No Place Like Home Read online

  She parked on the road, behind the truck from the local television station. As she opened the door of her car, she heard the sound of a helicopter overhead.

  She saw two reporters and a cameraman starting to run around the side of the house. Running herself, Dru caught up with them. She got her camera out just in time to snap Celia toppling over in a faint.

  Then, with the gathering media, she waited until an ambulance pulled up and Marcella Williams came out of the house. The reporters pounced on her, peppering her with questions.

  She’s in her glory, Dru thought as Mrs. Williams explained that Mrs. Nolan had revived and seemed to be shaken but otherwise was fine. Then, as she posed for pictures and spoke into the television microphone, she went into detail of the history of the house.

  “I knew the Bartons,” she explained. “Will Barton was an architect and restored this house himself. It was all such a terrible tragedy.”

  It was a tragedy she was happy to recall for the media, going into great detail, including her belief that Liza Barton at age ten knew exactly what she was doing when she took her father’s gun out of the drawer.

  Dru stepped forward. “Not everyone believes that version,” she said brusquely.

  “Not everyone knew Liza Barton as well as I did,” Marcella snapped back.

  When Williams went back inside, Dru walked up to the front door to study the skull and crossbones that had been carved into it. Startled, she realized that there was an initial carved into each of the eye sockets of the skull—an L in the left socket, and a B in the right one.

  Whoever did this is really creepy, Dru thought. This wasn’t slapped together. A stringer for the New York Post had arrived and began to study the skull and crossbones. He gestured to his cameraman. “Get a close-up of that,” he ordered. “My guess is that we have tomorrow’s front page photo. I’ll see what I can find out about the new owners.”

  That was exactly what Dru was planning to do as well. Her next stop was going to be the home of the neighbor, Marcella Williams, but on a hunch she waited around to see if anyone representing the new owners came out to make a statement.

  Her hunch paid off. Ten minutes later, Alex Nolan appeared before the cameras. “As you can understand, this is a most regrettable incident. My wife will be fine. She’s exhausted from the packing, and the shock of the vandalism simply overwhelmed her. She is resting now.”

  “Is it true you bought the house as a birthday present for her?” Dru asked.

  “Yes, that’s true, and Celia is delighted about it.”

  “Knowing the history of the house, do you think she will want to stay here?”

  “That is entirely her decision. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Alex turned, went back into the house, and closed the door.

  Dru took a long sip from the bottle of water she kept in her shoulder bag. Marcella Williams had explained that she lived just down the road. I’ll go wait for her there. Then, after I talk to her, Dru decided, I’ll look up every detail I can find about the Little Lizzie case. I wonder if the court transcripts are sealed. I’d like to do a feature article about it. I was with the Washington Post when that happened. And wouldn’t it be interesting if I could find out where Liza Barton is now, and what she’s doing with her life. If she did deliberately kill her mother and try to kill her stepfather, chances are she’s gotten into trouble again somewhere along the way.

  7

  When I opened my eyes, I was lying on a couch that the moving men had hastily placed in the living room. The first thing I saw was the terrified look in Jack’s eyes. He was bending over me.

  My mother’s eyes, so frightened in that last moment of her life—Jack’s eyes were so like Mother’s. Instinctively, I reached up my arm and pulled him down beside me. “I’m okay, pal,” I whispered.

  “You scared me,” he whispered back. “You really scared me. I don’t want you to die.”

  Don’t be dead, Mom. Don’t be dead. Hadn’t I moaned that as I rocked my mother’s body in my arms?

  Alex was on the cell phone, demanding to know why the ambulance was taking so long to arrive.

  An ambulance. Ted being carried out on a stretcher to an ambulance . . .

  Still holding Jack, I pushed myself up on one elbow. “I don’t need an ambulance,” I said. “I’m all right, really I am.”

  Georgette Grove was standing at the foot of the couch. “Mrs. Nolan, Celia, I really think it would be better if . . . ”

  “You really must be checked thoroughly,” Marcella Williams said, interrupting Georgette.

  “Jack, Mommy’s fine. We’re getting up.” I swung my legs around and, ignoring the wave of dizziness, leaned one hand on the arm of the couch for balance and pulled myself to my feet. I could see the look of protest on Alex’s face, the concern in his eyes. “Alex, you know how busy this week has been,” I said. “I simply need to get the movers to put your big chair and a hassock in one of the bedrooms and let me take it easy for a couple of hours.”

  “The ambulance is dispatched, Ceil,” Alex told me. “You’ll let them check you over?”

  “Yes.”

  I had to get rid of Georgette Grove and Marcella Williams. I looked directly at them. “I know you’ll understand if I just want to rest quietly,” I said.

  “Of course,” Grove agreed. “And, I’ll take care of everything outside.”

  “Maybe you’d like a cup of tea,” Marcella Williams offered, clearly unwilling to leave.

  Alex put his hand under my arm. “We don’t want to keep you, Mrs. Williams. If you’ll excuse us, please.”

  The wail of a siren told us that the ambulance had arrived.

  The EMT examined me in the second-floor room that had once been my playroom. “You got kind of a nasty shock, I would say,” he observed. “And with what happened outside, I can understand why. Take it easy for the rest of the day, if that’s possible. A cup of tea with a shot of whiskey wouldn’t hurt, either.”

  The sounds of furniture being hauled around seemed to be coming from every direction. I remembered how after my trial, the Kelloggs, my father’s distant cousins from California, came to take me back with them. I asked them to drive past the house. An auction was going on at which they were selling all the furniture and rugs and fixtures and china and paintings.

  I remember watching them carry out the desk that used to be in that corner, the one that I’d used when I drew pictures of pretty rooms. Remembering how awful that moment had been for that little girl in the car who was driving away with virtual strangers, I felt tears streaming from my eyes.

  “Mrs. Nolan, maybe you should come to the hospital.” The EMT was in his fifties, fatherly looking, with a full head of gray hair and bushy eyebrows.

  “No, absolutely not.”

  Alex was leaning over me, brushing the tears from my cheeks. “Celia, I have to go outside and say something to those reporters. I’ll be right back.”

  “Where did Jack go?” I whispered.

  “The moving guy in the kitchen asked Jack to help him unpack the groceries. He’s fine.”

  Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded and felt Alex slip a handkerchief into my hand. Alone, desperately as I tried, I could not stem the river of tears that poured from my eyes.

  I can’t hide anymore, I thought. I can’t live in horror that someone will find out about me. I have to tell Alex. I have to be honest. Better Jack learns about me when he’s young than have the story hit him in twenty years.

  When Alex came back, he slid down beside me on the chair and lifted me onto his lap. “Ceil, what is it? It can’t be just the condition of the house. What else is upsetting you?”

  I felt the tears finally stop, and an icy calm come over me. Maybe this was the moment to tell him. “That story Georgette Grove told about the child who accidentally killed her mother . . . ” I began.

  “Georgette’s spin isn’t the one I heard from Marcella Williams,” Alex interrupted. “According to her, that kid should have been convicte
d. She must have been a little monster. After she shot and killed her mother she kept on shooting the stepfather until the pistol was empty. Marcella says that it came out in court that it took a lot of strength to pull the trigger of that gun. It’s not the kind with a hair trigger that just keeps going off.”

  I struggled free from his embrace. With his preconceived notion, how could I possibly tell Alex the truth now? “Are all those people gone?” I asked, glad to realize that my voice sounded somewhat normal.

  “You mean the media?”

  “The media, the ambulance, the cop, the neighbor, the real estate agent.” I realized that I was gaining strength from my anger. Alex had been willing to accept Marcella Williams’s version of what had happened.

  “Everyone’s gone except the movers.”

  “Then I’d better pull myself together somehow and tell them where I want the furniture placed.”

  “Ceil, tell me what’s wrong.”

  I will tell you, I thought, but only after I can somehow prove to you, and to the world, that Ted Cartwright lied about what happened that night, and that when I held that gun I was trying to defend my mother, not kill her.

  I am going to tell Alex—and the whole world—who I am, but I’m going to do it when I am able to learn everything I can about the full story of that night, and why Mother was so afraid of Ted. She did not let him in that night willingly. I know that. So much of the period after Mother died is a blur. I couldn’t defend myself. There must be a trial transcript, an autopsy report. Things I have to find and read.

  “Ceil, what is wrong?”

  I put my arms around him. “Nothing and everything, Alex,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean that things can’t change.”

  He stepped back and put his hands on my shoulders. “Ceil, there’s something not working between us. I know that. Frankly, living in the apartment that was yours and Larry’s made me feel like a visitor. That’s why when I saw this house, and thought it was the perfect place for us, I couldn’t resist. I know I shouldn’t have bought it without you. I should have let Georgette Grove tell me the background of the place instead of cutting her off, although, in my own defense, from what I know now, she would have glossed over the facts even if I had listened to her.”

  There were tears in Alex’s eyes. This time it was I who brushed them dry. “It’s going to be all right,” I said. “I promise I’m going to make it be all right.”

  8

  Jeffrey MacKingsley, Prosecutor of Morris County, had a particular interest in seeing that the mischief that had once again flared up at the Barton home be squelched once and for all. He had been fourteen and in his first year in high school when the tragedy happened twenty-four years ago. At that time, he lived less than a mile away from the Barton home, and when the news spread through town about the shooting, he’d rushed over and been standing there when the cops carried out the stretcher with the body of Audrey Barton.

  Even then he’d been avidly interested in crime and criminal law, so as a kid he’d read everything he could about the case.

  Over the years, he had remained intrigued with the question of whether ten-year-old Liza Barton had accidentally killed her mother and shot her stepfather in defense of her mother, or was one of those kids who are born without a conscience. And they exist, Jeff thought with a sigh. They sure do exist.

  Sandy-haired, with dark brown eyes, a lean athletic body, six feet tall, and quick to smile, Jeff was the kind of person law-abiding people instinctively liked and trusted. He’d been Prosecutor of Morris County for four years now. As a young assistant prosecutor, he’d understood that if he’d been defending instead of prosecuting a case, he often could have found a loophole that would allow a felon, even a dangerous felon, to walk. That was why, when he’d been offered potentially lucrative positions in defense attorney firms, he elected instead to stay in the prosecutor’s office, where he’d quickly become a star.

  The result was that four years ago, when the prosecutor he’d worked for retired, Jeff was immediately appointed by the governor to take his place.

  On both sides of the courthouse he was known as a straight arrow, tough on crime, but with the ability to understand that many offenders, with the right combination of supervision and punishment, could be rehabilitated.

  Jeff had his next goal in mind—to run for governor after the incumbent’s second term ended. In the meantime, he intended to exercise his authority as prosecutor to make sure that Morris County was a safe place to live.

  That was why the repeated vandalisms of property at the Barton home infuriated and challenged him.

  “Those kids, privileged as they are, have nothing better to do than to rake up that old tragedy and turn that beautiful home into the local haunted house,” Jeff fumed to Anna Malloy, his secretary, when the incident was reported to him. “Every Halloween they tell wild stories about seeing a ghost looking out at them from the upstairs window. And last year they left a big doll on the porch, holding a toy gun.”

  “I wouldn’t want to live in that house,” Anna said matter-of-factly. “I believe that places have vibes. Maybe the kids do see ghosts.”

  The remark made Jeff think, not for the first time, that Anna had a way of sometimes setting his teeth on edge. This was one of those times. Then he was quick to remind himself that she was probably the most hardworking and efficient secretary in the courthouse. Nearly sixty years old, and happily married to a clerk of the court, she never wasted a minute with personal phone calls, as most of the younger secretaries were guilty of doing.

  “Put me through to police headquarters in Mendham,” he said, not adding “please,” which was unusual for him, but signaled to her that he was annoyed.

  Sergeant Earley, whom Jeff knew well, brought him up to date. “I answered the phone call from the real estate agent. A couple named Nolan bought the house.”

  “How did they react when they saw what had happened?”

  “He was furious. She was really upset, actually fainted.”

  “How old are they?”

  “He’s mid to late thirties. She is probably about thirty. Classy. You know what I mean. They have a four-year-old boy who found a pony waiting for him in the barn. Get this. The boy was able to read the writing on the lawn and wants to name the pony Lizzie.”

  “I’m sure that went over big with the mother.”

  “She seemed okay with it.”

  “I understand that this time whoever did it wasn’t satisfied with wrecking the lawn.”

  “This goes beyond anything that’s ever been pulled before. I went straight over to the school to talk to the kids who pulled the Halloween trick last year. Michael Buckley was the ringleader. He’s twelve and a smart aleck. He swears he had nothing to do with it, but then had the nerve to say that he thinks it was only fair for somebody to warn the new owners that they bought a creepy house.”

  “Do you believe he wasn’t involved?”

  “His father backs him up, says they were both home last night.” Earley hesitated. “Jeff, I believe Mike, not because he isn’t capable of pulling the wool over his father’s eyes and sneaking out in the middle of the night, but because this just wasn’t a kid’s trick.”

  “How do you know?”

  “This time they used real paint, not that stuff that washes off. This time they did a job on the front of the house, and from the height of the carving it’s clear that someone a lot taller than Michael did it. Something else—the skull and crossbones on the door were done by someone who is artistic. When I looked up close, I could see that it had initials in the eye sockets. L and B. For Lizzie Borden, I guess.”

  “Or Liza Barton,” Jeff injected.

  Earley reconsidered. “Oh, sure. I didn’t think about that. Finally, the doll that was left on the porch wasn’t a beat-up rag doll like the other one was. This one cost money.”

  “That should make it easier to trace.”

  “I hope so. We’re working on it.”

  “Keep m
e posted.”

  “The problem is that even if we track down the culprits, the Nolans refuse to sign a complaint,” Earley continued, frustration evident in his voice. “But Mr. Nolan plans to fence in the property and put up security cameras, so I don’t think there should be any more problems.”

  “Clyde,” Jeff cautioned, “if there’s one thing that you and I know, it’s that, no matter what the situation, you can never assume there aren’t going to be any more problems.”

  Clyde Earley, like many other people, tended to raise his voice when he was on the phone. As Jeff replaced the receiver, it was clear that Anna had caught every word. “Jeff,” she said, “a long time ago, I read a book called Psychic Explorations. In it, the author said that when there has been a tragedy in a house, the walls retain the vibrations, and when someone with a similar background moves into the house, the tragedy will have to be completed. The Bartons were a young, upscale couple, with a four-year-old child when they moved into the house on Old Mill Lane. From what I heard Sergeant Earley say, the Nolans are an upscale couple about that age, with a four-year-old child. Kind of makes you wonder what’s next, doesn’t it?”

  9

  The next morning when I awoke, I looked at the clock and was startled to realize that it was already quarter past eight. In a reflex gesture, I turned my head. The pillow beside me was still indented from where Alex’s head had rested on it, but the room had the feeling of being empty. Then I saw that he had propped a note against the lamp on his bedside table. I read it quickly.

  “Darling Ceil,

  Woke at 6 A.M. So glad to see that you were sleeping after all that you went through yesterday. Took off for an hour’s ride at the club. Will make it a short day and be home by three. Hope Jack takes well to his first day at school. I want to hear all about it. Love you both, A.”

  Years ago I read a biography of the great musical comedy star, Gertrude Lawrence, written by her husband, the producer Richard Aldrich after her death. He had titled it Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A. In the six months we’d been married, whenever Alex happened to jot off a note to me, he invariably signed it “A.” I had rather enjoyed thinking of myself as Mrs. A, and even now, with the weight of awareness of where I was, I felt a lift of the heart. I wanted to be Mrs. A. I wanted a normal life in which I could smile indulgently, taking pleasure in the fact that my husband was an early bird so that he could have time for the horseback ride that he enjoyed so much.