I 've Heard That Song Before

44

The lawyers are staying for lunch,” Jane Barr told her husband when he returned from the errands she had sent him to complete. “Wouldn’t you think three straight hours would be enough? Mrs. Carrington looks absolutely terrible. I swear that girl is getting sick.”

“It’s been a lot of strain on her,” Gary Barr agreed as he hung his coat in the closet by the kitchen door.

“I made chicken soup,” Jane said unnecessarily. The aroma of simmering chicken and onions and celery was permeating the kitchen. “I’ll bake some biscuits and have a salad and cheese. None of them are vegetarians.”

Gary Barr knew his wife. For the last two weeks, since Susan Althorp’s remains had been found, Jane had been unraveling. He watched as she went over to the sink and began washing lettuce. He came up behind her. “Do you feel okay?” he asked timidly.

Jane swung around, her face contorted with guilt and rage. “There never was a finer human being in the world than Peter Carrington, and he’s in jail right now because-”

“Don’t say it, Jane,” Gary Barr ordered, his own face mottled with anger. “Don’t say it, and don’t think it. Because it isn’t true. I swear on my immortal soul that it isn’t true. You believed me twenty-two years ago. You’d better keep believing me now, or else we both may be living under the same roof as Peter Carrington again, and I don’t mean on this estate.”