“Yes. I am,” Alvirah acknowledged.
“Tiffany, your mother loved that book. She went to a bookstore and you signed it for her, Mrs. Meehan. She said she had a nice talk with you about it. She’s at work now. She’s a sales woman in Bloomingdale’s. I can tell you right now she’ll be real sorry she missed you. Okay, I’m on my way.”
What a piece of luck that his wife liked my book, Alvirah thought happily, as she took a straight chair near the couch where Tiffany was curling up. Tiffany is just a kid, she decided, and I can understand what kind of stress she’s been under all this time. I’ve heard her phone call played on the news and so have millions of other people.
“Tiffany,” she began, “my husband and I have been good friends with Zan almost since the time Matthew disappeared. I have to stress that I never once heard her blame you for what happened that day. I never ask her about Matthew because I know how hard it is for her to talk about him. What was he like?”
“He was adorable,” Tiffany said promptly. “And so smart. That isn’t surprising. Zan read to him every night, and on weekends she would take him everywhere. He loved to go to the zoo and he could name all the animals. He could count to twenty and never miss a number. Of course, Zan is a real artist. Her sketches of rooms and furniture and window treatments that she does for her job are wonderful. Even at three you could tell that Matthew had a real talent for drawing. He had big brown eyes that could look so solemn when he was thinking. And his hair was starting to turn red.”
“And you and Zan were real friends?”
Tiffany’s expression became wary. “Yes, I guess so.”
“Over a year ago, I remember she told me that you two were good friends, and that you always admired her clothes. Didn’t she sometimes give you a scarf or gloves or a pocketbook that she didn’t need?”
“She was nice to me.”
Alvirah opened her purse and took out the folded front page of the Post. “Zan was arrested last night and is charged with kidnapping. Just take a look at her face. Can you see how much she’s suffering?”
Tiffany glanced down at the picture, then quickly looked away from it.
“Tiffany, the detectives told Zan that you think she may have drugged you.”
“She may have. That’s why I was so sleepy. There may have been something in that Pepsi and then that cold pill. I bet it was a sedative.”
“Yes, that’s what I understand that you told the detectives, but Tiffany, Zan remembers it clearly. You asked for a soda because you were thirsty. You followed her into the kitchen and she opened the refrigerator door for you. You took the can out and you opened it yourself. She never touched it. Isn’t that true?”
“I don’t remember it that way.” Tiffany’s tone of voice was now defensive.
“And you asked Zan if she had any cold medicine. She gave you a Tylenol, but she never kept nighttime Tylenol in the house. At your request she gave you the one that is a cold medication. Now, I grant you that those antihistamines can make you a little drowsy, but you asked for medication. Zan didn’t offer it.”
“I don’t remember.” Tiffany was sitting up straight now.
She remembers, Alvirah thought, and Zan is right. Tiffany’s trying to rewrite history to make herself look good. “Tiffany, I wish you’d look at that picture again. Zan is suffering from these accusations. She swears she is not the woman in that picture taking Matthew. She doesn’t know where he is, and the only thing that’s keeping her going is the hope that he’ll be found alive. She will be put on trial and you’ll be a witness. I just hope that you think carefully when you’re under oath, and if Zan’s account of that morning is accurate that you will tell the truth. Now, I’m on my way. I promise that when I write this story, I will stress that Zan has always blamed herself, not you, for Matthew’s disappearance.”
Tiffany did not get up with her.
“I left you my card, Tiffany. It has my cell phone on it. If there’s anything else that you think of, call me.”
At the door she was stopped. “Mrs. Meehan,” Tiffany called. “It may not mean anything, but—” She got up. “I have some sandals to show you. Zan gave them to me. When I saw those pictures of Matthew being taken out of the stroller, I noticed one thing. Wait a minute.”
She went down the hall and came back a moment later with a shoebox in one hand and a newspaper in the other. She opened the shoebox. “These sandals are exactly the same as a pair Zan has. She gave them to me. When I thanked her, she said that she had bought a second pair the same color by mistake, and not only that, she had another pair exactly the same except that it had wider straps. She said it was practically like having three pairs of the same shoes.”
Not knowing what to expect and not daring to hope that it would be significant, Alvirah waited.
Tiffany pointed to the newspaper she was holding and said, “You see the shoes Zan, or the woman who looks like her, is wearing when she’s bending over the stroller?”
“Yes. What about them?”
“See how the strap is wider than it is on this pair?” She took a sandal from the shoebox and held it up.
“Yes. It is different, not much, but Tiffany, what about it?”
“I noticed and I can swear that Zan was wearing the ones with the narrow straps the day Matthew disappeared. She and I left this building together. She rushed into a taxi and I pushed the stroller to the park.”
Tiffany’s face became troubled. “I didn’t tell that to the cops. I’ve been so mad about the way people think of me that I know I was blaming Zan. But last night when I began to think about it, it didn’t make sense. I mean, why would Zan have come back home that day and changed into her sandals with the wide strap?”
Her eyes searched into Alvirah’s pleadingly.
“Does that make sense to you, Mrs. Meehan?”
68
On Saturday morning, Detective Wally Johnson pushed the intercom button under the name ANTON/KOLBER 3B in the foyer of the brownstone shared by Angela Anton and Vita Kolber. They were the young women who had been Brittany La Monte’s roommates before she disappeared.
When they did not answer the messages he left them on Thursday evening, he’d been prepared to go directly to their apartment the next morning and take a chance on catching them at home. But then Vita Kolber called him back at eight A.M. on Friday asking if he could meet with them on Saturday morning instead. They both had early-morning rehearsal calls and the rehearsals were expected to last through the day.
It was a reasonable request and Wally spent Friday following up on the other names Bartley Longe’s secretary phoned in to him. “These are regular theatre people who would have met Brittany when she was in Mr. Longe’s country home,” she explained.
Two of the names were film producers who were both out of the country. The third was a casting director who had to search her brain to remember Brittany La Monte. “Bartley always has a bevy of blondes around him,” she explained. “It’s hard to tell them apart. If I can’t place this girl Brittany, it says to me she didn’t grab my attention.”
Now as soon as he announced himself a musical voice said, “Come right up.” At the sound of a buzzer he pushed the inner door open and climbed to the third floor.
The door of 3B was opened by a tall, slender young woman with long blond hair that cascaded down past her shoulders. “I’m Vita,” she told him. “Please come in.”
The small living room had clearly been furnished from make-dos and family castoffs, but was cheerful and coordinated with bright pillows on the vintage couch, colorful blinds on the long, narrow windows, and playbill posters of Broadway hits on the whitewashed walls.
When, at Vita’s invitation, he sat in one of the armless upholstered chairs, Angela Anton came in from the kitchen carrying two cups of cappuccino. “One for you, one for me,” she announced as she laid them on the round metal coffee table. “Vita’s a tea drinker but doesn’t want a cup now.”
Angela Anton was not more than five fee
t tall, with medium brown hair cut into bangs, and hazel eyes that Wally immediately noticed were more green than brown. There was something in the graceful way she moved that made him suspect she was a dancer, an observation that was absolutely on target.
Both young women settled on the couch and looked at him expectantly. Wally took a sip of the coffee and complimented Anton on it. “I usually have my second cup at my desk,” he said, “but, this is much better. As I said in my message, I need to talk to you both about Brittany La Monte.”
“Is Brittany in trouble?” Vita asked, anxiously, then didn’t give him a chance to answer. “What I mean is that she’s been gone almost two years and when she left she was so mysterious about it. She took Angela and me out to dinner and said it was on her. She was all excited. She said that she had gotten an offer of a job that would pay really well, but would take a while, and after that, she was going to California because hanging around New York trying to get in a Broadway show hadn’t worked for her.”
“Brittany’s father is concerned about her, as you know,” Johnson said. “He told me he came here to see you.”
Angela was the one who answered. “Vita only spoke to him for a couple of minutes. She had a casting call. I had time so I listened to Mr. Grissom’s life story, then I had to tell him that we just haven’t heard from her.”
“He told me that he showed you the postcard Brittany sent him six months ago. It was from New York. Do you think it was genuine?” Johnson asked.
The two young women looked at each other. “I don’t know,” Angela said slowly. “Brittany’s handwriting had curlicues and loops. I can see why she would have printed on a small card. But I just don’t know why she wouldn’t have called one of us if she was back in Manhattan. We were pretty tight with each other.”
“How long did you actually share an apartment together?” Wally asked as he put the coffee cup back on the table.
“It was four years for me,” Angela said.
“Three years,” Vita responded.
“What do you know about Bartley Longe?”
Wally Johnson was surprised to hear both young women laugh. “Oh, my God,” Vita said. “Did you know what Brittany did with that guy’s wigs and toupees?”
“I heard about it,” Johnson said. “What was that situation? Was Brittany involved with him, or was she in love with him?”
Angela took a sip of her coffee, and Wally wasn’t sure if she was considering the question or finding a way to be loyal to Brittany. Finally she said, “I think Brittany underestimated that guy. She was having a fling with him, but she did it for one reason only and that was to meet people at his Litchfield house who might do her some good as an actress. I can’t tell you how much she wanted to be famous. It drove her. She made fun of Bartley Longe. She put us in stitches imitating him.”
Wally Johnson thought of what Longe had told him, that Brittany wanted to turn their affair into marriage. “Did she want to marry him?” he asked.
Both young women began to laugh. “Oh, good God,” Vita said. “Brittany would no more have married him than…” She paused. “I swear, I can’t come up with a comparison.”
“Then what happened that caused her to destroy his hairpieces?” Johnson asked.
“She saw that most of the people he had up to that house in Litchfield were potential clients, not theatre people. She decided he was wasting her time. Or maybe by then this mysterious other job had come up. Bartley Longe had given Brittany some jewelry. I guess he could tell that she was sick of going up there, and he swiped it from her jewelry box. That’s what really ticked her off. They had a big fight. He wouldn’t give it back. So when he was in the shower, she collected all his wigs and toupees and drove his convertible back to New York. She told us she cut up all the ‘rugs,’ as she called them, and scattered them all over the convertible so that no one in the garage could miss seeing them.”
“Did she ever hear from Longe after that?”
“He left her a message,” Vita said, the smile gone from her face. She played it for us. “He wasn’t ranting the way he would be if she was late getting to Litchfield. He said. ‘You will regret this, Brittany. If you live to regret it.’”
“He threatened her that directly?” Wally Johnson asked, his interest aroused.
“Yes. Angela and I were frightened for her. Brittany just laughed. She said he was a big bag of wind. But I made a copy of the voice mail. As I said, I was frightened for her. It was only a few days later that she packed her stuff and left.”
Wally Johnson considered what he had heard. “Do you still have that copy of Longe’s voice mail?”
“Oh, sure,” Vita said. “I was worried that Brittany just laughed it off, but when she left town I figured Bartley Longe would eventually cool down.”
“I’d like to have that tape if it’s handy,” Johnson told her. When Vita went to get it he spoke to Angela. “You’re in show business, too, I guess.”
“Oh, yes. I’m a dancer. Right now I’m rehearsing for a show that’s going to open in two months.” Before he asked, she said, “And just so you know, Vita is a really good singer. There’s a revival of Show Boat opening off-Broadway and she’s in the chorus.”
Wally Johnson took in the Broadway playbill posters on the walls. “Was Brittany a singer or dancer?” he asked.
“She could get by in both areas, but basically she was a dramatic actress.”
Johnson could tell by the hesitancy in Angela Anton’s voice that she was not going to be lyrical about the theatrical talents of Brittany La Monte. “Angela,” he began, “Toby Grissom is a dying man and is agonized by his worry that his daughter may be in some kind of trouble. How good an actress was Brittany?”
Angela Anton looked reflectively at the framed playbill over the chair where Johnson was sitting. “Brittany was okay,” she said. “Would she have made it to become a star? I don’t think so. I remember one night about four years ago, when I got home, she was sitting here crying because once again an agent had turned her down. You see, Detective Johnson, she was a fabulous makeup artist. I mean fabulous! She could change the way someone looked in a heartbeat. Sometimes, when the three of us didn’t have jobs, she’d make us all up to look like celebrities. She had a collection of wigs that would knock you over. We’d get dressed up and go somewhere and everyone would think we were the celebrities we were imitating. I told Brittany that she could be the leading makeup artist to celebrities and that would be her path to success. She didn’t want to hear it.”
Vita Kolber had come back into the living room. “Sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t in the drawer where I thought I had put it. Would you like me to play it for you, Detective Johnson?”
“Please.”
Vita pushed the button of her tape machine. The voice of Bartley Longe, powerful in its fury, threatening and frightening in its message, reverberated through the room. “You will regret this, Brittany. If you live to regret it.”
Wally Johnson asked to have it played again. It sent chills down his spine. “I’ll have to take that tape with me now,” he said.
69
Penny Hammel knew she should not take the chance of driving past the Owens farmhouse and being spotted by Gloria Evans. But as she told Bernie, she also knew that something was going on in that house and it was probably a drug deal. “And maybe there’s a reward,” she said. “You know you can be an anonymous caller, I mean they won’t blab all over the news that you’re the one who blew the whistle.”
There were times when Bernie didn’t mind being on the road so much, and one of those times was when Penny got it into her head that something mysterious was going on around her. “Honey, remember the time you thought that stray poodle you found was the missing champion that ran away in the airport? When you checked it out, he was a foot higher and twelve pounds heavier than the other one.”
“I know. But he was a nice dog, and then I advertised and his owner came for him.”
“Your thank-you was a bot
tle of the cheapest wine that guy could find in the liquor store,” Bernie reminded her.
“So what? The dog was so happy to be found.” Philosophically, Penny had shrugged off the incident. It was Saturday morning. Over breakfast they had seen the news clip of Alexandra Moreland leaving the station house last night still screaming denials that she had kidnapped her child. Penny had thoroughly reasserted her opinion of what should be done to that heartless mother.
Bernie was about to leave for an overnighter that would bring him back on Monday evening. Penny had reminded him several times that he absolutely could not miss the Lottery Winners’ reunion in Alvirah and Willy’s apartment on Tuesday evening.
He zipped up his jacket and pulled on his wool cap. It was then that he noticed that Penny was wearing her tracksuit and thick boots. “Are you going for a walk?” he asked. “It’s pretty cold out.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Penny said dismissively. “I’m considering going into town and stopping by to say hello to Rebecca.”
“You’re not going to walk into town, are you?”
“No, but I may do a little shopping or something.”
“Uh-huh. Well, just don’t overdo it.” Bernie planted a kiss on Penny’s cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow, honey.”
“Drive carefully. If you get sleepy, be sure to pull over. Remember I love you and I don’t want to be a merry widow.”
It was their traditional parting when Bernie went on the road.
Penny gave him plenty of time to get out of town, then around ten o’clock went into the closet to get her heavy jacket, snow hat, and gloves. She had already put the binoculars on the sideboard behind a lamp where Bernie wouldn’t see them. I’ll park the car on the street that borders the end of Sy’s property, she thought, then I’ll sneak up and hang out in the woods for a while. It might be silly, but who knows? That Evans woman is up to something. I can feel it in my bones.