The Fens

by Pamela Wechsler

  “So far, there’s no evidence anything criminal has occurred.”

  “I know my husband, he didn’t just blow off the game.”

  “We want to set up a surveillance post at your house. Is anyone there to let us in?”

  She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and realizes that she’s still wearing the face mask, which has dried and cracked. She moistens a cloth and dabs at her forehead as she continues to talk.

  “Holly, the nanny, is home with my daughter. I’ll let her know you’re coming, and I’ll meet you there.”

  Even under the unforgiving fluorescent lights, Rebecca’s skin is flawless.

  “We’re monitoring Rudy’s phone and credit cards. We’d like permission to do the same with yours, and to search the house, phones, and computers.”

  “Of course, whatever you need.”

  Rebecca has given verbal permission to search, but I want to get it in writing. Documenting the agreement could come in handy, especially since there’s no way to predict where the investigation will take us. If we end up charging Rebecca with a crime, she could change her tune and allege that our search was illegal. The consent form will protect us against a motion to suppress. I hand her the paper and she signs it.

  “One more thing. When was the last time you saw Rudy?”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “This morning. I was with the baby. He came into the nursery and kissed us both goodbye.”

  I return to the waiting room to find Kevin, lounging on the sofa, sipping green tea. He has one eye on the exotic reflexologist at the counter, and the other on a copy of Sports Illustrated.

  “I could get used to this life,” he says.

  “Don’t. It’ll break your heart.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Not really. I don’t think she knows anything. I’ll fill you in when we get in the car.”

  On the way out, I spot a jar of my favorite regenerating serum. I pick it up, inspect the price tag, and return it to the shelf—carefully.

  “Are you looking to get a shot of Botox, before we hit the road?”

  “Why?” I pat the corners of my eyes. “Are my wrinkles that bad?”

  “You look like a million bucks.” He smiles and grabs my elbow and presses the elevator button. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Six

  Rudy and Rebecca Maddox live in a six-bedroom Victorian, in Cohasset, about a half hour south of Boston. We hit the Southeast Expressway just in time for rush-hour traffic. As Kevin weaves in and out of lanes, I call Boston Police Headquarters to organize a search team.

  It takes almost an hour to reach the Braintree merge, which is the halfway point. Kevin is itching to flip on the blue light and siren and speed toward our destination, but this case is too high profile to break protocol. We have to wait with the rest of the frustrated motorists.

  “It’s hinky that Rebecca wasn’t at the game with the other players’ wives,” Kevin says.

  “Some women have their own lives, independent of their husbands.”

  “It’s not like she was out curing cancer. She wasn’t even carpooling kids to school. She was at a spa.”

  “Give her a break. She just had a baby.”

  “Well, if my wife was missing, my first reaction would be to get her on the horn, not send a text.”

  “Yeah, but you’re, like, a hundred,” I say. “Twentysomethings don’t talk to people, they use emoticons and acronyms.”

  Forty minutes later, we reach our exit. Kevin cruises through the town center, passing a quaint white church and village green. We veer onto Jerusalem Road, which runs parallel to the shoreline, and continue a mile or so, until we reach the Maddoxes’ home. Their backyard is like a country club, with an Olympic-size pool and tennis court. Their front yard is the Atlantic Ocean, with a dock that leads to a forty-two-foot Boston Whaler.

  Kevin eyes the boat and smiles. “That’s no rinky-dink canoe. It must’ve cost upwards of seven hundred and fifty grand. And the house, that’s four million, easy. It’s like the money is burning a hole in his pocket.”

  “Rudy can afford it..”

  “Catchers don’t make as much as you’d think. According to ESPN, his contract is worth three million and change.”

  We park in the driveway, between a Porsche and a Ferrari.

  “Let’s run his financials,” I say.

  A landscaper, hedge clippers in hand, is in the backyard trimming bushes and chatting with the housekeeper. When she sees us, she rushes inside to alert the nanny.

  “For a family of three, they’re well staffed,” I say.

  “And well equipped.” Kevin points at surveillance equipment, attached to the cabana, garage, and house. “They got more cameras than a Hollywood film set.”

  Holly, the nanny, opens the door. She tents her hands and bows her head. “Namaste.” She pronounces it namas-tea, as though she were offering a cup of Earl Grey. Her shiny blond hair, bohemian minidress, and twenty-two-year-old body are evidence of Rebecca’s self-confidence. My mother’s unspoken rule was that no member of the household staff could be younger or more attractive than she.

  Holly was expecting us and agrees to a quick house tour. The living room is not what I’d expect from a professional athlete; it’s well-appointed, with Waterford crystal decanters and New England maritime paintings. The media room, however, is exactly what I’d expect, with leather Barcaloungers and a one-hundred-inch plasma. The walls in the family room are full of vintage baseball posters and a Plexiglas-encased Red Sox jersey, with the #9 on the back.

  “That’s Ted Williams’s uniform,” Kevin says.

  “No, that belongs to Rudy,” Holly says.

  Kevin explains that while Rudy may have purchased the jersey, someone famous wore it, and now it’s a collector’s item. She nods and gives him a blank stare. I hope she’s good with kids, because she’s not the sharpest tack in the box.

  “Do you know what time Rudy got up this morning?” I say.

  “Rudy is an early bird, especially on game day. I made his breakfast, always the same: three eggs, pumpernickel toast, turkey bacon, and a banana with peanut butter.” She takes a breath, adjusts her posture. “It was, like, weird though, because he left without eating anything.”

  “Did you see him when he left the house?” Kevin says.

  “No, I went upstairs to check on the baby. When I came back down, he was gone.”

  “Hold on a minute,” I say, “did you actually lay eyes on Rudy this morning, or did you just make him breakfast and leave it for him on the kitchen table?”

  She looks at the ceiling, straining to remember. “The last time I actually saw him was yesterday, when he and Rebecca had an argument.”

  “They had a tiff?” Kevin says. “About what?”

  Holly crosses her arms tightly. “I don’t like to spread rumors. It’s bad karma.”

  Kevin clenches his fists, looks at her for a minute, then at me. He’s great with gangsters and mopes, but millennials are more my department.

  “You know what’s bad karma?” I say. “Obstruction of justice.”

  She tucks her hair behind her ears nervously. “They were fighting about money. That’s what they usually fight about.”

  Upstairs, we sort through Rudy’s closets, which are filled with suits, everything from Armani to Zegna, as well as racks of athletic wear. In the back of the closet, buried under catcher’s equipment, is a box covered with duct tape. Kevin takes out his Swiss Army knife to cut through the tape and removes the top. Inside, he finds two baseballs, carefully wrapped in tissue paper.

  “Weird,” Kevin says. “A couple of used regulation baseballs kept like they’re worth a million bucks.”

  Kevin drops the balls into an evidence bag. We look in Rudy’s dresser but don’t find anything remarkable. As we finish looking through Rebecca’s closet, the doorbell chimes and the housekeeper calls up to us to announce the arrival of the search team. Police officers and technicians
go into Rudy’s office, where they unpack surveillance and monitoring equipment. Three men will be stationed at the house; the rest will monitor Rudy’s electronic communications. A forensic examiner seizes two iPads and three laptops. Kevin grabs a folder full of bank records.

  I find a file marked Legal Papers and thumb through the contents. “It’s Rudy’s new contract with the Sox. And the signature line is blank.”

  Kevin leans over my shoulder and flips the page to where Rudy’s salary is listed. “That’s a boatload of zeros.”

  “If Rudy disappeared before the contract was executed, he could be in breach. That means he’d forfeit millions.”

  Kevin snaps some pictures and slides the contract into a plastic evidence sleeve. “If Rudy does turn up alive, and he loses all that cash, either Rebecca’s gonna kill him, or he’s gonna wish he was dead.”

  Chapter Seven

  It’s after midnight when we pull into the parking lot adjacent to Boston Police Headquarters. Kevin takes the key out of the ignition, stretches his arms, and lets out an exaggerated yawn. We’ve been on the move all day and haven’t stopped for food or drink in over twelve hours. Kevin is starting to drag, but not me; I’m so amped up with nervous energy that I could sprint to the top of the John Hancock Tower.

  Headquarters is closed to the public; the lobby is dark and hollow. Kevin swipes his badge over the sensor, to disarm the optical turnstiles, and once more to gain elevator access. We get off on the third floor and settle into his cubicle in the homicide unit. The duty sergeant left a stack of witness statements on Kevin’s desk, and we start to slog through them.

  After an hour, I start to lose focus. I need sugar. I fish around the bottom of my tote until I feel an unwrapped Life Savers. Kevin gives me his look of disapproval as I pick at the lint on the sticky candy.

  “You need to join a twelve-step program. You’re a sugar junkie.” He grabs a couple of gluten-free, soy-free, sugar-free bars from the stash under his desk and holds them up, one in each hand. “What’s your pleasure, strawberry or brownie?”

  “It doesn’t matter. They both taste like plywood.”

  He tosses me the one in the pink wrapper. I break off a piece, and when I bite into it, I feel something crack. I’m relieved when I see that it’s the bar and not my tooth; I let my insurance lapse three months ago, when I had to choose between Dolce & Gabbana and Delta Dental.

  Kevin goes downstairs to check on the technician who is reviewing Rudy’s home-security video. As soon as the stairwell door clicks shut and the coast is clear, I grab a couple of singles from my wallet and hit up the vending machine. I select the healthiest options: Doritos, because it’s cheese flavored, which almost counts as calcium; and Oreos, which, according to the package, contain one gram of fiber.

  When I return to Kevin’s desk, I log on to a few websites to see if word of Rudy’s disappearance has spread. It’s all over the internet. There are tweets of conspiracy theories. Facebook has posts about potential suspects. Instagram is flooded with photos of doppelgängers. Every major news outlet is featuring the story with the urgency usually reserved for school shootings, terrorist attacks, and Kardashian weddings.

  My phone vibrates, and when I look at the screen, I notice that Stan has left a series of voice mails and texts: What the hell is going on? Where the hell is he? Where the hell are you? I type a response: I kidnapped him and am holding him hostage in my basement. Before I hit send, I remember Stan has the power to reassign me to prosecute narcotics or, worse, asset forfeiture. He could also fire me. I delete the message.

  The next time my phone vibrates, it’s Kevin: Get your keister down to forensics, ASAP.

  Kevin has been in the computer lab for less than a half hour, and he’s not an alarmist—something big must be on the video. I take the stairs, two at a time; halfway down the first flight, I lose my footing and fall forward. Grabbing on to the railing, I prevent myself from falling, but my shoe catches and my heel snaps. I try to bang it back on, hoping to rescue it—my last pair of Pradas—but it’s a lost cause. I try limping on one foot, but it’s too awkward. I remove the other shoe.

  “You shrank,” Kevin says when I step in the room.

  I hold up my broken heel. “Can I do a B and E in the evidence room? If I’m lucky, there was a shoplifting at Saks, and I’ll find a pair of pumps in my size.”

  Kevin laughs.

  “I’m not kidding.”

  “I know.”

  I look around the room. The floors are polished and the surfaces look clean, but dozens of germy defendants, and germier defense attorneys, pass though this building every day. “I can’t walk around barefoot. I’ll get tetanus, or typhoid, or something.”

  Kevin pulls two crime-scene bootees from a dispenser. “Unless you want to wear my Florsheims, you’ll have to make do.”

  I slip the bootees on.

  The cubicles are empty, except for one, where a technician is sitting in front of a monitor, fast-forwarding through footage of video from the Maddoxes’ home-security cameras.

  “Slow down,” I say.

  “It won’t do any good,” Kevin says.

  “What’s on the tape?”

  “Nothing. That’s the point—either the machine wasn’t working or the tape was scrubbed. My money’s on the latter.”

  Even though it’s the middle of the night, I decide to call Rebecca. This is a huge development, I want to get her take on it, and chances are she’s awake.

  She picks up on the first ring. “Did you find him?”

  I tell her about the blank video. She responds with dead air.

  “Who could have tampered with it?” I say.

  “Rudy is the one who knew about the cameras.”

  After a few more questions, it’s clear that either she doesn’t know what happened or she’s not going to tell me.

  “Try to get some sleep,” I say. “I’ll touch base later.” She sounds kind of hinky, but she’s still a victim, and I’ll treat her as such—at least for now.

  There’s not much more we can do tonight. Kevin walks, and I hobble, back to the parking lot. I’m careful not to step on anything sharp or toxic.

  “I heard you sold your hoity-toity condo,” he says.

  “I moved to Brighton.”

  “That’s a step down. What happened to your trust fund? Did your folks cut you off?”

  I nod. “It’s their way of pressuring me to find a safer job.”

  “Can’t blame them. Just about every job out there is safer than ours, except maybe Navy SEAL or fighter pilot.”

  “Or, apparently, catcher for the Red Sox.”

  It’s not quite sunrise when Kevin pulls up in front of my triple-decker. The bulb on the front porch is out. I tread lightly on the splintery front steps. Gone are the days that my doorman Manny would greet me and usher me inside the sleek marble lobby. I miss his cheerful greetings: Welcome home, Abby. Hope you caught some bad guys today.

  Ty is in bed, snoring soundly. I pour myself a glass of pinot and turn on the shower. While I wait for the water heater to kick in, I sip the wine and scroll through my emails; there are lots of questions, but no answers.

  I undress, step into the shower, and immediately jump out. There’s no hot water—again. I brush my teeth, wash my face, and scrub my filthy feet. I take another glass of wine into the bedroom with me and spill a few drops on the white sheets. Ty rolls over and opens his eyes. So much for slipping into bed unnoticed.

  “Hey, babe. Did you find Rudy?”

  “Not you too,” I snap at him, mindful that it’s not his fault that I’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours, haven’t made a dent in my investigation, and lost a pair of my favorite shoes along the way.

  “I hope you didn’t try to take a shower. I meant to leave you a note—there’s no hot water.”

  The contrasts between Ty and me usually balance each other out, making a perfect yin-yang relationship. Not tonight. I want him to be as outraged as I am, and to show it. I flu
ff the pillow, yanking one end of the case and shaking it, then adjust it by pounding it a couple of times.

  “Let’s move to a new place,” I say.

  “The landlord said he’d fix the water heater in the morning.” Ty kisses me softly. “This place will start to feel like home. Give it time.”

  “It’s not just that. The porch light is out. The front steps are warped.”

  “I’ll fix the light. Every place has problems. Things in your condo were breaking all the time. The AC was always on the fritz. Remember when the elevator broke and we had to walk up seventeen flights?”

  He’s right. The difference is, when these things happened in the past, I could take out my black AmEx and check into the Four Seasons. I can’t do that anymore. I turn out the lamp and lie back. Ty wraps his arms around me tightly. Sinking my head into the pillow, I enjoy the warmth of his body, the comfort of his breathing, and try to fall asleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Last year, the district attorney resigned from office and I threw my hat in the ring to replace him. A few others expressed interest in the job, but not Stan. When the governor named him, I was shocked, but I should have seen it coming. Stan was the most qualified candidate, meeting all the criteria for a political appointment: he went to a second-rate law school; he passed the bar on the third try; and he’s married to the attorney general’s cousin. I didn’t respect him when he was a federal agent, and I don’t respect him now. Still, he calls the shots—or at least he thinks he does.

  When I arrive at Bulfinch Place, at the building that houses the DA’s Office, I pay him a visit to feign interest in his thoughts on the investigation.

  His assistant buzzes me into the bulletproof section of the executive suite. “We’ve been trying to reach you all morning,” she says.

  I check my watch. “It’s only seven fifteen.”

  He sticks his head out the door. “You’re late.”

  “Late? We didn’t have an appointment.”

  He waves me into his office. Although he’s occupied the space for almost six months, banker’s boxes are piled floor to ceiling, the bookcases are bare, and the walls are unadorned. The only nonessentials are the two photographs on his desktop—one of his wife and kids, on Castle Island; and the other of Boston’s most notorious serial killer, Whitey Bulger, in an orange prison jumpsuit. Stan was part of the FBI team that captured him; it only took sixteen years and a lucky tip from the former Miss Iceland to bring him to justice.