The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon

by Marcy McCreary

  “Chuck tells me you have questions about Sal Pandelo.” I was expecting a gravelly voice to match her weather-beaten appearance, but her voice was melodious and silky.

  “How well did you know him?” Ray asked.

  “Well enough. We were neighbors for thirty-some years. I knew he was in trouble with the law. He said as much. But he never told me why, and I never asked. Is that why you’re here now?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Marty replied. “We have reason to believe he was involved in a murder and we’re trying to find the person who might have hired him to, uh, pull the trigger.”

  Rose lifted her hand to her heart. “Oh my. A murder? That doesn’t sound like Sal. Always friendly . . . and helpful. Big guy, yes, but wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Did he have any visitors?”

  “He pretty much kept to himself. I don’t recall seeing a lot of comings and goings. Just his sister. Who is a nun. Sister Miriam. The cloistered nuns at the convent make soap, candles, hand and face creams, even honey. She’d come by and drop stuff off for him.” She paused, then, with a wry smile, added, “I’m pretty sure she is not the culprit you’re looking for.”

  “I’d like to show you some pictures, if you don’t mind. Could help jog your memory.”

  Ray opened a manila folder and, one by one, showed Rose the photographs. Lenny. Ben. Rachel. Stanley. Scott. Ed. She shook her head when shown each photograph. Trudy. She blinked and furrowed her brow.

  “Yes. Yes! She once came around here.”

  “You sure?” Marty asked.

  “Pretty sure. But it was a long, long time ago. Early nineties, I think.” She paused. “No, it was summer of ninety-five. I remember because it was right after my husband passed away. Sal introduced her as someone he used to work with. But I can’t remember her name.”

  “Her name is Trudy. And you’re sure she wasn’t with this man?” Ray showed her the picture of Ed again.

  “No. She was definitely alone.”

  “I WOULD say that was fairly unsuccessful,” Ray lamented when we were back in the car. “I mean, it was a long shot that the guy who hired Panda would just show up on his doorstep, let alone that his neighbors would witness it.”

  “I think Trudy showing up is an interesting tidbit of info,” I said. “Don’t you think it’s strange?”

  “Maybe she was passing through, decided to say hello. Lenny claimed they got along well,” Marty said. “There, on the right, that’s the diner Chuck mentioned.”

  “She said 1995,” I said.

  “So?” Marty said.

  “That’s the year money started showing up in Ed’s bank account.”

  “So?” Marty repeated.

  “So, weird coincidence, wouldn’t you say? She just happens to visit Panda in ninety-five, seventeen years after disappearing from the area, and in that same year she and Ed start receiving money, possibly in a blackmail scheme . . .which, by the way, is how Renee got herself killed.”

  “Only problem with that theory is Trudy wasn’t afraid of him. She went to see him by herself, without Ed,” Marty countered.

  During lunch, Ray got a call from the nun he had spoken to the day before. The nun told Ray she’d arranged a half-hour meeting with Sister Miriam at two o’clock. She also informed Ray that the only reason we were granted permission was because Sister Miriam insisted she speak with us.

  “Insisted,” Ray said. “That’s a good sign, right?”

  WE WERE met by a young nun who introduced herself as Sister Cecelia. Early thirties was my guesstimate. Her habit, white and knee-length, was partially covered by a sleeveless black cardigan, the bottom button secured around her hips. Her hair was hidden under a simple white veil with black trim, no coif or wimple. Her face was bright and taut, with a smattering of freckles on her cheeks. She led us down a wood-paneled hallway to a library—a spacious rectangular room with five-foot-high bookshelves running along the perimeter. A couple of filing cabinets were wedged between them, interrupting the continuous flow of books. There were four long tables and four computer desks in the center of the room. On the far side of the library, sunlight spilled in through four side-by-side windows, bathing the evenly spaced potted plants atop the bookshelves.

  “Sister Miriam will be down shortly,” Sister Cecelia said. “I must tend to other matters.”

  Ray and Marty sat at the table closest to the door. Marty leaned back and closed his eyes. Ray planted his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands. I wandered around the back of the room near the row of plants and peered out the window at what I assumed was the nun’s dormitory across the grassy quad. Leafless maple trees lined a brick pathway between the library and the nuns’ quarters. Two tall cypress bushes flanked the wooden door of the dormitory like a pair of green-uniformed sentries. I glanced back over my shoulder at Ray. He hadn’t moved a muscle. Marty’s eyes were still closed. Perhaps the combination of convent and library suppressed our desire to chat. The setting had a way of demanding reticence.

  “Hello,” Sister Miriam said. Our heads snapped around in unison. “Hope you weren’t waiting too long.”

  “Not at all,” Ray said, now standing.

  Marty pulled out a chair for Sister Miriam. I took the chair next to her. Ray and Marty sat across from us. Like Sister Cecelia, Sister Miriam’s skin was remarkably smooth and luminous for a woman well into her sixties. Is this a nun thing—a life free of stress and everyday worries? Or the beauty products they produce? I didn’t see much of a family resemblance. Sister Miriam’s skin was olive toned, Panda had been pasty white. Sister Miriam was thin and wiry. Panda had been heavyset and lumbering. Sister Miriam had squinty eyes, set close above a delicate nose. Panda had looked through saucer-shaped eyes looming over a bulbous nose. Perhaps different fathers.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” Sister Miriam said earnestly. “I knew sooner or later that my brother’s past would catch up to him. Right before his death, he confessed to me. Told me he killed a woman decades ago. He thought about turning himself in, but with the pancreatic cancer he believed his punishment was being doled out by a higher court.”

  “We’ve been questioning someone named Lenny Berman about the murder,” Ray said. “Claims you contacted him soon after your brother died. Said you offered him your brother’s journals, and that you were in possession of his gun. Is that right?”

  “That’s all correct. Sal asked me to contact Lenny Berman. Told me he was a good friend. And to apologize for what he did.”

  “Do you know what he meant by that?” I asked.

  “Not really. Sal did some bad things back in the day. I figured Lenny would know.”

  “We’re also trying to determine if this case is tied to another unsolved murder,” Ray said. “Do you still have the journals? There might be something in there to help us connect any dots.”

  “I am confident my brother confessed all his sins to me and he never mentioned another murder. But I have never read the journals, nor do I have a reason to keep them. Or the gun, of course. They’re yours if you want them.”

  “You still have the gun?” I said. The tip of Ray’s shoe gently brushed my shin.

  “It’s with the journals in a storage unit.” She glanced around, then whispered, “A few of my old possessions are in there as well. It was hard to part with everything.”

  “Would it be possible to access this storage unit today?” Ray asked.

  “It’s not exactly my unit. One of Sal’s neighbors graciously offered up some of his space. A Mr. Dwayne Mayfield. I told him that if the police ever come looking to retrieve Sal’s things, he should comply.”

  Ray opened his folder and dealt the photographs on the table as though he was a playing a hand of Texas Hold’em. “Do you know if any of these people visited Sal since he moved here?”

  Sister Miriam scanned the photos. “This is Lenny, right? Sal showed me a picture he had of the two of them. But no, I’ve never seen him here in person.” She tapped her finger on t
he newspaper clipping. “Stanley and Rachel Roth. Can’t imagine why they would visit Sal.” She pushed the clipping aside. “I don’t know him,” she said, pointing to the photograph of Ed. She smiled when she eyed the next picture. “That’s Trudy. I met her when I worked at the Cuttman Hotel as a maid in the early seventies. Nice girl. But meek. She once came to visit. Years and years ago.” She looked at the last picture. “I believe this is Ben Solomon. He headed up housekeeping. Come to think of it, I think he dated Trudy. I’ve never seen him around here.”

  “She ended up marrying him,” I said.

  “Really? She didn’t mention that.”

  “I didn’t realize you worked at the Cuttman,” Ray said.

  “Before my calling I did a lot of things. I left the Catskills in seventy-four and entered the monastery in seventy-five.”

  “What was the nature of Trudy’s visit?” Marty asked.

  “Let me think a sec.” Sister Miriam rubbed her temples, forming circles with the tips of her fingers. “She went to visit Sal, and afterward she came to see me. We spoke for a while, really just reminisced about the people we used to know. Just a friendly visit, I recall.” Sister Miriam glanced at the newspaper clipping. “I think we chatted about the Roths, what it was like to work for them. But honestly, it was so long ago, I can’t remember exactly what we talked about.”

  “How was it . . . working for the Roths?” I asked.

  Sister Miriam shrugged. “Rachel was nice enough. Stanley a bit of a . . . you-know-what.”

  “Yeah. We know what,” Marty said, winking.

  “I think we can all agree with your ASS-essment of Stanley,” I deadpanned.

  Sister Miriam laughed. "Good one."

  Ray looked up at the clock on the wall. “Well, thank you for your time, Sister.”

  “One last question,” I said. “Is the gift shop open?”

  THE SUPER buzzed us in when we returned to the apartment building. This time he was less cordial, his body language signaling we had our one chance to disturb his residents and now we were taking advantage of his generosity.

  “What makes you think he’s going to talk to you this time around?” Chuck asked.

  “Sal’s sister told us to tell him that she sent us. Said he’ll be more amenable if he knows that.”

  Chuck knocked on Mr. Mayfield’s door. The door opened with the chain engaged.

  “I told you I wasn’t talking to nobody.” He started to close the door.

  “Sister Miriam sent us,” Ray said into the one-inch space. “She would like us to retrieve some of her items from your storage unit on South Road. She tells me you’ve got the key.”

  “Yeah? She said that? Chuck, is that right?”

  “That’s right, Dwayne. They just came from the convent. Why don’t you talk to them like you said you would?”

  The door closed all the way. “Mr. Mayfield,” Ray implored. “We would really—”

  The business end of the liberated chain scraped against the door. Dwayne Mayfield opened the door slowly and stepped back.

  “You got five minutes of my time. But just one of you. You,” Dwayne said, pointing to Ray. “Just you. I don’t want a whole lot of strangers in my place.”

  BY FLASHLIGHT, Marty and I took turns reading out loud from Panda’s journals while Ray drove. Two of the four journals weren’t writings. They were filled with intricately detailed pencil drawings—buildings, portraits, animals, landscapes, even ordinary objects like silverware and teacups. Clearly, he had talent. The other two journals were confessional in nature: a man seeking redemption, unburdening himself of a lifetime of crimes and misdemeanors. The passage about Renee Carter’s murder exonerated Lenny, assuming LB stood for Leonard Berman. As for who put him up to the murder, he referred to a DR. A doctor, perhaps? It’s not out of the realm of possibility that a gynecologist was involved in this chicanery—someone who knows who’s pregnant and in need of “private" services. I made a mental note to ask Clara Cole if she knew of any unethical gynos working at the hospital back in the seventies.

  Needed money bad to pay off gambling debts. So when DR dangled this job in front of me, I took it. Wasn’t my usual thing, but I was desperate. Got LB to come along for ride. He knows RC. He can sweet talk her. He didn’t know I had other plans should she disobey. I didn’t tell him about DR. The less he knows the better. I was supposed to put the scare in her. Thought we could play good crook bad crook. But she wanted more money or she would expose the truth about the baby. I told her I don’t know nothing about that. I just went there to smooth things over. Offer her a one-time payment. Tell her to leave town with the kid. She did the calculation in her head and said not enough. She was right about that, but I would have taken it. It was something to live on for a good while. We could’ve talked her into it. I know we could’ve. LB was getting somewhere with her. But she was so agitated which made Dolly start barking. She told me to shut the dog up. It would wake up the baby. She grabbed Dolly and started choking her. She saw the gun in my hand but she went for Dolly anyway. She threw me off balance. It all happened so fast. The gun went off and she was dead. Shot in the side of the face. Why didn’t she just take the money? She wasn’t cooperating. Had to do what I was paid to do. Poor LB. Totally freaked out. He needed a fix right then and there. Then we hear the baby crying. LB said he got a plan. Said he knows someone who’s looking to adopt a kid. Then we can report back to DR that we convinced her to leave town. No one the wiser. We buried RC’s body along the highway. No word of it in the paper. No word about the boy. It was like no one cared. No one gave a shit about her or the baby. We said a prayer at her roadside grave. LB wanted to bury her with a cross so he tied string around two sticks and laid it next to her. We did our best to make it a decent and respectful burial.

  We found one entry related to Trudy Solomon.

  When TS disappeared the next summer, I wondered if what happened to RC happened to her. Maybe DR was involved in that too but got someone else to pull the trigger. No way I was going to do that again. But then she shows up at my apartment. Very much alive! Tells me she got my address from a friend of a friend. Wants to know where SR lives. I ask why, but she won’t tell me about it. Besides, how would I know where SR lives? I don’t even know where DR lives. I like TS. I wish her well. I hope she finds SR. Everyone has to do what they have to do. Who am I to judge?

  Ray pulled into the police station parking lot at eight o’clock. I gathered up the four journals. Marty reached down between his legs and grabbed the shoebox containing the gun that allegedly killed Renee. While they reported into Eldridge, I phoned Dad and filled him in on what we discovered.

  “DR and SR. Probably the fucking Roth brothers,” Dad said. “Stanley and David.”

  “Holy shit. Forgot about him. Younger, right?”

  “Yeah. Younger. He was one of them ambulance-chasing lawyers. Also did some hotel legal work for Stanley. I don’t know who was the bigger asshole. Him or Stanley.”

  Whatever happened to David?”

  “After the hotel was sold, he went to work at Monticello Raceway,” Dad said. “He had something to do with that Mohawk Indian deal to convert the raceway into a gambling casino. He was killed in a car accident several years ago. Alcohol level through the roof.”

  I was trying to wrap my head around how these two cases might be related. Renee was killed in 1977 for trying to extort money from someone with the initials DR, presumably David Roth. Was David involved in Renee’s baby-brokering shenanigans? Lenny mentioned she was in cahoots with a lawyer friend, and David was a lawyer. Did David turn on her? It sounded like she threatened to expose their little enterprise. Then a dozen years later Trudy shows up at Panda’s apartment wanting to know where either Stanley Roth or Scott Roth lived. Why seek out Stanley? Perhaps he was also involved in this baby business, and Trudy knew that. That might explain why Stanley threatened Trudy in the nightclub. But now she had Ed to protect her, and perhaps he convinced Trudy the time was right to put
the squeeze on Stanley. It’s a good theory, I thought, but doesn’t hold water if Trudy was actually inquiring about Scott, not Stanley.

  “When exactly did Trudy go to see Panda?” Dad asked.

  “One of his neighbors is fairly confident it was ninety-five. Which, if you recall, is the same year two grand started flowing into Ed’s bank. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

  “Hmm. Do you recall our conversation with that hotel guest, Michael Coleman?”

  “The guy who said that Scott thought his dad had something to do with Trudy’s disappearance?”

  “Yeah, him. But something else he said. That’s the year the Roths sold the hotel and the family came into a shitload of cash. Perhaps they were ripe for the picking. If Ed and Trudy had something on Stanley . . . or Scott . . . and they got wind of the fact that they were rolling in dough—”

  “It would be nice to know if Stanley was in Boston around the time of Ed’s murder. We know Rachel, aka Martha Stuart, was.”

  “But why kill Ed and not Trudy?”

  “Waltham police didn’t think the murder was premeditated. The knife that was used to stab Ed was from the apartment. Perhaps Ed was murdered in the heat of the moment. An argument that got out of hand.”

  “So, with Ed out of the picture, and Trudy in a mental hospital, no more payments. SR is off the hook.”