major success. Swallowing over a lump in her throat, Darcy said, “That will do.” She looked down at the check. Seventeen thousand five hundred dollars made out to the Estate of Erin Kelley, drawn on Chase Manhattan Bank, and signed by Jay Charles Stratton.
XIV TUESDAY March 5
On Tuesday morning when Agent D’Ambrosio entered Sheridan Galleries, he took a quick look around before he was ushered upstairs to Chris Sheridan’s office. The furniture reminded him of the contents of Nona Roberts’s living room. Funny. One of the things that had always been on his list was to take courses in art and antique furniture. The Bureau’s Art Theft program had only whetted his appetite in that area.
In the meantime, Vince thought as he followed a secretary down the corridor, I live with Alice ’s mistakes. At the time of the divorce he’d gotten tired of expecting a fair shake from her. “Take what you want if it’s so important to you,” he’d offered.
She’d certainly taken him at his word.
Sheridan was on the phone. He smiled and waved Vince to a seat. Without appearing to be paying attention, Vince took in the conversation. Something about a collection being wildly overvalued.
Sheridan was saying, “Tell Lord Kilman that they may promise him that amount but they can’t deliver. We’ll be happy to set reasonable opening bids. The market isn’t as strong as it was a few years ago, but is he prepared to wait it out another three to five years? Otherwise, I think if he looks carefully at our estimates he’ll realize that many of the pieces he acquired fairly recently will still turn him a handsome profit.”
Confident. Knowledgeable. Innate warmth. That was the way Vince had sized up Chris Sheridan last week when he’d gone to Darien. At that time, Sheridan had been wearing a sports shirt and windbreaker. Today he was dressed in a charcoal gray suit, white shirt, red and gray tie, very much the executive. Chris hung up and reached across the desk to shake hands. Vince apologized for giving him such short notice and got right to the point. “When I saw you last week, I was pretty sure that Erin Kelley’s death was a copycat murder because of the True Crimes program about your sister. I’m not sure about that anymore.” He told him about Claire Barnes and the package that had been returned to her home. Chris listened attentively. “Another one.”
It seemed to Vince that all the residual pain of his sister’s murder was in those two words.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know,” Vince said frankly. “Whoever killed your sister must have known her. The matching shoe size can’t be a coincidence. We have three possibilities. The same murderer has continued to kill young women all through these years. The same murderer stopped killing and started again several years ago. The third possibility is that Nan ’s murderer confided his modus operandi to someone else who decided to take over. The last one is the least likely.” “Then you’re going to try to connect someone whom Nan knew to someone these other women knew?”
“Exactly. Although in Erin Kelley’s case, because of the missing diamonds, there is still a possibility that we have a different culprit. That’s why we’re planning to explore both avenues. The reason I’m here is that I’m going to try to link one person with Nan, Erin Kelley, and Claire Barnes.” “Someone who knew my sister fifteen years ago and recently met those girls through personal ads?”
“You’ve got it. Darcy Scott was Erin Kelley’s closest friend. They’d been answering the ads only because a television producer friend is doing a documentary and asked them to take part in the research. Darcy was out of town for a month. She gave Erin a sample of the letter she was sending, and some photographs. We know Erin answered some of those ads for both of them. Darcy Scott is hoping that whoever killed Erin will contact her.” Chris frowned. “You mean, you’re allowing another young woman to be set up as a possible victim?”
Vince raised his hand as though to wave away the suggestion. “You don’t know Darcy Scott. I’m not allowing anything. It’s what she’s determined to do. The one thing I have to grant her is she’s already met some pretty interesting characters and come up with information that might be helpful.” “I still think it’s a lousy idea,” Chris said flatly.
“So do I and now that we’ve established that, here’s how I hope you can help. The faster we get this guy, the less chance Darcy Scott or some other young woman might get hurt. We’re going to Brown to get a roster of everyone who was in the student body or on the faculty when your sister was there. We’ll check those names against anyone we know Erin met or Darcy meets on these dates. I also think it would be a good idea if, besides the school yearbooks that we can get ourselves, you dig out any snapshots, albums, whatever, of your sister’s friends or acquaintances. You’ve got to understand that not everybody who answers a personal ad uses his own name. I want Darcy Scott to look over Nan ’s pictures to see if she can spot anyone she meets along the way.” “Of course we’ve got endless snapshots of Nan,” Chris said slowly. “Ten years ago, after my father died, I managed to persuade my mother to pack up most of them and put them in the attic. Mother admitted that Nan ’s room was getting to be a shrine.”
“Good for you,” Vince said. “You must have been pretty persuasive.” Chris smiled quickly. “I pointed out that it was one of the brightest rooms in the house and would be great for a visiting grandchild someday. The problem is, as my mother frequently reminds me, I haven’t delivered.” The smile disappeared. “I can’t get up to Connecticut until the weekend. I’ll bring everything down on Sunday.”
Vince stood up. “I appreciate this. I know how tough this has been on your mother, but if it turns out that we find the guy who was responsible for your sister’s death, believe me, in the long run it will give her a lot of peace.” As he turned to go, his beeper sounded. “Do you mind if I call my office?” Sheridan handed him the phone, watched as D’Ambrosio’s forehead furrowed. “How is Darcy?”
Chris Sheridan felt a cold wave of apprehension. He didn’t know this girl but experienced a sudden unreasoning fear for her. He had never told anyone that when Nan went for a jog the morning after their birthday party, he had heard her go out. Still half asleep, he’d started to get up. Some instinct was urging him to follow her. He’d shrugged it off and gone back to sleep. Vince hung up the phone and turned back to Chris. “Is there any way you could possibly get those pictures immediately? The White Plains police phoned. The father of Janine Wetzl, another one of the missing girls, just received the sort of package your mother and the Barnes family got. Her own shoe and a high-heeled white satin slipper.” He slapped his hand on the table. “And while one agent was taking that call, Darcy Scott phoned. She had just opened a package that came in the morning mail. The mates of the shoes found on Erin Kelley’s body were sent to her.”
Chris knew that the frustrated anger he saw on Agent D’Ambrosio’s face mirrored his own expression. “Why the hell is he doing this?” Chris blurted. “To prove the girls are dead? To taunt? What makes him tick?” “When I know that, I’ll know who he is,” Vince said quietly. “And now, do you mind if I use your phone again? I have to call Darcy Scott.”
From the moment Darcy saw the package, she’d known. The mailman arrived just as she was leaving for work. He’d handed her the package and the letters and magazines and junk mail. Afterward, Darcy remembered that he’d looked puzzled when she did not respond to his greeting.
Like an automaton she’d walked stiffly upstairs to her apartment and laid the package on the table by the window. Deliberately keeping her gloves on, she opened it, unknotting the twine and slitting the sealing tape at the flaps. The sketch of the slipper on the lid. Remove the lid. Separate the tissue. Look down at Erin ’s boot and a pink and silver slipper nestled together. The slipper is so pretty, she thought. It would have gone beautifully with the dress Erin was buried in.
She did not have to look up Vince D’Ambrosio’s number, her brain produced it effortlessly. He was not there but they promised to locate him. “Can you wait for him?”
“Yes.”
He called a few minutes later, was at the apartment within half an hour. “This is rough for you.”
“I touched the heel of the slipper with my glove,” she confessed. “I simply had to know if it was Erin ’s size. It was.”
Vince looked at her compassionately. “Maybe you should take it easy today.”
Darcy shook her head. “That would be the worst thing in the world for me to do.”
She attempted a smile. “I’ve got a big project scheduled, and then, guess what?
