When I left Benjamin Fletcher’s office, I drove around aimlessly for a while trying to decide if I should have told him I was Liza Barton, or if I even should have gone to see him at all. His horrible statement that my mother had been having an affair with Ted while she was married to my father infuriated me, even while I recognized the bitter truth that she had certainly been in love with Ted when she married him.
I told myself that the plus of hiring Fletcher was that it was obvious he despised Paul Walsh, and would be a tiger in keeping him from harassing me. Hiring Fletcher also would ease my explanation to Alex of my refusal to cooperate with the prosecutor’s office. I reasonably could say that everything that has happened seems to be connected to the Liza Barton case, and therefore I went straight to Liza Barton’s lawyer for help. It seemed like a natural thing to do.
I knew that eventually I would have to tell Alex the truth about myself—and risk losing him—but I didn’t want to do it yet. If I could only remember exactly what my mother shouted at Ted that night, I felt sure I would have the key to why he threw her at me, and perhaps even the answer to whether or not I shot him deliberately.
In all the pictures I drew for Dr. Moran when I was a child, the gun is in midair. No hand is touching it. I know the impact of my mother’s body caused it to go off in my hand the first time. I only wish I could somehow prove that when I shot Ted I was in a catatonic state.
Zach was the key to answering all these questions. All these years, I have never considered that my father’s death was anything but an accident. But now, as I try to piece together my mother’s final words, I can’t find the missing ones:
“You told me when you were drunk . . . Zach saw you . . . ”
What did Ted tell my mother? And what did Zach see?
It was only ten o’clock. I called the office of the Daily Record and was told that all back issues of the newspaper were on microfilm in the county library on Randolph Street. At ten thirty I was in the reference room of the library, requesting the microfilm of the newspapers that included May 9th, the day my father died, twenty-seven years ago.
Of course, the minute I started to read the May 9th edition, I realized that any account of my father’s death would be printed the next day. I glanced through the columns anyhow, and noticed that an antique-gun marksmanship contest was scheduled that day at Jockey Hollow at noon. Twenty antique-gun collectors were competing, including the prominent Morris County collector, Ted Cartwright.
I looked at the picture of Ted. He was in his late thirties then, his hair still dark, a swaggering, devil-may-care look about him. He was staring at the camera, holding in his hand the gun he planned to use in the contest.
I hurriedly moved the microfilm to the next day. On the front page I found the story about my father: “Will Barton, Award-winning Architect, Dies in Riding Accident.”
The picture of my father was exactly as I remember him—the thoughtful eyes that always held a hint of a smile, the aristocratic nose and mouth, the full head of dark blond hair. If he had lived, he would be in his sixties now. I found myself playing the dangerous game of wondering what my life would have been like if he were still alive, if that horrible night had never happened.
The newspaper account of his accident was the same as the one Zach Willet had told me. Other people heard my father tell Zach that he’d start walking his horse on the trail instead of waiting for Zach to get the stone out of his own horse’s hoof. No one had seen my father go on the trail, which was clearly marked DANGER. DO NOT ENTER. The consensus of opinion was that something may have frightened the horse, and that “Barton, an inexperienced rider, was unable to control him.”
Then I read the sentence that seemed to explode before my eyes: “A groom, Herbert West, who was exercising a horse on a nearby trail, reported hearing a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot at the time that Mr. Barton would have been near the fork in the road that led to the treacherous slope.”
“A loud noise that sounded like a gunshot.”
I moved the microfilm until I came to the sports pages of that day’s edition. Ted Cartwright was holding a trophy in one hand and an old Colt .22 target auto pistol in the other. He had won the marksmanship contest, and the article said he was going to celebrate by having lunch at the Peapack Club with friends, and then was going for a long horseback ride. “I’ve been so busy practicing my marksmanship that I haven’t had a decent ride for weeks,” he told the reporter.
My father died at three o’clock—plenty of time for Ted to have had lunch and gone out for a ride, traveling along the trail that leads to the Washington Valley trails. Was it possible he came upon my father, the man who had taken my mother from him, perhaps saw him struggling to control the horse he was riding?
It was possible, but it was all conjecture. There was only one way I could learn the truth, and that was from Zach Willet.
I printed out the articles—the one about my father’s accident and the one about Ted winning the marksmanship contest. It was time to pick up Jack. I left the library, got in my car, and drove to St. Joe’s.
Today I could tell by Jack’s woebegone face that the morning hadn’t gone well. He didn’t want to talk about what had happened, but by the time we got home, and were sitting in the kitchen having lunch, he was starting to open up.
“One of the kids in my class said that I live in a house where a kid shot her mother. Is that right, Mom?” he asked.
My mind leaped ahead to the day when he might find out that I was the kid who shot her mother. I took a deep breath and said, “From what I understand, Jack, that little girl lived in this house with her mother and father, and she was very, very happy. Then her father died, and one night someone tried to hurt her mother, and so she tried to save her.”
“If someone tried to hurt you, I’d save you,” Jack promised.
“I know you would, sweetheart. So if your friend asks about that little girl again, say that she was very brave. She couldn’t save her mother, but that was what she was trying so hard to do.”
“Mommy, don’t cry.”
“I don’t want to, Jack,” I said. “I just feel so sorry for that little girl.”
“I’m sorry for her, too,” Jack decided.
I told him that if it was okay with him, Sue was going to come over and stay with him, and I’d go for another riding lesson. I saw a shadow of doubt across his face, so I hurried on: “Sue is teaching you to ride, and I’m taking lessons so that I can keep up with you.”
That explanation helped, but then Jack finished his sandwich, pushed back his chair, came around, and lifted his arms to me. “Can I sit on your lap for a little while?” he asked.
“You bet.” I picked him up and hugged him. “Who thinks you’re a perfect little boy?” I asked him.
This was a game we played. I saw a hint of a smile. “You do,” he said.
“Who loves you to pieces?”
“You do, Mommy.”
“You’re so smart,” I marveled. “I can’t believe how smart you are.”
Now he was laughing. “I love you, Mommy.”
As I held him, I thought of the night the limo hit me, and how, in that scary moment before I lost consciousness, all I could think was, What will happen to Jack if I die? When I woke up in the hospital, it was my first thought as well. Kathleen and Martin were his guardians, but Kathleen was seventy-four, and Martin was a full-time responsibility. Even if she remained healthy for another ten years, Jack would only be fourteen when she reached eighty-four. That was why it had been such a vast relief to see Alex there, to know he was going home to my apartment to be with Jack. In these six months, I have felt so secure knowing that Alex is Jack’s guardian. But suppose Alex leaves us when he finds out about me? What will that do to Jack?
My little boy fell asleep in my arms, just a nap for about twenty minutes. I wondered if I gave him the same sense of security my father had given me that day the wave crashed us to shore. I prayed to my father that he would help me learn the truth about his death. I thought of what Benjamin Fletcher had said about my mother and Ted Cartwright. I thought of my mother falling to her knees at my father’s funeral, wailing, “I want my husband. I want my husband!”
You told me when you were drunk. You killed my husband. You told me Zach saw you do it.
That was what my mother had screamed that night! I was as certain of it as I was that my little boy was in my arms. The pieces had finally fallen into place. For a long time I sat there very quietly, absorbing the import of those words. It explained why my mother threw Ted out. It explained why she was afraid of him, and of what he might do to her to save himself.
Why didn’t she go to the police? I wondered. Was it because she was afraid of how I might judge her if I learned that another man killed my father because he wanted her?
When Sue arrived, I left for my final riding lesson with Zach Willet.