13
The next morning I went to Penn Station first thing and bought a ticket on the 148 regional Amtrak en route to
Meriden, Connecticut. Delilah Lancaster was scheduled to meet me. I'd spent the previous night going over her comments, trying to gain a better understanding of her relationship with Michelle Oliveira.
I took a copy of the file on Michelle Oliveira, a copy of that morning's Gazette and a large iced coffee that promptly spilled all over my linen jacket when a kind man with a Prada briefcase elbowed me in the head. I went to the bathroom compartment on the train to clean it, and though I was able to avoid stepping in the unidentified brown goop on the floor, I left with a softball-size blotch on my chest. I debated finding Prada man and throwing him onto the tracks, but I needed my composure. Not to mention I needed to stay out of jail.
When the train pulled out of the station, I cracked open the Gazette and read the story Jack had written for this edition. The piece focused on the looming gentrification of Harlem, how real estate prices were soaring, speculative investors, many of them foreign, were snapping up town houses and condos like they were Junior Mints. The average two-bedroom had nearly doubled in price over the past decade. Foreign investors, emboldened by the weak dollar, were monopolizing the market. The prices Jack quoted quickly confirmed that if I ever desired to buy in
New York rather than rent, I'd either have to win the lottery or find a sugar mama.
The reporting was solid, one of Jack's better recent efforts. Too many of his recent articles felt slapped together, rushed, pieces he forced past Evelyn and the copy editors simply because he was the man. Had the stories been written by a younger reporter who hadn't yet cut his teeth, won major awards and written a shelfful of bestsellers, many of them would have been spiked. The old man needed an intervention. The ink of the newsroom was still the blood that pumped through his veins, but he was a train slowly careening off the tracks. Without some straightening out, the impending crash would permanently derail his career.
The train took about an hour and forty-five minutes to reach Meriden. I finished the Gazette and spent a good twenty minutes staring at an advertisement featuring a man quizzically holding an empty bottle of water before realizing it was hawking Viagra. When the train came to a stop, I noticed a man with a friar's patch of baldness jotting down the ad's
Web site before hustling off the train. One new customer.
I disembarked the train and took in the city of Meriden.
I hadn't spent much time in Connecticut, only having traveled here once to interview a fast-food worker who'd witnessed a murder while on vacation in NYC. A lot of
New Yorkers commuted into the city from parts of Connecticut-Greenwich being a popular hub-in large part due to the ever-booming Manhattan real estate market. For just a thirty-minute train commute, a million bucks could buy you a home or large condo as opposed to a onebedroom with the view of fire escape.
Meriden, though, was no Greenwich.
What struck me first was that the Meriden train station resembled less of an actual station and more like a glorified bus stop. A small hut was the only building on the gravelly lot. It had boarded-up windows, graffiti sprayed layer upon layer. A ticket vending machine sat lonely outside the hut, like a relic from the 1970s. I wasn't even sure if it accepted credit cards. A dirty, bearded man sat on a bench fully asleep, his yellow windbreaker also looking as if it hadn't been removed since long before the man's last shave. He looked comfortable, and clearly wasn't waiting for the train.
The air was cool, but I had no doubt the day would grow hotter throughout the morning. I buttoned up my jacket, stuck my hands in my pockets, and waited. The surrounding buildings were low, squat, though they seemed to have an air of vigor. Fresh coats of paint. Newly cemented sidewalks, clear of footprints and cracks. It looked like a city wrenching itself toward respectability, while experiencing a few hiccups along the way.
As well as brushing up on the Oliveira case file, I also read about the demographics and income of the city of
Meriden, specifically how both had changed over the years during Michelle Oliveira's disappearance. In 1997, when
Michelle was abducted, more than forty percent of
Meriden residents lived below the poverty line. The median income was a shade over $28,000. And more than sixty percent of residents had one or more children.
Today, the median income was more than $45,000, and was growing at a rate far larger than the national average.
Plus, only nineteen percent of residents currently lived below the poverty line. Yet less than half of residents now lived with children. I wondered if Michelle's abduction had anything to do with this. Whether the horrific nature of Michelle's disappearance convinced families it simply wasn't safe to raise a family here.
From what I could tell, this was a city that seemed to want to right the wrongs of its past. A city that desperately wanted to prove it was safe for girls like Michelle. And whatever part of the city didn't want to improve, it would remain contentedly criminal. A place where a girl could be abducted, and her abductors could remain free. That part of the city would be what it always was, and whatever happened was simply God's-or the criminal's- will.
I stood outside for a moment, unsure of what to look for, until a honking car horn brought my attention to the
Chrysler sitting alone in the lot. A woman was in the driver's seat. I could see her through the windshield, an uncomfortable look on her face. She didn't want to be here. I walked over, peered in through the passenger-side window.
'Delilah Lancaster?' I said.
She nodded, said, 'Get in.'
I obeyed. She started the engine as I buckled my seat belt. We peeled away from the station, leaving the tracks in our wake.
Her car was if not new then new er. A black 300 model, it had less than ten thousand miles on it, and there were no telltale signs of wear and tear on the interior. A classical station played on the radio, and I noticed Delilah's hand moving in nearly perfect rhythm, sliding gently up and down the steering-wheel cover as though she was conducting the symphony herself.
Delilah Lancaster was in her early forties. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight bun, a few errant streaks of gray shining through like silver threads. Her face had aged gracefully, the lines and striations of a woman who was comfortable in growing older. She moved delicately but with purpose, her eyes fixed on the road.
We sat in the car for several minutes, neither of us speaking. She drove past several streets of well- maintained homes. We passed by those into a less-friendly part of town that resembled the train station in its sense of abandonment. When we stopped in front of an empty building, I turned toward her to ask where we were.
'I agreed to talk to you,' she said, her hands still on the wheel despite the engine being off. 'But I don't want it in my house or in any place of business or pleasure. That's the agreement.'
I nodded, reached into my bag for a tape recorder. She eyed it, curled her lip.
'This is also part of the agreement,' I said. 'You have to go on the record.' She nodded. I turned the recorder on.
'You know I went through all this seven years ago,' she said. 'The police questioned me many times. I know I got scared that night, but all those police, I thought somebody had been killed. For a moment I thought it might have been
Michelle. All I know is, one day I was Michelle Oliveira's tutor, the next day she was gone from this world, and then several years later she rose like the phoenix.'
'Why did you think she might have been killed? That seems like you were jumping to a pretty terrible conclusion.'
'When you've lived in this city as long as I have, you've seen young boys killed because they were targeted by rival dealers. When you've seen young girls caught in the cross fire, then you can say that I'm jumping to conclusions. I did think Michelle might have been another victim.
That she'd been taken away forever.'
