Sheridan was on the phone. He smiled and waved Vince to a seat. Without appearing to be paying attention, Vince took in the conversation. Something about a collection being wildly overvalued.
Sheridan was saying, “Tell Lord Kilman that they may promise him that amount but they can’t deliver. We’ll be happy to set reasonable opening bids. The market isn’t as strong as it was a few years ago, but is he prepared to wait it out another three to five years? Otherwise, I think if he looks carefully at our estimates he’ll realize that many of the pieces he acquired fairly recently will still turn him a handsome profit.”
Confident. Knowledgeable. Innate warmth. That was the way Vince had sized up Chris Sheridan last week when he’d gone to Darien. At that time, Sheridan had been wearing a sports shirt and windbreaker. Today he was dressed in a charcoal gray suit, white shirt, red and gray tie, very much the executive.
Chris hung up and reached across the desk to shake hands. Vince apologized for giving him such short notice and got right to the point. “When I saw you last week, I was pretty sure that Erin Kelley’s death was a copycat murder because of the True Crimes program about your sister. I’m not sure about that anymore.” He told him about Claire Barnes and the package that had been returned to her home.
Chris listened attentively. “Another one.”
It seemed to Vince that all the residual pain of his sister’s murder was in those two words.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know,” Vince said frankly. “Whoever killed your sister must have known her. The matching shoe size can’t be a coincidence. We have three possibilities. The same murderer has continued to kill young women all through these years. The same murderer stopped killing and started again several years ago. The third possibility is that Nan’s murderer confided his modus operandi to someone else who decided to take over. The last one is the least likely.”
“Then you’re going to try to connect someone whom Nan knew to someone these other women knew?”
“Exactly. Although in Erin Kelley’s case, because of the missing diamonds, there is still a possibility that we have a different culprit. That’s why we’re planning to explore both avenues. The reason I’m here is that I’m going to try to link one person with Nan, Erin Kelley, and Claire Barnes.”
“Someone who knew my sister fifteen years ago and recently met those girls through personal ads?”
“You’ve got it. Darcy Scott was Erin Kelley’s closest friend. They’d been answering the ads only because a television producer friend is doing a documentary and asked them to take part in the research. Darcy was out of town for a month. She gave Erin a sample of the letter she was sending, and some photographs. We know Erin answered some of those ads for both of them. Darcy Scott is hoping that whoever killed Erin will contact her.”
Chris frowned. “You mean, you’re allowing another young woman to be set up as a possible victim?”
Vince raised his hand as though to wave away the suggestion. “You don’t know Darcy Scott. I’m not allowing anything. It’s what she’s determined to do. The one thing I have to grant her is she’s already met some pretty interesting characters and come up with information that might be helpful.”
“I still think it’s a lousy idea,” Chris said flatly.
“So do I and now that we’ve established that, here’s how I hope you can help. The faster we get this guy, the less chance Darcy Scott or some other young woman might get hurt. We’re going to Brown to get a roster of everyone who was in the student body or on the faculty when your sister was there. We’ll check those names against anyone we know Erin met or Darcy meets on these dates. I also think it would be a good idea if, besides the school yearbooks that we can get ourselves, you dig out any snapshots, albums, whatever, of your sister’s friends or acquaintances. You’ve got to understand that not everybody who answers a personal ad uses his own name. I want Darcy Scott to look over Nan’s pictures to see if she can spot anyone she meets along the way.”
“Of course we’ve got endless snapshots of Nan,” Chris said slowly. “Ten years ago, after my father died, I managed to persuade my mother to pack up most of them and put them in the attic. Mother admitted that Nan’s room was getting to be a shrine.”
“Good for you,” Vince said. “You must have been pretty persuasive.”
Chris smiled quickly. “I pointed out that it was one of the brightest rooms in the house and would be great for a visiting grandchild someday. The problem is, as my mother frequently reminds me, I haven’t delivered.” The smile disappeared. “I can’t get up to Connecticut until the weekend. I’ll bring everything down on Sunday.”
Vince stood up. “I appreciate this. I know how tough this has been on your mother, but if it turns out that we find the guy who was responsible for your sister’s death, believe me, in the long run it will give her a lot of peace.”
As he turned to go, his beeper sounded. “Do you mind if I call my office?”
Sheridan handed him the phone, watched as D’Ambrosio’s forehead furrowed. “How is Darcy?”
Chris Sheridan felt a cold wave of apprehension. He didn’t know this girl but experienced a sudden unreasoning fear for her. He had never told anyone that when Nan went for a jog the morning after their birthday party, he had heard her go out. Still half asleep, he’d started to get up. Some instinct was urging him to follow her. He’d shrugged it off and gone back to sleep.
Vince hung up the phone and turned back to Chris. “Is there any way you could possibly get those pictures immediately? The White Plains police phoned. The father of Janine Wetzl, another one of the missing girls, just received the sort of package your mother and the Barnes family got. Her own shoe and a high-heeled white satin slipper.” He slapped his hand on the table. “And while one agent was taking that call, Darcy Scott phoned. She had just opened a package that came in the morning mail. The mates of the shoes found on Erin Kelley’s body were sent to her.”
Chris knew that the frustrated anger he saw on Agent D’Ambrosio’s face mirrored his own expression. “Why the hell is he doing this?” Chris blurted. “To prove the girls are dead? To taunt? What makes him tick?”
“When I know that, I’ll know who he is,” Vince said quietly. “And now, do you mind if I use your phone again? I have to call Darcy Scott.”
From the moment Darcy saw the package, she’d known. The mailman arrived just as she was leaving for work. He’d handed her the package and the letters and magazines and junk mail. Afterward, Darcy remembered that he’d looked puzzled when she did not respond to his greeting.
Like an automaton she’d walked stiffly upstairs to her apartment and laid the package on the table by the window. Deliberately keeping her gloves on, she opened it, unknotting the twine and slitting the sealing tape at the flaps.
The sketch of the slipper on the lid. Remove the lid. Separate the tissue. Look down at Erin’s boot and a pink and silver slipper nestled together.
The slipper is so pretty, she thought. It would have gone beautifully with the dress Erin was buried in.
She did not have to look up Vince D’Ambrosio’s number, her brain produced it effortlessly. He was not there but they promised to locate him. “Can you wait for him?”
“Yes.”
He called a few minutes later, was at the apartment within half an hour. “This is rough for you.”
“I touched the heel of the slipper with my glove,” she confessed. “I simply had to know if it was Erin’s size. It was.”
Vince looked at her compassionately. “Maybe you should take it easy today.”
Darcy shook her head. “That would be the worst thing in the world for me to do.” She attempted a smile. “I’ve got a big project scheduled, and then, guess what? I have a date tonight.”
When Vince left with the package, Darcy went directly to the newly purchased hotel on West Twenty-third Street. Small, a total of thirty guest rooms, rundown, badly in need of paint, it s
till had tremendous possibilities. The owners, a couple in their late thirties, explained that the cost of basic repairs would leave very little for refurbishing. They were delighted with her suggestion that they decorate in the style of an English country inn. “I can get plenty of sofas and upholstered chairs and lamps and tables in very good condition at private sales,” she’d told them. “We can give this place a lot of charm. Look at the Algonquin. The most intimate bar in Manhattan and you’d be hard put to find a chair that isn’t threadbare.”
She walked through the rooms with them, making notes on their various sizes and shapes, and marking what furniture was usable. The day passed quickly. She had intended to go home and change for her date, but then decided against it. When Doug Fields called to reconfirm, he’d told her that he dressed casually. “Slacks and a sweater are pretty much a uniform for me.”
They were meeting at six at the Twenty-third Street Bar and Grill. Darcy got there exactly on time. Doug Fields was fifteen minutes late. He burst into the bar, clearly irritated and filled with apologies. “I swear I’ve never seen this block so messed up. So many cars, you’d swear it was an assembly line in Detroit. I’m so sorry, Darcy. I never keep people waiting. It’s a thing with me.”
“It really doesn’t matter.” He’s good-looking, Darcy thought. Attractive. Why had he found it necessary to immediately insist that he never kept people waiting?
Over a glass of wine, she listened to him on two levels. He was amusing, self-confident, well-spoken. Extremely likable. He’d been raised in Virginia, went to the University there, dropped out of law school. “I’d have made a lousy lawyer. Don’t have enough of the ‘go for the jugular.’ ”
Go for the jugular. Darcy thought of the bruises on Erin’s throat.
“Switched to art school. Pointed out to my father that instead of cracking the books, I was doing caricatures of the profs. It was a good decision. I love illustrating and do well at it.”
“There’s an old saying, ‘If you want to be happy for a year, win the lottery. If you want to be happy for life, love what you do.’ ” Darcy hoped she sounded relaxed. This was the kind of guy Erin would have enjoyed meeting, the kind who after a date or two she would have trusted. An artist? The sketch? Was everybody suspect?
The inevitable question came. “Why would a pretty girl like you need to answer personal ads?”
This time the question was easy to parry. “Why would a good-looking, successful guy like you need to place personal ads?”
“That’s easy,” he said promptly. “I was married for eight years and now I’m not. I’m not interested in getting serious. You get introduced to somebody at a friend’s house, take her out a few times, and bingo, everybody’s looking at the two of you waiting for the big announcement. This way, I meet a lot of nice women. Lay the cards on the table just like this and see if it clicks. Tell me, how many dates from ads have you had this week?”
“You’re the first one.”
“Last week, then. Starting with Monday.”
Monday I was standing over Erin’s casket, Darcy thought. Tuesday I was watching that casket being lowered. Wednesday I was home watching the reenactment of Nan Sheridan’s murder. Thursday she had met Len Parker. Friday, David Weld, the mild-mannered, rather shy man who described himself as a department store executive and claimed not to have known Erin. Saturday, Albert Booth, a computer analyst who was enthralled with the wonders of desktop publishing and who knew Erin was frightened of her superintendent.
“Oh, come on, admit you had dates last week,” Doug urged. “I called you Wednesday and you weren’t free until tonight.”
Startled, Darcy realized that a number of times recently, someone had to repeat a question. “I’m sorry. Yes, I did go out a couple of times last week.”
“And had fun?”
She thought of Len Parker pounding on the door. “You could call it that.”
He laughed. “That speaks volumes. I’ve met some winners too. Now you’ve gotten my life history, how about telling me about yourself?”
She gave a carefully edited version.
Doug raised one eyebrow. “I sense a lot of omissions but maybe when you get to know me a bit better, you’ll fill me in.”
She refused a second glass of wine. “I really have to be going.”
He did not argue. “Actually, I do too. When am I going to see you again, Darcy? Tomorrow night? Let’s make it dinner.”
“I really am busy.”
“Thursday?”
“I’m working on a job that’s going to tie me up. Will you call in a few days?”
“Yes. And if you keep turning me down, I promise I won’t persist. But I hope you don’t.”
He really is nice, Darcy thought, or else he’s a heck of a good actor.
* * *
Doug put her in a cab, then quickly waved one down for himself. In the apartment, he tore off the sweater and slacks and rushed into the suit he’d worn to the office. At quarter of eight he was on the train to Scarsdale. At quarter of nine he was reading a bedtime story to Trish while Susan broiled a steak for him. She certainly understood how maddening these late meetings were. “You work too hard, Doug, dear,” she had said soothingly when he stamped into the house, ranting about missing the earlier train by a hairbreadth.
Through hours of intense questioning, Jay Stratton remained calm. His only explanation for the diamonds in the bracelet that he had sold to Merrill Ashton was that it must have been a ghastly error. Erin Kelley had been commissioned to create settings for a number of fine diamonds. Stratton claimed that somehow he had made a mistake and inadvertently substituted other fine stones for some of the ones that were meant to be in the diamond pouch he had given Kelley. That was not to say that those others were not of equal value. Take a look at his various insurance policies.
A search warrant revealed no other missing diamonds in his apartment or in his safety deposit box. He was booked on suspicion of receiving stolen goods and bail was set. Disdainfully, he strode from the precinct with his lawyer.
Vince had shared the interrogation with detectives from the Sixth Precinct. They all knew he was guilty, but as Vince said, “There goes one of the most convincing con men I’ve ever come across and believe me, I’ve run into a lot of them.”
The crazy thing, Vince thought as he left for his office, is that Darcy Scott ends up being a witness for Stratton. She’d opened the safe for him and would swear that the pouch wasn’t there. And of course the big question was, would Stratton have had the nerve to claim those diamonds were missing unless he knew that Erin Kelley would never show up to say what happened to them?
* * *
In the office, Vince snapped out orders. “I want to know everything, and I mean everything, about Jay Stratton. Jay Charles Stratton.”
XV
WEDNESDAY
March 6
Chris Sheridan studied Darcy Scott, liking what he saw. She was wearing a leather jacket belted at the waist, tan slacks that disappeared into scuffed but fine leather boots, a knotted silk scarf that accentuated the hollow in the nape of her neck. Her brown hair, darted with blond highlights, was soft and loose around her face. Hazel eyes, soft brown flecked with green, were framed by dark lashes. Charcoal brows accentuated her porcelain complexion. He judged her to be in her late twenties.
She reminds me of Nan. The realization shocked him. But they don’t look alike, he thought. Nan had been the typical Nordic beauty with her pink and white skin, vivid blue eyes, hair the color of daffodils. Then where was the resemblance? It was in the absolute grace with which Darcy moved. Nan had walked like that, as though if music began to play, she would glide into a dance step.
* * *
Darcy was aware of Chris Sheridan’s scrutiny. She had been making some observations of her own. She liked his strong features, the slight bump on the bridge of his nose, probably the result of a break. The width of his shoulders and an overall impression of disciplined fitness suggested athletic
prowess.
A few years ago, her mother and father had both had plastic surgery. “A nip here, a tuck there,” her mother had said, laughing. “Don’t look so disapproving, darling Darcy. Remember, our looks are an important part of our stock in trade.”
How totally irrelevant to remember that now, Darcy thought. Was she simply trying to escape the delayed shock of opening the package with Erin’s boot and the dancing slipper? She’d been composed all day yesterday, then woke up this morning at four o’clock to find her face and pillow wet with tears. She bit her lip at the memory, but could not prevent new tears from welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, and tried to sound brisk. “It was good of you to go to Connecticut for the pictures last night. Vince D’Ambrosio told me you had to change your plans.”
“They weren’t important.” Chris sensed that Darcy Scott wanted him to ignore her distress. “There’s an awful lot of stuff,” he said matter-of-factly. “I have it laid out on a table in the conference room. My suggestion is that you take a look at it. If you want to bring everything home or to your office, I can have it delivered. If you want part of it, we can arrange that too. I know most of the people in the pictures. Some, of course, I don’t Anyhow, let’s take a look.”
They went downstairs. Darcy realized that in the fifteen minutes she’d been in Chris Sheridan’s office, the crowd inspecting the items for the next auction had increased substantially. She loved auctions. Growing up she had regularly gone to them with the dealer representing her parents. They never could go themselves. If either one of them was known to be interested in acquiring a painting or antique, the price shot up instantly. It was hearing her mother and father recite the history of their acquisitions that made her uncomfortable.
She was walking next to Sheridan toward the rear of the building when she spotted a cylinder writing desk and darted over to it. “Is this really a Roentgen?”