Front Page Teaser

“The tuneless hum! That might be it!” Thinking about tones of voices led Liz to ask, “Did you, by any chance, phone the Johansson house on December 18, the day after you parted with Ellen?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. But I only left a message. I felt terrible about losing a roll of film I’d taken of us in New York.”

“Do you recall saying, ‘It’s all my fault’?”

“I might have said something like that. I knew she’d be disappointed because it was a standing joke between us about how dreadful a photographer she was. We both used our cameras while we were in Manhattan, and she was sure my photos would be far better than hers.”

“In your letter to Ellen, you advised her not to open a Pandora’s box. What did you mean by that?”

Nadia’s expression changed to one of shock.

“I’m sorry, Nadia,” Liz said. “I must admit, I read your last letter to Ellen. It was given to me by a workman who had access to her house.”

Nadia was quiet for some minutes.

“Ellen told me she was going to find a hypnotist to help her unveil the figure in her flashbacks,” she said at last. “It made me terribly uneasy for her. It’s one thing for a repressed memory to reveal itself, don’t you think? It might be monstrous, but at least it’s pure. It seems to me a hypnotist might manipulate things, twist the truth. Then you never know the actual truth of the matter.”

While Nadia engaged in “urgent work” in unidentified offices in Singapore, Liz toured the extensive orchid gardens there, marveling at their quantity and variety. She also located and interviewed the horticulturist for her travel article and arranged for photographs to be sent to her at the Banner newsroom. Later, Liz shopped in Chinatown and Little India, ethnic enclaves where beautifully crafted items were plentiful and cheap, and browsed without buying anything in the opulent Japanese department store on Orchard Road, a thoroughfare known as the “Fifth Avenue of Singapore.”

In the evening, the two met at a hot pot restaurant decorated with Mao Zedong and Chinese Communist memorabilia. After ordering their fare from waiters dressed in classic comrades’ garb, they collected tofu, pieces of raw fish, several varieties of mushrooms, and a half-dozen varieties of Asian greens and took them back to their table. In the center of it, a waiter installed a steaming pot of broth, which was kept bubbling on an electric burner. Using chopsticks to drop in the food they had collected, they watched it cook and then ladled the soup into bowls. As the two dined, Liz enthused about the orchids she’d seen.

“Then you must come along with me to Fiji,” Nadia said. “There’s a marvelous orchid garden there established by the actor Raymond Burr.”

“It sounds wonderful, but I’ve already broken my bank by paying for my airfare to get here.”

“Use some of my frequent-flyer miles. I have more than I can ever spend. And you can join me in my lodgings. I travel alone so much it will be a pleasure to have your company during this little holiday. I shan’t be working in Fiji, so I will have more time to converse with you. We will have more opportunity to put our heads together about Ellen, too.”

On the morning of September 10, the two made their way to Fiji’s main island and installed themselves in the aptly named Shangri-La’s Fijian Resort. After freshening up, they toured Raymond Burr’s Garden of the Sleeping Giant orchid plantation, so-named for the long mountain, shaped like a reclining titan, which stretches out above and beyond the garden. Liz took photographs and copious notes for another travel article. And then she and Nadia returned to the resort, in time to attend a fire-walking demonstration and outdoor banquet.

“I had thought fire walkers would skitter quickly across the stones,” Liz said. “But they seemed to linger on them.”

“Like you with your work and me with mine.”

“I’m not so sure that’s true. Here we are, behaving as tourists and making little progress at all.”

“If you think so, you are mistaken. The more I get to know you, the more I feel I can say about Ellen. You see, she has been my friend for two decades. I have known you only for a matter of days.”

“You haven’t, however, spent much time with Ellen, have you?”

“Not in person. In fact, I have now spent more time in your physical company than I have in hers. But that doesn’t matter. Since we were girls, we have shared our lives through writing. I can say, without hesitation, that Ellen was one of my dearest . . .”

Liz met Nadia’s eyes. “You feel she is gone, don’t you?” Liz asked.

“My mind tells me there are questions enough about her circumstances to suggest she chose to leave, but my tongue betrays me.” Nadia paused. “Yes, I already think of her in the past tense.”

Liz placed her hand over Nadia’s. “We will find the truth, Nadia. That’s all we can do now,” she said.

Chapter 24

The following day, the pair took a Piper Cub to one of Fiji’s three hundred islands, where Nadia had a reservation at a rustic-style resort.

“This makes me think of the film Cast Away,” Liz remarked, as the two installed themselves in a grass hut with a thatched roof just steps away from the water. The beach hut, or burrah, would have been charming enough from the outside, but it was even more delightful inside. Brightly colored batik spreads covered two beds, and intricate, hand-painted patterns in black and cream adorned the deeply peaked ceiling above them.

Obviously designed for barefoot visitors, the hut’s concrete slab entryway was fitted with a hand-woven straw mat. A dishpan of fresh water sat in front of a small bench there, so visitors might remove sand from their feet with ease before entering the hut.

“Do you see that island there?” Nadia said, pointing to a small mound or rock across the blue water.

“Um hm.”

“That is where the movie you mentioned was filmed. I gather the bar and restaurant at this resort were favored by cast and crew during the filming.”

After changing into bikinis, the pair stepped out of their hut and settled in the shade of a palm tree. Nadia, who knew the resort well, seemed set on reading. Liz, however, took out her book and only laid it on her lap. She found it hard to settle her eyes on a book when she could gaze instead at the expanse of aquamarine water, dotted with distant islands, that was laid out before her. But her book caught Nadia’s eye, nonetheless.

“You carried a library book halfway around the world!” Nadia exclaimed, noticing the call numbers pasted on the book’s spine.

“It’s one Ellen was reading before she disappeared,” Liz said, and explained to Nadia how she gained access to Ellen’s library record.

“You and Mrs. Swenson have missed your callings,” Nadia chuckled. “You should have taken up my line of work. But that’s a children’s book, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I suppose Ellen might have been reading it to Veronica.”

“May I take a look?”

“Of course.”

Nadia read aloud the blurb on the back of the paperback. “‘Margaret’s father died in a mysterious drowning accident when she was eight years old.’” She stopped and looked hard at Liz. “When did Ellen take out this book? Do you know?”

“Sometime last November, I think. I’ve got my folder about the case in my suitcase. I could check on it.” Liz retrieved the folder from the grass hut and returned to the chaise lounge under the palms. “Here’s Ellen’s borrowing record.” She spread it out on her knees. How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found was borrowed November 16 and returned the next day.”

“Then that may well be the book she wrote to me about. She never mentioned the title, but in a letter she wrote in mid-November, Ellen said little things, even picking up a children’s book, were stimulating flashbacks. This book perhaps reminded her of her father. He died in a drowning accident when she was eight years old, you know.