Fatal Romance: A True Story of Obsession and Murder

by Lisa Pulitzer

  Jeremy stayed at Don’s place whenever he was in Florida on a case, and Jeremy returned the favor with an open invitation to his family’s home on Reservoir Road. Don was a confirmed bachelor, and he was accustomed to keeping his home and possessions in impeccably neat order. He found the Akers place in disarray—so much so that he had a hard time coping with spending his nights there when he was in town.

  He had always found Nancy to be a lovely woman, but it was clear that she did not have time for housework. With three children to care for, book deadlines to meet, and a husband who was on the road for much of the time, the stay-at-home author often seemed overwhelmed. It was clear that she and Jeremy were not earning enough to afford the regular services of a housekeeper. And while Nancy did continue to employ Ulysses from Grate Patrol, his visits once every two weeks were nowhere near enough to return order to the family’s jumbled living conditions.

  As was typical of Jeremy, he did little to hide his disappointment with Nancy’s housekeeping, and even criticized her in front of Don. He made it perfectly clear that he did not like that the house was so disorderly, and sometimes he even complained about her cooking as their dinner guest awkwardly looked on. If Nancy burned the chicken, Jeremy thought nothing of bluntly announcing: “This thing stinks!”

  Even the children were not spared their father’s wrath. Critical and stern, the former Marine captain routinely reprimanded Finny, Zeb, and Isabelle when they did not perform up to his standards. A bad grade was disciplined with a few blunt words—“I don’t think you are smart enough!”—which were followed by a lecture on what steps Jeremy felt the child should take to improve.

  Don found his friend’s comments impolite, but not the least bit out of character. Through all of Jeremy’s tirades, he noticed that Nancy never appeared afraid of her husband, and during their talks, she even admitted that she had always been attracted to his wild, unpredictable nature. Although his friend could be critical and discourteous at times, Don saw no signs that Jeremy was physically abusing his wife.

  To Don and others, Jeremy fit the stereotypical profile of a macho man. He was domineering and gruff, and made it clear that he was afraid of nothing. Once he related a story to Don about how he had assaulted a pack of young hoodlums who had tried to rob him while he was out for a walk. The short, well-built Marine recounted how he did not let the mob of three intimidate him. When they tried to grab his wallet, he charged at them full force, getting in a few good punches before taking off on foot and outrunning them. Another time, Don learned that his obsession with physical fitness caused two of his dogs to die from heat stroke as they raced to keep up with him on a strenuous run through a local park. For weeks, Adam Lenkin and other neighbors on Reservoir Road wondered what had happened to the pair of muscular dogs that Jeremy kept tied to the tall white columns at the entrance to his home.

  When his old law school roommate learned that his good friend had once been a cheerleader, dressed in a school uniform and shouting from the sidelines for his college football team, he did not believe it was true. Even Nancy found Jeremy’s past as a cheerleader out of character and enjoyed teasing her husband, pulling out the yearbook and pointing to the pictures with uncontrollable laughter.

  If Nancy was ever unhappy with Jeremy, she never admitted it to Don. Perhaps it was because Don was a friend of Jeremy’s from law school, or perhaps there was another reason. An article published in People magazine after her death cited several telephone conversations that Nancy had with a friend shortly after she and Jeremy were married and moved to Florida. The story quoted an unidentified source as saying that during a late night telephone call, Nancy complained of abuse. And while it is unclear whether she meant abuse of a physical or mental nature, there were no police records to indicate that anything was amiss.

  Don and others may not have known the extent of Nancy’s unhappiness, because she always had a way of making even the most unpleasant situations seem as if they were perfectly acceptable. Over the course of her lifetime, she had become a master at recasting the negative circumstances of her life into challenges over which she was determined to triumph. She never spoke in the negative, and had almost a Pollyannaish way of rephrasing things that transformed even the most unpleasant event into one that sounded strangely positive—but made it difficult for anyone to know what she was honestly thinking or feeling. It was a quality that frustrated her friends, who suspected that Nancy was bottling up her emotions in potentially harmful ways.

  It was only after twenty years of marriage that Nancy finally admitted to herself that her relationship with Jeremy had grown increasingly difficult. Uncharacteristically, she confided to some of her trusted friends that the first five years of her marriage had been good, but that over the years that followed, things had slowly soured. Part of the problem, she rationalized, may have been the pressure that Jeremy felt to provide for his family. But to Don, Jeremy was still very much the same person he remembered sharing a house with outside Charlottesville. And Jeremy’s other friends saw him as a man with raw talent at the top of his profession, but unwilling to dedicate his life to his work. An outdoorsman at heart, he thought nothing of putting important business on hold if an offer to ski, scuba dive, or hike came his way.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Akers residence seemed to get even messier with the arrival of Zeb and Isabelle. And Jeremy’s at-home business added to the jumble. At first, he seemed to have his new work situation under control, but it slowly became apparent that he needed managerial help.

  Who better than Nancy? But Nancy was saddled with the demands of her children and the deadlines of her budding writing career. Nevertheless, she complied when Jeremy asked her to type letters, address envelopes, and send faxes. The constant interruptions were maddening, and Nancy soon found herself wishing that her husband would be called away on a case.

  Even more annoying was the way that Jeremy handled his billing. With no formal system in place, Nancy watched as he worked diligently on a project, racking up hundreds of billable hours. But when it came time to submit the itemized invoice, he procrastinated until their bank account dipped dangerously into the red. Unable to pay the rent, or any of the other household bills, Nancy begged Jeremy to write his bills out in longhand and promised to type them herself. But he ignored her pleas, and sometimes even left town to begin another assignment with thousands of dollars of uncollected monies out of Nancy’s grasp. It infuriated her that he could be so irresponsible, knowing that he had three dependent children and a wife who didn’t earn nearly enough to pay the household expenses.

  But her aggravation did not end there. Nancy found it even more maddening that he refused to purchase health insurance for the family, citing his distrust for the companies that sell the policies. Instead, before he departed town for a job, Jeremy routinely handed Nancy an envelope stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash, and instructed her to use the money in case one of the children had to go to the hospital.

  He continued to drive Nancy crazy when he was home between cases and constantly underfoot. As she struggled to get the kids off to school, stock the house with food, do the laundry, and get to the computer to work on her novels, her husband was spending his days lifting weights, jogging around the canal, and sunning himself on the rooftop.

  Nancy found herself fighting to keep from falling into a depression. In addition to the family’s financial pressures, she was distraught over her health and her displeasing physical appearance. With little time for exercise and food preparation, she snacked on junk food, all the while struggling to lose the weight she still retained from her pregnancies. Sometimes she resorted to ingesting a variety of diet and nutritional supplements and cutting down on her intake of food. But worrying about every calorie added even more stress to her already pressured life.

  She was also growing restless with the Regencies that she was authoring, and found herself longing to write books that presented more of a challenge and promised greater financial rewards.
Since The Mayfair Season, she had published A Season Abroad, which was released shortly after her first book in 1988. The story drew on her personal experiences as a college junior living abroad. Philadelphia Folly, her third book, was published as part of a new series of American Regency Romances from Warner. The idea behind the new series was to celebrate American high society and the true love that blossomed on U.S. shores during the reign of England’s Prince Regent. She enjoyed researching the American Regency and excitedly kept friends like Mary Kilchenstein apprised as she familiarized herself with the intricacies of paddleboat operations and the delicate patterns that adorned the dishes and soup tureens of the era. She even regaled Mary with humorous tales about the kind of family politics that could have taken place at the dinner table at the time.

  In January of 1990, Nancy celebrated the release of yet another Regency, The Lilac Garland. At that time, she decided to terminate her relationship with her agent, Adele Leone, and hired another firm to represent her work. In 1992, she added three more Regencies to her portfolio. Fawcett Books released one of her new titles, Devil’s Wager, while Avon Books published Miss Wickham’s Betrothal and Lady Sarah’s Charade. In spite of her success, Nancy’s advances were still small, amounting to little more than $5,000 a book. Even the royalties she was receiving were not enough to cover the cost of her young children’s private school tuition. Her parents had turned down her request for financial assistance, so she was now faced with the reality that her younger son was going to have to attend public school.

  Her ongoing struggle to keep up with the financial demands at home had her forever scheming up ways to earn extra money. She tried everything from selling a line of high-end makeup, to hosting shows at her home to market the Christmas and holiday ornaments that she had collected over the years. She sold stationery for the Junior League, and in later years, she showcased the works of local craftsmen and artists, presenting their wares with the promise of a percentage of the evening’s sales.

  In fact, the very first time she spoke to romance writer Ann Marie Winston on the telephone, Nancy tried to sell her some makeup. The perky blonde had been advised to call Nancy, who had been past retreat chairwoman of the WRW, to get ideas for the 1991 weekend that she had been assigned to plan. As a writer of contemporary romances, it had taken Ann Marie two years to make her first sale. She had been ecstatic when she learned that a publisher had agreed to buy the fifth manuscript that she had written.

  Although Nancy had all but stopped attending the monthly meetings, Ann Marie had heard that she had been instrumental in getting the weekend retreats off the ground during the organization’s inaugural years. She was thrilled at the warm reception and good advice she received when she reached the author at home. She learned that Nancy was someone who could get things done. Over the years, she had earned a reputation as someone who was constantly coming up with innovative ways to promote herself and her books, and she graciously shared her strategies with members of the group. From what Ann Marie had heard, Nancy always showered promising words on young writers who called her for advice about pursuing their dreams.

  “Believe in miracles!” she would tell them. The encouraging phrase had become Nancy’s trademark.

  In 1993, Nancy released Lord Fortune’s Prize, her ninth Regency. She was also the year’s recipient of the prestigious Bookrack Award. Yet somehow, the excitement of publication had begun to wane for Nancy. Forty-two years old, and overwhelmed by the responsibilities of raising two young children and a teenage boy, Nancy once again found herself fighting depression. She was also distraught over her weight, finding it impossible to believe that she was now buying Laura Ashley dresses in a size sixteen. For a woman standing barely five feet, four inches tall, the dress size was appalling. But worrying about everything she ate added even more stress to her already pressured life.

  Nancy was also increasingly frustrated by the small advances that she was getting for her books, and was growing bored with writing the short, detail-filled paperbacks. While she had achieved formidable success in the genre, and took great pleasure in the extensive research that the Regencies required, she longed to write grander, more highly charged romances. Convinced that she was ready to take on a substantially bigger project, she attempted to write her first historical novel, a genre that was not limited to one particular time period—or less than two hundred pages—and in which she could write more explicit sex scenes than the traditional Regency allowed. Besides, historical novels promised unlimited financial rewards.

  But her new endeavor proved eerily similar to the experience she had had with the contemporaries. Unable to write the kind of high-tension scenes that excite readers, Nancy once again turned to her talented and prolific friend, Kathy Seidel, for help.

  Kathy had recently given birth to her second child, and she and Nancy had lost touch. It was good to hear her old friend’s voice on the line, and after a few minutes of catching up, she listened as Nancy spelled out the reason for her call. Nancy said that what she had always liked about Kathy’s writing were the scenes that evoked what she called “heart pang moments.”

  “You know, scenes in which you stir people’s emotions,” Nancy explained in her soft, even voice.

  After some time on the line, Kathy urged her friend to consider writing about something that evoked a personal emotional response.

  “Nancy, you’ve got to write about things that stir you in order to achieve those heart pang moments,” Kathy explained. “What are you afraid of? What worries you?”

  After a long silence, Nancy responded, “Oh, maybe I am just a superficial person.”

  The revelation surprised Kathy. She had always found Nancy warm and vibrant. She had seen the spirited brunette weave in and out of accents, share her generosity with friends, and exhibit great flamboyance and style in dress. She had always interpreted Nancy’s intensity as a sign of someone capable of deep emotion. But suddenly Kathy realized that Nancy’s dramatics and the passion she exhibited in front of invited guests, masked an inability to connect with people—or herself—on a deep emotional level.

  Later that year, Nancy began work on a medieval trilogy for Avon. After two collaborations and seven Regencies, the larger composition would be her inaugural attempt at a full-length historical. Her first installment, The Heart and the Heather, set in Scotland, debuted in 1994.

  The book’s release was followed by the publication of The Heart and the Rose in 1995, and The Heart and the Holly, which was set in Ireland, completed the trio in the summer of 1996. Writing about the rich history of Ireland captivated Nancy, who had traveled to the country on a trip sponsored by Romantic Times Magazine, a fan publication, and whose personal library included more than three hundred books on Ireland.

  “I started out as a political speechwriter, and while Capitol Hill may be light-years away from Irish warriors, poets, blanket bogs, sidhe, saints, green hills, and miracles, the distance between historical romance and Ireland isn’t far,” she was quoted as saying. “Irish history is rich with men and women whose lives were at once heroic, vivid, poignant, and worthy of inspiration for a romance writer.

  “A lot of people ask me if I’d like to write ‘real’ historicals, and sure, that would be a challenge … but I do love historical romance and especially as a genre for Irish historicals because history can be depressing and dreary, dark, cold, dank, unliberated, and hopeless. But romance allows me to find the happy ending, to modify reality just enough to give it hope.”

  Nancy’s larger works received kudos from reviewers, and were touted in advertisements by the Romance Writers of America. When she began work on Wild Irish Skies, her second historical romance set in Ireland, she had authored a total of ten books on her own.

  Colleagues noticed that her more recent books had more depth and emotion, with more realistic characters and richer storylines. Yet, it was unclear to her fellow authors whether Nancy’s writing had improved as a result of her determination to learn the trade, or if
she had actually matured and was becoming emotionally astute herself. They also noticed that Nancy seemed to have triumphed over her weight problem. By the middle of 1996, the forty-five-year-old author had dropped more than thirty pounds. Her full face was now thin, almost gaunt from the strict regime of exercise and diet that she and her new friend Emily had been diligently following.

  Nancy had met the tall, attractive brunette three summers before at the Mt. Vernon College swimming pool. The small, private women’s college had recently merged with George Washington University. As an alumna of Mt. Vernon, Nancy was familiar with its location not far from her own home on the outskirts of bustling Georgetown. She was pleased to learn that the school had opened a spectacular aquatic facility to local residents and their families, and found it a convenient spot for her and her children to cool off during the steamy summer months of July and August.

  On one particular afternoon, Nancy’s daughter Isabelle befriended one of the young girls swimming in the shallow area of the pool. As the two children got to know each other, Nancy oversaw them, sitting fully clothed in a Laura Ashley dress, her polished toes dangling in the cool chlorinated water, her eyes hidden behind big, horn-rimmed sunglasses. Looking up from the manuscript she was editing, she noticed that the child’s mother had joined the girls on the steps of the pool. Eventually, the two women struck up a casual conversation.

  Flashing her thick, neatly typed manuscript at the forty-something mother with the short, stylish bob, Nancy grinned and went on to explain that she was an author, and that she was racing against a book deadline. She found it comforting to learn that Emily had three children of her own, worked in real estate sales, and lived nearby. Like Nancy, she had been raised in the Northeast, and had pursued a career in politics when she first moved to DC with her husband.