The Thanksgiving Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  “She walked in dripping this sleazy sexuality and I knew Marty would fall for it. I suffered in advance, if you want to know the truth.”

  “But you didn’t voice an objection.”

  “I knew what Marty would say if I did. And Wormy thought she was just what we needed. She was, in fact. She was terrific. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do. If I’d asked her to scrub a floor, she probably would’ve gotten down on her hands and knees. But Marty wanted to bed her, and she had no objections. I honestly think he thought I didn’t know.”

  “But you knew before it happened.”

  “And I kept my mouth shut through the whole affair. We had a business relationship that had to be preserved at all costs. And we preserved it until a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Tell me about Natalie.”

  “She was a girl who came to town to make it. I don’t think she gave much of a damn whether she did it on her own or married it. She thought Marty was her ticket to happiness. I knew he wasn’t. If he hadn’t left his wife for me, he wouldn’t do it for Natalie. There was much less to Natalie than there was to me, and much less than met the eye. I had a feeling she was older than she said and anxious to land a man ASAP.”

  “Why didn’t she leave H and J when the relationship ended?”

  “She often got to meet clients. She may have thought that would lead somewhere. It might have. I think she dated a few men who came down to the office.”

  “Tell me about the missing papers.”

  “I never touched them. I probably never looked at them after the first interview. I didn’t care. I more or less heard they were missing and I heard Natalie was upset. But since I didn’t like her, and since she’d taken my man, at least part-time, I was perfectly willing to look on the dark side of her. I figured she’d faked her background to get the job with us.”

  “Wormy remembers calling a previous employer and getting a glowing recommendation.”

  Arlene smiled. “Just goes to show how little I know.”

  “I thought that she was trying to block out a former life, possibly a husband and children, possibly an abusive man who might come looking for her.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Your analysis is certainly more charitable than mine. So you think she took the papers so there’d be no record if someone came calling.”

  “Pretty much. This chicken is great. Did you cook it earlier and freeze it?”

  “Good God no. I’m not sure how to turn the stove on. In Manhattan you pick up the phone and order anything you want and they deliver it. All I’m making tonight is the coffee.”

  “You have good phone numbers,” I said. “Go on about Natalie.”

  “About why she stayed. I thought about it myself when it happened. Frankly, there are office romances every day of the week, and when they end, the people involved think more about whether they can get a better job somewhere else or whether they’re better off staying put. A lot of them stay put and watch their ex do the same thing with someone else in the office. In Natalie’s case I thought she might not want to go elsewhere because she had faked her references. She would want to stay at H and J long enough that we’d be her best reference. But if you’re right that Wormy checked her out, then maybe she stayed because she liked the job. I think she did like the job and she got raises, so she was doing a lot better at the end than at the beginning. We all were.”

  “Let me ask you something. I’ve been hearing that someone calling himself Natalie’s brother may have been looking for her before she disappeared. Would you know if such a person called H and J?”

  “There’s no way of knowing. If someone called and asked for her, they’d put him through and no one would ever know who called. You think that’s who’s responsible for her disappearance?”

  “I think he may not be a brother but he may be the responsible one. He inquired at the place she lived before she moved to Greenwich Avenue.”

  “So he may have found her.”

  “I’m just not sure how, unless the Thanksgiving Day parade was an accidental meeting. The super in her old building didn’t know where she’d moved.”

  “How did you find the old building if we didn’t have the address?”

  “I worked backwards. An old woman in the Greenwich Avenue building remembered the name of the moving company.”

  “You’re pretty resourceful. You looking for a job at an advertising agency run by a driven woman?”

  I smiled, feeling flattered. “Probably not, but I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

  “Let’s have dessert.”

  We talked about more general things for the rest of the evening. I hadn’t learned much, but she had had the opportunity to clear herself of suspicion. And maybe she’d managed to get a few things off her chest. For my part, I saw her differently and I understood why she had been so difficult when I had first shown up at H and J.

  We finished our coffee in the living room, sitting as we had when I had arrived. I walked over to the windows and looked at New York in the dark.

  “You don’t see the grubbiness from up here,” Arlene said.

  “It’s really quite beautiful. Did you have any sense of where Natalie came from originally?”

  “Probably not New York, but I couldn’t tell you how long she’d lived here when she came to work for us.”

  “She’d lived in the old apartment at least two years and she’d had at least two jobs.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened to her. I didn’t like the woman and she did things that hurt me, but I didn’t wish her the kind of harm that’s probably befallen her.”

  “I think we’re going to find her,” I said, looking her straight in the eye.

  “Do you know where?”

  “Not in the city. If you remember anything else about her, I’m still interested.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Thank you for a wonderful dinner and a wonderful evening.”

  She smiled. “The job offer was sincere.”

  I promised again I would consider it.

  22

  “So you think she cleared herself,” Jack said as we talked about my evening later that night.

  “She admitted she hated Natalie. If she’d had anything to do with Natalie’s disappearance, I think she would never have said that to me.”

  “Maybe she just reads character pretty well and she figured how you’d react.”

  “Maybe. But she had no motive, Jack. When Martin Jewell was involved with Natalie, that’s when Arlene had a motive. Three years later—that’s hard to see.”

  “Let me ask you a potentially embarrassing question: If Natalie didn’t make herself disappear, who’ve you got?”

  It was embarrassing because I still didn’t know whether Natalie had engineered her own disappearance, and if she hadn’t, I had no real suspect and almost no one even marginally suspicious. “Sandy, of course, although I don’t believe he did it, Martin Jewell because he had a close relationship with Natalie, and this mysterious ‘brother’ who has popped up a couple of times and, as far as Sandy is concerned, doesn’t exist.”

  “And Arlene Hopkins.”

  “You see a smoldering resentment.”

  “No question about it. Four years ago she thought it was all over. Suddenly you appear on the scene, dragging up unpleasant and embarrassing facts. She has a knock-down-drag-out with Jewell that’s so bad, they decide to go their separate ways. If she’s still so touchy about Natalie, it’s possible she just bided her time and got her at the parade. I’ll bet your friend Arlene works out in a gym twice a week and is just as tough physically as she is in her office.”

  “I guess I just don’t like to think of a woman as a killer.”

  “Your problem, my lovely wife, is that when someone invites you to her home and serves you up a good meal and good conversation, you give her the benefit of the doubt.”

  “So you’ve figured me out,” I said with resignation.

  “It’s not bad.
I like it. It’s just you may be writing off a suspect.”

  —

  I went off to teach my poetry class on Tuesday morning still thinking about Jack’s comments on Arlene Hopkins. The class went well and when it was over I decided to stay and have lunch in the college cafeteria, which was much better than the usual institutional eatery, a direct result of a food service program at the college whose students prepared and served the food. On that Tuesday they offered a wonderful split pea soup, which I ate with saltine crackers and a glass of tomato juice, feeling warm and satisfied when I finished.

  I got home to find our answering machine blinking and two messages recorded on the tape.

  “This message is for Christine Bennett. This is Al DiMartino, Chris. Your busts are ready. I got them done and dried enough and I’m just working on the color now. Drive up any time. I’m always here.”

  The second message was from Jack. “Hiya, love of my life. Have I got news for you. Give me a call.”

  I dialed his number with a little nervousness. It was the kind of message that could mean information that might blow everything I had learned out of the water.

  “Six-five Squad, Sergeant Brooks, can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “Chris?”

  “Is it good news or bad news?”

  “Hell, I can never figure that out. But I love it. I did a little checking this morning after I got in. Your friend Arlene Hopkins? Guess what. She has a permit for a target gun.”

  “A license for a gun?” I was truly shocked.

  “A target gun. They’re different from regular handguns. They can be a single-shot precision tool, a .22-caliber or a regular .38 revolver, or a lot of other things.”

  “Do they hold killer bullets?”

  “Sure do. But the law says she can’t walk around with it in her handbag. She can keep it unloaded in a carry case in her car or in a case on her person between where she lives and the place she practices shooting, maybe a local range. Not that that would stop a determined killer.”

  “So she could have had it in her bag that Thanksgiving Day.”

  “You bet. She’s been licensed for several years, three anyway. When was the disappearance? A year and a half ago?”

  “Less.”

  “Well, there you have it, a suspect with the means and opportunity and a beauty of a motive.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said.

  “Believe it. She renewed the permit early, so she’s a current license holder.”

  “And if she’s as good at shooting as she seems to be at everything else, she’s just become a suspect.”

  I told him about the call from DiMartino and we agreed that I would drive up early tomorrow and try to come home the same day. Then I called Sandy and told him I was picking up the busts and when I got them home, I’d need them photographed.

  “I have a great camera,” he said. “Call me when you get back and we’ll set up a shooting session. It shouldn’t take long. This model isn’t going to complain about the pictures.”

  I said I’d call him and I went to the bank to take out cash for DiMartino. Besides his fee, he would probably have expenses for the materials he used.

  I sat down at my desk with my classwork and started looking over the Quizzes I’d popped at the end of the second hour. They were about what I usually got, a handful of good answers from a group of students who were prepared, a bunch of paragraphs that were written in English but bore no resemblance to answers to my questions from students who couldn’t believe they could ever be asked a question without a week’s warning, and three almost blank papers from students who probably shouldn’t have registered for the course.

  While I was working, the phone on the desk rang. When I picked it up, I got a big surprise.

  “Is this Christine Bennett?” The voice was male, casual, upbeat, and one I had never heard before.

  “Yes it is.”

  “Hi, how’re ya doin’? This is Ted Miller, Natalie’s brother.”

  “Who?” I asked, not believing my own ears.

  “I’m Natalie Miller’s brother. I heard you were looking for her.”

  “Where did you get my name and phone number?” No name had been listed in the ad, and only Sandy’s phone number.

  “Let’s just say I have a friend on a paper in Indiana.”

  “I see.” I was struggling to think of the right thing to say. If this was really her brother, I could confide in him—maybe. But if this was a husband, abusive or otherwise, I wanted to keep him as far from me as possible, and if he had my name and phone number from a “friend” on a newspaper, he might also have my address as well. “Do you know where she is?” I asked.

  “Haven’t got the faintest. Do you?”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Well, I’ve been looking for her for a long time and I haven’t come up with anything. You get any responses to your ad?”

  “Nothing useful. Are you the person who made inquiries at Natalie’s old apartment?”

  “What place was that?”

  “I don’t have the address handy.” And it didn’t sound like he was the one. “How do I know you’re her brother?”

  “I’ll send you my birth certificate if you want.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Just outside of Indianapolis. Same place Natalie was born. She’s my big sister.”

  “Did she live in Connersville?”

  “Sure did. We grew up there.”

  “Then why didn’t we get any responses to the ad?”

  “Beats me. Maybe folks don’t want to call long distance.”

  I didn’t like any of this. He sounded like a country and western singer ad-libbing a few lines between verses. The only fact he knew was that the ad had appeared in the newspaper, and it was possible that he had the name right. Dickie Foster’s husband remembered Terry. Teddy wasn’t a far cry from that, but it didn’t mean this person was a brother. “Do you know any places Natalie worked in New York?” I asked.

  “Yeah, there was an ad agency downtown somewhere. Hopkins and Something?”

  “What about before that?”

  “Before that?”

  “Yes. She worked somewhere before she went to work for Hopkins.” I wasn’t going to give him a syllable, although he probably knew the full name of the company.

  “You know, I don’t remember just now. I’d have to go back to her old letters and see if she mentioned a name. That’s over five years ago.”

  “How did you know about Hopkins?”

  “She wrote and said she got the job. Then I went away for a while and kinda lost track of her.”

  “Would you mind giving me the name and phone number of your parents?”

  “Oh, Chris, I wish I could. They’re long gone. I’m the only one left. Besides Natalie.” The words kept rolling out, slippery with grease.

  “Can you give me your phone number?”

  “My phone number?” There was a small sound and then he said, “I’m kinda hard to reach. I’m borrowing a phone right now and I won’t be here after today. But I tell you what. If I find out the name of that place she used to work for, I’ll give you a ring, how’s that?”

  “Fine.”

  “And can you tell me how it is you’re looking for my sister?”

  “The people who know her want her found.”

  “How’d you get to Connersville?”

  “Luck,” I said.

  “Well, I hope you keep havin’ luck because mine ran out. I haven’t seen my sister in over five years and I don’t know what’s happened to her or where she is. And since she’s my only living relative, I’d like to find her.”

  “Keep looking,” I said.

  —

  The phone call unnerved me. I restrained myself from calling the newspaper I had placed the ad in. If this man really had a friend there, the friend wouldn’t be likely to admit having given out my name and phone number. What was certain was that “Ted�
�� knew about the ad. So had the person who had called Sandy. Could they possibly be one and the same person? It seemed doubtful. Whoever had called Sandy had been threatening. This person had been on the verge of breaking into song.

  He hadn’t given me one smidgen of information, but he had pumped me for what I knew. In the end it had been a standoff, but he had my name and number and I didn’t have his. And the likelihood was, he knew where I lived. Jack wouldn’t be any happier about that than I was. My only comfort was that the streets here were empty overnight by law and any car parked on the street in daylight would be visible and raise questions. It was a lot easier to hide in the jumble of the city than in a quiet town.

  23

  Jack was concerned enough about my being followed on Wednesday morning that he scouted the area before I left and followed me several miles to where I picked up the highway. He was becoming distinctly unhappy about my involvement in this, his other persona emerging, the tough, morose one that saw the black side of life and wanted to keep it from encroaching on ours.

  I worked my way west and north and picked up Route 17, passing old towns that had become familiar to me on earlier trips: Goshen, Monticello, Liberty, Roscoe, and my favorite, Fishs Eddy. There was new snow on the fields, but the road was clean as summer and I made good time to Binghamton, where I got off and followed the handwritten directions once again.

  Although New York is such a populous state, I have often thought that you could drop a stranger into any number of parts of it and have him believe he was in the heartland of this country. There are miles of forest and fields, an abundance of tiny dwellings and great estates. What one sees nowadays rather ubiquitously is the satellite dish that carries television to areas outside the heavily populated metropolitan ones. As I passed one after the other, I found myself wishing there were a way to disguise them, to preserve the rustic nature of the land, but I guess it’s too late for that. They give a high-tech look to what ought to be the lowest-tech-looking area of the state.

  I stopped before the last leg and had some lunch, then, refreshed, continued. Before reaching the orchard, I noticed a car pulled off to the side of the road, apparently empty, a bad place, I thought, to run out of gas or develop car trouble. At the orchard, I slowed, turned, and bumped my way to Al DiMartino’s half-hidden driveway.