Front Page Teaser

Chapter 12

New York City, December 23, 2000

Liz decided to lose no time in getting back to Boston. But there was something she wanted to accomplish before leaving the city.

Hiring a cab from the garage, she got in the vehicle and opened her envelope containing Ellen’s photos. Squinting to read the print on the shopping bags held by Ellen and Nadia in the photo taken at the New York Public Library, she asked the driver to take her to Florissa’s Gift Emporium on 44th Street.

“Got a street number?” the cabbie asked.

“Sorry, no.”

“East or west?” he asked.

“Not sure.”

“Forty-fourth is one-way running west. Unless you hit it lucky, this’ll cost ya.”

“Let’s start near the New York Public Library and take our chances.”

“You’re the boss.”

Liz was in luck. The gift shop was just two blocks west of the library. She paid the cab and entered a shop that exuded a sickeningly sweet smell of potpourri pillows and scented soaps. It hardly seemed the sort of place a woman like Ellen would find attractive. Nor did it look like the kind of shop a tourist would favor. Even the generous stock of crystal and china sold here was largely imported from Ireland and the British Isles, making it an unlikely choice for anyone wishing to bring home something made in America. There wasn’t even a rack of postcards in the place.

Liz showed her photo of Ellen and Nadia to three clerks, but none would admit to recognizing the shoppers. Two volunteered that they’d worked on the days Ellen and Nadia spent in the city, but they said another clerk, who was presently taking a few days off for Christmas, had also worked afternoons during that time. Not surprisingly, they refused to give contact information for their colleague.

Disappointed, Liz took a business card and gave the shop girls one of her own. After leaving the shop, she hailed another cab. It was no use following up on the other shopping bag in the photo. It would be an impossible job to interview countless clerks in the massive department store, Saks Fifth Avenue. So Liz swung by Janice’s apartment. After making apologies for cutting her visit short, she picked up her travel bag, hailed another cab, and paid a pretty penny to be driven to LaGuardia Airport. She had to wait for two fully booked flights of holiday travelers to take off before she finally got a shuttle to her city. But since the shuttle flights took off every half hour and the flight was only thirty-eight minutes long, Liz made her way to Boston in time to report her story.

When she told Dermott about the cabbie’s disappearance, the city editor gave her twelve inches and the order, “Deliver the new stuff and then recap. Be sure to pull the heartstrings about the kid. Doesn’t look like Mom’s coming home anytime soon.”

On her ATEX keyboard, Liz began to hammer out her article. Then, unzipping the coconut on her desk, Liz took out a chocolate. Voted “Most Unusual Freebie of the Year” by the editorial assistants, the oddball item had been sent to her some months ago by the Fijian Tourism Board on the mistaken assumption that “Misses Higgins” was a travel editor. Originally filled with a bar of coconut soap, a vial of coconut oil, and a press release about a Fijian spa, the hollowed-out shell with a red zipper running around it now served as a quirky stash for sweets.

Thanks to editorial assistant E.A. Tenley, the bizarre candy container also served as a paperweight for two articles from that day’s papers. Liz picked them up. One was an article by Nancy Knight, headed: “Fingerprints Inconclusive in Missing Mother Case.” The headline said it all, but nevertheless, the broadsheet World gave Knight plenty of space in which to elaborate.

“Newton Police reported yesterday that missing Newton librarian Ellen Johansson’s kitchen was remarkably free of fingerprint evidence,” Knight wrote. “‘The dearth of fingerprint evidence suggests that an attempt was made to wipe down surfaces,’ said Newton police chief Anthony Warner, referring to the Fenwick Street home from which Johansson, 34, went missing five days ago.”

In contrast to Knight’s luxuriously long rehash, Dick Manning’s shorter Banner piece telegraphed the essentials—and the Page-Five article offered a nugget of new information:

Newton police chief Anthony Warner fingered what he called ‘a dearth of fingerprint evidence’ as stalling the wrap-up of a chilling pre-Christmas crime that has tony Newton suburbanites shivering.

Fingerprint evidence was just one thing that went missing five days ago, when well-heeled Newton mom Ellen Johansson, 34, made an unexplained exit from the home she shared with her husband, Erik Johansson, 37, and the couple’s eight-year-old daughter, Veronica. The couple’s new Honda Civic was gone, too, when the strawberry-blond third-grader came home from school to a kitchen stocked with bloodied Christmas-cookie–making ingredients.

Warner said he saw evidence of a “wipe down” of the Johanssons’ top-of-the-line marble countertops. But the police chief could only speculate about why the cleanup job was left unfinished.

“It looks like someone was interrupted,” Warner told the Banner. “It’s like somebody wiped the place down before sprinkling blood on those ingredients. The only fingerprints we found in the countertop area were on the dinky dishes that held the ingredients, and those prints belong to Mrs. Johansson,” the chief added.

“The only unaccounted-for fingerprints we found were on an empty teacup in the kitchen sink,” Warner said. Other nonfamily fingerprints found on the scene belong to a handyman, Floyd Margate, 43, of Everett, who repaired the disposal last week, and the couple’s babysitter, Laura Winters, 26, of Brighton.

At the time of this reporting, police had not yet verified the whereabouts of Margate and Winters on Dec 18, the day Ellen Johansson went missing. But the Banner learned Margate was on another job in Everett throughout that day. And Winters was at work at the Children’s Enrichment Aftercare Program and later at the Johansson home on the day in question. The daycare provider stayed to help with Veronica until the child’s grandmother, Olga Swenson, 69, returned from her hairdresser’s appointment on Boston’s posh Newbury Street and was contacted to take the child to her Wellesley home.

“Hey, Dick,” Liz called out, seeing the reporter crossing the room with a cup of coffee. “Nice follow-up on the handyman and daycare provider.” It was nearly Christmas, after all.

“Just part of the job,” he said, but smiled and added, “Thanks, Legs.”

Liz turned her attention back to the ATEX terminal where the message “Lines are up!!” flashed across the top of the screen, alerting reporters they could find out how much space they had for their stories. This was a throwback to a much earlier time in the news business when type was set line by line by compositors. Now, reporters were actually given their assignments in column inches, which were measured at the press of a button by the ATEX machine. Similarly, the term “slug,” referring to the name for each story file, harked back to the days when type was set in trays for printing and lead slugs were used to identify them.

As Liz typed in her byline, another message flashed on her ATEX terminal. “Cut to 8 inches,” it read.

Sighing, she made a quick phone call to Laura Winters. Fortunately, Laura was in.

“Listen, Laura, do you have the impression that Mrs. Johansson is a neat freak? I’m asking because my colleagues in the press are jumping to the conclusion that her fingerprint-free countertop is evidence that a criminal tried to wipe down the scene.”

“Yeah, I saw those reports. But it doesn’t surprise me at all that those countertops were so clean. She’s the type to take a sponge to anything in reach—even doorway moldings—when she’s talking on the phone. And I’ve seen her, on more than one occasion, wipe the counters off before starting a cooking project. Come to think of it, she usually did that while wearing rubber gloves. I wouldn’t call her a neat freak. It’s more like she is in the habit of being tidy.”

“Do you have any idea why she would have an empty teacup with a stranger’s fingerprints on it in her kitchen sink?”

“Sorry, I don’t have a clue on that one.”

“Any word from the Johanssons?”

“To me? ‘’Fraid not. With Veronica at her grandmother’s, I wouldn’t expect they’d need me to babysit. Maybe they’ll call on me after Veronica comes back to aftercare.”

Laura was eager to hear the latest news on the case, but Liz had to say good-bye in order to write it. After filing her story, she phoned her friend Molly Trowbridge at the reference desk at Harvard University’s Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, the largest of the well-endowed institution’s ninety-six libraries. When Molly informed Liz that their specialist in Middle Eastern languages and literature had gone home and would not be back until after Christmas, Liz pressed the librarian to help her find a faculty member who could help her translate the Arabic words she’d seen squiggled on the back of the cabbie’s grocery list.

“I’ll give you the phone number for the faculty office of the Middle Eastern department, but you should be aware that the university is closing for Christmas break as of this evening. Too bad, because normally it wouldn’t be hard to find a grad student who could help you. If that doesn’t pan out, you might try a book dealer the library buys from—he’s originally from somewhere in the Middle East but has a shop in the vicinity of the Cambridge courthouse. Or, as a last resort, you could contact Finn Peter Translation Services in Central Square. I say ‘last resort’ because they mostly deal with Western or European languages, but they may be able to point you in the direction of an Arabic translator—if they haven’t closed shop for the holidays.”

Liz took down the librarian’s information. Sure enough, both the faculty office and Finn Peter Translation Services were closed. But the phone answering machine message at Turkoman Books was somewhat more promising. On it, a pleasant male voice announced the shop’s address, noted hours for the weeks of December 17 and 24, and invited inquiries. In case a mention of her newspaper would alarm the book dealer, Liz decided not to leave a message. Instead, regarding the blinking light on her own answering machine, she retrieved her messages.

Two of them grabbed her attention.

“Hello, Ms. Higgins,” a female voice said. “My name is Nadia and I’d like to talk with you. Since you’re not in, I will call you again.”

Liz pressed *69 to find out where the call had come from, but a recorded message informed her that the caller’s number could not be identified.

The other message was short but sweet. “It’s Cormac. Call me. Please.”

Liz dialed the doctor’s number, only to receive a recorded message. This one gave no particulars of his whereabouts.

Before exiting the newsroom, Liz accomplished three more tasks. She photocopied both sides of the grocery list she’d found in the New York City cab. She retrieved another manila envelope bearing her name from René DeZona’s cubby. And she read her e-mail messages. Amid a slew of public relations pitches and several holiday wishes from far-flung friends, Liz noticed five messages sent from as many different e-mail addresses, all bearing the same one-word message: “Blister.”

“At least it’s not another ad for Viagra,” Liz thought, exiting the e-mail system. It was too late to take time for personal messages, except for perhaps one. Reentering her password, she replied to an old message she’d saved from Cormac Kinnaird.

“Tidings of comfort and joy,” she wrote, and signed the message just “Liz.”

Out in the Banner’s parking lot, the snow was heaped in discolored mounds. But the windows of Ho Tong Noodle Company, across the street, were illuminated later than usual. Perhaps the staff was enjoying a holiday party, or working late to produce products for the New Year.

“No, no,” Liz chided herself. After three years working in this neighborhood, how could I forget Chinese New Year does not fall on January 1st? I must be tired. And no wonder, she thought as she drove past the Banner’s outdoor Christmas tree, strung with multicolored lights as if to compete with the bright hues of neon signs shining nearby in the windows of Asian restaurants.

In contrast, Liz had lost her glow. As she turned the Tracer onto the turnpike, she found herself peeved by Kinnaird’s brief message. Or perhaps it would have been more accurate for her to admit annoyance at herself for how much it mattered to her. On the one hand, he’d referred to himself as Cormac. Surely it was a good sign that he’d dropped the last name and the title “Dr.” But then the message was so uninformative. He could just as well be seeking her for personal reasons as for business. Here it was, the last night before Christmas Eve, and Liz hadn’t acquired a gift for anyone other than her plow driver and her cat. Even she and Molly Trowbridge had failed to set up a time to exchange gifts, neglecting a tradition that went back many years for them.

Liz had to bypass her house and its billboard before reaching a turnpike exit that would take her in the direction of Gravesend Street. As she approached the billboard, she wondered for the umpteenth time why the company that handled renting it did not arrange for messages to be hung on both sides. Surely that would bring everyone involved double the income. But this was not the time to inquire.

As the structure came into sight, Liz was taken by surprise. The ad-free side of the billboard was strung with lights forming the letters, MERRY XMAS LIZ.

The message in Christmas lights was not the only thing Tom Horton had arranged to brighten Liz’s holiday. Walking up to her house, Liz noticed a fresh-cut Christmas tree leaning against her front door. And beside her stoop, she found a cardboard box wrapped in a garbage bag. A note was taped to this package: “Tom Horton, at your service.” A Christmas tree with a star on top was sketched beside the message.

Laughing with pleasure, Liz moved the tree aside and leaned it against her house. She and Tom had never celebrated any occasion before this one. Not only had they never been on a date, they’d not even shared coffee together anywhere but at Liz’s house. Overcome with surprise at Tom’s attention now, Liz picked up the box, unlocked her door, and entered her small abode. Even before taking off her coat, Liz tore open the box. It was packed with five strings of lights, a multisocket adapter to plug them into, and four more gift-wrapped items of varying shapes and sizes. Intrigued, Prudence climbed into the large box and purred contentedly while Liz looked up Tom’s phone number. The address listed was Tip Top St., Brighton. Now Liz realized why that street name had seemed familiar to her. Tom must have mentioned it at some point. Smiling, she dialed his number.

“I’m on my way,” he said, with unguarded warmth, when she invited him over.

“Wait!” she said, and heard herself giggling. “You have to wait an hour before setting out. There’s something I need to do.”

“Please, don’t feel like you have to give me a present!” Tom said. “I know I surprised you with mine.”

“Well, I want to surprise you, too,” Liz said.

Hanging up the phone, she found a foil pie plate, some scissors, and an ice pick. Then she cut the plate into a star shape, used the ice pick to poke holes parallel with the star’s edges, and, after a moment’s hesitation, poked more holes in the shape of a heart at the center of the star. Then, she took out a bottle of champagne and set it in the snow pile beside her doorstep, tucked her travel bag under her bed, and changed into a bright green, tunic-length sweater and some black velvet leggings. Finally, she took out red tissue paper and used some to wrap the homemade gift.

Liz was rummaging in her freezer for something to cook when Tom rang her doorbell. Before opening the door to him, Liz turned on her fireplace switch and ran her fingers through her hair. Tom stood on the doorstep grinning, but even as he picked up the tree to carry it indoors, he remembered to wipe his feet on the mat.

As Tom carried the tree into the room, trunk end first, so as not to snap any of its branches against the doorjamb, Liz said, “Oh, but I don’t have a tree stand.”

“Maybe you do,” Tom winked. “I think it’s time to open the present wrapped in the reindeer paper.”

Sure enough, the package contained a tree stand. While Tom cut off the bottom of the trunk with a saw he’d thought to bring, Liz went back to her freezer and examined it with disappointing results. But she did have the makings of crêpes, so she made up a batch of crêpe batter and set it in the refrigerator to settle. Then she steadied the tree while Tom locked it into the stand.

Crawling out from under the tree, Tom said, “I’ll bet you’re wondering what you’ll use to decorate it, aren’t you? Don’t worry. If you put enough lights on the tree, you almost don’t need any ornaments. But if you’ve got a needle and thread, I’ve got the makings of a garland. You’d better open present number two, in the snowman paper.”

Liz opened the cylindrical package and found it was a jar of popcorn kernels.

“I’ll be right back,” Tom said, pulling on his jacket and running out to his truck.

By the time Tom returned with a perforated metal popping box on a long handle, Liz had set about peeling four apples, which she sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and set to simmer in a pot on the stove.

“I could have brought microwaveable popcorn but I knew you had the fireplace and I thought this would be more fun,” Tom said, pouring kernels into the boxy popper.

“Where did you get that thing?”

“Scouts. I bet I never told you I’m a Boy Scout leader. I got this to take on our Camporees. Here,” Tom said, “you hold it over the heat while I get the lights on the tree.”

“What’s a ‘Camporee’?”

“It’s when a bunch of troops get together and camp in one place. We always have a big campfire with all the boys together.”

While the aroma of apples mixed with the fragrance of fresh popcorn in the little house by the turnpike, Tom attached lights to the tree in a slapdash manner.

“Doesn’t matter how evenly you place them if you’ve got enough of them,” he explained.

Any doubts Liz might have had about the wisdom of his words were erased when he turned out the table lamps and the two stood together gazing at the illuminated tree.

“It’s beautiful,” Liz said, “and even more lovely for the surprise of it all,” she said, placing her gift for him under the tree. “Maybe you’d better open the gift I made for you.”

“Let’s wait,” Tom said. “If you don’t mind, that is. I don’t want this all to be over too soon.”

“Neither do I,” Liz agreed. Feeling slightly overwhelmed by Tom’s smile, she returned to the stove to stir the apples and make the crêpes. Meanwhile, Tom arranged his two remaining gifts under the tree and then, opening the sewing box Liz pointed out to him, he set about stringing popcorn on thread.

When the crêpes were ready, Liz spread a tablecloth on the floor in front of the tree, set a votive candle in a glass globe between herself and her friend, and asked Tom to bring in the champagne. After he’d popped the cork and filled two glasses, Liz produced the plates of apple-filled crêpes. Sitting cross-legged on the old tablecloth, facing one another, the reporter and the billboard hanger raised their glasses in a toast.

“God bless us every one!” Tom said, smiling broadly. “The two of us in particular.”

“If you haven’t got a penny a ha’penny will do. When I haven’t got a Christmas tree, I’ll call on you!” Liz sang, laughing.

It was such a delicious experience, sitting in the glow of the Christmas tree, that Liz was loath to go to the door in answer to an unexpected knock. But she did get up and looked through the small windowpane to see who was on her doorstep. Partially hidden behind a lavish bouquet of white chrysanthemums, deep red roses, and holly, she saw Cormac Kinnaird.

Staggered, she nonetheless gathered together some vestige of poise and opened the door to him.

“I know I behaved appallingly the other night,” the doctor said. “I’m like that sometimes. But I wanted you to have these.”

“They’re lovely,” Liz said, taking the flowers. “Would you like to step in and meet my friend Tom?” she added, stepping back from the doorway.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you had a—a guest. I would never have barged in, had I known.”

“Please, join us in some champagne,” Tom said in a friendly tone that contrasted with the expression of sad perplexity on his face.

“I wouldn’t think of it. I’m interrupting,” the doctor said. “But thank you—both.”

After Cormac Kinnaird left, Liz carried the bouquet to her kitchen counter, pulled out a large spaghetti pot, filled it with water and set the stems in it.

“Aren’t you going to get a vase?” Tom asked. “It’s a nice bouquet.”

“I don’t have a big enough vase for it. And, even if I did, I don’t want to take the time away from our celebration to arrange them now. They’re in water. They can wait.”

Liz returned to her position across from Tom on the tablecloth.

“You’re probably wondering who that was.”

“That’s your business.”

“You’re right in more ways than you think. He’s someone I’ve met through my job—a forensics guy who’s helping me on the missing mom case.”

Tom made no reply.

“To return to more important things,” Liz said, “it’s time for you to open a present.”

This time, Tom was ready for his gift. Opening it with care, he smiled widely when he saw the heart at the center of the homemade star. And when he reached out for Liz’s hand and clasped it tightly she needed no words from him to realize how much it meant to him.

“Merry Xmas, Tom,” Liz said, pronouncing the “X” in honor of the billboard display.

“Merry Xmas to you, too,” he replied, handing her a small present in a jewelry box.

Liz was concerned. An expensive gift on top of providing an instant Christmas would be too much, she thought.

But Tom must have known that would be the case.

Slowly lifting the lid of the jewelry box, Liz looked inside and burst into gleeful laughter. The box contained a key ring and chain, on the end of which dangled a brass monkey.

If Tom had any concerns that his gift would be underwhelming after the arrival of Cormac Kinnaird’s magnificent bouquet, those worries were wiped out when Liz stood up, pulled Tom to a standing position, too, and threw her arms around him in an enthusiastic hug.

“Something’s missing! We need some music,” she said, removing the Erik Satie CD from the CD player and replacing it with a Bing Crosby Christmas album. As Bing crooned “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” Liz sat down and began to string popcorn for the tree.

“Wouldn’t you like to string some more, too?” she asked Tom, who remained standing.

“Not yet. There’s something else missing, too, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” Tom said. And picking up the ice pick, scissors, and strips of pie plate Liz had forgotten to clear off her desk, he set about fashioning a ring of foil with holes punched in it. Borrowing an extra needle and thread from Liz, he sewed the ring to the back of the star, making use of the holes Liz had punched on one of the star’s points. Then, he took Liz’s hands and pulled her to a standing position. Standing on a chair, he slipped the tin ring over the topmost point of the tree.

“But that’s your present!” Liz exclaimed. “You should take it home for your tree!”

“If it’s my present, I get to decide where it belongs. And I think your tree needs my stah,” he said in his winning Boston accent.

“You might just be right,” Liz said, smiling at him.

As Bing changed his tune to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” Tom took Liz in his arms, kissed her tenderly on the lips, and led her in a slow dance on the popcorn-strewn tablecloth.