Red Cat

15

“Burglary?” Mike Metz asked.

“I doubt it,” I said. I propped the phone on my shoulder and spooned some yogurt into a bowl. “At least, not the traditional kind. The windows were intact and so was the door, so whoever it was had a key- and no interest in the television or the iPod or three fairly expensive flat-screen monitors.”

“You saw all that?”

“The apartment’s not big. What I didn’t see, though, were her computers or any video equipment.”

“You think that stuff was there to begin with?”

“There was a table with a modem and a printer and all the monitors on it, and lots of loose cabling hanging off the side. And there were factory boxes on the floor- three of them- for digital video cameras. Two of them were opened and empty. I couldn’t see into the third one.”

Mike made a clicking sound. “Anything else not there?”

“There was a file cabinet tipped on its side. The drawers looked empty from where I was, but I didn’t see any file folders around. I didn’t see any disks around, either, or video cassettes.”

“So, someone looking for…what?”

“Her work would be my guess.”

Mike swore under his breath. “Someone interested in her work and someone with a key.”

“I suppose she could’ve let whoever it was in- but either way it implies someone she knew.”

“Like the new boyfriend. Or maybe the old one.”

“That’s the hopeful answer,” I said. “Talking to them is way up there on my list.”

“The neighbor didn’t know their names?”

“No, but I’m hoping the sister or the brother-in-law will. I’m going again tomorrow morning.”

Mike made a noise of vague assent. “How about her other visitorsthe woman, and the guy in the suit- did the neighbor know anything about them?”

“Just the vague descriptions.”

“They ring any bells?”

“The suit could’ve been the lawyer Krug’s assistant told me about. Or not. The woman could be anyone.”

Mike was quiet for a while, and I could almost hear the gears turning. “You didn’t go inside?” he asked finally.

“I would’ve had to force the window and the window gate, and that would mean nothing but heartache with the cops. B and E is bad enough, but screwing up a possible crime scene is worse, and if they find out you’ve done both it makes it that much harder to convince them you haven’t tampered with evidence. And speaking of cops, how are you doing with your contacts?”

“I’m taking a guy to lunch tomorrow,” Mike said.

“Rough work.”

“You haven’t seen him eat.”

Mike rang off and I ate some yogurt. Outside, the slush had frozen over, and the night sky was streaked with cloud. This afternoon’s snow had been a feint, not the promised onslaught but merely a scouting party. Still, the local TV news crews were giddy with anticipation. They prattled on tirelessly about plows and salt and closings and delays, and only war would’ve made them happier. The storm was good news for David, too, as was any story that sucked up air time and column inches, and pushed the Williamsburg Mermaid far from the public’s view. If he got really lucky, the snow would be followed by an ugly celebrity divorce.

On television, a stiff-haired woman gestured toward a weather map that was white from Maryland to Massachusetts, and west to the Ohio Valley. I turned up the sound. The forecast called for the storm to hit New York sometime tomorrow afternoon. I only hoped it would hold until I made it back from Wilton.

Nicole Cade was in Toronto, Herbert Deering told me, stranded at the airport by the storm that hadn’t reached us yet, and deeply unhappy. Which explained why, on my second visit, I actually made it inside the house.

“They don’t know when they’ll clear the runways,” he said. “And who knows what the airports down here will be like by then. It could be days before she makes it back.” The prospect didn’t seem entirely devastating to him.

He led me to a book-lined study with a striped silk sofa and matching slipper chairs, and a fire in the small brick fireplace. It burned silently behind glass doors, throwing off light but no heat. I sat on the sofa and Deering perched his bulk on a slipper chair, as comfortable as a hippo at the opera. He looked at me and looked nervously around the room, as if he wasn’t usually allowed in there and expected at any moment to be ordered out. He ran a hand over his messy, thin hair.

“I thought Nikki gave you Holly’s address,” he said.

I nodded. “She did, but I haven’t been able to reach Holly there. I was hoping one of you might have some other ideas of where I might find her.”

Deering rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. He’d shaved today, and nicked himself in several spots. A tiny scrap of toilet paper, punctuated with a dot of blood, still clung to the side of his neck. His eyes were red and his voice was furry, and I wondered if he wasn’t hungover.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Like I told you last time, we’re not in touch.”

“You must know some of her friends, though. A boyfriend, maybe…”

Deering shook his head and rubbed his hands on the legs of his corduroy pants. “Really, we don’t. Even when we heard from her more often, we didn’t know those things.”

“No?” I said, and smiled in what I hoped was an encouraging way. “When was it that you used to hear from her more often?”

He squinted with confusion. “When-?”

“I mean, was it months ago, years? How long?”

“She and Nikki were never close, and she pretty much stopped calling after her first year in college. We heard from her even less when she moved to the city.”

“Did you know any of the Gimlet Players?”

The name took him by surprise. “That theater group she was with?” I nodded. “We never saw any of those plays- we never saw her in anything.”

“Did you ever meet any of the players?”

“There was a guy who came here.”

“What guy?”

“An actor, from the group. He drove her up here a couple of times, to pick up some of her things. I think they were seeing each other.”

“Gene Werner?”

Deering shrugged. “It could’ve been. I don’t remember.”

“When was this?”

“The first time? A couple of years ago, maybe. And then again last summer.”

“This past summer?” He nodded. “Do you remember what he looked like?”

Deering tugged at the cuffs of his flannel shirt and thought about it. “A tall guy, with brown hair, long I think, and a little goatee. Handsome guy, looked like he could’ve been an actor or something.” Gene Werner.

“And he’s her boyfriend?”

“It seemed that way.”

“Have you seen him since then?”

“Just those two times.”

“Did she ever bring anyone else here?”

A log popped and crumbled in the fireplace, and Deering started. He shook his head. “She barely comes here herself.”

“Not for holidays or birthdays?” Deering shook his head. “When was the last time she was here?”

He squinted at me again and shrugged. “Maybe in the summer, when she came up with that guy, or maybe there was a time after. Whenever, it was a while ago. Months.”

“Would your wife remember better?”

The thought that I might ask her horrified Deering. “The summer was the last time- I’m pretty sure.”

“How about friends in town? Are there any she’s in touch with?”

Deering took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirttail. “Not that I know of,” he said.

“How about people from college?”

Deering shrugged vaguely. “Sorry,” he said.

I nodded. “And Holly doesn’t go to Brookfield, to visit her father?”

Deering blanched. “No,” he said.

“How do you know?” I asked. He peered at me. “I mean, how would you know if she just went up there to see him?”

Deering shook his head. “She wouldn’t. She has nothing to say to him.”

Another log collapsed in the fire, and Deering and I watched the ash and embers drift. “What happened with Holly that she doesn’t talk to her family?” I asked after a while.

Deering gave another cautious glance around the room, as if someone, maybe Nikki, might appear in the doorway. He pinched his blurry chin between thumb and forefinger. “It’s just one of those things,” he said quietly. “The parents fought a lot and the girls chose sides- Nikki with her dad and Holly with her mom- and then their mom died, just when Holly was starting high school. That’s a tough time for a kid, and Holly’s been angry ever since- at Fredrick, at Nikki, even at their mom. As long as I’ve known her, she’s been mad at pretty much the whole world.”

Deering stared again into the dwindling fire. Outside the window, snow was starting to fall.