by HN Wake
Here the Lowrance story turned feminine. The sole heir of the Lowrance fortune, Yvette Madeline Lowrance, pale blonde with refined features and perfectly big blue eyes, was the darling of the local press throughout her childhood. A skilled equestrian, she graduated from a local all-girls preparatory school and attended Princeton. In 1991, at the age of twenty-four, Yvette appeared in a press photo on the stairs of Gladwyne Episcopal Church arm in arm with her new groom and flanked by both parents. Her groom was a fellow Princeton graduate named Claude Van Buren. A year later, Henrietta (Hettie) Honor Van Buren was baptized. Set against Yvette’s beauty, the baby’s round head, small, narrow eyes, and chunky cheeks, was noticeably unremarkable.
When Herbert Lowrance passed in 1998, Claude took over Frontier Oil at the young age of thirty-one and moved his wife and daughter into Titus Hill. For a number of years, there was no mention in the press of the Van Burens. Hettie attended Baldwin School for Girls where she was an adequate tennis player and when she was accepted to Bryn Mawr College in the Bachelor of Science program with Cal Tech. Claude Van Buren sold Frontier Oil, moved Yvette into a New York City penthouse, and founded Rittenhouse Equity.
The glassy eyes of the dead birds stared down at Mila. How different would Mila’s life be if her family had been so illustrious and wealthy? In all probability, Mila would have done exactly what Hettie did—attend the finest schools, get a solid degree, get a low-stress museum job, and enjoy the better side of life. But that cushy life hadn’t protected Hettie. What could Hettie Van Buren have possibly done that had gotten her kidnapped and her boyfriend killed?
Mila’s fingers paused on the handle of the desk drawer. Snooping around someone’s desk for physical clues felt like crossing a line. She stood and paced the length of the dark lab past a green lampshade askew on a researcher’s table, a burned glass vial sitting neatly in a wooden stand, and a white business card spiked in a keyboard. Pausing, she stepped to the desk with the business card and leaned in close. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domini Walker, Special Agent. Mila’s skin puckered. It was Agent Cool Cucumber assigned to the kidnapping of Hettie that Mila followed through the museum. Domini Walker was no doubt a kidnapping specialist. Like the ones that were assigned to her brother’s case. If she helped find Miss Timid Hettie, would the agent help her open Jimmy’s cold case?
She should be home reading a Leonardo Padura novel in the ratty leather chair by the open window, but instead Mila spun on her heel, strode to Hettie’s desk, sat, and slid open the drawer.
17
In the bright light of the back room of the Port Morris building, Kelvin Pena held his hands over his head, fingers spread wide. The rap music thumped against Dom’s skull.
Aiming his gun at Pena’s head, Johns snarled, “You Kelvin Pena?”
The bald man at the table nodded mutely.
“You alone?”
Pena nodded again.
Johns motioned his gun to the boom box in front of Pena. “Turn off that music.”
Pena unplugged the huge radio and the room plunged into silence.
Johns looked around. “What is this?”
“Just goods, man. Just goods.” Pena’s voice was high-pitched and desperate.
They knew what it was. Hoodlums got hold of stolen goods and sold it on the black market for prices cheaper than in the stores. It was illegal, but it was low level. The poor didn’t have a lot of options. Dom hung her head. They had chased a goose. They lost precious hours tracking down Kelvin Pena and his fucking stolen goods while Hettie was still out there. Hours. They lost hours.
“Look man, just straight-up groceries.” Pena waved his arms. “Look, look, man. Detergent. Baby formula. Diapers. Just groceries, man.”
To relieve the tension in her legs and arms, Dom stepped to the near wall. As she pivoted back to the room, she glanced down the dark hallway. They were in a brightly lit room with one dark entrance and no windows. In law enforcement this had a name: a funnel trap. Rodriguez noticed her glance, turned, and disappeared back down the hallway.
She circled the perimeter and stopped in front of Pena and his plastic chair. “We got some questions. Put your hands down.”
Pena’s arms lowered.
“Where were you on Sunday?”
“This Sunday?”
“Yeah.”
“I was at my cousin’s wedding.” His head bobbed to confirm this as truth. “In Maryland. All weekend. Came back yesterday. Lots of witnesses. Stayed with my Auntie. She saw me all weekend.”
She tapped the Glock against her thigh. “You know Micah Zapata?”
Confusion crept across his face. “Sure.”
“He’s dead.”
Pena’s eyes widened. “What?”
She stepped in close and leaned into his face. “He was killed.”
He blinked and squeaked, “What?”
She bored into his eyes.
He swallowed. “Dead?”
She nodded.
“How?”
“He was shot.”
“Sunday?” His brow furrowed.
She nodded.
“I was in Maryland. Jesus Christ Almighty. Micah was my friend. I got nothing to do with this.”
“Yeah. Okay. Maybe. But do you know anything about it?”
“What? No! I dunno know nothing. Micah a good kid. I dunno know nothing.”
“You know anyone would want to come at him?”
“No. I dunno know…I dunno know nothing.”
“You spoke to him last month.”
He leaned away as if her words burned. “Yeah. Yeah. I did. But it was nothing.”
Again, she tapped the Glock to her thigh. “Oh yeah?”
He fluttered his hands. “Yeah, yeah. It was nothing.”
“What did you talk about?”
He glanced left over her shoulder, remembering. “I asked him for money. I want to expand my operations. I was asking him if he knew anybody with money.”
“Why were you doing that?”
“He’s all rich now. Got rich friends—” Pena clamped his mouth.
“And a rich girlfriend,” she said.
Pena nodded slowly. “Yeah. We all know that. His lady is minted.” He stretched ten fingers wide. “Listen, I got nothing to do with Micah’s … I got nothing to do with that. I asked the brother to help me out with some capital. He said no. That was it.”
“When he said no, what did you do?”
“I guess maybe I pushed a little? But he said no.”
“And?”
“I found the cash.”
“Where?”
“A friend I know wanted in.” He gulped. “I’m giving him a fifty-fifty cut. That’s it. End of story.”
Dom stepped back. “Tell me what you know about Micah Zapata.”
“We were friends from round the way. We hung out. Nothing too bad. Some drugs, you know, like everybody. He was smart. He got into college, left us behind. I get it. Smart guy, had a future, you know? More than most of us up in here. He never looked back. I’m telling you, Micah’s clean.” His face contorted in pain. “He was…”
Dom glanced at Johns and shook her head. Pena wasn’t involved. They were done here.
She turned and took long strides for the dark hallway, crunching over glass. From behind, Johns said, “I know where you live, Kelvin Pena. You want to never see me again, you never saw us tonight. Understood?”
“Sure, man. Dunno nothing. Never saw you.”
The outer room seemed darker with the blackened shadows crawling from the corners. Shards of glass in broken windows looked like pointed shark’s teeth. A newspaper fluttered with a ghost-like rattle. Through the front door, Rodriguez’s stood against the night, his silhouette stoic and brave.
Dom stepped into fresh air as her disappointment turned to anger. A fucking goose chase. Hettie was somewhere still alone and still terrified. Dom banked right and marched along the building into the darkness. She had made a mistak
e, had chosen the wrong direction of the investigation, and it had cost hours. A fucking goose chase that had cost hours.
Humiliation tore at her chest. An overturned aluminum trash can on the cement glinted in the moon’s bluish cast. Reaching the can, Dom arched her right foot back, swung it like a soccer player, and connected with metal. The can careened into the air, soared skyward, and landed with a crash. Her foot carried through air, useless and inept. Adrenaline surging in her veins ignited the rage. Her mistake had cost hours.
Dom spun to the wall and delivered a second full-powered kick against cinder blocks. The agony was immediate as pain exploded through her leg like a firecracker, ripping into the knee, thigh, and hip. She doubled over as vomit climbed to the lower depths of her throat. She spit a mouthful of vomit on the cement. She leaned over and cleared her throat, letting mucus drip from her lips. Hettie was alone, terrified, and in trouble.
Out of the gloom, Stewart Walker whispered, We all make mistakes, my Dom. The key is to stand back up.
As she breathed in deeply, the rage ebbed away. She stood. Her toe throbbed in agony. Time to find Hettie.
Johns and Rodriguez dropped her at the 52nd Precinct. They had exchanged few words on the ride into the Bronx. What was there to say? She used up their day as well. Now they had to get back to their own jobs.
“Thanks. I mean it,” she said as she stepped out the car.
Johns leaned out of the window. “It’s what we do, Agent. Mm-hmm. It’s our job. You don’t have to thank us.”
“Yeah, but you two were solid today. Thank you. I owe you.”
“Just find the girl. That will make us even.”
At Lancia, she slowly unholstered the Glock and locked it away in the trunk’s safe. She slid into the driver seat, closed the door against the noise of the city, and breathed in deeply of oil and gas. She gripped the wheel at the three and the nine o’clock positions, just as her father had taught her the first time at the track as he explained speed control and wheel rotation.
FBI Special Agent Domini Walker had wasted the precious first six hours of an investigation on the wrong line of pursuit. She had failed. She felt like a fraud. Fontaine should assign someone else to the case, a more experienced agent, someone who wouldn’t chase a tangent or get sidetracked by a lark. He should assign a real agent.
The darkness in the car felt heavy, and she let her head hang on her neck and stared at the rise and fall of her chest. Her toes were smashed, maybe broken. She needed to stop at the drugstore and buy Advil. Through a stream of unstructured thoughts, a calm descended and her father whispered, Mistakes are important, my Dom. You learn from them. She picked up her head, clenched her jaw. What had they learned from Kelvin Pena? That Micah Zapata was a good kid. That he was likely not involved in criminal activity. That maybe this case wasn’t about Micah Zapata’s dodgy past.
She clenched the wheel. Hettie was still out there, alone and terrified. Time to find Hettie.
Her phone rang.
“Walker,” she answered.
“Agent Walker?” It was a fearful female voice.
“Yes?”
“It’s Yvette Van Buren.”
“Mrs. Van Buren, yes?”
“I wonder if you could come by the apartment?”
“I’m on my way.” Dom turned the key in the ignition.
18
Under the wall of dead birds, Mila fingered the contents of Miss Timid Hettie’s desk drawer—notepads, pens, paper clips, and loose rubber bands. In the drawer’s pen tray, a small square music player rested next to an earplug cord knotted into a ball. She lifted the white slippery cord, unknotted it and, as if on autopilot, settled them in her ears and hit play. She recognized the haunting timbre of a famous female blues singer. With the blues in her ears, Mila skimmed the farthest depth of the drawer. Nothing. In the silence between songs, her nails scratched the bottom of the drawer for a hidden hatch. Nothing.
The opening chord of the next song burst in her ears, but it was the same impassioned song. Her fingers paused. Had the music player gotten stuck? She fiddled with the buttons on the player and fast forwarded through the song to the next spat of silence. The opening chord of the third song reverberated in her ears. It was the same song again. Hettie’s play list was a loop of the same haunting song, over and over. Who does that?
Mila slid the drawer shut, leaned back in the chair, and let the soulful voice wash over her. The melody and words were at once melancholy and uplifting, as if the singer, having finally been released from captivity, rediscovered the simple joy of freedom. Is Hettie sad? Does this story of breaking free resonate with her?
A shelf of books hovered over the desk. With the music filling her ears, Mila stood, and with a light touch, she traced up and down the spines of each book as she read their titles.
The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird's Egg
Ornithology
Lapwings, Loons and Lousy Jacks: The How and Why of Bird Names
A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names
ABA Checklist: Birds of the Continental United States and Canada, 7th ed.
Bird Brain: An exploration of Avian Intelligence
Collins Bird Guide
The Genius of Birds
A Sky Full of Birds
Feather Quest
Last of the Curlews
The final book was older. The cloth cover was worn, and the spine was severely cracked. Using one finger, Mila hooked the top edge and angled it out, letting it drop into her hand. The smoothness of the fabric felt like it had been a treasured book. Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth. She flipped open the first page and read the date. 1955. The forward read, “Mr. Bodsworth writes with plain, succinct evocation and beauty of the arctic autumn and the dwindling of the once enormous assemblies of curlews.”
The song in her ears began it’s fourth repeat. Hettie read books about the decline of a species and listened to melancholy songs on repeat. Perhaps Hettie Van Buren’s soul ran deeper than the rich-girl-with-a-nice-cushy-museum-job impression. Where were you, Hettie?
Maybe, just maybe, Mila could help the FBI find Hettie. And to return the favor, maybe the FBI would revisit the cold case of a young boy stolen from the street in broad daylight. Mila was good at chasing down clues, seeing connections, and identifying causal relationships. What if her research skills could significantly increase the odds of Hettie’s discovery?
She unplugged the earphones, settled the music player back in the drawer, and slid the drawer closed. At the bottom of the screen, the Facebook icon glowed. With a tap on the mouse, the landing page of Hettie’s Facebook account appeared. Mila sat back. Hettie had left her work computer logged into Facebook. She glanced over her shoulder at the white business card propped in a keyboard. Mila should be home with a novel in the chair by the window. But instead, she was in the dark ornithology department snooping into Hettie Van Buren’s life to try to help find the missing woman. She took a deep breath against the rising anxiety and turned back to the glow of the screen. She clicked into the Facebook account settings and changed the password. Later, she would log in as Hettie.
She stood, moved to the nearby desk, and snapped a photo of the FBI agent’s card. If she found anything of interest, she would call Agent Cool Cucumber. For the first time in a long time, the unpredictable felt exciting.
19
The maid’s eyes were puffy and red as she gestured Dom inside. Silk curtains were pulled tight against the night, and the golden glow of a lamp was the only light in the huge living room. Yvette Van Buren sat alone on the tan leather sofas with a large photo album on her lap, gazing into a distant darkness.
Dom approached softly. “Mrs. Van Buren, how are you doing?”
The graceful woman turned with dazed, disoriented eyes. “Agent Walker.”
A mother’s inability to protect their child must the worst type of terror. “Is that a photo album?” The leather of the armchair was cool against Dom’s jeans.
“Does it have photos of Hettie?”
“Yes,” Yvette said weakly.
“Do you want to show me?”
Yvette blinked and her gaze slowly settled on Dom. “Will it help?”
Dom nodded and moved to the sofa.
Yvette started at the beginning. From a glossy photo, a tiny Hettie, enveloped by white lace, stared up from a bassinet stroller with curious blue eyes. “This was her christening. She didn’t like our priest. She fussed when he held her.” Her finger traced Hettie’s chin.
The next photo was taken from the top of a hill, looking down on a rolling green lawn. A crowd of toddlers rambled between balloons and brightly colored games. Pastel napkins littered a long table and encircled a towering princess cake. “This was her second birthday.” Yvette’s hand smoothed the plastic over the photo. “She loved that cake. Ate two pieces. I thought she would be sick, but she wasn’t.”
The next photo was taken from the sidelines of a horse ring. Hettie—maybe four or five years old—sat astride a small gray pony, her face beaming from underneath a black riding helmet. “This is Pudgy. She loved him when she was young. After a while she lost interest in riding. I understand. One grows up.”
Further into the album, Yvette paused on the image of a teenaged Hettie in a pink lace dress. “Sweet Sixteen. They didn’t have that when I was growing up. But her friends, they all had them. She picked out that dress herself. We went to Barneys. It looked lovely on her.” In the photo, Hettie smiled with a mixture of pride and bashfulness. “Although it was quite bulky, perhaps not as slimming as it could have been.”
Dom eyed the photo closer. Having hit adolescence, Hettie had gained twenty pounds and the dress was not flattering. Shame her mother still remembered that, but all families had history—unresolved disagreements, sore spots, buried slights. “Where was this photo taken?”
“At the club in Philly.”
“Is that a golf club?”
“No, it’s the cricket club.” Yvette smiled wistfully before turning the page. “Oh, here she is graduating from Baldwin.” A slimmer Hettie stood with arms entwined with a friend on the enormous porch of an imposing brick building