by HN Wake
“Yeah. A bully. My brother is like that. And I am pretty sure Mr. Van Buren is like that. I mean, I don’t want to say it, but he’s kinda an asshole.”
This confirmed Dom’s suspicions. “Any physical bullying?”
Madeline quickly shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Nothing I’ve ever seen. Nothing Hettie ever told me. And to be honest, she would have told me. It’s just, she’s not a huge fan of them. They think they own the world. They don’t care about anything of any depth. Just super entitled, I guess.”
During the visits to the Central Park apartment, the father was definitely bullish and domineering, and Yvette was subdued. Was there discord with the mother too? “And Hettie’s mom?”
“She’s okay, I guess. They aren’t super close.”
Interesting. That’s not what Yvette told her. “As in they don’t spend a lot of time together?”
“As in, they don’t talk about stuff. It’s a pretty … distant relationship.
“Got it.” Dom sipped the coffee. “Anything else about the family?”
“I mean, they do love her, just in their own way, I’m sure. I mean, it’s just that they had fights about stuff, and then Hettie would take a break from them.”
“Was Hettie taking a break from them currently?”
“Yes.” Madeline nodded.
Funny that neither Claude nor Yvette ever mentioned this break, a serious omission when your daughter had been kidnapped. “How long was this recent break?”
“A few months?”
“More like two, or more like six?”
“More like three?” She nodded. “Yeah, it was around July fourth.”
Under the surface of the frozen lake, the water turned a whole lot murkier. What happened three months ago? Was there some kind of provocation for the fight between them? Was the Sunday shopping date with Yvette an olive branch between the mother and daughter? “Do you know if Hettie saw her mother recently?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Hettie tell you about any trips she had taken recently?”
Madeline glanced away. “What do you mean?”
Was that avoidance? “Did she travel anywhere recently?”
“Do you think that’s important?” Madeline picked at her cuticles.
“Yes,” Dom said curtly.
Madeline glanced up, eyes wide and lips quivering. “Oh.”
“What do you know, Madeline?”
Madeline swallowed. “She and Micah went to Honduras.”
“It was a secret?”
“Yes. She told me that I was the only one who knew, and nobody else could know.”
“Why was it a secret?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Tell me what you know about the trip.”
“Not much. I assumed it was research on some rare birds that she didn’t want anyone else to know about. Like maybe she had a scoop or something—for an ornithologists—you know, like a work scoop. She and Micah went for a week or something.”
The trip was work-related? “What else did she tell you about this trip?”
“Uh, I didn’t see her right away. When I did, she said they had a good time.”
“That’s it?”
Madeline’s face froze, and her eyes glanced left as she was remembered the conversation. “Yeah, you know … she did act a bit different after they got back.”
“How different?
“Maybe quieter?”
Had something happened on the trip? “But she didn’t tell you anything that stood out?”
“No. Oh, God, do you think something happened while they were in Honduras? Something that has to do with all this now?”
“It’s a possibility.” Dom watched her closely.
“Micah and his family are from Honduras. Micah told me about his brother. That the brother is in gangs and drugs and whatever. That he’s been to jail. For drugs.”
Dom nodded.
“Oh, God. Do you think Hettie has gotten wrapped up in that? In Honduras?”
“We have no proof of that. But is there anything else you can tell me about their trip?”
“Oh, God. No. I don’t know anything.” Madeline’s sat up. “Wait! When she got back she sent me pictures from the trip. Will that help?”
“Absolutely.”
Madeline picked up a cell phone off the coffee table, tapped the screen, and flipped through messages. With a sad smile she paused to read one before her face broke and she sobbed. “Oh, God. Hettie.”
These were the worst moments. Dom waited, head bowed.
Madeline recovered and handed the phone to Dom. “Scroll down. There are five photos.”
Dom set her coffee mug on the bean. The first photo was a selfie of Hettie and Micah laughing outside in the sun with a huge sign above their heads that read Toncontín International Airport. The second was of Micah in a jeep, the windows down, the cityscape out the window, his dark hair blowing in the wind and his smile wide and white. In the third, the two stood before a stark white modern building set against a green jungle. The photographer was standing at a distance. The fourth photo was a landscape, a lake with mountains in the distance. The final fifth photo was of a dry, dusty, and empty field with a similar mountain range in the background.
Dom looked up, “Can I send these to myself, to make a copy?”
“Of course!”
As Dom forwarded the photos to herself, a ray of morning sunlight shifted across the room. It was officially the third day Hettie was missing.
Dom rose. “I’ll find her, Madeline. I’ll bring her home.”
Madeline’s lips trembled as she nodded.
“Stay strong. Hettie’s going to need you when she gets back.”
24
Mila’s favorite place in the museum was the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life where overhead a 94-foot-long, 21,000-pound fiberglass model of a female blue whale rode a downward deep ocean current. During a recent gala, spotlights had saturated the room in magical shimmering azure, transporting the guests thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface. Today Mila sat on a bench under the whale’s tail fin and waited out the break forced upon her by the 100-year-old librarian. She tested her memory of various plaques. Life had first emerged over 3.5 billion years ago, oceans held 96 percent of all water, less than 5 percent of the deep ocean had been explored, killer whales were actually dolphins. After thirty minutes, she made her way back to the library, passed the visitors researching in the main room, moved quietly down an aisle between stuffed shelves, and unlocked a slatted wood door. Inside, a tiny room—really, more like a large closet—was jammed with two rolling book carts and a large battered desk with a pale green rotary phone and a Dell computer. A slim window overlooked the museum grounds along Columbus Avenue. The room had been the interns’ office for over fifty years.
Mila slid herself to the desk and pulled up Miss Timid Hettie’s Facebook account. Last night she spent two hours on the page. It was a time-consuming process, and she didn’t learned much. Hettie had 102 friends, which was average for a socially normal girl. But, to be fair, Mila didn’t have a Facebook account or any kind of reference point. She was not a very social girl. Instead, she kept her head down, focused on studying, and spent hours in the NYU libraries. While other kids were in the bars, she and her friend Roz made pizzas and watched old movies. Sometimes at night they walked the city talking about the universe.
Hettie’s newsfeed was littered with environmental posts from Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund and political messages from liberal news sites like MotherJones. There were photos of her with Handsome Boyfriend including a selfie in a candlelit restaurant, the couple smiling in Central Park, and the boyfriend outside a comedy club. An article from Cornell Lab noted a new breeding ground for the long-billed curlew. Rolling Stone wrote a long article on beauty pageants. An ad for Writers World scrolled past. A friend named Madeline posted a funny cartoon about the difference between men and women.
On the mouse, Mil
a’s finger paused. Why did Facebook show Hettie an ad for writers?
Hovering over the top right corner of the ad, Mila noticed a message. “Why are you getting this?” She clicked on the question and the answer was supplied by Facebook in a very reasonable, concise manner. “The reason you're seeing this ad is that Writers World wants to reach people who are part of an audience called “writers.” This is based on your activity on Facebook and other apps and websites, as well as where you connect to the internet.” Did Hettie consider herself a writer? That didn’t make sense for a bird scientist. What would she write about?
Mila searched the internet for Hettie Van Buren and writer. There were no relevant results.
What does a bird scientist write about? Clearly Hettie was into curlews. In a new search, Mila typed in curlew and Van Buren. One result read Hettie Van Buren, Nest Survival of Eskimo Curlews in the 1900s, in the Journal of Avian Ecology, September 2012. Mila clicked to the article and skimmed it. Hettie did write. Scientific stuff. Is that why Facebook was feeding her that ad?
Mila pulled up a new search and typed in curlew and writer. One result popped up. It was a post on Wattpad.com by someone using the pen name @LastCurlew.
Clicking over, Wattpad appeared to be a site where amateur writers posted their work and connected with readers. The profile for @LastCurlew had begun posting five years ago, had built up a following of over 200, and had last posted most recently a month ago. Was this Hettie Van Buren?
The postings were not in any order. Nor were they dated. Mila skimmed the first few. The fourth had the tone of a young girl living in a marbled penthouse with rich parents. It could have been written by Hettie. Mila reread it slowly.
Caged
@LastCurlew
1.
Silence of tombs
crushes. In penthouses also.
An ear glued to a door,
veins pumping wildly
as voices explode from a distance.
Stop this, you shiver.
Tonight, please be the last.
2.
Certain you are the subject
of the skirmish. A mistake.
His octave jarring,
flying arrows strike warm humanity
from a cold quiver.
Her response, I never treasured
in all that time,
only lonely and forlorn.
She threatens departure.
She will never go.
3.
The faces of envy,
eyes of green. Across marble floors.
Parties of opulent silk and pearls
where she faded to beige.
Nowhere to disappear,
bruised by a smile
stiff with counterfeit.
4.
Ahead is only lament.
Neither door opens to release.
Clotted veins. Stagnant.
Break out!
Daybreak delivers more misery.
Mila sat back. The poem was heavy on emotion and awkwardly personal. Had Mila stumbled onto the privately published poems of Hettie Van Buren? How uncomfortable.
Her finger scrolled further into the Wattpad posts.
Love and Strength
@LastCurlew
Together, silence is loud
with meaning.
A hand, soft
and assuring, pulls
strength from the fear of the night.
The world is lighter.
The sun rises
a golden mist
with hope and
and expectation. Her song
is fanciful, fresh
after years of injustice,
transformed into protest
weighted with sincerity.
The moment has become
one of many,
no longer an endurance
but a path of joy
stretching.
Had Hettie been writing about her handsome boyfriend? Mila’s fingers tingled. The odds felt decidedly in favor that Miss Timid Hettie was using a pen name to write deeply passionate poems about her family, her loneliness, and her new boyfriend. But did the odds warrant a tip to the FBI? When she got home tonight, Mila would do a bit more snooping around on the Wattpad account to determine if she should call Agent Cool Cucumber.
25
The Jiffy Lube looked more decrepit. During the night, wind had tossed litter into the air and it now hung limply on the perimeter fence like white flags of surrender. Dust speckled the dirty broken glass of the office window. Her toes throbbed as she crossed the lot.
Roberto met her at the door in dirty coveralls and an angry face. “Yo, you went after Toro. I told you that guy was a punk.”
She stood outside the door and angled herself at the street with one eye on the foot traffic. “It was a lead I had to explore.” She wasn’t in the mood for a verbal duel with a gangbanger.
“I told you, I got ears in Micah’s neighborhood.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t local.”
“Meaning what?”
“Micah was clean. He ain’t working with any gangs. No local crews. Nothing”
“Your contacts would know if your brother was wrapped up with local drugs or gangs?”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. He wasn’t doing nothin’ in New York.”
“Okay, what else?”
“It’s weird. But this is what I got: there was a dude in his apartment late Sunday night.”
The time frame worked. Micah was shot early in the morning on Monday. “Someone saw this guy?”
“Yeah. A neighbor.”
“And the neighbor said it was only one guy?”
He nodded.
“A neighbor told your contacts this? Was the neighbor under duress?”
He glared at her. “Yo, we’re talkin’ my brother. You want the info or not?”
She held up her hands. “You’re right. What did they say about this man?”
“He wore cowboy boots.”
Dom’s mind stumbled. “What do you mean?”
“Jesus.” He clicked the inside of his cheek. “If you see hombres wearing cowboy boots in New York City, they from somewhere else.”
“As in not from New York?”
“As in not from America. I’m saying he’s not from America. I’m saying the killer is from Central America. Them hombres wear cowboy boots.”
She took a tiny step ahead, inching into his personal space. “Funny you should say that, Roberto. What were Micah and Hettie doing in Honduras three weeks ago?”
He squinted and his lips pursed, but he held his ground. Tough guys were not easily surprised.
“You knew they went, right? This is the project you mentioned to me yesterday, right?”
He glared at her.
“Roberto, you knew they went to Honduras. Now you’re telling me an hombre—potentially from Central America—broke into Micah’s apartment and shot him. I think it’s time you tell me what you know about the Honduras trip.”
He took a step back.
She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows
He straightened. “Micah asked for help. I told him no. He wanted to take Hettie to Honduras. They wanted to go hiking in the boonies. I told him he was loco. We got out of that shithole, no need to ever go back. He pushed me, asked if I knew people. I told him he was crazy and I wasn’t helping him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”
“I didn’t think it mattered. I wasn’t sure.” He shrugged.
“Okay. Tell me what you know about this trip.”
“Like I said, when I saw him last at my parents, he said he and Hettie were going. He said Hettie wanted to do some research or some shit. Then he asked me to connect him to someone. Some kind of guide that could show them around.”
“He wanted you to connect him to someone in Honduras to be a guide?”
“Yeah. That’s what he asked. I said no.” He shook his head. “I ain’t
got nothin’ to do with Honduras. For people like us, that’s only trouble.”
Dom pulled up the photos from Madeline and stepped closer to him. The coveralls smelled of mildew and the neckline released the sour stench of greasy skin. “Do you know where this is?”
He watched the screen as she scrolled the photos. “No. Some dirt town like everywhere else. Lots’a land. No roads. Just dirt. And poor people.”
“Are there drugs in the country?”
“Sure. Same as everywhere. But Micah ain’t into drugs. I told you, he said something about research.”
“Did Micah find a guide?”
Roberto looked away.
“Did Micah find a guide?”
His jaw stiffened. “I dunno.”
“But you could find out?”
“This got nothing to do with me. I ain’t into shit outta Honduras.”
“Roberto, your brother is dead, and his girlfriend is missing. Believe me when I say I am not looking into your drug or gang affiliations. I don’t care who you know in Honduras. I just want to find Hettie. Now call whomever you need to call to find out if Micah found a guide.”
Roberto sucked his teeth before pulling out his phone, calling someone, and dropping into rapid-fire Spanish. He hung up and called a second person. On the third call, he listened intently before putting his hand over the phone. “Micah found someone. They put him in touch with a guy named Darcel.”
“Is that Darcel on the phone?”
“Nah, it’s Darcel’s cousin. Darcel is in Honduras.”
“This Darcel into drugs?”
“Everybody I know is into drugs. But I’m telling you, Micah’s trip wasn’t about drugs.”
“What did Darcel say about where they went?”
Roberto spoke Spanish into the phone then translated the response. “They went up to the northwest. Hiking. Hettie had binoculars and maps. Books with notes. Like I said, sounds like some kind of research.”
“Tell me where.” She pulled up a map of Honduras on her phone.
Using a pinching motion, he expanded the map, his finger circling an area in the northwest. “They went hiking for three days in this area, north of San Jerónimo, out into the village. It’s part of the departmento called Copán. Darcel took them there, took them back to the capital. That’s it. That’s all the cousin knew.”