AUGUST 1972
Calvin Ogilvie found Jack at the coffeepot. “Helping yourself? I thought rank hath its privilege.”
“Harlene’s half day. What do you have for me?”
Cal handed him a file folder. “Statements from David Reyniers and Cyndi Bradford, the two at the Flying Dutchman.”
Jack flipped open the folder. “This the fellow Russell Van Alstyne fought with?”
“Yep. According to Reyniers, Van Alstyne was bothering the girl. He stepped in, words were exchanged, and Van Alstyne laid him out flat.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “He said that?”
“No, he talked around it for five minutes. He boxes for Cornell.” Cal drew the words out. “Embarrassed to have his ass handed to him in the first five seconds.”
“Is that why he didn’t report it to the Saratoga police?”
“That, and the girl evidently fell on him, crying.”
“Hmm. What did she have to say?”
Cal gave him a sly look. “Once I assured her I wasn’t going to share any of what she told me with Reyniers, she admitted she picked out Van Alstyne because she thought he’d provoke the other boy.”
Jack snorted. “Tactical flirting?”
“I’ve always said women are smarter than we are.”
“You’ve got the right of it, there.” He handed the papers back to Cal. “Anything else?”
“Nope. Everything about Van Alstyne’s timeline checks out. Except for that six-hour period unaccounted for.” He thumbed toward the hallway. “George brought your two hippies in.”
Jack picked up his coffee. “He put ’em in separate rooms?”
“Yeah.” Cal shook his head. “The hair on boys nowadays. I’m so glad I’ve got daughters.”
“They do it because it drives us crazy. Didn’t you ever do anything to put the wind up your old man?”
“Yeah. Joined the Tenth Mountain Division and went to Italy.”
Jack smiled a little. “Think how much easier it would have been to simply stop visiting the barber.”
He decided to start with Isaac Nevinson, figuring time spent waiting in an interrogation room would do half the work for him on young Terry McKellan. “Mr. Nevinson. Thank you for coming in.”
“Did I have a choice?”
Jack kept his voice mild. “You’re not under arrest.”
The young man sprawled in his chair, boots planted firmly on the floor, arms crossed. Jack sat across from him. “We’ve got the autopsy report on Natalie back.”
Nevinson straightened. “Do you know what happened to her?”
“Some.” Not enough. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“I told you, that afternoon. When I dropped her at the bus station.”
“Mm-hmm. And before that?”
“What do you mean? We were at the farm before that.”
“I’m thinking she may have told you a little more than you’re letting on. In an intimate moment, maybe. You were sleeping with her, right?”
“Three or four times! Jesus, we weren’t, like, a thing.”
“How about the day she left? One more for old times’ sake?”
“Oh, my God. Old people should not talk about sex. No, we didn’t have one for the road. I don’t need to try to make it with some chick who’s pissed off at me. There’s plenty of other cool girls around.”
“Did Natalie make any phone calls before she left?”
Nevinson blinked at the sudden change. “We don’t have a phone at the farm.”
“How about at the bus station?”
“How would I know? I let her out at the curb and drove off.”
“You didn’t even wait to see her inside? Make sure she had enough cash for the bus?”
“It was broad daylight out! She’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”
Jack watched Nevinson’s face as he realized what he had said. “Demonstrably, not.”
Nevinson hung his head. “Sorry.”
“How about at the carnival? Did she use a pay phone there?”
“I didn’t see her. Nobody else mentioned it. Nobody else made any calls, either.”
“Okay.” Jack pushed away from the table.
“Can I go now?”
“I want you to stay right there while I talk to your buddy. See what he has to say about everything.”
Nevinson groaned.
Terry McKellan, in the other room, was sitting bolt upright, knees together, hands flat on the table. “I saw Nat talking with some guy at the fair,” he began.
Jack sat down slowly, beckoning him to continue.
“I didn’t want to say anything because I went to get Italian sausage, too.” The boy looked down at his lap. “And fries and soft-serve ice cream.” He wanted to make a full confession, evidently.
“Tell me what you saw.”
“She was leaving the sausage stand when I got there. We kind of looked at each other, and she did this”—he held his finger to his lips—“and I nodded. So we were both cool.”
Illicit sausages. This generation had a lot to learn, Jack thought.
“I was waiting in line, not, you know, paying attention to her, but as I was looking around, I saw her talking to a guy.”
“What did he look like?”
“He was straight, you know?”
“Straight as in … square? Short hair?” He thought of Russell’s barely-grown-out army cut, and his heart sank.
“Yeah. And he was dressed very, you know, establishment. Chinos and a short-sleeved shirt. Like something my dad would wear.”
“Was he an older man?”
“I don’t think so. He was, you know, regular sized?” He gestured to his lean midsection. “He didn’t have any middle-age potbelly or anything.”
“Height? Eyes? Hair?”
McKellan screwed up his face. “Definitely taller than Nat. Light hair, I guess. I couldn’t see his eyes. They were over by where the games start, by the one where you throw a dart into a balloon. It was, I don’t know, too far to see any details.”
“What about her body language?”
“Her what?”
“How was she standing? Stiff, like she was talking to a stranger? Leaning in, like it was someone she knew?”
“I guess … sort of in-between? Like maybe she didn’t know him, but she wouldn’t mind getting to know him, right?”
Jack leaned back in his chair, thinking.
“Am I in trouble, sir?” McKellan had the hippie look down—long hair, tie-dyed shirt, ratty jeans—but it was all surface. His anxious tilt forward and bright, open eyes said, I used to be a Boy Scout, and I’m going back to the troop as soon as I can. Jack had no doubt McKellan would be in chinos and a sports shirt himself within a year. Maybe less.
“This is very important, son, and I need you to tell me the truth.” The boy nodded. “When was the last time you, um, had relations with Natalie?”
McKellan blushed. “The end of July? Right around the beginning of August.”
“And then she and Isaac were together.”
He looked down at his lap again. “Yes, sir.” Jack thought of what Fran had said. We’re breaking beyond traditional bourgeois morality. It looked like that was considerably more difficult for some of the commune’s members.
“Do you know the last time Isaac was with her? Slept with her?”
McKellan twisted in his seat. “About a week after that. Maybe ten days.”
Two weeks ago. Fran had been right, Nevinson certainly hadn’t seemed to be moving on Natalie due to some great passion. Jack wondered if the young man was enough of a dog in the manger to want Natalie back if he saw her with another man. Someone like the stranger from the carnival.
Jack stood up and leaned over the table, bracing himself on his hands. McKellan shrank back. “Did Isaac talk about your testimony today? Did he tell you what to say to me?”
McKellan shook his head, eyes wide. “No, sir!”
“Okay. Stay here.” Jack shut the door and crossed into Nevinson’s room. He didn’t bother to sit. “Isaac. Did you see Natalie talking to a man at the fair?”
The kid frowned. “No. The girls split right after we got to the fair, and Terry peeled off after a while. I didn’t see anyone until we all met up at the end of the evening.” He brightened. “Hey, I’ve got witnesses! I was talking to a bunch of the farmers showing there. I collected their business cards.”
Nevinson was more committed to the hippie lifestyle than McKellan, maybe, but no young man who collected business cards from ag supply salesmen was destined to overthrow capitalism. “Okay. Wait here.”
Jack found his sergeant in the bullpen. “Go ahead and let the boys out, George. Thank ’em for their cooperation and all that.”
“You get anything?”
A mysterious man who couldn’t be identified at the fair. No hint of who she might have had sex with on her last, fatal night. Jack sighed. “I got more questions. No answers.”