“You mean someone intended to kill her!” Mark exclaimed.
“Or picked her up at least—and then something went wrong. It could be someone whom she considered a friend but that person might have developed an obsession for her. She might have accepted a ride if that person pulled up in a car. Maybe she rebuffed his advances and he lost control. I can tell you that even after nearly twenty-eight years the case is never considered closed. Recently the bodies of four women, some of whom had been missing for more than twenty years, were found buried together, the work of a serial killer. DNA was retrieved from the bodies and identified by comparison with DNA that their family members had contributed in recent years to the police database that is maintained just for circumstances like this.”
“Neither my mother nor I have ever been asked to give DNA,” Mark said. “That doesn’t say much to me about her case remaining open.”
Greco nodded. “I fully agree, but it’s really never too late. I’ll call the detective bureau and make sure it is arranged for both of you. Your mother will be contacted to give the sample. Tell her not to worry about it. It’s just a swab inside your mouth with something like a Q-tip.”
“So right now you’re not aware of anyone ever having been a suspect?”
“No, there never has been. Even though I’m retired, the guys at the bureau would have let me know if there had been any developments. The only question we had—and still have—is the significance of this picture that Tracey had on top of her dresser.”
Mark looked. Tracey, beautiful, with her long hair and vivacious smile, was sitting at a table with two women and two men.
“This was apparently taken one of the nights when Tracey joined her friends at Bobbie’s Joint,” Nick said. “We checked all four out and saw no connection. But somehow I always felt that this picture is telling us something and I’m missing it.”
37
In one way Clyde Hotchkiss was very careful. He always tried to save enough money from panhandling to have enough subway fare for at least one ride. Where he was going didn’t matter. He would get on a train late at night and get off to go to his van, or wherever he wanted. Sometimes if he fell asleep he rode to the end of the line and then back to Manhattan.
After the fight with Sammy, and then being thrown out of the garage driveway on Sunday morning, he had pulled his cart to Thirty-first Street to join the St. Francis bread line. Then, because he knew Sammy would talk to his homeless friends about what had happened and they might gang up on him, he decided to do the one thing he hated to do: stay at a homeless shelter on Sunday night. But when he got there, being near so many other people nearly drove him crazy. It was as though Joey Kelly’s body were again pressing against his in Vietnam, but even so he stayed. He was coughing a lot and the pain from his old hip injury was getting worse and worse. And the fact that he had forgotten the picture of him and Peggy and Skippy when he had fled the van was now bothering him a lot. At first he hadn’t cared, but now he knew that he needed the comfort the picture gave him, the feeling of being loved. He hadn’t seen Peggy or Skippy in all these years, but their faces were suddenly so clear in his head.
And then Joey’s face and the face of that girl began to follow the faces of Peggy and Skippy, going round and round like in a carousel.
On Monday it began to rain again. Clyde’s cough got deeper as he shivered, crouching against a building on Broadway. Almost no one in the hurrying crowd stopped to drop a coin or a dollar bill in the ragged cap he had placed near his feet. His luck was changing and he knew it. He had become so used to the nightly protection of the van that he couldn’t last much longer in the streets without it.
Cold and wet, he dragged his cart downtown to another shelter that night. As he arrived at its door, he fainted.
38
“Mommy dancing in her red satin shoes.” The memory was so clear to Kate as, again, pictures began to form in her mind while she lay deep in the induced coma that the doctors hoped would save her life. Mommy was wearing a red gown and the red shoes. Then Daddy had come into the room and said how beautiful Mommy looked, and he picked me up and danced Mommy and me out onto the terrace even though it was beginning to snow. And he sang to me. Then he danced Mommy and me around the bedroom. The next night Daddy and Mommy had gone out on the fishing trip.
Kate remembered that after Mommy died, she had taken those red satin shoes and hugged them over and over because when she did she could feel Mommy’s and Daddy’s arms around her. Then Daddy had taken them away from her. He seemed different. He was crying and said it was too sad to look at them and that it wasn’t good for me to hug them anymore. And then he said that he would never dance with anyone else as long as he lived.
The memory disappeared and Kate slipped back into a deep sleep. After a while she heard the murmur of a familiar voice and felt lips kissing her forehead. She knew it was Hannah but she couldn’t reach her. Why was Hannah crying?
39
By noon, the wrecked van had been taken to the crime lab to be examined, inch by inch, to try to learn who had been using it as a shelter. And if that person had been there the night of the explosion, could he or she have had anything to do with it?
“It certainly opens up another possibility,” Frank Ramsey told Nathan Klein. They were on their way to talk to Lottie Schmidt. “We know that whoever stayed there had Wednesday’s newspaper with him. Probably fished it out of a trash barrel. There were pieces of food stuck to it. My guess is that he or she, but I’ll bet it was a he, would get onto the complex at night. No watchman. No security cameras. And probably would leave early in the morning before anybody came to work. And it’s been going on a long time. The earliest newspapers are nearly two years old.”
“And if he didn’t have anything to do with the fire, he may have heard or seen something or someone there.” Klein was thinking aloud. “It will be interesting to see if any DNA or fingerprints match anyone on file.”
“You know that there are two guys who won’t be happy to hear that the explosion might have been set off by a vagrant. Our friends the insurance investigators,” Frank observed. “They’ll have a hell of a time denying payment to the Connellys if this guy is identified as having a criminal history, especially if it includes arson.”
Frank had called ahead to Lottie and asked if they could drop in on her for a few minutes. He had heard the resignation in her voice when she said, “I was expecting that you would want to see me again.”
Thirty-five minutes later they were ringing the bell of her modest home in Little Neck. With a practiced eye, both men observed that the shrubs were neatly cut, the mature Japanese maple tree in the front yard had obviously been recently pruned, and the driveway appeared to have been resurfaced.
“Looks like Gus Schmidt took great care of his house and property,” Nathan observed. “I bet those shutters have all been freshly painted, and you can see where he touched up the shingles on the right side.”
Lottie Schmidt opened the door in time to hear the last comment. “My husband was a meticulous man in every way,” she said. “Come in.” She opened the door wider and stepped aside to admit them. Then she closed it and led them into the living room.
With one glance, Ramsey could see that it was furnished in exactly the same way as his own mother and father had furnished their own living room fifty years ago. A couch, a club chair, a wing chair, and end tables that matched the coffee table. Framed family pictures on the mantel and another grouping of them on the wall. The rug, an imitation Oriental, was threadbare in a number of spots.
Lottie was wearing a black wool skirt, a white high-neck sweater, and a black cardigan. Her thinning white hair was pulled into a neat bun. There was a weary expression in her eyes and both marshals noticed that her hands were trembling.
“Mrs. Schmidt, we’re so sorry to have to see you again. We certainly don’t want to upset you any more than you already are. But we do want you to be aware that the investigation into the cause of the expl
osion is not over, not by a long shot,” Frank Ramsey said.
Lottie’s expression became wary. “That’s not what I’m reading in the newspapers. Some reporter from the Post has been talking to Gus’s friends. One of them from the bowling team, who still works at Connelly’s, told the reporter that only a few weeks ago, Gus told him to throw a match onto the complex and do it for him.”
“Let’s go back a little. When your husband was fired, was it completely unexpected?”
“Yes and no. They had had a wonderful manager for years. His name was Russ Link. He was running the business ever since the boating accident. Douglas Connelly virtually handed the daily operations over to him. Douglas would show up maybe two or three times a week when he wasn’t on some kind of vacation.”
“Was the business doing well under Russ Link?”
“Gus said that the problems were beginning even before he left. Their sales were really falling off. People just weren’t into that kind of furniture the way they used to be. People want comfort and easy upkeep, not baroque-style couches or Florentine credenzas.”
Lottie paused, her eyes brimming with rage. “Gus was their finest craftsman. Everybody knew that. The market was dwindling, but no one could copy a piece of furniture like him. He put loving care into every piece of furniture. Then that miserable Jack Worth replaced Russ and in a few months Gus was gone.”
“How well did you know Jack Worth?”
“Personally, not very well at all. The annual Christmas party was usually it. Gus told me that Jack was always hitting on the young women who worked there. That was why his wife divorced him. And he has a nasty temper. If he was in a bad mood, he lit into anyone around him.”
“Under those circumstances I would think Gus might have been glad to leave Connelly’s,” Nathan Klein observed.
“Gus loved what he was doing. He knew how to stay out of Jack’s way.”
Frank Ramsey and Nathan Klein were sitting on the couch. Lottie was sitting in the wing chair. Frank leaned forward, his hands clasped. He looked directly into Lottie’s eyes. “Is your daughter still staying with you?”
“No. Gretchen went back to Minnesota yesterday. She is a masseuse and has a very active clientele.”
“She told me she is divorced.”
“For many years. Gretchen is one of those people who is naturally single. She’s perfectly happy with her job and friends, and she’s very active in the Presbyterian Church out there.”
“From the pictures we have seen, she has a very beautiful home,” Klein remarked. “I would say it’s probably worth at least a million dollars. She told us that her father had bought it for her around five years ago, a few months after he was fired. Where did Gus get the money for that?”
Lottie was ready for the question. “If you examine our checkbook, you will see that Gus ruled the roost as far as money was concerned. He paid the bills and gave me cash for groceries and incidentals. He was very thrifty. Some people would even say that he was cheap. Five years ago, around the time I was in the hospital, he bought a lottery ticket and won three million dollars. I forget which state the lottery was in. He was always buying twenty dollars’ worth of lottery tickets every week.”
“He won a lottery! Did he pay taxes on that money?”
“Oh, I’m sure he did!” Lottie insisted. She began to explain: “Gus was always worried about Gretchen, that when something happened to us, she might go through any money we could leave her. When he won the lottery, he did what he thought was the best way to make sure she would be okay. He bought her that house and she loves it. With the rest of the lottery money, he bought an annuity for her so that she’ll always have an income to keep it up.”
Lottie looked directly at both marshals. “I am quite weary, as I think you can understand.” She stood up. “And now may I ask you to leave?”
Silently the men followed her to the door. After she closed it behind them, they looked at each other. They did not need to exchange words. They both knew that Lottie Schmidt was lying.
Then Frank said, “No matter where he supposedly won the lottery, the state would automatically keep part of it as a tax payment. We can easily check this. But I predict that we’ll soon find out that Gus Schmidt never won any big lottery.”
40
At the crime lab, both the interior and the exterior of the wrecked van were methodically examined for evidence that might lead the police to the vagrant who had spent so many nights there. The empty bottles of cheap wine and the stacks of yellowing newspapers were brought out and methodically dusted for fingerprints. Ragged pieces of clothing were studied for stains of blood or other bodily fluids, as well as identifying labels. The padded floor and walls of the van were scrutinized under special lab lamps to make sure that no possible clue would be missed. Strands of human hair were placed in plastic bags.
Of enormous interest was the family picture in the battered silver frame that had been found in a corner of the interior, covered by a shabby sweater. “That picture was obviously taken decades ago,” Len Armstrong, the senior chemist, commented to his assistant, Carlos Lopez. “Look at the way those people are dressed. My mother wore her hair like that when I was a kid. The father’s shaggy haircut, with those long sideburns, are like the pictures I’ve seen of my uncle in the seventies. And this frame has been around for a long, long time.”
“The question is whether the picture has anything to do with the guy who was squatting here, or is it something he found in the garbage,” Lopez replied. “The marshals might want to try posting it on the Internet to see if anyone recognizes it.”
They were nearing the end of the stacks of newspapers. “We’re going to get enough prints off these to keep the FBI busy for a month,” Lopez observed. Then, his voice suddenly crisp, he said, “Wait a minute. Look at this!” He had uncovered a spiral notebook in the midsection of one of the newspapers and opened it.
The first page contained only a few sentences: “Property of Jamie Gordon. If found, please call me at 555-425-3795.”
The two chemists looked at each other. “Jamie Gordon!” Len exclaimed. “Isn’t she the college kid whose body was dragged out of the East River about two years ago?”
“Yes, she is,” Lopez said grimly. “And we may have just found the place where she was murdered.”
41
After his lunchtime meeting with Nick Greco, Mark Sloane stayed at his desk until after 6 P.M., trying to put off the moment when he would call his mother to ask her to have a DNA swab taken to help in the search for Tracey. Talking to Greco had brought back so many memories for him. He had been only ten years old, but he remembered his mother’s heartbroken crying when she learned that his sister was missing. He had stayed with neighbors while she went to New York. She had stayed a week in Tracey’s apartment as the intensive police search went on.
Then, taking the sympathetic advice of the police, she had flown home. Her face ravaged with grief, she had told him that the police thought that something bad had happened to Tracey. “I’m going to hope and pray,” she had told him. “I still think that maybe Tracey had some sort of memory loss. She was working so hard and taking all those classes. Or she may have had a breakdown.”
His mother had even continued to pay the rent on Tracey’s apartment for six months. Then, no longer able to keep it up, she had gone to New York again, that time to pack up Tracey’s clothes and other personal items and bring them home. For another year she had stored Tracey’s furniture in a warehouse but then had told the owners of the facility to give everything to the Salvation Army.
All of this was running through Mark’s mind before he finally made the phone call home. To his surprise and relief, his mother told him that she had already been contacted by Detective Greco. “He was so nice,” she said. “He said that you were going to call me, but he wanted to first assure me that this was an important step to help the process of bringing Tracey home someday. I told him that I remembered how kind he had been all those years ago and
that I’ve always been so grateful.”
She changed the subject to ask about his new job and his apartment. When their conversation ended, somewhat heartened by having spoken to her, Mark left the office. He had planned to sign up at the gym in his neighborhood, but instead he decided to go straight home. In the lobby, again waiting for the elevator, he saw the tall, attractive redhead who had been with Hannah Connelly when the marshals had arrived.
She gave him a brief smile, then turned her head away.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that she’s terribly upset, he thought. “I’m Mark Sloane,” he said. “We rode up in the elevator together the other day. Since then I’ve read the story of the explosion at the Connelly factory. How is the sister who was injured doing?”
“She’s developed a fever,” Jessie said, quietly. “Hannah is going to stay overnight in the hospital and asked me to pick up some of her personal things.”
The elevator arrived and they got into it. Mark fished out his business card and handed it to Jessie. “Look, I’m Hannah’s new neighbor. If there’s anything I can ever do to help out, I hope she or you will call on me.”
Jessie looked at the card. “Jessie Carlson. And I’m a lawyer, too. You read about the explosion, so I guess you know that Hannah’s sister, Kate, may be accused of setting it. I’m representing her.”