No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark Page B

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, butthere 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.
    â€œLike 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.
    â€œI have the newspapers,” he said shortly as he walked up the final step to the porch. He had seenthe 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.

14

    I tried to calm myself down after Alex left and to calm Jack as well. I could see that the events of the past few days were overwhelming him—the move from the only home he’d ever known, the police and reporters here, the pony, my fainting, the first day of pre-K, and now the tension between Alex and me.
    I suggested that instead of having another ride on Lizzie—how I hated that name!—he should curl up on the couch in the den and I would read to him. “Lizzie wants a nap, too,” I added, and maybe that did it. He helped me take off her saddle, and then willingly selected one of his favorite books. Within minutes he was asleep. I covered him with a light blanket, then sat watching him as he slept.
    Minute by minute, I went over the mistakes I had made today. A normal wife, finding that picture in the barn,