John Finn

by Vincent McCaffrey

  There were no paintings on the walls. Half a dozen books were stacked by a cushioned chair near the window. Three of those were titles I had given Des to read over the last couple of months. A box of new dishes—four place settings—sat in the corner on the counter of the kitchen with a top flap torn away. Two of those dishes were in the sink along with a single glass and a coffee mug. The cupboards were almost empty of food. A small box of tea. A box of oatmeal. Some cans of soup. Evaporated milk. A box of opened sugar. The refrigerator was nearly as empty. Some orange juice. A can of ground coffee.

  It says a lot that I went into the bedroom last.

  The bed was made. A single bed. There was a night stand and lamp. There was another book I had given her there. That one was Conrad’s Nostromo. She had noticed it on the shelf near my own bed one night when she was visiting and asked me what the word meant. Then she had taken it from me when I told her I did not understand the title or the book. She said she would read it and explain it to me. That was her. A mischievous grin lifted her face when she said it.

  Her face. I saw this for just a second then before it was gone again.

  I turned to open the closet and had just gotten a glance at that before I heard the knock on the door. Heavy handed. Something told me who it was before I opened it.

  Bill Wise stared at me eye to eye.

  “Hey, Johnny. What’s up?”

  That’s Bill. I had noticed his casual approach to matters before. He moved right in the door past me without saying anything else, and his partner followed.

  I told him. “She isn’t here. I came over to check the situation out. I didn’t think anybody else gave a damn.”

  He turned and squinted at me with a bit of irritation.

  “You called me. Remember? What’d you think, I was going to blow it off?” His eyes scanned around. His partner was already into the bedroom. Bill turned back to me. “So what do you see? Anything interesting?”

  “Nothing. Almost the opposite. The place seems empty. Like she hardly lived here.”

  He nodded and looked about himself again. “No TV. Looks like she read a bit. . . . How did you get in, by the way?”

  I pulled the keys from my pocket and said, “Forgot I had them.”

  Wise squinted again. Somehow, I don’t think he believed this, and I didn’t know why. Not until later.

  He said, “Well, to make you happy, I filed a full missing person’s this morning. Her boss still hasn’t heard from her either. A real jerk. A lawyer in charge of babysitting. He has half a dozen kids working there, all of them looking for a break with the big law firm. He just uses them for cannon fodder. They don’t seem to know that everyone with a real position in that place has got a daddy who was there before them. Or a sugar daddy.”

  I didn’t like that last add-on. It was too obviously intended for me. I tried to ignore it.

  I asked, “Did Higgins show you her personnel file?”

  Bill nodded as he turned toward the kitchen and looked into the cupboards.

  “He had it on his desk when I showed up. He was ready to send out a termination letter.”

  I pretended to know more than I did.

  “Did you call her mother on Long Island?”

  Wise fingered a small stack of junk mail he plucked from the garbage beneath the sink and spoke to me without looking up. “Yes. Her mother hasn’t heard a word. Now she’s worried too. She gave me a list of friends from when her daughter was a kid. She gave me a few first names of old boyfriends. The ones she knew of. I’m afraid you weren’t on the list, ol’ boy-o.”

  He looked up at me then with a mock smile.

  I shrugged that off, “I knew the mother lived on Long Island somewhere. She’s remarried and I didn’t know her last name or I would have called her myself. The jerk at Des’s office wouldn’t give me the information.”

  Bill nodded, showing a little understanding now, I thought.

  “Then you won’t know that your girlfriend’s first name isn’t Desiree. Do you? . . . I thought so. Desiree is the name she uses now. But her real name is Maggie. Margaret Anne. She started using the name Desiree when she came up to Boston during the summer. Her mother didn’t know why.”

  Bill’s partner stood close with something raised in his hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “Found it under the bed.”

  Bill took the strip of leather and turned it once to his eye before taking a plastic bag from his pocket. “Part of a women’s belt. Looks like it broke.”

  I have to thank Bill Wise. I don’t know him that well. He’s a friend Connie has made over the years. He didn’t say much more to me in the apartment before we both left. But he called me that night when I was at home.

  He said, “So you know that I was in the apartment yesterday for about an hour after you first called, right?”

  Now I knew. I had better be straight with him. I said, “Sorry about that . . . I picked up the keys there by the door. I got in with an old credit card.”

  He didn’t give my confession a pause. “I figured. The bolt wasn’t on the door the first time we went in either. I don’t think she lived there. I think that’s the answer to our little mystery. Your Desiree has another life somewhere else. But the report is filed. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe she’ll call you. Maybe she’s just gone off again. Her mother says she does that. After college she went to San Francisco. Then Texas. She went to Europe for awhile. She moves around . . . Personally, I think she was an unhappy girl.”

  “Woman,” I said.

  “Woman . . . And try to avoid any more breaking and entering, will you. It’s against the law.”

  I didn’t hesitate. I needed his help.

  “Yes, sir. But I’d like to know a little more about her.”

  I had slept with Desiree Perry a couple dozen times in the last two months. But I hardly knew her.

  We had spent at least part of every weekend together since we had met and several weekday evenings as well. She had told me, more than once, she didn’t want to interrupt my writing. She always left early in the mornings after a quick cup of coffee.

  In those weeks we had talked about nearly everything that came to mind. We had even spoken about such fine things as philosophy and morals. We had chewed on the issue of ethics for most of one Saturday night over ribs at the Blue Ribbon and then talked about the relative merits of pickup trucks and about football the Sunday afterward while the Patriots did a bad job. She was a Chargers fan. But, as much as I had told her about my own life, we had seldom spoken about hers. I kept trying. I knew I had to try, if for no other reason than to let her know I cared. But she never broke.

  I knew maybe half a dozen facts. She was an only child. Her mother lived on Long Island, with the third husband. Des had passed the bar in Texas. . . What else? She liked hot spicy food. No. I knew a great number of little things like that. I had made a catalogue of her small habits. What I lacked was history.

  Bill Wise filled in a bit of that on the phone Monday night.

  She had grown up Margaret Anne Perry near San Diego, California. She had attended Mission Hills High School, in a town called San Marcos. She received her law degree from the University of San Diego. She worked at an In-and-Out Burger to help pay her way. Afterward, she had worked in San Francisco at a law firm, Shippen and Douglas, for five years. Then she had moved to Houston. She was there for eight years at a firm called White, Adams, and Tucker. She had traveled in Europe for a couple of years after that, before coming to Boston. She had good performance reports along the way. She had never worked as a trial lawyer. She had never married. She had no children. Those last two things I knew already because she had told me that the day we met.

  On Tuesday I used my password and went on Connie McGuire’s company website. I sent an e-mail to the ‘Human Resources’ department at White, Adams and Tucker requesting a confirmation of their performance review and their recommendation for Margaret Anne Perry per her job application for the posi
tion of legal council at McGuire Security. On Wednesday I pushed this a bit further. I called Houston and spoke to Mrs. Guerney, the ‘Personnel Director.’ She seemed pleasant enough, so I pressed the conversation as far as I could.

  Mrs. Guerney had seen my e-mail. She confirmed the details I had offered concerning the period of employment, and the fact that Des had left the firm “for personal reasons and not for any misconduct or performance issues.” She added, “I didn’t know her, myself. She was already here when I came on board.” She hesitated. Then, “But you might want to speak with Mr. Adams. She served as his legal assistant for much of the time she was here.”

  This was something to work with. She had suggested the ‘personal’ reasons in her e-mail. It was just a guess, but I had an obvious thought about that. A frequently used excuse.

  I looked up White, Adams and Tucker on the internet, got the short bios of the partners, and then looked up George Jefferson Adams. I liked the name. There was some over-the-top resonance to it.

  Mr. Adams was an active man. He had homes in Colorado and New York as well as Houston. He was married. Had two children. He was a Yale Law School grad. He was born in Springfield, Illinois. He was Catholic. There were pictures of him at charitable functions in New York with his wife. He was a very fit man. Ruddy cheeked. Broad shouldered. I would call him good looking. I bet he liked to ski when he was in Colorado. And his wife was a knockout. Intentionally blonde. Maybe a touch of something injected into her lips. I didn’t like her on sight. There were no pictures of the kids.

  I had my theories. Everything was imagined. Just stories made up from bits of fabricated cloth. I needed something more.

  I put in a call to Mr. Adams. A secretary took my message.

  I looked at my notes for anything else. Then I called Des’s mother.

  Funny how a mother’s voice can have colors in it that are passed down. I imagine this is the voice that Des will have in a few years—slightly huskier. A bit lower. I hope so.

  Her mother was Mrs. Arnold now. I told her exactly who I was and why I was calling. I gave her more information at the start just to put a damper on any fears that I might somehow be involved in her daughter’s disappearance. I even told her I had spoken to Detective Wise.

  She said, “Detective Wise seemed to be very concerned. He seemed to think it was serious. Maybe she just didn’t go off someplace this time.”

  Mrs. Arnold appeared to accept my interest without reservation. I thought she was a little too trusting and wondered if that had anything to do with her having had three husbands. She said, “You know, Maggie seemed a little happier when she called last month. Maybe that was your fault. I hope so. . . She has her mother’s faults, I’m afraid. I’ve always been unlucky in love. . . Oh. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be accusing you of anything. I’m sure you’re a fine fellow. . . You aren’t married, are you?”

  Was that an odd question for a mother to ask? I told her “No. But I’m divorced. I have three daughters. I can empathize pretty well with your feeling about her choices in men.”

  “Yes. Well. Maggie was my only child. And I wanted the best for her. I just didn’t go about getting it in the right way.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe this will all turn out to be okay.”

  There was a prolonged silence. I suspected Mrs. Arnold was crying. I waited.

  ​Finally, she said, “No. I have a feeling about this. Something is terribly wrong.”

  ​I wasn’t going in that direction. “Try to think positively. Try to imagine other reasons she might have left. Maybe she’s hiding somewhere. Is there any reason for her to be hiding?”

  ​“I have no idea. We’ve had so little contact recently. I know she was very upset after she left Houston. That was when she went to Europe to get away.”

  ​“Do you know why?”

  ​“No. Well. I know he was married.”

  ​“What was his name?”

  ​“Jeff. That’s all I know about him. She called him Jeff once on the phone when she was upset.”

  ​I told her that I would keep looking for Maggie, for as long as it took to find her. I admitted my interest was selfish. I had only known her daughter for a few months, but I said I was in love with her. And that was the way it was. I left my number in case she had any other ideas.

  On Tuesday afternoon I went back to Des’s apartment. I even knocked before I went in. It felt odd waiting for her to answer. It was just a brief suspension of disbelief.

  As soon as I opened the door, I noticed several things had been moved. The books were now off the floor and on the seat of the chair. Interestingly, the garbage can that Bill Wise had looked into the day before, and then placed back beneath the sink, was out in the middle of the kitchen floor again. I wondered if there had been a police forensic unit in the place checking things out.

  My own interest was the closet. I wanted to see what clothes were there, but I’d been interrupted the first time by Detective Wise. I had seen Des wearing at least a dozen different outfits over the two months. Probably more. In the closet there were four blouses. Two sweaters. Two skirts. Two pairs of shoes. This was not nearly everything I had seen her wear. In the drawers below there were a few pieces of underwear. No bras. And there was no suitcase.

  I did not have a job to cover for Connie until Friday and Saturday night, so I had time to spend on this. First I had to make a few more phone calls. Mr. Adams’s secretary had left a message on my phone that he was unavailable, but also that Mrs. Guerney, the Personnel Director, might be able to help. On Wednesday morning I spent a little time on the internet, found the lowest air-fare to Houston, and made an early reservation for Thursday morning.

  I hate to fly. This was not always the case. My problem started in the Army. They would shuttle us around in those windowless C-141’s. Big planes. But in the thermals they would suddenly drop like a rock. No warning. In a second you’d have your lunch from an hour before all they way up your throat. Naturally the plane I took on Thursday went through some kind of weather system over the Mississippi valley. I was sick for the last hour of the ride. And the seats were way too small. The guy next to me had started out being unhappy from the moment I sat down, and that naturally got worse when I began throwing up. Thankfully, I hadn’t eaten breakfast.

  Houston is an ugly city. At least the part I could see. It’s hard to believe anyone would live there. Flat. Colorless. Houses that go on and on, mile after mile and look like the kind of thing designed by children in kindergarten and taped to the walls. There are a few eye catchers but most of the skyscrapers proudly display a total want of style or grace, as if their lack of distinction was a fact to their credit. Neighborhoods were outlined by scrubby trees you can even look over the tops of from the hi-way. The canal water was a green not found in the Crayola box.

  The cab ride from the airport was forty-five bucks. The driver was uninterested in conversation so I didn’t tip him. But I did mention that he might brush up his social skills before I shut the door. I was in a bad mood. Lack of food, I think.

  White, Adams and Tucker is in a faux Spanish style building fronted by well manicured palm trees. I don’t know how people can tell one of these places from the other after their second beer. It was early afternoon. I left my name with the receptionist and sat in the lobby. There were few sounds to hear between the low ceiling and the thick carpet and the hum of air conditioning. About fifteen minutes later a very neat looking woman appeared from one of several halls stretching back to the offices.

  I stood up. She did not offer to shake my hand.

  “Mr. Finn. I think I told you on the phone that Mr. Adams was not available. I’m surprised you came by.”

  “I was in the area. Just took a chance. But do me a favor, will you? Could you tell Jeff that I’m here, anyway? Just in case.”

  She reacted. I saw it in her eyes.

  I waited about twenty minutes more and Mr. Adams came in the front door. Dark blue suit and white shirt with a light b
lue tie. I have a feeling my daughter Sarah’s going to tell me she’s getting married pretty soon and I need a suit like that.

  And I figured I had disturbed Mr. Adams’s lunch somewhere, so I smiled. He introduced himself. He has muscular hands.

  I said right off, “Before you chase me out, you’ll have to tell me where the best place to eat is. I’m running on empty.”

  That cracked a little ice. Food is a common bond among some men, and I knew I had at least that much in common with him on sight.

  “It’s called Goode Company. Just a couple of blocks south from here. Try the mesquite-grilled catfish. You’ll want to move to Houston after you do. But what can I do for you right now?”

  “Can we talk privately?”

  He raised his chin. Not a full nod. Then he started back down the hall his secretary had appeared from earlier and stood by an open door waiting for me to follow. It was not his office. It was a conference room. My sense of it was that it was fairly soundproofed. He closed the door.

  There were several ways I could approach this. I had run through a couple of good scenarios while I was swallowing my nausea over Arkansas. I decided his recommendation about the catfish deserved a little honesty.

  “Maggie Perry is missing. She’s disappeared. More than a week now.”

  He took a heavy breath. I sat down. I needed to. Perhaps it was the lack of food in my stomach. Maybe it was the confrontation with this man who might in some way be responsible for Des being gone. In any case, my legs went loose at the knees and I sat down. Thankfully, Mr. Adams did as well. He adjusted the crease in his pants. He bit his lip. I got tired of the lip biting back in the Clinton years.

  “I already know that. A police detective from Boston called here a few days ago. . . What’s your interest in this? This means something more to you, I think, than just an application for employment.”