Laurie puts all kinds of healthy, vegetable-ish toppings on her pizza, and she’s somehow co-opted Ricky into liking it the same way. It’s as if they order a salad with cheese and crust under it. I never thought I’d see the day when a son of mine would eat broccoli on pizza. Or broccoli on anything. Or just broccoli.
“Here’s the problem,” I say. “You guys never finish your half, and then if I want more, I have to pick off all the vegetables. The cheese sticks to them and comes off as well … and I can never get all of them. It is no way to treat a pizza; it’s a form of pizza abuse.”
“That’s a serious problem. You want to call another family meeting about it?” she asks.
That shuts me up, and I head out for the walk so that Tara and I can try to figure out what to make of the apparent disappearance of Teresa Mullins. One thing I don’t have to wonder about is if she’s really gone; if Sam can’t find her in cyberspace, then she really doesn’t exist, at least under that name.
In my mind, this sends our little investigation to a new level. It’s not DEFCON 1, but it is definitely sending off warning alerts. There could be a benign explanation for Mullins’s disappearance; maybe she was so psychologically damaged by the abduction and attack that she went to these drastic levels to leave society.
But I don’t buy it. It’s one thing to escape the press and curiosity seekers; it’s another to completely disavow your identity and escape the world. I feel like if I’m going to find out anything, I first have to find out where the hell Teresa Mullins is.
While I may not know where she is, I certainly can’t say the same about Pete Stanton. He’s at Charlie’s, the greatest sports bar / restaurant in the Western or Eastern Hemispheres, sitting at our regular table with Vince Sanders, editor of the local newspaper.
After I’d dropped off the dogs, I called ahead and told them I’d be a little late, but once they heard that I was coming, they would wait until four o’clock in the morning just to see me. It’s heartwarming, but would be even more touching if their gesture wasn’t totally a function of knowing I’d get stuck picking up the check.
As I walk in, I notice on one of the many TVs that the Knicks are up by fourteen in the second quarter. Based on their recent performance, that gives them maybe a 15 percent chance of winning. But it should be enough to put both Pete and Vince in a temporarily good mood.
Vince stands up as I approach, and for a fleeting instant, I think he is doing so to welcome me and shake hands. Instead, he walks behind me and appears to stare at my ass.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“Just making sure you brought your wallet.”
“It’s so nice to be around such caring friends.”
Pete nods. “That’s what it’s all about.”
I’ve been to Charlie’s so often for so many years that I don’t even have to order. They just bring me my hamburger, french fries so crisp that it’s impossible to believe they were once living potatoes, and a light beer.
We settle in to watch the game, and between the third and fourth quarters, with the Knicks now down by eight, I ask Pete, “Did you get the DNA results back?”
He nods. “Yeah. Same dog. Means nothing.”
“And Laurie said there were no prints on the note?”
“Not true; yours and Willie’s were all over it. Good job, Sherlock. You can play the lead in CSI: Paterson.”
I ignore that, mainly because he’s right. “You might be interested to know that Teresa Mullins is missing.”
“That the nanny?”
I nod. “That’s the nanny. We can’t find her.”
“I’m surprised you can find your hamburger.”
“So your prize witness disappears from the face of the earth after the trial, and that doesn’t even strike you as odd?”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Amazing. You have the intellectual curiosity of a gerbil.” I turn to Vince. “What do you think of a star witness who goes missing?”
“Here’s what I think,” Vince says. “I think the Knicks are about to make a comeback in the fourth quarter, and I want to watch the rest of it.”
“I’m leaving,” I say. “You guys can pay for your own food.”
“On the other hand,” Vince says, “it is quite intriguing. Compelling, really, on a conceptual level.”
Pete nods. “Certainly worth pursuing; should be fascinating to see where this leads.”
“You guys are pathetic,” I say, getting up to leave.
“Where are you going?” Vince asks.
“To look for Teresa Mullins.”
“Come on, stay for a while. In the spirit of friendship,” Pete says.
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell them to put it on my tab.”
“Good,” Vince says. “That friendship-spirit shit can get old real fast.”
’m going to have to go to Maine. As much as I’d like to avoid it, I don’t really see as if I have a choice. Laurie has called the agency and gotten the names of the people that Mullins used as a reference, as well as the name of her landlord there, since she was renting.
Laurie or I could probably conduct those interviews by phone, though in-person conversations are usually more productive. But I also want to talk to friends and neighbors of Mullins’s, and there’s no way to identify those people from here.
I’m going to go tomorrow, which means I have to find stuff to fill up the rest of today. I’m not exactly bursting with investigative leads to follow up on, so with nothing better to do, I decide to go visit with my one-dollar client.
As soon as Keith is brought into the attorney meeting room, I’m sorry I came. That’s because he brightens up with obvious hope and expectations when he sees me. Since I’m not bringing anything with me that is positive, he’s about to be disappointed.
It’s a weird situation for me; I’ve never had a client that I basically had no interest in helping before. Maybe that will change; maybe my investigation will reveal that he was wrongly accused and convicted. But the evidence is the evidence, and it was compelling. For now, I have no reason to disbelieve it.
Once I disabuse him of the notion that I am bringing good news, I ask him how well he knew Teresa Mullins. She had testified at trial that she recognized his voice and even his eyes.
“Not well at all,” he says. “I met her a couple of times at the house.”
“So she was the nanny while you were living there?”
He shakes his head. “No, she arrived probably eight months after Jill and I split up. But I came back to the house a couple of times to get my stuff. I had left a lot of it in the attic; Jill had been okay with me using it as a storage space. But as things with Jill deteriorated, I started getting the stuff out of there. Those are the times I met Teresa. It wasn’t much more than a hello and good-bye thing.”
“So you and Jill weren’t on decent terms at that point?”
“I didn’t shoot her, which is a tribute to my self-control, considering the circumstances.”
“You mean the fact that you broke up?”
“Much more than that. I…”
He stops, so I prod him to continue. “I need to know as much as possible,” I say.
“The personal relationship ended months before I left the company,” he says. “I’m not really sure what happened. It was a stressful time for her. The company was in trouble, hemorrhaging money, and she was spending all of her time trying to find investors. She was obsessed with it; that’s all she talked about. But I didn’t blame her; Finding Home was her baby.” He realizes what he said and adds, “Her other baby.”
“She found the investors?”
He nods. “Eventually. Some big equity firm. But she spent a huge amount of time on the road; later on, even a couple of months overseas. But by then, we were already done, and I think the business stress probably took a toll on our relationship. I also had a strong feeling she was seeing someone else, but she never confirmed that for me, and I still don’t know if
it was true.”
“So it was all on her?” I ask, my skepticism probably evident.
“No, I did my part. She was busy, or away, and I wasn’t a Boy Scout. I had some … is there a nicer way to put it than I cheated on her with a few people? In any event, it ended in what I guess is a typical fashion. Life goes on, you know?”
Having once been divorced, I sort of know, but I let him continue.
“The business relationship was something else,” he says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“She thought I was stealing from the company; not money, but proprietary information. Somebody gave her a tip to that effect while she was overseas raising money.”
“Were you?”
“Absolutely not. But they … we … were developing a new process at that point. So they shut me out of it; it should have been under my supervision, but I wasn’t allowed anywhere near it. I confronted them, and they told me of their suspicions. So I left.”
“Fired?”
“Absolutely. It was positioned in the press as a mutual decision to save face, but that’s not what it was, and that’s not what I wanted. I took steps to sue them and bring it all out in public. They’d have to testify in court and show evidence that I stole those materials, which they wouldn’t be able to do, because I didn’t.”
“What happened to the lawsuit?”
He makes a gesture as if to indicate the prison surroundings. “This.”
“So you left the company before Jill adopted Dylan?”
He nods. “Yes, I left while she was still in Europe. She adopted Dylan maybe a month after she got back.”
“Do you know why Mullins would have testified against you at trial?”
“I never thought she lied; I just figured she was wrong. I mean, she was attacked herself, and she must have been scared to death. The cops told her that I did it, and she must have bought into it.”
It’s a rather generous, understanding answer, and it impresses me.
“Who would have told Jill that you were being dishonest in your dealings with the company?” I ask.
“I don’t know; that’s the weird thing. If you had asked me at the time, I would have said I didn’t have an enemy in the world. But I obviously did. The funny thing is, the way they froze me out, I couldn’t have given out any information to anyone. I didn’t have any.”
“What was the process they froze you out of?”
“They developed a new DNA test. It’s apparently faster, requires a smaller sample, and is more accurate. They’ve made a fortune off of it; or at least the stock went through the roof.”
“Can you give me a list of people I can talk to that might have been involved or might have an insight into what happened?”
“Sure, but the players have moved on. Once I left, they cleaned house, anybody who had worked with me became toxic. They brought in a whole new staff; it was very unfair to my people. Although I was told they gave them very rich severance packages.” He writes out a list of people for me to talk to and gives it to me.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll keep you updated as best I can.”
“I really appreciate this. I haven’t had any real hope since Stanley died.”
The timing of that surprises me. “He died well after you were convicted,” I say. “Weren’t you in here by then?”
He nods. “Absolutely. But he told me he was working on something that could help me.”
“Did he say what made him hopeful?” I ask.
“No. He was probably just trying to keep my spirits up, but if that was it, it worked. Until he died.”
illy Cameron is a dedicated, incredibly hardworking lawyer, passionate about the law and helping those in need. He is exactly like I would be, if I were a completely different person.
Nicknamed “Bulldog” because he was a star college football player for Georgia, the name fits his legal approach as well. His tenacity is legendary; he’ll leave no stone unturned on behalf of his clients.
He’s certainly not doing it for the cash. Billy runs the public defender’s office, so his clients are almost exclusively those who can’t afford to pay an attorney. It’s a completely admirable thing to do, especially since he and his staff are terribly overworked.
On occasion, he would call and ask me to take on a client when they simply couldn’t handle the load. I did so on a couple of occasions; that was before I learned to screen his phone calls.
“You come in to offer your services?” he asks after we get the greetings and a little small talk behind us.
I turn around and look behind me, as if he were talking to someone else. Then, “I’d love to, but I have all the clients I can handle.”
“How many?” he asks.
“All together? One.”
“I’m awed by your dedication.”
I shrug. “I do what I can.”
The actual reason I’m here is because of Keith’s comment to me that Stanley Butler, his lawyer, had told him he was working on something that could help Keith’s position, that he was hopeful in the days before he died.
I knew Stanley very well, and if he had one defining characteristic, it was that he told the truth. He would not have said that to Keith unless there really was something that had come up that would provide some reason for hope. I want to find out what that was.
That real motivation is not something I want or need to share with Billy, so I simply say, “I’m representing Keith Wachtel.”
He perks up at the mention of the name; it was a big case around here. “Really? You filing an appeal?”
“Not sure yet,” I say. “For now, I’m just looking into it.”
“You must have a reason,” he says, which is his way of prodding me to reveal more.
I nod. “Yes, I must.”
“But you apparently don’t want to share it with me.”
“Apparently not,” I say.
“Does it have to do with the dog being found?”
“You’re getting either warmer or colder,” I say.
He laughs. “Okay … I give up. So what can I do for you?”
“Stanley Butler’s files were turned over to you when he died, right? Wasn’t that in his will?”
“They were, and it was. It gave us a whole bunch of new clients that we didn’t need.”
“Well, I’ll take a potential one off your hands. I’d like his files on the Wachtel case.”
“You have official representation?”
I nod. “I do.”
“You want some other cases while you’re here?”
“I don’t.”
He laughs again and calls his assistant and tells her to bring in the file on Wachtel. That gives him ten minutes to once again recount the story of the touchdown pass he caught to beat Auburn. “And then the next week we turn around and lose to Tennessee,” is how he always finishes. “We win that game, we’re in the Sugar Bowl. We win the Sugar Bowl, and I’m in the NFL. I get to the NFL, and I’m doing color on ESPN today.”
“If it’s any consolation,” I say, “I bet Tennessee and made money off your pain.” Of course, I have no recollection of the game, and as Billy is at least ten years older than I am, I would have been more likely watching cartoons than football that day.
“I feel much better now,” he says.
His intercom rings, and he picks it up. “Yes?” After a pause, he says, “Are you sure? I’ll be right there.”
He hangs up and says, “Give me a second.” Then he gets up and walks out of the room.
He doesn’t return for about five minutes, carrying a folder much smaller than I would have expected. “We don’t have any documents on the Wachtel case. There’s a file there, but it’s empty.”
“But everything he had was supposed to be given to you, right?”
“Definitely.”
“Have you noticed anything else missing?”
“Not that I’m aware of. It’s strange.”
I point to the folder in his hand.
“What’s that?”
“Photographs from the case. Stanley kept all his photographs in a separate area in his files. Makes no sense, but that was Stanley. I’m sure he knew what he was doing.”
He hands me the folder, and I open it. The one on top is a photograph of Teresa Mullins and a small infant, taken fairly close up, so I assume it was a selfie. Having never taken a selfie myself, that’s not in my area of expertise.
I also assume it’s Dylan Hickman with her, since the stroller is the same type as the one in the crime pictures. This particular stroller is enormous, with all kinds of compartments and shelves for carrying things. In the 1800s, families traveled cross-country with less storage space than in this stroller.
If nothing else, the photograph of Teresa will give me something to show people in Maine as I wander around aimlessly, looking for a clue to strike us from out of the sky.
The rest of the photographs are standard-issue crime-scene stuff. Whoever took Stanley’s files, if they had a sinister purpose, was not damaged by not noticing that the photographs were missing. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can use, or anything that might have accounted for Stanley’s apparent surge of optimism.
“If anything else turns up, let me know, okay?” I ask.
“Sure. The fact that we don’t have that file is strange.”
Yes, it is.
he trip to Maine is a momentous one, but not because of the investigation. Laurie has decided to come with me, which means we’re leaving Ricky, Tara, and Sebastian for the first time. Willie and Sondra are going to stay at our house, along with their dog, Cash. We both trust them and know everything will be fine, but that didn’t stop Laurie from tearing up when she said good-bye to Ricky.
We have been incredibly lucky in that Nancy Ohman, the sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her family next door to us, babysits for Ricky whenever we need her. I’m not surprised she does; at current babysitting rates, a few hours a week can put her through college and graduate school. But she’s almost always available, and completely reliable.
But when we’re out of town, we’re more comfortable with Willie and Sondra being there. Tara and Sebastian seemed pretty sanguine about our departure; they like Willie and Sondra and love playing with Cash. It’s only going to be for a day or two, the length depending on what we learn, but Laurie acts like we’re heading off to war.
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