by Dick Cluster
“To tell you the truth,” Alex said, “we don’t know for sure who got here first. I know there are no photos of you in our possession, and none left here for anybody to find. Now this Nell— do you know her name, her whole name, real name, and where she was from?”
“Nell, her name was Nilda, really. Nilda. I didn’t know her last name. Caroline told me it; it was something like Martinez, Gonzalez, Fernandez, something like that. She was, I don’t know, Puerto Rican or Mexican, she never said, I never asked. She was real light-skinned, though. I think she was a college graduate, she once said she wanted to be an engineer. She was from New York. I heard she had a kid back there, but I don’t know if that’s right. I didn’t hear it from her.”
“Just New York?” Natalie asked. “No borough, no neighborhood, just New York?”
“Brooklyn, I think, I’m not sure. Look, I really didn’t get involved with her, with any of that. She left, she went to Europe, and except for that one time this Caroline came to me, I never heard anything else. Haven’t I told you enough?”
“When Caroline came to you, did she say where she thought Nilda might be?”
“No. She asked questions, like you two. She didn’t tell me anything more than you’re telling me now.”
“Well, did she ask anything that revealed what she might’ve thought?”
“Only one thing, maybe— I didn’t put any importance on it— you’re cops, maybe it would be different for you. She asked me if Scat or Paul was much into ice fishing.”
“Ice fishing?” Natalie let her puzzlement show.
“Yeah, you cut a hole in the ice…”
“That’s okay,” Alex said, seeing again the photo of pond ice, that’s what it had to be, pond ice with a hole cut out. “I understand what you’re saying. We know what ice fishing is.”
“Yes. Well, I didn’t understand. I said I really didn’t know. And I don’t. Now that I’ve answered your questions, may I please go?”
Natalie shut off the tape recorder and made a small show of removing the tape and taking a step backward, a step of retreat. She put her hands on her hips and said, “I don’t have any more questions, Ms. Hanson, but I do have some advice. I heard you say you think it’s time to get out. I’m not going to preach to you about your line of work. Some people, some people pretty close to me, even, don’t feel too happy about mine. But my job, most of the time, makes me feel comfortable with myself. If yours does that for you, fine. If not, then I think you ought to consider your alternatives. Whichever way you decide about your line of work, my advice is that you draw your money out of the bank and pack your bags— tonight. Before anybody else comes asking you questions or asking questions about you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lena said. “You’ve been very decent with me, and I appreciate it. Just please, if you could keep any of those photos from finding their way back to Dubuque. And if I think of anything that might be helpful, once I’m gone, how would I be able to get in touch?”
“I’ll be moving around for a few days. The best thing would be to contact my boss, Detective Sergeant Trevisone. If he hasn’t received my report yet, you might have to repeat some of what’s already on this tape.”
Lena nodded and headed for the door. “Thank you, too, George,” she added with her hand on the knob.
Alex was busy trying to put everything she had said together with what he knew or guessed, but at the same time he was feeling sorry to see her go so soon. I’ll see you someday, passing through Dubuque, he thought, but he knew how unlikely that would be. More likely that he’d see her if Bernie had to track her down and put her on the stand.
“Wait, you’ll freeze walking,” he said. “Anyway, I’ve got to drop Detective Cooper back at her car.” So he got his coat and followed Lena Hanson to the door, and Natalie got her purse and her coat and shut off the lights and followed him. Outside, the stars were shining brightly and the moon was casting a pale glow on the snow. Suddenly the snow lit up like day. Alex looked toward a pair of headlights, the source of the brightness, and toward another light, a blue one, rotating above the car’s roof.
21. HOEING AND FISHING
The headlights went off, but as the policeman approached slowly, on foot, his six-volt flashlight had a similar effect on Alex’s eyes. Alex felt he was back in Somerville, facing the Reagan and Bush masks again. He was just as much alone, because Lena and Natalie had disappeared into the condominium behind him. “Let me see some identification,” the policeman said.
He was small, Alex could see that through the glare. His voice was young, eager rather than tough. Alex had no doubt he was genuine. He handed over his driver’s license and Rosemarie Davis’s letter. The flashlight pointed down, toward the documents. To Alex, as his eyes adjusted, the letter looked sadly dog-eared and wrinkled, folded and unfolded too many times, like an old map. “I’m looking for a suspect wanted for questioning,” the policeman said.
“What suspect?” Alex asked.
“Suzanne Lutrello.” The policeman held up a key, dangled it so the flashlight beam lit up its holder of white plastic treated to glow in the dark. “Since this isn’t your property, I don’t need your permission to enter and look around.” Alex stood aside to let him use the key. The knob turned, but the door didn’t budge. “Dead bolt.” He sounded frustrated, but not surprised. “We can go sit in my patrol car all night, or you can ask them to open up.” Alex had been trying to gauge the man, but he realized it didn’t matter. The point, he decided, was that Suzanne would most likely be safest in jail. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free, Eugene Debs said. But Alex would be freer with Suzanne off his hands. Bernie could work on getting her out, and meanwhile Alex could gather the evidence he would lay under Trevisone’s nose. It didn’t matter what he thought of the individual to whom he turned her in— just as it hadn’t mattered what Tommy Lutrello thought of him.
“She’s not in there,” he said. “She’s in the Black Pine, room thirty-one.”
“Uh-huh,” the policeman answered. “Well, then, let’s go sit in the car.”
The car felt warm and smelled of coffee. In the light, the policeman was young and red-faced. He took off his cap to reveal a military-style crewcut. When he took off his gloves, Alex could see a class ring on one finger. The young cop called in and reported what Alex had told him; he gave only his patrol car number— car number three— so Alex did not get to learn his name. The radio went silent, then crackled and a female voice reported back that the room was registered to Alex Glauberman and that “Chet’s car” was on its way over. The policeman offered Alex coffee from a thermos, in a Styrofoam cup. Alex took it gratefully. The effect of the wine and bourbon were only a memory, but he felt a lassitude trying to creep in. The coffee steam and the two men’s breath fogged the window, which the cop used his gloves to wipe clean. The radio crackled with static. Finally the female voice came back on. “Chet missed her,” was all it said. Then, “Better check the Johnston place. See if any of ’em know where she could’ve went.”
“Sorry,” Alex said.
The cop answered, “Whoever’s there, see if you can talk them into letting us in.”
When Natalie opened up, the cop did not betray any special interest, but only asked her and Lena for identification too. Natalie gave him a driver’s license, not the black plastic case. Lena said she didn’t have ID on her, to which he shrugged and again did not look surprised. He made notes on a pad and returned both Natalie’s license and Alex’s license and letter. Then he checked every room and closet on the first floor, every room and closet on the second, and then climbed up and opened the trapdoor and shone his flashlight all around the loft.
Alex followed, wondering whether Natalie or Lena would still be there when they got back downstairs. Either patrol car number three carried two men, one of whom was out watching in the cold, or else nobody cared about anybody except the suspect. Finally he said to Alex, “Guess you were telling me the truth. Do you have permission to be on these
premises?”
“I have a key that Scat gave to Suzanne Lutrello for her use. I don’t know whether that constitutes permission or not.”
“Not in my book. Do you have any idea where Lutrello could’ve gone to?”
Alex shook his head. “She didn’t have a car, as far as I know.” He followed the man back down the stairs. Natalie was again sitting under the Klee poster on the couch, but Lena Hanson was gone.
“The other lady said you knew where to find her,” Natalie reported.
The cop only repeated his question: “Do you have any idea where Lutrello could’ve gone?”
“None,” Natalie said with assurance. “Is it true you were paid off to look the other way about the businesses Scat Johnston and Paul Jakes were in?”
‘‘Just get the hell out of here,” the young policeman said. “If either of you comes back, you’ll be arrested for a B&E.” He stayed put, not self-conscious but with his eagerness gone, until they left.
* * *
“Where to, Officer Cooper?” Alex asked. He shifted into second and drifted slowly along the Katahdin drive. At the main road Natalie said, “My car’s outside that restaurant where you were having your date.” Alex turned right, toward the Silver Birch. The steering wheel felt solid through his gloves. The steering was tight, the linkages firm. A smooth mechanism— not one where the parts kept banging up against each other at every turn. “How did you find me?” he asked.
“Went to that bar where Suzanne said you’d gone to make contact. Played outraged wife. Quietly threatened the bartender to make a big public scene if he didn’t tell me where he sent my husband to pick up his lady of the night.” She laughed the laugh that belonged to an old woman. “Cross-racial spouse worked so well I decided to use it again. People can only handle so much surprise, then they tend to lose their hold on everything.”
“You told me you got to be friends with Suzanne because of the papers you wrote in that class. That was a lie.”
“Does it matter?”
“I can’t figure that out. You’re an addiction counselor, Suzanne says. I don’t think you’re addicted to making things up for no reason. You didn’t want me to know you’d been her counselor, her caretaker, right off? You thought that if I knew that, I’d leave her problems to you?”
“Why all these questions all of a sudden? Didn’t we make a good team with your friend Lena, back there?”
“Why these, you mean, why not a hundred others?” Alex blazed back. A good team they might have been, but not on a steady basis. Natalie appeared and disappeared and reappeared at will. Along the way, too many people knew where to find him, and too many people knew where to find Suzanne. He stopped the car, turned to her, and counted out questions on his fingers, close to her face.
“Why did you pretend to work for Trevisone?” he demanded. “Or do you? Why was it your house where Scat got killed? Were you surprised? Why was it your house where that other so-called detective, Callahan, caught up with Suzanne? Did she call you from that motel on 128? Or forget all that, and just tell me this: Where did you tell her to go, half an hour ago, when you called to warn her I was in the hands of the local constable and you thought I might be about to turn her in?”
“Why?” Natalie repeated. She folded her arms in a way that meant she was not going to be hurried. “I’m not trying to be unreasonable. But I need reasons that I should give you answers. That woman Lena, she had reasons. We could hurt her, at least if we were who she thought. Plus she was scared. Plus the Lutheran choir girl inside her thought she really ought to tell. I don’t have any reasons yet. You tried to make some kind of deal with the local cop that involved shopping Suzanne. Didn’t you? Tell me if I’m wrong.”
“What I can tell you is that right now she’s run away, somewhere, and I don’t know where that is, though maybe you do. So have it your way. I’m going to call Trevisone, just like I said I would.”
“That’s an empty threat, Alex, because I’m sure Jericho’s finest have already called big brother in Massachusetts. If I don’t tell you where she’s gone, then there’s nothing you can add, and you know it. Listen, it wasn’t my idea for Suzanne to try and get poor little Scat out of his jam. It is my idea to try and do what I can for her. For a little while more, you and I have each got our own row to hoe.”
Alex turned away from her, opened his window, and took a breath of the fresh air. It was smoky from overbuilding. Even on a Thursday, too many woodstoves and fireplaces were going. Without speaking, he drove the rest of the way back to the restaurant. In the lot he saw the battered Honda in which Natalie and Meredith had driven off four days ago.
“I’m doing what I said,” he told her. “You call me at the Black Pine when you want to talk.” She stepped out gracefully, said good night, and unlocked the door of her own car. He could follow her. In that thing she probably couldn’t lose him. But he didn’t doubt she’d be willing to lead him all the way to Maine and back. So he took her advice. He would try to make his own efforts bear fruit.
* * *
In Room 31 of the Black Pine Inn, he felt Suzanne’s absence immediately. She’d been lying on this bed; the pillow was still propped up, still dented from her head. She had left no message. Of course, even if she’d wanted to, a message for Alex would really be a message for whoever got here first. Alex took her place on the bed, resting the phone in his lap. He turned on only the bedside lamp, so he’d be able to watch the stars out the picture window. Probably she was with Natalie. He hoped that was as safe as she seemed to think.
His first call was to Trevisone. Just to make sure, he asked for Officer Natalie Cooper first. There was no Officer Cooper, and Trevisone had gone home. Somebody named O’Connor was willing to listen to what Alex had to say.
He went through it slowly and methodically, from the meeting with Rosemarie Sturgeon Davis to the interview with Lena Hanson that had just occurred. He left Tommy Lutrello and Bernie out of the meeting in the Burlington Mall, and he omitted Lena Hanson’s real biographical details and her assumed name. Trevisone would have plenty to chew on, and he could share it with Graham Johnston if that was what he had to do. Alex gave his number and address in case Trevisone wanted to call him back.
The next call was to Laura. It was nine-thirty, which he hoped would be too late for Maria to be answering the phone. He got Carl, Laura’s husband, who greeted him cordially as always and gave him Laura. Alex thought Carl was grateful to him for getting Laura’s less conventional years out of the way.
“Has Maria been asking about the missing baby-sitter?” Alex asked.
“Not much, no.”
“Well, one thing, I promised to call if Suzanne got found, and she did. She turned up at my house with an explanation, finally, on Wednesday.” He didn’t say that she had disappeared again, thought it was really this second disappearance that had forced him to call— and even though he really didn’t believe in the Suzanne-by-Sunday threat, and anyway he’d done his best to turn her in. “And another thing,” he added. “I’m in New Hampshire for the weekend, I might as well give you the number. And, um, when are you leaving for the weekend, by the way?”
Laura said they were leaving as soon as they could Friday afternoon, and why?
“It’s just I’m a little worried about her being freaked out by all this. Could you pick her up from school tomorrow afternoon? Instead of her coming home on the bus, by herself?”
Laura said she was planning to pick her up, and then they were picking up Carl at work so they could get an early start out of town. She sounded puzzled by the request, and on the edge of being annoyed or inquisitive. Alex couldn’t blame her, nor could he tell her she’d told him what he wanted to hear. All he could do was cut it short. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad you’re doing that. Well, that was all. Good-bye.”
The third call was to Meredith, but like Trevisone she wasn’t sitting by the phone, waiting. Alex left phone number and room number on her machine. “I hope I’ll see you tomorrow n
ight,” he said. “I love you, warts and all.” He stopped, pictured the machine obliviously rotating its spools. “What I mean is, I— warts and all— love you. Suzanne says Terry is related to Natalie, that he taught meditation at the drug-treatment program where Suzanne was a client and Natalie was staff. Maybe he knows something. Maybe you could go by and look at his player piano and talk to him about all this.”
The thought of Meredith helping to make sense of this puzzle made Alex want to get back in the car and drive south. So did the thought of being in her bed instead of this anonymous, rented one. He hoped Meredith would talk to Terry, if only because that would bring her one step closer to him. Studying with the same teacher was like having the same therapist, the same ideal parent— sharing somebody who understood the tasks and difficulties before you, who displayed convincing confidence even while he made you sweat and work. It was Meredith, in the first place, who had copied Terry’s name and phone off a flyer on a campus bulletin board. She’d brought it home to Alex, who had refused various friends’ and acquaintances’ suggestions about recovery groups, nutrition classes, and all manner of mind-over-cancer techniques. They reminded him more of high school pep rallies than of anything that might be compatible with the person he actually was. But he’d told Meredith about how much he’d liked watching tai chi performers when he lived on the Coast. “Here,” she’d said, “it’s in the neighborhood. I’ll cover Maria if this is something you’d like to do.”
For now, however, Alex was on his own. He’d learned a lot from Lena Hanson, and he ought to use it. He picked up the phone book and found the number he wanted in Canaan, pronounced Cannon, one town to the north. He dialed and counted the rings up to six. He almost hung up, but then somebody answered, somebody he couldn’t quite identify as male or female, young or old. He asked for Mr. Jakes. “Hey, Dad,” the voice shouted, perhaps let down. “Hey, Dad, it’s for you.”