Where Are You Now?

58

A t 4:30 P.M. Nick DeMarco was in his midtown office when his phone rang. It was Captain Larry Ahearn with a crisp request that he come to his office immediately. Swallowing over the absolute dryness in his mouth and throat, Nick agreed. As soon as he hung up, he dialed his attorney, Paul Murphy.

“I’ll start right down,” Murphy told him. “I’ll meet you in the lobby there.”

“I can do better than that,” Nick said. “I was planning to leave in fifteen minutes anyway, which means Benny is probably outside right now circling the block. I’ll call you when I’m in the car. We’ll swing by and get you.”

At five past five, Benny at the wheel, they were driving south on Park Avenue. “The way I see it, it’s their way of rattling you,” Murphy told him. “The only, and I repeat only, circumstantial evidence they can lay at your door are two facts: One, you invited Leesey over to talk with you in the club, and two, you have a black Mercedes SUV, which makes you one of thousands of owners of a black Mercedes SUV.”

He shot a look at DeMarco. “Of course, you could have saved me from being surprised last time we were there.”

Murphy had dropped his voice almost to a whisper, but Nick still nudged him with his elbow. He knew Murphy was referring to the fact that Benny’s second wife had taken out a restraining order against him. He also knew that Benny had superb hearing and missed nothing.

The traffic was so unbearably slow that Murphy decided to phone Ahearn’s office. “Just to let you know that we’re in the usual five o’clock rush and can’t do a thing about it.”

Ahearn’s response was simple. “Just get here. We’re not going anywhere. Is DeMarco’s chauffeur, Benny Seppini, driving the car you’re in?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Bring him up, too.”

It was ten minutes of six when Nick DeMarco, Paul Murphy, and Benny Seppini walked through the squad room to Larry Ahearn’s private office. They all noticed the frigid stares from the detectives in the squad room as they hurried through it.

Inside Ahearn’s office, the atmosphere was even colder. Ahearn was again flanked by Detectives Barrott and Gaylor. There were three chairs in front of the desk. “Sit down,” Ahearn said curtly.

Benny Seppini looked at DeMarco. “Mr. DeMarco, I don’t think it’s my place…”

“Cut the servant routine. You know you call him Nick,” Ahearn interrupted. “And sit down now.”

Seppini waited until DeMarco and Murphy had taken their places, then lowered himself into his chair. “I’ve known Mr. DeMarco for many years,” he said. “He’s an important man, and when I’m not alone with him, I call him Mr. DeMarco.”

“That’s touching,” Ahearn said sarcastically. “Now let’s all listen to this.” He pressed the play button on a recorder, and Leesey Andrews’s voice pleading to her father for help filled the room.

There was a moment of intense silence following the recording, then Paul Murphy asked, “What was the point of playing that recording for us?”

“I’m happy to tell you,” Ahearn assured him. “I thought it might remind your client of the fact that as of yesterday, Leesey Andrews was probably still alive. We thought it might stir his better self to tell us where we can find her.”

DeMarco sprang up from the chair. “I have no more idea than you do of where that poor girl is, and I’d give anything I have to save her life if I could.”

“I’m sure you would,” Barrott replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You thought she was pretty cute, didn’t you? In fact, you slipped her your personal card with the address of your cozy loft apartment.”

He held up the card, cleared his throat, and read, “‘Leesey, I can open some doors for you in show business and I’d be glad to do it. Call me. -Nick.’”

He slapped the card down on the table. “You gave it to her that night, didn’t you?”

“You don’t have to answer that, Nick,” Murphy warned.

Nick shook his head. “There’s no reason not to answer it. Those few minutes she was at my table, I told her she was a beautiful dancer, which she certainly was. She confided that she’d love to take a year off after college, just to see if she could make it on the stage. I do know a lot of celebrities. So I gave her the card. So what?” He met Ahearn’s suspicious gaze.

“You seem to have forgotten to mention it to us,” Ahearn stated, scorn in every syllable he uttered.

“I’ve been here three times,” Nick said, clearly agitated now. “Every time you come at me as if I had something to do with her disappearance. I know you can find some way to have my liquor license suspended at the Woodshed, even if you have to create a violation-”

“Stop it, Nick,” Murphy ordered.

“I won’t stop it. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. The last time I was here, you suggested I’m way overextended. You’re absolutely right. If you shut down the Woodshed, I’ll be thrown into bankruptcy. I’ve made some lousy decisions, I don’t deny that, but hurting or abducting a kid like Leesey Andrews isn’t one of them.”

“You gave her your card,” Bob Gaylor said.

“Yes, I did.”

“When did you expect her to phone you at your loft?”

“My loft?”

“You gave her a card with the address of your loft and the phone number of the landline there.”

“That’s ridiculous. I gave her the card with my business address, 400 Park Avenue.”

Barrott tossed the card at him. “Read it.”

Perspiration on his forehead, Nick DeMarco read the print on the card several times before he spoke. “That was two weeks ago today,” he said, more to himself than to the others. “I had some cards made, with just the loft address. They came in that day from the printer. I must have put one of them in my wallet. I thought I was giving my office card to Leesey.”

“Why would you need an address card for the loft and the telephone number there unless you wanted to slip it to beautiful girls like Leesey?” Barrott asked.

“Nick, we can get up and walk out of here right now,” Murphy said.

“That’s not necessary. I’ve got my Fifth Avenue apartment up for sale. I plan to live in the loft. I have too many friends I haven’t seen in a long time because I’ve been too busy trying to be a hotshot restaurant and club owner. Having those cards made was a gesture toward the future.” He placed the card back on the desk.

“Is one of the people you want to see in the loft Mack MacKenzie’s sister, Carolyn?” Barrott asked. “Cute picture of the two of you, hand in hand, rushing for your car last night. It brought tears to my eyes.”

Ahearn turned to Benny Seppini. “Benny, let’s talk to you now. The night Leesey disappeared, you had taken Nick’s, excuse me, I mean Mr. DeMarco’s black Mercedes SUV home with you to Astoria, isn’t that right?”

“I drove his sedan home.” Benny’s scarred, rough features began to turn a dull red.

“Don’t you have a car? Surely you must get paid enough to have your own wheels.”

“I can answer that,” Nick interrupted, before Benny could speak. “Last year when Benny told me he was trading his car in, I told him it was stupid for him to be paying insurance and upkeep on a car when I was paying to house three vehicles in a Manhattan garage, at Midtown prices no less. I suggested that he drive the SUV between his home and Manhattan and then switch to the sedan at the garage when he drove me to appointments.”

Ahearn ignored him. “So, Benny, you drove the black Mercedes SUV, which your kindly employer offered you to use as your own vehicle, to your apartment in Astoria two weeks ago tonight, the night Leesey disappeared.”

“No. Mr. DeMarco had the SUV in the garage at the loft because he was going to drive to the airport in the morning with his golf clubs. I dropped him off at the Woodshed at about ten o’clock in the sedan, then drove home to my place that night.”

“You then went into your apartment, and to bed.”

“Uh-huh. That was about eleven o’clock.”

“Benny, the parking problem is pretty lousy in your neighborhood, isn’t it?”

“Parking’s lousy everywhere in New York City.”

“But you lucked out. You got a spot for your employer’s vehicle right in front of your apartment building. Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, that’s where I parked it. I got home and got into bed and turned on Jay Leno. He was really funny. He was talking about…”

“I don’t care what he was talking about. I care about the fact that the black Mercedes vehicle owned by Nick DeMarco wasn’t there thr whole night. Your neighbor in apartment 6D saw you pulling into a space in front of the building at about 5:15, when he was leaving for work. Tell us, Benny, where had you been? Did you get an emergency call from Mr. DeMarco? Had there been some kind of problem?”

Benny Seppini’s expression became angry and mulish. “None of your business,” he barked.

“Benny, do you have a cell phone with a prepaid card?” Ahearn demanded.

“You don’t have to answer that, Benny,” Paul Murphy shouted.

“Why not? Sure I do. I place a few bets. A hundred bucks here and there. So arrest me.”

“Didn’t you buy one of those cell phones and prepaid cards as a joke birthday present for Nick, I mean Mr. DeMarco?”

“Keep quiet, Benny!” Paul Murphy shouted.

Benny stood up. “Why should I? I’ll tell you what happened that night. I got a call around midnight from a very nice lady who is separated from a drunken bum husband. She was scared. The husband knows she and I like each other. He left a crazy message on her cell phone, threatening her. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got dressed and drove over there. Her place is about a mile away from mine. I sat outside her building in the car to make sure he didn’t show up after the bars closed. I stayed till five o’clock. Then I went home.”

“You’re a real Sir Galahad, Benny,” Ahearn said. “Who is this woman? Who’s the guy threatening her?”

“He’s a cop,” Benny said flatly. “One of New York ’s finest. She has grown kids who think he’s the world’s best guy and just has a small problem with booze. She don’t want trouble. I don’t want trouble. So I’m not going to say nothing more.”

Paul Murphy stood up. “We’ve had enough,” he told Ahearn, Barrott, and Gaylor. “I’m sure you’ll be able to confirm Benny’s story, and I know my client would do anything to help the young girl who is missing.” He threw them all a scornful look. “Why don’t you stop barking up the wrong tree, and go find the abductor of Leesey Andrews and those other young women? And why don’t you stop wasting your time trying to put round pegs in square holes while there may still be a chance to save her life?”

The three detectives watched the men depart. When the door closed behind them, Ahearn said, “That story is full of holes. Sure, Benny could have covered himself by being outside his girlfriend’s building for a while, but he still had plenty of time to respond to an emergency call from Nick and get Leesey out of that loft.”

They looked at one another in an agony of frustration, each man hearing in his head, once again, Leesey Andrews’s desperate cry for help.