Vanishing Act Page 9

  “Was anything else bothering her?”

  “Her mother.”

  “Besides that.”

  “Like I said, she was fighting with her brother a lot.”

  “About what?”

  “Mostly me. Listen to this!” Tommy said indignantly. “He wanted her to go to the psychologist at the health center. He said her going out with me was indicative of a deep-seated depression.”

  “Was she depressed?” I asked as he refastened the latches that held the top on the cage.

  Tommy turned around and faced me. “She was stressed.”

  “Her roommate said she used to cry in her sleep.”

  “Really?” Tommy raised an eyebrow, indicating his surprise. “I never heard her do that.”

  “Maybe she never did it with you. Do you mind?” I asked, pointing to the pack of cigarettes I’d just taken out of my backpack. Tommy shook his head and I lit one, drawing the smoke deep into my lungs. He passed me a shot glass to use as an ashtray.

  “She always acted fine when she was with me.”

  “Her mother told me something had happened that was bothering her. I figured maybe it was her roommate’s death.”

  Tommy began folding a piece of paper into little pieces. “Sure it bothered it. That kind of thing gets you where you live, but I think she was over it—at least as much as anyone is ever over something like that. You should talk to Beth.”

  “I did. She said I should talk to her psych professor.”

  “Fell?” Tommy scrunched up his face.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t like the guy.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Tommy didn’t answer. He looked as if he were thinking about something else. I repeated my question.

  “Sorry.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I guess because Missy was always running off to ask him for advice,” he replied, picking his words carefully.

  “Jealous?”

  “It’s not that.” Tommy smiled ruefully. “Or maybe it is. I just thought we would have talked more if he wasn’t there. I was always hearing about how he said this or he said that. It got annoying after a while.”

  “I bet.” I took another puff and tapped the ash into my glass. “Is that why you and Missy fought?”

  “Among other reasons. All right. We did argue a lot. That’s true. But we always made up.” Tommy swallowed. He picked up his lacrosse stick and started twisting it from side to side. “She really ... I don’t know ... We couldn’t stay together without fighting ... just stupid stuff ... we got on each other’s nerves a lot ... but whenever we were apart, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I still can’t. We could have worked something out. I know we could have. I really miss her.” He blinked several times. His eyes misted over.

  When I left ten minutes later, Tommy had Tony Bennett on the stereo and a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand. I hoped he’d done his homework, because from the look on his face, he wasn’t going to be doing much of anything else that night.

  As I was going down the stairs, a man was coming in the front door. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Stocky, with a strongly featured face, and dark, commanding eyes, he strode into the TV room.

  “Is my son around?” he asked in a loud, booming voice.

  “Yes, Mr. West,” someone answered. “I think he’s upstairs.”

  I made it my business to be out the door before Tommy’s father went up the stairs.

  Now I began to see why Tommy hadn’t wanted to talk to me.

  His father looked like somebody I wouldn’t have wanted to argue with at Tommy’s age either.

  Chapter 13

  Zsa Zsa wagged her tail as I let her out of the cab. We took a brief walk and I gave her a couple of big lamb and rice dog biscuits once we got back in. Her scent filled the car, and while other people might not like the combination of dog and night air, I found it soothing. Then I drove over to Schaefer. I wanted to talk to Missy’s suitemates, Holland Adams and Brandy Weinstein, and I figured they were probably back at the dorm by then. I wouldn’t have gone if Zsa Zsa had complained, but since she had curled up on her sheepskin blanket and gone back to sleep the moment we returned to my cab, I figured I might as well get the interview over with. Driving down the street, I found myself thinking about the conversation I’d just had with Tommy West.

  The kid had seemed sincere about missing Melissa. Of course, that didn’t mean he didn’t have something to do with her disappearance. Lots of people kill someone and feel guilty afterward. As I lit a cigarette and waited for the car in front of me to turn, I conjured up another possibility. What if one of the fights Tommy had told me about had gotten out of hand? What if Melissa had done something like call him a gutless wonder for not marrying him? What if she’d raked her nails across his face? Slapped him? Maybe this time Tommy hadn’t played the patient, understanding lover.

  Maybe this time he lost his temper and belted her. Maybe he hit her harder than he meant to. Much harder. And Melissa had fallen back, hit her head, and died. A freak accident. But possible. Then Tommy panicked and hid the body.

  Which was where my hypothetical construct broke down. I could get around the fact that according to Marks, Tommy’s alibi checked out. What I couldn’t get around was that while I could see Tommy killing Melissa and hiding her body, I couldn’t see him sitting on something like that for four months. That required a degree of cold-bloodedness I didn’t see the kid as having. I thought about it some more as I watched the smoke ring I’d just blown dissolve in the air.

  For a change, luck was running my way, because I found Holland Adams and Brandy Weinstein in their room. They were sitting cross-legged on one of the beds, splitting a pizza. I knocked on the half-open door and walked into their room. The smell made my mouth water. Up until then I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.

  “You’re that Light person,” the girl who turned out to be Brandy told me, glancing in my direction.

  “We got the card you left,” Holland chimed in, raising her voice over the sound of the movie they were watching.

  Both girls looked the same. They had shoulder-length streaked blond hair, tan complexions, long, silver fingernails, and regular features. Each was wearing jeans and a cropped, curve-hugging sweater, only Brandy’s was blue and Holland’s was green. They had been, I was willing to wager, in the in group in high school.

  “Beth said you’d be back,” Brandy told me before she took a bite of her slice and swallowed. “You want some?” she asked, indicating the box on the bed.

  I’d like to think her offer wasn’t prompted by the fact I’d been staring at the pizza the way Zsa Zsa stares at a bottle of beer. I took the proffered piece and leaned against the dresser while I ate. It tasted really good. I tried not to gobble it down.

  Holland clicked off the video. “We really didn’t know Missy that well,” she told me, laying the remote on the pillow. “So I don’t think we can help you.”

  “She called us the Barbies,” Brandy volunteered, starting on another piece.

  “The Barbies?” I almost choked on the food in my mouth.

  Holland tossed her head to get her hair out of her eyes. “She was trying to be nasty, even though she said she wasn’t, but Barbie is still my favorite doll. I took it as a compliment.”

  “If you ask me,” Brandy said, licking a spot of tomato sauce off her finger, “I think she was jealous. I mean, Tommy’s such a wimp.”

  “They fought all the time.”

  “She fought with everyone,” Brandy observed.

  “That’s not what her brother says,” I interjected.

  “Maybe because he was the one she fought with the most.” Holland put her arms above her head and stretched the way my cat did after a particularily satisfying nap. “She’d gotten on this feminist, personal-responsibility kick. I tried to tell her to lighten up. Intensity is so unattractive, but she just got pissy.”

  “Everything was always such a big de
al to her,” Brandy said. She turned to her roommate. “Remember when she found out I’d gone to the movies with Tommy?” She rolled her eyes. “The way she carried on, you would have thought I was giving him a blow job in the middle of the quad.”

  “She was jealous?”

  “Duh.”

  Holland reached for another slice. “Even though she said she wasn’t.”

  “She’d never talk to you,” Brandy said. “You never knew what she was thinking about. And then she’d get mad. Excuse me.” Brandy’s face quivered with indigation. “But if you’re studying and I’m watching TV, how do I know if it’s too loud? Don’t storm in here like some Nazi and complain. Personally, I think she needed something chemical. I even offered to give her some of my Prozac. You’d think I was offering her smack the way she carried on. I hope nothing bad happened to her, but it is so much nicer not having her around.”

  Holland nodded. “Absolutely.”

  I thought about the three hundred dollars Missy had taken from her bank account. “Did she do drugs? Gamble?”

  Brandy guffawed. “Are you kidding? Little Miss Perfect? Don’t be ridiculous. She didn’t even take a drink.”

  The rest of the conversation proceeded along the same lines, and after a while it was obvious I’d heard everything they had to say, at which point I said good night and left. It had gotten colder out since I’d been inside the dorm, or perhaps it just felt that way because the wind had picked up again, bringing with it the smell of snow. I glanced at the sky. It had gone gray with clouds. A storm was moving in. God, I hoped it wouldn’t be a bad one. It was time to put away the shovels for the season, not that the weather would necessarily agree with me. Last year we’d gotten socked with over a foot of the white stuff on Mother’s Day. The crocuses and snowdrops had died, frozen in their thin tombs of ice.

  I got in my car, petted Zsa Zsa for a minute, then pulled out into the road. I should have gone straight home. I was exhausted, I had bills to pay and a pile of laundry to do, but I found myself driving to George’s house instead. We hadn’t parted on the best of terms, and I wanted to touch base with him. Once he opened the door, though, I was sorry I’d come.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said when he saw me, disappointment written on his face and in his voice.

  “Excuse me.” I turned to go. Doing the wash would be more satisfying than this.

  He reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry. I was just hoping you were Raymond.”

  “Where is he?”

  George took a deep breath. “That’s the question of the hour. I wish I knew. Come on. I’ll get you and Zsa Zsa a beer. ”

  I waited until George had poured a little of my Sam Adams into a saucer for Zsa Zsa and handed the rest to me to ask what had happened.

  “Raymond and I had a fight after dinner, and he ran off. ”

  “He’s been gone about what? Two hours?”

  “Three.” George grabbed a bottle of Saranac for himself and headed into the living room. I followed closely behind.

  “What did you fight about?”

  “I wanted him to turn his box down. He told me to fuck myself, I told him I was taking his box away, and he ran out the door instead.”

  “You couldn’t catch him?”

  George’s laugh was dry and humorless. “Of course I could have. I didn’t try. I was afraid I’d hurt him if I touched the little shit. Anyway, I figured he’d come back in twenty minutes or so.”

  “But he hasn’t.”

  “No indeedy. He has not.”

  “Have you gone out looking for him?”

  “What do you think?” George ran his thumb over his bottom lip. “About an hour ago I called downtown and checked the hospitals. Wherever he is, he isn’t in those places.” As George lowered himself onto the gray leather sofa, I couldn’t help reflecting this was not the sort of furniture that went well with teenagers. “He’ll probably come home when he’s ready,” George said, but his voice lacked assurance.

  I sat down beside him. “Maybe he just got lost.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he decided to hitchhike home.”

  “You think he’d do something like that?”

  “He said he was, before he hightailed it out the door.”

  “Six ninety is a long way from here.”

  “Maybe he got a lift from someone,” George snapped. His body was so tight, you could have put it in an orchestra and played it.

  I knew George was thinking about the things that can happen when fourteen-year-old boys get into cars with strangers. I wanted to tell him not to worry, but I couldn’t, because it wasn’t true, and George, being an ex-cop, knew it. Instead, I put my Sam Adams down on the glass coffee table in front of me and went to massage George’s shoulders, but he stopped me with a gesture of his hand. He was doing what he always did when he got upset—withdraw—leaving me on the other side of the moat. It was one of the qualities I liked least about him, maybe because it reminded me of Murphy.

  “I knew this wasn’t going to work out. I knew it,” he muttered as I picked up my beer again. “That kid belongs in a military school, not here with me in Syracuse. Hell, he belongs in one of those Shock camps.” George’s left leg began to vibrate as he jiggled his foot up and down in time with his anxiety. “What am I going to tell my sister if she calls? ”

  “Maybe he’ll turn up before then.”

  “God, I hope so. If I were a praying man, I’d be on my knees. ”

  Zsa Zsa came out from the kitchen, jumped up on my lap, and turned over on her back. I absentmindedly rubbed her belly. A minute later she jumped back on the floor.

  George took a long pull on his beer. “This,” he observed, “is why I’m glad I never had kids.”

  “If he were your kid, he’d act differently.”

  “Yeah. Right.” George reached for the remote.

  I didn’t say anything. What was the point? For the next fifteen minutes George stared straight ahead at the screen and channel-surfed. I drank another beer, threw pretzels to Zsa Zsa, and leafed through George’s copy of the Atlantic Monthly while I grew more and more impatient. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stood up.

  George glanced at me. “Where are you going?”

  “Home. There’s no point in staying here.”

  “You think I should be out looking for him, don’t you?”

  “It beats doing what you’re doing now.”

  George wavered for a minute, then hit the power button on the remote control. “You’re right.” He levered himself off the sofa. “Let’s go.”

  Five minutes later George, Zsa Zsa, and I were walking across the lawn to George’s Taurus. The thin crust of ice on the snow crunched under our feet. It was a cold night to be wandering around outside, especially if you weren’t properly dressed, I reflected as we got into the Taurus. We drove over to Westcott Street.

  Located a little over a mile from George’s house, Westcott Street had three pizza shops and a convenience store that didn’t make a fetish of checking IDs when it came to selling beer, which made it the most obvious place to start our search. The area, which was three blocks long and five blocks deep, was in a perpetual identity crises, occupied as it was by college students, poor blacks, and an enclave of sixties radicals who had never made it through to another era.

  Unfortunately tonight the street looked deserted. Just two cars were parked in the lot in front of Fast Break. Which didn’t surprise me. It was late, it was midweek, and the weather was lousy. Everyone was home. Except, of course, for Raymond. And Melissa.

  George went around some broken glass and pulled into a parking place next to the bus stop. He turned off the ignition and slipped his car key into his pocket. “Let’s do it,” he said to me. “You check Charlie’s. I’m going to go down to Little John’s Place. We’ll meet back here in five minutes.”

  “You want me to grab Raymond if I see him?”

  “Not unless he makes a run for it.”

  As I headed to
ward Charlie’s, I wondered if I’d actually be able to hold on to the kid. He might be just fourteen, but he was a big fourteen and he didn’t like me very much—which also wasn’t going to help. But it turned out to be a non-issue. Raymond wasn’t in Charlie’s. Nobody had seen him either, although I realized as I described him that he could have been any one of the dozen kids who go in and out of the pizza place each day. A picture would have helped. Unfortunately, I didn’t have one.

  I got the same result at Al’s. Raymond wasn’t there and no one remembered seeing anyone like him come in in the last three hours or so.

  I arrived at the car a fraction of a second before George did.

  “He was at Little John’s about an hour ago,” he informed me as he jumped into the Taurus. “He hooked up with a couple of kids, but Darius doesn’t know their names. He thinks they live around here though.”

  We cruised the neighborhood for ten minutes. No one was out. Nothing was moving. We checked out Barry Park next. Within walking distance, the two-block square was another place kids liked to hang out. They played hoops or sat and smoked on the park benches, passing a filched beer back and forth. But tonight the ball fields and the playground stood silent. Even the cats that prowled the fields by night were inside.

  We moved on. I scanned the streets as George drove.

  “Maybe you should let Raymond go home,” I said as we went up Beech.

  “No.”

  I stole a look at George. His mouth was set in a grim line. “This isn’t working out very well.”

  George didn’t answer.

  “I really think you should put the kid on the bus.”

  George took his eyes off the road and glared at me. “First of all his name is Raymond, not the kid. Second of all, this isn’t your business. You don’t know anything about this.”

  “I just think—”

  “I’m not interested in what you think,” he snapped.

  That did it. I told him to stop the car.

  “Fine.” George slammed on the brake. By then we were on Dell. “You want to get out, be my guest.”

  I was about to open the door, when I spotted two kids midway up the block. They were standing in the street alongside a car. The door was open.