Living a Double Life.

MISTRESSES; CARLSON, Hillary; CONE, Douglas; CONE, Jean Ann; SPOUSES' legal relationship; ADULTERY; BERKELEY Preparatory School (Tampa, Fla.)

TAMPA (Fla.); FLORIDA; UNITED States

For years the parents at Tampa, Florida's prestigious Berkeley Preparatory School had whispered about a puzzling mystery: Who was the enigmatic, unseen husband of Hillary Carlson, the wealthy mother of two alumni and a major campus benefactor? Though Hillary led an active social life, no one could recall seeing her with Donald Carlson, the spouse who she said frequently traveled for his job with the State Department. Eighteen miles from the Carlsons' sprawling rural estate, another Berkeley family harbored its own mystery. Road-construction magnate Douglas Cone--father of three Berkeley graduates and grandparent of two more--seemed to have a close bond with his wife, Jean Ann, also an active school booster and a vivacious socialite. But Cone, 74, would depart the couple's million-dollar home in affluent south Tampa each Monday on business and, for reasons no one exactly understood, not return until Thursday. Both puzzles might have gone forever unsolved if it weren't for the death of Jean Ann, 75. On March 20, 2003 she was found dead at the wheel of her Rolls Royce, parked in the couple's garage. The doors were locked, the ignition switch was in the on position,and she had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Then came the coup de theatre: Just 15 days after his wife's death, Douglas Cone drove 48 miles to rural Bushnell, Florida, where a county clerk oversaw his marriage to none other than Hillary Carlson, 56--with whom he'd been secretly conducting an affair, and raising a second family, for 27 years. Even more surprising, in retrospect, was how closely the two women in Douglas Cone's world had conducted their separate lives.