On the Street Where you Live (30 page)

He did go so far as to get the license numbers of Eric Bailey's van and Mercedes convertible and check them against EZPass records.

The activity of the vehicles indicated neither of them had been driven more than thirty miles south of Albany in the last week.

Let it go, Marty told himself, but like a chronically aching tooth, the suspicion that Eric Bailey was the stalker would not subside.

W
HEN
E
MILY WOKE UP
on Friday morning and looked at the clock, she was surprised to see that it was already 8:15. Shows what a couple of glasses of wine will do to relax you, she thought, as she pushed back the covers.

But the long, dreamless sleep
did
make her feel a lot more refreshed than she had been feeling all week. And it had been a very pleasant evening, she reflected, as she went through the morning ritual of making coffee, then carrying it up to her room to drink while she showered and dressed.

Will Stafford is a nice guy, she thought, as she opened the doors of the walk-in closet and puzzled for a moment over what to wear. She chose white
jeans and a red-and-white checkered long-sleeved cotton shirt, both old favorites.

Last evening she'd worn a silk navy suit with subtle pleating around the sleeves and cuffs. Will Stafford had remarked on it several times.

He had arrived to pick her up almost half an hour early. I was buttoning the suit jacket on the way downstairs, Emily thought. I still hadn't put on lipstick or jewelry.

She had left him in the study, watching the news, and been glad that she'd already closed the doors to the dining room. She did not want anyone else scrutinizing her cardboard map.

This morning, as she slipped into the jeans and blouse and pulled on her sneakers, she thought how funny it was that an outsider's impression of other people's lives can be so different from what actually is going on in them.

Like Will Stafford, Emily thought, as she began to make the bed. From what he told me the day I closed on the house, I'd have thought that his life was always pretty much okay and free of hardship.

Over dinner, however, Will had opened up about himself, and a different picture had emerged. “You know I'm an only child,” he told her, “raised in Princeton, and that I moved with my mother to Denver after my parents split when I was twelve. And I guess I told you that until then we used to come to Spring Lake for two weeks every summer and stay at the Essex-Sussex.

“But it's not quite that straightforward,” he explained. Within a year of being made chief executive
officer of his company, his father divorced his mother and married his secretary, the first of three successive wives.

Will's eyes filled with sadness when he said, “My mother was absolutely heartbroken. She was never the same after that. He broke her spirit.”

Then he had hesitated and said, “Emily, I'm going to tell you something no one in this town knows. It's not a pretty story.”

I tried to stop him, Emily remembered, but he wouldn't listen. He told me that after his junior prom in Denver, he and a friend went joyriding. They'd both been drinking a lot of beer. There was an accident, and the car was smashed. The friend, who'd been driving, was eighteen and had begged Will to switch seats with him. “You're not sixteen yet,” he'd argued. “They'll go easy on you.”

“Emily, I was so out of it I let it happen. What I didn't know was that it hadn't been a simple accident. In my own confused state, I hadn't realized that he'd hit and killed a pedestrian, a fifteen-year-old girl. When I tried to tell the police what really happened, they wouldn't believe me. My friend lied on the witness stand. My mother was a rock and stood by me. She knew I was telling the truth. My father washed his hands of me, though, and I spent a year in juvenile detention.”

There was so much raw pain in his face when he talked of that time, Emily thought. But then he shrugged and said, “So there it is. There isn't a soul in this town who knows what I've just told you. I laid it on the line now because I'm going to ask you out for
dinner again in a week or two, and if that story upsets you, it's better to know it right away. One thing I'm sure about: I can trust you not to talk about it to anyone.”

I reassured him about that, Emily thought, but I also told him to wait awhile before he asks me out to dinner again. I don't want to be perceived as going out regularly with anybody, either in Spring Lake or anywhere else.

She started down the stairs, stopping to admire the way the sunlight was streaming through the stained-glass window at the landing.

Next time I get serious about anyone—if there
is
a next time—I'm going to be very,
very
sure I'm not making another mistake.

One good thing, she thought wryly, as she walked toward the kitchen, I don't have to worry about falling in love as a junior in college anymore. Thank goodness that only happens once in a lifetime!

But how it changed my life, she mused. By marrying Gary right after law school, I ended up living in Albany because he was going into the family business. If I hadn't married him, I would have started out practicing law in Manhattan.

But then if I hadn't been living in Albany, I wouldn't have defended Eric in that lawsuit, and I wouldn't have made ten million dollars by selling the stock he gave me.

And I certainly wouldn't be here in this house, she thought as she stopped in the dining room to pick up a book from the Lawrence collection of memorabilia. It was a diary kept by Julia Gordon Lawrence after
her marriage. Emily was eager to see what it might reveal. Over toast and a grapefruit, she opened it and began to read.

In one of the early entries, Julia wrote, “Poor Mrs. Carter continues to decline. She will never recover from the loss of Douglas. We all visit her frequently and bring flowers to brighten her room, or a sweet to tempt her appetite, but nothing seems to help.

“She talks constantly about Douglas. ‘My only son,' she sobs when we try to console her.

“Mother Lawrence and I talk about it and agree how very sad life has turned out for Mrs. Carter. She was blessed with great beauty and substantial wealth. But crippling rheumatism set in shortly after Douglas was born. She has been a semi-invalid for years, and now never leaves her bed.

“Mother Lawrence feels that for a long time, in an attempt to alleviate her pain, the doctors have been prescribing daily doses of laudanum that are far too strong. Now Mrs. Carter is in a sedated state that gives her no opportunity to take an interest in life, and with the passage of time perhaps find some measure of surcease. Instead, the only outlet for her grief is to shed copious tears.”

Emily closed the book after she had finished reading that entry and went into the dining room. Mrs. Carter was at home the day Madeline disappeared, she remembered. But suppose Douglas actually had been on the early train, arrived home, and Madeline had run across the street to greet him.

If something had gone wrong between Madeline and Douglas, would Mrs. Carter, upstairs in her
room, sedated by laudanum, be aware that a tragedy was unfolding downstairs?

Or had Madeline perhaps left the porch and walked into her own backyard and found Alan Carter outside in
his
backyard. He was in love with her, and probably was aware that she was about to receive his cousin's engagement ring. He might have made a pass at her, Emily reflected, and then became enraged when she rebuffed him.

Either possibility was intriguing. I firmly believe, she thought, that Madeline died that afternoon, within sight of this house, and that either Douglas or Alan Carter was involved in her death.

If Douglas was innocent of Madeline's death, then Alan becomes the next most likely suspect, she thought.

Geographically he lived close to Madeline. Letitia had to pass his house to get to the beach. In the diary, Julia had written that she and her friends regularly visited Douglas's invalid mother. Had Ellen Swain been visiting Mrs. Carter the day she disappeared? The old police records might provide some information on that point.

As Emily carefully returned the diary to the collection of Lawrence memorabilia, a new possibility occurred to her.

Did Douglas Carter
really
commit suicide? Or was he murdered because he began to suspect the truth?

O
N
F
RIDAY MORNING
, Bob Frieze was woken by the jarring ring of the telephone on the night table beside his bed. He opened his eyes and groped for the phone. His greeting was raspy and gruff.

“Bob, this is Connie. I expected Natalie to be here in time for dinner last night. She never called and she never showed up. Is she there? Is everything all right?”

Bob Frieze pulled himself up. He was lying on top of the bed. Natalie, he thought, his mind still foggy. We were in the restaurant. She said she didn't want lunch and practically ran out.

“Bob, what's going on?” Irritation was apparent in Connie's voice, but he detected something else as well. There was fear.

Fear?
Natalie probably had told Connie all about their fight. He was sure of it. Had she told Connie about her bruised wrist too?

He tried to think. Natalie told me she was leaving. She was going home to pack. She was going to stay at Connie's apartment in New York. She never got there?

It was morning now, and Connie told him that Natalie had been due there last night.

I've lost almost a day, Bob Frieze thought. How long exactly have I been out?

He held his hand over the speaker, cleared his throat and said, “Connie, I saw Natalie at the restaurant
at lunchtime yesterday. She told me she was going home to pack and was planning to go to New York to your apartment. I haven't seen her since.”

“Did
she pack? Are her bags there? What about her car?”

“Hang on.” Bob Frieze stumbled to his feet, realizing that he had a massive hangover. I don't normally drink much, he thought. How did this happen?

He had bought this house and moved into it while he was waiting for the divorce from Susan to be finalized. Natalie had taken an active interest in decorating it and had insisted on some renovation. In the process, the small bedroom next to theirs had been turned into two side-by-side walk-in closets. He opened hers.

There was a single waist-height shelf at one end of the closet, for convenience in packing suitcases. Natalie's largest suitcase was open on the shelf. Bob looked into it and saw that it was half filled.

Afraid of what he might find, he stumbled into the guest bedroom, remembering that was where Natalie had told him she had spent the night. The bed was made, but when he looked into the bathroom, he saw that her cosmetics were all still on the vanity, unpacked.

There was one more thing he had to do before he figured out what to tell Connie. He ran downstairs into the kitchen and opened the door to the garage. Her car was parked inside.

Where
is
she? he wondered. What had happened to her? Clearly
something
had happened, he was sure of it.

But
why
was he sure of it?

Back in the bedroom, he picked up the phone. “Looks like Natalie changed her mind, Connie. All her stuff is here.”

“So where is Natalie?”

“Look, I don't know where she is. We had a disagreement Wednesday evening. She's been sleeping in the guest room. I got home late last night, as I usually do, and went straight to bed. I didn't check on her. I'm sure she's fine. Natalie can be pretty careless about calling people when she makes a sudden change of plans.”

The click in his ear told Bob that his wife's best friend had hung up on him.

She was going to call the police. That certainty hit him with the impact of a gun firing in his face. What should he do?

Act normal, he decided. He pulled the spread off the bed, rumpled the blankets, and lay down between the sheets for a minute to give the impression of having slept there.

Where have I been since yesterday noon? he asked himself, straining to remember. What have I been doing? His mind was a complete blank. He rubbed his hand across his face and felt a stubble of beard.

Shower, he thought. Shave. Get dressed. When the police come,
act normal.
You and your wife had a disagreement. When you came home last night, you didn't check on her. She obviously changed her mind about leaving for New York.

When a police officer rang his doorbell thirty minutes later, Bob Frieze was prepared for him. He was
calm, but explained he was becoming concerned. “With all that has been going on in town this last week, I am beginning to be deeply worried about my wife's disappearance.” His face was set in a worried expression.

Then he added, “I can't bear the thought that anything might have happened to her.”

Even to his own ears,
that
statement did not ring true.

P
ETE
W
ALSH HAD GONE OUT
to a convenience store for milk before he left for work at eight o'clock. At his wife's insistence, he had picked up a copy of
The National Daily
for her as well. While he waited for his change, he glanced at the headline. Less than a minute later, he was on the phone with the Spring Lake police station.

“Get someone over to The Breakers,” he said. “Tell him to stay with an elderly woman, Bernice Joyce, who's a guest there. She's been fingered as an eyewitness to the theft of the scarf in the Lawrence murder case. She may be in a life-threatening situation.”

The milk forgotten, he ran out of the store to his car. On the way to the prosecutor's office, he contacted Duggan, who was on his way to work.

Ten minutes later they had piled into their specially equipped vehicle and were headed for Spring Lake.