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Chapter 21

“What a fool I was!” Liz exclaimed. “Dick Manning, and even Tom, are right after all. I’m too close to this family.”

She did not wish to consider the letter’s implications but she knew she must. The fact was, Ellen had considered voluntarily exiting the family circle. If this were true, it would account for some circumstances Liz had chosen to gloss over. There was the blood flung with the fingertips over the cookie ingredients. And the “FORGET ME NOT” message. Now that looked like it came to mind thanks to the broken teacup’s pattern name and seemed a good thing to write in the circumstances. And, of course, it accounted for Ellen’s reading choices, particularly How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found. Liz was furious with herself for not keeping that book title in the front of her mind. And it occurred to her that in her haste, she had forgotten to thank Lucy Gray for e-mailing the code word “Blister” to her. Well, perhaps Lucy would rather not admit she’d sent it, after all.

Haste. That was always the problem, wasn’t it? Here it was, December 27. Ellen had gone missing from her home December 18. While much had been accomplished in nine days, key items had been overlooked, and Ellen’s whereabouts remained unknown. The apparently perfect mother might have chosen to manufacture a scene of distress and desert her family, but that didn’t mean Liz should be any less earnest about finding her. She still had her promise to Veronica to keep. But what kind of revelation would accompany locating Ellen? How would it affect Veronica?

Gazing into the flickering flames of her fireplace, Liz felt angry with herself not just for believing in Ellen, but also for wishing she could continue to believe in the picture-perfect mother. Getting up from her chair, she crossed to her kitchen, poured herself another glass of wine, turned on her radio, and peeled an apple in readiness to slice it. But she soon froze, with the apple skin curling over her fingers, as the voice of the WLTR-Radio announcer caught her ear.

“During routine towing of illegally parked, snow-covered vehicles in Boston this afternoon,” the announcer said, “Boston police uncovered a car rented by Ellen Johansson, the woman who has been missing from her Newton home since December 18. According to police spokesperson Tara Foley, the vehicle was found completely buried in plowed snow near the Boston Public Library.

“Inside the car, police found paperwork indicating the car had been rented by Ellen Johansson yesterday, eight days after she went missing from her home. The woman’s husband, Erik Johansson—who had been released from Newton police custody after he was questioned about assaulting Boston World news reporter Mick Lichen—was taken in to Boston police headquarters again this evening, where he identified the fountain pen, wedding ring, and bracelet found in the car as belonging to his wife. Under questioning, he admitted all the jewelry found in the car had been gifts to his wife from him. Lichen remains in the Newton-Wellesley Hospital with a broken leg sustained in the altercation. Boston police are holding Erik Johansson in custody overnight.”

When the report was finished, Liz set down her apple, rinsed her hands, and phoned the newsroom. “We’re onto it,” Jared informed her. “Dick’s at the car rental place now.”

“Is that Higgins?” she heard Dermott McCann inquire. “Hand me the phone. Listen, Liz, are you sure that drawing is of Daddy’s tie? It’s looking like something was rotten in that household.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. About the drawing, at least. When you print the piece, don’t cut Veronica’s quote about the kite-flying outing when the tie flew up and slapped Erik in the face. We really need that quote now.”

“Gotcha. Hey Garamond,” he called out to the copy editor. “Can you stet that kid quote I cut in 28DRAW1? By the way,” he said to Liz, “forget about that day off tomorrow. I’ll need you to follow up on the Social Security information for that guy Hasan. I had to pull Manning off that and put him onto the car rental place. I’ll have Dick message his contacts to you.”

Liz decided not to tell McCann about Nadia’s letter. Knowing the realities of the newsroom operation when news broke mid-evening, she knew something would get short shrift if a story on the letter was added—and a good candidate was the article about the drawing. Even if Erik had given Ellen reason to leave him, there was no sense in tarring him with the child abuse label unfairly. And an incomplete report on the drawing would make Erik look very suspicious indeed.

But in the hands of the World’s Mick Lichen, that is exactly what happened, as Liz learned when Tom knocked on her door in the early hours of December 28.

“Sorry to wake you, but I thought you’d want to see this. You not only scooped the World but got the front page, too. Take a look.” Wiping his feet on the mat, he handed her two newspapers. Then he set down a bakery box and two Styrofoam cups of coffee on Liz’s coffee table.

In uncharacteristic uppercase type the World’s front page announced, “ABUSE QUESTION RAISED IN MISSING MOTHER CASE.” In the article, Mick Lichen made much of his observations through Veronica’s window:

A child’s portrait of her father raises the question of sexual abuse in the Newton household that has been home to tragedy since Ellen Johansson, 34, went missing from it December 18. Ever since they stripped the wallpaper in the bedroom of Veronica Johansson, age 8, last week, police have been mum about the clue they found written on the wall. Now, based on exclusive observation of Veronica’s bedroom, we can report the writing on the wall spells trouble for Erik Johansson, 37, husband of Ellen and father of Veronica.

The drawing depicts a large protuberance extending outward from the chest or midriff area of a figure labeled “DADDY.” According to Dr. Lesley Choate, professor of child psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, “The huge ball-and-rod–shaped protuberance appears to be a classic depiction of the male member as seen by an abused child. The drawing is particularly disturbing in that it depicts a symbol of rape in a scene of innocent play or father-and-daughter companionship.”

Lichen went on to suggest that child abuse accounted for all the problems in the household, including serving as the spur for Ellen’s leaving it. However, because she didn’t see Veronica’s drawing as an indicator of abuse, Liz knew that notion was false. In addition, she still could not visualize Ellen leaving her daughter in danger. There must be another reason she departed.

The World also ran an article by Nancy Knight about developments with the rental car. Like Manning in the Banner, Knight read the cast-off jewelry, particularly the wedding ring, as a sign there was marital trouble, but she followed in Lichen’s footsteps and based the spousal discord on the premise of child abuse. The large front page of the World also held room for a piece by Lichen, headlined “Blood of a Stranger,” in which Lichen let on the World had no idea who’d been injured in the kitchen with Ellen.

In contrast, the Banner’s front page screamed, “POINSETTIA POINTER: Was Hackney Hacked in Mystery Kitchen?” Liz’s lead article was accompanied by a file photo of the Johansson kitchen showing the poinsettia there and by a cameo shot of Cormac Kinnaird scrutinizing a poinsettia petal with a magnifying glass. Manning’s article about the rental car, headed “WEDDING BAND BLUES,” speculated on marital discord and showed the car rental clerk as gaga about getting her name in the paper and incapable of spitting out a sentence without several “likes” and a “whatevah.” A photo of the clerk captured her in the act of chewing gum while screwing a cap on a jar of nail polish. Finally, a front-page teaser zooming in on Veronica’s drawing of the wind-blown tie, was emblazoned with the words, “DADDY DEAREST: Veronica’s Drawing Tells All.”

“I’m sorry you had to realize the truth about Erik,” Tom said. “I know you liked him. I heard on the radio, as I was driving over, that the Department of Social Services is stepping in to take temporary custody of Veronica, based on newspaper reports.”

“Not mine!”

“But it says here, ‘DADDY DEAREST.’ Doesn’t that mean you wrote about the abuse? That teaser makes me think of the movie Mommie Dearest, about Joan Crawford’s abuse of her kid.”

“No! For once the Banner headline writers’ words can be taken literally. Sure, they tried to pique readers’ interest by making it look like a parallel to that case. But that’s just to get readers to turn to Page Three.”

“Well, it fooled me. Especially since there’s that penis drawing right there. It makes me think Erik Johansson is guilty as sin. Not everybody is going to read any further, Liz. If your story says Erik is a good guy, it’s not clear from this front-page teaser.”

“He is all right, at least in this regard. I talked with Veronica myself yesterday and she told me her drawing depicted a windy day when Erik’s tie blew into his face while he flew a kite with her. That drawing is not evidence of sexual abuse.”

“Well, I sure hope the Department of Social Services reads past Page One of the Banner then, because the World won’t help them here. Maybe you should call them and inform them of what you know.”

Before Liz could cross the room to it, her telephone rang.

“Liz. This is Olga. I have to thank you for your piece about Veronica’s drawing. When I called it to the attention of the Department of Social Services, they said they’d release Erik later this morning, as soon as they can complete their paperwork on this. I have to question, though, the box on your front page. If you didn’t know better, you would think the paper was reporting on a child molester rather than a misunderstood child’s drawing. The way they enlarged that picture of the tie is utterly irresponsible.”

“I see that, Olga, and I’m sorry for it, but remember, even without that drawing, the World got the story completely wrong. At least we printed the truth.”

“Yes, and now the truth has come out about the car rental, too. I can’t tell you how relieved I am. This means Ellen was alive and well enough to rent a car two days ago.”

“Yes, but one has to wonder what kept her in the area and away from her family throughout the holidays.”

“I know, I know. There has to be an explanation. There just has to be. It must have something to do with that taxi driver. Maybe he was a crazed man, stalking my daughter.”

“I understand your impulse to blame the cabbie, but remember the book list you showed me? One of the titles on it suggested Ellen was planning to disappear.”

Olga was silent. Had she forgotten about the book list?

“Must you always upset me?” she demanded at last. “I’m trying so hard to focus on the good news that my daughter is alive, and now you try to tell me she wanted to run away.”

Olga hung up without another word.

After telling Tom what had ensued, Liz phoned the United Nations in New York. The central office receptionist could not confirm that Nadia had ever worked for them. “That doesn’t mean much,” she added, “since literally thousands of individuals do work for people who are on the official UN payroll. They may be translators, couriers, or personal assistants, but if they are paid by the UN employee instead of directly by the UN, we would have no record of them here.”

“Another dead end,” Liz said to Tom after hanging up the phone.

“Well, at least I have some good news. I found the Charlotte’s Web wallpaper. Wait a minute while I get the sample book.”

The big book held an eighteen- by twenty-inch sample sheet of the wallpaper. With its pink pastel tone and Garth Williams line drawings of Wilbur and a spider’s web that read, “SOME PIG!” the paper introduced a much-needed moment of pleasure to the tension-packed morning.

“It’s perfect! Veronica will love it.”

“Since it appears Erik will be welcoming Veronica home after all, I’d better get going on picking up that wallpaper,” Tom said. “Then I’ll try to reach him to set up some time to hang it over the weekend.”

Before he could leave, Liz wrapped her arms around Tom. This time, she was the last to release the embrace. After Tom left, she slipped out of her robe, dressed for work, fed Prudence, and drove straight to South Boston and the Van Wormer Piano Workshop.

Located in the basement of an architecturally pleasing, three-story brick row house, the workshop was accessible through an arched front entrance underneath and shaded by the first floor’s front steps. A small sign with a keyboard motif identified the premises and drew Liz’s attention while she waited for the proprietor to open the door. The nonagenarian piano man kept the door chained so it would open only about two inches until Liz introduced herself and showed him her I.D.

“Old habits die hard,” he said in a German, or perhaps Dutch, accent. “This used to be a much more dangerous neighborhood.”

“I tried to phone to make an appointment but your message machine has been filled.”

“I forgot all about it! I always left the task of answering those messages to my assistant.”

“You speak in the past tense. Is he no longer with you?”

“I’m not certain. Ever since last Tuesday, he has not been in.”

“Was it an unplanned absence? Or might he have taken some time off for the holidays?”

“Oh, yes, it is unplanned, indeed. You see Al lives with me, in his own small unit on the third floor. Surely, he is not in some trouble?”

“First, let’s be sure we are talking about the same person. I’m inquiring about Ali Abdulhazar, a man who would be just short of forty years old this year.”

“That is my assistant’s legal name, but he has called himself Al Hazard for many years now. He came to me as an apprentice many years ago, to learn how to tune pianos. Now he carries the lion’s share of my business. I don’t know what to tell my customers about when he will return. This is so terribly unlike him.”

“Do you have any reason to think he’s visiting family, in trouble, or perhaps run off with a woman?”

“None, except that he did not tell me he’d be away. His family returned to the Middle East before he reached age twenty, and he’s hardly mentioned them since. It did occur to me that perhaps he’d received a message from them, calling him home to attend to an illness or, God forbid, a funeral. Not that they’d ever given him much in the way of family support. I took the liberty of looking in his room, but I didn’t find any letter.”

“Did you try his telephone answering machine?”

“He doesn’t have a telephone upstairs. He always used the one in the workshop. But, of course, I never checked that! How stupid of me.”

“Perhaps it holds the answer. Might we check it together?”

“That would be helpful. I’m terrible at all this technology. But first I must know why it is you are looking for him.”

Liz might have said she was an old friend or offered up some other tall tale, but she opted to tell the truth. It seemed to give Van Wormer pause, until Liz added, “If you read today’s newspapers, I think you might find you’d rather have me than my competitor look into the connection between Al and Ellen. I promise to tell the whole story and not to rake up dirt on your assistant just for the sake of it. Most likely, his absence is unconnected, anyway.”

Van Wormer led Liz to the phone machine. The tape of recorded messages was mostly filled with several concerned—and a few angry—inquiries about upcoming and then missed piano tuning appointments. Only one of them offered anything different, and it was from a male caller with a Middle Eastern accent, suggesting that Al meet him “in the usual place” on December 19. The day Ali went missing and the day after Ellen left home.

Another dead end.

Liz asked Van Wormer if he would like her to run a check on Ali, using his Social Security number, only causing Van Wormer to draw the line on helping her any further. “You may mean well, Miss Higgins, but unless and until my employee is gone for a far longer period of time, I am not willing to share his private information with you.”

“Of course, I understand,” Liz said. She knew it was best to mask her frustration here. If she remained pleasant and helpful, it maximized the chances that Van Wormer would turn to her later. “I hope Al returns soon. If he does, I hope you will let me know. If he doesn’t, perhaps you might turn to me for help. I know how upsetting and expensive it would be to use the services of a private investigator. I have free access to some investigative databases at the Banner.”

Handing the keyboard expert her business card, Liz made her exit and hurried to the newsroom, where it fast became clear that Samir Hasan’s Social Security number was a fake.

And that was no surprise.