and collectors.
Chris Sheridan observed the scene from the back of the room, reflecting with pleasure that it had been a coup to triumph over Sotheby’s and Christie’s for the privilege of auctioning this collection. Absolutely magnificent furniture from the Queen Anne period; paintings distinguished less by their technique than by their rarity; Revere silver that he knew would set off feverish bidding. At thirty-three, Chris Sheridan still looked more like the linebacker he had been in college than a leading authority on antique furniture. His six-four height was accentuated by his straight carriage. His broad shoulders tapered down to a trim waist. His sandy hair framed a strong- featured face. His blue eyes were disarming and friendly. As his competitors had learned, however, those eyes could quickly take on a keen, no-nonsense glint. Chris folded his arms as he watched the final bids on a 1683 Domenico Cucci cabinet with panels of pietra dura and central reliefs of inlaid stones. Smaller and less elaborate than the pair Cucci made for Louis XIV, it was nevertheless a magnificent, flawless piece that he knew the Met wanted desperately. The room quieted as the bidding between the two high-stakes players, the Met and the representative of a Japanese bank, continued. A tug on his arm made Chris turn with a distracted frown. It was Sarah Johnson, his executive assistant, an art expert whom he had coaxed away from a private museum in Boston. Her expression reflected concern. “Chris, I’m afraid there’s a problem,” she said. “Your mother’s on the phone. She says she has to talk to you immediately. She sounds pretty upset.”
“The problem is that damn program!” Chris strode toward the door, shoved it open, and, ignoring the elevator, raced up the stairs. A month ago the popular television series True Crimes had run a segment about the unsolved murder of Chris’s twin sister, Nan. At nineteen, Nan had been strangled while jogging near their home in Darien, Connecticut. Despite his vehement protests, Chris had not been able to prevent the camera crews from filming long shots of the house and grounds, nor from reenacting Nan ’s death in the nearby wooded area where her body had been found.
He had pleaded with his mother not to watch the program, but she had insisted on viewing it with him. The producers had managed to find a young actress who bore a startling resemblance to Nan. The docudrama showed her jogging; the figure watching her from the protection of the trees; the confrontation; the attempt to escape, the killer tackling her, choking her, pulling the Nike from her right foot and replacing it with a high-heeled slipper.
The commentary was delivered by an announcer whose sonorous voice sounded gratuitously horrified. “Was it a stranger who accosted beautiful, gifted Nan Sheridan? She and her twin celebrated their nineteenth birthday the night before at the family mansion. Did someone Nan knew, someone who perhaps toasted her on her birthday, become her killer? In fifteen years no one has come forward with a shred of information that might solve this hideous crime. Was Nan Sheridan the random victim of a deranged monster, or was her death an act of personal vengeance?”
A montage of closing shots followed. The house and grounds from a different angle. The phone number to call “if you have any information.” The last closeup was the police photo of Nan’s body as it had been found, neatly placed on the ground, her hands folded together on her waist, her left foot still wearing the Nike, her right foot in the sequined slipper.
The final line: “Where are the mates to this sneaker, to this graceful evening shoe? Does the killer still have them?”
Greta Sheridan had watched the program dry-eyed. When it was finished, she’d said, “Chris, I’ve gone over it in my mind so often. That’s why I wanted to see this. I couldn’t function after Nan died, couldn’t think. But Nan used to talk to me so much about everyone at school. I… I just thought that seeing that program might make me recall something that could be important. Remember the day of the funeral? That huge crowd. All those young people from college. Remember Chief Harriman said that he was convinced her killer was sitting there among the mourners? Remember how they had cameras set up to take pictures of everyone in the funeral home and at church?”
Then, as though a giant hand had smashed her face, Greta Sheridan had broken into heart-rending sobs. “That girl looked so much like Nan, didn’t she? Oh Chris, I’ve missed her so much all these years. Dad would still be alive if she were here. That heart attack was his way of grieving.” I wish I’d taken an ax to every television in the house before I let Mother watch that damn program, Chris thought as he ran down the corridor to his office. The fingers of his left hand drummed on the desk as he grabbed the phone. “Mother, what’s wrong?”
Greta Sheridan’s voice was tense and unsteady. “Chris, I’m sorry to bother you during the auction, but the strangest letter just came.” Another fallout from that stinking program, Chris fumed. All those crank letters. They ranged from psychics offering to conduct seances to people begging for money in exchange for their prayers. “I wish you wouldn’t read that garbage,” he said. “Those letters tear you apart.”
“Chris, this one is different. It says that in memory of Nan, a dancing girl from Manhattan is going to die on the evening of February nineteenth in exactly the way Nan died.” Greta Sheridan’s voice rose. “Chris, suppose this isn’t a crank letter? Is there anything we can do? Is there anyone we can warn?”
Doug Fox pulled on his tie, carefully twisted it into a precise knot, and studied himself in the mirror. He’d had a facial yesterday and his skin glowed. The body wave had made his thinning hair seem abundant and the sandy rinse completely covered the touch of gray that was emerging at his temples. A good-looking guy, he assured himself, admiring the way his crisp white shirt followed the lines of his muscular chest and slim waist. He reached for his suit jacket, quietly appreciating the fine feel of the Scottish wool. Dark blue with faint pinstripes, accented by the small red print on his Hermes tie. He looked every inch the part of the investment banker, upstanding citizen of Scarsdale, devoted husband of Susan Frawley Fox, father of four lively, handsome youngsters.
No one, Doug thought with amused satisfaction, would suspect him of his other life: that of the single freelance illustrator with an apartment in the blessed anonymity of London Terrace on West Twenty-third Street, plus a hideaway in Pawling and a new Volvo station wagon.
Doug took a final look in the long mirror, adjusted his pocket handkerchief, and with a glance to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, walked to the door. The bedroom always irritated him. Antique French provincial furniture, damn place done by an upscale interior designer, and Susan still managed to make it look like the inside of Fibber McGee’s closet. Clothes piled on the chaise, silver toilet articles haphazardly strewn over the top of the dresser. Kindergarten drawings taped on the wall. Let me out, Doug thought. The kitchen was the scene of the usual mayhem. Thirteen-year-old Donny and twelve-year-old Beth jamming food in their mouths. Susan warning that the school bus was down the block. The baby waddling around with a wet diaper and grubby hands. Trish saying she didn’t want to go to kindergarten this afternoon, she wanted to stay home and watch “All My Children” with Mommy. Susan was wearing an old flannel robe over her nightgown. She had been a very pretty girl when they were married. A pretty girl who’d let herself go. She smiled at Doug and poured him coffee. “Won’t you have pancakes or something?” “No.” Would she ever stop asking him to stuff his face every morning? Doug jumped back as the baby tried to embrace his leg. “Damn it, Susan, if you can’t keep him clean, at least don’t let him near me. I can’t go to the office looking grubby.”
“Bus!” Beth yelled. “Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad.”
Donny grabbed his books. “Can you come to my basketball game tonight, Dad?” “Won’t be home till late, son. An important meeting. Next time for sure, I promise.”
“Sure.” Donny slammed the door as he left.
Three minutes later, Doug was in the Mercedes heading for the train station, Susan’s reproachful “Try not to be too late” ringing in his ears. Doug felt himself begin to unwind. Thirty-six years old and stuck with a fat wife, four noisy kids, a house in the suburbs. The American Dream. At twenty-two he’d thought he was making a smart move when he married Susan. Unfortunately, marrying the daughter of a wealthy man wasn’t the same as marrying wealth. Susan’s father was a tightwad. Lend, never give. That motto had to be tattooed on his brain.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love the kids or that he wasn’t fond enough of Susan.
It was just that he should have waited to get into this paterfamilias routine. He’d thrown his youth away. As Douglas Fox, investment banker, upstanding citizen of Scarsdale, his life was an exercise in boredom. He parked and ran for the train, consoling himself with the thought that as Doug Fields, bachelor artist, prince of the personals, his life was swift and secretive, and when the dark needs came there was a way to satisfy them.
