AUGUST 1972
Leonard Epstein arrived on the noon bus, the first to get into Glens Falls from the city. Even on a weekday, there were a good number of folks spilling through the gate into the station. Hippies in patched vests, farm wives clutching boxy purses beneath their arms, and a mix of vacationers and businesspeople.
Epstein was middling height, in pale pants and a plaid jacket that made him look exactly like a lawyer taking the day off. He was older than Jack had expected—in his early thirties.
Jack introduced himself. “I’m sorry to bring you up for such a miserable reason.” He gestured to the door. “I’ll take you over to the morgue to get the worst of it over first, and then we can talk in my office.”
Outside, Jack had parked his Fairlane in the POLICE ONLY space. “How’s your father doing?”
“It was a hell of a shock.” Epstein climbed into the passenger seat. “He and Natalie always had a tough relationship. Now—” He shook his head. “Well, there’s no chance to mend it now, is there?” He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. “Mind?”
“Go ahead.” Jack pulled out and began threading his way through the lunchtime traffic. “Why a difficult relationship?”
“Natalie came along quite awhile after the rest of us. Change-of-life baby, I guess. We were all teens and she was a toddler, we were all boys and she was a girl … and then Ma died when Nat was seven.” Epstein rolled the window down and exhaled a stream of smoke. “I can understand it now, from my vantage point as a father myself. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my wife. Probably what Dad did, which was hire a series of sitters.”
“Not the easiest way for a little girl to grow up,” Jack observed.
“No. And she let everybody know it by acting up constantly. If there was trouble anywhere, Nat would find it.” He pulled out Jack’s ashtray and tapped his cigarette. “She worked at our firm a couple summers after graduating high school. Front desk. I had hoped it would … show her the possibilities. We would have loved to have her manage the office after she graduated.”
“Not so much?”
“Oh, she was great with the clients. It was just family she fought with constantly.”
“You said you didn’t know she was up here.”
Epstein shook his head. “If she had just called. Hell, sent a letter. It doesn’t matter how busy we were. Somebody would have come up here to get her.” He looked outside the window, as if the leafy residential street they were driving through was the most interesting thing he had seen all day. When he finally spoke again, his voice was smaller. “Sometimes I think she felt like she wasn’t really part of the family. But she was. She was to us.”
The visit to the morgue was cold, formal, and excruciating. Natalie’s brother identified her with a jerk of his head. Dr. Roberts gently replaced the sheet over the girl’s waxen face. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Epstein. Chief, may I have a moment of your time?”
Jack gestured Epstein toward the tiny waiting room at the end of the hall. “I’ll be right with you.” When they were alone—or at least, the only living people in the room—he turned back to Dr. Roberts.
“There was semen,” she said without preamble. “Obviously, I didn’t want to mention it in front of her brother.”
“Huh. According to them, neither of the boys at the commune had had sex with her. Well, not for several days before she left.” Jack rubbed his lips. Time to haul Isaac Nevinson and Terry McKellan into the station for questioning. Separately. They might lie to save themselves; he didn’t think they’d lie to save each other. “You said she hadn’t been raped.”
“There wasn’t any sign of force. That’s not to say she wasn’t scared into cooperating.” Dr. Roberts slid the girl’s body back into the mortuary refrigeration unit that served as their cold box. “However, she had alcohol and the remains of a light dinner in her stomach. That says ‘date’ to me.”
“Pretty fast work if it was a stranger.”
Dr. Roberts shut the narrow door to the unit. “Times have changed since we were young. You don’t even need to buy girls dinner first now.”
Jack glanced toward the door. “When will you be ready to release the body?”
Dr. Roberts spread her gloved hands. “You tell me. There’s nothing more I can learn from her except how, exactly, she died. And that’s utterly stumping me. I’ve consulted with two other pathologists, and neither of them has been able to help.”
Jack wanted to bang his head against the tiled wall. How the hell was he going to prove a homicide when he couldn’t prove the cause of death?
“Sorry.” Evidently, Dr. Roberts was also a mind reader. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
Jack waved her apology away. “It’s not your fault.” He gestured toward the hall. “You have everything you need? Photos, slides, blood samples?” He held the door open.
“Everything and then some. If I were Dr. Frankenstein, I could re-create her.”
The warmth of the hallway was delicious after the chill of the pathology room. He rolled his shoulders to unkink them. “Okay. I’ll authorize the release. I’ll suggest a few local funeral homes to Mr. Epstein, and they can handle the transfer down to New York.”
The midday sun hit like a blast furnace when he and Epstein walked outside. They made the drive to the police station in silence, Jack considering his lack of leads, Epstein smoking. Jack asked Harlene to bring them coffee before ushering Natalie’s brother into his office. They sat facing one another across the bare expanse of Jack’s desk. “Mr. Epstein, I’m going to ask you some questions. I don’t mean to upset you, and I certainly don’t intend any insult to your sister’s memory. But the more information we have, the more likely it is we can find the man responsible for her death.”
“I understand.”
Jack folded his hands. “First off, did Natalie have a serious boyfriend in her past? Or a boy who wanted to make it serious?”
“She went steady with a kid from her high school. Jerry Blume. But they broke it off when they went to college.”
Jack jotted the name down. “Where is Mr. Blume now, do you know?”
Epstein smiled sideways. “Studying cinema at UCLA.”
Jack crossed the name out. “Anyone else who might have carried a grudge against her?”
“My dad?” Epstein’s attempt at a laugh turned into a sigh. “I can’t imagine anyone. She’s always had—she always had a whole gang of friends. Girls, boys … kids liked her. She was more of a trial to adults and teachers, but no one’s going to come upstate and, and kill a girl because she sassed him in class.” He frowned. “What about the people at this commune she was at?”
“I’ve questioned them, and they’re still on the table as potential suspects. The two boys there have alibis my men are running down.”
Epstein leaned forward. “What about the other girls? Maybe one of them was jealous of Nat? I mean, they’re saying women can do anything a man can nowadays.”
Jack nodded. “True. But we know from her, um, examination that Natalie had had a few drinks and a meal shortly before she died.” He paused. “She also had sex. Our theory—my theory—is the man she was with is the one who killed her.”
Epstein sat back in his chair. He blew out a breath. “I guess I’m not surprised.”
There was a rap at the door and it swung open, revealing Harlene with her tray. This time, she hadn’t included any pastries. He would have to work on her sense of interview versus interrogation. She set the coffee cups and fixings between them. “Anything else, Chief?”
“Yes. Harlene, can you ask one of the men to bring up the dress from the evidence locker? And write out a list of local funeral homes and their phone numbers for Mr. Epstein. We’re going to be releasing his sister’s body.” Her eyes went wide, but she nodded and disappeared behind the door again.
“If she didn’t have any likely boyfriends, was there anyone up here she might have known? Family friends summering at the lake?”
Epstein smiled wryly as he reached for his cup. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Chief Liddle, but our friends don’t summer up here.”
“Oh.” Jack sat back. “Too far from the city?”
“Too Gentile. When I was a kid, there were still hotels and resorts upstate that wouldn’t take Jews. We founded our own places decades ago, and even though times have changed a little”—he dropped a sugar cube into his cup—“we tend to vacation where we’re sure we’ll be welcome.”
“Huh.” Jack drummed his fingers along the edge of his desk, eyes unfocused. “Do you think—is it possible she could have been picked out because she was Jewish?”
Epstein set his cup down abruptly. The two men looked at each other. Finally Epstein said, “Have you had any anti-Semitic instances around town? Vandalism? Swastikas painted on buildings?”
Jack shook his head. “No, I’m glad to say.”
“Well. The sort of people who attack Jews have to work themselves up to it. And they’re never subtle. They want the world to know. There isn’t anything you haven’t told me about how she was found, is there?”
“Nothing to make me think of this. I do have a question about how she was dressed—” Another rap on the door interrupted him. George Gifford stuck his head in. “Good timing. Come on in, Sergeant.”
The dress Natalie had been wearing when they found her was on a hanger and draped in plastic. It looked like George was delivering it from the dry cleaner’s. Jack introduced the two men and had George hold the dress up. “Her roommate at the commune said she’d never seen your sister with this dress. Do you recognize it?”
Epstein shook his head. “No. And it’s not the kind of dress Nat would have picked out.”
Jack’s eyebrows went up. “You’re certain.”
“About that I am. Nat’s clothing got more and more outlandish—” He paused. Let out a breath. “Sorry, that’s my father speaking. Nat wore hippie clothes and nature-girl dresses and things she picked up at army-navy surplus stores. That dress,” he pointed at it, “is what a Brearley girl would wear to a country club dance.”
Jack didn’t know what a Brearley girl was, but he got the gist of it. “All right. Thank you.” He nodded to George, who left to return the dress to the evidence room. “Is there anything else you can tell me, Mr. Epstein? You were going to check at home for any writing or pictures that might shed some light onto what happened to her.”
“There wasn’t anything. I mean, notebooks from college and high school. Some letters from friends she’d saved. She didn’t keep scrapbooks or a diary. Nat was the sort to go out and do things, not to write about them.” Epstein’s voice cracked at the last, and he turned his head away.
Jack murmured something about getting the list and left his office. Leonard Epstein had been in company all day; he deserved a moment alone.
Harlene had not only gotten the names and numbers of the local funeral homes, she’d typed them up. “Good work,” he said.
She pinked up. “I just wish there was more that I could do. That poor man.” She tore a message slip off her pad and handed it to him. “Margy Van Alstyne called while you were in your meeting. She’d like you to call her when you can.”
He refrained from asking Did she sound like she’s still ticked at me? He had some dignity, after all. In his office, Epstein had gotten himself under control. He thanked Jack for the list. “I’ll set something up with our funeral home.”
“I appreciate you coming up for this,” Jack said. “It’s the hardest thing in the world, I know. Can I give you a ride back to the bus station?”
Epstein checked his watch. “It’s … I’ve only been here two hours?” He looked up. “It feels like two days.” Jack recognized his face. He had seen it before on people who had come to the end of themselves. You can soldier on and do everything you have to, but sooner or later a part of you just sat down, in a corner, in the dark.
“I bet you haven’t eaten anything today.” Jack’s voice was gentle. “There’s a burger place next to the station. Let’s get over there and grab you a late lunch. They’ll bag it up for you and everything.”
They both went into the luncheonette; the giant electric hamburger on the sign hit Jack hard enough to set his stomach growling. Epstein wasn’t the only man who’d neglected to eat yet today. There was the usual crowd—the only time it was empty was between buses. He let Epstein order first and then asked the counterman for five burgers and an equal number of fries. May as well take some back for the guys on duty.
He heard someone say, “Len Epstein!” and then several voices chiming in. He turned to see a group of men closing in on his guest. He didn’t have to ask to know they were from the city. Their clothes were a shade brighter and a touch more casual than Epstein’s, but they were all cut from a similar cloth.
He left Epstein alone to talk with the three—no, four—men. There was hand waving and a few shoulder slugs and laughter. Apparently, Natalie’s brother wasn’t going to fill them in on why he was here. Well, who could blame him? Their orders came up as the men picked up their suitcases, promising to save Epstein a seat.
Jack tucked his large sack beneath his arm and handed Epstein his bag. The younger man reached for his wallet. “My treat. It’s the least I can do.” Jack gestured with his chin. “I thought you didn’t have any friends here?”
“Business acquaintances. Our law firm does work for their investment bank, and they handle several of our clients’ accounts.” Epstein shouldered his way through to the door, Jack on his tail. They both squinted in the sunshine. “Their boss has a cabin up here. Hunting and fishing and that sort of thing.” Epstein’s tone showed what he thought of the typical Adirondack pursuits.
“Do you think any of them might have known your sister?”
Epstein opened his mouth. Closed it. Pursed his lips. “I’ll ask. But it’s got to be a really, really long shot.”
Jack didn’t tell him long shots were about all they had left now. “Call me if you find out anything. Or if you come across anything of Natalie’s that might…”
“Shed some light? I will.” He shifted his lunch bag and shook Jack’s hand. “Thank you, Chief Liddle.”
“Thank me when we’ve found your sister’s killer.”
“I look forward to that.” Epstein bared his teeth in a sort of smile. “I look forward to sitting behind you in the courtroom when the son of a bitch gets sentenced to the chair.”