Right away, Jim could tell that this morning was going to be one of the quiet ones. After he said, “Good morning, Jim,” Alex Wright opened his briefcase and pulled out a file. He studied it in silence as the car threaded through the East Side Drive traffic on its way down to Wall Street. But then around the Manhattan Bridge, he put the file back in the briefcase and began to talk. “I could really do without that trip next week, Jim,” Alex Wright said.
“Where in Russia are you going, Mr. Alex?”
“St. Petersburg. Beautiful city. The Hermitage is magnificent. Trouble is I won’t have time to see any of it. I’ll be lucky to have time to finalize the plans for the hospital we’re building. I’m a little troubled about the site they’ve chosen.”
Their exit was coming up, so Jim concentrated on the driving and waited until he had switched lanes before he asked, “Surely you can take a few days extra for yourself, can’t you?” Glancing in the rearview mirror, he was surprised to see the sudden smile that warmed Alex Wright’s face, making it seem almost boyish.
“I could, but the truth is, I don’t want to.”
It’s Susan Chandler, Jim thought. By God, I think he’s really interested in her. Couldn’t make a better choice, he said to himself, and I’ve only met her once.
Jim believed wholeheartedly in that moment when you meet someone, and lightning strikes. It had happened to him forty years ago when he had a blind date and she turned out to be Moira. The minute he had looked into her face, and saw those blue eyes, he had given up his heart to her.
The car phone rang. When his boss was in the car, Jim never answered the phone unless he was asked—just about all the calls were personal and for Mr. Alex. He listened as Alex Wright’s voice changed from its initial warm greeting to a more reserved tone. “Oh, Dee, how are you? I’m in the car. Call Forwarding from the house . . . . You took the red-eye? Then you must be dead. . . . Sure, but do you think you’ll be up to it? . . . Okay, if you say so. I’ll meet you at the St. Regis at five. The real estate guy I spoke to called you, I gather. . . . Good. I’m trying to reach Susan to see if she’ll join us this evening. . . . All right. See you.”
He hung up, then picked up the phone again and dialed.
Jim heard him ask for Dr. Chandler, then heard him say, with an edge in his voice: “I had hoped to reach her before she left for the studio. Please see that she gets this message as soon as she returns to the office.”
Jim watched in the rearview mirror as Alex Wright hung up the phone, a frown on his face. Who the heck is Dee, he wondered, and what’s worrying him?
If he had been able to read Alex Wright’s mind, Jim would have understood that his boss was annoyed that Susan’s secretary had not given her his earlier message, before Susan left for the studio, and that he was equally annoyed that having left Call Forwarding on his home phone, he had been reached by the very person he had been anxious to avoid.
64
Susan reached the studio with ten minutes to spare. As usual, she poked her head into Jed Geany’s office, already prepared for his reminder that one of these days she wasn’t going to get there by broadcast time, followed by “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
But today when he looked up at her his face was grim. “I’m beginning to think we jinx our callers, Susan.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“You haven’t heard? Tiffany, the waitress at that restaurant in Yonkers, was stabbed to death last night when she was leaving work.”
“She was what!” Susan felt as if she had been punched, as if someone had slammed into her with his full weight. She clutched the side of Jed’s desk to steady herself.
“Easy, take it easy,” he cautioned, standing. “You’ve got a program to do in a couple of minutes. You also have to be prepared for the fact that a lot of listeners probably will phone in about her.”
Tiffany, Susan thought, remembering their phone conversation late last night, so anxious to get back with her boyfriend, so hurt when his mother phoned her to tell her to stop talking about him. Don Richards and I talked about how lonely she sounded. Oh, God, Susan thought. The poor girl.
“Remember how you tried to stop her from giving the name of the place she worked?” Jed said. “Well, apparently some guy went in looking for her. Made a pass at her. Got sore when she told him off. He’s a bad apple. Has a record a mile long.”
“Are they sure he did it?” Susan asked numbly.
“From what I hear, the cops have him dead to rights,” Jed told her. “Although I don’t think he has confessed or anything yet. Come on, we’ve got to get into the studio. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”
Somehow Susan managed to get through the program. As Jed had predicted, the lines were flooded with calls about Tiffany. At Susan’s suggestion, during a commercial break Jed phoned The Grotto, and she spoke to the owner, Tony Sepeddi.
“Joey, our bartender, told Tiffany to wait, that he’d walk her out to her car,” Sepeddi explained, his voice choked with emotion. “But he got busy, and she took off. When he saw she was gone, he ran out to make sure she was okay. That’s when he saw a guy hurrying off in the direction of the gas station next door. By the time they found Tiffany’s body, the guy was gone, but Joey is pretty sure it was the one who was bothering her earlier in the bar.”
Have they got the right man? This just doesn’t seem like an isolated incident, Susan thought. Carolyn Wells phoned me, and a few hours later was run over; she’s alive, but just barely. Hilda Johnson swore for all the world to hear that she saw someone push Carolyn Wells; a few hours later she was murdered. Tiffany saw a man buying a turquoise “You belong to me” ring and called in to talk about it. Now she’s been stabbed to death. Coincidence? I don’t think so. But did the man in police custody kill Tiffany? And Hilda Johnson? And did he push Carolyn Wells?
As she was winding up the program for the day, Susan told her listeners, “I’m grateful for all your calls. I think in those few times Tiffany spoke to me, we all felt we’d come to know her. Now I know many of you feel the same terrible regret I do at her death. If only Tiffany had waited those few moments to let the bartender walk her to her car. There are a lot of ‘if only’s’ in our lives, and perhaps there’s a lesson here too. We don’t know if Tiffany’s assailant went to that bar because she told us on air yesterday where she worked, but if he did, this is one more tragedy that proves we should never casually reveal our home addresses or workplaces to just anyone.”
Susan felt her voice breaking as she concluded, “Please, all of you remember Tiffany and her family in your prayers. Our time is up. I’ll be back with you tomorrow.”
Immediately after signing off, she left the studio for her office. She had to review the file of her one o’clock patient, but she also hoped to make some phone calls.
A contrite Janet told her about Alex Wright’s two calls. “You had said to take messages when you were talking to Dr. Hastings, and then you ran out of here so fast I didn’t remember to ask you to call him. Then he left a second message.”
“I see.” The first message was to please call Alex before the program. The second one Susan read and reread. Big sister, she thought, I love you, but there are limits. You not only got invited to the dinner Saturday night, but you’ve managed to set up a meeting with him this evening as well.
As Janet watched, Susan tore up both notes and threw them in the wastebasket.
“Dr. Chandler, please, when you talk to Mr. Wright, tell him how sorry I am that I didn’t tell you about his first call. He sounded really angry at me.”
Susan realized that knowing he had gotten angry made her feel better, although she also knew she had no intention of joining Alex and Dee tonight for a drink or anything else. “If he calls again, I’ll tell him,” she said, careful to make her tone sound indifferent.
She checked her watch; it was twelve-thirty. That gave her half an hour before her appointment. Which means I can take ten minutes to make some calls, sh
e told herself.
The first one was to the Yonkers police. From her days in the Westchester County District Attorney’s office, she knew several detectives there. She reached one of them, Pete Sanchez, and explained her interest in the murder of Tiffany Smith.
“Pete, I’m heartsick at the thought that she is dead because she talked to me on air.”
From Sanchez she learned that the cops there were convinced they had their killer, and that they expected it was just a matter of hours before the suspect, Sharkey Dion, confessed.
“Sure he denies it, Susan,” Pete told her. “They all do. You know that. Listen, a guy who was coming into The Grotto when this bum was thrown out heard him muttering how he’d be back to take care of her.”
“That still doesn’t mean he killed her,” Susan said. “Do you have the weapon?”
Pete Sanchez sighed. “Not yet.”
Then she told him about the turquoise rings, but he showed little interest. “Uh-huh. Give me your number; I’ll let you know when Dion signs on the dotted line. Don’t trash yourself over this. The real culprit in this tragedy is the parole system that lets a guy with a record as long as my arm out of prison. He only served eight years of a twenty-five-year term. Guess what the crime was? Manslaughter!”
Unconvinced, Susan put down the receiver and sat for a moment, deep in thought. The element connecting everything here is the turquoise ring, she thought. Regina Clausen had one and is dead. Carolyn Wells had one and may die. Tiffany had one and is dead. Pamela Hastings, an intelligent woman who says she has powers of precognition, wouldn’t touch Regina’s ring, and only a few days before had warned Carolyn Wells that hers could be the cause of her death.
Tiffany told me last night that her ring was buried under tons of chicken bones and pizza, Susan thought. That sounds like a garbage pail. But tons?
Did she mean in a Dumpster? she wondered. And if she did, what more likely Dumpster than one on the site of The Grotto restaurant? Susan’s mind was racing. How often would The Grotto’s Dumpster normally be emptied? Would the police have impounded it, looking for the weapon?
She looked up the number for The Grotto and in a moment was speaking to Tony Sepeddi. “Look, Dr. Chandler, I’ve been answering questions since midnight,” he said. “The Dumpster is in the parking lot and is emptied every morning. Only this morning the police impounded it. Guess they’re looking for the weapon. Any other questions? I’m almost dead here myself.”
Susan made one more call before she reviewed her patient’s file. It was to Pete Sanchez again, begging him to have the Dumpster sifted not only for the murder weapon, but also for a turquoise ring with the inscription “You belong to me” inside the band.
65
Thursday was always a busy day for Dr. Donald Richards, and as usual, he had gotten an early start. His first patient was a man who ran an international corporation; he came to him each Thursday at eight o’clock, and was followed at nine, ten, and eleven by other regular patients. Several of them expressed dismay when they learned that Richards would be out of town Thursday of next week, on a publicity tour for his book.
When Donald Richards sat down at noon for a quick lunch, he was already weary, and, of course, he had a busy afternoon ahead of him as usual. At one o’clock he had an appointment with Captain Shea at the 19th Precinct to talk with him about Justin Wells.
While Rena placed a cup of soup in front of him, he turned on the television to catch the local news. The lead story was the murder of the young waitress in Yonkers, and on screen was a tape of the crime scene.
“This is the parking lot of The Grotto trattoria in Yonkers where twenty-five-year-old Tiffany Smith was stabbed to death shortly after midnight,” the anchorman said. “Sharkey Dion, a paroled killer who had been asked to leave the bar when he reportedly harassed Ms. Smith earlier in the evening, is in custody and is expected to be charged with the crime.”
“Doctor, isn’t that the woman who called in the other day when you were on that Ask Dr. Susan show?” Rena asked, shock clear in her voice.
“Yes, it is,” Richards said quietly. He looked at his watch. Susan would be on her way back to the office by now. She certainly must have heard about Tiffany and would no doubt expect to hear from him as well.
I’ll call her when I get back from the police station, he decided as he pushed his chair back. “Rena, the soup looks delicious, but I’m afraid I’m not very hungry right now.” His eyes lingered on the television screen as the camera panned to show a bright red pump with a stiletto heel on the ground next to the cloth that covered the mortal remains of Tiffany Smith.
That pathetic girl, he thought as he turned off the set. I know Susan will be upset. First Carolyn Wells and now Tiffany. I bet she’s somehow blaming herself for both women’s misfortunes.
It was five minutes of four that afternoon before he spoke to Susan. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
“I’m heartsick,” Susan told him. “I pray to God that if Sharkey Dion is the murderer, he didn’t go into that bar looking for Tiffany because he heard her talking to me on air.”
“From what I heard on the news earlier, the police don’t seem to have much doubt about him being the killer,” Richards said. “Susan, I doubt very much that the kind of man Sharkey Dion seems to be would be listening to an advice program. I think it much more likely that he just happened into that bar.”
“If he is the killer,” Susan repeated tonelessly. “Don, I have a question you must answer. Do you think Justin Wells pushed his wife in front of that van?”
“No, I do not,” Richards told her. “I think it much more likely that it was an accident. I went to see Captain Shea today and told him as much. In fact, I warned him that any psychiatrist who examined Wells would probably reach the same conclusion. True, he is obsessed about his wife, but part of that obsession is an extreme fear of losing her. In my opinion, he would never hurt her deliberately.”
“Then you think that Hilda Johnson, the witness who said she saw someone push Carolyn Wells, was wrong?” Susan asked.
“Not necessarily. You can’t rule out the possibility that if Justin Wells followed Carolyn and wanted to see what she had in that envelope, he might inadvertently have caused her to lose her balance. I understand that he was extremely upset when the receptionist told him what his wife had said when she called in to the program. Don’t forget that when Karen—or Carolyn—phoned you, she promised to give you a picture of the man she had met on that cruise. Doesn’t it seem likely it might have been in that envelope?”
“Does Captain Shea agree with your theory?”
“That’s hard to say, but I did warn him that if someone else pushed Carolyn Wells, whether by accident or by design, and Justin Wells learns who he is, his anger will be such that Wells may be capable of anything, including murder.”
As they talked further, Richards could tell from Susan’s almost emotionless voice just how deeply disturbed she was by the recent events. “Look,” he said, “this has been rotten for you. Believe me, I understand how you feel. I enjoyed dinner very much last night. The call I had hoped to make to you today was simply to tell you that. Why don’t we grab a bite this evening? We’ll find a restaurant somewhere around your place. I’ll even pick you up this time.”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” Susan told him. “I’ve set up a project for myself, and I don’t know how long it will take.”
It was four o’clock. Richards knew his last patient would be waiting in the reception room by now. “I’m good at projects,” he said hurriedly. “Let me know if I can help.”
He frowned when he put down the phone. Susan had politely but firmly refused his assistance. What was she up to? he wondered.
It was a question he needed to have answered.
66
Jane Clausen, clearly exhausted from the effects of chemotherapy, managed a faint smile. “Just a little played out, Vera,” she said.
She could see that her housekeeper of twenty years was
reluctant to go. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’m just going to rest,” she assured her.
“I almost forgot, Mrs. Clausen,” Vera said anxiously. “I think you may get a call from Dr. Chandler. She phoned just before I left the apartment, and I told her you were here in the hospital. She sounds nice.”
“She is very nice.”
“I don’t like to leave you alone.” Vera sighed. “I wish you’d let me just sit here and keep you company.”
I do have company, Jane Clausen thought as she glanced toward the nightstand, at the framed photograph of Regina that Vera had brought to the hospital at her request. In the photo, Regina was captured posing with the captain of the Gabrielle.
“I’ll be asleep in five minutes, Vera. You go on now.”
“Then good night, Mrs. Clausen,” Vera said, adding with a catch in her throat, “and be sure to call me if you need anything.”
After the housekeeper left, Jane Clausen reached over and picked up the photograph. It’s not been a good day, Regina, she thought. I’m winding down and I know it. Yet I feel like something is making me hang on. I don’t quite understand it, but we’ll see what happens.
The phone rang. Jane Clausen put the picture down and answered, anticipating that the call might be from Douglas Layton.
Instead it was Susan Chandler, and once again the warmth in her voice reminded Jane Clausen of Regina. She found herself admitting to Susan that it had been a difficult day. “But tomorrow should be much easier,” she added, “and Doug Layton is hinting that he has quite a surprise for me. I’m looking forward to it.”
Susan heard the momentary lifting of Mrs. Clausen’s tone and knew there was no way she could possibly tell her that without clearing it with her, she had requested a check on Layton.
Instead she said, “I’d really like to stop by and see you sometime in the next few days—that is, of course, if you think you’d enjoy a visit.”