Twenty-one
But Goddess had not gone to the theater from the screening.
“For all her craziness, she’s never missed a performance,” Yves Golden told Jane when he called her office the next morning. “She’s a total professional. I can’t find her anywhere. I’ve tried all her friends, the crew at the show. No one has any idea. She’s—vanished! I just thought you might have some idea where she is.”
“I’m truly sorry,” Jane said, also concerned, and then had a thought. “Could she have been hurt? Have you tried the hospitals, the police?”
“Done that. No sign of her.”
“You know Goddess’s world far better than I do, but if anything occurs to me, I’ll call you. And please call me if you hear from her.”
But Wednesday passed and no one did hear from Goddess. On TV and in the newspapers, it was reported that she had disappeared after last being seen at a private screening of her upcoming film release, Adam and Eve. Until she reappeared, performances of her one-woman show, Goddess of Love, were canceled, and tickets were being refunded.
Driving home late that afternoon, Jane switched on the radio to hear the news.
“One of our brightest stars didn’t shine last night,” the announcer began. “Goddess, the singer and actress known for her high shock factor, surprised a packed Broadway theater last night by not appearing for her one-woman show, Goddess of Love. The performer, whose actual name is Katherine Hamner and who is the only child of Carl Hamner, the shoe giant, was last seen at a small private screening of her new film, Adam and Eve.”
Arriving home, Jane called Yves Golden.
“I’m pulling my hair out,” he told her. “I’ve tried everyone I can think of—the people she’ll be working with at that publishing house, Corset or whatever it’s called. Strange bunch,” he added.
“Corsair,” Jane corrected him absently. “What about her parents?” she asked, remembering the radio announcement. “Have you called them?”
Golden made a dismissive sound. “They wouldn’t know anything. She shut them out of her life years ago. Please, if you hear anything, call me—anytime.” And he proceeded to give her his home and cell-phone numbers.
Next Jane called Greenberg. “I’m really getting scared,” she told him. “Something must have happened to her. Everyone agrees this just isn’t like her.”
“Really?” he said, surprised. “I’d have said it’s exactly like her.”
“Goddess is eccentric, not irresponsible. There’s a difference.”
“Goddess at large . . .” he said thoughtfully.
“What?”
“That was one of her movies, wasn’t it? And she disappears, right?”
“Right . . . So?”
“I don’t know. Where did she go in the movie?”
Jane sighed. “Obviously you didn’t see it. Her boyfriend finds her masquerading as a flight attendant on a jet to Rome.”
“Well, there you are! Maybe she’s left the country.”
“Maybe. . . . I suppose anything’s possible. But she doesn’t own any property overseas, as far as I know, and if she has friends overseas, Golden has tried them.”
“Has he tried her parents?”
“No. No point. They’ve been estranged for years, he says.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“She’s an only child.”
“Oh. Jane, the girl could be anywhere. Or on her way to anywhere. Give her a little time. She’ll pop up somewhere.”
“Oh, you’re no help,” Jane muttered, said good-bye, and hung up.
A moment later the phone rang. It was Greenberg again.
“Jane, I had a thought. If it were up to me, I’d get in touch with Goddess’s parents anyway. They may know something. It’s worth a try. What have you got to lose?”
Jane pondered this idea. “Nothing, I suppose. Though it’s a long shot. But I’ll try it. You’re right, I’ve got nothing to lose—if they’ll even see me.”
As soon as she’d hung up, the phone rang again.
She laughed as she picked it up. “Another idea? I knew it made sense to date a cop.”
“Jane? This is Jack Layton. What are you talking about?”
She felt herself blush. “Oh, hello, Jack. How did you get my home number?”
“It was in Holly’s Rolodex.”
Jane didn’t recall ever having given Holly her home number. Holly must simply have looked it up; Jane was, after all, listed in the phone book. That would have been just like Holly.
“Listen, Jane, what are you going to do about this Goddess mess?”
“What am I going to do? What are you talking about? We’re all doing our best to find her.”
“You’d better find her. I’ve got a million and a half riding on this kook. If she doesn’t come through with her pop-ups and music chips, I’m holding you personally responsible.”
Jane felt her anger rising to the boiling point. “Listen, you hypocritical jerk. You’ve got nothing riding on this project. I haven’t even received the contracts yet, let alone your million and a half. So get off that track. And watch how you speak to me—and how you refer to my client—or I’ll see to it that you don’t get this book at all. Got it?”
“Find her,” Layton seethed, and the line went dead.
“Daniel,” Jane called through to the reception room the next morning, “would you please place a call for me?”
He appeared in her doorway, his face perplexed. “Would I what?”
“Place a call. You know—‘Please hold for Jane Stuart.’ ”
“Since when do I place your calls?”
“I just thought it would be a good idea this once.”
“Why, who are we calling?”
“Carl Hamner.”
“Carl Hamner? The sneaker man?”
“Yes. And Goddess’s father.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. And you think that if I place the call for you—”
“I’ll have a better chance of getting through. His office is in New York.”
“Okay,” Daniel said, shrugging good-naturedly. “I’ll buzz you when I have him on the line.”
She waited, watching the phone. After a few moments the intercom lit up. “Jane, I’ve gotten as far as his personal assistant, a Mrs. Dunlap. I have a feeling that’s as far as we’re going to get. Do you want to pick up?”
“Yes,” Jane said, and lifted the receiver. “Hello, Mrs. Dunlap.”
“What is this about, please, Mrs. Stuart?” The woman’s voice was cold, all business.
“I’m a literary agent,” Jane began. “I’m representing Mr. Hamner’s daughter—”
“Mrs. Stuart,” Mrs. Dunlap interrupted. “What does this have to do with Mr. Hamner?”
Jane wasn’t quite sure what to say. “I . . . You’re aware that his daughter has disappeared?”
There was a brief silence on the line. “Yes, we’re all aware of that. So?”
“So I would really like to speak to Mr. Hamner about her. Please, could you ask him if he’ll see me? Just a brief meeting?”
“You may relay anything you wish to say to Mr. Hamner through me. I will be sure he gets your message.”
“I do have things to say to Mr. Hamner,” Jane said, “but I can only say them to him. Personally. Things about his daughter. Please. Ask him.”
Mrs. Dunlap let out a loud sigh of exasperation. “Hold.”
Jane did hold—for two minutes, by her watch—and then Mrs. Dunlap came back on. “Mrs. Stuart, Mr. Hamner would like to speak to you. Hold.”
There was a click, ringing, and someone picked up.
“What do you want?” came a man’s gruff voice.
“Mr. Hamner?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Hamner, I’ve been working with your daughter on a book project. I’m a literary agent.”
“I know all that—Dunlap just told me. What do you want?”
“I want to come in and talk to you about your daughter’s disappearance.”
“How well do you know Katherine?” he asked.
“Pretty well, I’d say,” Jane said, not really sure if this was true.
“Then you know that her mother and I don’t see her anymore.” There was a touch of sadness in his voice.
“Yes, I do know that. Please, Mr. Hamner, may I come in and see you?”
“Come at one,” he said, and hung up.
Carl Hamner had the largest office Jane had ever seen—almost like a small apartment in one vast space—yet Hamner himself was a small man, smaller than he appeared in his photographs. He was almost completely bald, with a round face and large, deep brown eyes that held a touch of sadness. From what she could see of him behind the immense slab of marble that was his desk, he was trim. He wore a blue-and-white-striped dress shirt, a navy tie, and no jacket.
“So you’re here,” he said before Mrs. Dunlap had even reached the door. “What was it you couldn’t have said on the phone?”
“Mr. Hamner, I just felt that if I could talk to you about your daughter—”
His face grew red. “But I told you, I don’t know where she is. My wife and I have neither seen nor spoken with Katherine for nearly seven years.”
Jane sensed pain in his words. “I’ve come to care for your daughter in the short time I’ve been working with her. She’s a troubled girl, but I’m sure you know that. I’m worried about her, what she might do.”
“I know all about my daughter’s problems—which, by the way, are none of your business.”
Suddenly it occurred to Jane that perhaps Hamner was keeping tabs on Goddess, the way Cecil Willoughby had kept tabs on Daniel. Was this something rich, powerful men routinely did?
Hamner went on, “But there’s nothing I can do about those problems, or about her disappearance.”
“I just thought that if we put our heads together . . .”
He shook his head impatiently. “This is a waste of time. I’ve been trying to tell you, Katherine is out of our lives.”
“Of her own accord?” Jane asked gently.
“Of course of her own accord!” Hamner snapped. “Viveca and I love Katherine, love her dearly. We always have. Katherine knows that. And believe it or not, we are extremely proud of her accomplishments. Hell, we even thought Doing It was funny,” he said with a rueful laugh, “and she was making fun of us!”
His slim shoulders rose and fell. “We would give anything to see her, to have her back in our lives. But she rejected us and our way of life years ago. Which is ironic, wouldn’t you say, since from what I understand, her net worth is rapidly approaching mine.”
“Like father, like daughter,” Jane mused, and to her surprise, Hamner looked at her sharply.
He gave her a quick half smile. “I’m afraid I can’t take any credit for her talents. Katherine was adopted.”
Jane just looked at him, thinking about this revelation. She was surprised—surprised at the fact itself, surprised that he would share it with her—but at the same time not so surprised. Perhaps it helped to explain Goddess’s rejection of Carl and Viveca Hamner’s lifestyle and fortune : They weren’t even her real parents.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Hamner. If you think of any place your daughter might be where Yves Golden might not have looked . . .”
He shook his head. “I really wish I could help. My wife and I are as worried about her as anyone. Remember—for all her act, she is, after all, just a girl.”
Jane checked in with Daniel from a pay phone in the lobby of the Hamner Global Building.
“Greenberg called for you,” Daniel told her. “He says call him right away. It’s urgent.”
She dialed Greenberg.
“We’ve identified the woman hanging in the woods,” he said. “She lived in a mental institution in Sharon, Connecticut.”
“Connecticut!”
“That’s right. I’m going there tomorrow to speak with the director of the place. You can come along if you like—I’d enjoy your company—though you realize—”
“I know, we’d be breaking all the rules,” Jane said with a laugh. “That’s what I like about you, you mad noncomformist.”
“Hmm. Can’t say I’ve ever been called that before. Pick you up at your house tomorrow morning at eight?”
“I’ll be ready.”
It was eleven the next morning when they found Whiteson Institute, a sprawling white mansion at the top of a rolling green lawn surrounded by lush forest.
“I’ve done a little research on this place,” Greenberg said, turning in through the gate. “It’s more than sixty years old. Once a private residence. Now it’s a facility for moderately to severely retarded people.”
He parked in a small lot at the side of the building, and they went in through the front door into a cool dark foyer. At a reception window to the right, Greenberg announced them, and the young man behind the desk buzzed them through a door beside the window and showed them into the office of the Institute’s director.
“Donald Brant,” he said, shaking their hands. He was a plumpish man of medium height—not unlike Ernie Zabriskie in shape, it occurred to Jane—though Brant was better-looking, with regular, finely cut features and stylishly cut black hair. He invited them to sit in armchairs facing his desk, then sat down.
“Thank you for coming.” He looked sad. “I’m grateful to you for helping us find out what happened to Hannah.”
“Hannah?” Jane said. “That was her name?”
“That’s right.”
“And her last name?” Jane asked.
Greenberg shot her a look that said, “Be quiet.”
But Brant took no notice. “No one knows Hannah’s last name. At least, no one here does. Come to think of it, no one knew much about Hannah.”
“Well, what can you tell us about her?” Greenberg asked.
“She was moderately retarded,” Brant said. “She had the mental capacity of a fourteen-year-old.”
“Where did she come from?” Greenberg asked.
“That’s just the thing,” Brant said, smiling gently. “We don’t know. For as long as anyone can remember, Hannah has lived here. The person who’s worked here the longest, one of our nurses, has been here sixteen years, and she recalls that when she started working here, Hannah was already here, a girl of about two.”
“But how did she get here?” Jane asked.
“Again, we don’t know. There is no record of who brought Hannah to the Institute. Our theory is that she was brought here by her unwed mother who didn’t want her. Over the years, we’ve tried several times to find out where Hannah came from, but”—he threw his hands out—“we’ve come up empty.” Brant shook his head. “Whoever brought her here, we’ll never know for certain.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Thirteen years ago, before I came here, there was a fire at the Institute—a bad fire—and a number of patients’ files were destroyed. Hannah’s file may have been among them. Or perhaps the file was misplaced, or even taken—though I can’t imagine why anyone would have taken it.” He shrugged. “The oddest thing is that there is a file with Hannah’s name on it, but it’s empty.”
“Empty?” Greenberg said.
“Yes.” Brant narrowed his eyes. “I can tell you one thing, though. What very few people here at the Institute know is that aside from the regular patient files, which are kept in a room behind that office you passed coming in, there is a special place where we keep files of an especially ‘sensitive’ nature.”
Jane shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Often—more often than most people realize—our patients come from wealthy, influential families, or are relatives of celebrities who don’t want it known that they have people here. After it was discovered that the woman you found was our Hannah, it occurred to me to check this special file, just in case there was something there on her. We’d never thought of doing this before—I don’t think anyone ever imagined that Hannah would fit into the ‘sensitive’ category—but I thought it was worth checking. To my surprise, there was a file marked simply ‘Hannah,’ and there was something in it.”
He opened the lap drawer of his desk and drew out a yellowed newspaper clipping. “This. Careful,” he said, handing it to Greenberg. “As you can see by the date, it’s nineteen years old.”
Greenberg held the clipping between him and Jane so they could both read it. The clipping, which contained no newspaper’s name, bore a story whose headline read: SENTENCED SOCIALITE COMMITS SUICIDE.
Jane began to read. The story told of a scandal, a murder, right here in Sharon, involving one of the town’s most prominent couples, Anthony and Rosamond Oppenheim. Anthony, the article said, had made his fortune in hotels. Rosamond, before marrying Anthony, had been a respected stage actress.
According to the article, one day a servant in the Oppenheim mansion found Anthony Oppenheim dying. He had been poisoned, and his death was slow and agonizing. Rosamond Oppenheim, the beautiful socialite, was found guilty of murdering her husband. There had been rumors in the Oppenheims’ circle that Anthony had been having an affair and had demanded a divorce from Rosamond; that Rosamond had poisoned Anthony in a possessive rage—for it was widely known that she loved Anthony fiercely. A friend of Rosamond was anonymously quoted as saying that if Rosamond couldn’t have Anthony, no one would.
Rosamond Oppenheim was sentenced to life in prison. However, before she could begin to serve her sentence, she shot herself, presumably out of grief and guilt and at the unbearable prospect of spending the rest of her life behind bars.
The story finished by saying that the Oppenheims had two daughters: Agnes, thirteen; and Elaine, five. Their fate was unknown, since the Oppenheims had no family to take the girls in.
Jane looked up at Brant as Greenberg handed back the clipping. “Was one of the Oppenheim girls Hannah ?” she asked.
“No,” Greenberg broke in, “that wouldn’t make any sense. Hannah was about eighteen. The Oppenheims’ daughters would be thirty-one and twenty-three now.”
“Then what could this story have to do with Hannah?” Jane asked. “Why do you think it was in her file?”
Brant shook his head. “More that we don’t know. But there must have been some connection, or else why would the clipping have been in Hannah’s file?”
“It could have gotten in there by mistake,” Jane suggested.
“Possible,” Brant said, “but highly unlikely. Few people besides myself even have access to those files. They go for years without even being opened.”
Greenberg asked, “Do you have any idea what she was doing in Shady Hills? She told someone she met there that she planned to meet someone in town.”
Brant shook his head. “I have no idea who she could have been referring to.”
“But how did she get there?” Jane asked.
“That I think I can tell you.” Brant looked pleased to be able to tell them something. “When the weather is nice, our patients have outdoor time. Hannah’s was every morning at ten. On the day she disappeared, she simply waited for her outdoor time, walked into the woods, found a space in the chain-link fence that encircles the Institute’s property, and left! As for how she got to your town, I can only imagine she got rides from people—hitchhiked.
“As to why—to that question we have no answers. I wish I knew. I was very fond of Hannah. She was a sweet, trusting girl, easy to get along with. The Institute has been experimenting with smaller group homes here in Sharon, and we had planned to try Hannah in one of them.” Brant’s eyes grew moist and he shook his head. “I can’t imagine what kind of evil person would have wanted to hurt such an innocent soul.”
They sat silently for a moment.
Then Jane had an idea. “Where did the Oppenheims live?”
“Right here in Sharon,” Brant replied, looking puzzled. “It says so right here in the article.”
“Yes, I know, but where in Sharon?”
Greenberg was looking at her strangely, as if wondering why she was asking that.
“The Oppenheim estate is at the other end of town,” Brant said. “It’s right at the edge of the golf course.” He looked at Greenberg. “But you won’t find any clues there. The place has been abandoned since the scandal—that’s almost twenty years ago.”
They thanked Brant for his time and went out into the sunshine, painfully bright after the Institute’s shadowy gloom.
They rode in silence along the streets that would take them back to the highway.
Abruptly Jane sat up straight, looking out the window. “This must be the golf course he mentioned.”
“Must be,” Greenberg said cheerfully.
“Stop the car.”
“What? Why?”
“I want to find the Oppenheim estate.”
“There’s no point. It’s deserted, abandoned. Besides, it has nothing to do with Hannah.”
“I know all that, but I want to see it anyway.”
Greenberg rolled his eyes, but he didn’t say no. They had to ask for directions twice, despite being so near the golf course, but eventually they did find the estate, which was accessible by means of an overgrown drive through woods. They came out onto a lawn grown high with weeds, beyond which stood a massive Georgian-style mansion, four imposing floors of brick, with several clusters of tall chimneys reaching to the sky. Unquestionably the house had been magnificent once, but now it looked as if it might crumble at any moment, or be strangled by the ivy that had crept up its walls and taken over.
Greenberg pulled the car to a stop.
“I want to walk around,” Jane said, and got out.
Greenberg got out, too. “We’re wasting our time,” he said plaintively.
She ignored him, wandering deeper into the estate.
It was hard to tell what had been what, with all the weeds and shrubbery that now grew everywhere. The air had grown hot and dry. As Jane tramped slowly through the brush, the loud keening and chittering of cicadas in the woods around the estate gave the whole place a sad, lonely feeling.
Behind the house she found what had been the swimming pool—not very large but deep, dust-dry, weeds and small trees pushing up through wide fissures in the concrete of the sides and bottom.
She glanced up at the house. Not a single window remained intact; most were gaping holes, others retained jagged shards of filthy glass.
She released a deep sigh. Why had she wanted to come here, to see this place? She herself did not even know.
“I’m ready to leave now,” she told Greenberg, who started back toward the car. Jane tromped after him.
“Can’t say I see the point of that,” he said, getting behind the wheel and switching the air-conditioning on full blast. It had grown quite warm.
“Does there have to be a point to everything?” Jane asked pleasantly. “I was curious, that’s all.”
He shrugged, doing a K-turn and heading back toward the drive through the woods. Jane gazed out at the house, the overgrown lawn, the dark surrounding wall of trees.
Something whitish among the trees caught her eye.
“Stop.”
He braked. “Now what?”
“Look,” she said, pointing, “just beyond that row of pines. There’s a little house or something.”
“Probably a garage or guesthouse.” He took his foot off the brake.
“No, wait. I want to get out for a minute.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest, then seemed to think better of it and smiled. “Fine. But this time I’ll wait in here where it’s nice and cool, if you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all,” she said, ignoring his sarcastic tone because she wanted to see what that little white building was. She got out and walked around the pines, the structure coming into view. It was a cottage, not a garage; perhaps a small caretaker’s cottage. Oddly, it didn’t look as forlorn as the big house. The lawn, though scruffy, appeared to have been cut in the recent past, and there were curtains in the windows at either side of the front door. Jane walked up a crude flagstone path and knocked on the front door. It opened immediately. Jane jumped.
“What is it?” It was a middle-aged woman, skinny, with limp brown hair and a yellowish, unhealthy-looking face. She wore a beige-cotton housedress and grimy terry scuffs. “I saw you come up. Saw you snooping around, for that matter. What is it?” she asked again, her tone resentful.
“I—I’m sorry to bother you,” Jane said in her most charming manner. “I wonder if I might ask you a question.”
“Don’t know till you ask it.”
“Did you know the Oppenheims, the people who once lived in the big house?”
The woman looked Jane up and down appraisingly. “What do you want to know for? Who are you?”
“My name is Jane Stuart. I’m not from around here. I’m from New Jersey, actually. But I’m trying to track down someone who knew the Oppenheims, and I wondered if perhaps you knew them.”
“Well, I didn’t,” the woman said, “but my father did, for all the good it did him.” Her expression was one of disgust; she looked as if she would have spit in different company.
“Your father, he was the Oppenheims’ . . .”
“He was their caretaker.”
“And he’s passed away?” Jane asked gently.
“No, he ain’t passed away, but he might as well have. He’s in a nursing home at the other end o’ town. The poor part of town. What’do you wanna know for?” she asked again.
“As I said, I’m trying to find someone who knew the Oppenheims.” Jane tried to hide her excitement. “It’s regarding a young woman who disappeared recently from Whiteson Institute.”
The woman looked at Jane as if she were crazy. “What the hell’s my dad got to do with Whiteson? I think you came to the wrong place, lady.” She started to close the door.
“No, please, wait!”
The door stopped. The woman tapped one scuff.
“Do you think I could speak to your father? I promise I won’t bother or upset him.”
The woman considered this for a moment. “You can do as you please,” she said uncaringly. “I don’t see what one thing’s got to do with the other, but if you want to talk to my dad, you’re welcome to try.” A sly little smile curled her lips, as if there was something she hadn’t told Jane.
“Try?” Jane echoed.
The woman nodded. “For one thing, he’s eighty-three. For another, he’s got Alzheimer’s—bad. It’s a wonder he’s still alive. He goes ‘in and out,’ you might say. It’s the Sunnymead Rest Home. Like I said, other end o’ town. Have fun.”
“And his name?” Jane asked quickly before the door could shut all the way.
“Mangano,” the woman said. “Victor Mangano. I’d tell you to give him my love, but most days he doesn’t even know who I am.” And the door shut completely.
Jane walked thoughtfully back to the car. When she got in, Greenberg still had the air-conditioning on full blast, which felt good against her face, and he was listening to country music on the radio.
“You like that?” she asked him in a scandalized tone.
“Well, yeah, some of it?” he answered defensively. “What does that mean—that there’s no future for us?”
She laughed and switched off the radio.
“Hey!”
“Sorry, I should have asked. May I turn off the radio? I want to talk to you.”
“Yes.” He waited, smiling patiently.
“There’s one more place I would like to go, please. It’s called the Sunnymead Rest Home. It’s at the other end of town. I don’t know exactly where, but I’m sure we can find it.”
Wordlessly, Greenberg put the car in gear and started through the tunnel of trees.
“Victor?” the nurse said cheerfully, pushing open the door to the old man’s room. “Victor, some friends of yours are here to see you.”
Greenberg had taken issue with Jane’s wanting to lie about who they were, but Jane had insisted that unless they said they were old friends of Mangano’s, they probably wouldn’t get in to see him.
“Victor?” the nurse repeated, but the white-haired, withered old man in the chair facing the blank TV screen did not move.
Jane looked around the tiny room. Its walls were covered with crucifixes and other religious artifacts.
The nurse beckoned to Jane and Greenberg to come closer. “See, Victor, two old friends of yours came here specially to see you.”
Suddenly, as if awakening from a trance, the old man turned to Jane and smiled a lovely smile, his pale blue eyes rheumy, like those of a loving old dog.
The nurse approached Jane. “He loves having visitors,” she whispered. “His daughter—well, I’m sure you know her—she doesn’t come as often as she might. It upsets her that he doesn’t know who she is most of the time. But I still think she owes him visits. He is, after all, her father.” She turned to the old man. “Now, Victor, aren’t you going to say hello to your friends?” And to Jane, “Don’t be upset if he doesn’t recognize you—he rarely does.”
Mangano’s sweet expression didn’t change. He said nothing.
“We’ve just been to see your daughter,” Jane said, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the nurse frown in slight puzzlement. Your daughter, Jane realized, was not how someone who knew Mangano would have referred to her; someone who really knew Mangano would have used her name. But Jane didn’t know her name.
The old man’s face darkened at the mention of his daughter. The smile vanished, replaced by a distasteful sneer. “She never brings me candy,” he said, and turned to the nurse. “She never brings me candy.” He turned back to Jane and Greenberg, who had come up beside her. “Did you bring me candy?”
“Now, Victor,” the nurse said, stepping a little closer, “you know you’re not allowed candy.” She turned to Jane and, shielding her mouth, said, “He’s diabetic.”
Jane nodded her understanding. “Victor, I’m afraid I don’t have candy. I’ve just come to talk to you.” She waited until she was sure she had his complete attention. “About Hannah.”
At the sound of the name, Victor Mangano’s face changed dramatically. He shot Jane a sharp, shrewd look. “It wasn’t her fault!” he shouted at her.
Jane jumped, startled at the old man’s outburst. Beside her, Greenberg leaned closer, his face intent.
“It wasn’t whose fault?” Jane asked ever so gently, but he didn’t seem to hear her. He just kept staring at her, his eyes narrowed to wet slits.
“Victor . . .” Jane went on. “The file, Victor. Why did you take all the papers out?”
Greenberg turned to Jane and gave her a baffled look, but Jane ignored him, for the old man clearly knew exactly what Jane was talking about. The look with which he now regarded her was the look of someone who has been found out.
“Because,” he said, now sounding completely lucid—as if they’d been having a perfectly ordinary conversation, “I couldn’t let them blame Hannah for what happened. The children,” he said, leaning toward Jane earnestly, “the poor children. It’s never their fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” Jane agreed. “So you emptied the file so no one would know.”
The old man looked down guiltily.
“You moonlighted at Whiteson?” Jane said. “Extra work cleaning, tidying up . . .”
“Please!” Mangano burst out again. “Please don’t tell Mr. Anthony. Mr. Anthony would be mad as hell if he knew. He’d probably fire me. But it was good I worked there nights,” the old man insisted, “or how would I have gotten to the file? How could I have kept people from knowing what happened?”
Jane leaned closer. “What happened?” she asked, urging him, but to her dismay he visibly sank back into his former state, simply staring.
“What about Agnes?” Jane persisted.
“Jane,” Greenberg said quietly beside her, “I think we should go.”
“No,” Jane said. “Victor, what about Agnes? Was it her fault?”
Once again Mangano looked at her sharply, his look a knowing one. “We tried to help her, too,” he said, his eyes somewhere far away. “But she ran away.”
“And Elaine?” Jane asked.
Mangano’s face softened. “The little one,” he said tenderly. Suddenly he turned on Greenberg. “Did you bring me any candy?”
The nurse stepped forward. “I think that’s enough visiting,” she said with forced cheerfulness.
Reluctantly, Jane followed Greenberg and the nurse out of the room.
“You lied to me,” the nurse whispered fiercely when they were all out in the corridor. “You’re not friends of his. You don’t even know him. I oughta call the police.”
“We are the police,” Greenberg said, surprising Jane, and he showed the nurse his badge—quickly enough, Jane noticed, that she would not have realized just what police he was referring to.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, respectful now. “You should have just told me at the beginning.”
“No problem,” Greenberg said solemnly.
“Does anyone ever visit him?” Jane asked.
The nurse seemed surprised by this question. “No . . . except for Jenny—that’s his daughter. But she only comes once in a while, like I told you.”
They thanked her and left.
“Well, you seemed to push a few buttons there,” Greenberg said, guiding the car down I-80, “but all in all, I don’t think those last two detours did us any good.”
“On the contrary,” Jane said. She saw Greenberg turn to her, waiting for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. Instead she said, “I wonder if Arthur realized that Hannah was mentally retarded.”
Greenberg looked surprised at this sudden change of subject, but went along with it. “I already thought of that,” he said. “As soon as I found out Hannah’s identity, I spoke again to Arthur—who, don’t forget, is himself mildly retarded. I asked him if he noticed anything ‘different’ about the girl. He said she acted ‘kind of girlish,’ but he thought she was just teasing him.”
“Teasing him how? Sexually? Or making fun of him?”
“I asked him that, too. He didn’t know. Or if he did have any idea, he wouldn’t say.”
Jane gazed out at the passing trees. “What earthly reason could Hannah have had for going to Shady Hills?” she wondered aloud, her heart breaking for this poor young woman.
They rode in silence for some time, and then Greenberg, lost in thought, gave a little laugh. “I have to compliment you on your interrogation skills.”
Jane laughed, too. “I’m no detective.”
“But you are. It was you, don’t forget, who figured out what happened to your nanny, Marlene.”
Troubled at the memory, Jane nodded in concession.
Greenberg said, “That was when you were seeing Roger Haines.”
“Yes.” Another troubling memory. Roger had been her agency’s biggest author. The failure of that relationship had taught her the folly of becoming romantically involved with clients.
“You said you saw Roger and me at Whipped Cream, arguing.” She laughed ruefully. “We did that a lot.”
“I’m glad you’re not seeing him anymore.” Greenberg stared straight ahead as he drove. “That day you came to the police station to talk to me about Marlene, I . . . knew you were someone special.”
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Tell me about your husband,” he said gently.
“Kenneth,” she said, gazing out the window at a jagged outcropping of rock at the side of the highway but seeing Kenneth’s handsome face. “He was a wonderful man. I know people say that all the time, but Kenneth really was. He was bright, fun, generous, loving . . . yet he had no idea he was any of these.
“One day about two and a half years ago he went into New York for a meeting with a couple of editors, and after the meeting he was hit by a truck. I . . . I couldn’t believe it when they told me. I said, ‘But I just saw him,’ which was, of course, a ridiculous thing to say.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Greenberg said, and reached over and gently covered Jane’s hand on the seat with his own.
“It hurts so bad,” he said, “that you don’t think it will ever stop. You don’t see how you can go on.”
She looked at him.
Gazing straight ahead at the road, he said, “When I moved to Shady Hills I met a woman—Veronica, her name was—though she liked to be called Ronni. She worked as a hostess at Eleanor’s. Maybe you remember her.”
“Yes, I do.”
“We had so much in common. We got engaged, set the wedding a year away so we could do it up right, get our families all involved.” He laughed at the memory, moisture in his eyes. “Then one day when we were . . . when we were making love, I felt something in one of her breasts. A lump. She said it was nothing, but I convinced her to see a doctor.
“Anyway,” he said with a sigh, “the doctors removed the lump, and it was malignant. She went through chemo and radiation, and she was sick as a dog all during it, but then it was over and she was her old self again—almost. There was always this nagging doubt, always this reminder that she would never be completely out of the woods. Always her appointments for tests to make sure it was really gone.”
“And was it?” Jane asked, already knowing the answer.
“No. After one of those sets of tests, they told her the cancer had metastasized, that they hadn’t gotten all of it. You know the story. The next two years were the longest two years of my life. When she died, she was in my arms, kissing me. She was twenty-six.”
Jane hated to take her hand out from under his, but she had to fish in her bag for tissues, and finding them, she wiped at her eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” And she put her hand back on his, and they rode like that for a long time, saying nothing.
They stopped at a diner in Paterson Greenberg liked for a late lunch.
“What will happen now?” Jane asked, her club sandwich untouched before her.
Greenberg shrugged regretfully. “I’m afraid I’m probably going to have to arrest Ernie Zabriskie.”
Jane’s jaw fell and she shook her head vehemently. “But you can’t! Stanley, I’m telling you, it’s not just because I’m so fond of Louise and this would positively destroy her. It’s that I know Ernie. He’s no angel, believe me, but I know in my heart he’s no killer, either. He couldn’t have murdered Hannah.”
“Then who did?” Greenberg asked simply.
Jane had no answer.
She still had no answer late that night as she lay in bed and drifted into a fitful half sleep in which bits of information, troubling things people had said, echoed and connected, combining to form a message: that the answer to who was responsible for hanging Hannah had been presented to her. It was simply up to her to see it.
In the first hours of the morning she sat up, her eyes open wide, her subconscious now before her. And then she shut them again, for now she had seen the answer; now she knew the truth about who had killed poor Hannah.
And that truth was too painful to bear.