New Year's Eve Murder (4 page)

I threw out a far-fetched possibility. “Do you think she's gone off to find her real mother?”

There was a short silence. “If there's no real mother, how could she be looking for her?”

“I don't think this is a question of logic. Listen,
Rachel, if you think of anything, if you hear from Susan, please call me.”

I hung up feeling very uncomfortable. This was not a topic I wanted to discuss with Ada Stark.

I went to the foot of the stairs and listened, but I could hear nothing. With the new addition on our house, already more than three months old but still new to me, our bedroom was no longer just a few feet from the staircase. It sat atop the new family room off the kitchen and was the most luxurious room I had ever called my own. I walked quietly up several steps till I heard the voice of my husband talking to our son. I smiled and listened for a few moments. They seemed to be having a fine time up there although the conversation was pretty one-sided. But as long as things were calm, I went back to the kitchen and looked at the brief list Ada had written for me.

The problem with the second person on the list, Jill Brady, was that all I had for her was her work number and today was Friday, the first of January. It wasn't likely she would be at her desk before Monday, and that was too far in the future to suit me. I took out our Manhattan directory and looked up Jill Brady. There was none listed. I tried Brooklyn with the same result, which didn't surprise me. Young single women often kept their names out of phone books to thwart nuisance calls or worse. Well, I had the business number and that seemed like the only place to start.

After one or two rings a thoroughly nonprofessional
male voice answered on a recording: “You have reached the offices of WJC. We are not open for business. Our regular office hours are Monday through Friday from nine A.M. to five-thirty P.M. If this is an emergency, please call…” and he dictated a number with a New Jersey area code, “and leave a message. We'll get back to you as soon as possible.”

I took down the number, called it, and left a message that I hoped would encourage him to call back soon. I didn't have long to wait. The phone rang before I had a chance to do much else.

“Ms. Bennett?”

“Yes.”

“This is W. J. Childs. You left a message about Susan Stark?”

“That's right. She hasn't been seen for the last two days and she missed some appointments. I'm trying to find Jill Brady to see if she knows anything that can help.”

“I've got Jill's home number here somewhere. Hold on.” He left the phone and I heard the sounds of a family, probably in another room. Then he came back and gave me the number.

“How long have you known Susan, Mr. Childs?”

“ 'Bout a year. That's how long she's worked for me.”

“How did you come to hire her?”

“Believe it or not, through an ad in the
New York Times.
I was starting up a new magazine and I needed a jack-of-all-trades, a writer, an editor, a researcher, someone in the right age group. I couldn't afford a whole staff so I hired Susan. She does a little of everything and she does it well.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Uh, yesterday? No, must have been the day before. We took yesterday off. Have you talked to her boyfriend?
I think they live together. He should know what's going on.”

“I have,” I said. “He picked her up at the office and he dropped her off in Brooklyn and no one's seen her since.”

“Doesn't sound like Susan. She's a pretty together person.”

“How did she seem the last time you saw her?”

“She seemed like Susan. I'm not the person to ask. I'm busy seventy minutes an hour, and I'm not known for noticing what people have on or if they've had a bad night.”

“You knew Susan had a boyfriend.”

“She introduced him at a party and I'm more or less aware they live together. Try Jill. She notices every time I wear a new tie to work. And their desks are near each others'. If Susan wanted to talk about herself, her problems, whatever, she'd probably talk to Jill.”

OK, I thought. That's the next move.

“Could you say that again?” It was a girlish voice, confused but wide-awake.

“Mr. Childs gave me your home phone number. I'm Chris Bennett and I'm a friend of Susan Stark's mother. Susan hasn't been seen for two days and we're all very worried about her. I thought, since you know her from work, you might have some idea where to find her.”

“I don't know where she went. She just said she'd need the car for most of the day.”

“You lent her your car?”

“Yes. I didn't need it and it's better to give it a workout than let it sit for days on end. When you drive it, at least the battery gets charged up.”

“When did you give it to her?”

“Well I gave her the keys on the thirtieth, two days
ago. I don't know if she was planning to use it that day or yesterday or both. She just said she had to drive somewhere and she was planning to rent a car and I said, ‘Why don't you take mine?' ”

“Has she returned the car, Jill?”

“I guess so. She said she would.”

“You mean you haven't seen her?”

“She said she'd just put it back in my garage when she was through with it. I haven't looked because I don't need it. She'll give me the keys on Monday at work.”

“Is your car far from where you live?”

“It's a couple of blocks. I rent the garage from an old couple with a house. They gave up their car a few years ago so they rent it out.”

“Is it too far to walk to check whether Susan's brought it back?” I asked.

I heard her let out her breath. “I can go if it's really important. But it's getting dark and I think it's cold out.”

“Call a taxi, Jill. I'll pay for it.” It wasn't that I was feeling expansive; I just thought that if she refused, I'd have to let the police know, and they'd show up on her doorstep and ruin what was left of her day.

“Look, I'll walk over, OK? Give me your number and I'll call you back in an hour. I can't go just yet.”

I dictated my number and told her to call collect. “Did Susan give you any hint of where she was going with the car?”

“She didn't say where, but she said she'd probably put a hundred miles or so on the car. Frankly, it sounded good to me. It's my father's old car and I keep having battery trouble in the winter. I really hate to drive in the ice and snow. I don't know what I keep it for. Between the garage and the insurance, I could rent a car cheaper.”

“Thanks, Jill. You've really been a help. I'll be home all night, so whenever you call is fine.”

I ran upstairs to tell the news to Jack.

“OK. That sounds like real progress. You know where that garage of Jill's is?”

“I forgot to ask but it's a 718 number, so it's Brooklyn or Queens.”

“Or Staten Island,” Jack said. “You remember the number?”

I remembered the first three digits.

“Brooklyn. So this Jill lives somewhere near the Starks, and Susan got dropped at the Starks' two days ago, and either went from there to the garage or slept over at the Starks' and picked up the car yesterday.”

“And we'll find out in an hour or so if she returned it.”

“If she didn't, we'll have to get the plate number and put it in the alarms.”

“Jill's not going to like that.”

“We've got a missing person and a lot of unanswered questions. This isn't a matter of liking it or not.”

But I felt for Jill. She had done someone a kindness and accidentally got herself involved in a police inquiry. I hoped it wouldn't tear her life apart.

Jill called back as I was getting started on my busy hour with Eddie: his bath, his nursing, his nice, warm bed. The bath was almost ready when the phone rang.

“It's not there,” Jill's voice said.

“The car hasn't been returned?”

“The garage is empty. I listened to my answering machine and she hasn't called. But I don't think there's anything to be alarmed about. She knew I wasn't going to use the car this weekend, and maybe she got back from wherever too late to drop it off yesterday, and today's a day for sleeping late. She probably left it in the street and she'll get it back tomorrow.”

“Jill, can you give me the plate number on your car?”

“Why?” There was a note of hostility in the question.

“Because I think the police will want to keep an eye open for it.”

“That's crazy. She didn't steal it. I lent it to her. I don't care whether it's back or not.”

“But Susan's missing and she's very likely to be where the car is.”

I could feel her distress in the silence. Then she dictated the plate number and described the car. It was an old maroon Chevy with a noticeable dent in the rear fender on the passenger side where, she explained sadly, a taxi had clipped her; her case was still pending.

I gave the information to Jack while I got Eddie ready for our big hour together, and he phoned it in to the Brooklyn precinct where he and Kevin had reported Susan's disappearance. Eddie had started to fill out into adorable chubbiness, and he had begun to smile regularly, making his parents about as happy as we had ever been. He had begun to love his bath, a distinct change from those first days home when he clearly hated it.

Clean, warm, and happy, he snuggled on my shoulder as I settled in an old rocker we had moved into his room. Jack came in as I was nursing and said there would be an alarm out for the car in the tri-state area.

“And they'll probably drop in on Jill Brady tonight, ask her the same questions you did, and get the same answers.”

“I feel sorry for her, Jack. I start to see why people are reluctant to come forward.”

“It has to be done, Chris. Boy, he's getting big, isn't he?”

I looked down at our son and brushed my fingers through his fine hair. “I guess there's no other way of conducting an investigation,” I said with resignation.

“Gotta start somewhere.”

“Let me give Arnold a quick call. Can you burp him?”

“Arnold?”

I giggled and handed Eddie over.

Arnold was home and came to the phone as soon as he heard Harriet mention my name. I briefed him, hearing his appreciative grunts as I went through what I had learned and from whom.

“I knew you'd be light-years ahead of the cops,” he said. “It sounds like you've really learned something. But that bit about Susan thinking she's adopted. I've always thought she was a very sane girl, and that's crazy. I was there when Ada was pregnant and I was at the synagogue the night they named her. And I've never seen a mother and daughter look as much alike as those two.”

“Arnold, forget the facts. Something was bothering her and that's how she made it real.”

“You think she spent yesterday looking for a mythical birth mother?”

“I don't know, and she didn't tell anyone that I know where she was going, why, or what she expected to find.”

“How far did she say she'd be driving?”

“About a hundred miles altogether. When Jack gets through burping Eddie, he'll drop a compass on a map and draw a circle with a radius of fifty miles. Let's see what we come up with.”

“I don't think your compass is going to highlight any person or place that'll ring any bells. It's only an estimate anyway. And driving in circles never got me anywhere.”

“I'm glad your sense of humor hasn't deserted you,” I said.

“Was that my sense of humor talking? I thought it was my rational self. Well, maybe Harriet can scare up an old compass of our kids' and we'll draw our own circles. Where's ground zero? Brooklyn?”

“Somewhere near Ada Stark's house.”

“Always knew Brooklyn was the center of the world. Thanks, Chrissie. You've restored my faith.”

“In what?”

“In you. In the civilian population. In the ability of one smart human being with a telephone to dig up information.”

I said my good-byes, retrieved my baby, and sat down in the rocker to finish what we had started.

Jack was working on our dinner when I got downstairs, stirring up something fragrantly mouth-watering in our electric frying pan. “You're right on time,” he said. “Sit down and eat your grapefruit. This'll be ready in three minutes. Give or take.”

He's very good at the “give or take.” I've been cooking for myself, and for him, for two years now, and I'm still a wreck about when everything will be ready. For Jack there's just nothing to it. And since his sister is a caterer, I've come to believe it's in the blood or the genes or something I have no control over.

He sat down across from me and dug into his grapefruit. We had bought a carton of them from the glee club of the local high school, fund-raising for their annual trip. They were the best grapefruit we'd ever eaten, shipped up from Florida just before Thanksgiving, all pink and juicy. Next year we would buy two cartons and double our investment in the glee club.

Jack had also been busy with map and compass. “You get as far south as Trenton, New Jersey,” he said, “halfway west across New Jersey, north about to Pough-keepsie, up to maybe Norwalk, Connecticut, halfway across Long Island, and out to sea if you're so inclined. All in a fifty-mile radius. We're within the radius, of
course, but I don't think our lives intersect with Susan's. Or didn't until now.”

“And if she was just estimating, it could have been forty or sixty one way.”

“Right you are.”

“So she went to see—or find—someone or something well outside the five boroughs, a trip she could easily make in one day even if it took as long as two hours to get there. And for some reason, she didn't come back,” I said.

“Maybe she liked what she found.”

“Then she should have made a phone call.”

“Let me tell you about kids calling home. You know that wonderful mother of mine, the happiest grandmother in the world, the one who thinks you're the cat's meow? Do you know that when I was living in Brooklyn Heights maybe two miles from my folks—if you took the roundabout way—and I went three days without checking in, she'd get on her high horse? You know how old I was?”

I had a good idea. “What you're saying is that parents get nervous when they don't hear from their kids and kids get resentful about calling home. What I'm saying is—”

“Susan should have called home. But the reason kids don't call home is that their parents make them crazy.”

“What about Kevin? He's a lover, not a parent.”

“You got me.”

“And she borrowed a car,” I persisted.

“And that's a friend, not a mother. You're right. I'm looking for reasons why we won't find a body.”

It was the first time either of us had said it, and it gave me chills. “I think I'll call Rachel again after dinner. Now that we have some more information, maybe she can add to it.” I cleared away the grapefruit halves and
put the pasta on the table as Jack served the meat and vegetables.

“Suppose she went to see this possible natural mother of hers,” he said.

“Jack, who would admit to such a thing if it weren't true?”

“Got me. Someone who could benefit from it.”

“Who benefits from being somebody's natural mother?” I said it to myself. If you come out of the woodwork and identify yourself as my mother, what good does it do you?

“Eat. We'll think later.”

Later I called Rachel and told her the story.

“She borrowed a car?” Rachel said, as though it were the last thing in the world anyone could borrow.

“From her friend at work.”

“Why would she do that? Kevin has a car. She could have had his. She drives it all the time. She really must have wanted to keep whatever she was doing a secret from him.”

“It does look that way, doesn't it?”

“And those places you mentioned. Trenton. Who would want to go to Trenton? Who would want to go to Norwalk?”

“They're just possibilities, Rachel, just places that are within a fifty-mile radius of Brooklyn. Did she ever talk to you about something or someone roughly that distance away?”

“She talked about Europe, about California. I think she and Kevin took a trip up to Canada last summer. She went to camp somewhere upstate, I think, when she was a kid. I didn't go but I wrote to her a couple of times. I can't remember the address. It was more than fifteen years ago.”

“Did she talk about it? Did she have good memories of it?”

“She liked it. They had swimming and lots of arts and crafts.”

I wondered whether I detected a bit of wistful envy in her voice. Her best friend had deserted her for a summer, for other friends and lots of activities you couldn't find on the streets of Brooklyn.

I decided to switch to something else that had occurred to me. “Did New Year's Eve have any significance in Susan's life?”

“Well you know, I think it did. Funny you should ask that.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Susan always felt—you know, when we were kids she read about how in the old days in China people settled their debts on New Year's Day. They forgave their debts, really. Started everything new for the new year. Susan loved that. If she'd had a fight with someone, she'd sit down on New Year's Eve and write them a letter. She always said she wanted to start the new year with a fresh slate.”

“So she might have been settling some argument or problem yesterday,” I said hopefully.

“It's possible. It's really possible.”

“Help me figure out what it could be.”

There was silence. “Nothing really pops into my head. I'll have to think about it, Chris. Have you asked Kevin?”

“Not yet.”

“You should start there. You know, Susan and I are close, but when you take the big step, your whole life changes. She spent a lot more time with Kevin this past year than with me. If anything was bothering Susan, he would know about it.”

I felt as though we'd been walking in a circle and had
just come back to our starting point. “She didn't borrow his car. She didn't want him to know where she was going.”

“That's true. I don't know what to say.”

“Just think about it. Maybe something will come to you.” But I hung up feeling kind of down.

The truth is, I was exhausted. If I have inadvertently sounded like a supermom, it hasn't been intentional. For almost six weeks I had been working at being a good mother to my baby, but the lack of sleep had really taken its toll. When I thought about it, which I tried not to do very often, the most sleep I got at a stretch was a little more than three hours. I desperately wanted Eddie to sleep through his two A.M. feeding so I could put together a good seven hours for myself. Even six would do it. My pediatrician assured me that one night it would happen; I would just have to be patient.

Until now I had been able to grab an hour here or there during the day if I really needed it, since the class I teach was over for the first semester and would not resume for several weeks. But now there was Susan. If she were alive she had to be found, and much as I loved and admired my husband, much as I trusted in the ability of the police to come up with answers, this was too vague a problem for them to take very seriously. They would talk to Jill Brady tonight, but only because I had pointed them in that direction. A D.D.5 would find its way into the Susan Stark file with the particulars of the Brady interview. And then what? Would the file hold a series of D.D.5s leading to a closed case or the opening of a homicide investigation? It was up to those of us who cared to pick up the ball and run with it.

I wanted to talk to Susan's father but I wasn't sure he wanted to talk to me. I wanted Rachel to come up with
something substantial to give us a direction. I wanted Jill Brady's car to be found with Susan at the wheel, alive and well and pooh-poohing all her family's worries. And I wanted to sleep through the night.

I didn't get any of my wishes. Eddie woke me at two and again at six and we got our day underway. It was Saturday, and happily for all of us, Jack was home for the weekend. At eight-thirty, I answered the phone to find my friend and neighbor Melanie Gross at the other end.

“Mel, it's so good to hear your voice. I feel like it's been weeks since we talked.”

“Just days. How's it going? Eddie sleeping through the night yet?”

“Not yet. Dr. Schwartz said to be patient. I'm trying. But I'm really tired.”

“Buck up. If I lived through it twice, you can. I have half the metabolism you have. There were days I didn't get dressed till five o'clock, and then only because some inner voice said I'd never make the Mommy Hall of Fame. Do you still have a sitter for when you go to see Dr. Campbell?”

Dr. Campbell was my obstetrician, recommended by Mel. “Yes, Elsie's on for that. I'll nurse him and drop him off.”

“Chris,” Mel said in her most authoritative tone of voice, “you can leave a bottle once in a while. I promise you nothing terrible will happen. And it will give you seven glorious hours to yourself.”

“It certainly sounds inviting. And the way things are going, I'll probably be doing it sooner rather than later. A friend of Arnold Gold's disappeared the day before New Year's Eve and nobody's got any idea where she is.” I filled her in briefly.

“I don't like the sound of it, Chris. A pretty, young
woman, alone somewhere in an old borrowed car that could have broken down. I get chills just thinking about it.”

I hadn't really considered the possibility that the car had broken down, but remembering what Jill had said about the age of the car and the battery trouble she'd had, it could easily have happened. We talked for a while. Having a conversation on a topic other than babies and diets and doctors' appointments was absolutely invigorating. This dormant part of me was still there, awakening to the call. When I got off the phone, I may not have felt less tired, but I certainly felt more alive.

Jack and I breakfasted together, more or less like the old days. “I'm going to have to call Kevin again,” I said, pouring more coffee for Jack while I stuck with skim milk. “He knew something was bothering Susan, but I'm not optimistic that he'll tell me any more than he did yesterday. If he even knows more.”

“Want me to handle it?”

“On your weekend off?”

“Who's watching the clock?”

“I'd love it. You said you talked on your way to the precinct. Maybe if you can impress on him that strange things are going on—Susan borrowing a car so he wouldn't know she was going somewhere—he'll come around. Jack, how do we even know Kevin drove Susan to Brooklyn?”

“We don't. But if he didn't, what happened to Jill Brady's car?”

“Right. Good point.”

“Unless, of course, he knew she was borrowing Jill's car and after he did something unspeakable to Susan, he did something else to the car.”

“In which case we'll never get anything out of him.”

“Let me give it a try.”

“OK.” I downed the remaining half glass of milk and
took a deep breath. I hadn't developed a taste for the stuff and I was pretty sure I wouldn't. “What I'll do is talk to Ada and see if she has any idea what there is in a fifty-mile radius that would draw Susan on the last day of the year. And try to talk to Susan's dad.”

“Wasn't there another phone number on that list?”

I thought for a minute. “There was a third number, wasn't there?”

“A schoolteacher?”

“That's right. Mrs. Halliday.” The memory returned. “You really think a teacher would know anything useful?”

“It's a lead. It's a phone call. I'd sure as hell make it if it were my case.”

I looked at my watch. It was Saturday morning and I didn't want to bother anyone too early, but it seemed a decent time by now. I called the number Ada had given me.

A pleasant, older voice answered.

“Mrs. Halliday, my name is Christine Bennett. I'm a friend of Susan Stark's mother.”

“Oh dear, is anything wrong?”

“No one's seen Susan since the thirtieth. She borrowed a car from a friend and said she'd be driving about fifty miles and back. Ada said you were a confidante of hers. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

“Well—”

I waited, suddenly filled with hope. She hadn't turned me down flatly with an I-haven't-the-faintest-idea kind of answer.

“I might actually be able to help you, but I'm not sure I should.”

“I don't understand.”

“Susan spoke to me in great confidence. It's always been that way. I would never want to betray that confidence.”

“Mrs. Halliday, she told no one that she was going anywhere except the person she borrowed the car from, and she said the car would be back in its garage by New Year's Eve. It's not back yet and neither is Susan. Her family is very worried.”

“Give me your name again and your number. I'll call Mrs. Stark and call you back.”

It was a long wait, and I wondered whether she had changed her mind or failed to reach Ada or got stuck on a long phone call. I had my kitchen cleaned up by the time she called back.

“I'll talk to you, Miss Bennett. Chris, is it? But I can't do it over the phone and I can't promise to disclose everything that Susan has told me. I have an idea where you might look for her. How soon can you be here?”

This was it and I heard my heart thumping. “I have to feed my baby about ten o'clock,” I said. “I should be ready to leave at eleven. Would twelve or twelve-fifteen be inconvenient?”

“It'll be fine. I'll open a can of tuna fish and we can lunch together.”

“Tuna fish sounds great,” I said. It was my staple for many years. “I'll see you then.”

I had carefully not mentioned whether I was coming with or without my little Eddie, partly because I wasn't sure.