The nanny murders

THE
NANNY
MURDERS

THE
NANNY
MURDERS

MERRY JONES

The Nanny Murders is a work of fiction; any resemblance between its characters and real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

THE NANNY MURDERS
. Copyright © 2005 by Merry Jones. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

ISBN 0-312-33038-3
EAN 978-0312-33038-5

First Edition: May 2005

10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

To Robin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Deep and lasting gratitude to Liza Dawson, my agent, and to Thomas Dunne, Marcia Markland, and Diana Szu at Thomas Dunne Books. They are my heroes, and I have been lucky to work with them.

Thanks also to Emily Heckman for her invaluable insights and guidance; my mom, Judy Bloch, for her consistent and avid support; my sister Janet Martin for her sound advice; Larry Stains for steering me to Liza; Lanie Zera for her in-depth analyses and spiritual vitamins; Nancy Delman, Jane Braun, Susie Francke, Gina Joseph, Leslie Mogul, and Jan and Michael Molinaro for their years-long encouragement; Bob Sexton for the pencils; Patty and Michael Glick for the pen; Ileana Stevens for that long-ago conversation on the beach; our Corgi, Sam, for his uncritical calming companionship while I wrote.

Boundless appreciation to my daughters, Baille and Neely, for their unfailing confidence and cooperation.

Thanks to my husband, Robin, for his repeated readings, honest input, enduring patience, persevering faith, and unflagging determination, even when he was so severely ill.

Thanks to a few who are dearly missed: my friend Susan Stone; my brother, Aaron Bloch, and my dad, Herman S. Bloch, who remain close by despite death and the passage of time.

ONE

S
MALL FOOTPRINTS LED DOWN THE STEPS TO THE SIDEWALK
where Molly played in the snow.

I sat on the front porch, absorbing a stray beam of late afternoon sun while my almost six-year-old daughter delighted in two inches of what would soon become puddles of sodden gray slush. I was tired from a daylong monthly staff meeting and craved some peace. A few houses down, a workman started up his chain saw.

our neighborhood, Queen Village, was caught in an endless process of renovation and gentrification. We were sandwiched between South Philadelphia with its traditional ethnic households and Society Hill with its fancy colonial landmarks. Dowdy old row houses sagged beside gleaming restorations. The neighborhood was home to both rich and poor, the upwardly mobile and the newly disenfranchised. The area was struggling for respectability, but despite the disruption of continuous construction, it was unclear whether it would get there.

Watching Molly play beside parked cars and grimy gutters, I imagined living in some shiny suburb on the Main Line— Gladwyne, maybe, or Rosemont or Bryn Mawr. Someplace where trees, not trash, lined the streets; where kids played on grass, not asphalt.

I often thought of moving. But I still hadn’t left. Despite my complaints, I thrived on the city’s energy, its sounds and faces,
its moving parts. I wasn’t sure how long I’d hold out, but I’d worked hard to make us a home here, and so far I’d refused to give it up.

“Mom,” Molly called, “what if my tooth comes out and falls in the snow?”

“It’s not ready to come out yet.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Because we’d never find it. Everything’s white.”

“It won’t come out today.”

She was quiet again, working the snow.

“Mom,” she called moments later, “it’s not enough. I need more.”

She knelt near the curb, gathering handfuls of snow in her mittens, packing them into a lump.

I came down the steps and stooped beside her. “What’s the problem?”

“I need more snow.” She stared hopelessly at the tiny mound.

I reached into my pockets and found an old phone bill. “Try this.” I scraped snow with the envelope, making it a paper snowplow.

“okay.” She grabbed the envelope and plowed away. I wandered back up to the wrought-iron chair on the porch, leaned my head back against the wall, and closed my eyes.

“Mom, guess what I’m making?”

“What?”

“Guess.”

She wasn’t going to let me rest. “A snowman?”

“Nope.”

“I give up.”

“No, guess again.”

She won’t always be five years old, I told myself. You can rest when she’s in college. “Hmm. A sneaker.”

“Uh-uh.”

“The letter Q?”

“No.”

“W?”

“Nope. Don’t be silly. It’s not any letter.”

“Then it must be a washing machine.”

“Stop being silly, Mom.”

I opened my eyes. Dozing wasn’t going to happen. Molly kept plowing, patting, building. “Well?”

“Give me time. I’m thinking.” I stretched the pause, savoring it. Across the street, the blinds went up in Victor’s second-floor window. I watched, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Victor was phobic. To my knowledge, he hadn’t left his house in years. I didn’t know why, although local lore was rife with explanations. one rumor held that Victor’s mother had died in the house and he hadn’t left since; another that a fortune-teller had warned him he’d meet a violent end next time he stepped onto the street. Despite the stories, I suspected that Victor’s real problems were locked inside the house with him, in his own head. Apparently, he had money to live on; groceries, laundry, pizza, and parcels arrived at his door regularly. once in a while, Molly and I left him baskets of muffins or cookies; the food disappeared, but we rarely saw Victor. Now, pale hands taped a cardboard snowman to the glass. The blinds went down again. Hands, but no face. This wouldn’t count, then, as an actual Victor sighting.

Even unseen, Victor was one of the only neighbors I knew. Victor and old Charlie, Victor’s next-door neighbor. Charlie was the handyman for the remodeled townhouses across the street. Somebody new had moved into the house on the other side of Charlie. I hadn’t met him yet, but I’d become well acquainted with the huge electric Santa and reindeer that flashed on and off, day and night, from his first-floor window like the sign at an
all-night diner. Every blink announced that Christmas was coming and that I wasn’t ready, hadn’t gotten organized, didn’t even have our tree. or presents or baking ingredients or decorations. “Mom?”

oh. Molly was still waiting for my guess. “okay—I bet I have it. It’s a song.”

“A song?” She turned to look at me. “You’re teasing. You can’t make a song out of snow.”

“You mean it’s not a song? Then I give up.”

“okay. I’ll tell you. She’s a snowbaby. A little iddy biddy one.” She busied herself gathering and shaping snow, narrating her process. “And her name’s going to be Kelly. No. Emma . . .” She jabbered on, accompanied by the chain saw. I let my head rest against the bricks, my eyelids float down, my mind drift.

“Eww. Yuck.”

Eww, yuck? I didn’t want to get up again. I didn’t even want to open my eyes. The sun felt so gentle and soothing. A warm caress. “Molly. Remember, don’t touch stuff you find in the street. Leave it alone. Okay?”

Silence. Damn. What relic of city life had she found now? I always worried about debris she might encounter on the sidewalk. Broken Budweiser bottles, used needles. Discarded underwear. Used condoms. “Molly? What are you doing?”

She was fixated on it, whatever it was; her monologue had stopped. I opened an eye and watched her dig, retrieving something from the snow.

“Molly, don’t pick up stuff from the street.” How many times a day did I have to repeat that? Ignoring me, she closed her hand around it and lifted the thing.

“You’re not listening to me. Okay. Time to go in.”

She didn’t move. She held on to whatever it was and stared.

The gravel eyes of a snowbaby followed me as I came down the front steps.

“Molly. Drop it.”

Silently, she let it go, and it landed on the snowy sidewalk with a tiny frozen thud. I looked down. At first, I thought it was a stick. Then I saw the red part. Damn. What had she picked up? A hunk of rotting meat? A half-eaten hot dog?

“Molly. Answer me. Are you allowed to touch stuff from the street?”

She looked up with wide, baffled eyes. “No.”

Taking her by the wrist, I glanced once more at the thing on the ground. It lay at our feet, filthy, bright red at one end, its form gradually taking definition. I blinked at it a few times. Then, holding on to Molly, I fled with knees of jelly, in slow motion, up the steps.

Under the grime, there was no mistaking what it was, even though the nail was broken and the crimson polish chipped.

TWO

“Z
OE, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?
T
HAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN
kids play on the street.”

Susan set the measuring cup on the counter and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. Susan Cummings was my best friend. As soon as the police left, Molly and I had rushed to her house, and I’d just finished telling her what had happened.

Susan’s house felt safe. Located about ten blocks from us on Pine Street, it was a solid 150-year-old brick building with twelve-foot-high ceilings, framed arched doorways, cut glass windows, and polished hardwood floors. It was full of fireplaces, cushioned furnishings, and cinnamon smells. Susan’s neighborhood, near Rittenhouse Square, was a picture of prosperity and stability. Neighbors with Gucci shoes popped over for a glass of pinot noir or homemade biscotti. In summers, they organized block parties; in winters, they gathered for eggnog and Christmas gifts. The street was pristine, wreathed for the holidays and safe to walk, even at night.

My neighborhood, on the other hand, managed to remain rough-edged and unruly. In the mornings, nannies pushed lace-lined prams down sidewalks where drunks had relieved themselves hours before. Crime was common; cars and homes were broken into, muggings were not unheard of, and recently a couple of young women had simply disappeared. Susan and I lived
in homes just a mile apart but somehow on different planets, and I ran to Susan’s whenever I needed to escape mine.

While we talked, Susan was busy baking, gathering ingredients for crust. “Which detective did you talk to?”

I saw him again, standing on our front stoop. Behind him, two uniformed men crawled on the curb, sifting through street soot and gutter slush. “Ms. Hayes?” he’d asked. “Detective Nick Stiles.” He’d flashed his badge.

“Stiles?” Susan repeated. “Young guy?”

At the time, I hadn’t considered his age. Now, trying to estimate, I recalled my first impression of the detective at my door. He’d checked the spelling of my name, Z-O-E, H-as-in-Harry-A-Y-E-S, assessing me quickly, up and down. I’d felt his eyes register each inch of a taller than average, still slender woman with strands of gray streaking her long hair, lingering a bit too long on the full lips and smallish but nice breasts. I bristled at the memory but stayed with it long enough to pull out the image of his face. Yes, there it was, with pale blue eyes that were a tad too intense. A well-defined jaw. A scar near the cheekbone. Sandy hair flecked with gray. A strong face that wasn’t quite symmetrical.

“Not really. Forty. Forty-five at most. Our age.”

“Hmmm. I don’t know him. I’ll ask around.” She gulped some tea. “What did he ask you? What did you tell him?”

What did I tell him? What did he ask me? Why was the telling of this afternoon’s events so difficult? Why was I so flustered and incoherent? Susan waited, wanting to hear what happened. But she was acting as my friend, not interrogating me as a criminal attorney; she was measuring shortening for a pie, not weighing evidence for a case. I wasn’t under oath. I could relax.