“It isn’t hard to keep up appearances with my husband. Most of the time he doesn’t notice me except to complain.”
When she left, Vince called in Ernie. “We have our first big break and I don’t want to blow it. This is what we’ll do. . . . ”
On Tuesday afternoon, Jay Charles Stratton was booked for grand theft. The NYPD detectives, in conjunction with the Lloyd’s of London security staff, had found the jeweler who fenced some of his stolen diamonds. The rest of the gems that were listed as being in the missing pouch were traced to a private safe deposit box rented under the name Jay Charles.
It had been a long meeting and the tension in the office all day was brutal. How do you explain to your best clients that a company’s accountants pulled the wool over your eyes? That sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.
Doug called home several times and was surprised to hear the babysitter pick up the phone. Something was definitely up. He’d make it his business to get home tonight. It wasn’t that hard to straighten Susan out. His confidence oozed away. She wasn’t beginning to suspect . . . Or was she?
On Tuesday evening, Darcy went straight home from work. All she wanted to do was heat a can of soup and go to bed early. The tension of the last two weeks was catching up with her. She knew it.
At eight o’clock Michael phoned. “I’ve heard tired voices, but yours just might win first prize.”
“I’m sure it would.”
“You’ve been driving yourself too hard, Darcy.”
“Don’t worry. I intend to come straight home from the office for the rest of the week.”
“That’s a good idea. Darcy, I’ll be out of town for a few days, but keep Saturday for me, won’t you? Or Sunday? Or better still, both days?”
Darcy laughed. “Let’s plan on Saturday. Have fun.”
“It isn’t fun. It’s a psychiatric convention. I’ve been asked to fill in for a friend who’s had to cancel. You want to know what it’s like to have four hundred shrinks in one room at the same time?”
“I can’t imagine.”
XXII
WEDNESDAY
March 13
D day, Nona thought as she slipped off her cape and tossed it on the love seat. It was not quite eight A.M. She was grateful to see that Connie was already there and the coffee brewing.
Connie followed her in. “It’s going to be a great program, Nona.” She was carrying freshly washed mugs.
“I think Cecil B. DeMille did one of his epics faster than I handled this one,” Nona said wryly.
“You’ve been doing all your regular shows while putting this together,” Connie pointed out.
“I suppose. Let’s be sure to reconfirm all the guests by phone. You did send them a follow-up letter?”
“Of course.” Connie looked astonished that she’d ask.
Nona grinned. “I’m sorry. It’s just that Hamilton has been such a pain about this program, and Liz is determined to take the credit for what’s good in it and leave me holding the bag if there are any snafus . . . ”
“I know.”
“Sometimes I wonder who runs this office, Connie, you or me. There’s only one area where I wish we weren’t alike.”
Connie waited.
“I wish you talked to plants. You’re like me. You never even see them.” She pointed to the plant on the windowsill. “That poor thing is gasping. Pour something liquid on it, will you?”
Len Parker was tired Wednesday morning. Yesterday he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Darcy Scott. When he left work he’d hung around her apartment building and seen her step out of a cab around six-thirty or seven. He’d waited until ten, but she hadn’t come out. He really wanted to talk to her. Other times he was mad at her for being so mean to him. There was something he had thought about the other day that had been important, but now it was gone. He wondered if he’d remember again.
He put on his maintenance uniform. Nice thing about wearing a uniform, it didn’t cost you anything for work clothes.
Vince’s secretary had taken a message from Darcy Scott before he got to the office on Wednesday morning. She’d be out all day on different jobs but wanted him to know that Erin had probably answered an ad that began “Loves Music, Loves to Dance.” That certainly sounded like the kind of ad those missing girls would have answered too, Vince thought.
Following up on the personal ads was a grueling job. Anyone who didn’t want his real identity known could fake a few ID’s, open a checking account, and rent a private box where magazines and newspapers could forward the responses to the nameless ads. No home address to trace. The people who ran those private box services were in the business of offering secrecy to their clients.
It was going to be a long haul. But this ad had a ring to it. He got on the phone to the researchers. They were closing in on Doug Fox, also known as Doug Fields. The Harkness Agency’s file on him was an FBI investigator’s dream.
Fields had been subletting the apartment for two years, starting just about the time Claire Barnes disappeared.
Joe Pabst, the Harkness man, had sat near Fox in the SoHo restaurant. It was clear he had met the woman through a personal ad.
He’d made a date to take her dancing
He had a station wagon
Pabst was sure that Fox had some sort of hideout. He’d overheard him telling the real estate broker in SoHo that he had a retreat he’d love to have her visit.
He was passing himself off as an illustrator. The super of the London Terrace building had been in and out of Fields’s apartment and said that there were sketches lying around that were really good.
And he had been questioned in Nan Sheridan’s death.
But it was all circumstantial, Vince reminded himself. Did Fox place ads, or answer them, or both? Would it be better to tap his London Terrace phone for a while, see what that turned up?
Should they bring him in for questioning? It was a tough one to call.
Well, at least Darcy Scott was already alerted to the possibility that Fox was the one. She wouldn’t let herself get painted into a corner by him.
And wouldn’t it be a bonus if it turned out that Fox had placed the ad they knew Erin Kelley had been carrying around? “Loves Music, Loves to Dance. “
* * *
At noon, Vince got a VICAP alert from headquarters in Quantico. Calls had come in from police departments all over the country. Vermont. Washington, D.C. Ohio. Georgia. California. Five more packages of mismatched shoes had been returned. All of them contained a shoe or boot and a high-heeled slipper. All of them were sent to families of the young women who had turned up in the VICAP file, the young women who had lived in New York and been reported missing in the last two years.
* * *
At three-thirty, Vince was ready to leave his office for Hudson Cable Network. His secretary stopped him as he passed her desk and handed him the phone. “Mr. Charles North. He says it’s important.”
Vince felt his eyebrows go up. Don’t tell me that stuffy ambulance chaser is starting to cooperate, he thought. “D’Ambrosio,” he said crisply.
“Mr. D’Ambrosio, I have been doing a great deal of thinking.”
Vince waited.
“There is only one possible explanation I can come up with to account for how my plans may have fallen on the wrong ears.”
Vince felt a stir of interest.
“When I came to New York in early February to make final living arrangements, I attended a benefit at the Plaza as the guest of my senior partner. The 21st Century Playwrights’ Festival Benefit. It was quite a glittery crowd. Helen Hayes, Tony Randall, Martin Charnin, Lee Grant, Lucille Lortel. I was introduced to a great many people during the cocktail hour. The senior partner at my firm was anxious that I become known. I spoke to a group of four or five people right before dinner was announced. One of them asked me for my card, but I can’t think of his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“You’re speaking to
someone with a very poor ]memory for both faces and names, which I am sure must be puzzling to someone in your profession. I’m vague about him. About six feet. Late thirties or early forties. Late thirties, I would think. Well-spoken.”
“Do you think that if we got a roster of the people who attended that benefit it might stir your memory?”
“I don’t know. It might.”
“Okay, Mr. North. I’m grateful for this. We’ll get the list and perhaps you can ask your senior partner if he recognizes the names of any of the people you spent time with.”
North sounded alarmed. “And how would I explain the need for that information?”
The faint stirring of gratitude that Vince had felt for the man’s attempt to be helpful disappeared. “Mr. North,” he snapped, “you’re a lawyer. You should be used to getting information without giving it.” He hung up and yelled for Ernie. “I need the guest list for the 21st Century Playwrights’ Benefit at the Plaza in early February,” he said. “Shouldn’t be hard to get. You know where I’ll be.”
It was March thirteenth, Nan’s anniversary. Yesterday had been their thirty-fourth birthday.
Long ago Chris had started to celebrate his on the twenty-fourth, Greta’s birthday. It was easier for both of them. His mother had phoned yesterday before he left for work. “Chris, I thank my stars every day that I have you. Happy birthday, dear.”
This morning he’d phoned her. “The tough day, Mother.”
“I guess it always will be. Are you sure you want to be on that program?”
“Want to? No. But I think if it does anything to help solve this case, it’s worth it. Maybe someone watching it will remember something about Nan.”
“I hope so.” Greta sighed. Her tone changed. “How’s Darcy? Chris, she is so dear.”
“I think this whole business is wearing her down.”
“Will she be on the program as well?”
“No. And she doesn’t want to watch it being taped.”
* * *
It was a quiet day at the gallery. Chris had a chance to catch up on paperwork. He’d left instructions that if Darcy came in he was to be notified. But there was no sign of her. Maybe she wasn’t well. At two he phoned her office. Her secretary said she was working on some outside job all day and then planned to go directly home.
At three-thirty, Chris was hailing a cab to go to Hudson Cable.
Let’s get this over with, he thought grimly.
The guests for the program gathered in the greenroom. Nona introduced them. The Corras, a couple in their mid-forties. They’d separated. Each had placed a personal ad. They’d answered each other’s ad. That had been the catalyst that brought them back together.
The Daleys, a serious-looking couple in their fifties. Neither had ever married. They’d both been embarrassed about placing and answering ads. They’d met three years ago. “It was good from the very beginning,” Mrs. Daley said. “I’ve always been much too reticent. I was able to put on paper what I couldn’t say to anyone.” She was a research scientist. He was a college professor.
Adrian Greenfield, the vivacious divorcée in her late forties. “I’m having more fun,” she told the others. “Actually, they made a printing error. They were supposed to say that I was well-liked. Instead, they put down that I was wealthy. I swear, you need a U-Haul for the mail I’ve gotten.”
Wayne Harsh, the shy president of a toy manufacturing company. In his late twenties. Every mother’s dream of the kind of guy her daughter will bring home, Vince decided. Harsh was enjoying his dates. In his ad he’d written that it frustrated him to see the toys he manufactured being enjoyed by kids all over the world while he is childless. Anxious to meet sweet, bright woman in her twenties who wants a nice guy who’ll be home on time and won’t drop his laundry on the floor.
The lovebirds, the Cairones. They fell in love on their first personal ad date. At the end of the evening he had gone over to the piano at the bar where they met and played “Get Me to the Church on Time.” They were married a month later.
“Until they came along, I was worried that we didn’t have any young couples,” Nona had confided to Vince when he arrived. “Those two make you believe in romance.”
Vince saw the psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Weiss, come in and got up to greet him.
Weiss was a man in his late sixties with a strong face, a good head of silver hair, penetrating blue eyes. They went over to the coffeepot.
“Thank you for doing this on short notice, Doctor,” Vince said.
“Hello, Vince.”
Vince turned as Chris came up to them. He remembered that this was the anniversary of Nan Sheridan’s death. “Not the best day for you,” he said.
At quarter of five, Darcy leaned back in the cab, her eyes closed. At least today she’d made up for lost time. The painters would start next Monday at the hotel. This morning she’d brought down a brochure from the Pelham Hotel in London. “This is an absolutely elegant and intimate hotel. It’s like your place in the sense that the rooms aren’t large, the reception area is small, the parlor off it is perfect for receiving visitors. Notice the little bar in the corner. You can have the same thing. And study the rooms. We’re not going to be nearly that grand, of course, but we can give it the effect.”
It was obvious they were delighted.
Now, Darcy thought, I’ve got to get in touch with the window designer at Wilston’s. She’d been shocked to realize that when a window display was taken down, the fabrics were often sold for peanuts. Yards and yards of top-quality goods.
She shook her head, trying to dislodge a nagging headache. I don’t know whether I’m getting a bug or if I just ache, but it’s another early night for me. The cab was pulling up to her building.
* * *
In the apartment her answering machine was blinking. Bev had left a message. “Darcy, you got the craziest call about twenty minutes ago. Call me right away.”
Quickly, Darcy dialed her office. “Bev, what’s the message?”
“It was some woman. Spoke real low. I could hardly hear her. She wanted to know where she could get in touch with you. I didn’t want to give your home number so I said I’d give you a message. She said she was in the bar the night Erin disappeared, afraid to admit it because her date wasn’t her husband. She saw Erin meet someone who was coming in just as Erin was leaving. They walked away together. She got a good look at him.”
“How can I get back to her?”
“You can’t. She wouldn’t leave her name. She wants you to meet her at that bar. It’s Eddie’s Aurora on West Fourth Street off Washington Square. She said to come alone and sit at the bar. She’ll be there by six unless she can’t get away. Don’t wait any longer than that. She’ll call tomorrow if you don’t get together tonight.”
“Thanks, Bev.”
“Listen, Darcy, I’m going to stay late. I have an exam to study for and there’s no peace and quiet in my apartment with my roommate’s friends always hanging around. Call me back, won’t you? I’d just like to know that you’re okay.”
“I’ll be fine. But yes, I’ll call you back.”
Darcy forgot that she was tired. It was five of five. She had just time to freshen her face, brush her hair, and change from her dusty jeans to a skirt and sweater. Oh, Erin, she thought. Maybe it’s ending.
Nona watched the credits roll as the guests chatted quietly, still on-camera but off-mike. “Amen,” she said as the screen went dark. She jumped up and ran down the steps to the set. “You were wonderful,” she said. “Every one of you. I can’t thank you enough.”
A relaxed smile from some of the participants. Chris, Vince, and Dr. Weiss got up together.
“I’m glad it’s over,” Chris said.
“Understandable,” Martin Weiss said. “From what I’ve heard today, both you and your mother have shown remarkable strength through all this.”
“You do what you have to do, Doctor.”
Nona came up to them. “The others are le
aving, but I wish you people would come back to my office for a cocktail. You’ve certainly earned it.”
“Oh, I don’t think . . . ” Weiss shook his head, then hesitated. “I must check in with my office. If I can do it from there?”
“Of course.”
Chris debated. He realized how low he was feeling. Darcy’s secretary had said she was going straight home. He wondered if he could talk her into a quick dinner. “Can I get on line for the phone too?”
“Dial away.”
The beeper went off on Vince’s belt. “I hope you have a lot of phones around here, Nona.”
* * *
Vince dialed from the secretary’s desk and received a message to call Ernie at the 21st Century Playwrights’ Festival office. When he reached him, Ernie was brimming with news.
“I’ve got the guest list. Guess who was there that night?”
“Who?”
“Erin Kelley and Jay Stratton.”
“Holy smoke.” He thought of the description North had given him of the man who had taken his card. Tall. Late thirties or early forties. Well-spoken. But Erin Kelley! That afternoon in Kelley’s apartment Darcy had selected a pink and silver dress for Erin to be buried in. Darcy had told him Erin bought it to wear to a benefit. Then when he’d picked up the package of shoes that had been mailed to Darcy’s apartment, she’d said that the evening slipper in the package went better with Erin’s pink and silver dress than the ones Erin had bought herself. He suddenly knew why the shoes went so well with it. Her killer had been at the benefit and seen her wearing that dress.
“Meet me in Nona Roberts’s office,” he told Ernie. “We might as well go downtown together.”
In the office Dr. Weiss seemed more relaxed. “No problems. I was concerned that one patient might need to see me tonight. Ms. Roberts, I’m going to take advantage of your kindness. My youngest son is a communications major and will be graduating from college in June. How does he get a foothold in this business?”