Loves Music, Loves To Dance

IV THURSDAY February 21

Darcy sat at the dinette table, sipping coffee and staring unseeingly out the window at the gardens below. Barren now, scattered with unmelted snow, in the summer they were exquisitely planted and manicured to perfection. The prestigious owners of the private brownstones they backed included the Aga Khan and Katharine Hepburn.

Erin loved to come over when the gardens were in bloom. “From the street you’d never guess they exist,” she’d sigh. “I swear, Darce, you sure lucked out when you found this place.”

Erin. Where was she? The minute she woke up and realized that Erin had not phoned, Darcy had called the nursing home in Massachusetts. Mr. Kelley’s condition was unchanged. The semi-comatose state could go on indefinitely, although he was certainly getting weaker. No, there had been no emergency call to his daughter. The day nurse really couldn’t say if Erin had made her usual phone call last evening.

“What should I do?” Darcy wondered aloud. Report her missing? Call the police and inquire about accidents?

A sudden thought made her shiver. Suppose Erin had had an accident in the apartment. She had a habit of tilting back in her chair when she was concentrating. Suppose she’d been lying there unconscious all this time! It took her three minutes to throw on a sweater and slacks, grab a coat and gloves. She waited agonizing minutes on Second Avenue before getting a cab. “ One-oh-one Christopher Street, and please hurry.” “Everybody says ‘hurry.’ I say take it easy, you’ll live longer.” The cabbie winked into the rearview mirror.

Darcy turned her head. She was in no mood to banter with the driver. Why hadn’t she thought of the possibility of an accident? Last month, just before she went to California, Erin had dropped by for dinner. They’d watched the news. One of the commercials showed a frail old woman falling and getting help by touching the emergency signal on a chain around her neck. “That’ll be us in fifty years,” Erin had said. She’d imitated the commercial, moaning, “Hel-l-l-p, hel-l-l-p! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”

Gus Boxer, the superintendent of 101 Christopher Street, had an eye for pretty women. That was why when he hurried to the lobby to answer the persistent ring of the doorbell, his annoyed scowl was quickly replaced by an ingratiating twist of his mouth.

He liked what he saw. The visitor’s light brown hair was tossed by the wind. It fell forward on her face, reminding him of the Veronica Lake movies he stayed up to watch. Her hip-length leather jacket was old but had that classy look that Gus had come to recognize since taking this job in Greenwich Village. His appraising eyes lingered on her long, slim legs. Then he realized why she looked familiar. He’d seen her a couple of times with 3B, Erin Kelley. He opened the vestibule door and stepped aside. “At your service,” he said in what he considered to be a winning manner.

Darcy walked past him, trying not to show her distaste. From time to time, Erin complained about the sixty-year-old Casanova in dirty flannel. “Boxer gives me the creeps,” she’d said. “I hate the idea he has a master key to my place. Once I walked in and found him there and he gave me some cock-and-bull story about a leak in the wall.”

“Was anything ever missing?” Darcy had asked.

“No. I keep any jewelry I’m working on in the safe. There’s nothing else worth pocketing. It’s more that he has a nasty, flirtatious way about him that makes my skin crawl. Oh well. I’ve got a safety bolt when I’m inside and the place is cheap. He’s probably harmless.”

Darcy came straight to the point. “I’m concerned about Erin Kelley,” she told the superintendent. “She was supposed to meet me last night and didn’t show up. She doesn’t answer her phone. I want to check her apartment. Something may have happened to her.”

Boxer squinted. “She was okay yesterday.”

“Yesterday?”

Thick lids drooped over faded eyes. Parted lips were moistened with his tongue.

His forehead collapsed into erratic lines. “No, I’m wrong. I seen her Tuesday. Late afternoon. She come in with some groceries.” His tone became virtuous. “I offered to carry ‘em up for her.”

“That was Tuesday afternoon. Did you see her go out or return Tuesday evening?” “Nope. Can’t say I did. But listen, I’m not a doorman. Tenants have their own keys. Delivery guys gotta use the intercom to get let in.” Darcy nodded. Knowing it was useless, she had rung Erin ’s apartment before she buzzed for the superintendent. “Please. I’m afraid there may be something wrong. I’ve got to get into her place. Do you have your passkey?” The twisted smile returned. “You gotta understand, I don’t normally let people into an apartment just because they wanna go in. But I seen you with Kelley. I know you’re friends. You’re like her. Classy. Good lookin’.” Ignoring the compliment, Darcy started up the stairs. The stairs and landings were clean but dreary. The patched walls were battleship gray, the tiles on the steps uneven. Walking into Erin ’s apartment had the effect of going from a cave into daylight. When Erin moved here three years ago, Darcy had helped her paint and paper. They’d hired a U-Haul and made forays into Connecticut and New Jersey for garage-sale furnishings. They’d painted the walls a stark white. Colorful Indian rugs were scattered over the scratched but polished parquet floor. Framed museum posters were arranged over a studio couch that was covered in bright red velour and piled with vividly assorted throw pillows.

The windows faced the street. Even though the sky was overcast, the light was excellent. Under the windows a long worktable held Erin ’s supplies neatly placed side by side: torch, hand drill, files and pliers, ring clamps and spring tweezers, soldering block, gauges, drills. Darcy had always been fascinated to watch Erin at work, her slender fingers skillfully handling delicate gems. Next to the table was Erin ’s one extravagance, a tall chest with several dozen narrow drawers. A nineteenth-century pharmaceutical cabinet, the bottom drawers were a facade concealing a safe. One easy chair, a television, and a good stereo system completed the pleasant room.

Darcy’s immediate impression was a surge of relief. There was nothing out of order here. Gus Boxer at her heels, she walked swiftly into the tiny kitchen, a small windowless cubicle that they’d painted a bright yellow and decorated with framed tea towels.

The narrow hallway led to the bedroom. The pewter and brass bed and a two-on-three dresser were the only furniture in the closet-sized room. The bed was made. There was nothing out of place.

Clean, dry towels were on the rack in the bathroom. Darcy opened the medicine chest. With a practiced eye, she noted that Erin ’s toothbrush, cosmetics and creams were all there.

Boxer was becoming impatient. “Looks okay to me. You satisfied?” “No.” Darcy went back into the living room and walked over to the worktable. The message machine showed twelve calls had come in. She pressed playback.

“Hey, I don’t know-“

She cut off Boxer’s protest. “ Erin is missing. Have you got that straight? She’s missing. I’m going to listen to these messages and see if they might somehow give me an idea of where she might be. Then I’m going to call the police and inquire about accidents. For all I know, she’s unconscious in a hospital somewhere. You can stay here with me or if you’re busy, you can go. Which is it?”

Boxer shrugged. “I guess it’s okay to leave you here.” Darcy turned her back on him, reached into her purse, and took out her notebook and pen. She did not hear Boxer leave as the messages began. The first one had come on Tuesday evening at six forty-five. Someone named Tom Swartz. Thanks for answering his ad. Just discovered a great little inexpensive restaurant. Could they meet for dinner? He’d phone again.

Erin was supposed to meet Charles North on Tuesday evening at seven o’clock at a pub near Washington Square. By quarter of seven she had undoubtedly already left, Darcy thought.

The next call came in at seven twenty-five. Michael Nash. “ Erin, I certainly enjoyed meeting you and hope you might be free for dinner sometime this week. If you have a chance, call me back this evening.” Nash left both his home and office numbers.

Wednesday morning the calls began at nine o’clock. The first few were run-of-the-mill business-related. The one that made Darcy’s throat close was from an Aldo Marco of Bertolini’s. “Miss Kelley, I am disappointed you did not keep our ten o’clock appointment. It is essential that I see the necklace and be sure there is no last-minute adjustment necessary. Please get back to me immediately.”

That call had come in at eleven. There were three more follow-ups from the same man, increasing in irritation and urgency. Besides Darcy’s own messages, there was another one concerning the Bertolini assignment. “ Erin, this is Jay Stratton. What’s going on? Marco’s bugging me for the necklace and holding me responsible for bringing you to him.” Darcy knew that Stratton was the jeweler who had given Erin ’s portfolio to Bertolini’s. His message came in around seven Wednesday evening. Darcy started to push the rewind button, then paused. Maybe it would be better not to erase these. She looked in the phone book for the number of the nearest precinct. “I want to report someone missing,” she said when the call was answered. She was told that she would have to come in personally, that this kind of information about a competent adult could not be accepted over the phone. I’ll stop there on my way home, Darcy thought. She went into the kitchen and made coffee, noting that the only milk container was unopened. Erin started her day with coffee and always drank it light. Boxer had seen her with groceries Tuesday afternoon. Darcy looked into the garbage pail under the sink. There were a few odds and ends, but no empty milk container. She wasn’t here yesterday morning, Darcy thought. She never got back Tuesday night. She brought the coffee back to the worktable. A daily reminder was in the top drawer. She flipped through it, starting with today. There were no appointments listed. Yesterday, Wednesday, there were two: Bertolini’s, 10 A.M.; Bella Vita, 7 P.M. (Darcy and Nona).

In the preceding weeks, there were notations of dates with names of men unfamiliar to Darcy. They were usually scheduled between five and seven o’clock. Most of them had the meeting place listed: O’Neal’s, Mickey Mantle’s, P. J. Clarke’s, the Plaza, the Sheraton… all hotel cocktail lounges and popular pubs.

The phone rang. Let it be Erin, Darcy prayed as she grabbed it. “Hello.”

“ Erin?” A man’s voice.

“No. This is Darcy Scott. Erin ’s friend.”

“Do you know where I can reach Erin?”

Disappointment, intense and overwhelming, swept over Darcy. “Who is this?”

“Jay Stratton.”

Jay Stratton had left the message about the Bertolini jewelry. What was he saying?

“… if you have any idea where Erin is, please tell her that if they don’t get that necklace, they’ll file a criminal complaint.” Darcy’s eyes flickered to the pharmaceutical cabinet. She knew that Erin kept the combination in her address book under the name of the safe company. Stratton was still talking.

“I know Erin kept that necklace in a safe in her studio. Is there any possibility you can check to see if it’s there?” he urged. “Hold on a minute.” Darcy put her hand over the speaker, then thought, What a dumb thing to do. There’s no one here I can ask. But in a way she was asking Erin. If the necklace wasn’t in the safe, it might mean that Erin had been the victim of a robbery when she attempted to deliver it. If it was there, it was almost certain proof that something had happened to her. Nothing would have kept Erin from delivering the necklace on time.

She opened Erin ’s address book and turned to D. Next to Dalton Safe was the series of numbers. “I have the combination,” she told Stratton. “I’ll wait for you to come here. I don’t want to open Erin ’s safe without a witness. And in case the necklace is here, I’ll want a receipt for it from you.” He said he’d be right over. After she replaced the receiver, Darcy decided that she’d ask the superintendent to be present as well. She didn’t know anything about Jay Stratton except that Erin told her he was a jeweler and the one who got her the Bertolini commission.

While she waited, Darcy went through Erin ’s files. Under “Project Personal,” she found sheets of personal columns torn from magazines and newspapers. On each page a number of the ads were circled. Were these the ones Erin had answered, or had thought about answering? Dismayed, Darcy realized that there were at least two dozen of them. Which, if any of them, had been placed by Charles North, the man Erin was to meet on Tuesday evening?

When she and Erin agreed to answer the personal ads, they’d gone about it systematically. They’d had inexpensive letterheads made with only their names at the top. They’d each chosen a favorite snapshot to send when requested. They’d spent a hilarious evening composing letters they had no intentions of sending. “I love to clean clean clean,” Erin had suggested, “my favorite hobby is doing the wash by hand. I inherited my grandmother’s scrub board. My cousin wanted it too. It caused a big family fight. I get a little nasty during my period, but I’m a very good person. Please call soon.”

They had finally come up with what they decided were reasonably alluring responses. When Darcy was leaving for California, Erin had said, “Darce, I’ll send yours out about two weeks before you’re due back. I’ll just change a sentence here or there to fit the ad.”

Erin didn’t own a computer. Darcy knew she typed out the responses on her electric typewriter but did not Xerox them. She kept all the input in the notebook she carried in her purse: the box numbers of the ads she answered, the names of the people she called, her impressions of the ones she dated.

Jay Stratton leaned back in the cab, his eyes half-closed. The speaker behind his right ear was blaring rock music. “Will you turn that down?” he snapped. “Man, you trying to deprive me of my music?” The cabbie was in his early twenties. Wispy, snarled hair hung around his neck. He glanced over his shoulder, caught the look on Stratton’s face, and, muttering under his breath, lowered the volume.

Stratton felt sweat forming in his armpits. He had to pull this off. He tapped his pocket. The receipts Erin had given him for the Bertolini gems and for the diamonds he’d given her last week were in his wallet. Darcy Scott sounded smart. He mustn’t arouse the slightest suspicion.

The nosy superintendent must have been watching for him. He was in the foyer when Stratton arrived. Obviously, he recognized him. “I’ll bring you up,” he said. “I’m supposed to stay while she opens the safe.” Stratton swore to himself as he followed the squat figure up the stairs. He didn’t need two witnesses.

When Darcy opened the door for them, Stratton’s face was set in a pleasant, somewhat-concerned expression. He had planned to sound reassuring, but the worry in Scott’s eyes warned him against banalities. Instead, he agreed with her that something must be dreadfully wrong.

Smart girl, he thought. Darcy had obviously memorized the combination of the safe. She was not about to let anyone know where Erin kept it. She had a pad and pen ready. “I want to itemize everything we find in there.” Stratton deliberately turned his back while she twisted the dial, then crouched beside her as she pulled the door open. The safe was fairly deep. Boxes and pouches lined the shelves.

“Let me hand everything out to you,” he suggested. “I’ll describe what we find.

You write it down.”

Darcy hesitated, then realized it was a sensible suggestion. He was the jeweler.

His arm was brushing against hers. Instinctively, she moved aside. Stratton looked over his shoulder. An irritated-looking Boxer was lighting a cigarette and glancing around the room, probably searching for an ashtray. It was Stratton’s only chance. “I think that velvet case is the one Erin kept the necklace in.” Reaching for it, he deliberately knocked a small box onto the floor.

Darcy jumped as she saw the glitter of stones scattering around her and scrambled to collect them. An instant later Stratton was beside her, cursing his carelessness. They searched the area thoroughly. “I’m sure we got them all,” he said. “These are semiprecious, suitable for good costume jewelry. But more important…” He opened the velvet case. “Here’s the Bertolini.” Darcy stared down at the exquisite necklace. Emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, moonstones, opals, and rubies were set in an elaborate design that reminded her of the medieval jewelry she’d seen in portraits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Stratton asked. “You can understand why the manager at Bertolini’s was so upset at the prospect of something happening to it. Erin is remarkably gifted. She not only managed to create a setting that made those stones look ten times their own considerable value, but she did it in the Byzantine style. The family who commissioned the necklace was originally from Russia. These gems were the only valuable possessions they were able to take when they fled in 1917.”

Darcy could visualize Erin sitting at this worktable, her ankles around the rungs of the chair, the way she used to sit when she was studying in college. The sense of impending disaster was overwhelming. Where would Erin willingly go without delivering this necklace on time?

No where willingly, she decided.

Biting her lip to keep it from quivering, she picked up the pen. “Will you describe this for me and I think we should identify every precious stone in it so there’s no question that any are missing.”

As Stratton removed other pouches, velvet cases, and boxes from the safe, she noticed that he was becoming increasingly more agitated. Finally he said, “I’m going to open the rest all at once, then we’ll list them.” He looked directly at her. “The Bertolini necklace is here, but a pouch I gave Erin with a quarter of a million dollars worth of diamonds is gone.”

Darcy left the apartment with Stratton. “I’m going to the police station to file a missing-person report,” she told him.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “I’ll take care of getting the necklace to Bertolini’s immediately and if we haven’t heard from Erin in a week, I’ll contact the insurance company about the diamonds.” It was exactly noon when Darcy entered the Sixth Precinct on Charles Street. At her insistence that something was terribly wrong, a detective came out to see her. A tall black man in his mid-forties with military bearing, he introduced himself as Dean Thompson and listened sympathetically as he tried to allay her fears.

“We really can’t file a missing-person report for an adult woman simply because no one has heard from her for a day or two,” he explained. “It violates freedom of movement. What I will do if you give me her description is check it against accident reports.”

Anxiously, Darcy gave the information. Five feet seven, one hundred and twenty pounds, auburn hair, blue eyes, twenty-eight years old. “Wait, I have her picture in my wallet.”

Thompson studied it, then handed it back. “A very attractive woman.” He gave her his card and asked for hers. “We’ll keep in touch.”

Susan Frawley Fox hugged five-year-old Trish and guided her reluctant feet to the waiting school bus that would take her to the afternoon session of kindergarten. Trish’s woebegone face was on the verge of crumbling into tears. The baby, firmly held under Susan’s other arm, reached down and pulled Trish’s hair. It gave the needed excuse. Trish began to wail. Susan bit her lip, torn between annoyance and sympathy. “He didn’t hurt you and you’re not staying home.”

The bus driver, a matronly woman with a warm smile, said coaxingly, “Come on, Trish. You sit right up here near me.”

Susan waved vigorously and sighed with relief as the bus pulled away. Shifting the baby’s weight, she hurried from the corner back to their rambling brick and stucco home. Patches of snow still covered isolated sections of the lawn. The trees seemed stark and bloodless against the gray sky. In a few months the property would be lush with flowering hedges and the willows would be heavily laden with cascades of leaves. Even as a small child Susan had studied the willows for the first hint of spring.

She shoved the side door open, heated a bottle for the baby, brought him to his room, changed him, and put him down for a nap. Her quiet time had begun: the hour and a half before he woke up. She knew she should get busy. The beds weren’t made. The kitchen was a mess. This morning Trish had wanted to make cupcakes, and spilled batter was still lumped on the table. Susan glanced at the baking pan on the countertop and half-smiled. The cupcakes looked delicious. If only Trish wouldn’t carry on so about kindergarten. It’s almost March, Susan worried. What’s it going to be like when she’s in the first grade and has to be gone all day?

Doug blamed Susan for Trish’s reluctance to go to school. “If you’d go out more yourself, have lunch at the club, volunteer for some committees, Trish would be used to being minded by other people.”

Susan put the kettle on, sponged the table, and fixed a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich. There is a God, she thought gratefully as she reveled in the blessed silence.

Over a second cup of tea, she permitted herself to face the anger that was burning inside her. Doug hadn’t come home again last night. When he stayed in for late meetings he used the company suite at the Gateway Hotel near his office in the World Trade Center. He got furious when she called him there. “Damn it, Susan, unless there’s an earth-shattering emergency, give me a break. I can’t be called out of meetings and by the time they’re over it’s usually well past midnight.”

Taking the tea with her, Susan got up and walked down the long hall to the master bedroom. The antique full-length standing mirror was in the right-hand corner opposite the wall of closets. Deliberately, she stood in front of it and appraised herself.

Thanks to the baby’s exploring fingers, her short, curly brown hair was disheveled. She seldom bothered with makeup during the day but really didn’t need it. Her skin was clear and unlined, her complexion fresh. At five feet four she could certainly afford to lose fifteen pounds. She’d been one hundred and five when she and Doug were married fourteen years ago. Sweats and sneakers had become her daily wardrobe, especially since Trish and Conner were born. I am thirty-five years old, Susan told herself. I could lose some weight, but contrary to what my husband thinks, I am not fat. I’m not a great housekeeper, but I know I’m a good mother. A good cook, too. I don’t want to spend my time outside the house when I have young children who need me. Especially since their father won’t give them the time of day.

She swallowed the rest of the tea, her anger building. Tuesday night when Donny came home from the basketball game, he had been in the never-never land between ecstasy and misery. He had sunk the winning shot. “Everybody stood up and cheered for me, Mom!” Then he added, “Dad was practically the only father who wasn’t there.”

Susan’s heart had wrenched at the pain in her son’s eyes. The babysitter had canceled at the last minute, which was why she hadn’t been able to be at the game either. “This is an earth-shattering event,” she’d said firmly. “Let’s see if we can reach Dad and tell him all about it.”

Douglas Fox was not registered at the hotel. There was no conference room in use. The suite kept for personnel of Keldon Equities was not being occupied. “Probably some dumb new operator,” Susan had told Donny, trying to keep her tone even.

“Sure, that’s it, Mom.” But Donny wasn’t fooled. At dawn, Susan had awakened to the sound of muffled sobs. She’d stood outside Donny’s door, knowing that he wouldn’t want her to see him crying.

My husband doesn’t love me or his children, Susan told her reflected image. He lies to us. He stays in New York a couple of nights a week. He’s bullied me into almost never calling him. He’s made me feel like a fat, frowsy, dull, useless clod. And I’m sick of it.

She turned from the mirror and analyzed the cluttered bedroom. I could be a lot more organized, she acknowledged. I used to be. When did I give up? When did I become so damn discouraged that it wasn’t worth trying to please him? Not hard to answer. Nearly two years ago, when she was pregnant with the baby. They’d had a Swedish au pair, and Susan was sure that Doug had had an affair with her.

Why didn’t I face it then? she wondered as she began to make the bed. Because I was still in love with him? Because I hated to admit my father was right about him?

She and Doug had been married a week after she was graduated from Bryn Mawr. Her father offered her a trip around the world if she’d change her mind. “Under that schoolboy charm, there’s a foul-tempered sneak,” he had warned her. I went into it with my eyes open, Susan acknowledged, as she returned to the kitchen. If Dad had known the half of it, he’d have had a stroke, she thought. There was a pile of magazines on the wall desk in the kitchen. She riffled through them until she found the one she was looking for. An issue of People with an article about a female private investigator in Manhattan. Professional women hired her to check out the men they were considering marrying. She also handled divorce cases.

Susan got the phone number from information and dialed it. When she reached the investigator, she was able to make an appointment for the following Monday, February 25^th. “I believe my husband is seeing other women,” she explained quietly. “I am thinking of divorce, and I want to know all about his activities.”

When she hung up she resisted the temptation to simply sit and continue to think things through. Instead, she attacked the kitchen vigorously. Time to shape up this place. By summer, with any luck, it would be on the market. It wouldn’t be easy raising four children alone. Susan knew that Doug would pay little if any attention to the kids after the divorce. He was a splashy spender but cheap in hundreds of little ways. He’d balk at adequate child support. But it would be a lot easier to live on a tight budget than to go on with this farce.

The telephone rang. It was Doug, complaining again about the damn late meetings these last two nights. He was exhausted today and they still hadn’t settled everything. He’d be home tonight, but late. Real late. “Don’t worry, dear,” Susan said soothingly. “I understand perfectly.”

The country road was narrow, winding, and dark. Charley didn’t pass a single other car. His driveway was almost hidden by brush at the point where it intersected the road. A secret and quiet place, removed from curious eyes. He’d bought it six years ago. An estate sale. Estate giveaway was more like it. The place had been owned by an eccentric bachelor who as a hobby renovated it himself.

Built in 1902, the exterior was unpretentious. Inside, the renovation had consisted of turning the entire first floor into one open room, complete with a kitchen area and fireplace. Wide plank oak flooring shone with a satiny finish. The furniture was Pennsylvania Dutch, austere, handsome. Charley had added a long upholstered couch covered in maroon tapestry, a matching chair, an area rug between the couch and fireplace. The second floor was exactly as he’d found it. Two small rooms made into one decent-sized bedroom. Shaker furniture, a carved headboard bed and tall chest. Both made of pine. The original tub, free-standing on claw feet, had been left in the modernized bath Only the basement was different. The eight-foot freezer that no longer held an ounce of food, the freezer where, when necessary, he left the bodies of the girls. Here, ice maidens, they’d waited for their graves to be dug under the warming rays of the spring sun. There was a worktable in the basement as well, the worktable with a stack of ten cardboard shoe boxes. There was only one left to decorate.

A charming house nestled in the woods. He’d never brought anyone here until two years ago when he’d begun to dream about Nan. Before that, owning the house had been enough. When he wanted to escape, this was his retreat. The aloneness. The ability to pretend that he was dancing with beautiful girls. He’d play old movies on the VCR, movies in which he became Fred Astaire and danced with Ginger Rogers and Rita Hayworth and Leslie Caron. He’d follow Astaire’s graceful movements until he could step with his every step, mimic the way Astaire would turn his body. Always he sensed Ginger and Rita and Leslie and Fred’s other partners in his arms, their eyes worshipful, loving the music, loving the dance. Then one day, two years ago, it was over. In the middle of the dance, Ginger drifted away and Nan was in Charley’s arms again. Just like the moments after he killed her, waltzing on the jogging path, her light, svelte body so easy to hold, her head lolling on his shoulder.

When that memory came back, he’d run to the basement and taken the mates of the sequined dancing slipper and the Nike that he’d left on her feet from the shoe box and cradled them in his arms while he swayed to the music on the stereo. It was like being with Nan again, and he’d known what he had to do. First he’d set up a hidden video camera so he could relive every single moment of what was to happen. Then he’d begun to bring the girls here one by one. Erin was the eighth to die here. But Erin would not join the others in the wooded fields that surrounded the house. Tonight he would move Erin ’s body. He had decided exactly where he would leave her.

The station wagon moved silently down the driveway, around to the back of the house. He stopped at the metal doors that led to the basement. Charley’s breath began to come in short, excited gasps. He reached for the handle to open the back door of the wagon, then stood irresolutely. Every instinct warned him not to delay. He must lift Erin ’s body from the freezer, carry it to the car, drive back to the city, leave it on the abandoned Fifty-sixth Street dock bordering the West Side Highway. But the thought of watching the video of Erin, of dancing with her just one more time, was irresistible.

Charley hurried around the house to the front door, let himself in, snapped on the light, and without bothering to remove his overcoat ran across the room to the VCR. Erin ’s tape was on top of the others on the cabinet. He popped it in and sat back on the couch, smiling in anticipation.

The tape began to play.

Erin, so pretty, smiling, coming in the door, exclaiming with delight over the house. “I envy you this haven.” He fixing a drink for them. She sitting curled on the couch. He sitting across from her in the easychair, getting up and setting a match to the kindling in the fireplace.

“Don’t bother to light a fire,” she’d told him. “I really must get back.” “Even for half an hour it’s worth it,” he’d assured her. Then he’d turned on the stereo, muted, soft, and pleasant, the songs of the forties. “Our next date is going to be at the Rainbow Room,” he said. “You enjoydancing as much as I do.” Erin had laughed. The lamp beside her accentuated the glints of red in her auburn hair. “As I wrote when I answered your ad, I love to dance.” He’d stood up, held out his arms. “How about now?” Then, as though struck by a thought, said, “Wait a minute. Let’s do this right. What shoe size are you? Seven? Seven and a half? Eight?”

“Seven and a half narrow.”

“Perfect. Believe it or not, I have a pair of evening slippers that should fit you. My sister asked me to pickup a pair she had ordered in that size. Like the good big brother I did as I was told. Then she phoned and told me to take them back. She’d found a pair she liked better.”

Erin had laughed with him. “Just like a kid sister.”

“I’m not going to be bothered running around returning them.” The camera stayed on her, catching her smiling, content expression as she looked around the room. He’d gone up to the bedroom, opened the closet where boxes of new evening shoes were lined up on the shelf. He’d bought the ones he’d chosen for her in a variety of sizes. Pink and silver. Open toes and backs. Heels as narrow as stilettos. A gossamer ankle strap. He reached for the pair that were seven and a half narrow and carried them down, still wrapped in tissue.

“Try these on, Erin.”

Even then, she wasn’t suspicious. “They’re lovely.”

He’d knelt and slipped off her ankle-top leatherboots, his hands impersonal. She’d said, “Oh, really, I don’t think…” Ignoring her protest, he’d fastened The slippers on her feet.

“Will you promise to wear these next Saturday when we go to the Rainbow Room?” She had lifted her right foot a few inches off the carpet and smiled at the sheer beauty of the shoes. “I can’t accept these as a gift…” “Please.” He had smiled up at her.

“Well, let me buy them from you. The funny thing is, they’d go perfectly with a new dress I’ve only worn once.”

It had been on the tip of his tongue to say, “I saw you in that dress.” Instead, he’d murmured, “We’ll talk about payment later.” Then he’d put his hand on her ankle, letting it linger just enough to begin to alert her. He’d stood up, gone over to the stereo. The cassette he had specially prepared was already in place. “Till There Was You” was the first song. The Tommy Dorsey orchestra began to play and the unforgettable voice of the young Frank Sinatra filled the room. He walked back to the couch and reached for Erin ’s hands. “Let’s practice.” The look he’d been waiting for came into Erin ’s eyes. That tiny first flicker of awareness that something wasn’t quite right. She recognized the subtle change in his tone and manner.

Erin was like the others. They all reacted the same way. Speaking too quickly, nervously. “I think I really had better start back. I have an early appointment tomorrow morning.”

“Just one dance.”

“All right.” Her tone had been reluctant.

When they began to dance, she seemed to relax. All the girls had been good dancers, but Erin was perfection. He’d felt disloyal thinking she might even be better than Nan. She was weightless in his arms. She was grace. But when the last notes of “Till There Was You” faded away, she stepped back. “Time to go.” Then when he said, “You’re not going anywhere, “ Erin began to run. Like the others, she slipped and slid on the floor he had polished so lovingly. The dancing slippers became her enemy as she scurried to escape him, raced toward the door to find it bolted, pushed the panic button on the alarm system to learn it was a farce. It emitted a hollow maniacal laugh when touched, a little extra bit of irony that set most of them sobbing as he reached for their throats. Erin had been particularly satisfying. At the end she seemed to know it was useless to plead and in an animal burst of strength she fought him, clawing at the hands that gripped her slender neck. It was only when he twisted that heavy gold necklace around her throat and she began to lose consciousness that she had whispered, “Oh God, please help me, oh Daddy…” When she was dead, he danced with her again. No resistance now in that lovely body. She was his Ginger, his Rita, his Leslie, his Nan, and all the others. When the music stopped, he took off her left slipper and replaced it with her boot.

The video ended as he carried her body down to the basement, where he laid her in the freezer and placed the other slipper and boot in the waiting shoe box. Charley got up from the sofa and sighed. He rewound the videotape, removed it, and turned off the VCR. The cassette tape he had prepared for Erin was still in the stereo. He pressed “Play.”

As the music filled the room, Charley hurried downstairs and opened the freezer. Lovely, lovely, he sighed as he saw the still face, the bluish veins that showed in the ice-blue skin. Tenderly, he reached for her.

It was the first time he’d danced with one of the girls whose body he had frozen. It was a different but thrilling experience. Erin ’s limbs weren’t pliant now. Her back would not bend in a dip. Her cheek pressed against his neck, his chin rested on the auburn hair. That hair once so soft, now beaded with frost. Minutes passed. Finally, as the third song was ending, he twirled her around one last time, then, satisfied, glided to a halt and bowed. It had all begun with Nan fifteen years ago on March thirteenth, he thought. He kissed Erin’s lips just the way he had kissed Nan ’s. March thirteenth was three weeks away. By then he would have brought Darcy here and it would be over. He realized that Erin ’s blouse was beginning to feel damp. He must get her to the city. Holding her in one arm, he half-dragged her to the stereo. As he turned off the dials, Charley did not notice that an onyx ring with a Gold E slipped from Erin ’s frozen finger. Neither did he hear the faint ping as it landed on the floor and lay almost hidden in the fringe on the rug.