There were a few blouses and scarves that she decided to keep as mementos. The rest of Erin ’s clothes she gave to Bev. “You’re Erin ’s size. Just please don’t wear them to the office.”
The jewelry Erin had made. Swiftly she gathered it, not wanting to think now about Erin ’s talent. What else was bothering her? Finally she laid all the jewelry on the worktable. Earrings, necklaces, pins, bracelets. Gold. Silver. Semiprecious stones. All imaginative, whether formal or fun pieces. What was bothering her?
The new necklace Erin had completed with the chunky gold copies of Roman coins. Erin had joked about it. “It’ll retail for about three thousand dollars. I designed it for a fashion show in April. Can’t afford to keep it for myself, but until then I’m going to wear it a few times.”
Where was that necklace?
Had Erin been wearing it when she went out that last time? That and her initial ring and her watch. Were they with the clothes she’d been wearing when her body was found?
Darcy scooped Erin ’s personal jewelry into a suitcase along with the contents of the safe. She’d have the loose gems appraised and sold for Billy’s nursing home expenses. She did not look back when she closed the door of apartment 3B for the last time.
On Wednesday afternoon at four o’clock, a detective from the Sixth Precinct, armed with Erin Kelley’s picture, was making the rounds of the pubs in the Washington Square area. So far his search had been fruitless. Several bartenders freely acknowledged knowing Erin. “She’d drop in once in a while. Sometimes with a date. Sometimes meeting someone. Last Tuesday. No. Didn’t see her at all last week.”
Charles North’s picture produced no effect at all. “Never saw that one.”
Finally, at Eddie’s Aurora on West Fourth Street, a bartender positively stated:
“Yeah, that girl was here last Tuesday. I went to Florida Wednesday morning.
Just got back. That’s why I’m sure about the date. I started talking to her. Told her I was finally getting away for some sun. She said she was a typical redhead, her skin always burned. She was expecting to meet someone and waited around for about forty minutes. He never showed up. Nice girl. Finally, she paid her bill and left.”
The bartender was sure it was Tuesday; sure Erin Kelley had come in at seven o’clock; sure she had been stood up. He accurately described the clothes she had been wearing, including an unusual necklace that resembled old Roman coins. “Necklace was real different. Looked expensive. I told her not to wander around outside without pulling her coat collar over it.”
The detective reported to Vince D’Ambrosio from the pay phone in the bar. Vince immediately phoned Darcy, who verified that Erin had had a gold coin necklace. “I thought it might have been found on her.” She told Vince that Erin ’s initial ring and watch were also missing.
“She was wearing a watch and earrings when she was found,” Vince said quietly, and asked if he could come over.
“Sure,” Darcy said. “I’ll be working late.”
When Vince arrived at the office, he was carrying a copy of Erin ’s personal ad file. “We did an exhaustive examination of all Erin ’s papers. In them we found a receipt for one of those private safe deposit boxes that are accessible twenty-four hours a day. Erin signed up for that only last week. She told the manager that she was a jewelry designer and was uncomfortable about the value of some of the stones she was keeping in her apartment.” Darcy listened attentively as Vince D’Ambrosio told her that Erin had been stood up on Tuesday night. “She left that bar alone at about quarter of eight. We’re leaning to the theory that it was a felony murder. She was wearing the necklace Tuesday night, but not when she was found. We don’t know about the ring.” “She always wore that ring,” Darcy said.
Vince nodded. “She may have had the pouch of diamonds in her possession.” He wondered if he was getting through to Darcy Scott. She was sitting at her desk, a pale yellow sweater accentuating the blond highlights in her brown hair, her expression totally controlled, her eyes more green than hazel today. He hated to be giving her copies of Kelley’s personal ads file. He was sure that she was going to start writing to the ones that were circled.
Unconsciously, his voice deepened as he stressed, “Darcy, I know the sense of rage you’re feeling at losing a friend like Erin. The point is, I beg you not to answer these personal ads with some crazy idea that you’ll find the man who called himself Charles North. We’re going to do everything we can to find Erin ’s killer. But the fact remains that even though Erin may not have been one of his victims, there is a serial murderer using these ads to meet young women, and I don’t want you to be his next date.”
Doug Fox had not strayed from Scarsdale over the weekend. He’d devoted himself to Susan and the children and been pleasantly compensated for his efforts by having Susan tell him that she’d arranged for a babysitter Monday afternoon. She wanted to do some shopping and proposed that they meet for dinner in New York that night and ride home together.
She had not told him that before shopping, she had the appointment with an investigative agency.
Doug had taken her to San Domenico for dinner and made it his business to be especially charming, even telling her that sometimes he forgot how really pretty she was.
Susan had laughed.
Tuesday night Doug had arrived home at midnight. “Damn late meetings,” he’d sighed.
Wednesday morning he felt secure enough to tell Susan he’d be taking clients out to dinner and might as well stay at the Gateway. He was relieved at how understanding she was. “A client is a client, Doug. Just don’t wear yourself out.”
Wednesday afternoon when he left the office, he went straight to the apartment in London Terrace. He was meeting a divorced thirty-two-year-old real estate broker in SoHo for drinks at seven-thirty. But first he wanted to change into casual clothes and make a phone call.
He hoped that tonight he’d reach Darcy Scott.
On Wednesday afternoon, Jay Stratton received a call from Merrill Ashton of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Ashton had been thinking long and hard about Stratton’s suggestion that he buy Frances an important piece of jewelry for their fortieth wedding anniversary. “If I discuss it with her, she’ll talk me out of it,” Ashton said, a smile in his voice. “Point is, I have to be in New York next week on business. You got anything to show me? I was thinking maybe a diamond bracelet.”
Jay assured him that he most certainly did have something to show him. “I just bought some particularly fine diamonds which are being set in a bracelet right now. It would be perfect on your wife.”
“I’d want an appraisal.”
“Of course you would. If you like the bracelet, you can take it to a jeweler in Winston-Salem whom you trust and if he doesn’t agree that the value is there, we don’t have a deal. Are you prepared to spend forty thousand dollars? One for each year of your marriage?”
He heard the hesitation in Ashton’s reply. “Well, that’s a bit steep.” “A truly exquisite bracelet,” Jay assured him. “Something that Frances Junior will proudly leave to her own daughter.”
They arranged to meet for a drink next Monday, March fourth. Was it all going too well, Stratton wondered as he laid the portable phone on the coffee table. The twenty-thousand-dollar check for the Bertolini necklace. Would anyone think to come looking for it? The insurance on the pouch of diamonds. With Erin ’s body found, the chance that she had been robbed could not be disputed. He’d give Ashton the gem-stones at a reasonable but not questionable price. A jeweler in Winston-Salem wasn’t going to be looking for stones listed as missing or stolen.
A wave of pure pleasure swept over him. Stratton laughed, remembering what his uncle had said to him twenty years ago. “Jay, I’ve sent you to an Ivy League school. You’ve got the brains to get good marks on your own, and you still cheat. Your father will never be dead while you’re around.” When he told his uncle that he’d conned the dean at Brown into letting him reapply if he joined the Peace Corps for two years, his uncle had sarcastically snapped, “Be careful. There’s nothing to steal in the Peace Corps and you might actually have to do some work.”
Not that much work. At twenty he’d started over at Brown as a freshman. Never get caught, his father had warned him. And if you do, no matter how you fix it, make sure you don’t have a record.
