Free I Heard That Song Before by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

Mass for my father. I can still remember the mournful sound as, my hand in Maggie’s, we left the church and stood with friends on the steps of St. Cecilia’s. I remember Maggie saying something like, “When and if they find Jonathan’s remains, there will be a proper burial, of course.” But it had never happened.
    As a flustered Jane Barr rushed in to inform us that detectives were here to speak to Mr. Carrington, I had the incongruous thought that soon there would be a proper burial for Susan Althorp.

13
    W e know he did it, but do we have enough to indict him?” Barbara Krause threw the question out to Assistant Prosecutor Tom Moran, the head of her homicide squad. Six days had passed since the remains of Susan Althorp had been found on the unfenced grounds of the Carrington estate. An autopsy had been performed and positive identification had been established. The cause of death was strangulation.
    Moran, a balding and somewhat overweight twenty-five-year veteran of the prosecutor’s office, shared his boss’s frustration. Since the body had been discovered, the wealth and power of the Carrington family had become evident. Carrington had lined up a team of nationally known criminal defense attorneys, and they were already at work preparing to defend a possible indictment. The cold hard facts were that the Bergen County prosecutor did have enough evidence to establish probable cause to file a murder complaint against Carrington, and a grand jury would almost certainly indict him. But the odds were that a trial jury, with the burden of proof being beyond a reasonable doubt, would either acquit him or end up a hung jury.
    Nicholas Greco was expected at the prosecutor’s office momentarily. He had called and requested an appointment with Barbara Krause, and she had invited Moran to sit in on it.
    “He says he may have come across something useful,” Krause told Moran. “Let’s hope so. I’m not crazy about outsiders involved in our cases, but in this instance I’ll be happy to give him any credit he wants if he helps us convict Carrington.”
    She and Moran had spent the morning discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the case, and found nothing new. The fact that Carrington had driven Susan home and had been the last person known to see her was diminished by the fact that both her mother and father heard her come into the house, and that she had called out “good night” to them. When foul play was suspected, Carrington, then twenty years old, had answered all of the questions their office had thrown at him. When he realized that his son was a suspect, Carrington’s father had allowed, even demanded, a thorough search of the mansion, the grounds, and Peter’s car. The search had yielded nothing.
    By the end of the first day that Susan had not contacted her family, Carrington’s summer tuxedo and shoes had been tested for any possible evidence, with negative results. The formal shirt he had been wearing could not be found. He claimed he had put it in the hamper as usual and the new maid had sworn that she had given it to the dry cleaner’s pickup service the next morning. The cleaner claimed to have received only one dress shirt, the one belonging to Carrington’s father, but that lead had gone nowhere. Investigation showed that the particular cleaner had a long history of mishandling clothing and mixing up orders.
    “In fact, the delivery they made when they supposedly picked up the shirt had a neighbor’s jacket in it,” Krause said, exasperation evident in her voice. “That shirt Carrington was wearing is the piece of evidence we’ve always needed. Dollars to donuts it had blood on it.”
    The buzzer on Krause’s intercom sounded. Nicholas Greco had arrived.
    Greco had met Tom Moran when he initially reviewed the files of the Althorp case. Now he wasted no time in getting to the reason for his visit. “You can imagine how Mrs. Althorp is feeling,” he said. “She told me that at least she