Where Are You Now? (7 page)

It's funny but in that room, ten years later, I had a sense of his presence. He was always so laid back. Dad had been competitive, quick to size up a situation, and, with lightning accuracy, appraise and judge it. I know I'm like that, too. Mack was more like Mom. He was always giving everyone a break. Like her, if he ever realized he was being used or treated shabbily, he wouldn't have a confrontation, he'd simply withdraw from the situation. And that, I think, is what Mom is doing now—she views Mack's note in the collection basket as a slap in the face.

I moved to the window, trying to see what he had seen. Knowing how Mack loved to stand at the windows of the Sutton Place apartment and study the panorama, the East River with boats and barges, the lights of the bridges, the air traffic heading in and out of LaGuardia Airport, I was sure he'd often gazed out these windows, overlooking West End Avenue, the sidewalks constantly streaming with people, the vehicle traffic bumper to bumper in the street.

The dream I had had of him after his predawn phone call on Mother's Day replayed itself in my mind. Once again I was walking along a dark path, desperate to find Mack.

And once again he was warning me to stay back.

I
n a weary voice, Dr. David Andrews said, “Detective Barrott, Leesey left that bar at three o'clock yesterday morning. It is now one o'clock Wednesday afternoon. She has already been missing thirty-four hours. Shouldn't you check the hospitals again? If anyone knows how busy emergency rooms are, God knows it's me.”

Leesey's father was sitting at the small kitchen table in his daughter's college apartment, his hands folded, his head bowed. Heartsick, sleep-deprived, and despairing, he had refused his son's plea to go back with him to his apartment and wait for word there. After being here all night, Gregg had gone home to shower and change before stopping at the hospital to see his postoperative patients.

Roy Barrott was sitting opposite Leesey's father at the table. The night my daughter went to a prom, his daughter went to that joint, then disappeared, Roy thought, with a sudden guilty feeling at his own good fortune. “Dr. Andrews,” he said, “you have to hold on to the possibility that Leesey may be perfectly all right. She
is
an adult, and has the right to privacy.”

Barrott saw the expression on the doctor's face harden into anger and scorn. I sound like I'm suggesting that she's an easy pickup, he thought, and hurried to add, “Please don't think I believe that this is the case with Leesey. We're treating her disappearance as a serious problem.” Barrott's boss, Captain Larry Ahearn, had made the urgency of this case perfectly clear already.

“Then what are you doing to find her?” The anger drained from David Andrews's face. His voice was low and halting.

He's only one degree from going into shock, Barrott thought. “We've reviewed the security cameras of the Woodshed, and she
did
leave alone. The only people left in the bar were the band that was playing, the bartender, and the security guard. They all swear that none of them left for at least twenty minutes after Leesey, so we presume none of them followed her. So far, they all check out as okay guys. Right now our people are going over every frame in the security camera at that bar Monday night to see if we can identify any potential troublemakers.”

“Maybe someone who was there earlier waited outside for her.” David Andrews knew that his voice was a monotone. Is this detective trying to reassure me? he asked himself. Then the same thought crossed his mind for the thousandth time: I
know
something terrible has happened to Leesey!

He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “I'm going to offer a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who helps us find her,” he said. “I'm going to put her picture and a description of what she was wearing
on posters. You've met my daughter's roommate, Kate. She'll get Leesey's friends to tack them up on every street between that bar and this building. Somebody has to have seen
something.
”

As a father that's exactly what I would do, if I were in his shoes, Roy Barrott thought as he got to his feet, too. “Dr. Andrews, that's a very good idea. Give us the picture from your wallet and her height, weight, and hair color. We'll take care of having the posters made. It will be a big help if those posters are up when the bar crowd comes out tonight. I can promise you our undercover people will be in the Woodshed and every other dive around here, talking to people. With any luck we might find a person who saw someone paying a lot of attention to her. But I would suggest, sir, you go to your son's apartment and get some rest. I'll have an officer drive you there.”

I'm only in the way, David Andrews thought bleakly. But he's right—I
do
have to sleep. Without speaking, he nodded.

The door from the bedroom was open. Kate Carlisle had spent a sleepless night, and now after napping briefly, she saw them leaving, with Barrott's hand firmly under the doctor's arm. “Dr. Andrews, are you all right?” she asked anxiously.

“Dr. Andrews is going to his son's apartment,” Barrott explained. “I'll be back and forth. Kate, do you by any chance have a more recent photo of Leesey? The one I've seen that was in Dr. Andrews's wallet is more than a year old.”

“Yes. I have a good one. I took it only last week. Angelina
Jolie and Brad Pitt were walking in SoHo with their kids, and the paparazzi were all around them. I told Leesey to pretend she was a movie star, and I snapped a couple of pictures of her with my cell phone camera. One of them is a terrific shot. She was planning to have it framed for you, Dr. Andrews.” Her voice broke. Flustered, Kate ran back into the bedroom, opened a drawer in a night table, grabbed a print from it, and hurried back to them.

In the photo, Leesey had struck a model's pose, her smiling face turned to the camera, her long hair tossed by the breeze, her slender body almost slouching, her hands buried deep in the pockets of her denim jacket.

Barrott's eyes traveled from the lovely girl in the center to the passers-by in the background. None of the faces was clear. Was it possible one of them had noticed Leesey? he wondered. A predator on the prowl?

I'll get this enlarged, he thought, as he took it from Kate. “This is a very clear picture of Leesey,” he said. “I also want you to give me a print of the other picture you took of her. From what I understand, she was wearing a denim jacket the night she went to the club. She's wearing a denim jacket in this picture.”

“She was wearing that same jacket,” Kate said.

“She bought it two years ago, just before her mother died,” David Andrews said. “It has a skirt she wore with it. Her mother laughed and told her that the skirt had strings hanging off it. Leesey told her that was the style. Her mother said if that was considered style, it was time to bring back the hoopskirt.”

I sound maudlin, David Andrews told himself. I'm holding up this detective from finding Leesey. I've got to get out of the way here. “Kate, that's a good picture of Leesey. Anyone who saw her could identify her from it. Thank you very much.”

Without waiting for her to answer, he started for the door, grateful for the strong hand under his arm. In silence he walked down the three flights of stairs. He was vaguely aware of a camera flashing and someone shouting questions at him as he crossed the sidewalk and was helped into a squad car. He did remember to ask Detective Barrott what else he would do to try to find Leesey. Barrott closed the car door and then leaned down to the window.

“Dr. Andrews, we've already canvassed the people in this building. We know from the security camera here that Leesey didn't get to this door but these houses all look alike. She might have gone to the wrong one. We're going to start door to door, working the whole neighborhood. It will help to have her picture.”

“Why on earth would she go to the wrong door? She didn't have too much to drink, you told me that yourself. The bartender and all those other people in the Woodshed swear she was fine when she left that place,” David Andrews reminded him sharply.

It was on the tip of Barrott's tongue to reply that, unless it can be proven otherwise, ninety-nine percent of bartenders will swear that a missing patron left the bar sober. Instead he said, “Doctor, no stone unturned. That's my promise to you.”

The single reporter on the scene stuck a microphone in Barrott's face as he turned from the squad car. “Look,” Barrott said, impatiently, “Captain Ahearn is holding a press conference at five o'clock. He's authorized to give a statement. I'm not.”

He walked back into the lobby of the building, waited till he saw the reporter and cameraman get into their van and drive away, then came back out and walked to the next building. Like most of them on this block, the outer door was unlocked, and admittance was gained either by a key or being buzzed in by a tenant.

Barrott's eyes moved up and down the tenant list, then they widened as he spotted one name, “Carolyn MacKenzie.” Six degrees of separation? he asked himself. Maybe.

Roy Barrott stood perfectly still, then traced his index finger over Carolyn MacKenzie's name.

The unerring instinct that made him such a superb detective was telling him that somehow, someway there was a connection between the two cases.

A
fter I left the apartment building where Mack had lived, I went back to Sutton Place. In the day and a half since Mom had made the decision to go on the cruise, she had been energized, as if after living so long in limbo, she was trying to make up for lost time. She told me she was planning to go through closets and pull out clothing to give away, and then this evening she would be meeting Elliott and some other friends for dinner.

I wondered why she would bother to clean out closets just before she went on vacation, but that became evident. Over a quick lunch, a sandwich and a cup of tea in the breakfast room, she told me that she was listing the apartment with a broker and that as soon as she came back she was going to look for something smaller. “You're never going to move back in,” she said, “I know that. I will have call forwarding, just in case Mack decides to phone next Mother's Day, but on the other hand, if I miss his call, so be it. I just may not hang around and wait for it.”

I looked at her, astonished. When she said she was going to clean out closets, I was thinking that she meant
her own. But now, without asking, I was sure that it was the closets in Mack's room that were going to be emptied.

“What are you going to do with Mack's things?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“I'll have Dev send someone to get them and deliver them to a place where they'll be put to good use.” Mom looked at me for approval and, finding something missing in my expression, said quickly, “Carolyn, you're the one telling me to move on. The fact remains that even if Mack walked through the door today, and even if his clothes still fit him, they'd probably be out of style.”

“Don't misunderstand me,” I told her. “I think it's a good idea, but I also think that it's the last thing in the world you should be worrying about two days before you're getting on a plane to fly to Greece. Look, Mom, do yourself a favor. Let
me
go through Mack's clothes and sort them out.” Even as I spoke, it occurred to me that it was possible that ten years ago, no one had ever carefully explored the pockets of slacks and jackets that Mack had left in this apartment. Lucas Reeves had indicated in his case report that nothing of importance was found in the clothing Mack had left behind in his student apartment.

Without much hesitation, even with relief, Mom agreed. “I don't know what I'd do without you, Carolyn,” she said. “You've been my rod and staff through all this. But I know you. You only stopped working two weeks ago, and I can tell you're restless. What will you do while I'm gone?”