by Linda Barnes
“I met Veronica at a fund-raiser,” she said. “We talked, the way you do at those things, and it turned out she was looking for a place downtown. I trusted her on sight, and I don’t do that with many people.”
Did I look more trustworthy with brown hair rather than red, wearing secretarial garb instead of sweats or jeans? She was silent for so long I thought I’d have to prompt her. I didn’t want to; I like to hear the way people talk, silences and all.
“Maybe I ought to begin with Friday.” I stayed quiet, not wanting to disrupt the pictures behind her faraway brown eyes. “On Friday, I saw her just as I was coming home. She was holding a duffel bag and wearing her backpack, I think, and she waved, and told me she was going to visit her parents, and that she’d be back Sunday night. She knew I was supposed to travel on Monday, knew I was counting on her to take care of the dogs.”
It was Tuesday; if we were talking about last Friday, five days had elapsed.
“I have three dogs, two golden retrievers and a chocolate Lab, and Veronica’s Norwegian elkhound, Tandy, makes four. That’s why I know something’s wrong. Veronica would never have abandoned Tandy.”
Five days in a Beacon Street brownstone with three canine pals didn’t sound like abandonment to me.
She said, “If Veejay’s going away for the weekend, or if I plan to be out of town—I travel quite a bit; I sit on several boards—often I’ll lend her a car. She doesn’t have her own, but she does drive, and I have a Jeep and a car. I was planning to use the Audi, so I offered her the Jeep.”
“She took it?”
“I offered it.”
I nodded and said nothing, but I was thinking that the cops must have gotten a charge out of that one.
“I haven’t seen or spoken to her since. I had to cancel my trip to Baltimore. I tried to file a missing-persons report, and I know what the policeman said is true—she’s a grown-up; she can go where she likes—and I don’t begrudge her the Jeep, but she would have called. And she would never have left Tandy behind.” The woman bit her lip and went silent.
I waited, but this time she’d turned to stone and I had to prompt. “Is there anything else?”
“Several things. I called her parents. I’m—I snooped,” she said emphatically. “I don’t feel good about it. I—Veronica left her date book—there are addresses in it, and phone numbers.”
“Smart move,” I said reassuringly. “Exactly what I would have done. Called her parents.”
“She hadn’t been there.”
“Changed her mind?”
“Hadn’t been expected.” Dana stared down at her manicured nails. “I know. You’re thinking that if she lied about where she was going, she might have lied about how long she’d be gone.”
I was thinking that she might be having such a good time, she’d lost track of it.
“Her parents … Her mother. I don’t know. She seemed so odd, so vague. I couldn’t connect with her at all.”
I nodded.
“And then, well, I checked Veronica’s appointments. She didn’t write much down, and then a lot of it I didn’t understand. But she did have an appointment with Aronoff last Friday. I guess she didn’t show up.”
“But you saw her after that.”
“Well, yes, but this whole week was blank, and I thought she might have said something, talked to someone, mentioned her plans—You can see I’m floundering here.”
“Does Veronica have a boyfriend?” I asked.
Dana shrugged.
“Does she date a lot?”
“If you mean is she out all hours, I don’t keep tabs on her. But she impressed me as a steady, reliable person.”
Who disappears with vehicles not her own. I should have stopped asking questions, fobbed her off with a bland reassurance, or sent her to somebody else, but I was curious. If I hadn’t been working for Eddie, I’d have been downright intrigued. “Do her parents live far away?”
“It could have been an impromptu visit, a sudden decision to go see them, is that what you mean? They’re north of the city. Near Lowell. Tewksbury, I think. Do you think she might have had some kind of accident? It’s not an old Jeep, but it’s broken down before. She doesn’t have a cell phone.”
There’s not a lot of deserted highway between here and the New Hampshire border. If she’d driven into a ditch someone would have noticed. Still, there are ponds, frozen ponds this time of the year. They’re bleak and cold and sometimes call out to the would-be suicide.
“Was she depressed?” I asked.
“God, no. I don’t think so. Do you think I ought to call hospitals? I mean, she might have gotten into an accident. She could be hurt. I—I’m usually competent. I handle crises; I don’t fall apart. And now I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried the police. What am I supposed to do? Put her picture on a milk bottle? Hang posters on trees as if she were a lost pet?”
“Slow down. Take a deep breath.”
She made a visible effort to pull herself together. “I’ll pay you to find her, whatever it costs, whatever it costs and more. A bonus. Anything. I’m worried that something terrible has happened, something vile.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-one.”
I remember twenty-one. Working on a divorce, my parents dead. My soon-to-be-ex-husband probably gave up wondering where I spent my nights. Wasted on cocaine, he probably never noticed I was gone.
The rich woman’s tenant could be off on a one-night stand that turned into a dirty weekend that blossomed into a full-fledged affair. If so, she wouldn’t thank anyone for reminding her that she had obligations in the real world. The tenant could have stolen the landlady’s car. The cops might not encourage a missing persons beef on a woman who’d taken off under her own steam with packed bags, but they’d file a stolen car report quickly enough.
On the other hand, unlikely things happen. Maybe this Veejay, this Veronica James, was the rare street-crime victim, snatched at random, luckier than most in that she knew someone willing to start the machinery in motion, an angel eager to foot the bill.
If I’d been planning to take the case, I’d have filled pages of my legal pad with information about Veronica James, from her middle name to her current job, her hobbies, her friends. As it was, I started wondering whether I could handle this case and Eddie’s stuff as well. The thing about working for Eddie, I had fairly regular hours, and early ones, too. I don’t need much sleep. It was tempting. The woman looked good for some serious dough.
“Want my honest opinion?” The phone rang before I got a chance to find out whether she did or not. If I’d been working for her, I’d have let the machine pick up. But I already had a job, so I answered and got an earful of Happy Eddie. I gestured excuses to the elegant woman in the butterfly chair, and carried the receiver into the kitchen for a little privacy.
“So, Eddie, what am I looking for?”
“It’s kinda routine.”
“Come on. I haven’t been with you long enough to do routine. Nothing around the Dig looks routine to me.”
He hesitated, more uneasy with this assignment than he’d been with the others, more uneasy and less forthcoming.
“Eddie,” I said. “Give.”
“Look, you oughtta know, I ain’t neutral on this one. I’ve known Gerry Horgan mosta his life, knew his dad. By me, the Horgans are the kinda people give builders a good name. I think what the IG’s got hold of here is some jerk tryin’ to black their eye, ya know? Jealousy. Business shit. Who knows? They’re up for new contracts, so some asshole tries to screw them over on the hotline.”
Back when the inspector general was getting terrible press, his office initiated a special Dig-fraud hotline for the general public, made a big fuss about it. You call; we investigate.
“Caller says stuff’s walking off the Horgan site,” Eddie went on.
“Petty theft? That wouldn’t necessarily involve the principals.”
“It would make them look bad, like they don’t know w
hat’s going on under their noses.”
“No ID, I suppose?”
“Didn’t leave a number. But he said he might call back.”
Designed to encourage whistle-blowers, the hotline also enables anonymous cranks. Rewards are offered for information leading to arrests. No names required, but most callers give an identifying seven-digit number they’ll need to repeat if and when the time comes to collect. Sometimes no identifying number is given. The IG likes to think such callers operate from the noblest motives. Me, I wondered whether the Horgans had done any firing lately.
“It’s a complaint and we gotta follow up,” Eddie said.
“And Horgan just happened to need a secretary? He fire his? She make the complaint?”
“Caller’s definitely a guy.”
“So much for that.”
“Carlotta?” Eddie sucked in a deep breath. “I was wonderin’. Maybe you could help me out here.”
There was something in his voice that made me lean against the kitchen counter and brace myself.
“This ain’t about the Horgans. It’s more a general thing you could maybe find out for me. Ya know, where there’s heavy construction, there’s rumors. About, ya know, the mob, about, like, uh, mob involvement.”
Here it comes, I thought, and suddenly I knew with cool certainty why the bastard had hired me. Because I used to be with a guy named Sam Gianelli. Used to. And the Gianelli name is so identified with the Boston mob that the fact that my lover—ex-lover—Sam Gianelli, youngest son of mob underboss Anthony Gianelli, has never been a player, never been a North End soldier, is something nobody, but nobody believes.
“You could maybe just keep your ears open,” Eddie muttered.
I punched the button to cut the connection, took a deep breath, drank a glass of cold water. Then I went back to my living-room office and enthusiastically accepted Dana Endicott’s case. If Eddie hadn’t pissed me off I might not have taken it. But I figured it this way: He didn’t tell me everything when he hired me. Okay. So I wouldn’t tell him everything, either. And a little high-priced moonlighting would go a long way toward dispelling my anger. I’ve never been a Mafia moll and I don’t like being taken for one.
Chapter 6
The missing woman and I had something in common: We both worked two jobs. Veronica James did days at a sort of pet camp, nights at a bar-restaurant combo called Raquela’s. By the time I’d finished quizzing Dana Endicott, filling twenty-eight pages with facts and queries, it was past seven, and my rumbling stomach influenced my decision to start the search with Veronica’s night job. Raquela’s served food.
Dana had been late for a dinner engagement, so my first impulse—to examine the tenant’s room—hadn’t panned out. Another time, she assured me, signing a very substantial check as a retainer. I had her card; I should call and schedule an appointment.
Arthur Goldman, the lawyer, still at his desk, verified that Dana Endicott was indeed a client and a good one, too. Her parents had been clients, before they’d moved to New York, and her grandparents, he believed, had been clients of his mentor at the firm. In other words, the check wouldn’t bounce. I filled out a deposit slip, stopped at the bank on my way to dinner.
Not only are missing persons cases more my speed than construction fraud, smoke-filled bars are more my idea of places to investigate than early-morning building sites. Raquela’s was long and narrow, dimly lit, with a mahogany bar slicing it narrower, running the length of the room. Leather swivel bar stools with high backs sprouted from the wooden floor on metal poles. I chose a seat toward the rear, where I could keep an eye on the tables reflected in the long mirror behind the bar.
I’d never visited the place as a customer. Too much of a pickup joint, with its trendy waterfront location. Wrong kind of sound, piped-in Sinatra and swing instead of live blues. I inhaled secondhand smoke and sipped overpriced beer. The clientele, mostly white, with lots of lawyers, to judge by the conservative suits, looked well-off, pleasantly buzzed on a mix of alcohol and affluence. I checked out the dating couples at the small tables, marvelling at the age differential, the youthfulness, feigned or otherwise, of the women as opposed to the men. I wondered how many of the ladies hailed from nearby colleges, how many had been ordered from escort services the way you’d order a lamb chop off the menu. One large group, more male than female, at a corner booth had the weary cheerfulness of an after-office drinks session that had stretched into dinner and more drinks. I marked a couple of women on bar stools as pros, trolling for out-of-town conventioneers. I thought maybe I’d booked one of them when I was a cop. Same narrow eyes, but the brassy wig gave her a different look. I was glad I’d dressed down. Slacks and sweater, minimal gold jewelry. I didn’t want to be mistaken for a pro.
The only TV was a small one over the bar, tuned to CNN. Not enough screens to attract a sports crowd. I found myself wondering if Sam Gianelli ever strolled over from his Charles River Park apartment. Not that I was actually hoping he’d walk in and give me the kind of lazy smile that tingled up my backbone. It was simply that he’d be good cover; a date is always good cover. Couples fit in a bar, blend into the background. A single at a bar is either interested in losing that designation or in getting quietly and thoroughly drunk.
I have considerable bar experience. My ex and I hung at a series of Irish pubs, but I expanded my repertoire after he left. For a while, I barhopped with a vengeance, picking up a different man each night, bringing him home. I was lucky, I insisted on protection, and I got over it. And then there was Sam and I haven’t gotten over him, although I haven’t seen him in some time. I can still dial his number from memory, but damned if I wanted to do it in response to a business query from Eddie Conklin. I ordered another beer, tugged at a strand of my wrong-colored hair.
You can divide missing persons cases into categories. Start with the absentminded frequent flyer who forgets to tell the wife about the conference in Dubuque. Then consider missing stockholders and no-show heirs, usually sought by attorneys rather than anxious family members. Those are bread-and-butter cases for PIs like me. I also handle adoptees searching for birth parents and birth parents searching for a long-surrendered child. The common denominator in the above is that the missing person has no idea they’re classified AWOL. They take no evasive action.
Those who intentionally disappear make for dicier trade. Loan skips spend and run, and professional skip tracers make a good living tracking them through the bureaucratic labyrinths of banks and utility companies. Teenage runaways are another special group; I keep an updated list of runaway shelters and hotlines to help track them. Custodial kidnappings turn small children into divorce-settlement pawns. Those who disappear intentionally are harder to find; they live on alert, change their names, alter their habits.
The missing woman, Veronica, Veejay, didn’t fit neatly into any of my categories. On the face of it, she’d gone off voluntarily. On the other hand, she’d left her dog.
My cat is an independent operator. He goes his way; I go mine. As long as the water dish is full and an occasional can of Fancy Feast appears, T.C.’s fine, and I strongly suspect he could fend for himself if I forgot all about him. According to Dana Endicott, Tandy, Veronica’s Norwegian elkhound, required both vigorous walking and elaborate grooming. I sipped beer, hardly noticing its taste.
I’d called area hospitals before leaving the house, not that I thought I’d locate Veronica that way, since amnesiacs with no identification only inhabit the world of daytime soaps, but because I knew I’d feel dumb if I ignored the possibility and she turned up in a coma at the General. I’d also dialed the morgue, because I’m thorough and because I know a guy who works there. No 5'6", thin, dark-haired woman was lying unidentified in an emergency room or unclaimed in a refrigerated drawer.
The beer slid down easily. The waiters wore unisex uniforms of tight black jeans, white tees—the women’s version low-cut—small white aprons with pockets for checks and change. They seemed efficient, except for on
e who looked increasingly desperate as the night wore on. I tagged her as Veronica’s replacement.
The bartender, in his fifties, with a narrow, lined face, wore a neatly trimmed beard. None of his motions seemed hurried, but he got things done with such lack of fuss and quick economical movements that if he quit, they’d have to hire two to replace him. The regulars called him Carl, and enough of them asked how business was that I decided he wouldn’t quit since he was probably an owner. When I ordered my next round, I asked whether Veronica would be in later. Veejay.
“You a friend?”
“Friend of a friend.”
“Tell your friend to tell Veejay she better gimme a call. I don’t hear from her, she’s toast. I mean, what am I supposed to do, run the bar and wait the tables?”
“Heidi here?” It was a name Dana had tossed out. Sometimes Veejay mentioned her.
“Heidi’s always here.”
She wasn’t your typical Heidi. No tall strapping blonde with crisscrossed braids, yodeling away in lederhosen. Small, dark, and the only characteristic she shared with the girls’ book heroine I remembered was rosy cheeks. Carl pointed her out and I watched her work until I knew which tables she served. When a couple paid up and left, I took their place.
The menu, as trendy as the location, featured Chilean sea bass and Tuscan steak, neither of which I felt like eating, not even on a rich client’s dime. I ordered a burger, which they offered with my choice of cheese, although Velveeta was not an option. Heidi asked if anyone was going to join me and I said I’d hoped Veejay would, but she hadn’t shown up.
“You okay on the beer?”
When it came, the burger was big and meaty and unhealthy and I loved it. A pile of fried onion rings mounded the plate. I requested ketchup, and when Heidi wound her way back through the closely spaced tables, I said, “Veejay talked about you.”
“Say anything nasty?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.”
“You know when she’s due in?”
She shrugged. “Overdue is what she is.”