On the Street Where You Live

  “Police take note!

  “Someone in attendance at the party in the Lawrence home that fatal night stole that scarf and the next day used it to snuff out the life of Martha Lawrence.

  “Who is he?

  “As Bernice Joyce described them, here are the possibilities:

  “Several elderly couples who were neighbors of the Lawrences.

  “Dr. Clayton Wilcox and his formidable wife, Rachel. He’s a retired college president. She’s the one who wore the scarf to the party. Rachel heads a lot of committees, gets things done, but isn’t much liked. She says she asked her henpecked hubby to put the scarf in his pocket.

  “Bob and Natalie Frieze. Bernice Joyce is very fond of Susan, the first Mrs. Frieze, but definitely does not care for the glamorous second one.

  “Will Stafford, real estate lawyer. Good-looking, one of the few single men in Spring Lake. Watch out, Will—Bernice Joyce thinks you’re a doll.”

  That was as far as Reba had gone with the article. She wanted to get a look at Will Stafford herself and form her own impressions of him. After that she would go over to The Seasoner and see if Bob Frieze was around.

  She located Will Stafford’s office on Third Avenue, in the center of town. As Reba opened the door of the outer office, she spotted the receptionist and said a silent prayer that Stafford was either out or busy.

  He was out, Pat Glynn told her, but expected back soon. Would Miss Ashby care to wait?

  You bet I would, baby, Reba thought.

  She settled in the chair nearest the receptionist’s desk and turned to Glynn, her manner warm and confiding. “Tell me about your boss, Will Stafford.”

  The telltale blush on Glynn’s cheeks and the sudden brightening of her eyes, told Reba what she’d half expected. The receptionist-secretary had a huge crush on the boss.

  “He’s the nicest person in the world,” Pat Glynn said fiercely. “Everybody looks to him for help. And he’s so fair. He’ll tell people not to rush into buying a house, or if he thinks they’re really not happy with the one they put a deposit on, he does everything to get them their money back. And he . . .”

  The key phrase Reba had heard was “everyone looks to him for help.” She knew that was where the story would be.

  “I guess you’re saying that he’s a shoulder to cry on for lots of people,” she suggested. “Or the kind of guy who gives you that spot loan when you need a few bucks, or cuts his fee for—”

  “Oh, he’s definitely a shoulder to cry on,” Pat Glynn said with a misty smile. Then the smile vanished. “People take advantage of that.”

  “I know,” Reba sympathized. “Is there anyone who’s been overdoing it lately?”

  “Natalie Frieze certainly is.”

  Natalie Frieze. She’s the wife of Bob Frieze, the owner of The Seasoner, Reba recalled. They had been guests at the Lawrence home the night before Martha disappeared.

  Pat Glynn warmed to the subject. For the last twenty-four hours, since she had seen Natalie Frieze kiss Will Stafford so warmly, and then go out to lunch with him for the second time in a week, Pat’s moods had been alternating between fury and misery.

  Absolutely, totally in love with her boss, her earlier admiration for Natalie Frieze had completely disappeared and changed into intense dislike.

  “Nobody around here likes her. She’s a big showoff, marching around town all dressed up every day as if she’s on her way to Cirque 2000. Yesterday she was playing up to Mr. Stafford, trying to get sympathy. She showed him how her husband had bruised her wrist.”

  “He bruised it? Deliberately?”

  “I don’t know. Could be. It was swollen and purple. She told me how much it was hurting her.” Looking into Reba’s sympathetic eyes was like going to confession. Pat Glynn took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Yesterday, as they were leaving here, Mr. Stafford told me he’d be back in an hour. Natalie Frieze smirked and said, ‘Make that an hour and a half.’ And he was really busy, too. He had a lot of work on his desk.”

  “Does he have a girlfriend?” Reba asked mildly.

  “Oh, no. He’s been divorced forever. He was married when he was just out of law school in California. His mother died around that time. He keeps her picture on his desk. I thought his father was dead too, but then he showed up here last week, and Mr. Stafford got real angry and upset . . .” Glynn’s voice trailed off.

  Don’t let anyone come in, Reba prayed. Don’t let her stop.

  “Maybe his father had neglected his mother, and he won’t forgive him,” Reba suggested, hoping to keep the conversation going. She could see that Pat Glynn was beginning to look uncomfortable, perhaps sensing that she had said too much.

  It was the same expression that Reba had seen on the face of Bernice Joyce.

  But Pat overcame whatever misgivings she had and picked up the bait. “No, it was between them. Mr. Stafford practically threw his father out of the office. In the two years I’ve been here, I’ve never once heard him raise his voice, but he shouted at his father—he told him to get in his car and drive back to Princeton and stay there. He said, ‘You didn’t believe me, you disowned me, your only son, you could have paid to have me defended.’ The father was crying when he came out, and you can tell he’s very sick, but I didn’t feel sorry for him. He obviously had been just terrible to Mr. Stafford when he was a kid.”

  Pat Glynn paused for breath, then looked at Reba. “You’re just too nice and too easy to talk to. I shouldn’t be telling you all this. It’s just between us, all right?”

  Reba stood up. “Absolutely,” she replied firmly. “I don’t think I can wait any longer to see him, though. I’ll phone for an appointment. Nice to meet you, Pat.” She pushed open the door, exited, and began to walk rapidly down the street. The last thing she wanted was to confront Will Stafford now. If he saw her and realized who she was, he would undoubtedly get his gossipy secretary to admit how much she’d had to say.

  Tomorrow’s paper would headline Bernice Joyce’s eyewitness story.

  The next day, Saturday, her story would concentrate on Natalie Frieze, a battered wife, taking comfort in the arms of Will Stafford, one of the other potential suspects in the murders of Martha Lawrence and Carla Harper.

  Sunday, if The National Daily research team could dig up the dirt fast enough, her angle would be on why Will Stafford, Spring Lake’s popular and handsome real estate lawyer, had been disowned by his wealthy father, who wouldn’t pay to defend him in court.

  Reba, of course, was only guessing. She didn’t know yet whether the father was wealthy, but he was from Princeton, which was upscale; besides, it would look good in print.

  sixty-four ________________

  AFTER THEY LEFT EMILY, Tommy Duggan and Pete Walsh went directly to the home of Dr. Clayton Wilcox. Their interview with him had been frustrating and unsatisfactory.

  Wilcox had stuck to his story about laying the scarf under his wife’s pocketbook. When asked about Dr. Lillian Madden, he did recall that some years ago he was experiencing mild depression and might have consulted her. “Or someone with a similiar name.”

  “How long ago was that, Dr. Wilcox?” Tommy Duggan had asked.

  “It’s quite a while ago. I’m really not sure.”

  “Five years? Three years?”

  “I just can’t pin it down.”

  “Give it a shot, Doctor,” Pete Walsh suggested.

  The only satisfacion the policemen had been able to extract from the meeting was the fact that Wilcox was visibly coming apart at the seams. His eyes were sunken. When he’d talked, he kept folding and unfolding his hands. Beads of perspiration kept forming on his forehead, even though the temperature in his study was cool to the point of discomfort.

  “If nothing else, he’s getting rattled,” Tommy told Pete.

  Then, at four o’clock that afternoon, two things happened almost simultaneously. The technician phoned from Dr. Madden’s office and gave them the dates Dr. Clayton Wilcox had consulted the psych
ologist.

  “He saw her four weeks running after Martha Lawrence vanished, and three weeks running after Carla Harper vanished,” Tommy Duggan repeated, his tone both incredulous and exhilarated. “And he claims he didn’t remember! The guy’s a world-class liar.”

  “He told us he saw her for a mild case of depression. If he did strangle those girls, it’s no wonder he was depressed,” Pete Walsh said sarcastically.

  “The secretary, Joan Hodges, tells me they still haven’t found the private file with the doctor’s notes on Wilcox, but even if they can put it together, we’ll need a court order to see it.” Tommy Duggan’s mouth became a thin, angry line. “But no matter what, we’re going to get that file.”

  The second serving of manna from heaven came in the form of a phone call from the investigator in Ohio.

  “I have a connection at the brokerage firm where Wilcox has his portfolio. It would cost the guy his job if it were known, but he looked up the Wilcox file. Twelve years ago when Wilcox retired, he took a one-hundred-thousand-dollar loan against his stocks. He took it in the form of a cashier’s check made out to himself. However, the check was deposited in a bank in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in a new account opened by one Gina Fielding. On the bottom left of the face of the check someone wrote, ‘Antique desk and bureau.’”

  “Is Gina Fielding a bona fide antiques dealer?” Tommy asked.

  From the smile on Duggan’s face as he listened, Pete Walsh knew good things were happening.

  “You’re gonna love this, Duggan. Gina Fielding was a junior at Enoch College and dropped out of school abruptly, just before Wilcox resigned.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “We’re tracing her. She moved to Chicago, got married, then divorced. We’ll locate her in the next day or two.”

  When Tommy Duggan hung up the phone, he looked at Pete Walsh with grim satisfaction. “We may have our smoking gun,” he said. “Tomorrow morning we pay another visit to the eminent former president of Enoch College. I wouldn’t be surprised if before we’re finished they’ll be taking his name off that building they dedicated to him out there.”

  Friday, March 30

  sixty-five ________________

  IT HAS BEEN a most distressing morning. Just as my final plan was unfolding so beautifully, I had to make a radical and potentially fatal decision.

  I have been purchasing The National Daily every morning. That insidious columnist, Reba Ashby, has been staying at The Breakers all week and is omnipresent in the community, gathering gossip.

  This morning I realized that her conversations with Bernice Joyce would prove to be either my downfall or my salvation.

  Mrs. Joyce confided to Ashby that she was virtually certain she knew who had removed the scarf from under the pocketbook that evening.

  If she had told that to the police, they would have successfully urged her to reveal my name. At that point, they would have started to investigate every detail of my life. They would no longer accept my unsubstantiated explanation of where I was and what I was doing when Martha disappeared.

  They would have arrived at the truth, and this life as I choose to live it would be over.

  I had to take the risk. I sat on a boardwalk bench near The Breakers, ostensibly deep in the newspaper, trying desperately to decide how it would be possible to go into the hotel and find Mrs. Joyce’s room without being noticed and recognized. Under my hood I wore a wig so that if described it would be as having graying hair falling on my forehead. I also wore dark sunglasses.

  I knew it was a pitifully poor attempt at a disguise, but I also knew that if the police had the opportunity to question Mrs. Joyce, she would surely reveal my name.

  And then my opportunity came.

  It is a beautiful day, sunny, and truly mild.

  At 7:30 Mrs. Joyce came out of The Breakers for an early morning stroll. She was alone, and I followed her at a distance, my mind seeking how I could separate her from the other early morning strollers and joggers. Fortunately, the very early ones were already gone, and it was still too early for the people who walk after breakfast.

  After several blocks, Mrs. Joyce sat on a bench on one of the boardwalk extensions that are for those who wish to sit and enjoy the ocean without the distraction of people constantly passing in front of them.

  A perfect spot for my purpose!

  I was about to go to her when Dr. Dermot O’Herlihy, a retired physician who never misses a daily walk, spotted Mrs. Joyce and paused to chat with her. Fortunately, he stayed only a few minutes, then continued on his way. I know he did not give me any heed as he passed the bench where I was seated.

  There were people coming from both directions, but none of them was less than a full block away. With the knotted cord in my hand, I sat down quietly beside Mrs. Joyce, whose eyes were closed as she enjoyed the morning sun.

  She opened them when she felt the tug on her neck, turned her head, startled and frightened, as I tightened the cord and she understood what was happening.

  She recognized me. Her eyes widened.

  Her last words before she died were, “I was wrong. I didn’t think it was you.”

  sixty-six ________________

  “YOU DIDN’T EXACTLY sleep like a baby last night,” Janey Browski told Marty, as she placed a steaming bowl of oatmeal in front of him.

  “And I don’t feel as if I slept like a baby,” Browski responded. “I kept dreaming. You know the kind of dreams that make you feel rotten, but then you can’t remember them when you wake up? The dreams are gone. The rotten feeling remains.”

  “Your subconscious is trying to tell you something. If you could remember even a little bit of your dream, I could help you to analyze it.”

  Janey Browski poured coffee into their cups, sat down at the table, and began to spread strawberry jam on a piece of toast.

  “Are you learning how to analyze dreams in your psych course?” Marty asked with a hint of a smile.

  “We talk about how they can be made to work for you.”

  “Well, if I dream tonight, I’ll wake you up, tell you about it, and you can start analyzing.”

  “Keep a pad on your night table and jot down all the details. But don’t turn on the light when you do it.” Janey’s tone became serious. “What’s wrong, Marty? Something specific or just the overall worry about the stalker?”

  “You were baby-sitting last night, and I went to bed early, so I didn’t get a chance to tell you. I saw Eric Bailey yesterday.” Marty described the meeting and his sudden suspicion that Bailey might be the stalker.

  “Frankly, I think you’re reaching,” Janey said, “but on the other hand, is there some way you can check him out ?”

  “Janey, common sense says that he wasn’t in St. Catherine’s Church at the memorial service last Saturday morning, seated not far from the pew where Emily was sitting. It would have been all over if she’d spotted him. As you know, it’s a lot harder for a man to disguise himself than it is for a woman.”

  He looked at the clock and hastily finished breakfast. “I’m out of here. Don’t learn too much. I’d hate to be your intellectual inferior.” He paused. “And don’t dare tell me I already am,” he cautioned as he kissed the top of her head.

  Harder for a man to disguise himself than it is for a woman. Like the unsettling dreams that he couldn’t remember, the phrase lingered somewhere in Marty’s subconscious all day.

  He did go so far as to get the license numbers of Eric Bailey’s van and Mercedes convertible and check them against EZPass records.

  The activity of the vehicles indicated neither of them had been driven more than thirty miles south of Albany in the last week.

  Let it go, Marty told himself, but like a chronically aching tooth, the suspicion that Eric Bailey was the stalker would not subside.

  sixty-seven ________________

  WHEN EMILY WOKE UP on Friday morning and looked at the clock, she was surprised to see that it was already 8:15. Shows what a couple of glas
ses of wine will do to relax you, she thought, as she pushed back the covers.

  But the long, dreamless sleep did make her feel a lot more refreshed than she had been feeling all week. And it had been a very pleasant evening, she reflected, as she went through the morning ritual of making coffee, then carrying it up to her room to drink while she showered and dressed.

  Will Stafford is a nice guy, she thought, as she opened the doors of the walk-in closet and puzzled for a moment over what to wear. She chose white jeans and a red-and-white checkered long-sleeved cotton shirt, both old favorites.

  Last evening she’d worn a silk navy suit with subtle pleating around the sleeves and cuffs. Will Stafford had remarked on it several times.

  He had arrived to pick her up almost half an hour early. I was buttoning the suit jacket on the way downstairs, Emily thought. I still hadn’t put on lipstick or jewelry.

  She had left him in the study, watching the news, and been glad that she’d already closed the doors to the dining room. She did not want anyone else scrutinizing her cardboard map.

  This morning, as she slipped into the jeans and blouse and pulled on her sneakers, she thought how funny it was that an outsider’s impression of other people’s lives can be so different from what actually is going on in them.

  Like Will Stafford, Emily thought, as she began to make the bed. From what he told me the day I closed on the house, I’d have thought that his life was always pretty much okay and free of hardship.

  Over dinner, however, Will had opened up about himself, and a different picture had emerged. “You know I’m an only child,” he told her, “raised in Princeton, and that I moved with my mother to Denver after my parents split when I was twelve. And I guess I told you that until then we used to come to Spring Lake for two weeks every summer and stay at the Essex-Sussex.

  “But it’s not quite that straightforward,” he explained. Within a year of being made chief executive officer of his company, his father divorced his mother and married his secretary, the first of three successive wives.