I 've Heard That Song Before

9

Prosecutor Barbara Krause studied the picture the paparazzi had snapped of Peter Carrington and his new wife, Kay, walking on a beach in the Dominican Republic. Happy is the bride the sun shines on today, she thought sarcastically as she pushed aside the newspaper.

Now fifty-two years old, Barbara had graduated from law school and began her career as a clerk for a Bergen County criminal judge; after one year she moved across the courthouse to become an assistant prosecutor. For the next twenty-seven years, she worked her way up in that office, becoming trial chief, first assistant, and finally, upon the retirement of her predecessor three years ago, was named prosecutor. It was a world she loved, an enthusiasm she shared with her husband, a civil court judge in nearby Essex County.

Susan Althorp had disappeared when Barbara had only been in the office a few years. Because of the prominence of both the Althorp and the Carrington families, the case had been investigated from every possible angle. The inability to solve it or even to be able to indict the number one suspect, Peter Carrington, had been a bone in the throat to Barbara’s predecessors, as it was to her.

From time to time, over the years, she had taken out the Susan Althorp file and reviewed it, trying to take a fresh look, circling some testimony, putting a question mark after certain statements. Unfortunately, none of it had ever led anywhere. Now, as she sat at her desk, some of Peter Carrington’s statements ran through her mind.

He claimed that he had dropped Susan at her door that night: “She didn’t wait for me to open the car door. She ran up the steps to the porch, turned the handle, waved to me, and went inside.”

“That was the last time you saw her?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do then?”

“I went home. There were still some people dancing on the terrace. I’d been playing tennis all afternoon and was tired. I parked my car in the garage and went into the house through the side door, straight upstairs to my room and to bed. I fell asleep instantly.”

See no evil, hear no evil, Barbara thought. Interestingly enough, he used the same story the night his wife drowned in the pool.

She glanced at her watch. It was time to go. She had been sitting in on a homicide trial, just observing. Closing arguments were about to begin. In this case, the identity of the killer was not in question; rather it was a matter of whether the jury would find the defendant guilty of murder or of manslaughter. A domestic quarrel had turned violent, and now the father of three young children would probably spend at least the next twenty-five to thirty years in prison for killing their mother.

Let him! Because of him, these kids have nothing, Barbara thought as she stood up to head back to the courtroom. He should have taken the twenty-year plea we offered him. Nearly six feet tall, and always fighting a weight problem, she knew her nickname around the courthouse was “the linebacker.” She reached for a final sip of coffee from the cup on her desk.

As she did, the newspaper picture of Peter Carrington and his new wife again came into her line of vision. “You’ve had twenty-two years of freedom since Susan Althorp disappeared, Mr. Carrington,” she said aloud. “If I ever get a chance to get my hands on you, I can promise you one thing: There won’t be any plea to manslaughter. I’ll try you for murder and I’ll get a conviction.”