THE NANNY MURDERS.

by MERRY JONES.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Deep and lasting grat.i.tude 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 a.n.a.lyses and spiritual vitamins; Nancy Delman, Jane Braun, Susie Francke, Gina Joseph, Leslie Mogul, and Jan and Michael Molinaro for their years-long encouragement; Bob s.e.xton 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 pa.s.sage of time.

ONE.

SMALL FOOTPRINTS LED DOWN THE STEPS TO THE SIDEWALK where Molly played in the snow. 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 gra.s.s, 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 m.u.f.fins or cookies; the food disappeared, but we rarely saw Victor. Now, pale hands taped a cardboard snowman to the gla.s.s. 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 s...o...b..by. 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. d.a.m.n. 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 s...o...b..by 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. d.a.m.n. 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.

"ZOE, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? T THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN kids play on the street." kids play on the street."

Susan set the measuring cup on the counter and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. Susan c.u.mmings 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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, a.s.sessing 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 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 fl.u.s.tered 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.

So my mind plowed through the detective's visit, scanning for highlights. I heard myself tell him that I was forty-one years old, had lived in the house for thirteen years. That, no, I wasn't married; Michael and I had divorced about five years ago. That I lived alone with my daughter, Molly, who was five and a half. I could skip all that. And I could skip the expression on Stiles's face as he did the math. And the part when I'd blurted out that I'd adopted Molly after Michael had gone.

"Well?" she looked up without breaking her pace. The events of my day didn't slow her down. Susan mixed flour and shortening, pounded out the dough. She was, as usual, spinning in her kitchen, spilling this and that, slapping ingredients together, creating chaos that would transform, magically, into something delectable.

I reached for my coffee mug, and my arm brought to mind another arm. Stiles's. His large hand had emerged from a dark woolen sleeve, his arm lifting gingerly, picking up the thing with a tweezer-like appliance and dropping it into a Baggie. Again I heard the small, plastic thud and saw Stiles's brow wrinkle. Yes, this was it, the answer Susan wanted. The part where Stiles talked about the missing women.

"He asked about the nannies? What did he say?" She straightened and looked at me, shaking her hair out of her eyes.

"He asked if I knew them. What I'd heard about them."

"And?"

"And nothing. I guess he thinks it might belong to one of them." I squeezed the mug, inhaled steam, and concentrated on the kitchen, the smell of cinnamon, the energy pulsing around me.

Susan's kitchen, unlike mine, was huge and alive. Mine was closet-sized, a detail off the entranceway, usually littered with takeout cartons and pizza boxes. I couldn't stand the messy monotony of preparing meals and never made anything that took more than fifteen minutes. For Molly, I fixed eggs, grilled cheese, an occasional lamb chop, a hundred variations of pasta. But Susan actually cooked. Thoughtlessly, effortlessly, as a way of life, a technique for stress reduction, a ritual of being. Even now, while we discussed dismemberment, she rolled out piecrust on her thick butcher-block island. I sat close, huddling under flour clouds.

From time to time, Susan's children wandered in with Molly, circling, swiping sugared apple slices, and scooting into the next room to plop in front of the blaring large-screen TV. Spigots turned on and off. The refrigerator hummed.

I watched Susan stretch piecrust and splash flour, performing her dizzying domestic dance. I envied her ability to bake biscuits while dictating legal briefs, change diapers while phoning an opposing counsel, interview caterers and murderers within the same hour. Susan's moods fluctuated, and she never completely focused on one thing or settled in one place, but meals made it to her table on time, and her hair always shone. Whenever an aspect of life overwhelmed me, I found myself drawn to her. Today, I needed her. I needed to feel her energy build, erupt, and settle onto dinner plates.

But at that moment, Susan seemed removed, even annoyed. I waited. She said nothing, threw more flour at the dough.

"Well," I finally said. "Don't you have anything else to say?"

"What's to say, Zoe? What should I say?"

"What do you mean, what's to say? I've just had a completely horrible, bizarre day."

"Oh, Zoe," she snapped. "For G.o.dsakes. Your day was not all that bizarre. From where I sit, finding a finger on your front porch is pretty standard stuff."

"Right, Susan. It happens every day. Comes with the daily paper." She didn't answer.