Jason Arnott opened the door for them before they could find the buzzer. His greeting was cordial. "Ms. McGrath, and is this your a.s.sistant?"

"I said it would be an unofficial visit, Mr. Arnott," Kerry said, as she introduced Robin. "Perhaps she could wait here while we talk." She indicated a chair near a life-size bronze sculpture of two knights in combat.

"Oh, no. She'll be much more comfortable in the little study." Arnott indicated a room to the left of the entrance hall. "You and I can go into the library. It's just past the study."

This place is like a museum, Kerry thought as she followed Arnott. She would have loved to have had the chance to stop and study the exquisite wall coverings, the fine furniture, the paintings, the total harmony of the interior. Keep your mind on what you're doing, she warned herself. You promised him you'd only be half an hour.

When she and Arnott were seated opposite each other on handsome morocco armchairs, she said, "Mr. Arnott, Robin suffered some facial injuries in a car accident several weeks ago and was treated by Dr. Charles Smith."

Arnott raised his eyebrows. "The Dr. Charles Smith who was Suzanne Reardon's father?"

"Exactly. On each of two follow-up visits, I saw a patient in his office who bore a startling resemblance to Suzanne Reardon."

Arnott stared at her. "By coincidence, I hope. Surely you're not saying that he is deliberately re-creating Suzanne?"

"An interesting choice of words, Mr. Arnott. I'm here because, as I told you on the phone, I need to know Suzanne better. I need to know what her relationship with her father really was, and so far as you knew it, with her husband."

Arnott leaned back, looked up at the ceiling and clasped his hands under his chin.

That's so posed, Kerry thought. He's doing it to impress me. Why?

"Let me start with meeting Suzanne. It would be about twelve years ago now. One day she simply rang the bell. I must tell you she was an extraordinarily beautiful girl. She introduced herself and explained that she and her husband were in the process of building a house in the neighborhood, that she wanted to furnish it with antiques and that she'd heard that I went with good friends to a.s.sist them in their bidding at auctions.

"I told her that that was true, but I did not consider myself an interior designer, nor did I intend to be considered a full-time advisor."

"Do you charge for your services?"

"In the beginning I did not. But then, as I realized I was having a very good time accompanying pleasant people on these jaunts, warning them off bad bargains, helping them to get fine objects at excellent prices, I set a fair commission rate. At first I was not interested in becoming involved with Suzanne. She was rather smothering, you see."

"But you did become involved?"

Arnott shrugged. "Ms. McGrath, when Suzanne wanted something, she got it. Actually, when she realized that flirting outrageously with me was only annoying me, she turned on the charm in a different way. She could be most amusing. Eventually we became very good friends; in fact, I still miss her very much. She added a great deal to my parties."

"Did Skip come with her?"

"Seldom. He was bored, and frankly my guests did not find him simpatico. Now don't misunderstand me. He was a well-mannered and intelligent young man, but he was different from most of the people I know. He was the kind of man who got up early, worked hard and had no interest in idle chatter--as he publicly told Suzanne one night when he left her here and went home."

"Did she have her own car that evening?"

Arnott smiled. "Suzanne never had a problem getting a ride."

"How would you judge the relationship between Suzanne and Skip?"

"Unraveling. I knew them for the last two years of their marriage. At first they seemed to be very fond of each other, but eventually it became clear that she was bored with him. Toward the end they did very little together."

"Dr. Smith said that Skip was wildly jealous of Suzanne and that he threatened her."

"If he did, Suzanne did not confide that to me."

"How well did you know Dr. Smith?"

"As well as any of her friends did, I suppose. If I went into New York with Suzanne on days when his office was closed, he often managed to show up and join us. Finally, though, his attention seemed to annoy her. She'd say things like, 'Serves me right for telling him that we were coming here today.'"

"Did she show him she was annoyed?"

"Just as she was quite public in displaying her indifference to Skip, she made no effort to hide her impatience with Dr. Smith."

"You knew that she had been raised by her mother and a stepfather?"

"Yes. She told me her growing-up years were miserable. Her stepsisters were jealous of her looks. She once said, 'Talk about Cinderella--in some ways I lived her life.'"

That answers my next question, Kerry thought. Obviously Suzanne had not confided to Arnott that she had grown up as the plain sister named Susie.

A sudden question occurred to her. "What did she call Dr. Smith?"

Arnott paused. "Either Doctor or Charles," he said after a moment.

"Not Dad."

"Never. At least not that I recall." Arnott looked pointedly at his watch.

"I know I promised not to take up too much of your time, but there's one more thing I need to know. Was Suzanne involved with another man? Specifically, was she seeing Jimmy Weeks?"

Arnott seemed to consider before answering. "I introduced her to Jimmy Weeks in this very room. It was the one and only time he was ever here. They were quite taken with each other. As you may know, there has always been a formidable feeling of power about Weeks, and that instantly attracted Suzanne. And, of course, Jimmy always had an eye for a beautiful woman. Suzanne bragged that after they met, he started appearing frequently at the Palisades Country Club, where she spent a lot of her time. And I think Jimmy was already a member there as well."

Kerry thought about the caddie's statement as she asked, "Was she happy about that?"

"Oh, very. Although I don't think she let Jimmy know it. She was aware that he had a number of girlfriends, and she enjoyed making him jealous. Do you remember one of the early scenes in Gone With the Wind, the one where Scarlett collects everyone else's beaux?"

"Yes, I do."

"That was our Suzanne. One would think she'd have outgrown that. After all, it's quite an adolescent trick, isn't it? But there wasn't a man Suzanne didn't try to dazzle. It didn't make her very popular with women."

"And Dr. Smith's reaction to her flirting?"

"Outraged, I would say. I think that if it had been possible, Smith would have built a guardrail around her to keep others away from her, pretty much the way museums put guardrails around their most precious objects."

You don't know how close you are to the mark, Kerry thought. She recalled what Deidre Reardon had said about Dr. Smith's relationship to Suzanne, that he treated her as an object. "If your theory is correct, Mr. Arnott, wouldn't that be a reason for Dr. Smith to resent Skip Reardon?"

"Resent him? I think it went deeper than that. I think he hated him."

"Mr. Arnott, did you have any reason to think that Suzanne was given jewelry by any man other than her husband and father?"

"If she was, I wasn't privy to it. Suzanne had some very fine pieces, that I do know. Skip bought her a number of things every year for her birthday, and again for Christmas, always after she pointed out exactly what she wanted. She also had several one- of-a-kind older Cartier pieces that I believe her father gave her."

Or so he said, Kerry thought. She got up. "Mr. Arnott, do you think Skip Reardon killed Suzanne?"

He rose to his feet. "Ms. McGrath, I consider myself very knowledgeable about antique art and furnishings. I'm less good at judging people. But isn't it true that love and money are the two greatest reasons to kill? I'm sorry to say that in this case both of these reasons seem to apply to Skip. Don't you agree?"

From a window, Jason watched Kerry's car disappear down the driveway. Thinking over their brief exchange, he felt he had been sufficiently detailed to seem helpful, sufficiently vague so that she, like both the prosecution and defense ten years ago, would decide there was no purpose in questioning him further.

Do I think Skip Reardon killed Suzanne? No, I don't, Ms. McGrath, he thought. I think that, like far too many men, Skip might have been capable of murdering his wife. Only that night someone else beat him to it.

Skip Reardon had endured what was arguably one of the worst weeks of his life. Seeing the skepticism in a.s.sistant Prosecutor Kerry McGrath's eyes when she had come to visit him had completed the job that the news about possibly no more appeals had begun.

It was as though a Greek chorus were chanting the words endlessly inside his head: "Twenty more years before even the possibility of parole." Over and over again. All week, instead of reading or watching television at night, Skip had stared at the framed pictures on the walls of his cell.

Beth and his mother were in most of them. Some of the pictures went back to seventeen years ago, when he was twenty-three years old and had just begun dating Beth. She had just started her first teaching job, and he had just launched Reardon Construction Company.

In these ten years he had been incarcerated, Skip had spent many hours looking at those pictures and wondering how everything had gone so wrong. If he hadn't met Suzanne that night, by now he and Beth would have been married fourteen or fifteen years. They probably would have two or three kids. What would it be like to have a son or a daughter? he wondered.

He would have built Beth a home they would have planned together- -not that crazy, modern, vast figment of an architect's imagination that Suzanne had demanded and that he had come to detest.

All these years in prison he had been sustained by the knowledge of his innocence, his trust in the American justice system and the belief that someday the nightmare would go away. In his fantasies, the appeals court would agree that Dr. Smith was a liar, and Geoff would come down to the prison and say, "Let's go, Skip. You're a free man."

By prison rules, Skip was allowed two collect phone calls a day. Usually he called both his mother and Beth twice a week. At least one of them came down to see him on Sat.u.r.day or Sunday.

This week Skip had not phoned either one of them. He had made up his mind. He would not let Beth visit him anymore. She had to get on with her life. She'd be forty her next birthday, he reasoned. She should meet someone else, get married, have kids. She loved children. That was why she had chosen teaching and then counseling as a career.

And there was something else that Skip decided: He wasn't going to waste any more time designing rooms and houses with the dream that someday he would get to build them. By the time he got out of prison--if he ever did get out--he would be in his sixties. It would be too late to get started again. Besides, there would be no one left to care.

That was why on Sat.u.r.day morning, when Skip was told his lawyer was phoning him, he took the call with the firm intention of telling Geoff to forget about him as well. He too should get on to other things. The news that Kerry McGrath was coming down to see him as well as his mother and Beth angered him.

"What does McGrath want to do, Geoff?" he asked "Show Mom and Beth exactly why they're wasting their time trying to get me out of here? Show them how every argument for me is an argument against me? Tell McGrath I don't need to listen to that again. The court's done a great job of convincing me."

"Shut up, Skip," Geoff's firm voice snapped. "Kerry's interest in you and this murder case is causing her a h.e.l.l of a lot of trouble, including a threat that something could happen to her ten-year-old daughter if she doesn't pull out."

"A threat? Who?" Skip looked at the receiver he was holding as though it had suddenly become an alien object. It was impossible to comprehend that Kerry McGrath's daughter had been threatened because of him.

"Not only who? but why? We're sure Jimmy Weeks is the 'who.' The 'why' is that for some reason he's afraid to have the investigation reopened. Now listen, Kerry wants to go over every inch of this case with you, and with your mother and Beth. She has a bunch of questions for all of you. She also has a lot to tell you about Dr. Smith. I don't have to remind you what his testimony did to you. We'll be there for the last visiting period, so plan to be cooperative. This is the best chance we have had of getting you out. It may also be the last."

Skip heard the click in his ear. A guard took him back to his cell. He sat down on the bunk and buried his face in his hands. He didn't want to let it happen, but in spite of himself, the flicker of hope that he thought he had successfully extinguished had jumped back to life and now was flaming throughout his being.

Geoff picked up Kerry and Robin at one o'clock. When they reached Ess.e.x Fells, Geoff brought Kerry and Robin into the house and introduced them around. At the end of the family dinner the night before, he had briefly explained to the adults the circ.u.mstances of his bringing Robin for a visit.

Immediately his mother's instincts had zeroed in on the fact that this woman Geoff insisted on calling "Robin's mother" might have special significance for her son.

"Of course, bring Robin over for the afternoon," she had said. "Poor child, that anyone could even think of harming her. And Geoff, after you and her mother--Kerry, did you say her name was?--come back from Trenton, you must stay and have dinner with us."

Geoff knew his vague "We'll see" cut no ice. Chances are, unless something untoward happens, we will eat at my mother's table tonight, he said to himself.

Instantly he detected the approval in his mother's eyes as she took in Kerry's appearance. Kerry was wearing a belted camel's hair coat over matching slacks. A hunter green turtleneck sweater accentuated the green tones in her hazel eyes. Her hair was brushed loosely over her collar. Her only makeup other than lip blush seemed to be a touch of eye shadow.

Next he could see that his mother was pleased by Kerry's sincere, but not effusive, grat.i.tude for letting Robin visit. Mom had always stressed that voices should be well modulated, he thought.

Robin was delighted to hear that all nine grandchildren were somewhere in the house. "Don is taking you and the two oldest to Sports World," Mrs. Dorso told her.

Kerry shook her head 'and murmured, "I don't know..."

"Don is the brother-in-law who's the captain in the Ma.s.sachusetts State Police," Geoff told her quietly. "He'll stick by the kids like glue."

It was clear that Robin expected to have a good time. She watched as the two-year-old twins, chased by their four-year-old cousin, pell-melled past them. "Sort of like baby rush hour around here," she observed happily. "See you later, Mom."

In the car, Kerry leaned back against the seat and sighed deeply. "You're not worried, are you?" Geoff asked quickly.

"No, not at all. That was an expression of relief. And now let me fill you in on what I didn't tell you before."

"Like what?"

"Like Suzanne's years growing up, and what she saw when she looked in the mirror in those days. Like what Dr. Smith is up to with one of the patients whom he has given Suzanne's face. And like what I learned from Jason Arnott this morning."

Deidre Reardon and Beth Taylor were already in the visitors' reception room in the prison. After Geoff and Kerry registered with the clerk, they joined them, and Geoff introduced Kerry to Beth.

While they waited to be called, Kerry deliberately kept the conversation impersonal. She knew what she wanted to talk about when they were with Skip, but she wanted to save it until then. She did not want to lose the spontaneity of having the three of them trigger each other's memories as she raised the different points. Understanding Mrs. Reardon's restrained greeting, she concentrated on chatting with Beth Taylor, whom she liked immediately.

Promptly at three o'clock they were led to the area where family members and friends were allowed contact visits with the prisoners. It was more crowded today than it had been when Kerry visited last week. Dismayed, Kerry realized that it might have been better to have officially asked for one of the private conference rooms that were available when both prosecutor and defense attorney requested a joint visit. But that would have meant going on record as a Bergen County a.s.sistant prosecutor paying a visit to a convicted murderer, something she still was not quite ready to do.

They did manage to get a corner table, whose location filtered out some of the background noise. When Skip was escorted in, Deidre Reardon and Beth both jumped up. After the guard removed Skip's handcuffs, Beth held back while Deidre hugged her son.

Then Kerry watched as Beth and Skip looked at each other. The expressions on their faces and the very restraint of their kiss told more of what was between them than would have the most ardent, demonstrative embraces. In that moment Kerry vividly relived the memory of that day in court when she had seen the agony on Skip Reardon's face as he was sentenced to a minimum of thirty years' imprisonment, and had listened to his heartrending protest that Dr. Smith was a liar. Thinking back on it, she realized that, knowing very little about the case at the time, she still had felt she heard the ring of truth in Skip Reardon's voice that day.

She had brought a yellow pad on which she had written a series of questions, leaving room under each to make notes of their answers. Briefly she told them everything that had impelled her to make this second visit: Dolly Bowles' story about the presence of the Mercedes the night Suzanne died; the fact that Suzanne had been extremely plain growing up; Dr. Smith's bizarre re-creation of her face when operating on current patients; Smith's attraction to Barbara Tompkins; the fact that Jimmy Weeks' name had come up in the investigation; and, finally, the threat to Robin.

Kerry felt that it was a credit to the three of them that after their initial shock over hearing the disclosures, they did not waste time reacting among themselves. Beth Taylor reached for Skip's hand as she asked, "What can we do now?"

"First, let's clear the air by saying I now have grave doubts whether Skip is guilty, and if we uncover the kinds of things I expect to find, I'll do my best to help Geoff get the verdict reversed. This is how I see it," Kerry told them. "A week ago, Skip, you surmised after we talked, that I didn't believe you. That really isn't accurate. What I felt, and what I thought, was that there was nothing I had heard that couldn't be interpreted in two ways--for you or against you. Certainly there was nothing I heard that would provide grounds for a new appeal. Isn't that right, Geoff?"

Geoff nodded.

"Dr. Smith's testimony is the main reason that you were convicted, Skip. The one great hope is to discredit that testimony. And the only way I can see to do that is to back him into a corner by exposing some of his lies and confronting him with them."

She did not wait for any of them to speak. "I already have the answer to the first question I intended to ask--Suzanne never told you that she'd had plastic surgery. And incidentally, let's cut the formalities. My name is Kerry."

For the remaining hour and fifteen minutes of the visit she fired questions at them. "First of all, Skip, did Suzanne ever mention Jimmy Weeks?"

"Only casually," he said. "I knew he was a member of the club and that she sometimes played in a foursome with him. She used to brag about her golf scores all the time. But when she knew I was getting suspicious that she was involved with someone, she began to mention only the names of the women she played with."

"Isn't Weeks the man on trial for income tax evasion?" Deidre Reardon asked.

Kerry nodded.

"That's incredible. I thought it was terrible that the government is hara.s.sing him. Last year I was a volunteer on the cancer drive, and he let us hold it on the grounds of his estate in Peapack. He underwrote the whole thing and then made a huge donation. And you are saying that he was involved with Suzanne and that he's threatening your little girl!"