The Thanksgiving Day Murder (7 page)

I don't think I ever quite appreciated the beauty of Friday night until I married. There are no classes, there are two days in the offing without work, there is the chance to be lazy, to talk, to do absolutely nothing. Of course, we don't always get to indulge ourselves over the weekend, but at least the opportunity is there.

Jack came home just about when the chicken and rosemary and garlic fragrances were becoming intense and when the thermometer indicated I had a dinner ready to be eaten.

“Got you some stuff from the file,” he said after we kissed. “It won't make you jump up and down.”

“Tell me.”

“They did a sixty-one on Natalie's disappearance two days after Thanksgiving.”

“What's that?”

“It's the initial report of a crime or an incident which may become a crime. The missing persons report would start with a sixty-one. They wouldn't do that on Thanksgiving because in most of these cases the person turns up pretty quickly. The cop he stopped after the parade would have told him to call home, go to the car, hang around and wait, that kind of thing. Most uniformed cops have had this kind of case before, boyfriend loses girlfriend, girlfriend loses boyfriend. If it had been a child at the parade, it would have been a different story. In this case, if she didn't
show up eventually, they'd suggest he come into the precinct and talk to a detective, which is what he did. He brought a photograph with him and they did a send-around.”

“Which is?”

“They make copies and send the picture to all the hospitals in the city to make sure she isn't in one listed as a Jane Doe, you know, a woman brought in without identification. Maybe she fainted and got picked up and taken somewhere and she hasn't come out of it yet. Detectives are just as anxious to get a missing persons case closed with results as any other crime case. There's a handwritten note that Sandy was asked to bring in all her prescriptions. There was only one, a cough medicine she'd gotten about a month earlier. So I'd guess she was in pretty good health.”

“I assume there were no positive responses from the hospitals.”

“Nothing. The detective working on the case, a Tony DiRoma, went out to New Jersey himself and talked to the neighbors.”

“Because he figured Sandy killed her.”

“It's what happens, Chris. But he seemed pretty satisfied they had a good marriage. No one ever saw her with bruises, no one heard screams or arguments, she always looked happy, chatted with neighbors.”

“I'm glad to hear it. What did DiRoma do in New York?”

“He talked to the doormen on Central Park West and asked if they'd seen anything, and the answer was a pretty conclusive no.”

“Did he go to her last job?”

“Hopkins and Something? He called.”

“He didn't go and talk to people?”

“She hadn't worked there for a while, Chris. They told him everybody liked her and no one knew anything.”

“Did he go to the building she lived in before she was married?”

“Doesn't look like it. He'd need a reason for that, Chris.”

“Someone there might have known her.”

“So what? They're not looking to write a life story, they're looking for a kidnapper. Anyway, DiRoma was transferred to another job about six months later and a new detective took over, Evelyn Hogan.”

“Interesting. She do anything?”

“Looks like she did. She reviewed the file and checked up on Sandy. What did you do to this chicken?”

“What do you mean?” I asked in terror.

“It's great. I thought you said you couldn't roast a chicken.”

“Melanie said anyone could roast a chicken and she told me exactly what to do.”

“It's fantastic. You used rosemary.”

I glowed. “Isn't it a wonderful smell?”

“Yup, I think I'm going to retire as chief cook in this house.”

“Please don't do that.”

“Competition's getting pretty keen around here.”

“I'll go back to convent stew.”

He looked at me and I laughed. The food at St. Stephen's had been very good, cooked by nuns who enjoyed cooking and who had their specialties.

“Well, I wasn't planning on giving up my title just yet.”

“What's for tomorrow?”

“I'll think about it tonight. Haven't had lamb for a while, have we?”

“That sounds good. Want to hear my day?”

“I'm all ears.”

I went through my morning conversation with Sandy and then what Susan Hartswell had told me, omitting her food and drink concerns. He raised his eyebrows when I said
Natalie had confided she might be pregnant and Sandy had likely not been told. Then I went through the Hopkins and Jewell episode. When I got to the missing personnel files, he interrupted for the first time.

“That really stretches the limits of credibility,” he said. “It's not as if she'd been gone for twenty-five years. It was only a year or two. And you said it's a small place. How many files could they have accumulated?”

“Is any of the stuff I asked for in the police file?”

“None of it. But again, they weren't interested in her work history.”

“And they started out with a bias,” I said.

“Probably.”

I told him the rest and I watched his interest increase as I came to the end, the woman I couldn't talk to because she didn't exist, the man named Steve following me out of the building.

“So they're holding something back,” Jack said.

“They are, I'm sure of it. But what? Why would they dispose of her personnel records? What on earth could they say that Hopkins and Jewell wouldn't want me to know? Or wouldn't want the police to know?”

“Beats me. But I think you're on to something.”

“Should I tell Sandy Natalie may have been pregnant?”

“I thought you were the half that decided moral issues.”

I had done it before, deciding to withhold information from a family when that information could only cause them anguish and could cause no one any good. But in this case I was “working” for a “client” and I felt an obligation to keep him informed.

“Did Detective Evelyn Whatever find anything in her check of Sandy?” I asked.

“No evidence he ever beat either of his wives. His ex doesn't love him, but she doesn't seem to hate him either. The people who work for him like him. At least they didn't tell horror stories about him. Some seemed pretty fond of
him. I've copied some of the Fives for you to look at.” “Fives” are D.D.5s, Detective Division sheets on which information is typed for a case file. “If he did it, there were none of the usual calls to the police complaining of battering.”

“So he isn't a suspect.”

“Not officially, but I gotta believe DiRoma and Hogan started out with suspicions.”

“He lives in New Jersey. Did the New Jersey police cooperate?”

“Looks like it. It's a pretty small town and they're pretty sure nothing was going on that they didn't hear about.”

“I've got to talk to this Wormy woman, Jack. She must know something.”

“Something they don't want you to find out.”

I had a brief conversation with Sandy Gordon that night, telling him the keys were definitely Natalie's.

“So you've made progress on your first day,” he said enthusiastically. “That's great.”

“I have a couple of other things to check, and you'll hear from me when I've done it. By the way, did a woman from Hopkins and Jewell call you this afternoon for permission for me to make inquiries?”

“The office manager, yes. I didn't get her name, but I told her you had carte blanche. They didn't give you any trouble, did they?”

“No trouble, but I'd like to go back and talk to some other people there. Did your detective get anything useful from them?”

“Only that Natalie was one of the first people they hired, that they were sorry to see her go, they liked her, that kind of stuff. No one seemed to have a grudge, there were no stories about fights or arguments.”

“Pretty much what I heard. OK, I'll be in touch.”

I woke up Saturday morning thinking of my father. Jack had already awakened, and when I went out into the hall, I smelled coffee. It's a great smell to wake up to, and I got downstairs quickly so we could eat together. I had bought a couple of banana walnut muffins for breakfast, and they were already cut in half and waiting for me in the toaster oven. “We have anything on for this weekend?” he asked when we were sitting down.

“Nothing. I knew last Sunday would be completely taken up, so I thought I'd keep this weekend free. Got much work?”

“The usual. I'll leave it for tomorrow. Anything you want to do?”

“A couple of things. How determined are you not to go to New York today?”

“For you, love, I'll make the sacrifice. What's your pleasure?”

“How long is it since you've been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art?”

“Don't embarrass me. It sounds like today's a good day to do it.”

“And maybe we can take a look at Sixty-fourth Street.”

“The Statue of Liberty.”

“Mind?”

“Haven't been up that way for a long time. How about we have dinner in the city and I'll cook tomorrow?”

“Sounds good.”

“Where'd you get these great muffins?”

We drove to the city in the afternoon and parked at the museum. I was amazed at the crowds. People of every age, together, alone, in families, were piling in and out of the front doors as we entered. Like everyone who works in the city, I wore sneakers with my suit, carrying my good shoes in a bag to wear later. The city has taken on the look of a giant track meet these days, all those sneakered feet moving
quickly along the pavement, ready to broad-jump at each corner. For me it was comfort, not speed, that dictated my footwear.

We looked at some of the classic paintings first, the old masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools, walking through packed galleries with the Saturday crowd. The people were nearly as interesting as the paintings. Some kept up a running commentary, some stared in silence, some moved toward and away from a particular painting as though focusing a preset camera lens, waiting for the image to become clear by changing the distance. A woman nursed a baby on a bench, a man with a beard narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, a father directed his daughter how to look at a canvas and what to look for while the wife and mother moved away from them at her own pace. I heard Spanish and French and something that may have been Russian.

Finally we went back downstairs and found our way to the Egyptian wing.

“This where they met?” Jack asked.

“Somewhere around here.”

“Shall I move away and see if you can re-create history?”

“No, thank you.”

“Sometimes I feel guilty that I deprived you of becoming part of the New York singles scene by preempting you.”

“I'm not sure I would have survived it.”

“Got something against one-night stands?”

“Lots.”

It was a nice place to spend a Sunday afternoon, or a Saturday. I had read about the Egyptian buildings being moved, stone by stone, from their place of origin to be reassembled in this new home. I felt good that these antiquities had found a congenial home where they would be taken care of with the love and appreciation they deserved.

I moved to the side to watch the people rather than the exhibit. You could almost pick out the hopefuls at first
glance, young women and not so young women in ones and twos, the twos sometimes together, sometimes separating, women dressed almost deliberately casually, their clothes a carefully thought out statement. They touched their hair frequently, moving toward single men with a practiced subtlety they must have been sure passed for chance. I watched one woman initiate a conversation with a bearded man who seemed less than interested. After a perfunctory smile, he moved away and she stayed, her eyes fixed on the Egyptian antiquity, looking for all the world like Natalie Miller. A few minutes later she turned and left the room.

“Maybe she should take up skiing,” Jack said.

“Doesn't anyone do anything for the sake of the thing?”

“Sure. You and me.”

“What a way to live.”

We drove through Central Park to the west side of Manhattan and Jack zigged and zagged his way south so that we were able to enter Sixty-fourth from Broadway. Jack pulled over to the side and double-parked. “Want to look around?”

“Come with me?”

“Sure.”

He put a plastic-covered police marker plate in the window, made sure the cars at the curb could get out, and joined me on the sidewalk. “You think she lived in one of these buildings?”

“Either that or she lived on Sixty-fourth farther west, toward the river. Why else would we have met her on that corner?” I nodded toward the corner of Central Park West.

“So you could have the pleasure of seeing the Statue of Liberty.”

“I hadn't thought of that.”

“Any idea how you're going to move on this?”

“I think I'll have to start where my father worked. It was
a place in downtown Manhattan. And I want to look through the stuff my aunt has in our basement.”

“I've been afraid to ask you what's down there.”

I wasn't surprised. The basement was an accumulation of a lifetime or two of acquisitions, my aunt's and my mother's. When my mother died and the house was sold, Aunt Meg took whatever was left and put it in her basement, assuming I would want those things at some point. It seemed the point was now.

“There are probably things my mother couldn't throw away, and I hope to find some photo albums down there. I promise I'll throw out everything I can.”