The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon
Marcy McCreary
Contents
1. Monday, October 22, 2018
Trudy
2. Tuesday, October 23, 2018
3. Wednesday, October 24, 2018
4. Thursday, October 25, 2018
Trudy
5. Tuesday, October 30, 2018
6. Wednesday, October 31, 2018
7. Thursday, November 1, 2018
Trudy
8. Saturday, November 3, 2018
9. Sunday, November 4, 2018
10. Monday, November 5, 2018
Trudy
11. Tuesday, November 6, 2018
12. Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Trudy
13. Thursday, November 8, 2018
Trudy
14. Friday, November 9, 2018
15. Saturday, November 10, 2018
Trudy
16. Sunday, November 11, 2018
17. Monday, November 12, 2018
18. Tuesday, November 13, 2018
19. Thursday, November 15, 2018
20. Friday, November 16, 2018
Trudy
21. Saturday, November 17, 2018
22. Sunday, November 18, 2018
23. Monday, November 19, 2018
Trudy
24. Wednesday, November 21, 2018
25. Monday, November 26, 2018
26. Tuesday, November 27, 2018
27. Thursday, November 29, 2018
Trudy
28. Friday, November 30, 2018
29. Sunday, December 2, 2018
30. Monday, December 3, 2018
31. Tuesday, December 4, 2018
32. Thursday, December 6, 2018
33. Friday, December 7, 2018
34. Saturday, December 8, 2018
Trudy
35. Monday, December 10, 2018
36. Tuesday, December 11, 2018
37. Wednesday, December 12, 2018
38. Thursday, December 13, 2018
39. Saturday, December 15, 2018
Epilogue
Trudy
Acknowledgments
For Further Discussion
About the Author
Also by CamCat Books
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Brentwood, Tennessee 37027
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
© 2021 by Marcy McCreary
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 and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, 101 Creekside Crossing, Suite 280, Brentwood, TN 37027.
Hardcover ISBN 9780744303308
Paperback ISBN 9780744304022
Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744304053
eBook ISBN 9780744304152
Audiobook ISBN 9780744304176
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021937773
Cover and book design by Maryann Appel
5 3 1 2 4
For Dad,
The best tummler in the Catskills.
1
Monday, October 22, 2018
MY PALMS were sweatier than usual. I glanced around before reaching into my desk drawer to rub Secret on them. Yes, that Secret. The anti-perspirant. There was going to be lots of handshaking today and I wasn’t sure I could avoid it. They finally solved the case. Missing August 6, 1978. Found October 22, 2018. Forty years, two months, and sixteen days. And the answer . . . right under their noses the entire time. Dad didn’t know yet. My plan was to stop by Horizon Meadows Residences after my shift to break the news.
Sally McIver strode across the precinct floor and planted herself on the edge of my desk. “Hey Susan, can you believe it? Wait until your dad hears the story.”
The story. The one that consumed my life forty years ago. A case my mother derisively referred to as a “Big F-ing Deal.” Emphasis on the F. For years, the disappearance of Trudy Solomon confounded my father—the lead detective on the case—until it faded away, yet not completely. Like a chalkboard where you can see remnants of math equations long erased. The cold case of Trudy Solomon. No strong suspect. No obvious motive. No forensics to test. No computer databases to mine. Just gumshoe detective work that yielded few leads and no resolution. Until now—until this fluky stroke of luck.
Someone leaked the story to the press. That didn’t take long. Trudy was found only a few hours ago. An unruly group of reporters swarmed the police station. I held no animus against reporters—like locusts, they were harmless when just a handful were flitting around the halls, but they had a way of causing damage when they got all riled up around a potentially juicy story. I had been dodging them all morning. I wasn’t sure how much more I could offer up than what Ray Gorman, the detective (and the guy who shares my bed), had told them He’s the one who connected the dots and found her. I could only assume I was the human interest side of the story. They’d want to know how Dad reacts to the news. They’d want to know if I knew about this case back when I was thirteen and if so, how it impacted me and how I felt now. But that was my story. Not theirs.
FOUR WEEKS ago, Monticello Police Chief Cliff Eldridge called me into his office. A day like any other day. A day stuck at my desk while Internal Affairs reviewed my case. A day with my gun locked away. A day feeling spasms of pain in my right thigh, a throbbing reminder of the bullet lodged in fatty tissue. I had returned to the station exactly one week earlier, on September 17, cleared for desk duty and not much else. Shuffling papers. Watching surveillance tapes. Answering phones. Monitoring police vehicles. They called it restricted duty. Felt more like purgatory—am I in or am I out? My future as a detective resting in the hands of others.
“We just got a call from a senior investigator with the New York State Police.” Eldridge glanced at a piece of paper on his desk. “John Minot. Ever hear of him?”
“No, sir.”
“His unit found skeletal remains along Route 9W in Ulster County. He ran up against a wall trying to identify the body, so he started going through regional missing person reports.” Eldridge paused and peered over his cheaters. “Do you know where I am going with this?”
“Are you saying this could be Trudy Solomon? Are the bones forty years old?”
“They’ve been there for some time, but they haven’t determined how long yet. Detective Minot claims they roughly match the description of Trudy Solomon. Female. Caucasian. Late twenties, early thirties.”
“Holy shit. And cause of death? Is that known?”
“Gunshot to the head. Close range.”
“Jeez.”
“Minot is looking for a relative of Trudy’s so he can run a DNA test to confirm or rule out that it’s her. He thought we might have something in the files, people we can contact. But this case has been dormant for so long, we’ll have to do a little digging on the relative front.” Eldridge shifted slightly in his chair, then cleared his throat. Two short grunts. “I know you, Susan. You’re gonna want this case. I can see the gears turning in your head right now. But you know the situation. You’re on desk duty until you are cleared by Internal Affairs, the department shrink, and your doctor. If it were up to me, I’d hand this to you to follow up. But it’s not up to me.”
“Who are you assigning this to?”
“Ray and Marty. I told them to keep you apprised, and if they need help, the kind you can
do from a desk, they’ll let you know. Okay? That’s the best I can do right now.”
“And my dad? Can I let him know?”
“That’s up to you, Susan. But I would keep it to myself until we know more. No need to get his hopes up—then dashed. Probably best not to replay 1978 again. You were too young to remember, but I’m not.”
Oh, I remembered. When the world is crashing down around you during your preteen years, you remember everything. F U Mother. With an emphasis on the F. I decided not to tell Dad until there was a definitive answer. Eldridge was right. No need to dredge this up prematurely.
In the weeks that followed, Ray and Marty sifted through local and national databases to find a living relative of Trudy Solomon. Not a soul emerged. But Ray did hit upon something odd. When he did a search on Trudy Solomon’s social security number he found it was still in use, associated with a medical bill for a patient in Massachusetts. That patient was a woman named Gertrude Resnick who had the same birth date, February 16, 1951, as Gertrude (aka Trudy) Solomon. Eldridge gave them the go-ahead to travel 250 miles east to a hospital in Lowell, Massachusetts, to question her.
In the early-morning hours of October 22, Ray awoke early to make the trip. “Wish you could come with us,” he whispered in my ear. Then he leaned over and kissed my forehead before I had a chance to draw the blankets over my face. “Y’know, you’re kinda cute when you’re mad.”
“Then I must be cute all the time.”
BY MIDAFTERNOON I was getting antsy waiting to hear from Ray as to whether the Trudy in Lowell was in fact our Trudy. From the moment the body was found until now—what felt like the longest four weeks of my life—I had been in a constant state of agitation. Between keeping this discovery from my dad and awaiting clearance from IA, I couldn’t remember a time in my adult life that sucked more. Well, except for being shot . . . and almost dying.
I was in the police-station bathroom, trousers at my ankles, when Ray finally called me.
“Hey. Did you talk to her yet?” My voice echoed around me in the little stall.
“Gertrude Resnick? Not yet. We’re about to go in. Did you get your gun and badge back?”
“Yeah. A half hour ago.”
“Super. We’ll celebrate tonight.”
I stared at the inked heart on the stall door. The initials SM and EP scribbled in its center. Sally still refused to use this stall after Elaine Pellman broke up with her nearly two years ago. I suggested she paint over it, but Sally insisted it should live on, like her pain.
“Susan. You there?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just been a long morning. Lots of paperwork and shit.”
I was definitely not in a celebratory mood. Sure, IA exonerated me, but many folks in this town certainly hadn’t. In the end, it came down to my word, an officer in good standing, against a criminal’s word. The fact I was shot probably helped my case. Thing is, I shot and killed the person who wasn’t holding the gun. And Calvin Barnes’s family still wanted answers.
I splashed cold water on my face. I tried not to look in the mirror, dreading what I would see staring back at me. But I glanced up anyway. I’d seen better days. A recent botched dye job turned my curls from chocolate brown to bluish black. Which would have been cool thirty years ago when I was going through my punk-rock phase. The concealer I applied this morning was doing little to mask the charcoal-tinged bags under my eyes. Even my blue eyes seemed dingier. No longer bright as cornflower, they were murky like an oil-slicked ocean. I grabbed a couple of paper towels and patted my face dry. Then I scrounged around my bag and removed some essentials—concealer, lipstick, eyeshadow, blush. Ah, the wonders of makeup. A dab here and there, and voilà, I didn’t look half bad for a been-through-the-wringer, fifty-three-year-old detective.
A NEW sign greeted me at the entrance to Dad’s digs: Welcome to Horizon Meadows Residences. What I wanted to know is who came up with the name Horizon Meadows. Did they just pick two random words and throw them together? The place was literally in the woods. You could barely imagine a horizon. And anything that might once have been a meadow had been subdivided and built on. So why not call it Forest Haven or Sylvan Acres? Maybe because, for the residents of places like this, the horizon was a metaphor for what awaits them all.
After his second heart attack, Dad relented, but not without complaint. Claimed he would die within six months of moving, as he put it, to an old-age home. He was convinced he would be reduced to a drooling, blithering, incapable clod. That was two years ago. Then a few old guys from the police force moved in. At seventy-seven, Dad was the reigning Horizon Meadows bridge and shuffleboard champion. He and most of his buddies were in Level One. Independent living. A decently appointed one-bedroom apartment with an emergency call button in the bathroom. Bud was in Level Three, a floor in the building that featured a nurse on duty at all times. And poor Andy. Level Four. Dementia got the best of him, but he joined them in the dining hall on his better days. A few months ago, he asked my father to put a pillow over his head when he reached Level Six. I doubt Dad would oblige. But, then again, I wouldn’t bet on it.
As I made my way through the lobby to the computer room, I wondered if Dad had gotten wind of the Trudy Solomon story. If he had, I was pretty sure I would have heard from him. I spotted Dad on the far side of the computer room helping Agnes navigate her granddaughter’s Facebook page. “Hey, Dad. Hi ,Agnes.”
Agnes leaned toward Dad like a lion protecting her cub. “Hi Susan,” Agnes purred. “Will told me about your brush with death. I prayed for you every night. And well, here you are, looking wonderful. Prayers answered. God is looking out for you.”
“He must have heard you.” I glanced at Dad—eyebrows raised, admonishing my sarcasm. “Thank you, Agnes . . . I’ll take all the help I can get.”
“Well, well, well. The prodigal daughter has returned. How’s the bullet wound?”
“Dad, I’m fine. I’ve got some news for you.” I glanced sideways at Agnes. “Can we find a quiet place to talk?”
Agnes patted Dad’s arm. “We can do this later. I’ll be right here when you return.”
It was unseasonably warm for late October, the temperature hovering around seventy degrees, so we headed out to the benches behind the main building.
“There’s been a break in the Trudy Solomon case.” I paused to study his reaction. Skepticism. “She’s alive. Ray found her.”
His mouth twitched and one eyebrow lifted ever so slightly, signaling a shift from incredulous to unconvinced. “Are you sure it’s her?”
“One hundred percent sure.”
“What happened to her? Where’s she been all these years?”
“That’s still not clear. She has Alzheimer’s. Has had it for a while now.”
“Then how do you know it’s her?”
I told him how they found skeletal remains that jogged the case open, then traced the social security number to Gertrude Resnick. I told him that she’d identified herself from a Cuttman Hotel work ID photo, proclaiming “me,” and then verbally identifying her husband, Ben Solomon, when shown a picture of him.
“Holy shit. Holy . . .” He paused and shook his head. “Where is she?”
“In an Alzheimer’s care facility in Lowell, Massachusetts.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. A social-security-number trace. Seems so simple.”
“Dad, things were different back then. You couldn’t just plug a social security number into a computer. Don’t second-guess yourself.”
Dad shifted his attention to his shoes and poked at the dirt with the tip of his worn loafers. “And the remains that were found? Has she been identified?”
“Nope.”
“So now what? Is Ray going to find out what happened to Trudy? I mean, maybe she was kidnapped? There could still be a criminal element to this.”
“I think you know the answer to that. Eldridge is not going to put any more resources on this.�
��
“Did he say that?”
“Well, no. But where’s the crime? She’s been found.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened to her?”
“Sure, I’m curious. But—”
“Ask Eldridge to reopen the case. Or take a leave of absence. Help me figure this out. We had the beginning. We now have the ending. Let’s figure out the middle.”
“Are you kidding? For what reason?”
“Do I sound like I’m kidding? This has haunted me for decades. I deserve to know what happened. We finally have a break we can work with.”
What was with this we shit? Nineteen seventy-eight was one of the worst years in my life. Grandpa died. Mom and Dad separated. My best friend dumped me for a new best friend. Mother hit the bottle hard. And a woman who went missing pulled Dad out of my orbit. The funny thing was, I’d been obsessed with this case too. But looking back, it was hard to discern if it was the mysterious nature of the case itself that intrigued me, or my desire to bond with my father over something, anything. I pestered him incessantly about leads, suspects, witnesses. He was so sure she was kidnapped or murdered. But there was also a theory floating around that she simply wanted to walk away from her life. And I just wanted to know how that was even possible. How did she do it? Why did she do it? Where did she go? Did anyone help her? Trudy captured my imagination. I imprinted on her at a time when I wanted to disappear, reinvent myself. But I was thirteen—what did I know about how to do such a thing?
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