of these days and give me some grandchildren, it will be a wonderful place for them to visit. The Times was at the side door. As the coffee perked, Greta began to read. There was a brief item on an inside page about that girl who’d been found dead in New York last week. Copycat murder. What a horrible thought. How could there be two such evil people, the one who had snuffed out Nan ’s life and the one who had killed Erin Kelley? Would Erin Kelley still be alive if that program had not been aired?
And what was it that she had been trying to remember when she insisted on watching it? Nan. Nan, she thought. You told me something that I should have realized was important.
Nan, chatting about school, her classes, her friends, her dates. Nan looking forward to the summer program in France. Nan who loved to dance. “I Could Have Danced All Night.” The song could have been written for her. Erin Kelley had also been found wearing one high-heeled shoe. High heel? What was it about those two words? Impatiently, Greta opened the Times to the crossword puzzle.
The phone rang. It was Gregory Layton. She’d met him at the club dinner the other night. In his early sixties, he was a federal judge and lived in Kent about forty miles away. “An attractive widower,” Priscilla Clayburn had whispered to her. He was attractive, and he was asking her to have dinner with him tonight. Greta accepted and replaced the receiver, realizing that she was looking forward to the evening.
Dorothy came in at the stroke of nine. “Hope you don’t have to go out this morning, Mrs. Sheridan. That wind is mean.” She was carrying the mail, including a bulky package under her arm. She laid everything on the table and frowned. “That’s a funny-looking thing. I mean, no return address. I hope it’s not a bomb or something.”
“Probably more of that awful crank mail. Damn that program.” Greta started to pull at the string on the package and had a sudden sense of panic. “It does look funny. Let me call Glenn Moore.”
Police Chief Moore had just arrived in his office at headquarters. “Don’t touch that package, Mrs. Sheridan,” he told her crisply. “We’ll be right over.” He called the state police. They promised to rush a portable security surveillance unit to the Sheridan household.
At ten o’clock, handling the package with infinite caution, an officer in the bomb squad positioned it to be X- rayed.
From the living room to which she and Dorothy had been banished, Greta heard the man’s relieved laughter. Dorothy at her heels, she hurried back to the kitchen. “These won’t blow up, ma’am,” she was assured. “Nothing in there except a pair of mismatched shoes.”
Greta saw Moore ’s startled expression, felt the blood drain from her face as the package was ripped open, revealing a shoe box with the sketch of an evening slipper on the cover. The lid came off. Inside, nestled together in tissue, were a high-heeled sequined slipper and a scuffed running shoe. “Oh, Nan! Nan!” Greta did not feel Moore grab her as she fainted.
At three o’clock on Friday morning, Darcy was yanked from restless sleep by the insistent ringing of the phone. Reaching for it, she saw the time on the clock radio. Her “hello” was quick and breathless.
“Darcy.” Her name was whispered. The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
“Who is this?”
The whisper became a shout. “Don’t you ever close the door in my face again!
Hear me? Hear me?”
Len Parker. She slammed down the phone, pulled the covers around her. A moment later the phone began to ring again. She did not pick it up. The ringing continued. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen rings. She knew she should take the receiver off the hook but could not bear to touch it, knowing that Parker was on the other end.
Finally it stopped. She yanked the jack from the wall, rushed into the living room, and put the answering machine on automatic pickup, then hurried back to bed, slamming the bedroom door behind her.
Had he done this to Erin? Followed her when she walked out on him? Maybe followed her to the bar where she was supposed to meet someone named Charles North? Maybe forced her into a car?
She’d call Vince D’Ambrosio in the morning.
For the next two hours she lay awake, finally falling into a sleep that once again was troubled with vague, restless dreams.
At seven-thirty, she awakened with an instant sense of fear, then remembered the reason for it. A long, hot shower relieved some of the tension. She pulled on jeans, a turtleneck sweater, her favorite boots.
The answering machine showed only hangups.
Juice and coffee at the table by the window. Staring down into the lifeless garden. At eight o’clock the phone rang. Not Len Parker, please. Her “hello” was guarded.
“Darcy, I hope it’s not too early to call. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed being with you last night.”
She exhaled, a relieved sigh. “Oh, Michael, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed being with you too.”
“Something happened. What was it?”
The concern in his voice was comforting. She told him about Len Parker, the episode on the steps, the phone call.
“I blame myself that I didn’t see you upstairs.”
“Please don’t.”
“Darcy, call that FBI agent and report this Parker character, and can I implore you to stop answering those ads?”
“I’m afraid not. But I will call Vince D’Ambrosio right away.”
When she said good-bye, she hung up feeling oddly consoled.
She called Vince from the office. A wide-eyed Bev stood by her desk as she spoke to another agent. Vince had flown to Lancaster. The other agent took the information. “We’re working with the police department. We’ll get right onto that character. Thanks, miss.”
Nona phoned and told her why Vince had gone to Lancaster. “Darce, this is so scary. It’s one thing if someone saw that True Crimes episode and was perverted enough to repeat it, but this means someone may have been doing this for a long time. Claire Barnes has been missing for two years. She and Erin were so alike. She was just about to get her first big break in a Broadway musical. Erin had just gotten her first big break with Bertolini’s.”
Her first big break with Bertolini’s. The words rippled through Darcy’s mind as she made and received phone calls, went through Connecticut and New Jersey papers for notices of estate and moving sales, made a quick trip to the rental apartment she was furnishing, and finally stopped for a sandwich and coffee at a lunch counter.
That was where she realized what had been bothering her. Her first big break with Bertolini’s. Erin had told her she was to receive twenty thousand dollars for designing and executing the necklace. In the rush of events, she forgot about the strange message on Erin ’s answering machine. She’d call them as soon as she got back to the office to confirm.
Aldo Marco came to the phone. Was this a family member making inquiries?
“I’m executor of Erin Kelley’s estate.” The words sounded appalling to her ears. Payment had already been made to Miss Kelley’s manager, Jay Stratton. Was there a problem?
“I’m sure there isn’t.” So Stratton presumed to act as Erin ’s manager. He was not home. The message she left was brusque. Please call her immediately about Erin ’s check.
Jay Stratton phoned just before five o’clock. “I’m sorry. Of course I should have gotten to you sooner. I’ve been away. How shall I make out the check?” He told Darcy that while he was out of town he’d thought of nothing but Erin. “That beautiful, talented girl. I firmly believe that someone knew about that jewelry, killed her for it, and then tried to make it look like a copycat murder.” You of all people knew about the jewelry. It was an effort to listen to Stratton, to respond pleasantly to his sympathetic comments. He would be out of town again for a few days. She agreed to meet him Monday evening. For minutes after she said good-bye to him, Darcy stared straight ahead, lost in thought, then said aloud, “After all, as you say, Mr. Stratton, two of Erin ’s closest friends really ought to know each other better.” She sighed. She’d better get some work done before it was time to dress for
