Part 1 (2/2)
The gun going off...
Lizzie Borden had an axe...
”Are you all right, Mrs. Nolan?” Henry Paley is asking me.
”Yes, of course,” I manage, with some effort. My tongue feels too heavy to mouth the words.
My mind is racing with the thought that I should not have let Larry, my first husband, make me swear that I wouldn't tell the truth about myself to anyone, not even to someone I married. In this moment I am fiercely angry at Larry for wringing that promise from me. He had been so kind when I told him about myself before our marriage, but in the end he failed me. He was ashamed of my past, afraid of the impact it might have on our son's future. That fear has brought us here, now.
Already the lie is a wedge driven between Alex and me. We both feel it. He talks about wanting to have children soon, and I wonder how he would feel if he knew that Little Lizzie Borden would be their mother.
It's been twenty-four years, but such memories die hard. Will anyone in town recognize me? I wonder. Probably not. But though I agreed to live in this area, I did not agree to live in this town, or in this house. I can't live here. I simply can't.
To avoid the curiosity in Paley's eyes, I walk over to the mantel and pretend to study it.
”Beautiful, isn't it?” Paley asks, the professional enthusiasm of the real estate agent ringing through his somewhat high-pitched voice.
”Yes, it is.”
”The master bedroom is very large, and has two separate, wonderfully appointed baths.” He opens the door to the bedroom and looks expectantly at me. Reluctantly, I follow him.
Memories flood my mind. Weekend mornings in this room. I used to get in bed with Mommy and Daddy. Daddy would bring up coffee for Mommy and hot chocolate for me.
Their king-size bed with the tufted headboard is gone, of course. The soft peach walls are now painted dark green. Looking out the back windows I can see that the j.a.panese maple tree Daddy planted so long ago is now mature and beautiful.
Tears are pressing against my eyelids. I want to run out of here. If necessary I will have to break my promise to Larry and tell Alex the truth about myself. I am not Celia Foster, nee Kellogg, the daughter of Kathleen and Martin Kellogg of Santa Barbara, California. I am Liza Barton, born in this town and, as a child, reluctantly acquitted by a judge of murder and attempted murder.
”Mom, Mom!” I hear my son's voice as his footsteps clatter on the uncarpeted floorboards. He hurries into the room, energy encapsulated, small and st.u.r.dy, a bright quickness about him, a handsome little boy, the center of my heart. At night I steal into his room to listen to the sound of his even breathing. He is not interested in what happened years ago. He is satisfied if I am there to answer when he calls me.
As he reaches me, I bend down and catch him in my arms. Jack has Larry's light brown hair and high forehead. His beautiful blue eyes are my mother's, but then Larry had blue eyes, too.
In those last moments of fading consciousness, Larry had whispered that when Jack attended his prep school, he didn't want him to ever have to deal with the tabloids digging up those old stories about me. I taste again the bitterness of knowing that his father was ashamed of me.
Ted Cartwright swears estranged wife begged for reconciliation...
State psychiatrist testifies ten-year-old Liza Barton mentally competent to form the intent to commit murder....
Was Larry right to swear me to silence? At this moment, I can't be sure of anything. I kiss the top of Jack's head.
”I really, really, really like it here,” he tells me excitedly.
Alex is coming into the bedroom. He planned this surprise for me with so much care. When we came up the driveway, it had been festooned with birthday balloons, swaying on this breezy August day-all painted with my name and the words ”Happy Birthday.” But the exuberant joy with which he handed me the key and the deed to the house is gone. He can read me too well.
He knows I'm not happy. He is disappointed and hurt, and why wouldn't he be?
”When I told the people at the office what I'd done, a couple of the women said that no matter how beautiful a house might be, they'd want to have the chance to make the decision about buying it,” he said, his voice forlorn.
They were right, I thought as I looked at him, at his reddish-brown hair and brown eyes. Tall and wide-shouldered, Alex has a look of strength about him that makes him enormously attractive. Jack adores him. Now Jack slides from my arms and puts his arm around Alex's leg.
My husband and my son.
And my house.
CHAPTER 2.
The Grove Real Estate Agency was on East Main Street in the attractive New Jersey town of Mendham. Georgette Grove parked in front of it and got out of the car. The August day was unusually cool, and the overhead clouds were threatening rain. Her short-sleeved linen suit was not warm enough for the weather, and she moved with a quick step up the path to the door of her office.
Sixty-two years old, Georgette was a handsome whippet-thin woman with short wavy hair the color of steel, hazel eyes, and a firm chin. At the moment, her emotions were conflicted. She was pleased at how smoothly the closing had gone on the house she had just helped sell. It was one of the smaller houses in town, its selling price barely breaking the seven figure mark, but even though she had split the commission with another broker, the check she was carrying was manna from heaven. It would give her a few months' reserve until she landed another sale.
So far it had been a disastrous year, saved only by her sale of the house on Old Mill Lane to Alex Nolan. That one had caught her up on overdue bills at the office. She had very much wanted to be present that morning when Nolan presented the house to his wife. I hope she likes surprises, Georgette thought for the hundredth time. She worried that what he was doing was risky. She had tried to warn him about the house, about its history, but Nolan didn't seem to care. Georgette worried also that since he'd put the house in his wife's name only, if his wife didn't like it, she, Georgette, might be wide open to a non-disclosure suit.
It was part of the real estate code of New Jersey that a prospective buyer had to be notified if a house was a stigmatized property, meaning one that might be impacted by a factor that, on a psychological level, could cause apprehension or fears. Since some people would not want to live in a house in which a crime had been committed, or in which there had been a suicide, the real estate agent was obliged to make a prospective client aware of any such history. The statute even required the agent to reveal if a house had the reputation of being haunted.
I tried to tell Alex Nolan that there had been a tragedy in the house on Old Mill Lane, Georgette thought defensively as she opened the office door and stepped into the reception room. But he had cut her off, saying that his family used to rent a two-hundred-year-old house on Cape Cod, and the history of some of the people who lived in it would curl your hair. But this is different, Georgette thought. I should have told him that around here the house he bought is known as ”Little Lizzie's Place.”
She wondered if Nolan had become nervous about his surprise. At the last minute he had asked her to be at the house when they arrived, but it had been impossible to change the other closing.
Instead she had sent Henry Paley to greet Nolan and his wife, and to be there to answer any questions Mrs. Nolan might have. Henry had been reluctant to cover for her, and in the end she had been forced to remind him, rather sharply, not only to be there, but to be sure to emphasize the many desirable features of the house and property.
At Nolan's request, the driveway had been decorated with festive balloons, all painted with the words ”Happy Birthday, Celia.” The porch had been draped with festive papier-mche, and he also had asked that champagne and a birthday cake and gla.s.ses and plates and silverware and birthday napkins be waiting inside.
When Georgette pointed out that there was absolutely no furniture in the house, and offered to bring over a folding table and chairs, Nolan had been upset. He had rushed to a nearby furniture store and ordered an expensive gla.s.s patio table and chairs, and instructed the salesman to have them placed in the dining room. ”We'll switch them to the patio when we move in, or if Celia doesn't like them, we'll donate them to a charity and take a deduction,” he had said.
Five thousand dollars for a patio set and he's talking about giving it away, Georgette had thought, but she knew he meant it. Yesterday afternoon he had phoned and asked her to be sure there were a dozen roses in every room on the main floor, as well as in the master bedroom suite. ”Roses are Ceil's favorite flowers,” he explained. ”When we got married, I promised her that she'd never be without them.”
He's rich. He's handsome. He's charming. And he's clearly devoted to his wife, Georgette thought as she stepped inside and automatically glanced around the reception room to see if any potential clients were waiting there. From half the marriages I've seen, she's a d.a.m.n lucky woman.
But how will she react when she starts hearing the stories about the house?
Georgette tried to push the thought away. Born with a natural ability to sell, she had progressed rapidly from being a secretary and part-time real estate agent, to founding her own company.
Her reception room was a matter of special pride to her. Robin Carpenter, her secretary- receptionist, was positioned at an antique mahogany desk to the right of the entrance. On the left, a brightly upholstered sectional couch and chairs were grouped around a coffee table.
There, while clients sipped coffee or soft drinks or a gla.s.s of wine in the early evening, Georgette or Henry would run tapes showing available properties. The tapes provided meticulous details of every aspect of the interior, the exterior, and the surrounding neighborhood.
”Those tapes take a lot of time to do properly,” Georgette was fond of explaining to clients, ”but they save you a lot of time, and by finding your likes and dislikes, we can get a very good idea of what you're really looking for.”
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