with flowering hedges and the willows would be heavily laden with cascades of leaves. Even as a small child Susan had studied the willows for the first hint of spring.
She shoved the side door open, heated a bottle for the baby, brought him to his room, changed him, and put him down for a nap. Her quiet time had begun: the hour and a half before he woke up. She knew she should get busy. The beds weren’t made. The kitchen was a mess. This morning Trish had wanted to make cupcakes, and spilled batter was still lumped on the table. Susan glanced at the baking pan on the countertop and half-smiled. The cupcakes looked delicious. If only Trish wouldn’t carry on so about kindergarten. It’s almost March, Susan worried. What’s it going to be like when she’s in the first grade and has to be gone all day?
Doug blamed Susan for Trish’s reluctance to go to school. “If you’d go out more yourself, have lunch at the club, volunteer for some committees, Trish would be used to being minded by other people.”
Susan put the kettle on, sponged the table, and fixed a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich. There is a God, she thought gratefully as she reveled in the blessed silence.
Over a second cup of tea, she permitted herself to face the anger that was burning inside her. Doug hadn’t come home again last night. When he stayed in for late meetings he used the company suite at the Gateway Hotel near his office in the World Trade Center. He got furious when she called him there. “Damn it, Susan, unless there’s an earth-shattering emergency, give me a break. I can’t be called out of meetings and by the time they’re over it’s usually well past midnight.”
Taking the tea with her, Susan got up and walked down the long hall to the master bedroom. The antique full-length standing mirror was in the right-hand corner opposite the wall of closets. Deliberately, she stood in front of it and appraised herself.
Thanks to the baby’s exploring fingers, her short, curly brown hair was disheveled. She seldom bothered with makeup during the day but really didn’t need it. Her skin was clear and unlined, her complexion fresh. At five feet four she could certainly afford to lose fifteen pounds. She’d been one hundred and five when she and Doug were married fourteen years ago. Sweats and sneakers had become her daily wardrobe, especially since Trish and Conner were born. I am thirty-five years old, Susan told herself. I could lose some weight, but contrary to what my husband thinks, I am not fat. I’m not a great housekeeper, but I know I’m a good mother. A good cook, too. I don’t want to spend my time outside the house when I have young children who need me. Especially since their father won’t give them the time of day.
She swallowed the rest of the tea, her anger building. Tuesday night when Donny came home from the basketball game, he had been in the never-never land between ecstasy and misery. He had sunk the winning shot. “Everybody stood up and cheered for me, Mom!” Then he added, “Dad was practically the only father who wasn’t there.”
Susan’s heart had wrenched at the pain in her son’s eyes. The babysitter had canceled at the last minute, which was why she hadn’t been able to be at the game either. “This is an earth-shattering event,” she’d said firmly. “Let’s see if we can reach Dad and tell him all about it.”
Douglas Fox was not registered at the hotel. There was no conference room in use. The suite kept for personnel of Keldon Equities was not being occupied. “Probably some dumb new operator,” Susan had told Donny, trying to keep her tone even.
“Sure, that’s it, Mom.” But Donny wasn’t fooled. At dawn, Susan had awakened to the sound of muffled sobs. She’d stood outside Donny’s door, knowing that he wouldn’t want her to see him crying.
My husband doesn’t love me or his children, Susan told her reflected image. He lies to us. He stays in New York a couple of nights a week. He’s bullied me into almost never calling him. He’s made me feel like a fat, frowsy, dull, useless clod. And I’m sick of it.
She turned from the mirror and analyzed the cluttered bedroom. I could be a lot more organized, she acknowledged. I used to be. When did I give up? When did I become so damn discouraged that it wasn’t worth trying to please him? Not hard to answer. Nearly two years ago, when she was pregnant with the baby. They’d had a Swedish au pair, and Susan was sure that Doug had had an affair with her.
Why didn’t I face it then? she wondered as she began to make the bed. Because I was still in love with him? Because I hated to admit my father was right about him?
She and Doug had been married a week after she was graduated from Bryn Mawr. Her father offered her a trip around the world if she’d change her mind. “Under that schoolboy charm, there’s a foul-tempered sneak,” he had warned her. I went into it with my eyes open, Susan acknowledged, as she returned to the kitchen. If Dad had known the half of it, he’d have had a stroke, she thought. There was a pile of magazines on the wall desk in the kitchen. She riffled through them until she found the one she was looking for. An issue of People with an article about a female private investigator in Manhattan. Professional women hired her to check out the men they were considering marrying. She also handled divorce cases.
Susan got the phone number from information and dialed it. When she reached the investigator, she was able to make an appointment for the following Monday, February 25th. “I believe my husband is seeing other women,” she explained quietly. “I am thinking of divorce, and I want to know all about his activities.”
When she hung up she resisted the temptation to simply sit and continue to think things through. Instead, she attacked the kitchen vigorously. Time to shape up this place. By summer, with any luck, it would be on the market. It wouldn’t be easy raising four children alone. Susan knew that Doug would pay little if any attention to the kids after the divorce. He was a splashy spender but cheap in hundreds of little ways. He’d balk at adequate child support. But it would be a lot easier to live on a tight budget than to go on with this farce.
The telephone rang. It was Doug, complaining again about the damn late meetings these last two nights. He was exhausted today and they still hadn’t settled everything. He’d be home tonight, but late. Real late. “Don’t worry, dear,” Susan said soothingly. “I understand perfectly.”
The country road was narrow, winding, and dark. Charley didn’t pass a single other car. His driveway was almost hidden by brush at the point where it intersected the road. A secret and quiet place, removed from curious eyes. He’d bought it six years ago. An estate sale. Estate giveaway was more like it. The place had been owned by an eccentric bachelor who as a hobby renovated it himself.
Built in 1902, the exterior was unpretentious. Inside, the renovation had consisted of turning the entire first floor into one open room, complete with a kitchen area and fireplace. Wide plank oak flooring shone with a satiny finish. The furniture was Pennsylvania Dutch, austere, handsome. Charley had added a long upholstered couch covered in maroon tapestry, a matching chair, an area rug between the couch and fireplace. The second floor was exactly as he’d found it. Two small rooms made into one decent-sized bedroom. Shaker furniture, a carved headboard bed and tall chest. Both made of pine. The original tub, free-standing on claw feet, had been left in the modernized bath Only the basement was different. The eight-foot freezer that no longer held an ounce of food, the freezer where, when necessary, he left the bodies of the girls. Here, ice maidens, they’d waited for their graves to be dug under the warming rays of the spring sun. There was a worktable in the basement as well, the worktable with a stack of ten cardboard shoe boxes. There was only one left to decorate.
A charming house nestled in the woods. He’d never brought anyone here until two years ago when he’d begun to dream about Nan. Before that, owning the house had been enough. When he wanted to escape, this was his retreat. The aloneness. The ability to pretend that he was dancing with beautiful girls. He’d play old movies on the VCR, movies in which he became Fred Astaire and danced with Ginger Rogers and Rita Hayworth and Leslie Caron. He’d follow Astaire’s graceful movements until he could step with his every step, mimic the way Astaire would turn his body. Always he sensed Ginger and Rita and Leslie and Fred’s other partners in his arms, their eyes worshipful, loving the music, loving the dance. Then one day, two years ago, it was over. In the middle of the dance, Ginger drifted away and Nan was in Charley’s arms again. Just like the moments after he killed her, waltzing on the jogging path, her light, svelte body so easy to hold, her head lolling on his shoulder.
When that memory came back, he’d run to the basement and taken the mates of the sequined dancing slipper and the Nike that he’d left on her feet from the shoe box and cradled them in his arms while he swayed to the music on the stereo. It was like being with Nan again, and he’d known what he had to do. First he’d set up a hidden video camera so he could relive every single moment of what was to happen. Then he’d begun to bring the girls here one by one. Erin was the eighth to die here. But Erin would not join the others in the wooded fields that surrounded the house. Tonight he would move Erin ’s body. He had decided exactly where he would leave her.
The station wagon moved silently down the driveway, around to the back of the house. He stopped at the
