Idyll Hands

by Stephanie Gayle

  “I’ve got a feeling.”

  “Policeman’s hunch?” She brushed a strand of hair from her shoulder. “Like on TV?”

  “Something like that.”

  She touched my arm, lightly. “Good luck.”

  The pressure on my arm made me wonder if she was single. No, I was not going down that path. Not because we were working together in a professional capacity, but because my track record for picking winners in this area was zero for three. And that was just the ones I’d married.

  Back at the station, it took me four calls to track down a state policeman who remembered the missing persons case. An old-timer by the name of Dawson, due to retire in three weeks. He was surprised by my call. “Elizabeth Gardner?” he asked. Was I sure?

  “No. That’s why I need dental scans, or her family dentist’s information.”

  He blew a long stream of air into the receiver. “I don’t know. I’ll have to dig through the archives.”

  “Can you rush it? I’ve got a body here, and it might be her. Her parents will want to know.”

  “They split. Mother left town ages ago,” he said. “But, yeah, I’ll look. The kids they hire these days don’t know how to alphabetize. Probably waste half a week looking under the wrong letter.” He went on for another few minutes about how standards had lapsed. Good thing he was due to retire. Malcontents on the force contributed very little. I gave him my number and told him to call anytime, though I suspected he’d knock off a few minutes before his shift ended.

  There were other sheets to review, and reports to type up, but I kept sneaking glances at the telephone.

  “You know staring at the phone isn’t going to make it ring, right?” Lewis asked.

  “How busy can Dawson be?” I asked.

  “You said yourself he’s half out the door. Look, if we haven’t heard by tomorrow, I’ll call and apply pressure.” He was so calm. I was biting my nails and snapping at people. We’d switched roles, and it was disconcerting.

  “I have to leave in twenty,” he said. “I promised Joshua I’d go to his practice.”

  Wright was a model dad. He attended his kids’ practices and games and helped them with their schoolwork. My children barely spoke to me. He left, telling me we’d have another crack at it tomorrow. Forty-five minutes passed, and I realized Dawson wouldn’t be calling tonight. I looked into the grainy eyes of Elizabeth May Gardner.

  I snatched up the phone and redialed Dawson. He was there. Maybe those prayers to St. Jude worked. “Hey, I know I just called earlier, but could you check if there’s a note in Elizabeth’s files about her teeth? I need to know if she had a gold crown?”

  “Gold crown? I wish you’d asked that straight out. I remember because we all thought that was strange. Gold in your teeth.”

  “Okay.” I pulled my notepad out. “Okay. Can you read me what she was wearing when she went missing?” He did. Jeans, blouse, boots. “I don’t suppose you know what type of jeans?”

  “Sasson. Her mother made a point of it. Guess they cost a fortune.” Tiny pinpricks along my forearms. This was what it felt like to be close, so close to resolving a twenty-year-old mystery. “Hold on,” he said. “I’ve got her dentist’s name here. Doctor Forrester. I’ll put in a call to him, but let me warn you, he’s a bit of a grump.”

  “So?”

  “So, he might not break an ankle running to help us.”

  “A woman’s been missing two decades, and he’s going to withhold help?” My voice brought heads at the station up.

  “I didn’t say that. But don’t expect a call at midnight saying we’ve got the x-rays.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  I wouldn’t sleep well. This close to an identification? No way. I’d lie on my sagging double-bed mattress and stare at the ceiling and count pretend sheep. Only I didn’t see sheep. I just counted. Maybe I’d make it to a thousand tonight. Maybe two thousand.

  CHIEF THOMAS LYNCH

  MONDAY, MAY 24, 1999

  2000 HOURS

  Post-shopping, I put away the bread and eggs and then the chips, pickles, and apples. I wiped my hands on a dishtowel and reached for the phone. Damien answered immediately. “Hello?” How was he single, given his telephone voice?

  “Hi, Damien. It’s Thomas. How are you?”

  “Well, thanks. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I have a couple of questions. It’s semi-work-related,” I paused, “but not. An unofficial look into a missing persons case in which I’m sworn to secrecy.”

  “Intriguing. What can I help with?”

  “The missing person, girl, in question, was going to have an abortion in 1972.”

  “1972,” he said. “Go on.”

  “I need to find the doctor, but aside from knowing he was in Boston, maybe in the Combat Zone, I got nothing.”

  “And you’re not partnering with the police there because …”

  “Unofficial investigation,” I reminded him.

  “Right. How old was she, your missing girl?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Prostitute?”

  “No. No. She was from a middle-class, Catholic family.”

  He didn’t point out that a prostitute could be a middle-class Catholic. He said, “How do you suppose she found the doctor?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “No, think about it. She’s a sixteen-year-old Catholic girl in 1972. Not like those doctors advertised in the Yellow Pages.”

  “Let your fingers do the walking,” I said, repeating the directory’s old motto.

  “Where would she have found that information? Maybe another girl at school?”

  “Her best friend didn’t know.”

  “Had her best friend had an abortion?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then,” he said, as if that settled things.

  “So, I have to try to figure out who might’ve had an abortion at Susan’s high school, back in 1972?”

  “Susan?”

  I swore. “Forget the name. Please.”

  “Well, unless you want the Boston Police Department’s help, yes, I’d say start there.”

  It wasn’t a bad avenue for exploration, and it might not be as hard to acquire the information as I thought. Finny had gone to the same school as his sister. He’d have known other girls her age. I’d ask him.

  “Thanks. I’ll try it. So, what’s the state’s most talented medical examiner doing tonight?”

  “The state’s most talented medical examiner is probably cooking dinner for her husband and kids,” he said. “I’m having a drink and watching a baseball game.”

  “I didn’t know you liked baseball.”

  “Love it,” he said.

  “Do I dare ask where your loyalties lie?”

  “I’m in the Yankees part of the state,” he said.

  “There’s a divider?” I imagined a ruler line within the state, something like the Mason–Dixon line for baseball fans. “I assumed people picked the team they preferred.”

  “It’s generally held that Hartford and parts west are Yankees territory. East of that you enter into the hostile land of Red Sox fans.”

  “Who’s your favorite player?” I asked.

  “Bernie Williams. Did you know he’s a classically trained guitarist?”

  “Yes.” Damien also played guitar. That’s why he had callouses on his hands.

  “Hey, while I have you on the phone, can I ask you another question?” I continued. “My brother’s getting some award at NYU, and I’m going to the ceremony. Do you think it’s okay to bring a date?” He went so long without speaking that I said, “Hello? You there?”

  “Are you asking me if it’s okay to invite the man you’ve been seeing to a family event?”

  “No. I mean, yes? I mean, do you think it would be too much, for Matt?”

  “I can’t answer that for you, Thomas. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “He might say ‘yes,’ but then I’m afraid my mother will tell
everyone she knows that her gay son is getting engaged.”

  He inhaled. “Are you?”

  “We can’t get married, and no! God, I just … don’t want her to start thinking that way.”

  He sighed. “Do you want to go with Matthew?”

  “I think so.”

  “Figure that out. If the answer is yes, then ask him.”

  “You make it all sound so easy.”

  “And you complicate every decision.”

  “I don’t, not normally. You should’ve seen me in the grocery store earlier. I was a single-minded shopping god, unlike everybody else.” What was it with people abandoning their half-full shopping carts mid-aisle?

  “I’m sure you were. Any other questions I can answer?” His tone was light, but I sensed annoyance underneath.

  “No. Sorry to bother you. But now that I know where your allegiances lie, maybe we can watch a game together?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Good night, Thomas.” He hung up. Maybe I’d bothered him. Next time I had a romance question, I wouldn’t call. I’d be an adult and handle it myself. Next time.

  DETECTIVE MICHAEL FINNEGAN

  FRIDAY, MAY 28, 1999

  0900 HOURS

  “Hello, Dawson?” I said. “Any word? But—. Hey, why don’t you give me his address? I won’t. No. Promise.” I scribbled down the address, said thanks, and hung up.

  “You got it?” Lewis asked, pointing to my notepad. “Let’s pay him a visit.” Lewis was as annoyed as I was by Dr. Forrester’s stonewalling. He’d claimed to Dawson that such old dental files were in a storage unit and he couldn’t get to them before next week. But I was sure that Elizabeth Gardner was our girl from the woods. Neither of us wanted to risk a positive identification without the dental x-rays, though. Telling her parents we’d found their daughter after all these years could only be made worse by one thing : if we were wrong.

  Lewis drove. His car was cleaner and had a nearly full tank. He told me I couldn’t smoke inside. His wife would lose her mind. “How is the missus these days?” I asked.

  “Nauseous,” he said. “And angry. It’s been a great few weeks.”

  “You tell the kids yet?” I asked.

  “We’re planning to next week, after the quad marker test. I’m worried about Simone.”

  “Because she’s the youngest?”

  “Because she likes things a certain way, and a baby is going to throw that out the window.”

  “You think Joshua will be okay?”

  “Joshua is so chill, we sometimes wonder if he’s human.”

  “Sure doesn’t get it from you,” I said.

  “Do we turn off here?” He squinted at the road sign.

  “Next exit,” I said. “So, what’s our plan? Bribery? Good cop/bad cop? Handcuff him and toss the place?”

  “You’re ridiculous.” He pushed play on his CD player, and a steady beat filled the car.

  “Who are the Roots?” I asked, turning the CD case over.

  He didn’t answer. Shook his head and said, “Just listen.”

  “Are they saying ‘the ha ha’ over and over?”

  He pulled into the right lane and said, “‘The hot music.’ That’s what they’re saying. Hearing going, huh?”

  I held my hand to my ear and yelled, “Eh, sonny? A little louder into my ear, if you please.”

  Off the exit and around the bend, it was Ireland green. Dr. Forrester’s house was on the outskirts of town. There were lots of trees and very few houses on the rough, pocked road where he lived. “Watch out,” I told Wright. “Dawson tells me the good dentist is anti-authority.”

  “He sure has a lot of Private Property signs,” Wright said.

  “I also hear he buys a lot of soup.”

  “Soup?”

  “He’s one of those Y2K nutters. Thinks the world’s going to go to hell come December 31st. He’s stockpiling bottled water and canned goods.” I’d heard of worries about computers flipping dates incorrectly, but I didn’t see how that translated into an apocalypse.

  He said, “Maybe we can bond over my fondness for Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.”

  Outside Dr. Forrester’s shingled cabin were two No Trespassing signs posted on a waist-high fence. A security camera was installed near the front door. Beside the door was a No Soliciting sign. There was no doorbell, but there was a heavy, old brass knocker. I pumped it against the door and waited. When the door opened, a short, grizzled man with dirty eyeglasses sized us up and barked, “Can’t read?” He pointed to the No Soliciting sign. He aimed the comment at Lewis. Oh, hell. Please tell me this bastard wasn’t racist.

  Lewis didn’t blink. He said, “I read very well, thank you. I’m not soliciting. I’m a detective with the Idyll Police. My name’s Lewis Wright. May I come in?”

  Dr. Forrester said no like it was a reflex.

  “Would you come outside and answer a few questions for me? It’s about Elizabeth May Gardner.”

  “I told that state cop who called earlier that the x-rays are in storage.” He adjusted his neck so as to keep both of us in sight. I walked to the side, to make the task impossible.

  “I heard,” I said. “The thing is, it seems very likely that a skeleton we’ve discovered is Elizabeth.”

  “What do you need her dental x-rays for?” He looked away from me to Lewis.

  “Proof. I want proof before I go to her parents and raise their hopes for the umpteenth time. They’ve looked at other bodies that weren’t their daughter, and I don’t want to do that to them again.”

  “Do you have children?” Lewis asked him.

  “No.”

  “Ever had your hopes dashed?” I asked.

  He shuffled his socked feet and said, “Sure.”

  I said, “Okay. Well, imagine all of your hopes, all of your dreams, all of your energy is focused on one thing. It’s not even a nice thing. It’s this: you want your child’s body back so you can bur y it. So that you can say good-bye. So that you can sleep and not dream of the terrible ways in which she is being tortured as you sleep in your own bed in your own home, safe. So that you can have conversations that aren’t interrupted with thoughts about where she might be, and who might be holding her, and what he’s forcing her to do, again, and whether she thinks you’ve given up on her, for good.”

  “Enough!” He held up his hand, to ward me off. “Enough. God. I’ll get the x-rays.” He moved out of sight, but he didn’t close the door. I wondered if the storage unit was far away, and how long it would take to get there. He reappeared, a manila folder in hand. The peeling label on its tab read “Gardner, Elizabeth M. (1959).” He opened the glass door and thrust it at me.

  I blurted, “You had it here?”

  “Take it.” He waved the folder, like I was a fish and the folder was a worm.

  I opened the folder and grabbed an x-ray. Held it up. The crown shone bright, just like it had in Dr. Finch’s office, among the shadowy teeth. The same molar. “Gold crown.”

  “Yeah, she had a gold crown, when she was eighteen. Her parents understood the value of gold. Not many people did.”

  I raced to the car to grab the folder I’d brought with us. Back to the porch I held up the x-ray to the light. The dentist emerged from behind his door and stared at the two. “That’s from the corpse?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s her then. See that cavity, there?” He pointed to a molar. I didn’t see what he did. It looked much the same to me as the one next to it. “Not filled yet. She was supposed to come in a week after … she disappeared. It never got filled.”

  Lewis said, “Thank you for your help.”

  Dr. Forrester stepped back and closed the doors. I heard him throw two bolts.

  “Guess we go talk to the staties,” Wright said. “You did good back there, with your speech. You got through to him.”

  “What a turd,” I said.

  “Well, look on the bright side. Come January 1st, he’s gonna realize he bought a whole
lot of soup for nothing.”

  Salisbury was served by Troop B of the state police, in North Canaan. The US flag hung limply on its pole in front of their station. The pole was surrounded by a bright circle of flowers. Everything neat and well presented, until you got inside. Inside, boxes were stacked to nearly the ceiling. Equipment was piled on a desk. We flashed our IDs and introduced ourselves. I asked for Dawson. Was told he was “packing up.”

  “You guys are moving?” Lewis asked, surveying a giant mound of tangled electric cords.

  “Nope. We had a pipe burst. Had to box up stuff. Moving some of it offsite while they do repairs. Dawson’s retiring soon. That’s why he’s packing. He’s down that way, second office on your right.”

  “Office?” Lew said under his breath. “Ooh la la. Fancy.”

  When we got there, we saw “office” was an overstatement. Dawson had a cramped room with two shelves of pictures, books, baseballs, and work gear. On the floor were two empty banker’s boxes. So much for packing.

  “Help you?” a voice called.

  “Dawson?” I recognized his voice from our calls.

  “You must be Detective Finnegan.” He came around his desk and I introduced Lewis. Then I handed him the envelope with the x-rays. His brows shot up when he saw what was inside. “You got the dentist to drive to the storage unit?”

  “He had them at home.”

  He made a sound of disgust. “Ornery son of a bitch. He’s still mad about some zoning law that affects his property. As if that’s got anything to do with us. This proves it, does it? Your body is Elizabeth?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Was she murdered?”

  “Looks that way,” Lewis said.

  “Raped?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I remember when she went missing. Made the nightly news six days running, but we never heard a thing. Not really.” He shook his head. “If there’s anything we can do to help, let us know.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” I said.

  “We’re going to have to tell the Gardners.” He looked dismayed by the prospect.