Where Are You Now?

  “I don’t believe that,” Gaylor said. “You were right yesterday when you felt this guy wants attention.”

  “I’m also beginning to believe he wants to be caught, but in a way that will be a spectacular blowup.” Ahearn’s hands curled into fists. “Gregg told me an hour ago that he feels so damn helpless. Well, so do I.”

  As Gaylor turned to go, the phone rang again. Ahearn picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, and said, “Put him through.” Waving Gaylor back, he said, “It’s Gregg Andrews.”

  Gaylor listened as Larry Ahearn said, “Of course if your father wants an appeal printed in the media, we’ll pass it on to them.” He sat down and picked up a pen. “It’s from the Bible. Okay.” He wrote as he held the phone to his ear, stopping Gregg Andrews once, to repeat something, then said, “I have it. I’ll take care of it.”

  With a deep sigh, he put the receiver down. “This is what Dr. Andrews would like to have read on the television stations and printed in the newspapers so that Leesey’s abductor understands just how desperately he needs to have her returned to him safe and sound. It’s from the prophet Hosea:

  “ ‘When you were a child I loved you . . .

  It was I who taught you to walk, took you in my arms . . .

  I was to you like those who lift infants to their cheeks.

  I bent down and fed you . . .

  How could I give you up?’ ”

  Both men’s eyes glistened with tears as Detective Bob Gaylor left to search for Zach Winters.

  * * *

  Visions of dollar bills, stacks and stacks of them, were dancing in Zach Winters’s brain as he opened his eyes to see some guy standing over him. He had been curled up in one of his favorite spots, a construction site near the Brooklyn Bridge, where the former parking garage had been pulled down, but the new building hadn’t been started yet. The board fence had been ripped open, and now that it was warm, he and many of his friends used the site as their home base. Every ten days or two weeks the cops chased them out, but after a day or so they all came back with their gear. Like Zach, they all understood that when construction actually started, they’d be on their way again, but until then, it was a great spot to camp.

  Zach had been dreaming about the fifty-thousand-dollar reward he would collect as soon as he figured out a way to collect it without getting himself into trouble, when he felt someone shaking his shoulder.

  “Come on, Zach, wake up,” a man’s voice was demanding.

  Zach opened his eyes slowly. A sense of familiarity seeped its way into his brain. I know this guy. He’s police. He was in that room when the brother took me to talk about seeing Leesey. Be careful, Zach warned himself. He’s the one who was so nasty that day.

  Zach rolled over and slowly propped himself up on his elbows. He had covered himself with his winter jacket and now he pushed it aside. He blinked at the strong afternoon sun, then looked around quickly to make sure that his grocery cart was still there. He had slept with it flat on the ground next to him, his legs straddling the handle so that no one could reach into it without moving him first. It was safe enough, though some of the newspapers he had tucked in at the top were slipping out.

  He blinked again. “Whadaya want?” he asked.

  “I want to talk to you. Get up.”

  “All right. All right. Take it easy.” Zach groped for the wine bottle that had been next to him when he fell asleep.

  “It’s empty,” Gaylor snapped. He grabbed Zach’s arm, and yanked him up sharply. “You’ve been telling your friends that you know something about Leesey’s disappearance, something you didn’t tell us the other day. What is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do.” Gaylor bent down, grabbed the handle of the cart, and pulled it upright. “You’ve been telling your friends you have something that might earn you the reward that’s been offered for Leesey Andrews. What is it?”

  Zach made a gesture of brushing soil from his jacket. “I know my rights. Get away from me.” He reached for the handle of his cart. Gaylor refused to let go of it, and blocked his way.

  The detective’s tone was angry. “Zach, why don’t you cooperate with me? I want you to unload that cart and show me everything in it. We know you couldn’t have had anything to do with Leesey’s disappearance. You’re too much of a drunk to have managed it. If you’ve got something in your stuff that helps us to find her, you’ll get your reward. I promise.”

  “Yeah, sure you do.” Zach reached out and tried to grab the handle from Gaylor. The cart swayed and some of the newspapers fell out. Beneath them, a filthy man’s shirt was partially wrapped around what Gaylor instantly recognized as an expensive cosmetic case.

  “Where’d you get that?” he snapped.

  “None of your business.” Zach righted the cart quickly and pushed the papers back into place. “I’m out of here.” He began pushing the cart briskly toward the nearest sidewalk.

  Staying in step with him, Gaylor grabbed his cell phone and dialed Ahearn. “I need a search warrant to seize the contents of Zach Winters’s cart,” he said. “He’s got an expensive silver and black cosmetic bag that I’ll bet belongs to Leesey Andrews. I’ll stick with him until you get back to me. And find out from Leesey’s roommate if she knows what kind of cosmetic bag Leesey was carrying that night.”

  Forty minutes later, backed up by two squad cars, the warrant in his pocket, Gaylor was opening Leesey Andrews’s cosmetic case.

  “I was scared you’d think I stole it,” Zach Winters was whining. “When she was getting in the SUV, she dropped her pocketbook. Some stuff spilled out. She picked most of it up, but when they drove off, I went over there to see if maybe a few dollars had fallen out of her bag. You know what I mean. And I saw this and I took it, and I’ll be honest with you, she had a fifty-dollar bill in it and maybe I gave myself a little reward and—”

  “And why don’t you shut up?” Bob Gaylor interrupted. “If you’d given this to us, even on Saturday, it might have made a difference.”

  Besides the usual cosmetics typical of a young woman’s accessories, he had taken out a personal card. It belonged to Nick DeMarco, and gave the address and phone number of his loft. On the back of the card he had written, “Leesey, I can open some doors for you in show business and I’d be glad to do it. Call me. —Nick.”

  56

  With a satisfied smile, Derek Olsen signed the last of the mountain of papers that transferred the dilapidated town house he owned on 104th Street and Riverside Drive to Twining Enterprises, the multimillion-dollar real estate firm that was building an upscale luxury condominium next door. He had insisted that Douglas Twining Sr., the chairman and CEO of the company, personally attend the sale.

  “I knew you’d pay what I wanted, Doug,” Olsen said. “It was a lot of baloney that you didn’t need my building.”

  “I didn’t need it. I wanted it,” Twining said quietly. “I could have done without it.”

  “And not have the corner? Not have the view? Maybe have me sell it to someone who put up one of those dumb sliver buildings so your fancy people look west at a brick wall? Come on.”

  Twining looked at his lawyer. “Are we finished here?”

  “I believe so, sir.”

  Twining stood up. “Well, Derek, I suppose I should congratulate you.”

  “Why not? Twelve million dollars for a fifty-by-one-hundred-foot lot with a broken-down house that I paid fifteen thousand for forty years ago? That’s inflation for you.” Olsen’s gleeful smile disappeared. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m putting this money to good use. A lot of kids in the Bronx, kids who won’t grow up in your fancy-schmancy condos and won’t go to the Hamptons for the summer, will now have some parks to play in—Derek Olsen parks. So when are you going to tear down the house?”

  “The wrecking ball will be there Thursday morning. I think I’ll handle it myself. I haven’t forgotten how to do it.”

  “I’ll come
watch. Good-bye, Doug.” Olsen turned to his lawyer, George Rodenburg. “Okay, let’s get out of here,” he said. “You can buy me an early dinner. I was too excited to eat lunch. And while we’re eating, I’ll phone my nephew and Howie and let them know that it’s coming down on Thursday morning. I’ll tell them I just got twelve million bucks for it and it’s all going for my parks. I only wish I could see their faces. They’ll both have heart attacks.”

  57

  After I left the Kramers’, I drove straight into the garage at Sutton Place, passed the flashing cameras, went upstairs, and threw some things in a bag. Wearing the biggest dark glasses I could find, to cover my face, I went back down in the elevator to the garage, this time taking my mother’s car to fool them. Then, hoping to God I wouldn’t cause an accident, I barreled out onto the street and made a quick turn onto Fifty-seventh Street. I drove up First Avenue as far as Ninety-sixth Street, trying to make sure that I wasn’t being followed. I didn’t want anyone to have any idea of where I might be going.

  Of course, I couldn’t be sure, but certainly there was no media van in sight when I turned right on Ninety-sixth and got on the FDR Drive north. The Drive, of course, was named to honor President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That made me think of Elliott. The chilling thought came to me that if Mack was guilty of all these crimes and was caught, there would be months of publicity and a trial or trials. Elliott had lots of gold-plated clients. I know he’s in love with Mom, but would he want to be associated with that kind of publicity? If he were married to Mom, would he want to see her picture in the tabloids during a trial?

  Right now, he was her protector, but would that last? If Dad were alive now and Mack ended up in that scenario, I know Dad would be there for him, rock solid and moving heaven and earth to build an insanity defense for him. I thought of Elliott’s too often repeated anecdote about FDR—that he chose a Republican to be his hostess when Eleanor was away because there was no Democrat in Hyde Park who was his social equal. I wonder what FDR, or Elliott, would think about having the mother of a convicted serial killer around? The way things were going, I could almost hear Elliott giving a “let’s just be friends” speech to Mom.

  As I reached the ever miserable Cross Bronx traffic, I tried to stop thinking and concentrate on my driving. With traffic slowing to a crawl, I called ahead and managed to get a reservation on the last ferry to the Vineyard from Falmouth. Then I made a reservation at the Vineyard Hotel in Chappaquiddick. And then I turned off my cell phone. I didn’t want to speak to or hear from anyone.

  It was nearly nine thirty when I arrived on the island and checked into the hotel. Exhausted but still restless, I went down to the bar and had a hamburger and two glasses of red wine. Then, against all sound medical advice, I took one of the sleeping pills I had found in Mom’s night table and went to bed.

  I slept for twelve hours straight.

  58

  At 4:30 P.M. Nick DeMarco was in his midtown office when his phone rang. It was Captain Larry Ahearn with a crisp request that he come to his office immediately. Swallowing over the absolute dryness in his mouth and throat, Nick agreed. As soon as he hung up, he dialed his attorney, Paul Murphy.

  “I’ll start right down,” Murphy told him. “I’ll meet you in the lobby there.”

  “I can do better than that,” Nick said. “I was planning to leave in fifteen minutes anyway, which means Benny is probably outside right now circling the block. I’ll call you when I’m in the car. We’ll swing by and get you.”

  At five past five, Benny at the wheel, they were driving south on Park Avenue. “The way I see it, it’s their way of rattling you,” Murphy told him. “The only, and I repeat only, circumstantial evidence they can lay at your door are two facts: One, you invited Leesey over to talk with you in the club, and two, you have a black Mercedes SUV, which makes you one of thousands of owners of a black Mercedes SUV.”

  He shot a look at DeMarco. “Of course, you could have saved me from being surprised last time we were there.”

  Murphy had dropped his voice almost to a whisper, but Nick still nudged him with his elbow. He knew Murphy was referring to the fact that Benny’s second wife had taken out a restraining order against him. He also knew that Benny had superb hearing and missed nothing.

  The traffic was so unbearably slow that Murphy decided to phone Ahearn’s office. “Just to let you know that we’re in the usual five o’clock rush and can’t do a thing about it.”

  Ahearn’s response was simple. “Just get here. We’re not going anywhere. Is DeMarco’s chauffeur, Benny Seppini, driving the car you’re in?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Bring him up, too.”

  It was ten minutes of six when Nick DeMarco, Paul Murphy, and Benny Seppini walked through the squad room to Larry Ahearn’s private office. They all noticed the frigid stares from the detectives in the squad room as they hurried through it.

  Inside Ahearn’s office, the atmosphere was even colder. Ahearn was again flanked by Detectives Barrott and Gaylor. There were three chairs in front of the desk. “Sit down,” Ahearn said curtly.

  Benny Seppini looked at DeMarco. “Mr. DeMarco, I don’t think it’s my place . . .”

  “Cut the servant routine. You know you call him Nick,” Ahearn interrupted. “And sit down now.”

  Seppini waited until DeMarco and Murphy had taken their places, then lowered himself into his chair. “I’ve known Mr. DeMarco for many years,” he said. “He’s an important man, and when I’m not alone with him, I call him Mr. DeMarco.”

  “That’s touching,” Ahearn said sarcastically. “Now let’s all listen to this.” He pressed the play button on a recorder, and Leesey Andrews’s voice pleading to her father for help filled the room.

  There was a moment of intense silence following the recording, then Paul Murphy asked, “What was the point of playing that recording for us?”

  “I’m happy to tell you,” Ahearn assured him. “I thought it might remind your client of the fact that as of yesterday, Leesey Andrews was probably still alive. We thought it might stir his better self to tell us where we can find her.”

  DeMarco sprang up from the chair. “I have no more idea than you do of where that poor girl is, and I’d give anything I have to save her life if I could.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Barrott replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You thought she was pretty cute, didn’t you? In fact, you slipped her your personal card with the address of your cozy loft apartment.”

  He held up the card, cleared his throat, and read, “ ‘Leesey, I can open some doors for you in show business and I’d be glad to do it. Call me. —Nick.’ ”

  He slapped the card down on the table. “You gave it to her that night, didn’t you?”

  “You don’t have to answer that, Nick,” Murphy warned.

  Nick shook his head. “There’s no reason not to answer it. Those few minutes she was at my table, I told her she was a beautiful dancer, which she certainly was. She confided that she’d love to take a year off after college, just to see if she could make it on the stage. I do know a lot of celebrities. So I gave her the card. So what?” He met Ahearn’s suspicious gaze.

  “You seem to have forgotten to mention it to us,” Ahearn stated, scorn in every syllable he uttered.

  “I’ve been here three times,” Nick said, clearly agitated now. “Every time you come at me as if I had something to do with her disappearance. I know you can find some way to have my liquor license suspended at the Woodshed, even if you have to create a violation—”

  “Stop it, Nick,” Murphy ordered.

  “I won’t stop it. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. The last time I was here, you suggested I’m way overextended. You’re absolutely right. If you shut down the Woodshed, I’ll be thrown into bankruptcy. I’ve made some lousy decisions, I don’t deny that, but hurting or abducting a kid like Leesey Andrews isn’t one of them.”

  “You gave her your card,” Bob Gaylor
said.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “When did you expect her to phone you at your loft?”

  “My loft?”

  “You gave her a card with the address of your loft and the phone number of the landline there.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I gave her the card with my business address, 400 Park Avenue.”

  Barrott tossed the card at him. “Read it.”

  Perspiration on his forehead, Nick DeMarco read the print on the card several times before he spoke. “That was two weeks ago today,” he said, more to himself than to the others. “I had some cards made, with just the loft address. They came in that day from the printer. I must have put one of them in my wallet. I thought I was giving my office card to Leesey.”

  “Why would you need an address card for the loft and the telephone number there unless you wanted to slip it to beautiful girls like Leesey?” Barrott asked.

  “Nick, we can get up and walk out of here right now,” Murphy said.

  “That’s not necessary. I’ve got my Fifth Avenue apartment up for sale. I plan to live in the loft. I have too many friends I haven’t seen in a long time because I’ve been too busy trying to be a hotshot restaurant and club owner. Having those cards made was a gesture toward the future.” He placed the card back on the desk.

  “Is one of the people you want to see in the loft Mack MacKenzie’s sister, Carolyn?” Barrott asked. “Cute picture of the two of you, hand in hand, rushing for your car last night. It brought tears to my eyes.”

  Ahearn turned to Benny Seppini. “Benny, let’s talk to you now. The night Leesey disappeared, you had taken Nick’s, excuse me, I mean Mr. DeMarco’s black Mercedes SUV home with you to Astoria, isn’t that right?”

  “I drove his sedan home.” Benny’s scarred, rough features began to turn a dull red.