Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) (7 page)

It took him a while to figure out that she had a day off once a week. But that day would change. Sometimes her off day was a string of Wednesdays. Abruptly it would move to Thursday or Tuesday. But always one and only one day off a week. Never on the weekends and never on Monday or Friday. On special occasions, either an important holiday or for no discernible reason, there were others who came to the house about midday. Servants like the housekeeper, he guessed, maybe to help with a party or to do a spring cleaning. The rich often had their houses scrubbed top to bottom. Invariably the days of multiple servants would be on a Monday, Friday, or Saturday, but each time, the housekeeper would let them in.

“She’s your wedge,” he heard Ben say. Ben was right. He needed the housekeeper.

When he’d had enough of watching the house, he followed the willowy woman to the Clark Street Station and took the Downtown N with her, hopping onto a different car, but all the while watching her through the window. When she transferred to the D train, so did he. He got off with her at Seventy-Ninth Street in Bensonhurst. Like a thin herd of cattle, the riders pounded up the steps. It was February, and the roads were slick, the few pedestrians burrowed into themselves. He followed her to the shops on Eighteenth Avenue. When she walked into an old-fashioned mom-and-pop grocery store and butcher shop, so did he. It was like that for months. Maybe close to a year. Once she nodded to him, and he froze, then smiled back. But he made sure he kept out of sight for months after that. He followed her home each night, stood behind a tree across the street, waiting like some pervert as she entered her building, his fingers frozen or his ears filled with sweat or ooze from the sky. And all the while, Henry planned.

Chapter 10

Fina. Evening One, Trisha Liam’s Study, Continued

I let Trisha Liam have her moment. If I had a daughter and she was missing, I’d be screaming. I’d break several bones of whoever else was in the room. “Then your housekeeper will have to let me in,” I said, scratching a note to myself.

“You have carte blanche,” she said, “and don’t forget to take Mitch’s satchel.” She reached underneath the desk and pulled out a large briefcase, whacking it onto the desk. “Haven’t touched whatever’s inside.” She put her nose to the leather, breathed in, and that started a fresh load of tears.

Her husband’s death was but a faint scratch at the edge of my mind. Maybe, just maybe it might have some connection to Brandy’s disappearance, but I needed to get back on track and find out more about this missing thirteen-year-old by way of talking to her extended family and friends.

“So who snapped the three of you waving in that picture?”

She looked in the direction of the black-and-white photo on the shelf. “Must have been Mitch’s mother. I swear things were perfect between Mitch and me for the first ten minutes of our relationship. Then I met his parents.”

“Tell me about them.” The faces of Denny’s parents galloped through my brain, but I shoved them away.

“His mother, especially. By the time we met, his father was retired and drunk most of the time. He always had a wobbly peck on the cheek for me, and that’s about all his mind could take. She was a pistol, and he was her foil. But you don’t choose your in-laws, do you?”

Trisha Liam was quiet for a time before she plowed on. “In a moment of honesty, I’ll admit it—I think the mutual dislike of his mother and me was mostly on my side. When you’re young, it’s hard to love your mother-in-law. But she was easier to take when the old man was alive.

“Now him I loved. A judge with lots of friends. Retired from the circuit court. Mitch’s father and Granny Liam entertained a lot, right up to the day he died. He smoked those foul cigars and drank only the best whisky. Drank a bottle of champagne before lunch, Granny Liam told me not long ago. Pickled good when he died.”

She stared into the blackness beyond. “I’m afraid to tell Madeleine about Brandy.”

“That’s Granny Liam?”

She nodded. “She doesn’t have to know about it, not yet. She and Brandy are like this.” The lawyer intertwined two fingers. “Not that she spoils Brandy. Far from it. But she knows how to talk to her. They have a thing going on, those two, more so after her husband died.” She paused to take a breath. “After Mitch went, well, Madeleine’s mind started to drift; you know how some of the elderly are. Brandy still trots over there on Tuesday evenings and whenever else her grandmother calls for her.”

“She couldn’t be there now?” I asked.

Trisha Liam’s hair looked like straw in the light. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’d be home by eight, Madeleine’s bedtime.” She was staring into some inner space, and I let her drift for a moment.

“Does … Granny Liam live close by?”

She motioned with her neck, her head canting like a bowling ball falling down from its slot. “Down the block. She has a maid who’s been with her for years, Angel. She and her husband live on the top two floors. Madeleine has a cook and gardener too. God knows who pays for the servants. Mitch used to, but after his death, her accountant made other arrangements. Didn’t want to be beholding is the way she put it. Either Caroline takes care of things from England or the old lady’s well-fixed.”

“Who’s Caroline?”

“Mitch’s sister, Brandy’s aunt, another one Brandy dotes on. For all I know, Caroline’s got the wherewithal and then some. Not my problem. But Madeleine’s got a night nurse, too.”

“Can you give me Granny Liam’s address? I wonder if she’s well enough to interview. I could talk to her without actually telling her about Brandy.”

Trisha got out her cell phone, swiped a little, and found Madeline’s address. She held it out to me, her arm suspended waiting for me to write it down. “Well, I think you’ll get a sense of Brandy when you talk to her, if you’re lucky. But then she’ll probably rise to the occasion. Only way I know how to describe Madeleine’s brain is like a light bulb that turns on and off, especially when she’s frightened by something. A shame. She had such a great mind, too, one I shunned with fervor. Had lots of friends back in the day. Ran that house, did all the entertaining. A perfect wife for a judge. Sparkling wit—that’s what draws Brandy to her, I’m sure. Now it’s so sad, but she does have her moments. God knows how old she is. Got to be in her nineties because they had Mitch and Caroline when they were both in their forties. So she’s up there. I don’t visit her as often as I should. Last time I saw her was a couple of months ago when Brandy was in a play.”

Trisha stopped and looked around as if she’d just returned from the moon. “My God, don’t tell me Brandy did this on her own. She wouldn’t decide to leave me, would she?”

Running to Trisha and hugging her was not the thing to do. Besides, that wasn’t me.

“Does she like school?”

Trisha nodded, wiping her eyes. “Loves it. And her friends. Believe me, they’re thick.”

I shook my head. “She wouldn’t leave. She has a pretty big support system. And believe me, you’re a good mom—you just don’t think you are.” I wondered where that came from. It just rolled through my mind and out my mouth.

It was getting late. I stared out at the blackness surrounding us. “Tell me about the last time you fought, and I don’t mean the tiff you had this morning.”

“Well, it was … Let’s see. We had a row … it’s a recurring one because Brandy can pick at a scab. Some of her friends are getting piercings, I guess you call them, and she asked me the other day if she could have one and had it all thought out. She’s clever. She said she knew of a place in Park Slope where she could get one. She told me the price. It was nominal, nothing we couldn’t afford, but I guess I was abrupt. This case I’m preparing is horrid, you must believe me—a woman suing my client, a hospital on Long Island, over what they claim is the untimely death of her husband. And I guess I was half-listening to her and automatically said no, and Brandy stomped out of the room. I keep thinking of Mitch and how he would have handled it.”

“That’s nothing,” I said. “I’m talking about a real row.” And I thought of the fights Mom and I had over who knows what, with the screaming and the crying and the food flying. I slammed my fist into my thigh, wishing I could take them back.

“We don’t have fights, not really, not all that much.”

“So you’re not really close?”

Trisha shook her head, and tears began coursing down her cheeks again, this time like the Weeping Madonna.

“One more question about the family.” I looked at my watch and sucked in my breath at the hour. I hoped Denny was sound asleep. “You mentioned Mitch had a sister.”

“Yes, Caroline.” Trisha gave a brief honk, like the snort of a bull. “Not a good influence for Brandy. But there’s nothing I can do about her. Fortunately she and her latest lover are living in London at the moment.”

She rose and started walking out of the room. “I’m going to excuse myself for a brief moment.” She looked at her watch, then over at me as if I were the witch of Watonga. “You’d think the police or FBI would have something by now.”

Why do I always get the weird clients? When Trisha Liam returned, I asked for the names and addresses of Brandy’s friends.

“Her best friend is Heather Chang. In the morning they walk to school together. And … what’s her name, I’ll think of it in a minute.”

You could tell Trisha was none too wrapped up in her daughter’s life. I thought of Mom and what she’d do to me if I ever hid anything from her. Of course, it never would have happened—we were pals. When I thought of her, except for the bad time right before her death, it was usually the two of us sitting at the dinner table long after Gran had gone to bed and the food had been put away, Mom sipping her precious coffee and laughing at something I’d said, curious, interested. She was my best audience. I wanted to ask Trisha when she’d last had dinner with her daughter and laughed and reminisced, but I couldn’t do it to her, not tonight.

Trisha gave me Heather’s phone number and her address on Joralemon Street. She couldn’t think of the other girl’s name, but I wasn’t concerned—Heather would have all the particulars.

In the few minutes it took me to walk to the car, I heard from both Jane Templeton and my Fed contact in New Jersey. Nothing yet, Tig said, but they were working it, and Jane told me they were tapping into their sources, checking all the neighborhoods looking for Brandy, and they’d gotten the waterfront police involved.

“Just so you know, we’re on this now, big time, swarming all over Brooklyn. We’ll find her.”

“I hope you’re right.”

I dropped off Mitch’s briefs and whatnots onto an empty desk at Lucy’s. In the dim light, the pile of papers looked creepy. I thumbed through a few pages, pretending to understand them, and shivered.

Chapter 11

Henry. That Morning, The Getaway, Sunset Park

Traffic on the BQE began to move, and Henry drove toward Sunset Park. So far, so good. The day was crisp. There was a stiff wind from the river, but Henry had a beast of a headache. All Ben’s doing.

The only part that went smoothly was taking the girl, that and finding her phone in her back pocket. He’d turned it off and stuffed it into his jacket for safekeeping. Yes, Henry had considered everything this time. His plan was working. He thought of Stuart. His boy smiled up at him from his hospital bed and swam away.

But soon, Ben’s niggling began again. He hated the idea of the car float. He wanted to go to New Jersey the usual way, over the Brooklyn Bridge, across Manhattan, and through the tunnel. Henry knew that way spelled trouble.

“I’ve seen the surveillance cameras on the bridge, in the tunnel, and on the highway. I’ve counted them—they’re all over the place. If they get a whiff of the van, they’ll search through the footage, and they’ll find us.”

“You got bats in your brain.”

Henry realized he should have spent more time discussing his plan with Ben beforehand, but he was tired of arguing with him.

Henry’s idea was too risky, Ben said. It was stupid and wouldn’t work. They had to get to Jersey fast while the girl was still drugged, and the turnpike was the fastest way.

Henry half-shook his head. He gripped the wheel. He had to try reasoning with Ben once again, this time making the explanation as simple as possible—Ben was not one for contingencies, for grays, for subtleties. Henry told him his way was foolproof; he’d had it all set up for a year. They’d drive to the piers in Sunset Park, where they would secure the van inside a container.

“And the girl?”

Henry pulled on his nose. “Still inside the van, of course. Still drugged.” He tried to control his anger while he finished his explanation. They’d roll the container onto a car float, he told Ben. With the van and the girl out of sight, they’d head across the river to the Greenville float facility. It was the safest way to get to New Jersey and at the same time get rid of the van. Two birds with one stone, he kept telling Ben. In Greenville, he’d remove the girl and their belongings, and stash them into the Audi he’d parked by the dock last week, leaving the van inside the container.

“And what if, when we get to Sunset Park, there’s no container. What if, when we get there, your car’s been impounded?”

Henry shook his head and explained once more that two days ago he’d made a call to his friend at the Port Authority and confirmed their reservation. He stopped talking, waiting for Ben to object, but Ben sat, silent as stone, rolling his damn toothpick back and forth.

“Then what—assuming the girl hasn’t suffocated?”

Henry slammed the steering wheel and slowed with the traffic. “They haul animals this way. She’s not going to suffocate. The trip takes twenty minutes, max. It’s just like taking the Fulton Ferry to New Jersey.” He had to try once more. “On the Jersey side, we take her out of the van and into the Audi.”

“And what about the van?”

Henry blew out air and told himself to be patient. “It stays inside the container.”

Ben rolled his pick and nodded. “Your loss.”

“I sold it for decent money.” Henry watched Ben’s hair, like streaks of light on the edge of his vision. He must remain calm.