Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories (18 page)

“According to her testimony, she and Creighton had dinner at the Captain's Table in Hyannis, and then he suggested they go for a ride in his boat, which was anchored at a private dock. She said they were out on the Nantucket Sound when the boat broke down; nothing was working, not even the radio. They were stranded until nearly eleven, when he was finally able to get the motor going again. She apparently had only had a salad at dinner, so once they made shore she asked him to stop for a hamburger.

“She testified that Creighton wasn't very happy about having to stop on the way home, although he did finally pull in at some hamburger joint around Cotuit. Cynthia said she hadn't been on the Cape since she was a child and didn't know the area all that well, so she wasn't sure exactly where they stopped. Anyway, he told her to wait in the car, that he would go in and get the burger. All she remembered about being there was a lot of rock music blaring and seeing teenagers all over the place. But then a woman drove up and parked next to their car, and when she opened her door, it slammed into the side of Creighton's car.” Alvirah handed Willy a clipping. “That woman, then, is the witness no one could find.”

As Alvirah absentmindedly sipped the bisque, Willy scanned the paper. The woman had apologized profusely and had examined Ned's car for scratches. When she found none, she'd headed into the hamburger joint. According to Cynthia, the woman had been in her mid- to late-forties, chunky, with blunt-cut hair dyed an orange-red shade, and she'd been wearing a shapeless blouse and elastic-waisted polyester slacks.

The clipping went on to recount Cynthia's testimony that Creighton had returned complaining about the line for food and about kids who couldn't make up their minds when they gave an order. She said he'd been obviously edgy, so she didn't tell him at the time about the woman banging the door into his car.

On the witness stand, Cynthia had testified that during the forty-five-minute drive back to Dennis, all of it along unfamiliar roads, Ned Creighton had hardly said a word to her. Then, once they reached Stuart Richards's house, he'd just dropped her off and driven away. When Cynthia went into the house, she'd found Stuart in his study, sprawled on the floor next to his desk, blood drenching his forehead, blood caked on his face, blood matting the carpet beside him.

Willy read more of the account out loud: “ ‘The defendant stated that she thought Richards had had a stroke and had fallen, but that when she brushed his hair back she saw the bullet wound in his forehead, then spotted the gun lying next to him, and she telephoned the police.' ”

“She said she thought then that he had committed suicide,” Alvirah recounted. “But then she picked up the gun, of course putting her fingerprints on it. The armoire in the study was open, and she admitted that she knew Richards kept a gun in it. Then Creighton contradicted just about everything she had told the police, saying that, yes, he had taken her out to dinner, but that he had gotten her home by eight o'clock, and that all through the meal she had gone on about how she blamed Stuart Richards for her mother's illness and death, and that she intended to have it out with him when she got home. The time of death was established at about nine o'clock, which of course looked bad for her, given Creighton's contrary testimony. And even though her lawyers advertised for the woman she'd met at the burger joint, nobody came forward to verify her story.”

“So do you believe Cynthia?” Willy asked. “You know an awful
lot of murderers can't face the reality of what they've done and actually end up believing their own lies, or at least go through the motions of trying to confirm them. She could just be looking for this missing witness in an effort to finally convince people of her innocence, even though she's already served her time. I mean, why on earth would Ned Creighton lie about the whole thing?”

“I don't know,” Alvirah said, shaking her head. “But you can be sure that somebody is lying, and I'll bet my bottom dollar that it isn't Cynthia. If I were in her boots, I'd set off to try and find out what it was that made Creighton lie, what was in it for him.”

With that, Alvirah turned her attention to the bisque, not speaking again until she had finished it off. “My, that was good. What a great vacation we're going to have, Willy. And isn't it wonderful that we took this cottage right next to Cynthia so that I'm here to help her clear her name?”

Willy's only response was the clatter of a spoon and a deep sigh.

•  •  •

The long and peaceful night's sleep followed by the early morning walk had begun to clear the emotional paralysis that Cynthia had experienced from that moment twelve years earlier when she'd heard the jury pronounce the verdict:
Guilty.
Now as she showered and dressed she reflected that these past years had been a nightmare in which she had managed to survive only by freezing her emotions. She had been a model prisoner. She had kept to herself, resisting friendships. She had taken whatever jailhouse college courses were offered. She had graduated from working in the laundry and the kitchen to desk assignments in the library and assistant teaching in the art class. And after a while, when the awful reality of what had happened finally set in, she had begun to draw. The face of the woman in the parking lot. The hamburger stand. Ned's boat. Every detail she could force from her memory. When she was finished she
had pictures of a hamburger place that could be found anywhere in the United States, a boat that looked like any Chris-Craft of that year. The woman was a little more clearly defined but not much. It had been dark. Their encounter had lasted only seconds. But the woman was her only hope.

The prosecutor's summation at the end of the trial: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Cynthia Lathem returned to the home of Stuart Richards sometime between 8:00 and 8:30
P.M.
on the night of August 2, 1981. She went into her stepfather's study. That very afternoon Stuart Richards had told Cynthia he had changed his will. Ned Creighton heard that conversation, overheard Cynthia and Stuart quarreling. She needed money immediately to pay for her education and demanded he help her. That evening Vera Smith, the waitress at the Captain's Table, overheard Cynthia tell Ned that she would have to drop out of school.

“Cynthia Lathem returned to the Richards mansion that night, angry and worried. She went into that study and confronted Stuart Richards. He was a man who enjoyed upsetting the people around him. He
had
changed his will to include her, but she knew it would be just like him to change it again. And the anger she'd harbored for the way he had treated her mother, the anger that rose in her at the thought of having to leave school, at being turned out into the world virtually penniless, made her go to the armoire where she knew he kept a gun, take out that gun and fire three shots point-blank into the forehead of the man who loved her enough to make her an heiress.

“It is ironic. It is tragic. It is also murder. Cynthia begged Ned Creighton to say that she had spent the evening with him on his boat. No one saw them out on the boat. She talks about stopping at a hamburger stand. But she doesn't know where it is. She admits she never entered it. She talks about a stranger with red-orange hair to whom she spoke in a parking lot. With all the publicity this case has
engendered, why didn't that woman come forward? You know the reason. Because she doesn't exist. Because like the hamburger stand and the hours spent on a boat on Nantucket Sound, she is a figment of Cynthia Lathem's imagination.”

Cynthia had read the transcript of the trial so often that she had the district attorney's summation committed to memory. “But the woman did exist,” Cynthia said aloud. “She does exist.” For the next six months, with the little insurance money left her by her mother, she was going to try to find that woman. She might be dead by now, or moved to California, Cynthia thought as she brushed her hair and twisted it into a chignon.

The bedroom of the cottage faced the sea. Cynthia walked to the sliding door and pulled it open. On the beach below she could see couples walking with children. If she was ever to have a normal life, a husband, a child of her own, she had to clear her name.

Jeff Knight. She had met him last year when he came to do a series of television interviews with women in prison. He'd invited her to participate, and she'd flatly refused. He'd persisted, his strong intelligent face filled with concern. “Don't you understand, Cynthia, this program is going to be watched by a couple of million people in New England. The woman who saw you that night could be one of those people.”

That was why she finally had agreed to go on the program, had answered his questions, told about the night Stuart died, held up the shadowy sketch of the woman she had spoken with, the sketch of the hamburger stand. And no one had come forward. From New York, Lillian issued a statement saying that the truth had been told at the trial and she would have no further comment. Ned Creighton, now the owner of the Mooncusser, a popular restaurant in Barnstable, repeated how very, very sorry he was for Cynthia.

After the program, Jeff kept coming to see her on visiting days. Only those visits had kept her from total despair when the program
produced no results. He would always arrive a little rumpled-looking, his wide shoulders straining at his jacket, his unsettled dark-brown hair curling on his forehead, his brown eyes intense and kind, his long legs never able to find enough room in the cramped visiting area of the prison. When he asked her to marry him after her release, she told him to forget her. He was already getting bids from the networks. He didn't need a convicted murderer in his life.

But what if I weren't a convicted murderer? Cynthia thought as she turned away from the window. She went over to the maple dresser, reached for her pocketbook and went outside to her rented car.

It was early evening before she returned to Dennis. The frustration of the wasted hours had finally brought tears to her eyes. She let them run down her cheeks unchecked. She'd driven to Cotuit, walked around the main street, inquired of the bookstore owner—who seemed to be a longtime native—about a hamburger stand that was a teenage hangout. Where would she be likely to find one? The answer, with a shrug, was, “They come and go. A developer picks up property and builds a shopping center or condominiums, and the hamburger stand is out.” She'd gone to the town hall to try to find records of food-service licenses issued or renewed around that time. Two hamburger joint type places were still in business. A third had been converted or torn down. Nothing stirred her memory. And of course she couldn't even be sure they had been in Cotuit. Ned might have been lying about that too. And how do you ask strangers if they know a middle-aged woman with orange-red hair and a chunky build who had lived or summered on the Cape and hated rock-and-roll music?

As she drove through Dennis, Cynthia impulsively ignored the turn to the cottage and again drove past the Richards home. As she was passing, a slender blonde woman came down the steps of the mansion. Even from this distance she knew it was Lillian. Cynthia slowed the car to a crawl, but when Lillian looked in her direction
she quickly accelerated and returned to the cottage. As she was turning the key in the lock she heard the phone ring. It rang ten times before it stopped. It had to be Jeff, and she didn't want to talk to him. A few minutes later it rang again. It was obvious that if Jeff had the number he wouldn't give up trying to reach her.

Cynthia picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“My finger is getting very tired pushing buttons,” Jeff said. “Nice trick of yours, just disappearing like that.”

“How did you find me?”

“It wasn't hard. I knew you'd head for the Cape like a homing pigeon, and your parole officer confirmed it.”

She could see him leaning back in his chair, twirling a pencil, the seriousness in his eyes belying the lightness of his tone. “Jeff, forget about me, please. Do us both a favor.”

“Negative. Cindy, I understand. But unless you can find that woman you spoke to there's no hope of proving your innocence. And believe me, honey, I tried to find her. When I did the program, I sent out investigators I never told you about. If they couldn't find her, you won't be able to. Cindy, I love you. You know you're innocent. Ned Creighton lied, but we'll never be able to prove it.”

Cynthia closed her eyes, knowing that what Jeff said was true.

“Cindy, give it all up. Pack your bag. Drive back here. I'll pick you up at your place at eight o'clock tonight.”

Her place. The furnished room the parole officer had helped her select.
Meet my girlfriend. She just got out of prison. What did your mother do before she got married? She was in jail.

“Good-bye, Jeff,” Cynthia said. She broke the connection, left the phone off the hook and turned her back to it.

•  •  •

Alvirah had observed Cynthia's return but did not attempt to contact her. In the afternoon, Willy had gone out on a half-day charter boat
and returned triumphantly with two bluefish. During his absence, Alvirah again studied the newspaper clippings of the Stuart Richards murder case. At Cypress Point Spa she had learned the value of airing her opinions into a recorder. That afternoon she kept her recorder busy.

“The crux of this case is why did Ned Creighton lie? He hardly knew Cynthia. Why did he set her up to take the blame for Stuart Richards's death? Stuart Richards had a lot of enemies. Ned's father at one time had business dealings with Stuart, and they'd had a falling out. But Ned was only a kid at that time. Ned was a friend of Lillian Richards. Lillian swore that she didn't know that her father was going to change his will, that she'd always known she would get half his estate and that the other half was going to Dartmouth College. She said she knew he was upset after Dartmouth decided to accept women students but didn't know he was upset enough to finally change his will and leave the Dartmouth money to Cynthia.”