Slowly, Barrott closed the Charles MacKenzie Jr. file and slid it into the top drawer of his desk. I’ll look it over in the morning, he decided, and maybe drop in on some of those people who gave statements at that time. Can’t hurt to ask some questions and see if their memories got refreshed along the way.
It was four o’clock. Time to shove off. He wanted to be home in time to take pictures of Melissa in her prom dress with her date, Jason Kelly. A nice enough kid, Barrott reflected, but so thin that if he drank a glass of tomato juice, it would be as visible as mercury in a thermometer. I also want to have a little chat with the limo driver who’s picking up the kids. Just to get a look at his license and let him know that he’d better not even think of driving one mile over the speed limit. He stood and put on his jacket.
You take all the precautions you can to protect your children, Barrott thought, as he turned and yelled, “See you,” to the guys in the squad room and walked down the corridor. But sometimes no matter what you do, something goes wrong and your kid becomes involved in an accident or is the victim of foul play.
Please God, he prayed as he pushed the button for the elevator, don’t let it ever happen to us.
7
Uncle Dev had told Elliott Wallace about the note Mack left in the collection box, and on Monday evening Elliott met us for dinner. Only a flicker of anxiety showed through his typically unruffled exterior. Elliott is the CEO and chairman of Wallace and Madison, the investment firm on Wall Street that handles the family finances. He’d been one of my father’s best friends, and Mack and I have always considered him a surrogate uncle. Divorced for years, Elliott is in love with my mother, I think. I also believe that her lack of interest in him in the years since Dad died is one more casualty of Mack’s disappearance.
As soon as we were settled at his favorite table in Le Cirque, I handed Elliott Mack’s note and told him it made me more determined than ever to find him.
I had really hoped that Elliott would side with me in my decision to try to find Mack, but he disappointed me. “Carolyn,” he said, slowly, as he read and reread the note, “I don’t think you’re being fair to Mack. He calls every year so that you’ll know he’s all right. You’ve told me yourself that he sounds confident, even happy. He responds immediately to your promise—or threat—to find him. In the most direct means at his disposal, he orders you to leave him alone. Why don’t you go along with his wishes, and, more important, why don’t you refuse to allow Mack to remain the center of your existence?”
It was not the kind of question I’d expected from Elliott, and I could see the effort it took for him to make it. His eyes were troubled, his forehead creased, as he turned his gaze from me to my mother, whose own expression had become unreadable. I was glad we were at a corner table where no one else could observe her. I was afraid she would flare up at Elliott as she had at me after Mack’s call on Mother’s Day, or even worse, break into a storm of weeping.
When she didn’t answer him, Elliott urged, “Olivia, give Mack the space he wants. Be satisfied that he’s alive, even take comfort in the fact that he’s obviously close by. I can tell you right now that if Charley were here, that’s exactly what he would be telling you.”
My mother always surprises me. She picked up a fork and in an absentminded way, traced something on the cloth with the prongs. I would bet anything it was Mack’s name.
As soon as she began to speak, I realized I had been completely wrong in evaluating her response to Mack’s note.
“Since Dev showed us that message from Mack last night, I’ve been thinking somewhat in the same vein, Elliott,” she said. The pain in her voice was evident but there was no hint of tears there. “I lashed out at Carolyn because she became angry at Mack. That wasn’t fair to her. I know that Carolyn worries about me all the time. Now Mack has given us an answer, not the answer I wanted, but that’s the way it is.”
Her Mom tried to smile. “I am going to try to consider him an AWOL son—absent without leave. He may live in this area. As you say, he did respond quickly, and if he doesn’t want to see us, Carolyn and I are going to respect his wishes.” She paused, then added firmly, “So there.”
“Olivia, I hope you stick to that decision,” Elliott said fervently.
“I’m surely going to try. As a first step, my friends the Clarences are leaving for a cruise on their yacht, starting at the Greek islands this Friday. They’ve been trying to persuade me to join them. I’m going to do it.” She put her fork down in a gesture of finality.
I sat back and pondered this unexpected turn of events. I had planned to talk to Elliott about my appointment with the superintendents of Mack’s building on Wednesday. Now, of course, I wouldn’t. Ironically, Mom had finally come to accept Mack’s situation, as I had begged her to for years, and now I didn’t welcome it. As every hour passed, I was more and more convinced that Mack was in serious trouble and facing it alone. I was about to raise that possibility but then clamped my lips together. With Mom away, I could search for Mack without having to cover up what I was doing, or worse yet, lying to her about it.
“How long is the cruise, Mom?” I asked.
“At least three weeks.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” I said honestly.
“So do I,” Elliott agreed. “Now, what about you, Carolyn? Still interested in becoming an Assistant District Attorney?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “But I’ll wait a month or so to apply. If I’m lucky enough to be hired, I won’t have any time off for quite a while.”
The evening progressed pleasantly. Mom, lovely in a pale blue silk shirt and matching slacks, became animated and smiling, far more than I had seen her for years. It was as though coming to terms with Mack’s situation was giving her peace.
Elliott’s mood brightened as he watched her. Growing up, I used to wonder if Elliott wore a shirt and tie to bed. He is always terribly formal, but when Mom turns on the charm, he simply melts. He’s a few years older than Mom, which makes me wonder if his head of charcoal brown hair can possibly be natural, but I think it may be. He carries himself with the erect posture of a career military officer. His expression is usually reserved, even aloof until he smiles or laughs, and then his whole appearance lightens up, and you can catch a glimpse of a more spontaneous person hiding behind his ingrained formality.
He jokes about himself. “My father, Franklin Delano Wallace, was named after his distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who remained Father’s hero. Why do you think my name is Elliott? That was the name the president chose for one of his sons. And despite all he did for the common man, remember that Roosevelt was first and foremost an aristocrat. I’m afraid my father was not only an aristocrat but a downright snob. So when I come across too stuffy, blame it on the stuffed shirt who raised me.”
By the time we finished coffee, I had decided that I absolutely would not even hint to Elliott that I was going to actively search for Mack. I offered to stay at Mom’s apartment while she was away, a fact that pleased her. She isn’t impressed with the studio in Greenwich Village that I rented last September when I started my clerkship with the judge. She certainly didn’t know that my reason for staying at Sutton Place was to be available if Mack learned that I was still looking for him and tried to reach me there.
Outside the restaurant I hailed a cab. Elliott and Mom chose to walk to Sutton Place. As the cab pulled away, I watched with mixed feelings as Elliott took Mom’s arm, and, their shoulders brushing, they went down the street together.
8
Sixty-seven-year-old retired surgeon Dr. David Andrews did not know why he had felt so uneasy after putting his daughter back on the train to Manhattan where she was completing her junior year at NYU.
Leesey and her older brother, Gregg, had come up to Greenwich to be with him on Mother’s Day, a tough day for all of them, only the second one without Helen. The three of them had visited her grave in St. Mary’s cemetery, then gone out for an early dinner
at the club.
Leesey had planned to drive back to the city with Gregg, but at the last minute decided to stay overnight and go back in the morning. “My first class is eleven o’clock,” she had explained, “and I feel like hanging around with you, Dad.”
Sunday evening, they had gone through some of the photograph albums and talked about Helen. “I miss her so much,” Leesey had whispered.
“Me, too, honey,” he had confided.
But Monday morning when he dropped her at the station, Leesey had been her usual bubbly self, which was why David Andrews could not understand the gnawing sense of worry that undermined his golf game both Monday and Tuesday.
On Tuesday evening, he turned on the 6:30 news and was dozing in front of the television when the phone rang. It was Kate Carlisle, Leesey’s best friend, with whom she shared an apartment in Greenwich Village. Her question, and the troubled voice in which she asked it, caused him to bolt up from the easy chair.
“Dr. Andrews, is Leesey there?”
“No, she isn’t, Kate. Why would she be here?” he asked.
As he spoke he glanced around the room. Even though he had sold the big house after Helen’s death, and she’d never been in this condo, when the phone rang, he instinctively looked around for her, her hand outstretched to take the receiver from him.
When there was no answer, he demanded sharply, “Kate, why are you looking for Leesey?”
“I don’t know, I just hoped . . .” Kate’s voice broke.
“Kate, tell me what happened.”
“Last night she went out with some of our friends to the Woodshed, a new place we’ve been talking about trying.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s on the border of the Village and SoHo. Leesey stayed after the others left. There was a really good band, and you know how she loves to dance.”
“What time did the others leave?”
“It was about two o’clock, Dr. Andrews.”
“Had Leesey been drinking?”
“Not much. She was fine when they left but she wasn’t here when I woke up this morning, and no one has seen her all day. I’ve been trying to reach her on her cell phone, but she doesn’t answer. I’ve been calling everyone I could think of who might have seen her, but no one has.”
“Did you call that place where she was last night?”
“I spoke to the bartender there. He said that Leesey stayed till they closed at three o’clock and then left alone. He swore that she absolutely wasn’t drunk or anywhere near it. She just stayed till the end.”
Andrews closed his eyes, trying desperately to sort out the steps he needed to take. Let her be all right, God, he prayed. Leesey, the unexpected baby born when Helen was forty-five years old and they had long since given up hope of having a second child.
Impatiently, he pulled his legs off the hassock, pushed it aside, stood up, brushed back his thick white hair from his forehead, then swallowed to activate the salivary glands inside his suddenly dry mouth.
The commuter traffic is over, he thought. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to get down to Greenwich Village.
“From Greenwich, Connecticut, to Greenwich Village,” Leesey had joyfully announced three years ago when she decided to take early acceptance at NYU.
“Kate, I’ll start down right away,” Andrews said. “I’ll call Leesey’s brother. We’ll meet you at the apartment. How far is this bar from your place?”
“About a mile.”
“Would she have taken a cab?”
“It was nice out. She probably would have walked.”
Alone on dark streets, late at night, Andrews thought. Trying to keep his voice from breaking, he said, “I’ll be there in an hour. Keep calling anyone you can think of who might have an idea where she is.”
* * *
Dr. Gregg Andrews was showering when the phone rang, and he decided to let the answering machine pick it up. He was off duty and had a date with someone he had met the night before at a cocktail reception for the launching of a novel by a friend. Now a cardiac surgeon at New York–Presbyterian Hospital, as his father had been until his retirement, he toweled dry, walked into his bedroom, and considered the fact that the May evening had begun to turn cool. From his closet, he chose an open-necked long-sleeve light blue shirt, tan slacks, and a navy blue jacket.
Leesey tells me I always look so stuffy, he remembered, thinking with a smile of the little sister who was twelve years his junior. She says I should get some cool colors and mix them up.
She also says I should get contact lenses and get rid of my crew cut, he thought.
“Gregg, you’re really cute, not handsome, but cute,” she had told him matter-of-factly. “I mean women like men who look as though they have a brain in their heads. And they always fall for doctors. It’s kind of a ‘Daddy’ complex, I think. But it doesn’t hurt to look a little zippy.”
The message light was blinking on the phone. He debated whether he should bother to check it now but then pressed the play button.
“Gregg, it’s Dad. Leesey’s roommate just called me. Leesey is missing. She left a bar alone last night, and no one has seen her since. I’m on my way to her apartment. Meet me there.”
Chilled, Gregg Andrews stopped the machine, and pushed the numeral that rang his father’s car. “Dad, I just got your message,” he said when his father answered. “I’ll meet you at Leesey’s apartment. On the way I’ll call Larry Ahearn. Just don’t drive too fast.”
Grabbing his cell phone, Gregg rushed out of his apartment, caught the elevator as it was descending from an upper floor, ran through the lobby, and, ignoring the doorman, rushed out into the road to flag down a cab. As usual at this hour, there was none to be seen with the light on. Frantically he looked up and down the street, hoping to spot one of the gypsy limos that were often available on Park Avenue.
He spotted one that was parked halfway down the block and rushed to get in it. He barked Leesey’s address to the driver, then opened his cell phone to call his college roommate at Georgetown, who was now captain of detectives in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
After two rings, he heard Larry Ahearn’s voice instructing the caller to leave a message.
Shaking his head in frustration, Gregg said, “Larry, it’s Gregg. Call me on my cell. Leesey is missing.”
He checks his calls all the time, Gregg reminded himself as the car threaded its way downtown with agonizing slowness. When they were passing Fifty-second Street, he remembered that in fifteen minutes the young woman he had met last night would be waiting for him in the bar of the Four Seasons.
He was about to leave a message for her when Ahearn called back. “Tell me about Leesey,” he ordered.
“She was in a bar or club or whatever you want to call those places in the Village and SoHo last night. She left alone when it closed and never got home.”
“What’s the name of the bar?”
“I don’t know yet. I didn’t think to ask Dad. He’s on his way in.”
“Who would know?”
“Leesey’s roommate, Kate. She’s the one who just called Dad. I’m meeting him at the apartment she and Leesey share.”
“Give me Kate’s phone number. I’ll get back to you.”
Larry Ahearn’s private office was adjacent to the squad room. He was glad that at this moment no one could see the expression on his face. Leesey had been six years old when he visited the Andrews home in Greenwich the fall of his freshman year in Georgetown. He had seen her grow up from a pretty kid to a strikingly beautiful young woman, the kind any guy, never mind a predator, would zone in on.
She left the bar alone when it closed. Dear God, that crazy kid.
They just don’t get it.
Larry Ahearn knew that soon he would have to tell Gregg and Leesey’s father that in the last ten years, three young women had disappeared in that same SoHo-Village area after spending an evening in one of those bars.
9
On Wedn
esday morning, as eleven o’clock drew near, Lil Kramer became increasingly uneasy. Ever since the call came from Carolyn MacKenzie on Monday, Gus had been constantly warning her to say only what she knew about Mack’s disappearance ten years ago. “Which is nothing,” he kept reminding her. “Absolutely nothing! Just do your usual stuff about what a nice young man he was, period. No nervous-Nelly glances at me to help you out.”
The apartment was always immaculate, but today the sun was especially bright and, like a magnifying glass, exposed the worn areas on the arms of the couch and the chip on the corner of the glass coffee table.
I never wanted that glass table, Lil thought, glad to find an object to blame for her distress. It’s too big. It doesn’t go with this old-fashioned furniture. When Winifred redecorated her own apartment, she insisted that I take it and get rid of my nice leather-top table that was Aunt Jessie’s wedding gift to me. This glass thing is too big, and I’m always bumping my knees on it, and it doesn’t match the end tables like the other one did, she thought.
Her mind jumped to another source of concern. I just hope that Altman’s not here when the MacKenzie girl comes in.
Howard Altman, the real estate agent and manager for the nine small apartment buildings owned by Mr. Olsen, had arrived an hour ago for one of his unscheduled visits. Gus called him “Olsen’s Gestapo.” It was Altman’s job to make sure that the individual superintendents were keeping everything up to snuff. He never even has the slightest complaint about us, Lil thought; what scares me is that whenever he comes into this apartment, he always says it’s a waste of money to have two people living in a big five-room corner unit.
If he thinks I’ll ever switch to a pokey one-bedroom, he has another think coming, she told herself indignantly as she adjusted the leaves in the artificial plant on the windowsill. Then she stiffened as she heard voices in the hall and realized that Gus was coming in with Altman.
Where Are You Now? Page 3