Although the MO of her killer was the same as the MO of the killer in the New Kent case, after spending four hours searching, Nichols was feeling tired and increasingly pessimistic about finding the ad that would tie the two victims together. If Sheryl Doyle had ever had the August issue or any issue of You and Your Sign, she’d disposed of it. Or perhaps, unlike the victim in New Kent, she’d never had the magazine. Perhaps she hadn’t even been interested in astrology. Perhaps the man who had raped and strangled her and carved her sign, the scales—which Nichols had learned was Libra—into her upper thigh had chosen her another way.
Nichols pulled a stack of magazines and books out of the cabinet onto the scruffy white rug, where he could see them in the daylight. Five issues of Food &Wine, three issues of Gourmet. A hardback copy of The Da Vinci Code, another hardback, The Thirteenth Tale. He took a third book, a hardback with a worn blue cover, out of the pile so he could read the title: One Hundred-Year Ephemeris, 1950 to 2050 at Midnight. Under the title, the blue cover was dotted with stars. Suddenly, Nichols’s weariness turned into excitement. He didn’t know what an ephemeris was, but the fact that the cover of the book depicted the night sky and its title included dates and a time made him think it had something to do with astrology.
Opening it, he saw that he was right: On the back of the cover was a list of the symbols for the astrological signs, the planets, the phases of the moon, solar and lunar eclipses, and words—like conjunction, sextile, trine, opposition—that he’d never heard of before but that were obviously part of astrology. The opposite page was a chart, labeled Longitude, full of squares containing numbers and symbols for each day of January 1950. Thumbing through the first few pages, he saw the same kind of chart for subsequent months. Clearly it was an astrology reference manual, and finding it in the night table next to Sheryl Doyle’s bed definitely established her interest in astrology and the likelihood that, even though she hadn’t had a copy of You and Your Sign in her possession at the time of her death, it was astrology that had led her to Antiochus or Antiochus to her.
Nichols bagged the book. He’d show it to Giordano in New Kent and see if it told them something new about their serial killer. But before he did that, because he was thorough, he’d go through every page to find out if Sheryl Doyle had written any notes in the book that might help their investigation. And he’d also check the ads in other issues of You and Your Sign. And while he was at it, he’d check the personals in the West Orange newspapers for an ad taken out by Antiochus. Maybe that’s what had led Sheryl Doyle to her fate.
Stevens, wearing his spare sports jacket and pants and carrying an umbrella, was in midtown Manhattan working on another case, the murder of a sixty-year-old dentist in Central Park. He’d gone to the office of one of the dentist’s long-term clients in a building on West 57th Street and 5th Avenue and pressed her to reveal to him what he’d already suspected: that the dentist had been selling illegal drugs to patients. Afraid she was facing jail time, the woman surrendered everything she knew once Stevens promised he’d make sure she wasn’t prosecuted for buying drugs.
She told him that the dentist had started out selling prescription painkillers but had branched out into selling cocaine, which she had bought from him, and heroin, which she swore she’d never tried. Recently, the dead man had perfected a crown that he’d placed in a client’s mouth to time-release his or her drug of choice. The woman Stevens questioned hadn’t had the crown put in yet; she’d planned to do so, but the dentist had been killed before she’d had a chance. She didn’t know who his supplier had been, or if anyone in the dental office knew about the drug dealing, but at least she’d confirmed the suspicions that had been raised in Stevens’s mind by the presence of cocaine and heroin in the dentist’s body and the presence of too much money in his bank account.
Leaving the office building, he put up the umbrella and headed toward 8th Avenue, where he’d parked his car. As he walked, he took out his cell phone and called Chris Palmer’s number but once again reached only a recorded message. He was just about to cross the street to 6th Avenue when he remembered that the corporate headquarters for Gemma Pharmaceuticals was on 59th and 5th. He looked at his watch: It was three fifteen. Calling information for Gemma Pharmaceuticals, he started walking back toward 5th Avenue. There was another man he wanted to talk to about Kelly York, another tree he wanted to shake.
Fifteen minutes later, Stevens was on the thirtieth floor of the Gemma Pharmaceuticals building, standing in front of the receptionist, a young woman with well-cut hair, a tastefully made-up face, and perfectly polished nails. He introduced himself and told her whom he had come to see. Almost immediately, another immaculately groomed young woman appeared through the double doors behind the reception desk and led him through a long corridor to a closed door at the end of it. She knocked on the rosewood door and waited until a male voice said, “Come in,” before she opened the door to let him enter. She didn’t come in with him.
Two walls of the massive corner office were windows with views of Manhattan. Even when the sky was colorless and filled with rain as it was now, it was a spectacular sight. Jack York, Kelly’s ex-husband, was standing at the windows that faced north and looked out over 5th Avenue as he finished a phone call. The first thing that surprised Stevens was that York was as tall as he was. Being six foot five, Stevens was used to most men being shorter than he, and even though he knew York had been a football player, he’d been a quarterback, and Stevens had expected him to be six feet tall, at most; twenty years ago, when he’d first seen York playing, it wasn’t unusual for quarterbacks to be six feet or even a shade under. While some football players had let their muscles turn to flab, York, in his stylish suit, looked fit, even leaner than he had in his football days, and since his full head of black hair had yet to turn gray, he looked only a little older than the last time Stevens had watched him in a game on television.
York hung up the phone and focused on Stevens. “I don’t understand why you’re here. What does my ex-wife getting threatening calls have to do with me?”
Stevens met York’s hard stare. “Don’t tell me how to investigate a case, Mr. York, and I won’t tell you how to run your company, all right?”
York let out an aggravated sigh. “I’m sorry. What do you want to know?”
“I want to know if you and your ex-wife had what you would consider a difficult divorce.”
This time York shook his head. Finally, he said, “Yes, Kelly and I had a difficult divorce. But we’ve worked out our differences and we have a perfectly friendly relationship.”
Stevens kept his gaze on York. “Then I would think you’d care if somebody was threatening her.”
York responded with a tone of exasperation. “Of course I do. She’s my children’s mother.”
“So you don’t care about her personally anymore.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said you have a friendly relationship, but you don’t seem to care about her the way you’d care about a friend. You care about her just as your children’s mother.”
York glanced out the window, as if gathering his thoughts. Then he turned to Stevens. “Look, I was a pro football player before I became CEO here—”
“I know,” Stevens told him. “I followed your career.”
“Then you probably already knew we had a difficult divorce.” He didn’t say this belligerently, just matter-of-fact. “You must’ve read about how I didn’t know how to keep it in my pants …” He looked at Stevens for a moment before he went on. “Kelly and I, we had the kids right away, and I figured she would put up with what I did on the road. But that wasn’t her way. She needed more, and I couldn’t give it to her.” His green eyes were sad now, as if suddenly his memories of that melancholy time had taken him over and become more real to him than his corner office with its impressive view. “Her parents died when she was nine. She was raised by her grandmother. She was a pretty lonely kid. She really loved me, and I broke her heart
. But she made a life for herself and the children without me. Of course I care if someone’s threatening her.”
Stevens scrutinized the man in front of him. He seemed to be a completely different Jack York from the one who had challenged him about why he’d come to question him. This Jack York seemed to care deeply about Kelly, maybe even to still be in love with her. But what did that mean? Jack York was a consummate salesman; that was how he had made the transition from football player to CEO at Gemma Pharmaceuticals. Maybe when challenging the detective hadn’t worked, York had decided to sell Stevens on what York wanted him to think of him: that York felt guilty about how he’d treated Kelly and that he still had deep compassion for her. Or maybe Jack York was still in love with her. And maybe if he was, the flip side of that love was anger that she’d divorced him and a desire to retaliate by threatening her. Or to make her so afraid and vulnerable that he could step back into her life and make her dependent on him again.
“Can you think of anyone who would want to scare her or hurt her?” Stevens asked.
“No. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t somebody. It just means if there is, I don’t know about him. Our worlds have been separate for so long. Except for our children, I don’t even know the people she knows anymore.”
“Whoever’s calling her doesn’t just have her office phone number. He has her private phone number, too. So it’s someone who knows her well enough to access her private number.”
“That was her grandmother’s old number. Kelly kept it after her grandmother died. I don’t know how many people have had access to it over the years.”
Stevens took this in. “Thanks, Mr. York.” He buttoned his jacket and prepared to go out again into the rain. “By the way, how did she become interested in astrology?”
Jack York smiled. “That’s something else Kelly got from her grandmother. Her grandmother was an amateur astrologer. She taught Kelly.”
“She seems to owe her grandmother a lot.”
York nodded in agreement. “Her grandmother was a lovely woman. I liked her. She was very disappointed in me.” He went inside himself again for a moment; then he added, “I was very disappointed in myself.”
Stevens picked up his wet umbrella from the floor where he’d dropped it. “Thanks again. If I have any more questions, I’ll be in touch.”
“You know where to find me,” York said to him. He stepped out from behind his desk and shook Stevens’s hand. “I’m sorry I got off on the wrong foot, Detective. I want you to know, I’ll do anything I can to help you get this guy. Kelly doesn’t deserve to have this happen to her. She’s a good woman.”
As Stevens left the office and headed toward the elevator, he mentally crossed Jack York off his suspect list. However great a salesman York was for Gemma Pharmaceuticals, Stevens believed that York was exactly who he seemed to be: an ex-husband who regretted that his philandering had hurt his ex-wife.
Stevens knew that if he wanted to, he could’ve called it quits for the day, but that wasn’t his personality. With York crossed off, he had the urge to question Chris Palmer.
Twenty-Eight
SITTING AT THE DESK in her office, Kelly opened the last of the files that she and Sarah had taken from her filing cabinet. The first thing inside the folder was the sheet of lined yellow paper on which the client had written her name—Carol Wallen—birth date, time, and place—November 24, 1980, 9:15 a.m., Brookline, Massachusetts—and on which Kelly had written the issue about which the client was consulting her and her impressions of the client from their meeting. Carol had consulted Kelly about whether she should stay in her job as an investment analyst at a brokerage firm or look for a new job or even a new career. Kelly’s impression from the time they spent together was that she was strong, direct, and open. Kelly closed the folder; there was no point in reading any further about Carol Wallen; Carol had not come to see her about leaving a relationship.
Kelly turned and looked out the windows. It was no longer raining, but water was still dripping from the trees and the tires of passing cars made a squishing sound on the wet street. She considered taking another batch of folders from the cabinet, but it was almost five p.m., and she decided she needed a break and a cup of coffee. She got up and went to the door to Sarah’s office, expecting to see Sarah, but when she opened it, the office was empty and Sarah’s coat was gone from the rack in the corner. On Sarah’s desk was a neat stack of the files she was supposed to have reviewed. It was unlike Sarah to leave without saying goodbye, but perhaps she hadn’t left yet; perhaps she’d just taken King out for a walk and would soon be back.
Kelly walked into the hallway and was surprised to find that the painters had already finished with it. The walls were once again butter yellow and the molding a shiny white. The hall was brighter looking, in fact, than it had been since she’d had the house painted four years ago. She’d meant to have it repainted for the past year, but it was one of those things that she’d kept postponing for lack of time and lack of commitment to put up with the inconvenience. Now she’d had to do it, and despite the reason, she found she was glad that it had been done. She walked into the living room and turned on the light to see that the painters had completed repainting there, too. The other crews Sarah had called in had also done their jobs. The Persian carpet had been taken out to be cleaned and the slipcovers had been removed from the sofa and chairs for cleaning as well. The hardwood floors, the dining table and chairs, and the tiles on the fireplace had been scrubbed clean of smoke.
Kelly was pleased to see that the house was, indeed, returning to normal and that despite everything that had happened, she was, as Sarah had predicted that morning, beginning to feel better. But it wasn’t just the house being put back together quickly that had improved her spirits; it was the feeling she’d gotten as she’d read her clients’ files. So far, she’d found only three women who matched the criterion Detective Stevens had given her: those thinking about ending a relationship. Most of the men and women who’d seen her since July had come with career questions, as Carol Wallen had, or questions about their parents or siblings or their health. Many had come to her about romance, but generally it was because they wanted a relationship and didn’t have one, not because they had a relationship that wasn’t working. Two women who had consulted with her before had gotten engaged and wanted her to tell them what the best dates were for their weddings.
She had seen more than two hundred clients since July, and looking through their files reminded Kelly how much she enjoyed her work and how much her clients appreciated what she did. Often they would call her about how helpful she had been, and when they did, she noted their calls on the sheet of yellow legal paper in their folders. She’d had the pleasure of seeing many such notes today as she’d searched her files. People thanked her for her insight into their patterns of behavior, for her encouraging them to enter new professional fields or her supporting them in remaining patient, based on what their charts told her about them and on what she intuitively observed in meeting with them.
She remembered that Sarah had referred to the man who had called her as a coward and that Emma had said he was full of hot air, and she wondered if maybe the fireplace’s backing up had been an accident just as the fire investigator had said and if really the caller was just what Sarah had labeled him: “a creep with a telephone.” Kelly’s mind began to spin possibilities. Maybe because she was afraid to leave the house, she’d made his threats more real than they were, that all he would ever do was call, or even better, he would never call again. Maybe Detective Stevens was just being polite that morning in his decision to monitor her phones. Maybe despite the skull tattoo on Chris Palmer’s arm and his suggestion about starting a fire in the fireplace, Chris Palmer was just a handsome man who’d been interested in her until she’d all but thrown him out of her house today. If that was so, it was something she’d just have to live with.
She couldn’t dismiss the danger that she saw in her chart, but it was possible she’d
been right when she’d thought that the anger that was posing the danger was really her own anger at herself for being unable to go out into the world as she used to. Maybe everything that had happened was making her look at herself and carry through on her promise to understand why she’d suddenly become so scared of leaving the brownstone; maybe it was leading her to be able to free herself. Leaving the living room, she was starting to feel it was possible that she would get control of her life again.
She walked into the kitchen and saw two painters on ladders, rolling yellow glossy paint onto the ceiling. One was the lanky, blond young man who seemed to be in charge of the paint crew, and the other was a graying man with Eastern European features who was concentrating so hard as he painted that his brow was creased from temple to temple.
“Thanks for working late,” she said to the young man. “I appreciate you doing so much so fast.”
He looked down at her from the ladder and smiled. “That’s why we’re called Ace Painting. We’re good at what we do.”
She took a cup and saucer out of the cabinet. “Do either of you want some coffee?”
“No, thanks,” the young man said. “How about you, Alton?”
The other man responded with a heavily accented “No, thank you.”
Kelly poured herself a cup of coffee and was about to leave the kitchen when she looked out the glass door and saw Sarah, in her coat, sitting on one of the stone benches in the garden. Sarah’s head was in her hands, as if she were feeling sick. Kelly put her coffee on the counter and hurried into the garden. Even before she reached Sarah, she could hear that she was sobbing. Kelly ran to her and gently put her hand on her shoulder.
Horoscope: The Astrology Murders Page 13