Mary Clark - Loves Music, Loves To Dance

The next call came in at seven twenty-five. Michael Nash. “ Erin, I certainly enjoyed meeting you and hope you might be free for dinner sometime this week. If you have a chance, call me back this evening.” Nash left both his home and office numbers.

Wednesday morning the calls began at nine o’clock. The first few were run-of-the-mill business-related. The one that made Darcy’s throat close was from an Aldo Marco of Bertolini’s. “Miss Kelley, I am disappointed you did not keep our ten o’clock appointment. It is essential that I see the necklace and be sure there is no last-minute adjustment necessary. Please get back to me immediately.”

That call had come in at eleven. There were three more follow-ups from the same man, increasing in irritation and urgency. Besides Darcy’s own messages, there was another one concerning the Bertolini assignment. “ Erin, this is Jay Stratton. What’s going on? Marco’s bugging me for the necklace and holding me responsible for bringing you to him.” Darcy knew that Stratton was the jeweler who had given Erin ’s portfolio to Bertolini’s. His message came in around seven Wednesday evening. Darcy started to push the rewind button, then paused. Maybe it would be better not to erase these. She looked in the phone book for the number of the nearest precinct. “I want to report someone missing,” she said when the call was answered. She was told that she would have to come in personally, that this kind of information about a competent adult could not be accepted over the phone. I’ll stop there on my way home, Darcy thought. She went into the kitchen and made coffee, noting that the only milk container was unopened. Erin started her day with coffee and always drank it light. Boxer had seen her with groceries Tuesday afternoon. Darcy looked into the garbage pail under the sink. There were a few odds and ends, but no empty milk container. She wasn’t here yesterday morning, Darcy thought. She never got back Tuesday night. She brought the coffee back to the worktable. A daily reminder was in the top drawer. She flipped through it, starting with today. There were no appointments listed. Yesterday, Wednesday, there were two: Bertolini’s, 10 A.M.; Bella Vita, 7 P.M. (Darcy and Nona).

In the preceding weeks, there were notations of dates with names of men unfamiliar to Darcy. They were usually scheduled between five and seven o’clock. Most of them had the meeting place listed: O’Neal’s, Mickey Mantle’s, P. J. Clarke’s, the Plaza, the Sheraton… all hotel cocktail lounges and popular pubs.

The phone rang. Let it be Erin, Darcy prayed as she grabbed it. “Hello.”

“ Erin?” A man’s voice.

“No. This is Darcy Scott. Erin ’s friend.”

“Do you know where I can reach Erin?”

Disappointment, intense and overwhelming, swept over Darcy. “Who is this?”

“Jay Stratton.”

Jay Stratton had left the message about the Bertolini jewelry. What was he saying?

“… if you have any idea where Erin is, please tell her that if they don’t get that necklace, they’ll file a criminal complaint.” Darcy’s eyes flickered to the pharmaceutical cabinet. She knew that Erin kept the combination in her address book under the name of the safe company. Stratton was still talking.

“I know Erin kept that necklace in a safe in her studio. Is there any possibility you can check to see if it’s there?” he urged. “Hold on a minute.” Darcy put her hand over the speaker, then thought, What a dumb thing to do. There’s no one here I can ask. But in a way she was asking Erin. If the necklace wasn’t in the safe, it might mean that Erin had been the victim of a robbery when she attempted to deliver it. If it was there, it was almost certain proof that something had happened to her. Nothing would have kept Erin from delivering the necklace on time.

She opened Erin ’s address book and turned to D. Next to Dalton Safe was the series of numbers. “I have the combination,” she told Stratton. “I’ll wait for you to come here. I don’t want to open Erin ’s safe without a witness. And in case the necklace is here, I’ll want a receipt for it from you.” He said he’d be right over. After she replaced the receiver, Darcy decided that she’d ask the superintendent to be present as well. She didn’t know anything about Jay Stratton except that Erin told her he was a jeweler and the one who got her the Bertolini commission.

While she waited, Darcy went through Erin ’s files. Under “Project Personal,” she found sheets of personal columns torn from magazines and newspapers. On each page a number of the ads were circled. Were these the ones Erin had answered, or had thought about answering? Dismayed, Darcy realized that there were at least two dozen of them. Which, if any of them, had been placed by Charles North, the man Erin was to meet on Tuesday evening?

When she and Erin agreed to answer the personal ads, they’d gone about it systematically. They’d had inexpensive letterheads made with only their names at the top. They’d each chosen a favorite snapshot to send when requested. They’d spent a hilarious evening composing letters they had no intentions of sending. “I love to clean clean clean,” Erin had suggested, “my favorite hobby is doing the wash by hand. I inherited my grandmother’s scrub board. My cousin wanted it too. It caused a big family fight. I get a little nasty during my period, but I’m a very good person. Please call soon.”

They had finally come up with what they decided were reasonably alluring responses. When Darcy was leaving for California, Erin had said, “Darce, I’ll send yours out about two weeks before you’re due back. I’ll just change a sentence here or there to fit the ad.”

Erin didn’t own a computer. Darcy knew she typed out the responses on her electric typewriter but did not Xerox them. She kept all the input in the notebook she carried in her purse: the box numbers of the ads she answered, the names of the people she called, her impressions of the ones she dated.

Jay Stratton leaned back in the cab, his eyes half-closed. The speaker behind his right ear was blaring rock music. “Will you turn that down?” he snapped. “Man, you trying to deprive me of my music?” The cabbie was in his early twenties. Wispy, snarled hair hung around his neck. He glanced over his shoulder, caught the look on Stratton’s face, and, muttering under his breath, lowered the volume.

Stratton felt sweat forming in his armpits. He had to pull this off. He tapped his pocket. The receipts Erin had given him for the Bertolini gems and for the diamonds he’d given her last week were in his wallet. Darcy Scott sounded smart. He mustn’t arouse the slightest suspicion.

The nosy superintendent must have been watching for him. He was in the foyer when Stratton arrived. Obviously, he recognized him. “I’ll bring you up,” he said. “I’m supposed to stay while she opens the safe.” Stratton swore to himself as he followed the squat figure up the stairs. He didn’t need two witnesses.

When Darcy opened the door for them, Stratton’s face was set in a pleasant, somewhat-concerned expression. He had planned to sound reassuring, but the worry in Scott’s eyes warned him against banalities. Instead, he agreed with her that something must be dreadfully wrong.

Smart girl, he thought. Darcy had obviously memorized the combination of the safe. She was not about to let anyone know where Erin kept it. She had a pad and pen ready. “I want to itemize everything we find in there.” Stratton deliberately turned his back while she twisted the dial, then crouched beside her as she pulled the door open. The safe was fairly deep. Boxes and pouches lined the shelves.

“Let me hand everything out to you,” he suggested. “I’ll describe what we find.