by Frank Hughes
“That’s Julie.”
His wife came forward and peered at the photo. “Who’s the young man?” she asked.
“You don’t know him?”
“Why would she ask you if she knew who he was?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but his wife intervened.
“Mark,” she said, taking his arm gently in both hands, “why don’t we all sit down.” Surprisingly docile, he allowed her to sit him down. Then she turned to me. “I just made some coffee, Mr. Craig. Would you like some?”
Like a hole in the head, but I smiled and said, “Thank you, that would be nice.”
Nesbitt gave his wife an annoyed look, which she ignored and bustled off to the kitchen.
“Have a seat, Mr. Craig,” he said.
I thanked him and sat down.
“That young man, in the picture, he’s the one that’s missing?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“According to the police, about the same time your daughter disappeared.”
He nodded, because he’d guessed that already. “How do you think it ties in?”
“I’m not sure. That’s why I’m here.” I leaned forward. “I understand your daughter is involved in the ecology movement,” I said, making a point of using the present tense.
“You could say that,” he said drily.
His wife chose that moment to enter, carrying a wooden tray. “Julie is very concerned about the Earth,” she said. She set it down on the coffee table and began to pour. “Cream and sugar, Mr. Craig?”
“Black is fine, ma’am.”
She handed me a cup. I took a sip while she poured one for the Mister. He took a dollop of cream and a teaspoon of sugar.
“Was it a local group she was involved with?”
She started to speak, but he answered first.
“I think so. We never met any of them.”
Mrs. Nesbitt glanced briefly at the carpet, then up at me. I got the message. Nesbitt wasn’t entirely clued in to what was going on in Julie’s life. I made a note and moved on.
“According to his roommate,” I said, “she met Ken through an ecology group that was recruiting on campus.”
“All of a sudden, it was a big thing with her,” Nesbitt said, sitting forward with sudden vehemence. “Never cared a whit about anything except MTV and shoes. Then one day it was global warming this and vanishing forests that. I don’t know, maybe it was me. I work for Weyerhaeuser.” He sat back and looked off into the distance, seemingly spent. “Teenagers rebel, you know.”
Mrs. Nesbitt glanced at me again. I didn’t know much about raising kids, but I knew it is usually the boys who do things in rebellion. Girls at that age, for the most part, do things for another reason: boys.
“Do you have any names of the activists she worked with?” I said, looking from one to the other.
“No,” he said.
“Could I look at her room?” I asked. “There might be something that would give me a clue.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. My daughter has privacy rights.”
“Mark,” said Mrs. Nesbitt, “it wouldn’t hurt for him to look. After all, the police have been through there. And they said this man helped.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
I was thinking of what to say when his wife said, “Why don’t you go up there and make sure there’s nothing out she wouldn’t want him to see. Then I’ll bring him up.”
Before he could argue with her, I stood up and said, “I’ll just help you clear these things while he does that, Mrs. Nesbitt.” I put my cup on the tray, picked it up and said, “Kitchen?”
“This way,” she said.
He didn’t move for a while. I was already putting cups in the sink before I heard him clumping up the stairs. I turned to her.
“You had something you wanted to tell me, Mrs. Nesbitt?”
She glanced furtively towards the door and stepped closer to me. Speaking in a low voice she said, “Julie had a boyfriend.”
“You mean other than Ken?”
“Like I said, I didn't know this Ken.” She nodded. “This was an older boy.”
“How old?”
“He looked to be in his late twenties. That would have upset Mark, Julie being just seventeen and all.” She searched my face for disapproval and found none.
“What was his name?”
“Roger. That was all I knew. I never knew his last name.”
“He was the cause of her sudden interest in the ecology movement?”
“Yes.” She smiled wanly. “We can be very silly. Women I mean.”
“Do you think there was some problem when she started seeing Ken?”
She looked puzzled and shook her head. “That’s just it. I don’t think she ever was really seeing this other boy. She was still with Roger. She never mentioned this Ken person.”
“Ken seemed to think she was his girlfriend,” I said. “How do you explain the photo?”
“I can't, really. Julie is something of a flirt. I- Did this Ken have money?”
I was surprised by the question. “Yes. His family is well-to-do.”
“I was coming to her room once and I heard her on the phone, with Roger, and she was saying ‘He'll pay for the whole trip'.”
“Trip? When was this?”
She shook her head. “September, I think. I'm not really sure.”
“What sort of trip?”
“I asked what it was all about and she laughed, and said, ‘Oh, mom. It’s just about Roger's work'.”
“And what was Roger's work?”
“He was some sort of organizer for some group.”
“A protest group?”
“I guess so. I remember now she told me he had a scar on his neck from a pepper something.”
“A pepper ball?”
“Yes, that's it. She said he got it during those G8 protests a few years ago. She thought him very heroic. Julie used to help him out, designing flyers and passing them out on campus and in town.”
I had the flyers I'd taken from the Student Union in my pocket. I took them out and showed them to her. “Do any of these look familiar?”
She took them to the kitchen table and carefully smoothed them out. “I really couldn't say. She never showed me any of them.” She stopped talking and lifted one of the flyers slowly.
“Something wrong, Mrs. Nesbitt?”
She pointed at the flyer. It was one of the four with the same contact address. “This little flower. Julie put it on everything she did. School papers, projects. It started in third grade and she just kept it up.” Her voice broke slightly, and her hand went to her mouth. Before I could say anything, we were interrupted.
“Evelyn!” It was Nesbitt, calling from upstairs.
“We’d better go,” she said, recovering her composure. She gathered up the flyers and handed them back to me. I refolded them and put them back in my pocket.
“One more thing, Mrs. Nesbitt. Do you know how to get in touch with Roger?”
“No. I'm sorry.”
“That call Julie made, was it on your house phone?”
She thought for a moment. “Yes.”
“Do you keep your bills?”
She smiled. “My husband is an engineer. Everything is filed alphabetically and by date.”
“Could you find the statement for the time when she made that phone call? I need to track this man down.”
“Of course. I believe the police copied them all and returned them. I'll check and then join you upstairs.” She pointed. “Julie’s room is top of the stairs second door on right.”
“Thank you.”
I went into the hall and up the stairs. Nesbitt was waiting in the room for me.
“Where is my wife?”
“She’s finishing in the kitchen.”
He made his grunting noise again.
Pink was the dominant color in the room and the canopied bed sported frilly bedclothes and those multiple thr
ow pillows men find so bewildering. On a table in the corner was the inevitable menagerie of stuffed animals. Along with the requisite pop star photos, there was a PETA poster of a popular actress, discreetly naked, protesting the use of fur. In one corner, leaning against the wall, was a cardboard sign with the international symbol for ‘stop’ superimposed over the word 'logging'. Opposite the bed was a computer desk with shelves holding several books, a printer, and framed photos of Julie and her friends. There was no computer, only an empty docking station.
“Computer?” I said.
“Laptop. She must have it with her.”
Most of the books were on ecology and looked fairly new. Some were from mainstream publishers, including “Earth in the Balance” by Al Gore, but others looked self-published.
“May I?” I asked, reaching towards them. He nodded.
I took one of the books out and flipped through it. It was entitled “Saving Gaia” by Jack Epstein. Apparently the Earth was on its last legs and only violent action would save her. The deeper I went, the more radical it got. The final chapters were all about ‘active defense’ of Mother Earth, which was a synonym for eco-terrorism. There was detailed information on how to spike trees, disable vehicles, and start fires remotely.
Nesbitt must have seen my expression. “What is it?”
“Fairly radical stuff.”
“My daughter was not a radical.”
I smiled. “I was referring to the book.”
I flipped to the front pages. The book was published by the Nature First Press of Bedford, Vermont.
“Are we through here?” said Nesbitt.
I closed the book and replaced it on the shelf. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Nesbitt.”
As I turned to leave the room, Mrs. Nesbitt appeared at the door. “Oh, are you done?”
“Yes,” said Nesbitt, before I could answer.
He glanced around the room. For a brief moment, I saw the fear. A big, strong man who would never forgive himself for not protecting the little girl he loved, and for not communicating that love before it was too late. Then he closed up again. He crossed to the desk and picked up the book I’d been looking at.
She smiled and said, “I’ll show you out then.”
I followed her down the stairs to the front door. I took my coat off the rack and started to put it on.
“Your right hand pocket,” she said, quietly.
As I got my hand through the sleeve I reached into the pocket and found several folded pieces of paper.
“Thank you, Mrs. Nesbitt.”
She nodded shyly. We heard her husband on the stairs. She spoke in a louder voice, “You’ll tell us if you find anything, won’t you?”
“Yes. Thank you, both of you, for your hospitality. I know this is a difficult time.”
I opened the door and started out.
“Mr. Craig,” she blurted suddenly, “do you, do you think Julie is alright?”
I turned and smiled my most reassuring smile, the one I practice in the mirror. “I really can’t say. There is no reason to believe anything has happened to her.”
“I know, but you do this for a living. Your intuition, what is it?”
Nesbitt appeared behind her. “Evelyn,” he began.
“I really wouldn’t worry, Mrs. Nesbitt,” I said. “Between me and the police, we’ll get to the bottom of this.” She opened her mouth to speak again, but I cut her off, too. “Thank you, again.”
I went out the door and down the steps. The overcast sky was a dirty yellow and the air had the stillness of a tomb. I felt her watching me as I walked to the car.
She’d seen in my eyes what I really thought.
6.
I drove to the address I'd found on the websites, which turned out to be a shipping store with dozens of rental mailboxes in an anteroom just inside the entrance. The ‘unit number’ on the flyer address was merely the number of the box. Even without the number, I would have found it easily; it was stuffed to bursting.
Inside two young women were working an overhead machine that dumped Styrofoam peanuts into shipping boxes. A line of women, each clutching a wrapped package, watched them with varying degrees of interest. Ah, the Holidays.
I sealed up the hard drive and phone records in a padded overnight envelope. I filled out a form and took my place in line. Ten minutes later, after listening to repeated instructions to “be careful, that's fragile” I was ready to shoot myself.
“May I help you?” said the taller of the peanut wranglers.
“Overnight, please.”
“Sure thing.” She took the order form and began to input the information. “Going to Brooklyn, New York?”
“That’s correct.”
“Is this a business or residential address?”
“Business.”
“Insurance?”
“No, thank you.”
“Comes with free insurance to one hundred dollars. Is it more valuable than that?”
“Not to me,” I said.
That threw her for a moment. She said “Okay” and returned to inputting my information.
“Listen” I said, putting on my best smile, “do you mind if I ask a question?”
“Sure. What about?”
I decided upon truth. Not always a winner, but I was too tired to lie convincingly. “I’m a private investigator from New York on a missing persons case.” I flipped open my wallet like they do in the movies and showed her my license. “Can you tell me anything about the owner of box forty-six?”
She smiled again, but shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m not allowed. Besides, I wouldn’t know anything about who owns what box.”
I put up both hands, cranked up the wattage on my smile. “Oh, my goodness, I’m not asking you to betray a confidence. I’m just wondering if it is unusual for a box to get that full. It’s probably mailings about environmental causes, and letters from all over the place.”
She frowned, trying to decide what I was up to. “How does that…?”
I took the picture of Julie from my coat pocket. “This girl worked with the organization that rents that box. She has been missing now for several weeks.”
She took the picture from me and looked at it intently.
“I am just trying to determine if she was the one who used the box.”
She shook her head. “I don’t recognize her.”
“Is it possible someone else could help us?”
“No one's here more than me,” she said, handing the photo back.
“Is that all the mail for this box? Or is it stacking up back there?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know.” She finished typing and punched a button. A small machine to the left of the computer spit out a label. She tore it off and started to put it on my envelope. “Wait, you said environmental stuff? You mean like Earth something fund, or whatever? That sort of thing?”
“Exactly”
She glanced over her shoulder at her companion, who was ringing up a sale. She turned back to me and said, “We’ve got a ton of it back there. It won’t fit in the box anymore.”
“Can you tell me what the person looks like that picked up the mail?”
“It’s really hard for me to say. I never actually see who opens what box, but I think it was this one guy.”
“What guy?”
“Tall, outrageous blonde hair. Built like a swimmer.”
“Cute, huh?”
She blushed. “Yes. He had a great smile.”
“And beautiful blue eyes?”
She laughed. “Actually, they were brown.”
“Why do you think it was him?”
“I don’t know. The way he was dressed. Frayed jeans, work boots, flannel shirt. That’s kind of how you expect them to look.”
“Tree huggers?”
The smile was abruptly gone. “I guess you could call them that.” She straightened up, and her voice had a little chill, now.
“Well, thank you so much for your time,” I said. “You’ve
helped a lot.”
She softened a little. “Really? I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she is.”
As I drove back to the hotel, I had the nagging feeling I'd seen the Nissan Altima two cars behind me more than once that day. There were two people in it. I couldn't make out anything except both were male, clean cut, and wearing sunglasses. To see if they were following me, I made two quick turns. They stayed with me through the first turn, but continued straight when I made the second. Doubling back quickly, I found no sign of the car. I decided it was probably nothing.
Back at my hotel I went over the past few months of Ken's bank and credit card statements one more time. There was nothing surprising, mainly cheap restaurants, gas stations, and the school bookstore. Some Internet purchases from Amazon and Best Buy, probably computer equipment or other electronics.
Then something caught my eye, a purchase from the Gaia Bookstore in Bedford, Vermont for fifty-three dollars. The books in Julie Nesbitt's room were published by Nature First Press in Bedford. I used my phone to Google Nature First. The mailing address on the website’s contact page was a PO Box in Bedford. I found the Gaia Bookstore website, and it used the same address.
On the “About Gaia” link page there was a brief blurb about the owner and founder, Jack Epstein. A photo of a man in his late fifties or early sixties, wearing a pair of Ben Franklin eyeglasses accompanied the bio. Although balding on top, he wore his remaining hair long, tied back in a salt and pepper ponytail. I often wonder if people who do that own a mirror. A frayed, open-neck shirt and dark vest completed the picture of an aging hippie. To say his expression was one of smug superiority was putting it mildly.
I wanted more screen real estate so I went back to the business center. A Wikipedia article profiled Epstein as a Vietnam era anti-war protestor now waging a lonely fight to save the planet. The article highlighted the environmentally friendly publishing business he'd built for himself in the idyllic wilds of Vermont.
Figuring he’d written the Wikipedia entry himself, I searched more mainstream magazines and newspapers. The articles I found struck a slightly different tone, but with only vague references to radical activities, except for a Rolling Stone article that openly linked him to the ELF, stating he was more or less their designated press agent, tying him in vague terms to sabotage and a fire at Vail’s Blue Sky Basin expansion project in 1998. A 2003 story in the San Diego paper touched briefly on a possible connection between Epstein’s articles in Earth First! Journal and the subsequent firebombing in that town of over two hundred condominium units. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer noted that similar rants preceded the Street of Dreams fire in Echo Lake that destroyed four newly built mansions in 2007. The reporter quoted an unidentified FBI agent as saying that it was now routine to step up security at facilities mentioned by Epstein on his website.