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 Hermes 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
