The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon

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The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon Page 7

by Marcy McCreary


  After quick introductions, Dr. Blanchard reiterated what she told Dad on the phone. “As I mentioned, I’m happy to provide some information about Trudy Resnick, but I need to steer clear of her medical history.” Her voice was breathy and light, and much higher than I had imagined given her likely past.

  Dad nodded. “We understand.”

  “She was admitted on July 23, 2008, for extreme distress. I can’t go into more detail—doctor-patient confidentiality—but I can tell you it’s a good thing she sought help. She was accompanied by a woman who, as you can see here, signed her name on the admission paperwork.” Dr. Blanchard flipped around the open file and slid it toward Dad. “Martha Stuart.”

  “Martha Stewart? Like the cook on TV?” Dad asked, taking out his reading glasses.

  “Only she spelled it s-t-u-a-r-t.”

  He glanced down at the signature. “And what did this Martha Stuart look like?”

  “If memory serves me correctly, she was very attractive. And you can tell she had money. Expensive jewelry. Designer clothes. Carefully manicured nails.” Dr. Blanchard glanced quickly at her own carefully manicured nails and lowered them under the table. “Guessing late fifties, perhaps early sixties. But I’m not very good at discerning a woman’s age. Especially back then when I was a . . . younger.”

  “Do you know who she was? A relative? A friend?” Dad asked.

  “She seemed more like a relative than a friend, if you know what I mean. More like a caretaker than a buddy.”

  “Did she ever visit Trudy?”

  “No. In fact, soon after Trudy was admitted, we tried to contact this woman to get more information about Trudy, but the number she gave us was out of service. And the address she provided was nonexistent. The police tried to track her down as well, but they too were unsuccessful in figuring out who she was.”

  “When we spoke by phone last week, you mentioned something about a murder. Do you have reason to believe this woman or Trudy was involved?” I asked.

  “Trudy was in my care for four years, and not once did I think she was involved in anything nefarious. I mean she was in a bad way, but more like shock. And fear. Not guilt. Many witnesses placed her at a grocery store at the time of the murder. The police interviewed her a few times, but she was quite confused. We didn’t realize it at the time she was admitted, but she was in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s. Early-onset Alzheimer’s; Trudy was only fifty-seven at the time. As far as Martha Stuart, I have no idea if she had anything to do with the murder. We only spoke briefly during admission intake.”

  “Can you tell us about this murder?” Dad asked.

  “That I can. It was a pretty big story around here. Trudy’s husband was stabbed to death.”

  “Trudy’s husband?” I turned sideways and rested my hand on Dad’s arm to prevent him from reacting with an onslaught of exuberant profanity. I felt him grip the armrest of his chair and he casually nodded, signaling he got my message loud and clear.

  “Yes. Ed Resnick. Trudy found him dead on the floor in their kitchen when she returned from grocery shopping. Stabbed in the neck with a knife.”

  It was clear from his faraway stare that Dad was processing this information. And my mind was going into overdrive. We thought she (or the person who kidnapped her) changed her name to Resnick to avoid being found. But it sounded like she had remarried. Without first divorcing Ben. Or maybe she just took his name to give the appearance of marriage. Perhaps this was a case of Stockholm syndrome—maybe Ed Resnick kidnapped her and she developed an affection for him as a way to survive. Or maybe she was kidnapped by someone else, got away, and met Ed. But then why wouldn’t she have gone to the police? So many theories were competing in my head.

  “I have a newspaper clipping of the story in her file.” Dr. Blanchard shuffled through a few papers and pulled out a Boston Globe article dated Monday, July 21, 2008—the day after the murder. A picture of Ed Resnick appeared below the headline “Waltham Man Murdered in His Apartment.”

  I pulled out my phone, hit the Photos icon, and held it up to the newspaper. “Well, I’ll be damned.” I angled the photo toward Dad.

  “Holy . . .” Dad bit his lower lip. “Cannoli. I guess Mustache Man does exist.”

  “Did exist, Dad. Did exist.”

  DETECTIVE JOHN Flannery led us to an interrogation room through a maze of desks, haphazardly arranged on the second floor of the two-story Waltham Police Department building. Just an hour earlier, Dad had called the station to inquire about the Ed Resnick murder. He was patched through to Detective Flannery, who introduced himself as the head of the homicide unit’s Unsolved Case Squad.

  “The building is undergoing some renovation and we’re short on private office space at the moment,” Detective Flannery explained as we entered the small, windowless room.

  “No need to apologize,” I assured him. “We know what that’s like.”

  Dad recounted the story of Trudy Solomon and how we were looking to piece together how she’d spent her missing years. “We want to determine if she was the victim of criminal acts or has knowledge of criminal acts committed by others.”

  Flannery listened with his head bobbing slightly to the right, as though an invisible string was tugging his ear toward his shoulder. For a man in his fifties, his skin was quite smooth and rather pink, like Silly Putty. The changes in his expressions were hardly discernible, a slight eyebrow lift, a quick purse of the lips, an upward twitch of his nose that made his nostrils look cavernous—each understated movement linked to a revelation in Dad’s story.

  Then it was Detective Flannery’s turn to talk. “First things first, Trudy was not Ed Resnick’s wife. The lead detective on the case—Reginald Masters—found no marriage certificate to back that assertion. It appears Trudy simply took Ed’s last name. The Waltham lease listed a reference—a landlord who owned a couple of buildings in Allston. Detective Masters tracked down the landlord and, as you can see from a copy of that earlier lease, they also signed as Ed Resnick and Trudy Resnick. Some landlords back then were funny about renting to unmarried couples—which might explain why they did that. Anyhow, they moved into the Allston apartment on February 1, 1990 and then moved to the Waltham apartment in 1995. He found nothing predating this Allston lease.”

  In a burst of excitement, Dad slapped his hands against his thighs. “Jesus . . . sorry, continue,” he said.

  “According to Detective Master’s report, Resnick was killed sometime between one and two-thirty in the afternoon, while Trudy was out shopping at a nearby supermarket. She also stopped at a drugstore to pick up a prescription. An asthma inhaler. His. Not hers. When she entered the apartment she screamed, alarming her next-door neighbor, who called the police. Based on the trajectory of the stab wound, Resnick was stabbed in the neck by someone who was three-to-four inches shorter than he was, so . . . five seven or five eight.” He slid a piece of paper across the desk. “It’s in that coroner’s report. According to Trudy’s statement, a knife was missing from the kitchen. She said she was certain of this because it was housed in one of those wood multi-knife holders. But it was never recovered, leading Detective Masters to believe this was a spur-of-the-moment attack, not premeditation. But he couldn’t say for sure. There’s also the possibility of—”

  “A robbery gone wrong? Was anything taken?” Dad asked.

  Detective Flannery tilted his head forward and peered over his glasses. A subtle scolding gesture. Clearly, he was not accustomed to being interrupted.

  “The place was sparsely furnished, and the few items of value—his watch, a camera, his wallet—were all in the apartment. He was a plumber and general fix-it guy . . . had an expensive set of tools sitting in the front hallway. And there was some evidence to suggest he was not just some random victim. When Detective Masters pulled Resnick’s bank records, he discovered monthly cash deposits of two thousand dollars, each dating back to 1995, a good thirteen years before his murder. So, I’m thinking some kind of extortion s
cheme. Or skimming. When he questioned Trudy about it, she claimed not to know anything about it.”

  “Can we speak to Detective Masters?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately, he died a couple of years ago.” Detective Flannery opened another file that lay on his desk. “There’s one more thing that may, or may not, be related. The police were called to Resnick’s apartment a year earlier, in 2007, by a neighbor who heard arguing and reported it as a domestic dispute.” He looked down at the file. “The neighbor’s name was Cynthia Lambert. But the officer responding to the call found two men in a heated argument. One was Resnick, the other—” He glanced down at his file again searching for the name. “Seems this other guy had a solid alibi for the murder, though. Masters tracked him down and questioned him. Says here he was on an airplane headed to Las Vegas for an automobile dealers conference. His name . . . oh here it is . . . Scott Roth.”

  CYNTHIA LAMBERT was easy to track down. The police report noted she was a student at Brandeis University at the time of the domestic-dispute call. A quick check on LinkedIn, searching both Cynthia Lambert and Brandeis University yielded Cynthia Lambert-Alcott working at an ad agency in Boston. Social-media sites, digital fingerprints, forensic DNA, CCTV cameras . . . tools Dad could only dream of when he was working cases back in his day.

  She agreed to speak to us, but we didn’t have enough time to meet in person and get on the road by two o’clock, so we decided to FaceTime with her from the confines of my car. Cynthia was backlit by the late-afternoon sunlight pouring through her office window—her haloed head filled the screen of Dad’s iPhone. As I merged onto the Mass Turnpike, Dad summarized the Trudy Solomon and Ed Resnick cases to her and our reason for wanting to get in touch with her.

  “Wow! I’m not sure how much help I can be,” she said, her voice chipper and eager, clearly excited to assist in a police investigation.

  “Sometimes witnesses don’t know what is, or isn’t, helpful. Even a small detail can help our investigation. For instance, did you hear what they were arguing about?

  “No. It was muffled, but loud. I thought it was Trudy and Ed.”

  “Did Trudy and Ed fight often?”

  “Not often, but Ed had a short temper and he could rip into her. Sometimes she came over to my place while he cooled down. She would say it was nothing. That he was all bark and no bite. Just needed to let off steam.”

  “So if fighting was not that unusual, why did you call the cops?”

  “Well, it sounded worse than usual. But I guess that’s because it was actually two guys and Trudy yelling at each other. Which surprised me because they never had anyone over.”

  “See, that’s an important detail. It tells me they were reclusive. Kept to themselves. Kept a low profile,” Dad told her.

  “Interesting. Yes, I would said that was true about them. If I can make another observation . . . I got the sense he was protecting her, not controlling her.”

  “By any chance, did you see the other guy?” Dad asked, likely wanting to confirm that the person who claimed to be Scott Roth actually was Scott Roth.

  “Well, I lingered outside my apartment. I was curious. But I also wanted to make sure that Trudy was okay. I got a look at him when he left the apartment, which was about five minutes after the cops left.”

  "Can you describe him?” Dad asked impatiently.

  “Um. I think so. The guy looked to be in his midforties. But it was hard to tell because he had a severe receding hairline. Curly hair, but because he had lost so much of it on top, he had that Bozo the Clown thing going on. He was tall, but not towering. Kinda good-looking. Even with the bad hair. He was dark. Not black, mind you. Just dark hair, dark eyes, tan complexion.”

  “Hold on one sec. Gonna text you a picture,” Dad said.

  After a few minutes of silence she replied, “Yup, that’s the guy.”

  Dad fist-pumped the air. “Is there anything else you could think of that might be helpful. Anything you heard or saw?”

  “Like I said, after the police left, they were all more civil to each other. When they parted ways, the guy said, ‘You should report him,’ and Ed said something like, ‘Not going to happen. I need the money.’ When I asked Trudy about that later, she said I must have misheard. I never gave it another thought. Well, not until you sent me that message on LinkedIn.”

  “How come you didn’t report this to the police?”

  “Why would I? This conversation happened after the police left. Besides, it never occurred to me that it was important. Just two guys having a disagreement over money. Wait. Do you think this balding guy had something to do with Ed’s murder?”

  Trudy

  “Good afternoon, Trudy,” Dr. Meadows said.

  Trudy looked around the office. This reminded her of something. Ah, yes. That lovely doctor Jack. Jack Blanchard! “I remembered something,” Trudy said to Dr. Meadows, tipping her head to one side.

  “Wonderful.”

  “He had lovely hands.” She thought about those hands: long and lean. He waved them around like a magician.

  “Martha left me with Jack.” She smiled because she remembered to call her Martha, just like she told her to do. “Martha said I can keep the money if I keep a secret.”

  “What secret?” Dr. Meadows asked gently.

  “About Ed. He’s dead.” She sucked in her lips and pressed them tight against each other. Think. Think. The past felt fuzzy again. Names, dates, places disappearing slowly, like an aging Polaroid—the once vibrant colors now muted and hazy. “Ed wanted the money. He kept asking for the money. Now he’s dead.”

  “Ed who, Trudy?”

  Trudy shook her head. “Ed?”

  11

  Tuesday, November 6, 2018

  DAD AND I met in the breakfast lounge of the Day’s Inn in Marine Park, which, according to Google Maps, was a ten-minute drive to Sandra Leer’s house in Mill Basin.

  “Good morning, Dad.” We thought about sharing a room to save some money, but decided that having alone time during this road trip was worth the extra ninety-six dollars.

  “Oh, I forgot to ask you . . .” Dad began as he poured milk over his Cheerios. “Dr. Blanchard. A man, right?”

  “Well, actually a woman. Although, yes, I think she once was a man.”

  “Like Tootsie?”

  Well, at least he hadn’t lost his observational skills. “No, Dad. Not like Tootsie.”

  He knitted his brow. “Oh! I get it. Like Bruce Jenner?”

  “Ding. Ding. Ding,” I said as I tapped my nose three times. “Hey, some good news on the witnesses front. Last night I heard from three people who responded to my message on the Summers at the Cuttman Facebook page. They claim to have information we might find helpful. I’ll set up calls with them when we get back home.”

  “Man, this is really coming together, Susan.” Dad picked up his bowl of Cheerios and downed the last drop of milk. “Let's go!"

  “MY PARENTS bought this house in the midsixties for fifteen thousand dollars,” Sandra Leer told us. “I’m putting it on the market next week. Guess how much?” Before we could venture a guess, she answered her question. “Seven hundred thousand. Can you believe that? This little house with a postage-stamp backyard going for three quarters of a million dollars. I told them to sell this house years ago. Glad they didn’t listen to me.”

  I looked around at what seven hundred thousand got you in this part of Brooklyn. A seventeen-hundred-square-foot semi-attached house on a twenty-one-hundred-square-foot lot. Three small bedrooms, one and a half baths, a living room, eat-in kitchen (no dining room), and finished basement. Probably not mentioned in the listing: a shared driveway with your neighbor. That was bound to lead to some interesting turf disputes.

  “It’s the neighborhood that’s driving up the price. If you drive a few blocks further in, you’ll see the ornate McMansions. The real-estate agent calls the area very desirable,” Sandra said, rolling her eyes.

  “My partner and I interviewed
Trudy’s neighbors that summer,” Dad said. “But I don’t have you or your parents on the list of people we spoke to.”

  “Trudy lived a few blocks over, so we weren’t exactly neighbors. I don’t think her neighbors would even know me. We usually hung out here, at my house. She was embarrassed to have friends over. Her mom was something of a pack rat. Y’know, a hoarder.” She air-quoted hoarder.

  “So what can you tell us about Trudy?” I asked, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand.

  “Oh yes. Of course. Trudy and I were friends in high school. James Madison High. Fun fact—we were two years behind Chuck Schumer.”

  “The senator?” Dad asked.

  “Yes. We weren’t friends with him, but I remember Trudy had a crush on him. Wouldn’t that have been something if she’d dated a future U.S. senator? But neither of us were dating material back then. A couple of plain Janes. We pretty much kept to ourselves. I wouldn’t say we were loners, but we were lonely. She tended to keep to herself, so she wasn’t invited to any parties, nor did she join any clubs or activities. I broke out of my shell in college, but she didn’t want to go. She struggled in school. If you read her letters, you’ll see why.”

  “Are these the letters?” I asked, pointing to a short stack of papers in the middle of the table.

  “Yes. My unprofessional diagnosis is dyslexia. Although back then, before anyone had any real understanding of learning disabilities, she just figured she was dumb.” Sandra cast her eyes down to the table covered with memorabilia. “Anyway, my mother passed away two months ago, leaving this house to my brother and me. Neither of us wanted to move back here or manage it as a rental property, hence the For Sale sign. We’ve been taking turns going through old stuff, tossing what we don’t want to keep, donating the rest. In some way it’s been an interesting trip down memory lane. My mother kept photo albums, diaries, letters, art projects, school records.”

 

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