bright sun. A calm ocean lies in the background. She’s wearing the new pink-and-white dress.
Welbrook’s house is less than ten minutes away, and lies at the end of a stretch of road dominated by large modern homes with decks that face the ocean. Many seem to have enclosed pool areas. Henry realizes there is great opulence here, and that most of these houses have ocean views. A vintage Mercedes sedan is parked in a cutout just off the driveway.
“Yes. Now I remember her. It’s the dress. Pink and white. It was sorta cut low on top, if you know what I mean.”
John Welbrook is a good-looking man in his early forties with curly blond hair. Henry feels an immediate and absurd sense of jealousy as soon as the man opens the door. Welbrook has the looks and obvious self-confidence to have attracted Heidi, and from his memory of her dress, she would have attracted him as well.
They stand in the wide hallway. Henry’s attention is drawn to the walls, which are decorated with photos of various celebrities from the theatre, sports, and politics. Welbrook notes his interest and claims they are all clients of his firm that specializes in entertainment law. Stern turns his attention back to a short flight of stairs that rise from the hallway and empties into a large room with a vaulted ceiling. He follows Welbrook up the stairs, but is not invited to sit.
“So do you remember anything else about her?”
“When I spoke to the police I wasn’t sure I remembered her from the faxed picture, but the color photo and that dress—it’s not easy to forget that dress.”
“Did you talk to her? Did she happen to say anything?”
“Actually, I was going to the rest room. That’s in the back of the bus. She was sitting near the back and stopped me and asked how to get to the beach from the East Hampton stop. I probably told her she’d have to take a cab. That’s when she asked me if I could drive her.
“Told her no. Even though I live in Amagansett, told her I was getting off in East Hampton village. That’s where I parked my car. Said I had things to do. Didn’t have the time to drive her to the beach. Nor the particular interest.”
Henry lets the words slide past him, and looks around the room.
“Nice house,” Henry says.
“We like it,” answers Welbrook.
“Oh, you’re married,” says Henry.
“Not at the moment,” answers Welbrook, and slips away a tiny laugh.
Henry takes a few steps towards a floor-to-ceiling glass window and looks out.
“That’s quite a view.”
“Sure. Most houses anywhere this close to the beach usually have some ocean view. It’s what people pay top dollar for.”
Henry takes a chance and decides to see if Posner’s home without first calling since the drive is only minutes away. Welbrook’s house is clearly larger and closer to the beach than Posner’s, but both houses do indeed seem to have an ocean view. Henry’s rented Chevy climbs the driveway and stops behind a parked Lexus.
Without an entry bell he raps with the brass knocker that guards the door. There is no response for at least thirty seconds, and he’s just about to leave when he hears a voice from inside.
“Who is it? I’ll be there in a minute.”
The voice is clear and slightly faint, almost tired, Henry thinks, before he raps again, more briefly this time, and announces himself as a doctor friend of Heidi, whom he describes as the missing woman from the bus. The door opens. He apologizes for the unannounced nature of his visit and watches as Posner releases the door even wider as an unspoken invitation to enter. He follows Posner up the stairs to a living area with its own ocean views. He sees the twin green sofas, set around the art deco coffee table, and imagines that Heidi might have been here, just as she might have been in Welbrook’s home, or one like it. He inhales the affluence of the room. Doctors may be paid well by comparison to other work, but there is no way he can ever see affording such luxury. There is art on the walls, probably original prints. Some of the images are familiar: a Picasso Don Quixote and a full-sized Rauschenberg share space on the far wall. From what he’s read on Google, Posner has not worked for a few years, yet his art collection seems significant enough, and the house is quite grand by Henry’s standards even if slightly more modest than Welbrook’s.
Further introductions are brief. Posner clearly prefers that he not be there, but Henry is now used to this attitude after his time with Welbrook.
“Do you remember this woman?” he asks when the preliminaries are over.
Posner looks briefly at the photo Henry presents. Almost too briefly, Henry thinks, but he sees Posner clearly stare at the image with the pink-and-white dress.
“Oh, that’s definitely her,” he says, echoing Welbrook’s recollection.
As with Welbrook, Henry has prepared himself for some confession of sorts, an act of contrition, and an acknowledgment that the man had some involvement with Heidi, but there is nothing. In this regard, Posner behaves much the same as Welbrook. He relates his recollection of their brief bus conversation. Heidi appears to have asked both men for a ride to the beach. He sighs and wonders whom else she spoke to after she left the bus. Conversation then stalls. Henry stands and walks toward the steps. He moves down the stairs without incident, stands beside the front door, turns, and asks, “Would you mind if I called on you again? There maybe something else you might remember.”
Posner doesn’t answer. He merely shrugs his shoulders a moment before the door clicks shut.
CHAPTER 5
Peter Wisdom watches the lazy fly ball float toward his son Kevin in right field. Kevin moves to his left, hesitates as he squints into the late afternoon sun, wavers for a moment as he surely loses sight of the ball, then lunges to the side and stabs it inches above the ground. The gathering of parents and friends applaud the effort.
Wisdom joins in, then turns around, faces the setting orange ball, and thinks again of the missing woman. She has become hard to forget. Perhaps the sun has been in his eyes too long. He’s missing something and realizes it’s become personal. He admits that the woman holds some physical attraction for him.
He remembers an old film where a police detective investigates the suspected murder of a beautiful woman and becomes obsessed with her portrait, until events change and she turns up alive. In this case, the missing woman doctor named Heidi Kashani has not turned up, yet Wisdom feels an uncontrolled obsession beginning to grow. Perhaps that is why he carries the color photo of her in the pink-and-white dress that Stern gave him. There is an exotic sexuality in her eyes, and from the way Stern describes her, he can understand Stern’s own obsession. Moreover he can understand why other men might easily become attracted.
He notes that he should ask NYPD for a detailed check on Stern, and particularly his whereabouts on the day the woman disappeared. Obsession can beget violence. He has seen it too often. Still, there is no evidence of a crime, much less a death. Wisdom knows they would need considerable circumstantial evidence in the absence of physical proof. All the more reason for him to inquire about the whereabouts of Dr. Henry Stern on a chilly day this past May. Since so many capital crimes involve people who know each other, this is as good a place to start as anywhere else. He knows that the NYPD won’t be too happy. If someone goes missing outside of the city, then another jurisdiction has the problem, but in the end they’ll still help out.
He becomes lost in thought as the teams change sides. Since early in the case he’s assumed that the woman is dead. It might not even have been murder. She might have become lost in the woods and fallen into a sinkhole. All he knows is that she disappeared after leaving the bus in East Hampton, and apparently after trying to induce two separate men to drive her to the beach. She might even have gone back to Austria as some of his colleagues at County have suggested, although there is no record of her being on any scheduled flight. The fact that her parents have not offered to come to America puzzles him. The reasonable conclusion is that they know where she is, but they neither offer nor ask for help from the police.
By all accounts the woman was reasonably content at work and had a rather active social life, especially with Henry Stern. Yes, he tells himself, we’ll start with a closer look at Dr. Stern. If he was involved in Heidi’s disappearance, his behavior since then would give him an opportunity to deflect suspicion. Stern’s actions in providing the photos and insisting on interviewing other passengers all represent the expected activity of a
