I Heard That Song Before
Mary Higgins Clark
Language: English
Pages: 416
ISBN: 0743497309
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In a riveting psychological thriller, Mary Higgins Clark takes the reader deep into the mysteries of the human mind, where memories may be the most dangerous things of all.
At the center of her novel is Kay Lansing, who has grown up in Englewood, New Jersey, daughter of the landscaper to the wealthy and powerful Carrington family. Their mansion -- a historic seventeenth-century manor house transported stone by stone from Wales in 1848 -- has a hidden chapel. One day, accompanying her father to work, six-year-old Kay succumbs to curiosity and sneaks into the chapel. There, she overhears a quarrel between a man and a woman who is demanding money from him. When she says that this will be the last time, his caustic response is: "I heard that song before."
That same evening, the Carringtons hold a formal dinner dance after which Peter Carrington, a student at Princeton, drives home Susan Althorp, the eighteen-year-old daughter of neighbors. While her parents hear her come in, she is not in her room the next morning and is never seen or heard from again.
Throughout the years, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Peter Carrington. At age forty-two, head of the family business empire, he is still "a person of interest" in the eyes of the police, not only for Susan Althorp's disappearance but also for the subsequent drowning death of his own pregnant wife in their swimming pool.
Kay Lansing, now living in New York and working as a librarian in Englewood, goes to see Peter Carrington to ask for permission to hold a cocktail party on his estate to benefit a literacy program, which he later grants. Kay comes to see Peter as maligned and misunderstood, and when he begins to court her after the cocktail party, she falls in love with him. Over the objections of her beloved grandmother Margaret O'Neil, who raised her after her parents' early deaths, she marries him. To her dismay, she soon finds that he is a sleepwalker whose nocturnal wanderings draw him to the spot at the pool where his wife met her end.
Susan Althorp's mother, Gladys, has always been convinced that Peter Carrington is responsible for her daughter's disappearance, a belief shared by many in the community. Disregarding her husband's protests about reopening the case, Gladys, now terminally ill, has hired a retired New York City detective to try to find out what happened to her daughter. Gladys wants to know before she dies.
Kay, too, has developed gnawing doubts about her husband. She believes that the key to the truth about his guilt or innocence lies in the scene she witnessed as a child in the chapel and knows she must learn the identity of the man and woman who quarreled there that day. Yet, she plunges into this pursuit realizing that "that knowledge may not be enough to save my husband's life, if indeed it deserves to be saved." What Kay does not even remotely suspect is that uncovering what lies behind these memories may cost her her own life.
I Heard That Song Before once again dramatically reconfirms Mary Higgins Clark's worldwide reputation as a master storyteller.
across the courthouse to become an assistant prosecutor. For the next twenty-seven years, she worked her way up in that office, becoming trial chief, first assistant, and finally, upon the retirement of her predecessor three years ago, was named prosecutor. It was a world she loved, an enthusiasm she shared with her husband, a civil court judge in nearby Essex County. Susan Althorp had disappeared when Barbara had only been in the office a few years. Because of the prominence of both the Althorp
compact and handkerchief, the usual things women carry?” “You’re wasting my time, Mr. Greco. You’re not seriously suggesting that Susan’s mother knew exactly how many handkerchiefs, or, for that matter, how many evening purses were in her daughter’s room?” Nicholas Greco got up. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Slater. I’m afraid there is a development you need to know about. Mrs. Althorp has been interviewed by Celeb magazine; the issue will be on the stands tomorrow. In it, Mrs. Althorp
sidewalk, I couldn’t help thinking how absolutely incongruous it was that less than twenty-four hours ago, he had been standing in an orange jail jumpsuit, his hands manacled, hearing the charge of murder directed at him. I had not been back to my apartment since the day Peter and I were married. Now on one hand it looked cozy and familiar, and on the other, with new eyes, I saw how small it really was. Peter had been here a few times in our whirlwind courtship. On our honeymoon, he had casually
remembering also that Peter was startled when it wasn’t found in his car? Or was Barr making up that story for his own reasons? Slater had confirmed the conversation, but only to a degree. He claimed that Carrington merely asked him to check and see if the purse was in the car, and return it to Susan if it was. But Susan was expected for brunch later that day. Besides, the bag was small, and could only have held things like a handkerchief, compact, comb, or lipstick. So why make an issue of
to see you,” she begged. “I don’t care what trouble you may be in, what problems you have to solve, I’ll help you. Mack, for God’s sake, it’s been ten years. Don’t do this to me any longer. Please . . . please . . .” He never stayed on the phone for as long as a minute. I’m sure he knew that we would try to trace the call, but now that that technology is available, he always calls from one of these cell phones with a prepaid time card. I had been planning what I would say to him and rushed now