s only a copy. The real one can be seen on the wall behind Marian Howley in that People magazine article. That one actually belongs in this house, doesn’t it, Richard? Grace was on to you, just as Susan had been years before. Susan knew a lot about art. She confronted you about the theft, didn’t she? I don’t know why Susan would blackmail you instead of telling Peter’s father, but she did.”

“Don’t say anything more, Kay,” Vince warned. I realized that Vince was concerned that Richard might lose control and shoot, but I was determined to finish what I had begun.

“Your mother wasn’t protecting Peter,” I said. “She was protecting you. And there’s a lot more. My father prepared a landscaping design for the other side of the fence, the area where you had buried Susan. He sent it to Peter so he could pass it on to his father, but Peter was away at school and didn’t see it. But I think that your mother did see it, and then she showed it to you. You both realized then that you had to get rid of my father. It wasn’t enough that you had already fired him. You were afraid that he might still communicate with Peter’s father about the design, and you couldn’t let that happen. You made his death look like a suicide, and then you buried my father here on the grounds, because you thought they’d never search these grounds again.”

Vince had grasped my arm; I could tell he was frantic to stop me. Richard’s hand was shaking. Even though I knew he would probably shoot us, I had to keep going. I was overwhelmed by the emotion of all the years of desperately missing my father, and, even worse, believing that he had abandoned me. I was tortured by the weeks of watching my husband shackled and chained, and it was all because of this man.

In that moment, I became aware of a shadow moving in the hallway behind Richard. I wondered suddenly if it could be Elaine Carrington or Gary Barr, coming to help Richard. Even if Maggie had decided to call the police when I didn’t answer the phone, it was probably too soon for them to have arrived here. Whoever it was out in the hallway, I wanted that person to hear what I had to say to Richard Walker.

“You not only killed Susan and my father, you killed Grace, too,” I continued. “She had that page from the magazine in her pocket when they found her in the pool. She must have realized that the original Morley painting belonged in this house. And Richard, you might be interested to know that the person you had copy it for you was so proud of her work that she actually signed her own name under the forged Morley signature.”

I pointed again to the painting I had been examining. “Tell me, Richard, who is Alexandra Lloyd?”

With a sigh of resignation, a weak smile crossed Richard’s face. His hand stopped trembling. “As a matter of fact, Alexandra Lloyd was an artist, but now she’s dead. I just heard on the news that her body has been fished out of the East River. Like Susan, the charming young lady who was also a drug addict, Alexandra didn’t understand that blackmailing me was a very stupid move. You have also made some serious mistakes, Kay, and now I must deal with you as I dealt with them.”

Richard then looked at Vince, and spoke directly to him. “I am sorry, Vince. I did not come here intending to harm you. You have always been decent to me and to my mother. But, unfortunately, you showed up at the wrong time. It’s over for me. My luck has run out. The police will eventually connect me to Alexandra, and then they’ll figure out the rest of it. I still have a small chance of escaping, though, and so I can’t leave you here to notify the police.”

Richard turned to me. “But if they do get me, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing, when I’m sitting in prison, that you won’t be enjoying yourself on the Carrington money.” He aimed the pistol toward my head. “Ladies first, Kay.”

As I whispered Peter’s name, the shadow I had seen in the hallway became a cop who burst into the room, knocked the weapon from Richard’s hand, and tackled him to the floor. “Police!” he shouted to Richard. “Stay down, stay down!”

As the police officer struggled with Richard, Vincent kicked the pistol across the room and then fell onto Richard, trying to help the officer subdue him. Moments later, there was a pounding of feet on the stairs and two more police officers raced into the room. When he saw them, Richard stopped struggling and began to sob.