Part 7 (2/2)

”There's nothing but paint cans in here,” he exclaimed. ”n.o.body shot Georgette because of paint cans, did they?”

Jeff MacKingsley did not answer him. He was looking at the cans on the bottom shelf. They were the only ones that were not sealed. Three of them were empty. The fourth was half full.

The lid was missing. The splotch on the floor that Georgette Grove had been trying to clean up probably came from this one, Jeff thought. All the open cans were labeled ”dining room.” All had contained red paint. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this was where the vandals got the paint they used on the Nolans' house, he thought. Is that why Georgette Grove was murdered? Would it be worth killing her to keep her quiet?

”Is it okay if I take off now?” Jarrett asked.

”Of course. We will need to get a formal statement from you, but that can be done later. Thanks for all your help, Jarrett.”

Jarrett nodded and walked down the hall, taking care to avoid the chalked outline of where Georgette's body had fallen. As he did, Clyde Earley came down the stairs, his expression grim.

He crossed the recreation room and went up to MacKingsley.

”I just came from the hospital,” Earley said. ”We took Celia Nolan there in an ambulance. At ten after ten she dialed 911, then didn't say anything, just was gasping into the phone. They alerted us, so we went to her house. She was in shock. No response to our questions. We took her to the hospital. In the emergency room, she started to come out of it. She was here this morning. She says she found the body and drove home.”

”She found the body and drove home!” Jeff exclaimed.

”She says she remembers seeing the body, running out of the house, then getting in her car and driving home. She remembers trying to call us. She doesn't remember anything else until she started to come out of shock in the hospital.”

”How is she now?” Jeff asked.

”Sedated, but okay. They reached the husband. He's on his way to the hospital, and she insists she's going home with him. There was a scene at the school when she didn't pick up her son.

The kid got hysterical. He saw her faint the other day, and apparently is scared she's going to die. One of the teachers brought him to the hospital. He's with her now.”

”We have to talk to her,” Jeff said. ”She must have been the client Georgette Grove was expecting to meet.”

”Well, I don't think she'll be in the mood to buy this place now,” Earley commented. ”Looks like she has her hands full living in one crime scene.”

”Did she say what time she got here?” ”Quarter of ten. She was early.”

Then we lost over an hour from the time she saw the body until Jarrett Alberti called us, Jeff thought.

”Jeff, we found something in the victim's shoulder bag that might be interesting.” With gloved hands, Detective Spaulding was holding a newspaper clipping. She brought it over for him to see. It was the picture of Celia Nolan fainting that had appeared in the newspaper the day before. ”It looks as if it was put in Georgette's bag after she was killed,” Spaulding said.

”We've already checked it for fingerprints and there aren't any on it.”

CHAPTER 20.

I think what really calmed me down was the absolute panic I saw in Jack's face. When he came into the emergency room cubicle where they had settled me, he was still sobbing. He usually goes willingly into Alex's arms, but after his scare when I wasn't there to pick him up at school, he would only cling to me.

We rode home in the back seat of the car, Jack's hand in mine. Alex was heartsick for both of us. ”G.o.d, Ceil,” he said. ”I can't even imagine what a horrible experience that was for you.

What's going on in this town?”

What indeed? I thought. It was nearly quarter to two, and we were all hungry. Alex opened a can of soup for us and made Jack his favorite, a peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwich. The hot soup helped me shake off the grogginess caused by the sedative the doctor had injected into my arm.

We had barely finished eating when reporters started ringing the doorbell. I glanced out the window and noticed that one of them was an older woman with wild gray hair. I remembered that she had been running toward me just as I had fainted on the day we moved in.

Alex went outside. For the second time in forty-eight hours, he made a statement to the press: ”After the vandalism that we found when we moved into this house on Tuesday, we decided it would be better for us to choose a different home in the area. Georgette Grove arranged to meet my wife in a house being offered for sale on Holland Road. When Celia arrived, she found Ms.

Grove's body and rushed home to notify the police.”

When he was finished, I could see that he was being bombarded with questions. ”What did they ask you?” was my question to him when he came back inside.

”I guess the ones you'd expect: Why didn't you call the police immediately? Weren't you carrying a cell phone? I pointed out that for all you knew the killer might still have been in the house, and you did the smartest thing possible-you got out of there.”

A few minutes later, Jeffrey MacKingsley called and asked to come over and speak to me. Alex wanted to put him off, but I immediately agreed to see him. Every instinct told me that it was important I give the appearance of being a cooperative witness.

MacKingsley arrived with a man I'd guess to be in his early fifties. Chubby-faced, with thinning hair and a serious demeanor, he was introduced as Detective Paul Walsh. MacKingsley told me that Detective Walsh would be in charge of the investigation into Georgette Grove's death.

With Alex sitting on the couch beside me, I responded to their questions. I explained that we wanted to stay in the area, but the history of this house and the vandalism was too upsetting for us to remain here. I told them that Georgette had offered to forego her commission if she found a suitable house for us, and that she said she would make every effort to resell this one, also foregoing her commission.

”You were not aware of the background of this house before you saw it for the first time last month?” Detective Walsh asked.

I felt my palms begin to sweat. I chose my answer carefully. ”I was not aware of the reputation of this house before I saw it last month.”

”Mrs. Nolan, do you know about the law in New Jersey that mandates that a real estate broker must inform a prospective buyer if a house has a stigma on it, meaning if a crime has been committed here, or a suicide, or even if a house is reputed to be haunted.”

I did not have to feign my astonishment. ”I absolutely did not know that,” I said. ”Then Georgette really wasn't being all that generous when she offered to forego her commission?”

”She did try to tell me that the house had a history, but I cut her off,” Alex explained. ”As I told her, when I was a kid, my family used to rent a rundown house on Cape Cod that the natives swore was haunted.”

”Nevertheless, from what I read in yesterday's papers, you bought this house as a gift for your wife. It's in her name only, so Ms. Grove had a responsibility to disclose the history to her,”

MacKingsley informed us.

”No wonder Georgette was so upset about the vandalism,” I said. ”When we arrived here Tuesday morning, she was trying to drag the hose out of the garage to wash the paint away.” I felt a flash of anger. I should have been spared the horror of moving back into this house. Then I thought of Georgette Grove as I had seen her in that split second before I ran, the blood crusting her forehead, the rag in her hand. She'd been trying to get rid of that splash of red paint on the floor.

Red paint is like blood. First it spills, then it thickens and hardens...

”Mrs. Nolan, did you ever meet Georgette Grove before you moved into this house?”

The red paint on the floor near Georgette's body...

”Celia,” Alex murmured, and I realized Detective Walsh had repeated his question. Had I ever met Georgette Grove when I was a child? My mother might easily have known her, but I had no memory of her.

”No,” I said.

”Then you only saw her the day you moved in, and that was for a brief time?”

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