Barrott smiled briefly. “That’s the way it is in my house. If my son gets great marks or some kind of achievement award, his sister thinks it was a mistake. All right, Gregg,” he continued, “the last time you saw your sister was a week ago on Mother’s Day. Was there anything unusual about that day?”
“That’s what absolutely bewilders me,” Gregg told him. “My mother’s been dead only two years, so naturally it’s a pretty low-key day for us. The three of us went to church together, visited her grave, then had dinner at the club. Leesey had planned to drive back to the city with me but at the last minute decided to stay overnight with Dad and take the train home in the morning.”
“Before your mother died, was Mother’s Day in any way symbolic for all of you, other than the usual sentiment that’s attached to it?”
“No, not at all. We celebrated it together, but it wasn’t a big deal. When my grandparents were alive, they were with us. There was nothing extraordinary at all about it.” Gregg caught the way the two detectives glanced at each other and then the way Larry Ahearn nodded to Roy Barrott. “There’s something you haven’t told me,” he said. “What is it?”
“Gregg, do you know Carolyn MacKenzie?” Ahearn asked.
Now his temples were beginning to pound. Gregg searched his memory, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. Who is she?”
“She’s a lawyer,” Ahearn volunteered. “Twenty-six years old. Her studio is on Thompson Street in the building next door to where your sister lives.”
“Does she know Leesey?” Gregg asked quickly. “Does she have any idea where she might be?”
“No. She doesn’t know her, but maybe you remember a case ten years ago, when a college student walked out of his apartment and disappeared? His name was Charles MacKenzie Jr. Everyone called him Mack.”
“I remember that case. They never found him, did they?”
“No,” Ahearn said. “But he calls his mother every year on Mother’s Day.”
“On Mother’s Day!” Gregg jumped up. “He’s been gone ten years and calls his mother on Mother’s Day. Are you suggesting that Leesey might be planning to follow a crazy pattern like that?”
“Gregg, we’re not suggesting anything,” Ahearn said, soothingly. “Leesey was eleven years old when Mack MacKenzie disappeared, so there’s no reason to think that she might have known him. But we thought it’s possible you or your father might know the family. My guess is that you travel in some of the same circles.”
“Whatever that means.” He looked perplexed. “Did Mack MacKenzie call his mother last Sunday?”
“Yes, he did.” Ahearn decided not to immediately share the fact that Mack had left a message in the collection basket. “We don’t know what that guy is doing or why he had to go underground. It certainly isn’t widespread knowledge that he still phones his family on that one day. It makes us wonder if at some point Leesey might have met him, maybe at one of those clubs in SoHo, and, if she decided to disappear on her own, as he seems to have done, whether she’ll stay in touch the same way.”
“What do you know about MacKenzie, Larry? I mean if he disappeared voluntarily, was he in some kind of trouble?” Gregg looked pointedly at Larry, searching for answers.
“We couldn’t find anything that added up. He had everything going for him and just walked out of his life.”
“The same thing could be said about Leesey,” Gregg snapped. “Are you starting to think that if she’s come across this guy, the next time we’ll hear from her is Mother’s Day next year?” He looked from one to the other of them. “Wait a minute, do you think that this Mack guy might be a weirdo and has something to do with Leesey’s disappearance?”
Larry looked across the table at his college roommate. It’s not just his father who aged this week, he thought. Gregg looks ten years older than he did when we played golf last month. “Gregg, we are exploring everyone and every situation that may give us a lead to follow. Most of them will be dead ends. Now do me a favor and take my advice. Go home, get a decent dinner, and go to bed early. Take some comfort in the fact that we know Leesey was alive this morning. You’ve got a lot of patients who depend on your skill to give them a new lease on life. You can’t fail them, and you will if you don’t eat and sleep properly.”
Not unlike the advice I gave Dad, Gregg thought. I will go home. I will get a couple of hours sleep and eat something. But tonight I’m going to walk back and forth between that SoHo club and Thompson Street. Leesey was alive this morning. But that doesn’t mean that if she’s with some kind of nut, she’ll stay alive.
He pushed back his chair and stood up. “You’re absolutely right, Larry,” he said.
With a brief wave, he started to leave, but spun around when Ahearn’s cell phone rang. Ahearn grabbed it from his pocket and raised it to his ear. “What’s up?”
Gregg saw the angry frown before he heard Larry’s muttered profanity. For the second time that day, he despairingly thought that Leesey’s body had been found.
Ahearn looked at him. “Someone called the New York Post a few minutes ago and said that Leesey Andrews left a message for her father today and said she’d call again on Mother’s Day. The Post wants confirmation.” Spitting out the words, he shouted, “Absolutely no comment!” and slammed down the phone.
“Did Leesey make the call?” Gregg demanded.
“The reporter who took it couldn’t be sure. Said it was a muffled whisper. There was no caller ID.”
“That means that the call wasn’t made from Leesey’s phone,” Gregg said. “She has caller ID.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Gregg, I’m going to be brutally honest. Either Leesey had some kind of breakdown and wants publicity, or she’s in the hands of a dangerous, game-playing nut.”
“Who only calls home on Mother’s Day,” Roy Barrott said quietly.
“Or who has a loft apartment near the Woodshed and a longtime chauffeur who would do anything for him,” Ahearn said bitterly.
28
H oward Altman gave careful thought about how he would approach the Kramers to persuade them to stay on as superintendents. Olsen is right, he admitted. The guy I got him to fire last year in the Ninety-eighth Street apartment house was saving us a lot of money. I just didn’t get it. Olsen doesn’t want to do major repairs there. The property next door is for sale, and when it goes, he’s sure they’ll make a big offer for his building, too. The old super was keeping things together with chewing gum and kite string. The new one has a list of all the repairs that are needed and keeps telling Olsen it’s criminal negligence not to do them immediately.
I should have kept my mouth shut, he thought, but I never could see why the Kramers needed a three- bedroom apartment-the other two bedrooms are never used.
Every so often, when Howard stopped by the Kramers’, he asked for permission to use the bathroom. That gave him a chance to look into the spare bedrooms. Never once in the nearly ten years since he had started working for Derek Olsen had he noticed any change in the placement of the teddy bears on the pillows of the beds. He knew they never used those rooms, but he told himself that what he should have realized was that Lil Kramer took a certain lowbrow pride in her big apartment.
And I know all about lowbrow! he thought ruefully. When I was a kid and Pop bought his first brand-new car, the cheapest one on the lot, you would have thought he’d won the lottery. We had to show it off to all the relatives just because Pop hoped they’d be drooling with envy.
I should start a blog and write about my own messed-up family, Howard told himself. I can’t let the Kramers retire. Maybe Olsen would get over it if I got some good new people in fast. On the other hand, it would be just like him to fire me and give my job to that sicko nephew of his. In thirty days, Olsen would probably be on his knees begging me to come back, but that’s a chance I can’t take. So what approach do I take with the Kramers?
Howard Altman considered possible solutions over the weekend. Then, satisfied with the plan he had come up with, at quarter of ten on Monday morning he stepped into the West End Avenue building where the Kramers lived.
He had definitely decided that pleading with them to stay, offering them a raise, and assuring them that the large apartment would always be their home was exactly the wrong way to go. If Gus Kramer thought that by quitting he could get me fired, he’d do it even if he doesn’t really want to retire now.
