Kerri felt worse than she did five minutes ago. Alex was right; this would probably be just another wild goose chase, another hopeful lead that would peter out like a stuck balloon and leave her feeling about as effective as a busy fly in a jar. She sighed, pushed another Coke to him – they’d started with a six pack – and told him almost irritably to nap. She was driving because she’d slept an hour more than he had.
Alex did nap - a whole sixteen minutes of passed-out stupor with his head back on the seat till Kerri turned onto East Fourth, drove as far as Lafayette, and found a place in front of the girl’s building. Fourth floor, naturally, no elevator.
No one at the P.D. was happy about declaring Sasha Perry a runaway, even though superficially it bore the signs: in her backpack she’d taken her cell phone, extra clothes and extra shoes including her cherished new Nikes. She’d been last seen shortly after nine p.m. on June second leaving her off campus apartment - but where had she gone? And why hadn’t she called one friend – or her stepmother with whom she was on pretty decent terms? Every pal and acquaintance said that wasn’t like her. Plus she was excited to be just days away from graduation, and addicted to texting and gabbing constantly on her cell phone. So why had her phone suddenly gone silent just hours after she was last seen?
Had she planned an overnight with some secret boyfriend? One tearful friend said that was a strong maybe. What the hell did “strong maybe” mean? Others were unaware of any boyfriend. Then a friend named Grace had a stronger suspicion that Sasha was in love but wouldn’t tell who he was. That was Sasha, said Grace; if she’d been sworn to secrecy she would have enjoyed the mystery. Was he married? Grace claimed that she’d asked. Sasha had shrugged coyly and said, “Well, taken.”
Which meant either married or in a relationship and cheating. Great. That really narrowed it down, especially since only friend Grace had said that, and then had gone back to Ohio, sad but with no further ideas. Over a hundred statements led nowhere. They had a strongly suspected homicide with no body. Resources and manpower were stretched thin and over two months had passed.
This was the end. What could they do? And if this led nowhere, what could Kerri do?
10
Door 4C opened and Becca Milstein greeted them wanly. She could have been pretty except that she was rail thin, with limp, straw-colored hair and sunken features behind wire rims.
“Hi,” she said, looking downcast. “I’ve been re-thinking my call to you. This may be crazy. I don’t know if it will help.”
“Try us,” Kerri said with an encouraging smile, entering the book-crammed studio. “The smallest new detail can help.”
Jackets had been left in the car, which was good, because Becca’s little pit wasn’t air-conditioned. She had gotten used to the heat, she said as she motioned them to seats facing her African-fabric-covered daybed. Behind where she sat on the bed a small, airless window was open, but Kerri rolled her shirt sleeves higher as Alex started the questioning.
Becca explained that she was a year older than Sasha Perry – twenty-two – and that Sasha had been depressed when Becca last saw her. “When I left for Nigeria,” she said softly.
“When was that?” Alex asked.
“May thirtieth. I didn’t hear till weeks later that she’d disappeared two days after that. I got sick…”
Becca’s eyes wandered mournfully up to her African fabric wall hangings. Then she showed them a framed photo of her with friends, grinning and hugging in some airport terminal. In the photo she was full-faced and pretty; looked maybe twenty pounds heavier. She’d only lasted nine days helping the Doctors Without Borders bunch before coming down with high fever from African tick-bite disease; no vaccine or medicine can prevent it. “Five weeks in bed,” she said. “Just blotto, out of it.” When she recovered a friend in her group told her about Sasha. She had cried, but looking back her brain must have “still been shot or something” because only now was she starting to remember things. “From last spring, it seems like a million years ago.”
From an Ikea storage cube covered with health drink powders and multi-vitamins she took her laptop and cell phone. Swiped at her phone, peered at a photo, then handed it to Kerri. They’d already established a rapport since it was Kerri who had taken her call; spent time talking to her.
Kerri studied Becca and Sasha Perry’s selfie taken three and a half months ago. “Early May,” Becca said, watching her. “When Sasha was still happy.”
“When did she get depressed?” Kerri asked, handing the phone to Alex who studied the photo, then glanced back to her with a look that said, huh? Something seemed…off about the picture. The two friends were hugging and grinning, only Becca looked still school-year worn out and pale while Sasha’s face was sunburned, her blond hair streaked lighter from being in the sun. The detectives traded looks again. Well, maybe some of them caught spring rays between classes. And sunburns fade fast; why would anyone mention a sunburn?
Becca leaned and pointed to a man, back in the shadows and barely visible behind the two young women. Alex peered more closely; enlarged the photo; handed it back to Kerri who looked and said, “Whoa.”
“That guy’s what I wanted you to see.” Becca looked at both detectives. “It was weird. I was stressed and in a hurry, but after I told Sasha ‘bye and walked away something made me look back. He’d approached her, and they seemed to be arguing, I can’t be sure. In any case they knew each other, and there was something emotional going on. I’m not sure if this helps…” A helpless gesture. “Sasha knew so many people.”
Kerri asked, “Does he look at all familiar?”
“No, but I’m not very observant. Usually run around like the absent-minded professor.” Becca exhaled as if frustrated, troubled that she hadn’t paid more attention.
Kerri leaned forward. “Back to May. Sasha seemed happy then?”
“Yes. I think she was in love from, like, maybe March to May.”
Both cops traded looks, remembering: Was he married? friend Grace had asked Sasha. She had coyly replied, “Well, taken.” Until now, they’d just had that one friend’s solid suspicion of a romance.
Becca just confirmed it; confirmed, in fact, a romance-gone-bad possibility.
“Any idea who the man she loved was?” Kerri asked, breathing a little faster, realizing that said mystery man wasn’t necessarily the guy in the photo.
“No, she wouldn’t talk about it.” Becca’s too-thin fingers were opening her laptop. “Something else I want to show you,” she said, scrolling, then turning her Mac to face them. “This picture.”
It was a photo on Facebook. Not much at first, just a pretty scene of the sun setting over the Hudson. Alex and Kerri studied it as Becca explained that Sasha had shared it to her Facebook page.
The photo was dated May second. Clearly, it was taken from the middle of the river – had to be from a boat. Kerri fast-checked something in her phone.
“That was a Saturday,” she said. “To your knowledge, was Sasha friends with anyone who owned a boat?”
“No, and that’s the thing.” Becca pointed to the page. “See where I Liked and posted all excited?”
Under the photo was written Wow, nice! Whose boat were you on!? Sasha had taken the moment to Like the question - but hadn’t answered. Had avoided answering.
Becca’s hands suddenly flew. “Nothing like ‘so-and-so or the Smiths invited me, they’re family friends.’ So…when I called you I was thinking maybe her sailing friend was some guy with a jealous wife or girlfriend.”
Both cops traded looks: the photo’s date coincided with Sasha’s brief sunburn.
They asked Becca to send her selfie with the man in the background to their phones. Kerri scribbled the Facebook’s page’s location; Alex hunched closer and snapped the river photo for an extra shot.
Then Kerri asked what she’d saved for last: “Did you know Sasha was questioned for forging a narcotics prescription?”
Becca hesitated, then colored. “Yes. She
got caught, which most of us don’t.” She colored more deeply. “I mean, it was just for Adderall, but it got out of hand for her. She begged her doctor, said she was so tired and couldn’t stay awake to study, so he prescribed a little, then she wrote over his handwriting and changed the dose. She told the police she was sorry.”
They knew the story. Sasha had cried, promised to taper the amphetamine and never forge a prescription again. There’d been no charge. She was a struggling student, a good kid. Uppers and downers were all over, on every street corner practically; online too. What were they going to do? Arrest half the city?
They asked Becca if Sasha had gone back to using uppers. Again she colored, looked uncomfortable. “I think so.”
“Just think?” from Alex.
Nod. “I got the feeling she was both depressed and hyper. I asked, but it was something else she wouldn’t talk about. She wasn’t the type to lie, so if she wouldn’t talk about it…”
“You guessed she was using,” Kerri said.
A sorry shrug. “She was jittery. Hyper, especially the last few times I saw her. She was trying to do so much – work, study, volunteer at the animal rescue. Her hands shook.”
This was good, it was potentially very good. They’d reached the end of their questioning, and rose and thanked, assuring Becca that she had helped, hoping she continued her recovery.
“Keep taking those vitamins,” Kerri told her as they left, and Becca gave them her first smile as she closed the door.
On the stairs going down Alex said gloomily, “That guy in the selfie and whoever took Sasha on their boat – wouldn’t it be nice if it were the same guy?”
Kerri groaned. Her fatigue and the heat chez Becca had caught up to her. “I know - it could be two completely different people who have nothing to do with the disappearance. Where to take it from here?”
Still, it was something new, tantalizing, hard not to get excited about.
Back in the car, Alex drove and Kerri sat all bunched up in the passenger seat. “New intel that might lead nowhere,” she kept fretting. “It’s torture.”
“And they’re closing the case.”
“Not me. I’m staying on it if it takes forever.”
“When? Our open cases need overtime and – oh jeez – there’s that TV conference at four. You look exhausted. The cameras are going to think we don’t let you sleep.”
“Nah, I’ll look ravishing.”
Alex exhaled in that fretful way of his; started to ramble about cops who’d obsessed for decades over the one case that wouldn’t let go. “Just don’t kill yourself.” He glanced worriedly over to her. “You hear me?”
Kerri didn’t answer. Just stared out as he maneuvered through the heat past the Washington Square fountain again.
11
Throw a stone in Soho and you’ll hit ten bars.
Liddy chose nearby Pepe’s, dim with faux-dingy nautical trappings (squint: Hemingway’s Cuba), already ringing with salsa music and professionals crowding the after work scene.
She took a seat at the end of the bar under one of the burbling TVs; ordered a club sandwich and a glass of rosé. Laughing, yakking people jostled her back but she didn’t turn. The wine lifted her gloom a notch, and she was aware that the bartender was trying to flirt with her. She gave him the glimmer of a smile, then some vague, friendly words as she ordered a second rosé.
She was still seeing that…whatever it was on the window’s glass. The girl’s face, weeping, her hair golden in the lowering sun. She saw it, dammit! Emerging from the droplets into woeful, begging features, then dissolving again, disappearing.
Am I losing my mind? Liddy wondered.
Pity Paul had to work late. She understood that but still wished he could be here to cheer her, make her forget and dismiss such nonsense, kibitz with the strangers behind her who wouldn’t stay strangers for long - not with Paul there and everyone warmed up after a few mojitos. Paul could be charming. He could strike up conversations with anyone, crack a joke or say something clever that made them laugh, draw closer.
Liddy was the shy one, hiding behind her books and her paintings. Still, the wine was doing its job, lifting her spirits another notch, and another. She was here, in Soho! Okay, not officially moved in yet, but feeling better than she’d felt after hours alone up there in the loft’s emptiness. In the mirror behind the bar she saw herself, and was surprised. Well gosh, she was even looking prettier. The sallow look was gone and her cheeks were pink, her dark eyes more alert and larger-seeming. Oh, she was feeling better, yessir. She felt ready to be friendly; nodded and said something feeling to the woman next to her complaining about her ex. She had a sudden, crazy desire to raise her glass to herself in the mirror and think, wow, the bad time’s over and we’re here, a new beginning, well done…
Abruptly the news overhead switched from a fire in midtown to the name Sasha Perry, and Liddy tensed.
A line of police officers stood behind a man in plain clothes at the microphone. Lieutenant something Mackey, grim-faced and announcing that the investigation into the disappearance of coed Sasha Perry was now officially closed, based on the assumption that she was a runaway. There had been hundreds of tips and supposed sightings with none of them panning out, he said, seeming to speak solemnly to the microphone.
“However, we still hear occasional reports, someone just remembering something they’d previously forgotten, and I’d like to emphasize” – he looked up; said it strongly – “that one of our detectives is continuing to devote attention to this case. Detective Blasco?” He looked to the side; stepped away to make room at the mike.
She was tall, slender in a white blouse and dark blazer with dark blond hair in a ponytail, shadowed circles under her eyes. Soulful, probing eyes that scrutinized the crowd before her as if looking for bad guys.
She re-introduced herself. “Call me Kerri,” she said, squinting into late day sunlight. “As Lieutenant Mackey said, I’m keeping at this. The tips and possible sightings still come – in fact, since we announced this morning that the case was closing, they’ve started up again. Maybe that’s what police announcements do. Or maybe there’s someone out there just remembering, just getting back to town… anything. Do we have that picture, Ray?”
She looked toward what must have been a monitor as the shot switched to a photo of Sasha Perry in her graduation picture, smiling and happy with her blond hair cut to medium-length. The photo stayed for long seconds as the detective’s voice continued, then switched back to those soulful, determined eyes staring straight into the camera. “If you feel you might know something, nothing’s too small. My name again is Detective Kerri Blasco, and I’m at Midtown North Precinct, 306 West 54th Street. Thank you.”
Voices commented behind and around Liddy, and her bad feeling roared back.
Sasha Perry…the weeping girl’s face on the window glass looked like her; ditto the girl Liddy had seen and sketched walking past them on Prince Street. Or thought she’d seen? Crazy, irrational nonsense! She’d fought it for the whole long hours working and measuring in the loft and she fought it now; heard Beth saying, You’re sensitive, must have seen it at the hospital…it was another trauma…
Some compulsion made her reach to her bag, pull out her sketchbook, look at the drawing. There she was, Sasha Perry or almost her…The hair longer, the lips fuller and more serious, pursed in thought – but wait, that’s because she’d passed them just walking, not smiling for her graduation picture.
“My God, that’s her!” the woman next to her exclaimed, gaping at the sketch. “Those eyes, you’ve caught her exactly!” She’d had a few; her attention flew from the complaints she’d been making about men to the drawing. She pulled back on her stool and peered wide-eyed at Liddy. “Did you know her?”
An uneasy smile. “No, just saw her picture.” Actually she might have passed us on the street. “I sketch people’s faces a lot.”
“Coulda fooled me.” The woman hunched closer to study the sketch.
“I took studio art. The hardest thing is showing what someone feels and you’ve done it! Really captured her – hey Meg, look at this!”
Meg pushed in to see and then two other women and a man, all gibbering about what a perfect likeness. “Even have her hair longer,” one of them piped. “Like it would have been after her graduation picture. You sure you haven’t seen her?”
Liddy assured them she hadn’t, gathered up her things, and pushed out. Her heart thudded.
She got a cab at the corner of West Broadway. “Eighty-third and West End,” she told the driver and leaned back, letting out a long, pent-up breath. The wine had worked for maybe five minutes and then - forget it. Happy Hour, what a misnomer. She felt so alone, and scared, and suddenly realized she didn’t want to go home. Not right away. Paul, why do you have to be so obsessed with your work? Would it kill you to come home a little earlier? Would it kill Carl? Admit it, Paul, Carl calls the shots…he always has…
Nothing’s too small, that detective said. Kerri, her name was? She seemed nice, probably wouldn’t laugh at yet another crackpot story. They’ve gotten hundreds of tips and sightings, Liddy thought; I’d just be another one, and maybe I’ll feel better getting this off my chest.
It was after seven. Would Detective Kerri still be there? That police conference looked taped in late afternoon.
“Ah, there’s been a change?” Liddy leaned forward to the driver. “Make that 306 West 54th Street?”
The cab swerved, and she frowned. Funny, she thought, how I remembered that address. Must have planned this without realizing…
12
Kerri Blasco stood from her desk and stretched her arms. Her shoulders and neck felt stiff, her whole body half asleep. The crib upstairs beckoned, but she was wired from too much coffee.
“You gonna go home? See if it’s still there?”
Buck Dillon, last one leaving from the day shift, stopped by her desk. The squad room was mostly quiet.
Fear Dreams Page 4
