Daddy's Gone a Hunting

68

Shaking and trembling, Jack Worth had driven home early Wednesday morning. It was only when he arrived there that he realized how absolutely stupid it had been to bolt from the complex after he looked into the sinkhole.

A normal reaction would have been to dial 911. Sure, when the cops arrived, they’d have asked him what he was doing there in the first place. His answer would have been, “I just came to check on the progress of the rubble removal. I have every right to be here. I worked at this plant for thirty years and I was the manager for the last five years until the fire last week.”

He had to calm down and figure out what he would tell the cops if by any chance his car had been spotted this morning.

Tracey Sloane. He had been one of the many people questioned when she disappeared. He was in his late twenties then, working as a junior accountant for the Connelly complex. He used to hang out at Bobbie’s Joint in the Village at night. That was when it began to fill up with the would-be actors and actresses who worked as waiters in the local pubs and bistros. Bobbie’s was a gathering spot for guys his age to hook up with pretty girls.

Tracey Sloane had been the pick of the litter. She brushed me off, Jack thought, carefully rehearsing what he would tell the cops. Then, one day, I was passing one of those little jewelry shops they used to have in the Village and a guy was carving names on fake blue sapphire medallions. He had a bunch of them hanging on chains in the window with names already on them. I saw one with the name TRACEY on it. It cost eight bucks. A couple of nights later I saw Tracey at Bobbie’s Joint and tried to give it to her. “No strings,” I said. “When I saw it, I couldn’t pass it up. The medallion is the color of your eyes.”

I tried to give it to her in front of her buddies from Tommy’s, Jack reminded himself. One of the guys at the bar said, “It won’t do you any good.” And we all laughed.

Then she bought it from me.

That was about six months before she disappeared, Jack remembered.

He told the police at the time that he had been a little disappointed because he had never seen her wearing the necklace whenever they had bumped into each other at Bobbie’s.

By three o’clock Wednesday afternoon, and after two beers and a sandwich, Jack Worth was continuing to rehearse the story he knew he would have to give, trying to make it the same as the version he had given nearly twenty-eight years ago.

The night Tracey disappeared, I worked at the plant until about quarter of six. I went straight home from work. That’s what I told the detectives when I was questioned. I lived in Long Island City, about a mile from the plant. I wasn’t feeling good and went to bed early. I wasn’t married yet.

How could he explain how Tracey Sloane ended up buried on the parking lot? They were paving over the parking lot at that time, Jack thought. I’ll tell the cops that I had mentioned that to the guys at Bobbie’s only a few nights before Tracey disappeared. The guys had been joking about taking a tour of the fancy furniture in the museum. I told them that they’d have to wait. We’d had a lot of snow in the past couple of winters and the parking lot was all cracked and was being repaved.

I did tell some of them that. I know I did. Let the cops start questioning all the rest of them again.

It was the best story he could come up with, and it was near enough to the truth that maybe it would sound convincing. A flash of anger still went through him when he remembered offering Tracey the necklace all those years ago. She had said, “Blue is my favorite color and sapphire my favorite stone. Look, I love it, Jack, but I want to pay for it. Even I can afford eight dollars.”

When I wouldn’t let her pay for it, she took it off and tried to hand it back to me. I said, “Okay, you say you like it, I’ll let you pay for it. And if you don’t believe it was only eight dollars, walk down MacDougal Street and you’ll see these little things hanging in the window.”

Feeling deep resentment even after all these years, Jack remembered the wise guy who had heard the two of them talking, and who had watched as Tracey handed him the money. He’d had the nerve to tell him later that evening, “Jack, face it. Tracey has class. You’re not her type.”

When would someone in that cleanup crew look down into the sinkhole and blow the whistle? Jack Worth waited in dismal anticipation.

Jack had the television on, flipping from one news channel to another. They were all wringing out the story of the derelict who had been positively identified as the person squatting in the van of the Connelly complex. He was Clyde Hotchkiss, a decorated Vietnam War vet who had returned home deeply emotionally wounded and who, after a troubled period of trying to recover, had abandoned his wife and baby more than forty years ago. Incredibly, Hotchkiss had been finally reunited with his still caring wife and son only minutes before he had died in Bellevue Hospital this morning.

The media had caught up with Peggy and Skip as they got out of Skip’s car at Peggy’s home in Staten Island. Neither of them would comment as they hurried inside to get away from the cameras and microphones.

By the time the five-thirty local news came on, the media had additional details. After he had returned from Vietnam, Clyde Hotchkiss had worked as the foreman at a large construction company. An electrician who had worked with him was interviewed. “There was nothing Clyde didn’t know about the job. Plumbing, heating, you name it.”

The reporter asked, “Do you think he would have been capable of setting off that explosion?”

“In his right mind, no. Years ago he was a good man. But if you’re really asking if he had the technical know-how to set it off, the answer is yes. When you’re building a house and you’re running a gas line into it, like he did all the time, you have to know what you’re doing.”

That kind of talk should make Doug feel good, Jack thought. And this guy, Hotchkiss, has been living on the streets for forty years. Maybe he really was hanging around the complex twenty-eight years ago. Maybe they really can pin Tracey’s murder on him.

Frank realized he had not called Doug to warn him that, at any moment, somebody was going to sound the alarm about Tracey Sloane’s remains being found on the property.

Finally, Jack summoned up the courage to make the call. But it was actually a relief when Doug did not answer. Jack knew that the discovery would be bound to upset him on more than one level. He won’t want to be reminded that his brother, Connor, who died in the boating accident, had also been one of the guys who knew Tracey Sloane, he thought, grimly.