Where Are You Now? (4 page)

I brushed her off, Barrott thought. When she left she said she wouldn't bother me again. That was the word she used, “bother.”

Now, as he leaned back in his desk chair in the
crowded squad room, Barrott shut out the sounds of the ringing telephones that surrounded him. Then he shrugged. It wouldn't kill me to take a look at the file, he decided. If nothing else, to satisfy myself that it's nothing more than a guy who doesn't want to be found, a guy who will one day change his mind, and end up on
Dr. Phil
being reunited with his mother and sister while everybody has a good cry.

Wincing at a touch of arthritis in his knee, he got up, went down to the records department, signed out the MacKenzie file, brought it back to his desk, and opened it. Besides the pile of official reports, and the statements from Charles MacKenzie Jr.'s family and friends, there was a legal-sized envelope filled with pictures. Barrott pulled them out and scattered them on his desk.

One immediately caught his eye. It was a Christmas card with the MacKenzie family standing in front of their Christmas tree. It reminded Barrott of the Christmas card that he and Beth had sent in December, the two of them with the kids, Melissa and Rick, standing in front of their Christmas tree. He still had that card in his desk somewhere.

The MacKenzies got a lot more dolled up for their picture than we did, Barrott thought. The father and son were in tuxedos, the mother and daughter in evening gowns. But the overall effect was the same. A smiling, happy family wishing their friends the joys of Christmas and greetings for the New Year. It had to be the last one they sent before the son disappeared.

Now Charles MacKenzie Jr. had been missing for ten
years, and Charles MacKenzie Sr. had been dead since 9/11.

Barrott rummaged through some personal papers in his desk and pulled out his family's card. He rested his elbows on the desk and held up the two Christmas cards, comparing them. I'm lucky, he thought. Rick has just finished his freshman year at Fordham on the dean's list, and Melissa, another straight-A kid, is finishing her junior year at Cathedral High and going to a prom tonight. Beth and I are more than lucky. We're blessed.

The thought crossed his mind, Suppose something happened to me on this job, and Rick walked out of his dorm and disappeared. What if I wasn't around to find him?

Rick wouldn't do that to his mother and sister, not in one hundred thousand years, he told himself.

But that, in essence, is what Carolyn MacKenzie wants me to believe about her brother.

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.

U
ncle 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.

S
ixty-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.