“Holy shit. How long was she in that hospital?”
“Five years: 2008 to 2012. She was moved to the Lowell nursing home when McNair shut down their Alzheimer’s unit.”
“In 2008 she would have been fifty-seven. That’s awfully young to have Alzheimer’s.”
“Early-onset. We’ve got a couple of them at Horizon. One woman is in her early fifties.”
Dad’s computer dinged.
“Well, lookie here. If it ain’t my good friend Ben. Says he’s willing to meet with us tomorrow morning at Mo’s Diner in Ellenville. Wish we had this Internet thing back in my policing days. Makes tracking down people too easy.”
I hadn’t seen Dad this excited in a very long time. Mom, as usual, was wrong. Even if there was an innocent explanation to Trudy’s disappearance, at least Dad felt useful again. He seemed invigorated, to the point where he actually looked a few years younger. There was a spring in his step. An unmistakable energy in his voice. He found the thing that sparked joy. Me, I was still waiting for the fuse to light.
Trudy
Trudy peered out her window at the parking lot below, looking for the car that was supposed to pick her up. She scanned the lot. Is that Max, the guy from the post office? I mustn’t let him see me. She slid the curtain along the rod. She waited a few seconds then parted the curtains. He was gone.
“Good morning, Trudy,” the nurse said as she entered the room.
Trudy suddenly stepped away from the curtains.
“Sorry, did I give you a fright?”
“I have to go downstairs,” Trudy said. “A man is going to pick me up.”
“A man? What man?”
Trudy brought her finger up to her lips. “I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.” Trudy peered out the window again. “There. There. The green car. He’s here.”
The nurse walked over to the window and glanced down at Dr. Meadows’ green Buick.
“That’s Dr. Meadows, Trudy. He’s coming to work.”
Trudy closed her eyes. I got in a green car. A different green car. I was taken away.
She remembered for a moment. There and gone in a flash.
8
Saturday, November 3, 2018
“HOW DID the meeting with Ben go, babe?” Ray asked. “Did he sing like a canary?”
Sing like a canary. Another expression Ray often used. Sometimes it felt like I was in a hardboiled detective novel when talking to him about a case. He was as dead as a car on a subzero morning, sweetheart. He went through a Mickey Spillane phase, read at least five Mike Hammer books a few years back. Next up was Robert Parker, then James Ellroy. He got me into Sue Grafton. I’m up to G is for Gumshoe. At the rate I read, I was pretty sure I’d be close to retirement by the time I’d make my way through the series.
“If you’re asking if he confessed, no, he didn’t sing like a canary. He pretty much stuck to the story he told Dad back in seventy-eight. He dropped her off in the hospital parking lot and drove off. Came back an hour later, and when she didn’t materialize, he went in to find her. The receptionist told him that she never checked in. He left, spent the day looking for her around the hotel and asking her friends if they’d seen her. That night, when she didn’t come home, he called her in missing. Cops told him to come by in the morning and file a missing persons report.”
“Ah, the old twenty-four-hour rule.”
“We did manage to get a bit more information about her state of mind. He said their marriage was on the rocks but he didn’t bring it up at the time because he thought it would make him look suspicious. He also said she’d been very agitated for about a month before her disappearance. Claims he found her crying several times and that she had become mopey and withdrawn. Jumpy too. Like if he walked in a room, he noticed that she startled. At one point she told him she was looking for work at a different hotel, that she didn’t like working at the Cuttman anymore. But it was midsummer and no one was hiring.”
“So, perhaps something or someone put a scare in her,” Ray said. “Maybe she was in some kind of danger.”
“In the old police report, Ben described a thin-faced, lanky guy with a bushy mustache. He supposedly spotted him chatting up Trudy several times in the months before she disappeared. Dad thought Ben made the guy up, trying to mislead him. He asked around, and no one else corroborated this sighting. But when he pushed Ben on this yesterday, Ben said he definitely remembers this guy. Claimed he could still pick him out of a lineup, if we found him. . . . Wait a sec.” I walked over to the dining-room table and sifted through the papers. “Look at this drawing.”
“Holy shit. I was wondering who that—” Ray caught himself. “Sorry, I peeked at the files.”
I rolled my eyes, letting it slide. “I think this is the guy Ben described. This police sketch was loose at the bottom of the box, so I thought it might have been from a different case and mistakenly ended up in there. Dad didn’t mention a sketch. But he might have forgotten about it.”
I taped the mustached man to the whiteboard under the Person of Interest heading and scribbled “hotel worker/vendor/guest?” above his portrait. His eyes were narrow, eyelashes long, almost feminine. His cheeks were sunken, with long dimples extending from the bottom of his cheekbones to just below his lower lip. His jaw descended to a point, creating the illusion of a diamond. Handwritten in a neat cursive below the pencil-drawn face was a description:
White Male, mid-to-late 30s
Brown hair (curly) / Blue eyes
6'1" / 175 lbs
I snapped a picture of him with my iPhone.
“When Dad asked Ben about Mustache Man, he said we should talk to Stanley or Rachel. Ben thinks he was associated with the hotel, perhaps as a contract worker or vendor, so the Roths might know.”
“Why didn’t your father follow up on this back then?”
“Like I said, he thought Ben was blowing smoke. No one else claimed to have seen this guy. And Stanley wasn’t exactly cooperative. He wanted the police off his property, not snooping around even more.”
My phone dinged, alerting me to an incoming text message.
Dad: Another lead from the Brooklyn website page. A friend of Trudy's got in touch with me and would like to talk to us. I’m hoping she knows how to FaceTime. Or else we add Brooklyn to our travel itinerary.
* * *
Me: What’s wrong with using the phone?
* * *
Dad: You know the phone sucks when it comes to interviewing. We need to read facial expressions. Makes for a better interrogation.
* * *
Me: She’s a witness. Not a suspect.
* * *
Dad: Doesn’t matter. Maybe we head to Brooklyn after Belmont. Add a day to trip.
* * *
Me: Whatever you think is best.
* * *
Dad: Any messages from anyone on Cuttman page?
* * *
Me: Nope.
* * *
Dad: Lori?
* * *
Me: Nope.
After telling Ray about the woman in Brooklyn, I headed upstairs to pack. I was pretty sure Dad was just looking for an excuse to spend a few days away from Horizon Meadows and turn this into an adventure. Relive the good old days. I threw in extra underwear and socks—just in case.
9
Sunday, November 4, 2018
ALONG WITH my suitcase, I stowed the two boxes of files in the trunk of my car. I figured it would be good to have them with us in case we needed to refer to an old fact or theory. Our plan was to meet with Dr. Jacqueline Blanchard in the morning right after breakfast. Then, hit the road no later than two o’clock so that we would arrive in Brooklyn in the evening. Dad had arranged to meet Trudy’s high-school friend on Tuesday morning.
I glanced over at Dad in the passenger seat. His expression was that of an eager kid headed to the candy store. Grinning ear to fucking ear. A case that stymied him for decades now had a chance of being solved. And I could only imagine how satisfying
that must have felt. Definitely a whole lot more rewarding than beating your old buddies at shuffleboard.
“So, who are we seeing in Brooklyn?” I asked. I’d been so busy sorting through the boxes and piecing together the time line of events that it occurred to me late last night I’d never asked him her name.
“Sandra Leer.”
“Chandelier?”
“First name Sandra. Last name Leer. As in dirty look.”
“Are you serious? What were her parents thinking?”
“Right? I went to school with a guy named Peter Peterson. And I thought that was weird. Poor guy had a stutter. His parents eventually transferred him out of public school to St. Peter’s Catholic School in Liberty. I wonder if he’s still alive. I’ll have to look into that.”
“You’re making that up.”
“It’s the damn truth. God’s honor.”
We had one stop to make before we headed east. Google Maps instructed me to turn right onto Mullover Street, a narrow stretch of road littered with mobile homes.
“There it is,” Dad said. “Just as Ray described it. White with rust-color trim and a green awning. The residence of Mr. Coffee Shop Manager, Leonard Berman.”
Dad banged on the door. A guy with shoulder-length greasy hair opened the door a crack. His cheeks were pockmarked with red splotches, his nose broken and self-healed several times. Yet, if you looked closely, mentally erased the top layer, you could see that Lenny had been a handsome man in his youth.
“Whoa, old man. Take it easy or you’ll bust my door down. Don’t wanna be suing you for property damage, now.”
“Lenny Berman?” I asked.
“Yeah. Who wants to know?”
“I’m Detective Susan Ford with the Monticello police and this is ex-Detective William Ford. We’d like a quick word with you about an old case. Hoping you can help us.”
“Ex-detective. Huh? You two related? Or is the last name a coincidence?”
I ignored his question. “You worked at the Cuttman in the seventies. Do you remember Trudy Solomon?”
“No. Should I?”
“She’s the coffee-shop waitress who went missing in seventy-eight. A few days before that, you were fired for harassing her. Does that jog your memory?”
“Oh yeah. Her. What about it? I had nothin’ to do with that. I told the cops back then.”
“Do you recognize this guy?” I held up my phone and showed him the police sketch of mustache man.
Lenny removed his glasses and squinted. “Um, no. He don’t look familiar.”
“So you never saw this guy hanging around the hotel. Or bothering Trudy?”
“Like I said, I never seen him. Why you askin’?”
“We found Trudy.” His expression didn’t change. “Alive, living in Massachusetts.”
“Yeah, so why you buggin’ me?”
“Just trying to figure out what happened, that’s all. She’s not well, and we just want to know what happened to her after she went missing.”
“Well I don’t know that dude in the picture. And I don’t know nothin’ about Trudy. Now leave me alone.” He pulled the door shut.
I opened the car door for Dad. “Do you believe him?” I asked.
“Not a single word.”
AT THE midway point between Monticello and our destination, Dad took the wheel. Said he wanted to drive for an hour or so. I leaned my head against the passenger window and closed my eyes. Not to sleep, but to think. Why was I doing this? On one level, I was simply indulging Dad’s fantasy of finding out what happened to Trudy. Giving him one last hurrah. I was just along for the ride. A diversion while the Barnes shit show sorted itself out. But on another level, I was actually excited about the prospect of breaking this case with him. It was what I had wanted when I was thirteen—I was always thrilled when he would run ideas past me, treat me like one of his buddies. Would I have been so gung ho about taking on this case if he wasn’t my sidekick? Or I, his? Who was I, Sherlock or Watson? Or were we more like superheroes—Batman and Robin—exposing a villain and seeking justice?
I opened my eyes and twisted in my seat when the car slowed down.
“Just a bit of traffic ahead,” Dad said, pointing to the red line snaking across the GPS screen.
I nodded wearily, thinking back to the year Trudy disappeared, 1978. That year, a dividing line in my life. Before and after.
Before April 1978 my family was whole. I had a best friend. My grandfather took me fishing and camping. Every Sunday night, Dad and I would watch Quincy, M.E. or Columbo or McMillan and Wife and try to solve the case before Jack Klugman or Peter Falk or Rock Hudson did. My mother had no more than a glass of wine (or two) at dinner. On second thought, I might be wrong about that particular memory, as it was my father who woke up early in the morning to make me breakfast, get me off to school. He made excuses for her. She has a headache. She has a tummy ache. She wants to sleep in a bit. Sleep it off was probably more like it. But when I came home from school, she always had an afternoon snack ready and was chatty about her day and genuinely eager to hear about mine.
After April 1978, everything went to shit. Lori started hanging out with other girls. My grandfather succumbed to a heart attack in his sleep. My father moved out. On a Sunday night, no less. And Mom began declaring, “It’s five o’clock somewhere!” as she poured herself a drink, usually around noontime.
This was not to say that Dad wasn’t there for me in those after years. He came around the house quite often. Often enough to make me think he was looking to reconcile with Mom. Typically, it was under the guise of having to fix something: the doorbell, the garage door, the dishwasher. Once in a while, he would bring me a book. (“You gotta read this, Suzie-Q, oops, Susan,” he would say, handing me a dog-eared paperback by Agatha Christie, Dick Francis, or P. D. James.)
I wasn’t exactly sure when Dad became obsessed with the Trudy Solomon case. But he did. If memory served me correctly, his frustration set in around November that year—when I saw less and less of him. The Cuttman was a summers-only resort, opening shortly before Passover in the spring and closing soon after the Jewish high holidays in the fall. By Thanksgiving, any remaining staff were long gone. Following up on leads and interviewing witnesses became increasingly difficult. But Dad was determined to find new avenues of inquiry. He would read and reread the case file, trying to tilt his theories sideways and backwards, hoping to dislodge a new piece of evidence he could pursue. This was also around the time my mother forbade him to talk to me about the case. She told him it was giving me nightmares (it was not). She told him the other detectives were starting to worry about him (they were not). She told him he should just move on, that this case just wasn’t worth the stress (which made him more determined to prove her wrong). If I had to surmise a reason for her insistence, I would venture it was because she had it in the back of her head that life would just go back to normal if Dad let go of the case and came home.
“Ready to take over?” Dad asked, exiting the highway. “I need to stretch and pee.”
BY THE time we checked into the hotel, we were too tired to even nurse one drink at the bar, so we headed straight to our rooms. As I nodded off to sleep I heard the familiar ding. I tried to ignore it, but curiosity won out. The bright light of the phone blinded me for a moment, but when my eyes adjusted, I saw a message notification.
Hi Suzie! How nice to hear from you. High school sure was not a good time for us, but hey, we’re adults now. If you want to know the truth, high school was awful for me. I did things I’m not proud of. But I’m not that person anymore. I saw your post about Trudy Solomon. I’m racking my brain trying to remember it. Something about a missing counselor? Meryl tells me that she told you I live in Venice, Ca. So beautiful out here. My husband and I adopted a child and she just had a baby of her own. Life’s been pretty good, typical ups and downs. Would love to hear what you’re up to (especially with the case!). If you’re up for a real chat my number is 310-555-2618. Cheers, Lori.
I blinked at the screen. My eyes were moist, but my palms were remarkably dry. Maybe, in times of scarcity, the body made triage decisions about where to deploy its moisture.
10
Monday, November 5, 2018
BEFORE MEETING Dad at the hotel’s breakfast buffet, I wrote to Lori letting her know I would call her in a few days. I figured I’d be pretty distracted these next two days, but I was also looking for an excuse to delay this reunion.
At nine forty-five we pulled into a visitors spot at McNair Hospital.
At ten o’clock the receptionist directed us to sit in the patient waiting area.
At five after ten we were ushered into Dr. Blanchard’s office, where two leather wingback chairs awaited us.
Dr. Jacqueline Blanchard was seated behind an antique mahogany desk, spine straight, fingers folded together. One-inch-long, fire-engine-red fingernails popped in contrast to her crisp white lab coat. Her Adam’s apple was quite pronounced. The doctor who sat across from us hadn’t always been a woman. I glanced at Dad, but saw no indication that he was cognizant of this fact.
The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon Page 6