Jeff MacKingsley spent the better part of the day at Roxiticus Golf Club, participating in a golf outing that benefited the Morris County Historical Society. An excellent golfer with a six handicap, it was the kind of event that on a normal day he thoroughly enjoyed. Today, despite the perfect weather and the good friends in his foursome, he could not keep his mind on his game. The stories in the morning newspapers about the vandalism at One Old Mill Lane had gotten under his skin.
The picture of Celia Nolan fainting as she tried to run from the media particularly distressed and irritated him. If this had been a bias crime, we’d be combing the town to find out who did it, he kept thinking. Unlike the last episode this is no Halloween prank. This is vicious.
By the end of the morning he had lost to all of his three golfing companions. The result was that he paid for a round of Bloody Marys at the bar before the festive luncheon.
The club was decorated with sketches and paintings borrowed from the museum at George Washington’s headquarters at Morristown. Jeff, a history buff, never failed to appreciate the fact that so much of the surrounding countryside had been fought over during the Revolutionary War.
But today during the luncheon he glanced unseeingly at the historical artifacts. Before coffee was served he called his office and was assured by Anna that it was a quiet day. She did not let him end the call until she commented on the newspapers she had read that morning: “The pictures they took of Little Lizzie’s Place show that somebody really did a job on it this time,” she said, with a certain amount of relish in her voice. “I’m going to drive by and take a look at it on my way home.”
Jeff did not let her in on the fact that he was planning to do the exact same thing. He only hoped that he would not bump into his omnipresent secretary, but then consoled himself with the realization that he’d be there around three o’clock, and Anna wouldn’t dream of leaving her desk until five.
The luncheon finally over, and with a last apology for his dismal game, Jeff escaped to his car, and less than ten minutes later was turning onto Old Mill Lane. As he drove he was remembering the night twenty-four years ago when he’d been at his desk exceptionally late catching up on school assignments, and on impulse had turned on the radio that was his prize possession. It was equipped with the police shortwave band the squad cars used. That was when he heard the intense report. “Male calling for help at One Old Mill Lane. Says he’s been shot and his wife murdered. Neighbors reporting sounds of gunshots.”
It had been about one in the morning, Jeff remembered. Mom and Dad were asleep. I got on my bicycle and rode over there and stood with some of the Bartons’ neighbors on the road. God, it was a lousy, cold night, October 28th, twenty-four years ago. Within minutes, the media was swarming around the place. I saw the stretcher with Ted Cartwright being carried out of the house, two EMTs holding IVs that were attached to him. Then they brought out the body bag with Audrey Barton’s corpse and put it in the meat wagon. I even remember what I was thinking—seeing her ride in the horse show and how she took first prize in jumping.
He had stayed at the scene until he saw the squad car with Liza Barton inside speeding away. Even then I wondered what was going through her mind, Jeff recalled.
He still wondered that same thing. From what he understood, after she had thanked Clyde Earley for the blanket he wrapped around her, she didn’t say another word for months.
As he passed the house at 3 Old Mill Lane, he saw a man and a woman standing in the driveway. The next-door neighbor, he thought, the one who had so much to say to the reporters. And that’s Ted Cartwright with her. Wonder why he’s around here?
Jeff was tempted to stop and talk to them, but he decided against it. It was obvious from the way she’d talked to the media that Marcella Williams was a gossip. I don’t need her spreading the word that I have some kind of personal interest in this case, Jeff thought.
He slowed the car down almost to a crawl. Here it was, the Barton house. Little Lizzie’s Place. A commercial-type van was in the driveway, and a man dressed in overalls was ringing the doorbell.
At first blush, the eighteenth-century, two-story mansion, with its unusual combination of a frame structure and a limestone foundation, did not seem damaged. But after Jeff stopped the car and got out, he could see where a base coat had been applied to many vandalized shingles, and splashes of red were still visible on the foundation. The newly laid sod also stood out from the rest of the lawn, and Jeff grimaced as he realized just how large the lettering of the painted message must have been.
He watched as the door opened and a woman appeared. She looked to be fairly tall and very slender. It had to be Celia Nolan, the new owner. She spoke to the workman for a moment, then closed the door, and the workman returned to the van and began to pull out a drop cloth and tools.
Jeff had not intended to do more than drive past the vandalized house, but on a sudden impulse decided to walk up the driveway and see for himself the remaining damage before it was repaired. That, of course, meant that he would have to speak to the new owners. He hated to disturb them, but there was no way the Morris County prosecutor could be walking around on their property without an explanation.
The workman turned out to be a mason who had been hired by the real estate agent to polish the limestone. Skinny, in his late sixties, with weathered skin and a prominent Adam’s apple, he introduced himself as Jimmy Walker.
“Like the mayor of New York in the 1920s,” he said with a hearty laugh. “They even wrote a song about him.”
Jimmy Walker was a talker. “Last Halloween, Mrs. Harriman, she was the owner then, had me here, too. Boy, was she mad. The stuff the kids used that night came right off, but I guess the doll with the gun in its hand sitting in a chair on the porch really spooked her. When she opened the door in the morning that was the first thing she saw.”
Jeff turned to go up to the porch, but Walker kept talking. “Guess the women who own this house all get nervous living here. I seen the newspaper this morning. We get the Daily Record delivered. It’s good to get the local paper. You know what’s going on. They had a big story about this house. Did you read it?”
I wonder if he gets paid by the hour, Jeff thought. If so, the Nolans are being ripped off. I bet if he doesn’t catch somebody’s ear, he talks to himself.
“I have the newspapers,” he said shortly as he walked up the final step to the porch. He had seen the picture of the skull and crossbones in the papers, but even so, to be standing in front of it was entirely different. Someone had dug into the beautiful mahogany doors, someone talented enough to have carved the skull with excellent symmetry, to have placed the letters L and B exactly in the middle of the eye sockets.
But why? He pushed the doorbell and heard the faint sound of chimes echoing inside the house.