Daddy's Gone a Hunting

36

Mark Sloane had made an appointment with Nick Greco for one o’clock on Monday afternoon. He had explained to Greco that he had just relocated to start a new job and did not want to take much more than a usual lunch hour to meet with him. The alternative would be to meet after 5 P.M.

“I get in very early but then I catch a five-twenty train home,” Greco told him. “May I suggest you come at lunchtime and we can order in from the deli?”

A man in his early sixties, Nick Greco was of average height with the disciplined body of a lifetime runner. His once-dark hair was mostly gray. Rimless glasses accentuated dark brown eyes that looked out on the world with a calm but piercing appraisal. A hopeless insomniac, Greco frequently rose at three or four in the morning and walked across to the room that his wife called his nocturnal den. There he would read a book or a magazine or turn on the television to catch the latest news.

Just after 5 A.M. last Thursday, he had been watching an early news program and had seen the first pictures of the fire that was ravaging the Connelly Fine Antique Reproductions complex in Long Island City. As always, Nick’s mind had gone into search-and-retrieve. His near-photographic memory had been immediately flooded with details of the tragedy, almost three decades ago, when Douglas Connelly, his wife, Susan, his brother, Connor, and four friends had been involved in a boating accident. Only Douglas had survived.

Tragedy seems to follow some people, Greco had thought. First, the guy loses his wife, his brother, and his friends. Now his daughter is in a coma and his business is destroyed. Then the media began to insinuate that Kate Connelly and a former employee, Gus Schmidt, might have conspired to set the explosion. Greco’s reaction was that he couldn’t think of anything worse than to lose your daughter, unless it was to discover that your daughter had not only destroyed your life’s work, but in the process had also contributed to someone else’s death.

But that was not on his mind when the receptionist announced the arrival of Mark Sloane, brother of the long-missing Tracey Sloane. “Send him in,” Greco said as he got up and walked to the door. A moment later he was shaking hands with Mark and inviting him to sit at the conference table in his roomy office.

They agreed on ham-and-cheese sandwiches on rye. Greco asked the receptionist to phone the order in. “I have a good coffee machine,” he explained to Mark. “So as long as we’re both having it black, we might as well have it as hot as possible rather than wait for a delivery.”

He liked the look of Mark Sloane with his firm handshake and direct eye contact even though the younger man was very tall. But he could also see that Sloane was somewhat tense. Who wouldn’t be? Nick Greco thought sympathetically. It’s got to be so tough to relive his sister’s disappearance. That was why he chatted about Mark’s new job for a few minutes before he opened the file that he had reviewed earlier in the day.

“As you know, I was one of the detectives assigned to the case when Tracey disappeared,” Greco began. “At first, by law, she was considered a missing person, but then when she didn’t show up for work, missed two important auditions, and did not contact any of her friends, it was concluded that foul play was almost certainly involved.”

He read aloud from his file: “Tracey Sloane, age twenty-two, left Tommy’s Bistro in Greenwich Village, where she was employed as a waitress, at eleven P.M. She refused the suggestion of having a nightcap with several fellow employees, saying that she was going directly home. She wanted to get plenty of sleep before an audition scheduled for the next morning. Apparently she never got back to her apartment on Twenty-third Street. When she didn’t show up for work the next two days, Tom King, the owner of the restaurant, fearing she had had an accident, went to her apartment. Accompanied by the building superintendent, he went inside. Everything was in order but Tracey was not there. Neither her family nor her friends ever saw or heard from her again.”

Greco looked across the table at Mark. He saw the pain in his eyes, the same kind of pain he had seen so many times over the years in other people who were trying to trace a missing loved one. “Your sister dated, but from all the feedback we received, her career came first and she was not ready for a serious relationship. After acting classes, she would have a hamburger and a glass of wine with some of her fellow students, but that was usually it. We drew a wide circle, questioning her neighbors and friends, people in her acting classes, and coworkers, but without any success. She had simply disappeared.”

The sandwiches arrived. Greco poured the coffee for both of them. When he noticed that Mark was barely touching his food, he said, “Mark, please eat. I guarantee the sandwich is good, and you have a big frame to fill. I know you came here hoping for answers but I don’t have any. Your sister’s case is always in the back of my mind. When I retired I took a copy of her file with me. I never thought this was a random abduction and murder. Unless the weather was very bad, Tracey always walked home. She told coworkers she wanted the exercise. I don’t think she was dragged off the street. I think she met someone she knew who may have been waiting for her to leave the restaurant.”

“You mean someone intended to kill her!” Mark exclaimed.

“Or picked her up at least-and then something went wrong. It could be someone whom she considered a friend but that person might have developed an obsession for her. She might have accepted a ride if that person pulled up in a car. Maybe she rebuffed his advances and he lost control. I can tell you that even after nearly twenty-eight years the case is never considered closed. Recently the bodies of four women, some of whom had been missing for more than twenty years, were found buried together, the work of a serial killer. DNA was retrieved from the bodies and identified by comparison with DNA that their family members had contributed in recent years to the police database that is maintained just for circumstances like this.”

“Neither my mother nor I have ever been asked to give DNA,” Mark said. “That doesn’t say much to me about her case remaining open.”

Greco nodded. “I fully agree, but it’s really never too late. I’ll call the detective bureau and make sure it is arranged for both of you. Your mother will be contacted to give the sample. Tell her not to worry about it. It’s just a swab inside your mouth with something like a Q-tip.”

“So right now you’re not aware of anyone ever having been a suspect?”

“No, there never has been. Even though I’m retired, the guys at the bureau would have let me know if there had been any developments. The only question we had-and still have-is the significance of this picture that Tracey had on top of her dresser.”

Mark looked. Tracey, beautiful, with her long hair and vivacious smile, was sitting at a table with two women and two men.

“This was apparently taken one of the nights when Tracey joined her friends at Bobbie’s Joint,” Nick said. “We checked all four out and saw no connection. But somehow I always felt that this picture is telling us something and I’m missing it.”