by R. G. Belsky
I pushed open the metal gate, walked up the steps, and knocked on the front door. A woman who looked to be in her late twenties answered. She had frizzy blond hair, and she was wearing blue jeans and a white blouse, which were covered with a plastic smock. The smock had splotches of paint on it. She was carrying a small paintbrush in her hand. Probably an artist, I decided.
“Liz Girabaldi?”
“Yes.”
I told her who I was.
“I have a strange favor to ask. I’d like to come inside for a few minutes and look around your house. I know this probably doesn’t make any sense to you, but I’m …”
“This is about Lucy Devlin, right?”
“You know?”
“Sure. I didn’t know when I bought the place. The real estate agent conveniently neglected to tell me before I closed the deal. But pretty soon people started coming around, just like you today, because this is almost like a tourist attraction. Home of the little girl who vanished. To be honest, I’ve actually come to believe it’s a good thing. I mean it probably will raise the property value for this place if I want to sell it. Anyway, you might as well come in and take the tour.”
I followed her down a hallway and into the living room. The place looked different, of course, with new furniture and a new color of paint on the walls and even a new fireplace I didn’t remember being there before. But the basics were still the same. A living room and kitchen and small study that Patrick Devlin used for his office on the first floor. The bedrooms were upstairs, one for the Devlins and the other for Lucy.
I thought about the last time I’d been inside the Devlins’ house. It had probably been that day I made the tearful vow to Anne Devlin that I’d never forget about the search for her daughter, no matter what. I tried to imagine Lucy in this house. As a little girl, playing amid a loving family. Did she have any premonition of something bad happening that last day? Or was she blissfully unaware until the end of the evil that existed in the world?
I walked upstairs to the bedrooms. I went into the one that used to belong to Lucy first. Liz Girabaldi had converted it to an artist’s studio. But when I closed my eyes, I saw Lucy in there—playing video games, watching TV and doing her homework. I walked around the room with a purposeful air, as if I knew what I was looking for. But, of course, I didn’t. There was nothing there for me.
The main bedroom was different, too. I remembered the Devlins had it filled with pictures of them as a family. Anne and Patrick with Lucy at Disneyworld or at the beach or just playing with a dog in the neighborhood.
Now the walls were covered with art, mostly pictures of landscapes and street scenes. I assume they were Liz Girabaldi’s. The only picture was one of Girabaldi and another woman with their arms around each other. I also noticed there were two end tables, one at each side of the bed. The first one had a book about art theory lying on it, the other a Sandra Brown novel. I’d noticed two sets of everything in the bathroom, too. Probably Liz Girabaldi lived with someone. Maybe the woman in the picture. Maybe they were a lesbian couple.
Not that it mattered, but I couldn’t help but be aware of stuff like that. I thought of them making love in this same room where Patrick and Anne Devlin had once slept. Anne had said Lucy had talked about her father wanting to have sex right before she disappeared. I tried to block that thought out of my mind, but the image was too strong. I got out of the bedroom in a hurry and went back downstairs.
I opened the back door onto the yard behind the town house. It was surrounded by a big wooden fence that always made it seem like a bucolic spot secluded away from the hustle and bustle of New York City. I remembered that fifteen years ago when I’d been here, Anne Devlin had an overflowing garden in this yard that she painstakingly maintained. Now the garden was gone, and it was just a backyard. Liz Girabaldi must not be into gardening. Or maybe Anne gave up on the garden herself before they sold the house once her daughter was gone. A lot of stuff changes in fifteen years.
“Find what you were looking for?” Liz Girabaldi asked.
“I’m not even sure what that was.”
“Did you know the little girl that lived here?”
“I covered the story.”
“And now you’re covering it again.”
“In a way, it never really ended for me.”
She asked me if I wanted any coffee. I said sure. I didn’t really want coffee, but I wanted to spend a few more minutes in this house where Lucy Devlin had once lived.
“You’re an artist?” I asked after we sat down.
“That’s right.”
“You make a living doing that?”
“Not yet, but I’m hopeful.”
I looked around the apartment. I pretended like I was interested in her paintings, but the truth is I don’t know a damn thing about art.
“Not that it’s any of my business, but how do you afford a Manhattan town house like this as a struggling artist?”
“My father paid for it.”
“Why?”
“He believes in me as an artist.”
“So, you get to paint pretty pictures all day and your father pays the bills?”
“Something like that.”
“Nice work if you can get it.”
“Well, I guess we can’t all do something as socially significant as working for a television show.”
“Good point.” I smiled.
She took a big sip of her coffee. There was something she wanted to say.
“I think about her sometimes,” she said. “That little girl who lived in this house. It’s like I can almost sense her presence. Or at least I think I can sense her there. It’s an eerie feeling, but nice, too. Not a scary ghost, more like a friendly one. Do you think there’s any possibility that she’s still alive?”
“No … yes … I’m not sure.”
“If she were alive, I wonder what she’d do. What if she decided to come home? I mean, the last home she remembers as a little girl would be this one, right? Where would she go? I mean, I might open up my door one day, just like I did to you today, and Lucy Devlin could be standing there.”
“If that happens,” I said to Liz Girabaldi, “be sure you call me first.”
* * *
I was supposed to meet Elliott Grayson for our drinks date that night. I had a little time to kill before that.
So, after I left Liz Girabaldi at the town house, I walked toward Third Avenue where Anne Devlin had put her eleven-year-old daughter on a school bus. Taking the same route that Lucy and her mother did on that fateful morning. I tried to pretend I was her, looking at the trees and the cars and the street as I walked. Were those the last images Lucy ever had?
By the time I got to Third Avenue, the last place anyone saw her alive, I realized I was shaking.
Not out of emotion, but because the temperature had really dropped while I was inside that house. The snow was definitely coming. People around me were bundled up in fur coats and scarves.
It was cold.
Very cold.
Just like the trail for Lucy Devlin.
CHAPTER 18
THE SNOW HAD begun to fall by the time I left to meet Grayson for our date—or whatever the hell it was. It started as a light dusting, but when I got to the bar, the streets were already covered in white. I was wearing a coat, but it was a thin spring one—and I was completely unprepared for snow. I also had absolutely no idea what I was going to say to Grayson when I got there. All in all, I was not exactly ready for prime time here.
The bar he’d picked was one of the trendy spots in SoHo. The kind of place where the prices are so high that the only people who can afford to go there are on big expense accounts. On top of that, it was almost impossible to get into. There was always a line of people outside, and the wait could last for hours.
I didn’t have to wait, though. Grayson had left someone at the door to let me in. I was whisked past the masses outside and led into the bar area. Grayson was waiting for me there, surrounded b
y a group of advisers and onlookers. He moved away from them when he saw me coming, leading me to a corner table where we could be alone.
I ordered a gin and tonic. He was drinking bourbon straight up.
“Some weather,” he said.
“Unbelievable weather,” I agreed.
“Snow in April. I mean, it’s supposed to be April showers bring May flowers.”
“I just wore a new spring outfit yesterday.”
“Did you ever see weather like this?”
“I think I remember walking in the snow one April day a long time ago.”
“No kidding?”
“Actually, it might have been in March.”
“Okay.”
“And it might not have been real snow … maybe just sleet or a frozen rain.”
“Right.”
“As a matter of fact, I might just be remembering something I saw in a movie once.”
I’d pretty much run out of things to say about the weather at this point.
“I watched your piece about me on TV,” Grayson said. “It was good. Although I must say that the actual interview in my office that day was even more … well, interesting.”
There was something I wanted to know.
“I think—and correct me if I’m wrong—that you were checking me out during that interview.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were looking at my legs.”
“I was not looking at your legs.”
“Oh, you were looking at my legs.”
“Can you prove that?” He smiled.
“Actually, I can—the whole thing is on video.”
“Are you telling me that you went back to that video and watched it just to see if I was indeed looking at your legs, as you somehow suspected I was?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“What did the video show?”
“It was kind of inconclusive.”
“I rest my case.” He laughed. “Look, your legs are extremely attractive. Very nice legs. You should be damn proud of those legs, Clare. But I’ve seen a lot of good-looking legs in my time. I mean, as great as your legs are, they’re not keeping me up at night or anything. Okay?”
“Okay. Glad we got that cleared up.”
I decided it was time to try and cleverly segue into another topic.
“Let’s talk about you and Patrick Devlin,” I said.
“Lucy Devlin’s father?”
“Yes.”
“You’re still hung up on this Lucy Devlin thing?”
“Do you know Patrick Devlin?”
I realized I’d posed the question the wrong way. I’d done it as if I knew he knew Patrick Devlin. So he knew I already knew something. If he denied it, I had him. But he wasn’t going to deny it.
“Sure, I know Patrick Devlin,” he said.
“How?”
“We met a long time ago when we were both younger.”
“When you were both in motorcycle gangs?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you know him well back then?”
“Just casually. We were in different gangs, different places. We didn’t exactly hang out together that often.”
“Have you seen him recently?”
“Yes, he contributed money to my Senate campaign. He lives in Boston now, but he still does some construction projects here in New York City. He believes in some of the things my campaign stands for and also, I suppose, he wants to be on the winning side once I get elected. His contribution is on file with campaign election officials for anyone to see. What is this all about anyway?”
The waiter brought my gin and tonic to the table. I took a sip.
“Why don’t we do this the easy way?” he said. “How about you just tell me what you’re looking for, and I’ll do my best to help you. That’s one of the reasons I asked you to meet me here tonight. So we could straighten this all out.”
“One of the reasons?”
“One of the reasons,” he repeated.
I told Grayson pretty much everything I’d discovered over the past few days. Except for the part about Big Lou being the source who had named him, of course. When I was finished, I took a big gulp of my drink and waited to see what he was going to say. I was hoping he might confess to something—anything—but I wasn’t exactly counting on it.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, I think you’re going about this all wrong,” he said. “I mean, there are a lot of holes in your story. First, you get a hold of this anonymous e-mail that claims Lucy might have been at this motorcycle convention with a man named Elliott. Another source—you won’t say who—just happens to remember now that they saw her with me. Even though all this happened years and years ago, and no one ever mentioned a word of it until now. Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?”
I had to admit that I’d thought the same thing.
“And the grave with the six kids up in New Hampshire really has nothing to do with Lucy Devlin. You’ve got absolutely no connection, as I see it, except for the fact that they both—the supposed sighting of a little girl who might have been Lucy Devlin and the discovery of the six bodies—happened in the same general area.”
I couldn’t argue with that either.
“As I told you in my office, Clare, there’s a lot at stake in this election. For me and for the other side. There are people out there who would do anything to smear me by making up some kind of bizarre connection to this case. My point is that I believe someone is using you. And using the memory of that poor missing little girl.”
“Assuming that were true—and I’m not saying I agree with you—how would I go about finding that out?”
“If I were you, I’d go back and check out everything you found out from the beginning.”
“Check out what?”
“Everyone you talked to.”
“Like who?”
“Well, you won’t like my answer. But you didn’t really talk to that many people. Not to the person who sent the e-mail. Neither did Lucy’s mother. Everything else you have is pretty much out there—the Mountainboro conference, me riding with a motorcycle gang a long time ago, the fact that Patrick Devlin was once in a motorcycle gang, too, and that he recently contributed to my campaign. Which only leaves you one person you know who might be feeding you bogus information for some reason.”
“My source.”
“Your source,” he said.
Big Lou.
We talked for a while about what I’d found out in talking to the families of the six dead children from New Hampshire. I told him about meeting Ralph and Janis Manielli and Victoria Gale. About the different impacts tragedies like this seemed to have on families. How the Manielli family barely gave a thought to Joey, while Victoria Gale’s life had been shattered. Even her relationship with her surviving daughter was irreparably changed by what had happened.
“I don’t understand that,” I said when I’d finished telling him about Samantha Gale’s break with her mother.
“Who knows?” he said. “Maybe you’d react like that, too, if it was your brother or sister who just walked out the door one day and never came back.”
“I’m an only child.”
He nodded.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I had a sister, but she died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” He shrugged.
An aide came over and whispered something in Grayson’s ear. He explained to me that he had to leave in a few minutes for a campaign appearance. This was a busy guy.
“There’s one more thing I wanted to say to you,” Grayson said. “As you probably know, I have a lot of power, a lot of clout. I like to take care of my friends, and punish the people who are against me. I have the ability to do that. If I get elected to the Senate, I’ll have even more power and more clout. Do you know what I’m saying here, Clare?”
“Are you threatening me? Trying to scare me away from pursuing th
is story? Because I don’t respond well to threats. They just make me mad.”
“My God, Clare, I was about to offer you a job.”
“A job?”
“Yes, with my campaign. I like you. You’re smart, you’re tough, you’re not afraid of anything. I could use someone like you on my team.”
“I already have a job with Channel 10.”
“Forget about TV. If I get elected to the Senate, you get to come along for the ride. Like I said, lots of power and lots of clout and lots of influence. That sounds much more rewarding than working for a TV station, doesn’t it? Are you interested?”
I shook my head no.
“Bribery doesn’t work on me either,” I said.
The aide signaled Grayson his car was ready. I stood up. He stood up. I figured that was a signal our meeting was officially over.
“I have one more question for you,” I said to him. “You told me that trying to straighten things out between us over this Lucy Devlin business was one of the reasons you wanted to see me tonight. I’m curious. What was the other reason?”
He leaned forward and put his mouth right next to my ear. “I really did like your legs,” he whispered.
Then he kissed me softly on the cheek and left.
I watched him walk out the door with his entourage. Then I sat back down and finished my gin and tonic in one big swig.
Nope, threats and bribery don’t work on me.
But flattery … well, that’s another story.
CHAPTER 19
GRAYSON WAS RIGHT. There was something wrong with my source. Something wrong about Big Lou’s story.
I’d sensed it even before he brought it up, but I had tried to put it out of my mind. Now I wanted some answers.
Big Lou wasn’t at the Warlock Warriors headquarters in Hell’s Kitchen. Neither was Sandy Marston. I asked one of the people there when they were expected back. Whenever they feel like showing up, was the reply. It took a while, but I finally found out that they had gotten on their motorcycles and hadn’t been seen since then. Right after Big Lou came to my office to tell her story.
They could be far away by now, of course. Roaming the country on their motorcycles like something out of Easy Rider. If they were, I had no chance to track them down. I had to hope they went to a specific destination. Someplace I could figure out, find them, and go talk.
