Tracking Time (10 page)

A
fter the Special Case detectives took off and Slocum left with the dog, April went in search of Woody, who had been busy asking questions and photographing people on the scene with disposable cameras all afternoon. The cameras were a surprising new initiative on his part. She walked north and found him under a tree near Eightieth Street talking to a boy and a girl. The girl, she realized with a jolt, was wearing a pink sweater.

Right away April pegged the two of them as private school kids. She saw their rank in the way they stood. Even from way off down the path she could tell the girl was holding court, aware of the power of her little body. Her voice carried a long distance.

"I love dogs. I bet you don't know anything about dogs. I know everything about dogs." She was excited, was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "You should see me work with that dog," she said.

"Sure." Woody caught April's eye. Relief was evident in his face as she strolled over.

"Hey, Sergeant, I've got a present for you. A real find. A tracking expert with a sense of style. Nice sweater, huh." He rolled his eyes at April as the girl turned to her.

"Yes, I'm an expert." The girl bounced some more, the boy couldn't take his eyes off her.

Woody raked at his crew cut with one hand and introduced the kids with the other. "This is Sergeant Woo." He turned to April. "What we have here is Brandy Fabman. She lives right over there." Woody pointed out the pink brick building, then checked his notes for the exact address. April spoke before he could recite it.

"Hi, Brandy." She gave the girl a warm smile.

Woody pointed at the boy. "This is David Owen. He lives on Park Avenue, but he hangs out here a lot. Brandy goes to All Saints, she's a tenth-grader. David's at Madison Prep; he's in the eleventh grade. These two have been going to camp together since they were nine. How about that?" He went on without taking a breath. He took a picture of them. Brandy gave him a big smile. David put a hand in front of his face.

"Brandy's mom and dad just got divorced, and last Friday her mom had everything done. Everything! It's hard to imagine, isn't it? David's mom is a banker at York Bank, his father's a lawyer at Debevoise Plomptom. They want to help us out," he finished. "Isn't that nice?"

"Hi, David." April gave him a smile, too, but he didn't return it. She could see the girl was high. She smelled beer, guessed they'd been drinking, maybe smoking pot, too.

"You're a cop? I bet it's cool to be a cop. Nice outfit," Brandy commented. There was nothing nervous about her.

"Thanks." April appraised the fuzzy pink sweater. At least two sizes too small. "Yours is hot, too. Angora?"

"How'd you know that?" Brandy gave her a wide-eyed stare.

"I'm a cop. I know everything." April smiled again. "What's up with you guys?"

"Could I see your gun? I've never seen a gun up close." Brandy kept on bouncing. She was wired, no doubt about it.

"Nope."

"Okay." Brandy spun around, changing the subject abruptly. "Hey, where'd the dog go? Did it find what you were looking for?"

"What are we looking for?" April asked.

"David and I know all about search dogs. I'll bet you're looking for a dead body."

"We're looking for a man who disappeared last night. Do you know anything about it?"

The girl spun back to Woody with surprising grace and gave him a hurt look. "Why wouldn't he tell us that?"

"He must have had his reasons." April glanced at Woody. He shrugged.

"You cops are spooky," Brandy giggled.

"Thank you," April said. "How come you know so much about dogs?"

"That dog that was here was a real dork. I bet I could fake it out easy." Brandy stopped bouncing, moved off the sidewalk, and drew a line in the dirt with her toe, challenging.

"No kidding. How would you do that?" Woody asked.

Brandy shrugged.

"I bet you couldn't. Freda's pretty well trained," April told her.

"Is that its name? Freda? I had a great-aunt Freda. She looked just like that dog." Brandy laughed. So did David.

Kids acting out. April was half amused. The other half thought they should be whipped. "So, how can you help us?" she demanded. "Where were you in the park last night?"

"In the park? In the park?" Brandy frowned at David. "Didn't it rain? Yeah, it rained last night. Nope, we weren't here. We did our homework and watched a movie."

"Where did you watch the movie?" Woody asked.

"My dad's," Brandy said loftily.

"What was on?"

Brandy smiled. "Who is this guy that's missing?" She drew another line next to the first one. Both cops watched her.

"He's a doctor," April told her slowly.

"What kind of doctor?"

"A psychiatrist."

"Eeew. David goes to a shrink. He
hates
him, don't you David?"

David's face went red. "I do not."

She punched his arm. "Yes, you do. You go every Thursday at five. His name is Frog. Frog, right?" Brandy started hopping on one foot. "Your shrink's name is Frog, isn't that crazy?"

"Clog," David said, looking miserable. "His name is Clog."

"How do you spell that?" Woody asked.

"I don't know." The kid was alarmed. "Brandy!" he said. "We gotta go."

April checked her watch. Smiling, she made a small motion of her head at Woody.
Separate these kids.
"God, I'm tired. Come on, Brandy, let's sit down for a minute." She headed for an empty bench, talking as she walked.

The girl followed her at a skip. "Can I see your gun? Please. I won't shoot it or anything."

Back on the gun. April ignored the request. "You know, I'm thinking about yesterday. It rained in the afternoon. It didn't rain at night. Maybe you went out for a while in the evening and forgot about it. You look like you enjoy a good party, drink some beer, smoke a little pot. What else?" April's tone was neutral.

"Oh no, no, no. You got the wrong person. My dad doesn't let me out at night." Brandy shook fingers decorated with black nail polish at her. "I don't do anything like that. Don't you know how bad that stuff is for you?"

"Do you live at your dad's?" April asked.

Brandy hesitated for a beat. "I live mostly with my mom. She just had surgery, though. She's kind of out of it." Finally, Brandy threw herself down on the bench, keeping a worried eye on David. "What's that guy asking him?"

"Same thing I'm asking you-what you did and what you saw in the park last night. What you do for entertainment, that kind of thing."

"Nothing. I told you, we weren't in the park last night, and I don't do drugs. My parents would kill me."

"Oh come on, everybody does it. I know what it's like."

Brandy gave her a sharp look and a little shake of the head. "Don't get me in trouble."

"Why would I get you in trouble? You look like a nice girl to me."

"Ha," Brandy said, but she was pleased.

"Anybody with half a brain could guess what a pretty girl like you would be doing in the park with your boyfriend."

Brandy blushed and swung her legs. "He's not my boyfriend."

"He looks like he's crazy about you."

"Doesn't mean he's my boyfriend. And I wasn't in the park," Brandy added.

"That's not what the officers over there said you told them."

"Look, we were in my dad's apartment. We saw the SAR dog. We came down because we wanted to play with the dog, that's all. I know how to work with dogs. I could give you some tips."

"What kind of tips?"

Brandy shrugged. "I know about dogs, that's all."

"How do you know about dogs?"

"I'm a dog trainer."

"No kidding. Who did you train with?"

"John Zumech-ever heard of him?"

April was stunned. She'd not only heard of Zumech, she'd worked with him. She looked at the kid with sudden interest. Maybe Brandy wasn't a complete flake. The girl yawned, and April caught sight of the tongue pierce. Okay, what was she seeing? A girl whose parents were just divorced; her mother was taking care of her own business, having her face lifted. The kid was acting out with alcohol and pot. But a lot of kids did. Right now Brandy looked wistful.

"Brandy, I can see you've taken something. If I took you into the station and searched you, would I find anything on you I shouldn't?"

Brandy laughed uneasily. "You're a cop. I bet you like to hurt people. Are you going to arrest me and beat me up? That would be so cool. My mom and dad would have your
ass."

April's face didn't change. "Brandy, I'm with the good guys. I don't hurt people. I help them."

"Well, if you want to help that guy, you should try another dog. This one doesn't know shit."

April tended to agree with her. "Okay, it's getting late. I'm going to let you go home now. But I'm going to talk with Sergeant Zumech about your dog-training skills, and also your parents."

"Wow, do you know Sergeant Zumech?"

"Yes, I do."

"You know Peachy?" Brandy was stunned.

Peachy was Zumech's Doberman. "Yes, I know Peachy," April told her.

"Wow. My mom calls this kind of coincidence synchronicity."

"No kidding, your mom must be a smart lady."

Moodily, Brandy stared at David and Woody. "Not really."

April smiled in spite of herself. No daughter thought her mother was smart.

"He took my picture, why?"

"We're looking for a girl in a pink sweater, fits your description."

"Wow." Brandy frowned. "I saw a girl in a pink sweater yesterday. I saw her today, too. Real thin, long black hair, is that the one you're looking for?"

"Might be. If you see her again, will you give me a call?"

"Sure, I will, sure. I love to help."

April and Brandy exchanged phone numbers.

Then she met up with Woody.

"Anything?" she asked.

"They're high, but I don't think they know anything. Want to bust them?"

"It's an option for later. Right now I want to check Maslow's office," April told him. "It's up on Eight-nine and CPW. Let's go."

They hurried out of the park. The show was over. Central Park West was moving. The barricades were down, the media circus had moved somewhere else, and the park was open to the public again.

A
s the light faded to black, Maslow moved his arm for the first time and realized that he was not bound. Where he was lying, flat on his back, was damp and rocky, but the puddles he'd felt around him before were gone now. His mouth was dry and he was starving. He inhaled deeply, trying to get control of the weakness, the dizziness and pain in his head. He was like the old man with a brain tumor he'd seen in the hospital just a few days ago. Every exchange, every moment had taken ages. Ten minutes to raise his arm, to pick up a foot, answer a question. "Give me a minute," he'd say. Maslow was like that now.

He told himself in a few minutes he would explore his prison. When he was ready. Now he would try to think. He could trace the events of his last day. He remembered waking up and worrying about the date he'd had with Vivian last week, how much he'd liked her. He remembered how upset he'd been that they'd argued. He'd been worrying about it for a week, obsessing about whether he should call her back. After a week, he wondered if it was too late to call her. Would she be insulted that it had taken him so long? He wasn't sure he liked her anymore. But then, she called him and left a message. The message was she'd left her pen somewhere. It was a blue pen, a gift from her mother. She asked if he remembered it, if he'd seen it. He hadn't seen it, didn't remember it. He wondered if the call was just an excuse to talk to him. For two days he'd played the message over and over trying to figure it out. Did she like him, did he like her? What should he do about it in either case?

That day he'd had classes, had lunch, saw two psychiatric patients, and had his session with Allegra in his office-the one that upset her so much. He'd called Jason, gone home, and changed for jogging. He remembered the rain. It had been raining all afternoon. When he came out of his building, he'd seen Allegra. She was sitting on a bench outside the park. In that moment when she came up to him and didn't let him pass her by, he knew she really had been following him for some time.

That was all he remembered. Nothing after that. He'd been with Allegra and now he was here. He had an ache in his throat, as if he'd been punched there and lost his voice. His chest hurt, and it was hard to breathe. Maybe a collapsed lung, maybe cracked ribs. He couldn't tell. He realized he was shivering. He knew he had to get moving, drink, and eat something. He put his hand out and felt a crumbling surface, like the beach at low tide, inches from his face. At his sides the space widened a little, but only a little. Even if he were able to sit up, there was no room to do it.

Panicked, he felt for his chest and stomach. It was then that he realized the fanny pack he'd taken with him when he left home was still on him. Lying on his back, moaning with terror, he groped around in it for his cell phone. With the phone he could call someone and get out of there. He found the phone, felt the talk button, pushed it, and heard a beep. He moved it up his chest and raised it to his face. There was no flashing light to indicate how much life the battery had left. That's how he knew he'd been in his grave longer than eighteen hours. He didn't know how much longer he could last.

J
ason debated bypassing the hierarchy at the Institute and just calling Miss Vialo in the education office for Allegra's chart. In the end, he knew there would be nothing but trouble and accepted the fact that before calling Allegra, he had to go through Ted Tushy, the chairman of the Educational Committee, to explain the reason for such an unorthodox action. He left a message for Ted in his office, and Ted called him back less than an hour later. All day Jason had been screening his calls, which made his patients entirely paranoid and nuts. It was exhausting dealing with their edginess along with everything else.

When Ted called him back, Jason was with a patient, but finally they connected. "What's the crisis?" Ted asked.

"Maslow Atkins is missing. It's possible he's been treating a psychopath. I need to reach her."

"We can't have a violation of patient confidentiality." Ted was as dogmatic on the subject as Bernie had been. A colleague's life was at stake. They didn't get it.

"You're absolutely right," Jason told him solemnly. "That's why I want to protect the process, Ted. As the supervisor of this case, now that the analyst is missing, I'm the person clinically responsible for the patient. All I want to do is call her and arrange for a consultation to discuss the situation."

The last thing Jason wanted to do was tell Ted he was going to investigate the patient. Jason could feel Ted sweating all over the phone. He thought it would be overkill to point out that if the patient had killed the analyst, it would do even more harm to psychoanalysis and the Institute. Ted intuited the thought.

"God, we've been trying to get publicity for analysis for years," Ted muttered. "This is a hell of a way to get it."

"My thoughts exactly."

"The last thing we want to do is endanger our good name."

"Absolutely right. Or our candidates," Jason added.

"It's so hard to get good candidates these days," Ted said sadly. "Did you talk to Maslow's analyst?"

"Yes, I did. Even in this situation Bernie remained the jerk he always was. I had to squeeze information out of him with a vise, and even then I didn't get much at all."

"I see," Ted said, clearly pleased the psychoanalytic process was safe in Bernie's hands.

"Look, I've got to run now and meet with Maslow's parents. I'll check with the patient very carefully, and keep you apprized of the situation at every step," Jason said.

"Good, good. Keep me apprized. Keep me apprized."

Jason said that he would. That was at four in the afternoon.

At six, when Jason rang the bell of Jerome and Adina Atkins's Ninetieth Street and Park Avenue apartment, he was a very unhappy man. He'd gone through hell with Miss Vialo to get Allegra's personal information only to find out that no such person lived at the number the Institute had for her. Further investigation revealed that no residence existed at the address the patient had given. Nor was any Allegra Caldera listed in the phone book or registered at the university she said she attended. Allegra had invented herself.

This confirmed Jason's fear of a failure in the Institute's screening process. They thought they were careful. Prospective analysands had to write biographies. They were interviewed three times by a senior analyst. Each case was then considered by a whole committee. Allegra's case had been reviewed by no less than ten experienced people. The young analysts were supervised every step of the way. Now it was clear that a major slipup had occurred and a young woman had fooled them all. She could be anybody, capable of anything, and Maslow could have known, even unconsciously, that he was in danger.

When Jason arrived at the Atkinses' door, he had the feeling that he was on the fault line of an earthquake. As a psychiatrist, he'd always had a healthy respect for madness. He knew that as carefully as people cultivated facades of civility, their rage and potential for aggression were barely under the surface. But he, unlike Maslow, was experienced and knew how to handle it.

As he stood at the door, his head pounding and his throat dry, he prayed that Maslow had not been lured into disaster by a troubled person who should never have been assigned to his care. The door opened before he could bring himself to ring the bell.

"You're Dr. Frank? Come in. He's waiting for you in the living room." Mrs. Atkins had short, tightly permed brown hair that was gray at the roots, soft pale skin that drooped sadly under pale blue eyes, and several double chins. Her features were gathered together in a face that had never been lovely. She looked at least seventy.

"Maslow?" For a second Jason felt a rush of elation.

"No, no, his father."

"You're Mrs. Atkins?"

"Yes." She turned away without shaking his hand.

Jason followed her on a black-and-white checkerboard marble floor through a foyer with gilded chairs and tables lined up like soldiers along smoke-mirrored walls. At the living-room door, she waved her hand and left him.

"I'd like to talk with you both," Jason said before she managed her escape.

"No need." She turned back to him, lifting her shoulders helplessly.

"On the contrary, we can't do without our mothers." Jason smiled and waited at the door.

"What's that?" From his armchair Jerome Atkins, a small, dapper, bald-headed man wearing a red bow tie and lightweight herringbone business suit, flashed them a look of supreme irritation.

Adina dropped her head as if to duck a blow and took a seat in a fragile chair as close to the door as she could get. She was a woman ready to obey whoever she deemed the highest authority.

Jason crossed the white carpet quickly. Jerome Atkins stood, held out his hand, then sat down abruptly without shaking Jason's.

"This thing is all over the news. People have called me. What do you want from me?" He had the face of a desperate man.

"Maslow's disappearance is on the news?" Jason was astounded.

"They have a pack of dogs. They're searching the park." Jerome glanced at his wife. "She's suffered enough. She doesn't need to hear this."

Adina stood up to leave.

Jason shook his head. "Please stay, I want to talk to you both."

Jerome looked away from his wife. "What happened? The police won't tell me anything."

"I don't think they know yet. Has anyone from the police talked to you about it?"

"No, no, I've called them. They're calling me back. Let me tell you, this is a terrible blow." Beads of perspiration dotted the man's forehead. "I'm sure he's dead. If he were alive, I'd know it." He said this with no emotion.

Jason was surprised by how many people associated with Maslow were ready to accept that with no evidence to support it. "Well, I don't want to jump to that conclusion. That's the reason I'm here. I want to talk to you a little about your son's life to see if there's somewhere he might have gone, some reasonable explanation for his disappearance."

"No," Jerome said sharply. "Let's not go into it. We know what happened. You don't have to sugarcoat the truth for us."

What truth?
Jason shook his head. "Nothing has been established-"

Jerome Atkins cut him off angrily. "They can't even find his body-this is a disgrace." He glanced at his wife. The couple sat so far from each other in the cavernous wood-paneled Park Avenue living room, he had to turn his whole body to get a view of her.

Jason sat between them. He, too, had to shift positions to see her. As he did, he took in the rose-colored drapes on huge windows, the multitude of small pink sofas and gold chairs. Mrs. Atkins had taken a brocade pillow onto her lap and was busy twisting one of its gold tassels in her hand. Her face was pale, shut down. Jason suspected that she was in shock, a hurricane on a distant horizon.

"Are you all right? I could arrange for you to have some medicine-" he asked.

"He's not the first one," she said, shaking her head.

"First what?"

Mrs. Atkins played with the fringe. "Maslow had a twin sister."

"I didn't know that," Jason murmured.

"That's not exactly relevant to anything, is it?" Jerome said nastily, turning back to Jason. "She died over twenty years ago. No point in talking about it." He raised a hand to his forehead, realized it was wet, and pulled out a handkerchief.

"She was a beautiful child, a perfect child-blond, blue eyes-smart. Very smart. And Chloe had a wonderful nature. She never complained, no matter what. Never a word. Her name was Chloe. Isn't that a pretty name?"

"Beautiful name." Jason could hardly breathe through the layers of pain in the room.

"She died when she was eleven. Leukemia."

"Adina, it was twenty years ago," Jerome said sharply, dabbing at his forehead.

"I'm sure you know, Doctor, that over eighty percent of children who have leukemia now survive," she lectured him.

"She's probably the reason Maslow became a doctor," Jason said softly.

"Too late for us," she said bitterly.

"Were the twins close?" Jason asked.

"Of course. Maslow adored Chloe. Everyone did. She was a magical person, her daddy's dream girl." Mrs. Atkins gave her husband a smug smile.

"He didn't come about Chloe, he came about the boy."

"Chloe was an angel. He's always been a heartache," his mother said.

Jerome Atkins covered his eyes.

"Really?" This was news to Jason.

"Yes, Chloe was an absolute angel. Always smiling, no matter how sick she was."

"I was asking about Maslow."

"What's there to say about him?" Atkins broke in angrily. "A young man with a bright future couldn't think about anything else but being a damned shrink. Doesn't that tell you all you need to know?"

Jason had heard a similar view expounded by his own father, who'd wanted him to be a heart surgeon. "Is that a bad thing in your book?" he asked, feeling the sting of rejection all over again.

"The boy probably provoked his attacker," Atkins speculated coldly.

Jason's distress escalated. "Why do you say that?"

"It wouldn't be the first time. He was interested in crazy people, wasn't he? He talked to the wrong people all the time. It can get you in trouble in this city."

"Chloe was no trouble at all. She was an angel," Adina said.

Jason repressed, the urge to muzzle her. "Did something happen to Maslow recently?"

"Oh, the kid hasn't lived with us for years. He used to get into bar fights, street fights regularly. He'd come home with a black eye or a bloody nose. What a waste!" Jerome Atkins waved his hand impatiently. "The city is to blame for this. These people shouldn't be out on the street."

"What about his friends? Maybe they can tell us more."

"What more do you need? He was a misguided young man. All he talked about was work. He didn't have friends."

"What about girlfriends?"

Atkins snorted. Clearly he didn't think much of his son in that department either. Jason turned to Mrs. Atkins. She looked like a person having an out-of-body experience, maybe on a visit to an angel in heaven.

Jason felt like shaking these two people. The mother couldn't talk about anything but her dead daughter. The father could only think of his disappointment in Maslow's decision to become a psychiatrist. In the absence of any evidence whatsoever, his father spoke of his son as if he were dead. But so had Maslow's analyst. Jason was also saddened by the fact that neither parent had called their son by his name. Speaking of him the way they had was a kind of soul murder. If this were a homicide, that alone would be a reason for the police to suspect them. But Jason wasn't a cop.

It seemed that he alone was praying that Maslow Atkins was alive and well and for some unknown reason playing hooky from his life. Jason left the apartment knowing no more about Maslow's present life than he had before his visit. But it was certainly no mystery why the young man had defied his parents to become a doctor of the mind.