“So it wasn’t much of a conversation,” Jack said.
“It was very short.” He had just come home and we were at the kitchen table, as usual. “He picked up the phone—he’s been answering it since yesterday morning without letting calls go through his secretary—and a man said, ‘You looking for Natalie Miller?’ and he said he was and asked if the man had any information. And the man said, ‘She’s been missing since Thanksgiving Day two years ago and you’ll never find her.’ ”
“That sounds like our man. You didn’t mention Thanksgiving Day in the ad, did you?”
“No, but the people I’ve talked to know that’s when she disappeared.”
“But they don’t know you put an ad in an Indiana newspaper.”
“Only you and Sandy know.”
“And there’s no way of knowing if the call came from Indiana or next door.”
“No way that I can think of.”
“I suppose it’s too much to ask if he recognized an accent or an age in the voice.”
“He said the only thing he was sure of was that it was male and he spoke English.”
“Look, Chris, it means you’re in the right area. Either this guy read your ad or someone out there read it and told him about it. Either way, there’s a connection between Natalie Miller and that part of Indiana.”
“But thousands of people must have read those newspapers. Why should the only person to call be someone who wishes Natalie ill?”
“I can’t answer that. Let me make a suggestion. I’ve been thinking about the fact that she changed her looks. There was a forensic sculptor that used to work at the Police Academy years ago. He was actually a sergeant for a long time and there was some trouble, I don’t know the details, and he retired kind of suddenly and left New York. He lives somewhere over in Broome County on the southern tier—I can get his address from the Pension Section—and maybe you can use your charm on him.”
“I don’t understand. Don’t these people take a picture of someone a long time ago and project what they’d look like today?”
“Sure, but they can do the reverse, too. They can take what you look like today and go back in time to when you were younger.”
“So someone in Indiana who doesn’t recognize today’s Natalie might recognize her as a high school graduate.”
“Right.”
“You seem to think it’ll be tough getting him to talk to me.”
“From what I’ve heard, he lives alone in a shack that isn’t much better than a chicken coop. A guy I know once made a trip out there to see him and he was turned away pretty nastily.”
I looked across the table at him. “Where did we leave the book on charm? I think I have some serious reading to do.”
“Honey, you’ve got charm written all over you. You think I married you for your short hair and master’s degree in English?”
My hair had been little more than a bristle when I’d left St. Stephen’s and only half an inch longer than that when I met Jack at the Sixty-fifth Precinct. “I never thought of myself as charming,” I said.
“Hey, that’s why you’ve got me. To let you know how terrific you are.”
Marriage is a never-ending wonder.
Jack called his friend in the morning and got both meticulous directions to Sergeant Albert DiMartino’s little house and a strong caution on DiMartino’s personality. “I’ll translate it into polite language because you don’t want to hear the original,” Jack said when he got off the phone. “He says the guy acts like a rotten bastard.”
“And that’s the clean version.”
“Very clean. My friend was really ticked. He made the trip with Al’s best interests at heart—he thought Al got a raw deal on the job—and Al wouldn’t open his door. I’m having second thoughts about you going there, but my recollection is, he was always very nice to women, probably too nice.”
“If he doesn’t open his door, there isn’t much chance of trouble.”
“I guess that means you’re going.”
“I’m also packing a bag. There must be a motel around the area. I’ll check with Sandy before I go. But I may not get home tonight.”
“Here we go again, huh?”
“You know I’ll miss you.”
“Just keep calling, OK?”
“You couldn’t stop me.”
Sandy was all for it. He asked if my expense fund needed an infusion and I said I’d let him know. I hadn’t been billed for the newspaper ads yet, so I hadn’t drawn all that much out of the bank. Before I left, I put the rest of the expense money in our checking account so I could pay a motel bill if I had to. I called Mel and told her where I was going.
“A forensic sculptor?” she said in surprise. “Where is all this leading?”
“I hope to someone who knows or knew Natalie. Our ad in an Indiana paper got a response.” I described it and she gasped. “So I’ll be going to Broome County in a little while.”
“Poor Jack.”
“I know. But he put me up to this. I think he gets as much of a kick as I do when I turn up something.”
“Happy landings.”
Route 17 took me right into Broome County, and then the directions Jack had written down took over. On a road that was generously considered secondary, I finally spotted Cowles’s Fruit Orchard, alerting me that I had a turn coming up. It seemed impossible, but the next road was in worse shape than the last one, pitted and rutted, so narrow I would have to move off it onto a nonexistent shoulder if anyone approached, which was not very likely. The next landmark was a sign that said PROCEED AT OWN RISK, but that sign had not survived. It lay defeated in the scrub at the side of the road, a victim, perhaps, of Al DiMartino himself in a fit of anger, or of a windstorm or a large animal on a dark night. I slowed to a crawl, searching the left side of the road for Mr. DiMartino’s “driveway.” Even so, I missed it, realizing only after my front wheels had overshot it that the track into the woods and brush was the “drive.”
I backed up and turned sharply, my first real fears materializing as I pulled into the narrow opening. I would have missed it completely if not for the tire treads imprinted in the snow. I drove slowly, encountering no obstructions, and suddenly, ahead of me, there was a clearing with a small wooden structure on the right and a car parked in a kind of lean- to tacked onto the right-hand side.
I left my car in the clearing and got out. The front door must have been the only entrance, because there were footprints and trampled snow between it and the carport. It was so quiet that I was sure he must have heard my car pull up, but there was no sound from inside either. I walked up to the door, looked for a bell, and then, laughing at my naïveté, knocked loudly. There was no answer.
I knocked again and called, “Mr. DiMartino?”
“Go away,” an angry man’s voice came back at me. “I don’t give directions.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“I don’t speak the language.”
I smiled. “Well, I’ll speak yours.”
Suddenly the curtain in the window of the door was pulled aside. “What the hell do you want?”
“I want to talk to you. I’m told you’re a forensic sculptor.”
“Get outa here.” The curtain closed and I heard him walk away.
“I need your services, Sergeant,” I said.
“Leave me alone. You’re bothering me.”
“It’s cold out here. Could I just come in and warm up?”
“No!”
I hadn’t been exaggerating. I was freezing. If he didn’t let me inside pretty soon, I was going to have to get in the car and warm myself up or drive somewhere warm. “I have something very interesting for you, Sergeant DiMartino. Would you just give me ten minutes to tell you about it?”
In answer I saw the twin barrels of a shotgun on the other side of the window.
I backed away off to the side. Maybe he really was crazy and I had made a terrible mistake coming here. I thought he was an embittered man living alone; I hadn’t imagined he was crazy enough to shoot an unarmed stranger. It occurred to me that my car might well be within range of his gun, and if he shot out a couple of my tires, I would have one terrible hike in the cold back to the orchard.
I leaned against the front of the house so he could not see me without opening the door. Somehow I thought he just wanted to scare me away, not come out in the cold and do me harm. I also didn’t think he really wanted to shoot through his window on a day as cold as this. Since I had come in a car, he would know I was still here as long as the car was parked in front of his windows. I thought about my next move and came up with nothing. If I drove to the road and walked back to the house, I would surprise him, but what good would that do? It was unlikely he had a phone, so going somewhere and calling was out of the question. He could wear me down much easier than the reverse. I knew he had heat inside because I had seen smoke from somewhere as I approached, and as I stood there I smelled some woodsmoke as the wind shifted. Ergo he could hold out forever while I froze to death.
I was really cold now and I was torn between waiting for him to change his mind because of my persistence and attending to my needs. Frostbite wasn’t going to improve my life, and my fingers and toes were already complaining. I inched back to the door. The curtain was in place and there was no sign of the shotgun. He had put it aside and was ignoring me.
“Sergeant DiMartino,” I called.
“Get offa my property.”
“I’m looking for a woman who’s disappeared. I need someone to make a sculpture for me and I’ve been told you’re the best.”
“I’m retired. Leave me alone.”
“I’m prepared to pay you well for your services.”
There was silence. I had been prepared all along to pay him, but I had hoped he would agree to talk to me before the question of money came up. Having worked so many years for a stipend that never exceeded a hundred dollars a month, I sometimes have difficulty judging value. But this man might genuinely need money. I didn’t know the particulars of his problems with the police department, and I had no idea whether he was living on an adequate pension. Judging from his digs, he might not be.
I waited in the silent cold, hoping he would change his mind. I gave him ten frigid minutes, but nothing happened. “Sergeant?” I called. “Can we talk about it?”
“Come back tomorrow. I’m busy today.”
“Will you do it then? Will you talk to me?”
“I don’t know.”
Was it the money or was it the challenge? It was already too late for me to drive back to Oakwood. I hadn’t seen the sun for hours because of the overcast sky, but now it was getting darker and I didn’t want to drive unfamiliar snowy roads at night. It looked as though I was going to have to find a motel and make a decision tomorrow about what else to do.
Suddenly he called something, but I missed it. “What did you say?” I called back. I really hated this shouting match.
“How much you paying?”
“We have to talk about it.”
“I’m not letting you in till I’m sure I want to.”
“Tell me what you charge.”
“Tell me what you’re paying.”
A standoff where I’m out in the cold and he’s inside where it’s warm is not my idea of equal opportunity. I thought quickly about how much of Sandy’s money I had left. “Two hundred,” I called.
“Forget it.”
So we were going to have to bargain. I am not good at this, I thought miserably. What if he wanted thousands? I couldn’t commit Sandy to a fortune. “Two fifty,” I responded.
There was silence. I waited, wondering if I would ever feel my toes again. “Three hundred,” I said, “and that’s my last offer. I’m freezing out here and I have to get somewhere warm.”
Silence again. What am I doing here? I asked myself. This is a man who wouldn’t even let an old friend in, someone who cared enough about him to make the trip from New York. I walked over to the car and got in. From there I could see the whole front of the house, but all the windows were curtained and I couldn’t see inside. If he had some special viewing place, I couldn’t detect it. I put the key in the ignition and started the motor. The car was facing the wrong way and I would have to swing around in a U to get back on the narrow path to the road. DiMartino didn’t have that problem. I could see where his tire tracks were; he backed up and turned toward the road easily.
I started forward, making a wide swing to my left, away from the house, pushing through snow that was fairly high. But it was too much for the car, which ground to a stop as I felt the beginnings of panic. I didn’t want to have to leave my car here as I begged for help from the orchard a mile down the road, where the farmer, if he had any sense at all, would have left for a warmer climate weeks ago.
I backed up and tried again with no luck. I turned the motor off and got out. Thanks to Jack, I kept a small snow shovel in the trunk and a container of sand. The sand wasn’t necessary at this point, but the shovel might do the trick. I started working at it, but it was tough going and I stood back to survey the terrain and catch my breath. That’s when it occurred to me I was doing everything backward. I got in the car and backed up as nearly as I could in my own tracks till I reached the ruts DiMartino had made as he backed out of the carport. Slowly I moved the car till it nearly touched the back of his. Then I went forward in his path into the carport.
I paused to let the system rest. It had been both physically and spiritually taxing. As I recovered, I heard something and I turned around. DiMartino was standing outside his door, waving to me. I inched the car forward to make sure I could continue and got out.
“Come here,” he called. “What you doin’ that for?”
“You told me to get off your property. I was getting off.”
“Come inside before you freeze to death.”
Thanks, I thought. I’m already three-quarters there.
The house was one large room, more like a studio apartment in New York than a place to live in the country. And it was clearly an artist’s studio. Although there was a bed off to one side and what looked like a kitchen against the back wall, the rest of the space was covered with sculpture. I didn’t know how the man got from one piece to another, so close were they to each other. And centered in the large room was a stove with a chimney rising through the roof.
It was actually hot inside. I waited a minute, then unbuttoned my coat with stiff fingers, pulled off my gloves, and finally took the coat off. He didn’t offer to take it, so I made my way to the bed and left it there.
“Who are you?” DiMartino said.
“Chris Bennett. My husband is a detective sergeant at the Sixty-fifth.”
“The Six-five. I know the Six-five. What’s his name?”
“Jack Brooks.”
“Brooks. I remember him. He’s OK.”
I thought he was a little better than that, but this wasn’t the time to promote the man I loved. “He said you were the best.”
“A lot of good it did me.”
“I need your help.”
“Yeah.”
That seemed the end of the conversation. DiMartino reached for an open bottle of liquor and poured some into a water glass, looking questioningly at me as he did so. When I shook my head, he drank some.
“I drink a little,” he said.
It didn’t come as a surprise. He settled back in his chair. I found another one next to his bed and dragged it to the center of the room. DiMartino looked like a man who had given up all those little things we take pains to do to show ourselves we are civilized human beings. His clothes were less than clean and he wore them sloppily. His hair, which was receding, was too long and choppily cut, as though he took a chunk from here and a chunk from there when it suited him or when he got tired of looking at it in the mirror. He had a gut, which must have made it hard to chop wood, and that seemed to be the fuel of choice in his stove.
“You know what they did to me?”
“Jack said you got a raw deal.”
“I was always a little outspoken, said what I thought when I thought it. I had a little disagreement with my lieutenant about some evidence, and later on I got cornered by a reporter. So I told him what I thought, which wasn’t what everybody else thought, and the dummy quoted me and printed my name and it got back to the guy who runs the lab.”
“You mean they fired you for expressing an opinion?” I could feel my ire rise.
“Nobody fired me. They just piled up a lot of junk against me.” He had started to speak more carefully, his diction more correct, as though he might be a man not afraid to show the effects of education. It was hard for me to believe it was this same man who had shouted “Get outa here” only an hour ago. “Then one day I took a piece of evidence from the property room, checked it out with the clerk, and forgot to get it back in time. I put it in my locker overnight and the next morning they said I’d stolen it.”
“How terrible.”
“Right. How terrible. Something people do all the time, only that time they wanted me, so it became a violation of department rules and procedures. I had a great choice, sit in a radio car in Brooklyn for two years or retire.”
“It really was a raw deal.”
“So here I am. My wife left me and I’m living the life of Riley in Broome County. Sure you don’t want a drink?”
“I’m positive.”
“So you want me to help you find someone.”
“She disappeared at the Thanksgiving Day parade the year before last. The police haven’t found her and a private detective hasn’t found her. I’m looking as a favor to her family.”
“You have pictures?”
“Out in the car.”
“Let’s take a look.”