Front Page Teaser lhm-1

by Rosemary Herbert

  Grabbing the plastic bag of PG Tips tea and chocolate digestive biscuits, she stepped into her boots and put on a coat before wading out into some nine inches of snow. Handing the package in through the plow driver’s rolled-down window, she saw copies of the World and Banner on the seat beside him.

  “Some fire,” Sal Mione said. “Bloody shame,” he added, nodding at DeZona’s grim front-page photo. As Liz had expected, the Banner’s front page was entirely consumed with the fire story, headed “INFERNO” in bold caps.

  The broadsheet World had room for more Page One articles. She could only see below the fold of the front page. It contained an article about the fire, which World editors had not chosen as their lead story; a photo of an exhausted-looking fire chief; and an article headed, “Blackboard Message Muddles Missing Mother Inquiry.”

  “Don’t you get enough of the news?” Sal Mione said to Liz.

  “Never! I’ve been reporting on that missing mom, so I’m interested in what the World reporter turned up.”

  “It’s all yours. I’ve already read it,” Sal said, handing her the paper. “And thanks for the tea and biscuits. Much obliged.”

  Back in her house, Liz read Nancy Knight’s coverage of the Johansson case. Apparently the World had put Mick Lichen on the fire story, handing Knight the Johansson assignment.

  “Forensic evidence and a crime scene message leave investigators puzzled in the case of missing Newton mother, Ellen Johansson, 34.” Knight wrote. “‘We have to consider the possibility that Mrs. Johansson planned to leave home,’ said Newton police chief Anthony Warner yesterday.

  “According to Medical Examiner Barney Williams, tests on blood found in the upscale kitchen reveal two people were injured there. And a message written on Johansson’s kitchen memo board suggests she was saying goodbye to her husband, Erik Johansson, 37, and eight-year-old daughter, Veronica.

  “‘FORGET ME NOT,’ the message reads. Warner said the words, spelled out in chalk under a grocery list, are currently under examination by a handwriting expert.”

  “I can’t believe she would walk out on Veronica,” Liz exclaimed aloud, making Prudence’s ears perk up. “There must be another explanation.”

  Liz dug the crumpled Banner page out of her purse and smoothed it out on her kitchen counter next to DeZona’s photos. Under the “PINCH OF BLOOD” headline and Dick Manning’s byline, she read, “Newton cops can’t fathom why a well-heeled wife and mother would scrawl an exit line on her kitchen blackboard before leaving her family in the dark about her whereabouts. ‘Seems weird to me,’ said Newton police officer Dan Atwood, who was first on the scene after Ellen Johansson, 34, disappeared from the $640,000 home she shared with her husband Erik, 37, and the couple’s daughter Veronica, age 8.

  “‘It’s hard to believe any perp forcing a woman from her home would wait for her to write a message to her hubby and kid,’ Atwood added.

  “The three-word plea, ‘FORGET ME NOT,’ appeared at the bottom of a grocery list written on a blackboard in the Johanssons’ state-of-the-art kitchen where, two days ago, the couple’s third-grader came home from school to find flaked coconut and other baking ingredients splashed with blood on the Italian marble countertop.

  “The missing woman’s husband, an environmental consultant, has been questioned several times by police. ‘If she wanted to leave us, why would she set up a baking project?’ the distraught husband reportedly asked police. ‘It just doesn’t make sense.’”

  Setting aside the Banner page, Liz realized Dick Manning had failed to contact the Newton police chief. He was also scooped by the World on the blood typing. No doubt he dropped the Johansson story like a hot potato when the fire broke out, knowing the blaze would have first priority in the eyes of Banner editors—particularly if the fire produced fatalities.

  Liz turned to her phone to leave a message for DeZona and found the message light blinking. A call must have come in while she was outside delivering treats to the plow driver. She pressed the incoming message button.

  “I’ve got those snapshots for you,” DeZona’s voice said. “That’s all they are. Tourist pix of New York City. And pretty lousy, too. Only one of them shows any eye for a decent camera angle. I’ll put them in my cubby so you can pick them up whenever you’re in. I’m beat. The bucks are good but the hours aren’t when you do too much overtime. I’m heading home before I drop dead on my feet.”

  Liz looked at the clock. Six a.m. DeZona must have been called in early. While her head swam with questions and avenues she might pursue to answer them, Liz took a shower. Afterward, she sat in front of her fire wrapped in a terrycloth robe, waiting for her shoulder-length auburn curls to dry in the flickering heat.

  Half an hour later, the phone rang.

  “Liz? This is Laura. I couldn’t sleep last night so I went to work early. Plus, I thought it would be a good idea if I looked up Veronica’s emergency information card before my boss comes in. I’ve got Mrs. Swenson’s information for you.”

  Liz took down the Wellesley address and telephone number and asked who else was listed on the card as authorized to take care of the eight-year-old in an emergency.

  “It says, ‘Elizabeth Seaport, friend’,” Laura said, giving Liz the phone number. “Actually, I recognize that name. She’s the parent of another aftercare kid, Rhoda Seaport. Rhoda is a year younger than Veronica. There’s one more thing,” Laura added. “In the ‘Additional Information’ section of the card it says, ‘Under no circumstances to be picked up by taxi or hired vehicle.’ That’s dated December 18, this year.”

  “That’s the day Ellen disappeared. I wonder what that’s all about?”

  “Me, too. I hope this was helpful. By the way, that forensics guy did pick up the poinsettia. Before he left, he looked the whole thing over with a magnifying glass, just like Sherlock Holmes. I kid you not! It was all Becca, Sue, and I could do to keep ourselves from bursting out laughing. He asked us for a dry cleaning bag to put it in, but we didn’t have one so we gave him a garbage bag instead. He said you’d hear from him soon.”

  “Thanks, Laura. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

  “No problem. Would you let me know what develops, though? It’s all such a mystery and I’m really worried about Veronica.”

  “Sure thing. I’m worried about her, and about Ellen, too.”

  Hanging up the phone, Liz took another look at her countertop. Picking up the Ziploc bag containing Ellen’s lipstick, the hair band, and taxi receipt, she dialed the number for Cormac Kinnaird.

  “You have reached the office of Dr. Cormac Kinnaird. This is December twentieth. This morning, I will be testifying in Concord District Court. Please leave your message and I will get back to you at the first opportunity.”

  Surprised that Kinnaird would reveal his schedule in a phone message, Liz recorded her own message for him, letting him know she had more materials relating to the Johansson case.

  Next, she phoned Elizabeth Seaport, reaching yet another answering machine. This one had a message with a child’s voice advising callers, “You have reached the Seaport family. Please leave us a message!” as a dog barked in the background.

  As Liz began to leave a message, a woman picked up the Seaport line. “Just screening my calls, ever since I had a friend disappear,” she volunteered.

  “That’s just what I wanted to discuss with you,” Liz explained. “I’m a Banner reporter who’s working on the case. . .”

  “I don’t want to talk with reporters!”

  “No! Please wait. I’m also acquainted with the family, and I’m truly concerned about Ellen and particularly Veronica.”

  “Oh, you’re the one who took her around to the malls, aren’t you? Veronica was so proud when her Santa ratings made the paper.”

  “That’s right. I was at the Johanssons’ soon after Ellen disappeared and I promised Veronica I’d find her mom. To do that, I need your help.”

  “Look, I’m just about to take Rhoda—that’s my da
ughter—to school. Then I was going to wrap presents while Rhoda is out of the house.”

  “I’m great at wrapping. How about I save you some time? We’ll wrap gifts together while you share some insights about Ellen?”

  “Well, it does seem sort of callous to go on with Christmas preparations while she’s missing. And Ellen spoke so highly of you. All right. Come on over in about a half an hour. I live two doors down from Ellen, in the center-entrance colonial. Our shrubs are covered with white Christmas lights and there’s a reindeer loaded with lights on the lawn. Kinda kitschy, I admit, especially for this neighborhood, but the kids love it.”

  “See you then. Thank you!”

  Liz lingered near the phone, tempted to place a call to Olga Swenson. But she decided to put that off until she’d spoken with Elizabeth Seaport. Very possibly, Ellen’s friend and neighbor would have insights or information that would smooth the way toward an interview with Veronica’s grandmother. Instead, Liz phoned the Banner and asked to be connected with the city desk.”

  When Jared Conneely answered, Liz dared to hope Esther O’Faolin was still in charge at this early hour. She was in luck.

  “Listen, Esther,” Liz said. “I’ve got some lines of inquiry I’d like to follow on the missing mom case.”

  “You know, Dick has the contacts for that story.”

  “Let him chase his. But I’ve got some promising community contacts I’d like to pursue. I’ve also got fewer assumptions than Dick and, for that matter, the World reporters who are covering this case.”

  “Let’s be clear on this. What do you mean by ‘assumptions’?”

  “They look at her kitchen memo and see it as a goodbye message. They look at the blood and think she put it there on purpose. I’m not ready to draw conclusions so early in the game.”

  “I’m the first to admit that the reporter who works without blinders will see the most in a story. But you may be wearing blinders without knowing it, Liz. Have you considered the possibility that you may be looking for a way to exonerate a person who deserted her husband and child, just because you knew and liked her? Or maybe you bonded with her daughter so well that you are hoping against hope you can save the day for her.”

  “You’re on target on both counts, Esther. Sure, I’d like to save the day, as you put it. But more important than that, I’d like to tell the truth here—even if it is ugly. I have some avenues that might lead me toward that truth, and I’d like to have a day to pursue them.”

  “Well, you know it’s really up to Dermott to decide where to send you when he gets in at ten. But if you’re already engaged in some reporting that can’t wait until then, I guess I can authorize it. What’s up?”

  Liz paused. Then she said, “I plan to help Ellen Johansson’s neighbor wrap Christmas gifts while she shares insights about her friend. I have an appointment to arrive at her house in a half-hour.”

  Esther groaned. “That hardly sounds urgent enough for me to pull strings with Dermott on your behalf when he gets in.”

  “My thought is that she’ll give me enough insight about the family to smooth my way to an interview with Veronica’s grandmother.”

  “OK, I’ll give you an inch, but you’ve got to win your mile. You go play Santa’s elf for a short while. Then, if you get an appointment with the grandmother, you can have the rest of the day on this. That would free up Dick for the fire story follow-up. If you don’t nail an interview with the grandma, I expect you to cover whatever Dermott has in mind for you. I’ll authorize overtime for your early start today with the expectation that you’ll put in a full day for Dermott—on the Johansson story or something else.”

  “You won’t regret this, Esther. Thanks.”

  New York City, December 16, 2000

  “Stereotypes!” Ellen thought as she stood on the curbside by the World Trade Center. “Here I am feeling bad about any prejudice I might be feeling and, all the while, that cabbie is making assumptions about me. Just because I’m a blonde, it doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Well, I showed him!” she thought to herself, smiling.

  Looking at her watch, she realized the cabbie had been a good one. She was early for her date. There was enough time to document the occasion in photographs. Taking out her camera, she pointed it at the towers, only to realize immediately that they were too large to frame in her lens. In the hope of getting a slightly better perspective, Ellen crossed the street where she joined a Japanese tour group that was also attempting to capture the scene on film.

  Even from this perspective, it remained impossible to capture the full buildings in a single photo, but Ellen could get a sense of their size by having pedestrians and traffic in the foreground, looking dwarfed by a fraction of one tower. Seeing her with a camera, the Japanese tourists asked if she would photograph their group in the scene. When she assented, they provided her with five cameras. Using one camera after another—all but one equipped with much better wide-angle lenses than she had on her camera—she shot five photos of the patiently smiling group. As a thank-you gesture, one of the tourists offered to photograph Ellen, using her camera. When he recognized the limitations of her lens, he made the effort of walking half a block down a side street in order to capture more of the scene. Ellen walked with him so that she would be in the photograph’s foreground.

  On her way back toward the towers, she shot another photo of her own, this one with a street-corner vendor of roasted chestnuts shown in the foreground. This shot particularly pleased her, since she saw it as a scene that brought together timeless and contemporary New York.

  Snapping the lens cap onto her camera, she reached the corner as the WALK light invited her to cross. She stepped off the curb with a crowd and strode across the street toward her long-awaited rendezvous.

  Chapter 7

  Newton, Massachusetts, December 20, 2000

  The plastic reindeer in the Seaport family’s front yard was an eyesore during daylight, at least. But it made the house easy to identify. When the mom who ruled the roost opened the door, it was immediately obvious that the Seaport home had a more lived-in atmosphere than did the Johanssons’ house. A plastic mat covering the carpet in the vestibule was cluttered with shoes, boots, and a dog bone, all of which were rapidly becoming more disordered as a good-natured golden retriever danced around in excitement at Liz’s arrival.

  “It’s so wonderful of you to help out,” the lady of the house said as she led Liz into her dining room. “I’ll just get you some coffee. Cream? Sugar?”

  “Just cream, please, Elizabeth,” Liz said, thinking how rare it was to be thought of as helpful to others in the course of reporting.

  “Oh, please, call me Betsy. Everyone does.”

  The dining table was covered with rolls of wrapping paper. And the floor was piled high with presents.

  “Are all of these for Rhoda?”

  “Not quite. A few are for her cousins. I know we overdo it, but it’s so much fun to buy for her.”

  Liz rolled out some paper and placed a box on it to gauge the amount of paper needed to wrap it. Then, as she cut the wrap, she said, “You know, Betsy, some people are speculating that Ellen left her family of her own free will.”

  “That’s impossible. I know Ellen, and I know she would never leave Veronica and Erik. Veronica is the joy of her life. And the marriage looks good to me, too. I know they say the husband is always a suspect when a wife goes missing, but I just know there’s no weirdness with them. They’re solid.”

  “Is it possible they’re too ‘solid’? Could Ellen have been restless?”

  “God knows, she and I have kvetched about the predictability of our lives, but that doesn’t mean either of us would take off and leave our family. I’d be more worried about a friend who never vented than I would be about a person who can complain and laugh about it later. Ellen was open about this stuff. And we often had a good laugh about our kids and parenting.”

  Betsy paused in the struggle to wrap a stuffed orangutan. Liz tore off so
me tape to help her with the process.

  “Thanks. It’s amazing how often you need three hands in the course of a day of mothering.”

  “As neighbors, you and Ellen often gave each other a hand?”

  “We spent a lot more time together when our girls were infants and toddlers than we have recently. Ellen took two years off to be a full-time mother after Veronica was born. She went back to work full-time, let’s see, about six years ago. We’re not strangers to one another even now, but the librarians see more of her on a day-to-day basis than I do. You’ll probably want to talk with them. If you decide to do that, steer clear of Monica Phillips. She’s the kind of biddy who gives librarians a bad name. You know, finger to her lips and ‘Shhh!’ every time my Rhoda makes a peep. But Lucy Gray’s a different story. She and Ellen attended Simmons together—you know, the library college in Boston—and they’re great friends. And book lovers, too. Tell Lucy I said to talk to you and she’ll tell you a lot about Ellen, I guarantee it.”

  “Thanks. Would it be too much trouble for you to give Lucy a ring yourself and smooth the way?’

  “No problem.”

  “What do you know about somebody called ‘Nadia’? Apparently, Ellen met Nadia in New York City the other day.”

  “I don’t have a clue. Never heard of anyone by that name.”

  “Did Ellen talk with you about the trip?”

  “No. Not a word. I’m trying to remember the last time we spoke.” Betsy tied a bow while wrinkling her brow. “I know! It was when my husband was setting up the reindeer out front. I came out to bring him some hot chocolate and Ellen was pulling into her drive with her new car. One of those fuel-efficient models. Erik Johansson’s an environmentalist, you know.

  “She was all excited about the deal she got on it. Something about bargaining with an Arab. But I only had a sweater on and it was freezing out, so I didn’t stay to talk. I remember the sweater because it matched hers. We both had on thick cardigans with Christmas reindeer and presents knitted into the pattern. We both laughed and said we’d either have to look like twins or make a decision about who gets to wear the sweater at the school holiday gathering. As it turned out, I said I’d wear my holly sweater. But I needn’t have worried. She never made it to that party after all, did she? She went missing and her mother whisked Veronica off to Wellesley before the party day anyway.”