I 've Heard That Song Before

38

Five days after they found his remains, they gave me the locket they had found around my father’s neck. They had photographed and analyzed it for any possible evidence, but then had agreed to let me have it. The lab had cleaned twenty-two years of grime off it, until the underlying sheen of silver appeared. The locket was closed, but the dampness had worked its way inside, and my mother’s picture was darkened even though her features were still recognizable. I wore the chain and locket to my father’s funeral.

Of course they blamed Daddy’s death on Peter. Vincent Slater had driven Peter back and forth to Manhattan the afternoon the remains were found, and they arrived here minutes after the discovery was made. Slater immediately called Conner Banks, who contacted Prosecutor Krause. She told him that she had reached Judge Smith, and he had scheduled an emergency hearing for eight P.M. that evening. She also said that, although she was not yet seeking a warrant for Peter’s arrest in this newly discovered homicide, one might very well follow. Tonight she was planning to request that the judge raise Peter’s bail and alter the terms of release so that he no longer would be allowed to leave the premises except for a dire medical emergency.

Banks told Vincent he’d meet him and Peter at the courthouse. I wanted to go with them, but Peter absolutely refused to allow it.

I tried to make him realize that after that first terrible shock, my second reaction was one of infinite regret that for so many years I had been angry at my father. I told him that all the anger I had felt at being abandoned had now evolved into pity for Daddy, accompanied by a raging desire to find who had killed him. Sitting on Peter’s lap, the blanket still wrapped around me, the library door closed, I told Peter that I knew he was innocent, that I knew it with every bone in my body, with every fiber of my being.

Maggie phoned the minute she heard the story on the local news. When Peter realized she was calling, he told me to invite her to come over. Fortunately, she arrived after he and Vincent left for the courthouse. Then I sent home Jane Barr, who had been visibly upset at the discovery of Daddy’s body.

“Your father was a lovely man, Mrs. Carrington,” she said, weeping. “And to think of him lying out there all these years.”

I was grateful that she clearly cared about my father, but I didn’t want to listen. I told Gary to go home with her.

Maggie and I sat in the kitchen. She fixed tea and toast; neither one of us wanted anything more than that. While we sipped the tea and nibbled on a few bites of toast, we were both keenly aware that men were continuing to dig in the yard, and we could hear the dogs barking as they were taken back and forth over the grounds.

That night Maggie looked every day of her eighty-three years. I knew she was worried about me, and I completely understood. She thought I was crazy to believe in Peter’s innocence, and she didn’t want me to stay in the house alone with Peter. I knew that nothing I could say would reassure her.

Vincent called at nine o’clock to tell me that they had increased Peter’s bail another ten million dollars, and that a messenger was on his way with a certified check in that amount from Manhattan.

“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.”