by Larry Crane
When had that scenario gone out the window? Well, back then he was pretty low on the totem pole. His boss would hardly miss him if he was delayed somewhere along the line. As time went on and he moved up in the bank, he had to hurry back for something important all the time—or something like that. She was ready with an explanation at the drop of a hat. He didn’t have to be.
For this trip, he booked her on the flight to Chicago along with him. He also booked them into the Congress Plaza. It was him doing the booking, wasn’t it? Not, actually Yasmina in her secretarial role? Oh for god’s sake, don’t go there. She sat and consciously calmed herself. She visualized Gavin and her walking the streets of Chicago, dropping in on the Art Institute, lingering around Grant Park.
He had several short stops to make—Motorola, Abbott Labs, Sarah Lee, and Ryerson.
“Don’t worry. There’s plenty to do by myself while you’re at your meetings before we go out to dinner,” she said.
He compressed the meetings together as much as possible and rented a car. They drove to LaGrange to talk some more with Gilbert Rathskeller. They climbed the metal stairs and settled in front of his huge desk.
“What would you think if I suggested we duck out for a drink across the street?” Rathskeller offered.
“I hope you have something to tell us about the goings on in Galesburg. We left it with the FBI listening in,” Gavin said.
As the waitress approached, Rathskeller said: “I’m going to have a dark n’ stormy. Stick two dashes of angostura bitters in mine, miss, will you, please?”
Marcella remembered what Connie Breckinridge had ordered at Pelzer’s Tavern. “And I’ll have a Jack and Coke, please,” she said.
“Make mine an old-fashioned,” Gavin said.
“You going to specify the bitters?” Rathskeller asked.
“Oh, I guess. Three dashes. You’re really on top of your mixology there.”
“The further I get along the more I pay attention, Gavin. Listen, we need to be patient. The feds could blow the whole thing in a heartbeat if they’re not careful. So far, they’ve had to content themselves with listening in on some juicy tidbits from our friend the pharmacist. Seems he fancies the owner of the restaurant next door. But things are starting to move.
“The photograph sent to Celia is interesting. They dusted it and came up with two distinct thumbprints. The developing process is automated, so the only people who handle the photo, in theory, are the person who puts the photo in the envelope to be mailed, and the person who receives it, assuming of course that some other lunkhead doesn’t add theirs when they handle evidence. Anyway, they went up to Carleton and collected Celia’s, and hers is one of the two prints that match. The other is a good, solid print, but they need something to compare it to. Jump to the chase—the feds let themselves into the Galesburg Hy-Vee and collected the pharmacist’s thumbprint from his pestle. Don’t laugh. His mortar yielded nothing. It’s not his print.
“All of this business with fingerprints is just a lead, remember, not a surefire trail of breadcrumbs leading to Hannah. Nobody except the person that Pinky identified as suddenly having a girl living with her when she previously was living alone knows for sure who that girl is. It’s not surefire, but it’s the only good lead they have. So, they go with it to see where it takes them.
“Now, the feds could just confront the pharmacist, tell him the whole story, and link him to the alleged crime. Then, they could strong-arm him into identifying who else is involved. Long story short, they said that’s too risky. If the girl is in fact Hannah, they don’t want to take the remotest chance that this person who’s got the girl living with her might get spooked and do something terrible out of fear of being caught in a kidnapping. It’s not a trivial crime. So, the feds will hold the print evidence for later.
“That’s where they had been for weeks, working the phone tap on the pharmacist and screening his mail with the idea that eventually Pinky would communicate with him again and reveal where she lives. Your idea to get to her to communicate using the newspaper as bait, Marcella, was golden. Not terrifically original, but effective.”
Edgar should be pleased, she thought. His brilliant ploy to coax another letter from Pinky worked just as he knew it would. She could see him giving Rathskeller the finger for his dismissive remark about originality.
Rathskeller went on to say how Pinky had obviously read the recent newspaper article about the abduction and couldn’t resist sending another letter. The feds had intercepted it before it was delivered to Nordquist, the pharmacist. The letter was posted from a little town called New Concord in Kentucky. The feds went to the post office there and surreptitiously matched the postmistress’ handwriting on the bulletin board to the letter they had intercepted, and then matched fingerprints in her vehicle with those they’d lifted from the photograph.
“I just made contact with the feds again a little while ago,” Rathskeller said. The fact is, the fingerprint is Pinky’s. She knows the person who is holding the girl. The feds assume they live near each other. I could be wrong but I think we’re very close. That’s where we are, plain and simple.”
Marcella slumped in her seat and buried her face in her hands. Her body shook with convulsive sobs that tipped her glass over sending Jack and Coke spreading across the table top. Gavin slid over beside her and took her in his arms.
“Gilbert, this is like a bolt from heaven. You’ve been a godsend for us,” he said. “Without you…”
“Never mind,” Rathskeller said. “You must realize, I live for this.”
Chapter 49
Back in New Jersey, Marcella had to force herself to come down to earth after the surge of emotion she got from Rathskeller’s FBI report had sent her flying. They sank back into waiting mode. Waiting to hear more. She set about busying herself with the house. She recognized that Gavin had done some heavy lifting alone inside while she was in Weehawken. For the most part, the major pieces of furniture were in the right room at least. Well, they should be, she told herself. That’s where I directed the movers to put them. With a little tweaking, it would all be exactly where it should be.
Gavin took a week off. They worked together pushing couches and chairs into position. The expression on his face said the whole enterprise was purely arbitrary, she thought. Well, maybe it was. Everything’s subjective, isn’t it? He had not hung any pictures, thank goodness. He hadn’t even bothered to rummage in the garage for the nails and hangers that he knew were there in a jar she’d labelled ‘artwork.’ She was quite sure they were all together in the row of similar jars that he’d threaded into the caps which he’d affixed to the underside of his ‘miscellaneous’ cabinet just like the one he’d left behind in Naperville.
It turned out he’d been smart enough not to even try hanging pictures. He wouldn’t know where she would want them, let alone how high on the wall they should be placed. The kitchen layout had to be completely reconfigured. None of the pots and pans, flatware, or silverware was anywhere near where it would ultimately wind up when the job was done properly. Upstairs, it was useless to position any of the beds or furniture until the painters had finished. Ramsey Hardware was very good about patiently edging toward the exact color she would ultimately settle on for each of the bedrooms.
She didn’t even think of the details Gavin had attended to while he was alone in the house, other than to see that he’d taken it upon himself to select the washer and dryer combination and to supervise their installation in the basement. He’d also had a plumber in to fix leaky faucets in the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom, and replace the toilet in the bathroom off the master bedroom. They needed more electrical outlets in the garage. He’d arranged mail and newspaper delivery service, and had contracted with a man to plow the driveway and mow the grass in summer while he was at it. They were jobs he’d taken care of in Naperville, but apparently here he was going to turn over a new leaf and rid himself of the machinery they required too. Surely, she didn’t need to di
scuss all of this with him, did she?
In a week, it would be Christmas. Celia would be home from Carleton and Brett would be finished with Army Basic Training at Fort Dix. It would be the first time they would be all together as a family in Fardale.
It would be the second Christmas without Hannah. The first Christmas last year, they were still in Naperville, and Marcella had bought and wrapped presents for Hannah and put them under the tree. It was torture to gather them up and take them to the attic, but she harbored the thought that someday, Hannah would be back with them, and they would bring out the presents as a way to erase the time she had been away. She knew that doing things like this made her seem almost a crazy person, but she was far beyond caring what people thought. She began to think of what Hannah would like as presents this year. She was very near eleven years old, and far beyond the fourth grader mentality they all remembered so well. They would have two years of Christmas presents to give to Hannah. How many years would she buy birthday and Christmas presents for Hannah only to wind up carrying them upstairs to the attic?
Philomena came to their door late in the afternoon.
“I have to tell you, I’ve been following your stories in The Record, the whole neighborhood and half the town has. They started reading your stuff, and presto! It’s that they know someone famous and that person is you. Congratulations.”
“Fifteen minutes of fame, Philomena. Thanks anyway,” Marcella said.
“No. It’s that they can’t very well ignore it. The whole town’s talking. They’d be imbeciles if they said they didn’t know anything about it.”
Marcella said: “I’d like to see if I can keep writing for the paper. I didn’t know I’d like it so much. Actually, I’ve kept going on the whole saga with Edgar Smith. I’ve got a ton of material. It’ll come to something eventually.”
“I’m terribly sorry about Hannah. I won’t say anything more about it. If you had wanted to tell me, there were plenty of opportunities.”
“Would you and Drew like to come in for a drink or something, later?” Marcella asked.
“Well actually, I was going to ask you and Gavin to come over to our house. We’ve got a gaggle of neighbors coming over to talk about doing something to acknowledge the history of our little corner of Mahwah. They’ll have thousands of questions for you.”
Marcella was noncommittal with her about the invitation. The thought of thousands of questions did it. “I’m going to pass on that, Philomena,” she said.
Instead, she and Gavin planned to go into town to eat. They were seated in the car, when Gavin spoke up: “Let’s rethink this, Marce,” he said. “You’ve pulled off this fantastically gutsy gambit with Smith, gone to see him in prison, lured him into the apartment in Weehawken, and fought him tooth and nail. Okay, it isn’t as if you planned it to play out as it did, but you set the wheels in motion, and one thing led to another. It’s how things happen. And you recorded it! You have him over a barrel. All right, he didn’t explicitly confess. He’ll never do that, but he blabbed all over the place, went along with a recreation of the scene with Victoria, and then fought with you just as he had with her. It’s as good as any confession. And you’ve got it on tape. It’s the truth of Vickie’s murder, and that’s the final justice for her. Smith is out of jail, but he’ll never enjoy the lie that he and Buckley created. Now, you can’t just recede into the shadows with all of this. You need to tell people and make damned sure they understand. Anything less is a betrayal, of Victoria. Right?”
“They’ll ask all about Hannah, too,” Marcella said. “I don’t want to discuss it. I’ll fall to pieces.”
“So, you don’t respond to questions about Hannah. You stick strictly to Smith,” Gavin said.
She saw, sitting in the car, neighbors up the street and all around the subdivision going to Philomena’s front door. She and Gavin got out of the car, crossed the street, and rang the doorbell. They weren’t dressed up as much as the neighbors were. The neighbors had come for a cocktail party and gabfest. The two of them were on their way out for a casual bite to eat in Wyckoff. It didn’t matter. Inside, couples stood around in bunches with a drink in hand, in jackets and cocktail dresses. The scene was much like the client conference at Ventana Canyon—the two of them in their element again, completely at ease, the stars that everyone wanted to talk to. And they could bring it off like nobody’s business. Then Philomena began tapping a spoon against her glass, and the room went silent.
“Allow me to introduce our illustrious neighbors who I know hardly a person here has met yet. Meet Gavin Armand, and his beautiful and talented wife, Marcella, whose unbelievably courageous campaign to stand up against the tidal wave of misinformation about Edgar Smith that has filled the newspapers and airwaves over the last several weeks is on everyone’s mind tonight.”
The crowd spontaneously arranged itself in a semi-circle around the two of them, stood still and waited to hear Marcella speak. She pictured a similar scene from years before when Gus Breedlove stood before a group that she had gathered for him. She remembered how calm he’d remained as the people in the room settled down to hear his words, and how he’d allowed the moment to work for him—how he’d attracted every eye by his confidence. Gavin took a step backward, and she cast her gaze on all of them, seemingly one by one. Calmly. Confidently.
“Well, mercifully for all of you, I’ll be very brief,” she said. “We can’t stand by silently and let things that are wrong happen to us through a respect we have for our institutions, our intellectual leaders, and the power of the press. Beliefs change with the times. We become more tolerant. And so, Edgar Smith eludes the electric chair, and is released from prison. But, his release is not a final verdict of not guilty. It’s important that the truth of his crime of murder be acknowledged, and remembered, and memorialized as more than just a little bit of justice for his victim, Victoria Zielinski.”
***
The telephone message machine was blinking when they got back home.
“Mr. And Mrs. Armand, this is Agent Dvorak from the Lisle, Illinois Office of the FBI. I trust that you didn’t answer the phone because you are out somewhere temporarily. I’d very much appreciate it if you called me back on this number tonight, no matter how late. It’s important. 455-555-5908.”
When Dvorak started talking Marcella’s heart leaped. She thought there must be a development in the Pinky lead. Then, she thought of the worst reason he would be calling—that they’d found Hannah and she was dead. The picture of Vickie crumpled on the back side of the mound in the sandpit sprung up before her eyes. Gavin saw the look on her face.
“He wouldn’t leave a message if it was bad news,” he said. “He just wouldn’t. Come on, sit down. He said it’s important. So something has come up. Marcella settled onto the couch and Gavin punched the buttons on the telephone console. He looked over at Marcella.
“Agent Dvorak, this is Gavin Armand,” he said. Gavin activated the loud speaker.
“Very good. I won’t waste time with pleasantries, Mr. and Mrs. Armand. Let me fill you in on some details of our progress in locating your daughter. As you know, I believe, we are in possession of the photograph that was sent to your daughter Celia.”
“Yes, yes. We know all this. Get to it, for god’s sake. Dispense with the formalities,” Marcella said.
“Marce. Shh,” Gavin said.
“We’ve dusted it for fingerprints and have collected two distinct thumbprints, your daughter Celia’s is one, and the other was unknown until very recently when we determined that it matches the thumbprint of a woman located in New Concord, Kentucky. The woman’s surname is Nugent. We have interviewed her, and she has admitted that she is the source of the two letters and the photograph that were sent to your daughter.
Marcella collapsed against Gavin, her hands trembling. She was losing it. Her breath came in little gasps. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She looked to Gavin and they scrunched together in the corner of the couch. She crushed his fingers in b
oth of her hands and closed her eyes tight.
“The first letter that Mrs. Nugent sent said that she knew of a woman who had no children in her home up to the point when the letter was sent, but suddenly had a female child staying with her. The woman is Mrs. Nugent’s sister, Rose Prendergast. We have not positively identified the girl, but we believe there is a chance that this child could be your daughter Hannah.”
Marcella turned and threw herself at Gavin. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, locked her face against his neck. She heard Dvorak’s voice only faintly.
“We intend to go to Mrs. Prendergast’s residence tomorrow to request to see the girl. We may discover that the child is there under completely legitimate circumstances, and that Mrs. Nugent was well meaning but has simply mistakenly pointed out a situation that has nothing to do with you.
“It is also possible that the child will not reveal that she is in Mrs. Prendergast’s house unwillingly, for any number of reasons, one of which could be that Prendergast has threatened to bring harm to you and/or your other children if she tells. So, we need to be able to positively identify the child without her help.
“This has taken a while to explain, but I’m requesting that you and your wife travel to the Teterboro Airport in the morning in time to board the Kentucky State Police King Air that will be waiting your arrival at 6:00 a.m. The plane will fly to Paducah, Kentucky to arrive sometime around 10:00 a.m. You will be met there and then driven to the vicinity of the Keniana Lake Shores development where we will assemble to approach Mrs. Prendergast’s residence.”