by Ingrid Thoft
“But you’re not the police.”
“I’ll deal with Carl.”
“Have you spoken to your mom about Melanie?”
“Just the usual: ‘Why are you disappointing me? Why haven’t you found her yet?’ Blah, blah, blah.”
“She’s not that bad, Fina.” Patty took a bite of salmon.
“Easy for you to say; she’s not your mother.”
“She hasn’t had an easy life.”
“You haven’t had an easy life, Patty, and you’re not a pain in the ass.” Patty’s father had died when she was a child, and her mother had succumbed after a long battle with breast cancer when Patty was in college.
“No, but I didn’t lose a child, and that’s a whole other kind of hell.” Patty held up a hand to quiet Fina. “I’m not saying you can’t understand because you’re not a parent. I don’t think anyone can fathom it. It’s too horrible.” She looked at Teddy as he licked honey mustard off his hand, thereby transferring it to his nose. “I’m just saying.”
“Fine,” Fina said, and had a sip of water.
Ryan was using a French fry as a plane, weaving it in the airspace over his plate. He did a barrel roll into the ketchup and then gained altitude to his mouth. Fina reached over and took a handful of fries from his plate.
“Hey!”
“Dude, you gotta share with your aunt.” She nudged his foot under the table with her own. “Especially when she looks so gnarly.”
He grinned. “Okay.”
“Do you know a guy named Gerald Murray?” Fina asked Patty.
“Sure. He’s a member here. He’s a psychiatrist. Works at Harvard and sees patients.”
“I need to talk to him.”
Patty looked at her. “I assume you don’t want an office appointment?”
“I’d prefer something a bit more informal.”
“Well.” Patty twisted around in her seat and scanned the pool area. “That’s him, over there on the chaise.”
Fina looked over at the man, who seemed to be in his sixties. A little girl in a striped two-piece bathing suit was standing next to his chair, talking and gesturing.
“Let me guess—his daughter?” Fina asked.
Patty smiled. “Actually, his granddaughter.”
Dr. Murray had a small head covered in white hair, and his chin boasted a matching goatee. A woman about Fina’s age with a swollen, pregnant belly wandered over to his chair and led the girl off by the hand.
“He’s still on his first wife?” Fina asked.
“Yes,” Patty said. “Amazing, isn’t it? Around here, he’s like an animal on the endangered species list. Do you want me to introduce you?”
“That would be great.”
Fina and Patty tidied up the detritus from the meal, and the boys jumped back into the pool. They walked over to Dr. Murray’s chaise.
“Hi, Gerry!” Patty said.
He put down his New Yorker and looked up at Patty. “Patty! Hello! Nice to see you.” He struggled out of his supine position and gave Patty a kiss on the cheek. “Is Scotty here?”
“Working, of course, but I wanted to introduce you to Scotty’s sister.”
Fina offered her right hand and caught Dr. Murray glancing at her bandaged left. Up close, his eyes were a steel blue and were framed by slight wrinkles. He had straight, white teeth and an easy smile. Fina could imagine that patients would feel comfortable telling him their dirt.
“Josefina Ludlow,” she said.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Josefina.”
“Most people call me Fina, actually.”
“Fina it is.” There was an awkward moment, but Dr. Murray quickly dove into it. “Are you here for a day of relaxation?”
“Oh,” Patty exclaimed suddenly, remembering Fina’s appearance. “She was in a car accident, Gerry. Hence, this.” She made a sweeping gesture around Fina’s face. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend who beats her.”
Fina glared at her.
“What? He probably can’t go grocery shopping without everyone telling him their problems,” Patty said.
“Actually, I’m here on a business matter,” Fina said. “I’m a private investigator.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Patty said, “I think one of my children is drowning another.” She walked briskly to the deep end and started reading the riot act to the only boy dumb enough to surface within earshot.
“That must be fascinating work,” Dr. Murray commented.
“It is, except when I have to deal with family issues.”
Dr. Murray stroked his goatee slowly. “Of course. Rand’s wife is missing.”
“She is, and actually, it seems that she was in your neighborhood the afternoon she disappeared.”
“Oh, really?”
“I know you can’t discuss your patients, but Melanie was seen at the 7-Eleven next to your office, and she was agitated and upset. I wondered if she had paid you a visit.”
“Josefina—”
“Fina, really.”
“Fina. You’re right. I can’t discuss my patients. It would be a breach of professional conduct.”
“I know, and I don’t mean to put you in a difficult position, but that was the last known sighting of her. She’s been missing for more than a week. Time is not on our side.”
Dr. Murray put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his Docksiders.
“Maybe you could just point me in the right direction. Could you confirm or deny that you saw her that day?” Fina asked.
“I assume you’re working for your brother on this?”
“My brother and father asked me to find Melanie, but really, I’m working for Melanie.” Fina studied him for a moment. “Why? Is there something you want to tell me that you don’t want them to know?”
He sighed. “In my line of work, much like yours, I imagine, you learn that things are often not as they seem. Sometimes it’s hard to know who’s reliable.”
“I realize you don’t know me, but I just want to find Melanie. I’m not interested in protecting anyone except her. I’m working with the police on this.” Lying to a shrink felt like lying to a priest, but he was probably used to it.
A woman Dr. Murray’s age gestured to him from across the pool. She and the pregnant woman had taken seats at one of the tables. Dr. Murray held up his hand, indicating he’d be a moment. “Melanie wasn’t my patient, so I suppose I’m not violating her trust. She stopped by my office on Wednesday afternoon. She was extremely agitated.”
“About what?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if I knew, but I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. Initially, she said she wanted my advice, but then she changed her mind and said she would take care of it herself. She only stayed a few minutes.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No. I urged her to take my next available appointment so we could sort things out, but she didn’t want to wait. I wish I could have done more, but I had nothing to go on.”
“I understand. You’ve been extremely helpful, and I’ll be discreet with the information.” Fina looked toward the seating area. “Your granddaughter’s really cute. And there’s another one on the way?”
“In July. My wife and I can’t wait.” He beamed. Fina looked at her feet. Unadulterated family bliss made her uneasy.
“Congrats. It was nice meeting you,” Fina said, and walked toward the deep end.
She zoned out for a moment, contemplating the possibilities. A shriek and a cannonball brought her back.
“I don’t get it. I wasn’t really hurt, but everything hurts anyway.” Fina was lying on Milloy’s massage table in her living room, again wearing boy shorts and a sports bra. “It’s annoying.” She’d spent the previous night at Crystal, on the lookout for Dante and Brianna—both conspicuously abse
nt—and hadn’t rolled into bed until well after midnight, which explains why she hadn’t rolled out of bed until noon.
“I’m all for your action-filled life, but you’re not a twenty-year-old, you know?” Milloy backed away from the table and put his hands on his hips. “The accident was traumatic for your body, and you can’t expect it to bounce right back. One of these days, it’s really going to catch up with you.”
Fina struggled to sit up. “And when it does, it does.”
Milloy reached out his hand and pulled her up. Fina lowered herself onto the sofa, and he went to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of pomegranate juice and an open can of diet soda, which he handed to her. He sat down next to her, and they drank in silence. Fina let her head fall back against the couch cushion and closed her eyes.
Her phone interrupted her trance.
“Yes?” she answered. She listened for a moment. “Send him up.” She looked at Milloy. “Hal Boyd is on his way up.”
“Your secret moneyman?”
“My secret moneyman.” Fina grimaced as she scooted to the edge of the couch. “Give me a push, would you?”
Milloy placed his hands on her butt and pushed her up. She walked into the bedroom and traded her boy shorts and sports bra for a bra, T-shirt, and some cutoff shorts. She left her hair loose, the better to hide her injuries.
There was a knock on the door, and Fina heard murmurings from the other room. One last look in the mirror confirmed her suspicions: Her face was a lost cause.
She padded back into the living room. “Hal, please tell me you have some information,” she said. Yikes. She sounded like a slightly more polite version of Carl.
Milloy and Hal were standing next to each other, two ends of a spectrum. Milloy was tall and handsome with chiseled bones and muscles. Even his bare feet were nice to look at, which was highly unusual in Fina’s experience. Hal was short and obese, and his pants were cinched around his waist like a lanyard around a potato sack. He was sweating, with dark stains under his armpits and a shiny expanse where his hairline should have been. The two men had met before, and Fina was convinced that Hal had a man crush on Milloy. He didn’t want to sleep with Milloy; he wanted to be Milloy. It was a common affliction.
“Fina!” Hal exclaimed. He seemed to recoil at the sight of her. “What happened to you?”
“Car accident.”
“You look terrible.”
Fina frowned at him, and he backpedaled. “I mean, you never look terrible. Even when you look bad, you look good.” Milloy rolled his eyes. “It’s just that—it looks like it hurts.”
“It does, but I’ll survive. You want to sit down?”
Hal walked over to Nanny’s easy chair, sank into it, and rested his cheap briefcase across his lap.
“Did it happen, you know, in the line of duty?”
Fina had worked with Hal for years, and he was endlessly titillated by the seedy underbelly of her job. He had just as much contact with the criminal world as Fina, but his interaction was confined to data and spreadsheets, all behind the safety of his desk.
“You could say that.”
“What happened?” If Hal could have leaned forward, he would have.
Fina sat down on the couch.
“She rolled four times,” Milloy said. “Four times.” He held four fingers up to emphasize his point.
Fina stared at him. “Thank you, Milloy.” She looked back at Hal. “Someone ran me off the road. I rolled over. I’m fine. End of story.”
“She gets tetchy when she’s in pain,” Milloy said, sitting down next to her.
“So. Zyxco and Mode Accessories,” Fina said. “Any news?”
Hal pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. The air-conditioning was on full blast, but keeping cool was clearly a losing battle for Hal.
“I’ve got some info. Any way I could get a glass of water first?” he asked. “This heat is killing me. They’re not kidding about global warming. It’s not supposed to be like this at the end of May.”
“Sure,” Fina said. She looked at Milloy. “Do you mind?”
“I live to serve you. You know that.” He walked into the kitchen.
“I’m assuming that Mode is a front for something?” Fina asked. She tugged on the gauze around her palm. She was supposed to keep the bandage on for a week, but that was never going to happen. It was itchy and drew attention to her injuries, which made her look vulnerable.
“That’s my guess,” Hal said as he took a glass of ice water from Milloy. He took a large gulp. “Thank you.” He put the glass down on Nanny’s 1930s coffee table. It was glass-topped, with wrought-iron legs. It was probably a vintage find and worth some bucks, but Fina thought it looked like fussy lawn furniture.
“So, here’s the skinny,” Hal said. Milloy and Fina tried not to smile at each other. “Zyxco is a legitimate company with a number of subsidiaries, one of which is Mode Accessories, the one that looks dicey. Mode Accessories, not surprisingly, is in the women’s accessories business, and very successful. Have you been to their office?”
“Not inside.”
“Does it look like a big operation?” Hal asked.
“No way to tell. It’s in one of those office parks in Framingham.” Fina picked up her sweating soda can and took a sip. “What makes you think there’s more to it than just accessories?”
“The amount of merchandise they handle, as indicated by shipping and manufacturing costs, doesn’t match their profits. There should be a lot more handbags in the pipeline with that kind of cash.”
“What kind of business is Zyxco in?”
“They have two primary income streams: the manufacture of specialized metal parts and paper napkins.” Hal took another sip of his water.
“What are specialized metal parts exactly?”
“Say a company is building a machine to be used in coal mines, and there’s no coupling that fits. A company like Zyxco builds the piece to order.”
“And napkins?” she asked.
Hal shrugged. “Everybody needs them. There used to be a lot of money to be made in the manufacture of everyday items.”
“That’s no longer true?” Fina asked.
“Nope. Not with overseas labor, cheaper manufacturing costs.”
Next to her, Milloy tilted back his head and swallowed the last of his juice. His neck was smooth and tanned. Why wasn’t she having sex with him?
“So how does Mode Accessories stay under the radar?” Fina asked, still picking at her gauze.
“There are different ways to do it. A separate set of books makes everything look legit, especially if you are actually running the front business as a business. If you keep your head down and bribe the right people, that’s even better.”
“Do you have a name for me? A point of contact?”
Hal blushed slightly and shook his head. “I’m still untangling the web. Sorry. It’s one shell corporation after another.”
“So what kind of person or business would have legitimate business to conduct with Mode Accessories?” she asked.
“An accessories buyer for a department store. Mode also seems to have contacts in the hospitality industry.”
“How do handbags figure into restaurants?” Fina asked.
“They don’t,” Milloy said. “Probably gift shops at hotels and tourist attractions.”
Hal nodded vigorously. “Exactly. Cruise ships even. Someone’s got to provide that schlock you buy on the lido deck.”
“But a private individual wouldn’t contact them?”
“Probably not.” Hal clicked open the tabs on his briefcase and pulled out a document. “Here are the details. Read it and shred it.” He closed the case and struggled out of the easy chair, which proved none too easy.
“Thanks, Hal. Send me the bill,” Fina said as she took the
proffered report.
“Will do. Feel better.” Milloy walked him to the door. He returned to find Fina holding the document and staring into space.
“Why would Melanie be contacting a handbag company?” she mused.
“Why would Melanie be contacting a fake handbag company?” Milloy asked.
“Good question. We can definitely rule out the idea that she was actually buying their goods. She wouldn’t have been caught dead with anything you could charge to a shipboard account.”
Fina winced at her poor choice of words.
There was no proof yet.
There was no proof of anything.
Milloy left, and Fina stepped into the shower. She was supposed to keep her bandages dry—so she took them off. The cuts on her palm were red and tender, and she didn’t attempt anything more ambitious than wetting her body and hoping the dirt and sweat would wash off on their own. After dressing and struggling to pull her hair into a bun, Fina rummaged around in the medicine cabinet and found a roll of gauze, which she wound around her hand and secured with small strips of duct tape.
She needed to talk to Haley, who was still ignoring her calls. Haley was typically bad at returning calls, and Fina had hoped the atypical circumstances might change that, but who was she kidding? Ludlows were born and bred to be strong and unemotional. You didn’t moan or cry about things; you acted as if everything were going according to plan, even when it wasn’t. Most teenagers weren’t known for their communication skills, but Ludlow teenagers would have excelled in the CIA.
Before reaching for her cell phone, Fina grabbed Nanny’s cordless phone and punched in her niece’s number. Haley’s curiosity might just get the better of her.
“Hello?” Haley answered after a few rings.
“Where are you?” Fina demanded. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
“What number is this?” Haley asked.
“That’s not important. Where are you?”
“I’m at Neiman’s,” Haley said. Fina could hear voices in the background.
“Why?”
“I need some lip gloss.”
Fina started to pace in front of the windows overlooking the harbor. A large oil tanker was creeping along with a tugboat on either end. “Haley, cut the shit. Your mother is missing. The police are dogging your father, and I was almost killed. It’s time to put on your big-girl pants and get with the program.”