Loves Music, Loves To Dance

VII SATURDAY February 23 THROUGH TUESDAY February 26

The next week for Darcy passed as though she was a robot who had been wound up and programmed to perform specific tasks.

Accompanied by Vince D’Ambrosio and a detective from the local precinct, she went to Erin ’s apartment on Saturday. There were three more calls that had been received after she’d been in the apartment on Friday morning. Darcy rewound the answering machine. One was from the manager at Bertolini’s. “Miss Kelley, we gave your check to your manager, Mr. Stratton. We cannot tell you how pleased we are with the necklace.”

Darcy raised her eyebrows. “I never heard Erin refer to Stratton as her manager.”

The second call was from someone who identified himself as Box 2695. “Erin, it’s Milton. We went out last month. I’ve been away. I’d like to see you again. My phone number is 555-3681. And listen, I’m sorry if I came on a little too strong last time.”

The third call was from Michael Nash. “He left a message the other night,” Darcy said.

Vince copied the names and numbers. “We’ll leave the tape on for the next few days.”

Vince had told Darcy that forensics experts from the NYPD would arrive shortly to go over Erin ’s apartment for possible evidence. She had asked Vince if she could come with him and get Erin ’s private papers. “My name is on her bank account and insurance policies as trustee for her father. She told me the papers were in her file under his name.”

Erin ’s instructions were simple and explicit. If anything happened to Erin, as agreed, Darcy would use her insurance to pay nursing home expenses. She had contracted with a funeral director in Wellesley that when the time came he would handle her father’s arrangements. Everything in her apartment, all her personal jewelry and clothing, were left to Darcy Scott.

There was a brief note for Darcy: “Darce, this is surely a just-in-case. But I know you’ll keep your promise to look after Dad if I’m not around. And if that ever should happen, thanks for all the great times we had together, and have fun for both of us.”

Dry-eyed, Darcy looked at the familiar signature.

“I hope you’ll follow her advice,” Vince said quietly. “I will someday,” Darcy told him. “But not yet. Would you make a copy for me of that personal ads file I gave you?”

“Sure,” Vince said, “but why? We’re going to look up the people who placed the ads she circled.”

“But you’re not going to date them. She answered some ads for both of us. Maybe I’ll get calls from people who took her out.”

Darcy left as the forensics crew arrived. She went directly home and began to make phone calls. The funeral director in Wellesley. Sympathy, then practicality. He would send a hearse to the morgue when Erin ’s body was released. What about clothing? Open casket?

Darcy thought about the bruises on Erin ’s throat. Undoubtedly, there’d be media at the funeral parlor. “Closed casket. I’ll bring up clothing for her.” Visitation on Monday. Funeral mass on Tuesday at St. Paul ’s. St. Paul ’s. When she’d stayed with Erin and Billy, she had gone to St. Paul ’s with them.

She went back to Erin ’s apartment. Vince D’Ambrosio was still there. He accompanied her into the bedroom and watched as she opened the closet door. “ Erin had so much style,” Darcy said unsteadily as she searched for the dress she had in mind. “She used to tell me that she felt so out of it when I walked in the room with my folks that first day at college. I was wearing a designer suit and Italian boots my mother had forced on me. I thought she looked smashing in chinos and a sweater and marvelous jewelry. Even then she was designing her own pieces.”

Vince was a good listener. Abstractly, Darcy was aware that she was glad he was letting her talk. “No one’s going to see her,” she said, “except maybe I will, just for a minute. But I want to feel that she’d be pleased with what I chose for her… Erin urged me to be more daring about clothes. I taught her to trust her own instincts. She had impeccable taste.”

She pulled out a two-piece cocktail dress: pale pink fitted jacket, delicate silver buttons, flowing pink and silver chiffon skirt. “ Erin just bought this to wear to a benefit, a dinner dance. She was a wonderful ballroom dancer. That was something else we shared. Nona too. We met Nona in a ballroom dancing class at our health club.”

Vince remembered Nona had told him that. “From what you tell me, this dress sounds like something Erin would want to wear now.” He didn’t like the fact that Darcy’s pupils were so enlarged. He wished he could call Nona Roberts. She had told him she absolutely had to be on a shoot in Nanuet today. Darcy Scott ought not to be alone too much. Darcy realized she could read D’Ambrosio’s thoughts. She also realized there was no use reassuring him. The best service she could perform was to get out of here and let the fingerprint experts and God knows who else do their thing. She tried to make her voice and manner matter-of-fact as she asked, “What are you doing to find the man Erin was meeting Tuesday night?”

“We’ve found Charles North. What Erin told you checks out. It was a lucky break you happened to ask her about him. He moved last month from a law firm in Philadelphia to one on Park Avenue. He left yesterday for a trip to Germany. We’ll be waiting for him when he gets back Monday. Detectives from this precinct are going around pubs and bars in the Washington Square area with Erin ’s picture. We want to see if some bartender or waiter can remember seeing her on Tuesday evening and possibly can identify North when we get him.” Darcy nodded. “I’m going to Wellesley. I’ll stay there till after the funeral.”

“Nona Roberts is going to join you there?”

“On Tuesday morning. She can’t get up before then.” Darcy tried to smile. “Please don’t worry. Erin had loads of friends. I’ve heard from so many of the Mount Holyoke grads. They’ll be there. So will a lot of our buddies from New York. And she lived in Wellesley all her life. I’m staying with the people who used to be her next-door neighbors.”

She went home to pack. A call came from Australia. Her mother and father. “Darling, if only we could be with you. You know we thought of Erin as our second daughter.”

“I know.” If only we could be with you. How many times had she heard that over the years? Birthdays. Graduations. But there had been lots of times when they were with her. Any other kid would have been so happy to have the golden couple as parents. Why had she been a throwback to the cottage-with-a-picket-fence mentality? “It’s so good to talk with you. How’s the play going?”

Now they were on safe ground.

The funeral was a media event. Photographers and cameras. Neighbors and friends. Curiosity seekers. Vince had told her that hidden cameras would be recording everyone who came to the funeral parlor, the church, and the interment, in case Erin ’s killer was there.

The white-haired Monsignor who had known Erin all her life. “Who can forget the sight of that little girl pushing her father’s wheelchair into this church?” The soloist. “… All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you..

.”

The interment. “When every tear shall be wiped away…” The hours she spent with Billy. I’m glad you don’t know, she thought. Holding his hand. If he understands anything, I hope he thinks it’s Erin with him.

Tuesday afternoon the Pan Am shuttle back to New York, Nona beside her. “Can you take a couple of days off, Darce?” Nona asked. “This has been a pretty awful time for you.”

“As soon as I know they have Charles North in custody, I will go away for a week. A couple of my friends have a condo in St. Thomas. They want me to visit.” Nona hesitated. “That’s not the way it’s going to work, Darcy. Vince called me last night. They picked up Charles North. Last Tuesday evening he was in a board meeting at his law firm with twenty partners. Whoever met Erin was using his name.”

After he saw the broadcast and spoke to Chief Moore, Chris decided to go to Darien for the weekend. He wanted to be around when the FBI talked to his mother.

He knew Greta was planning to attend a black-tie dinner at the club. He stopped to eat at Nicola’s, arrived at the house around ten and decided to watch a film. A classic movie buff, he put on Bridge of San Luis Rey and then wondered at his choice. The idea of lives drawn together to one particular moment in time always intrigued him. How much was fate? How much was happenstance? Was there some kind of inevitable, inexorable plan to it all?

He heard the whirring of the garage door shortly before midnight and walked to the head of the basement stairs to wait for Greta, wishing once again that she had live-in help. He did not like the idea of her coming into this big house alone late at night.

Greta adamantly refused that suggestion. Dorothy, the daily housekeeper of three decades, suited her fine. That and the weekly cleaning service. If she had a dinner party, her caterer was excellent. And that was that. As she approached the stairs, he called down, “Hi, Mother.” Her gasp was audible. “What! Oh dear God, Chris. You startled me. I’m a bundle of nerves.” She looked up, trying to smile. “I was so glad to see your car.” In the dim light her fine-boned face reminded him of Nan ’s delicate features. Her hair, shimmering silver, was pulled back in a French knot. A sable jacket fell loosely from her shoulders. She was wearing a long black velvet sheath. Greta would be sixty on her next birthday. An elegant, beautiful woman whose smile never fully removed the sadness from her eyes.

It suddenly struck Chris that his mother always appeared to be poised waiting or listening for something, some sort of signal. When he was a kid, his grandfather had told him a World War I story about a soldier who had lost the message warning of an imminent enemy attack. Afterward the soldier always blamed himself for the terrible casualties and went through life looking in gutters and under stones for the lost message.

Over a nightcap, he told Greta about Erin Kelley and understood why the simile had occurred to him. Greta always felt that there was something Nan had told her before she died that had set off an instinctive alarm. Last week, once again, she had received a warning and been powerless to prevent a tragedy. “The girl they found had a high-heeled evening shoe on?” Greta asked. “Like Nan?

The sort of shoe you would dance in? That note said a dancing girl would die.” Chris chose his words carefully. “Erin Kelley was a jewelry designer. From what I understand, the feeling is that this is a copycat murder. Somebody got the idea from watching that True Crimes program. An FBI agent wants to talk to us about it.”

Chief Moore phoned on Saturday. An FBI agent, Vincent D’Ambrosio, would like to drop in on the Sheridans on Sunday.

Chris was glad that D’Ambrosio emphasized that no one could have acted on the letter Greta had received. “Mrs. Sheridan,” he told her, “we get tips much more specific than that one and still can’t prevent a tragedy from happening.” Vince asked Chris to walk outside with him. “The Darien police have the files on your sister’s death,” he explained. “They’re going to copy them for me. Would you mind taking me to the exact place where she was found?” They walked down the road that led from the Sheridan property to the wooded area with the jogging path. The trees had grown higher, their branches thicker in the fifteen years, but otherwise, Chris commented, the place was pretty much the same.

A bucolic scene in a wealthy town, contrasted with an abandoned West Side pier. Nan Sheridan had been a nineteen-year-old kid. A student. A jogger. Erin Kelley was a twenty-eight-year-old career woman. Nan had come from a well-to-do social family. Erin was on her own. The only two similarities were in the manner of death and the footwear. They both had been strangled. They both had been wearing one fancy shoe. Vince asked Chris if while Nan was at school, she did any blind dating through personal ads.

Chris smiled. “Believe me, Nan had enough guys flocking around that she didn’t need to answer ads to get a date. Anyhow, there was none of that personal-ads stuff when we were in college.”

“You went to Brown?”

“ Nan did. I was at Williams.”

“I assume any special boyfriends were checked out?”

They were walking along the path that threaded through the woods. Chris stopped. “This is where I found her.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker. “ Nan thought anyone who got tied up with one guy was crazy. She was something of a flirt. She liked to have a good time. She never willingly missed a party, and she danced every dance.”

Vince turned to face him. “This is important. You’re sure the fancy slipper your sister was wearing when she was found was not one of her own.” “Absolutely. Nan hated spike heels. She simply wouldn’t have bought that shoe.

And of course, there was no trace of the mate in her closet.”

As he drove back to New York, Vince continued to weigh the comparisons and differences between Nan Sheridan and Erin Kelley. It’s got to be a copycat murder, he told himself. Dancing girl. That’s what was bugging him. The note Greta Sheridan had received. Nan Sheridan had danced every dance. Had that come out on the True Crimes program? Erin Kelley had met Nona Roberts in a dancing class. Was it a coincidence?

On Tuesday afternoon, Charles North was interrogated for the second time by Vincent D’Ambrosio. He had been met at Kennedy Airport on Monday evening and his astonishment at being greeted by two FBI agents had been quickly replaced by anger. “I never heard of Erin Kelley. I never answered a personal ad. I think they’re ridiculous. I cannot imagine who would use my name.” It was a simple matter to ascertain that North had been in a board meeting at seven o’clock on the previous Tuesday evening, the hour Erin Kelley supposedly planned to meet him.

This time the questioning was in FBI headquarters on Federal Plaza. North was of medium height with a stocky build. A slightly florid face suggested a three-martini drinker. Nevertheless, Vince decided, he had a distinct air of authority and sophistication that probably appealed to women. Forty years old, he had been married twelve years prior to his recent divorce. He made it very clear that he deeply resented the request that he drop in at Vince’s office for a second interview.

“I think you must understand that I have just become a partner in a prestigious law firm. It certainly will be a great embarrassment if I am in any way linked to that young woman’s death. An embarrassment for me personally and most certainly for my firm.”

“I’m very sorry to embarrass you, Mr. North,” Vince said coldly. “I can assure you that at this moment you are not a suspect in Erin Kelley’s death. But Erin Kelley is dead, the victim of a brutal homicide. It is possible that she is one of a number of young women who have answered personal ads and disappeared. Someone used your name to place that ad. A very clever someone who knew you would have left your Philadelphia firm by the time he arranged to meet Erin Kelley.”

“Will you please tell me why that would matter to anyone?” North snapped. “Because some women who answer personal ads are smart enough to check out the man they agree to date. Suppose Erin Kelley’s killer thought she might be that careful. What better name to use than someone who had just left his law firm in Philadelphia to relocate in New York. Suppose Erin had looked you up in the Pennsylvania Bar Register and called your old office. She would have been told that you just left the firm to relocate in New York. She might even have been able to ascertain that you’re divorced. Now she has no qualms about meeting Charles North.”

Vince leaned forward across his desk. “Like it or not, Mr. North, you are a link to Erin Kelley’s death. Someone who knows your activities used your name. We’re going to be following up a lot of leads. We’re going to contact the people whose ads Erin Kelley may have answered. We’re going to pump her friends’ memories to see if she mentioned any names we don’t have. In each and every case, we’re going to talk to you to see if that person is someone who somehow is connected to you.”

North stood up. “I see that I’m being told, not asked. Just one thing. Has my name been released to the media?”

“No, it has not.”

“Then see that it isn’t. And when you call at the office, don’t identify yourself as FBI. Say,” he smiled mirthlessly, “say it’s personal business. Not personal ad business, of course.”

When he left, Vince leaned back in his chair. I don’t like wise guys, he thought. He picked up the intercom. “Betsy, I want a complete background check on Charles North. I mean everything. And here’s another one. Gus Boxer, the superintendent at 101 Christopher Street. That’s the apartment building where Erin Kelley lived. His face has been bugging me since Saturday. We’ve got a file on him, I’m sure of it.”

Vince snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute. That’s not his name. I remember. It’s Hoffman. He was the super ten years ago in the building where a twenty-year-old woman was murdered.”

Dr. Michael Nash was not surprised when on his return to Manhattan Sunday night there was a call on his answering machine asking him to contact FBI agent Vincent D’Ambrosio. Obviously, they were following up on the people who had left messages for Erin Kelley.

He returned the call on Monday morning and arranged for Vince to stop by before his first appointment on Tuesday.

Vince arrived at Nash’s office promptly at 8:15 Tuesday morning. The receptionist was waiting for him and ushered him in to where Nash was already at his desk.

It was a clubby kind of room, Vince decided. Several comfortable chairs, walls a sunny yellow, curtains that let the daylight in but shielded the occupants from the view of passersby on the sidewalk. The traditional couch, a leather version of the chaise longue Alice had bought years ago, was at a right angle to the desk.

A restful room, and the expression in the eyes of the man at the desk was both kind and thoughtful. Vince thought of Saturday afternoons. Confession. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” The transgressions evolved from disobeying his parents to recitation of more lusty offenses in teenage years. It always bothered him to hear someone say that analysis had replaced confession. “In confession you blame yourself,” he’d point out. “In analysis you blame everyone else.” His own master’s degree in psychology had only strengthened that viewpoint.

He had the feeling Nash sensed his gut-level hostility to most shrinks. Sensed it and understood it.

They eyed each other. Well-dressed in an unobtrusive way, Vince thought. Vince was aware that he was no good at picking out the right tie for his suit. Alice used to do that for him. Not that he cared. He’d rather wear a brown tie with a blue suit than hear her harping at him all the time. “Why don’t you leave the Bureau and get a job where you can earn some real money?” Today he’d grabbed the nearest tie and pulled it on in the elevator. It was brown and green. His suit was a blue pinstripe.

Alice was now Mrs. Malcolm Drucker. Malcolm wore Hermès ties and custom-made suits. Recently, Hank told Vince that Malcolm had blown up to size fifty-two. Fifty-two short.

Nash was wearing a gray tweed jacket, a red and gray tie. Nice looking guy, Vince conceded. Strong chin, deep-set eyes. Skin a touch windburned. Vince liked a man to look as though he didn’t hide indoors in lousy weather. He got right to the point. “Dr. Nash, you left two messages for Erin Kelley.

They suggest that you knew her, had dated her. Is that the case?” “Yes. I am in the process of writing a book analyzing the social phenomenon of the personal ad situation. Kearns and Brown is my publisher, Justin Crowell, my editor.”

Just in case I thought he was really trying to get a date, Vince thought, then warned himself to knock it off. “How did you come to go out with Erin Kelley? Did you answer her ad or did she answer yours?”

“She answered mine.” Nash reached in his drawer. “I was anticipating your question. Here is the ad she answered. Here is her letter. I met her for a drink on January thirtieth at the Pierre. She was a lovely young woman. I expressed surprise that anyone so attractive would need to seek companionship. She quite frankly told me that she was answering ads at the behest of a friend who is doing a documentary. I don’t usually acknowledge that I’m doing research on these meetings, but I was up-front with her.”

“And that was the only time you saw her?”

“Yes. I’ve been terribly busy. I’m almost at the end of my book and wanted to get it finished. I’d planned to call Erin again when I turned it in. Last week I realized that it’s going to take another month to complete and rushing it simply didn’t work.”

“And so you called her.”

“Yes, early in the week. Then again last Thursday. No, it was Friday, just before I left for the weekend.”

Vince studied the letter Erin had written to Nash. His ad was clipped to it:

DWM, Physician, 37, 6´ 1”, attractive, successful, good sense of humor. Enjoys skiing, riding, museums, and concerts. Seeking creative, attractive s/d/wf. Box 3295.

Erin ’s typewritten note had said,

Hi, Box 3295. Perhaps I’m all of the above. No, not quite. I do have a good sense of humor. I’m twenty-eight, 5´ 7”, 120 pounds, and my best friend tells me I’m very attractive! I’m a jewelry designer on my way to being successful. I’m a good skier; can ride if the horse is slow and fat. Definitely a museum-goer. In fact, I get a lot of ideas for my jewelry by haunting them. And music is a must. See you? Erin Kelley, 212-555-1432.

“You can understand why I called,” Nash said.

“And you never saw her again.”

“I never got the chance.” Michael Nash stood up. “I’m sorry. I have to cut this short. My first patient is arriving earlier than usual. But I’m here if you want me. If there’s any way I can help, please allow me.” “How do you think you can help, Doctor?” Vince got to his feet as he asked the question.

Nash shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s the instinctive desire to want a killer brought to justice. Erin Kelley obviously loved life and had much to offer. She was only twenty-eight years old.” He held out his hand. “You don’t think much of us shrinks, do you, Mr. D’Ambrosio? Your version is that neurotic, self-centered people pay good money to come in here and complain. Let me explain how I view my job. My professional life is devoted to trying to help people who for whatever reason are in danger of sinking. Some cases are easy. I’m like a lifeguard who swims out because he notices that someone is over his head and simply escorts him back in. Other cases are much tougher. It’s as though I’m trying to rescue a ship-wreck victim during a hurricane. It takes a long time to get close to him and tidal waves are forcing me back. It’s pretty satisfying when I’m able to complete the rescue.”

Vince put Erin ’s letter in his briefcase. “You may be able to help us, Doctor. We’re going to be tracking down the people Erin met through personal ads. Would you be willing to interview some of them and give your professional opinion of what makes them tick?”

“Absolutely.”

“By any chance, are you a member of AAPL?” Psychiatrists who belonged to the American Association of Psychiatry and the Law, Vince knew, were particularly skilled in dealing with psychopaths.

“No, I’m not. But, Mr. D’Ambrosio, my research has shown that the vast majority of people who place or answer these ads do so because of loneliness or boredom. Others may have more sinister motives.”

Vince turned and walked to the door. As he twisted the knob, he looked back.

“I’d say that was true in Erin Kelley’s case.”

On Tuesday night, Charley drove to the retreat and went directly to the basement. He took down the stack of shoe boxes and laid them on top of the freezer. Clipped onto each of them was the name of the girl who belonged with them. Not that he needed reminding, of course. He remembered every single one in perfect detail. Besides that, except for Nan, he had a videotape of each of them. And he had videotaped the True Crimes program about Nan ’s death. They’d done a good job of finding a girl who looked like her. He opened Nan ’s box. The scuffed Nike and the black sequined satin slipper. The slipper was garish. His taste had improved since then. Should he send Nan’s and Erin ’s things back at the same time? Carefully, he considered the idea. It was such an interesting decision. No. If he did that the police and the media would realize immediately that their theory about a copycat murder was wrong. They’d know that one set of hands had snuffed out both lives.

Maybe it would be more fun to toy with them for a while. Maybe start by returning Nan ’s shoe and the one from the first of the other girls. That had been Claire, two years ago. An ash-blond musical-comedy actress from Lancaster. She could dance so beautifully. Gifted. Really gifted. Her wallet was in the box with her white sandal and the gold slipper. Surely by now her family had given up her apartment. He’d send the package to the address in Lancaster.

Then every few days he’d send another package. Janine. Marie. Sheila. Leslie.

Annette. Tina. Erin.

He’d time it so they’d all be delivered by March thirteenth. Fifteen days from now.

On that night, no matter how he accomplished it, Darcy would be here dancing with him.

Charley stared at the freezer. Darcy was going to be the last one. Maybe he’d keep her with him always…

When Darcy got back to her apartment from the airport Tuesday evening, there were a dozen messages on the answering machine. Condolences from old friends. Seven calls had come in from personal ads Erin must have answered for her. The pleasant-voiced David Weld again. This time he left a number. So did Len Parker, Cal Griffin, and Albert Booth.

A call from Gus Boxer saying he had a tenant for Erin Kelley’s apartment. Could Miss Scott get the place cleared out by the weekend? If she did, she wouldn’t have to pay the March rent.

Darcy rewound the tape, wrote down the names and phone numbers of the personal ad callers, and changed cassettes. Vince D’Ambrosio might want to have a record of those voices.

She heated a can of soup, ate it on a tray in bed. When she was finished she reached for the phone and the list of men who had called for a date. She dialed the first number. As it began to ring she slammed the phone back in the cradle. Tears gushed down her cheeks as she sobbed, “ Erin, I want to call you.”