She didn’t say anything, but I could tell she was listening.
I heard a rush of air. “I’ve got to go. What will I do? I’ll have to sell half my portfolio.”
“Wait, Cassandra, they don’t expect all that money up front.”
“I shouldn’t be talking to you.”
But she was of two minds—she’d called me, hadn’t she?
“They must want something up front.” Somehow I’d have to pry the information out of her. The longer I kept her on the line, the better. Again I put on my Lorraine cap and talked about my children. Easy for me to do since I could hear Robbie crying in the background and Denny calling my name. He couldn’t find the diapers. I had visions of Robbie wetting down the place: he was capable of it. “In the closet,” I yelled.
“I’ve got twins,” I told her. “When one’s quiet, the other one is not. Sometimes it’s double trouble in different directions. Right now my husband can’t find the diapers and my son just finished a whole bottle.”
It was the distraction Cassandra Thatchley needed. She whispered, “Ten minutes ago, I received a call on my phone. How did they get this number? No one knows it. No one. Some professors give theirs out like candy, texting all over the place. Not me.”
“Who knows it?”
She was quiet for a few seconds. “My children, Mrs. Hampton, my lawyer, my financial advisor, the police, you …” She stopped talking. “There’s someone else I’ve given it to, I must have done, I’m sure, and I can’t remember who it is.”
“Dorset’s school?”
“Of course.”
“Anyone else?” I asked, busy writing down the names she’d given me. We’d have to interview all of them.
“Oh, it’s so hard. Why do we have these things anyway? Ronnie’s mother, maybe, and Ben’s mother, too. We still keep in touch.”
Hurried footsteps from above. “Not there!” Denny yelled to me. He sounded frustrated. “And Robbie’s peeing all over me.”
“Look again,” I yelled out to him. “It’s a new brand your mother got for us—something about bum and genius on the packaging. They must be gold-plated: only a grandmother would buy.”
I heard a small chuckle from Cassandra. The woman took her time, but finally began talking, telling me she’d just gotten home when her mobile began ringing. She wouldn’t tell me the amount of the kidnapper’s demand, only that it was huge. They’d given her three days, but they needed earnest money right away. Cash. They told her to place ten percent in a plastic bag and take it to the corner of Prospect and Washington Streets tomorrow at noon and wait. Someone in a trench coat and baseball cap would be standing underneath the Brooklyn Bridge overpass to collect it.
“They said if I didn’t deliver, I’d never see my daughter again. And if I told the police or ‘that crazy woman with the red curls’—their words—Dorset’s blood would be on my hands.”
So they must have been watching the house and knew who I was. “Do you have that kind of money lying around?”
“I just need a few hundred more. I’ll stop off at the ATM on my way.”
Swell. Now the woman sounded as if she were doing a casual shop. But I relaxed, too, since all was quiet upstairs. More important, judging from the information I’d gotten from Cassandra Thatchley, these kidnappers didn’t sound very professional. For one thing, they’d called the woman on her mobile, a call which I hoped would be easy to trace; and for another, they’d picked a spot at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. For sure there’d be cameras all over the place. Even more important, Dorset’s take was for money, not for sex. Still, I felt my shoulders and neck tense.
“Did you check to see if your phone picked up their number?”
She hadn’t thought of that. I waited for her, and when she came back on the line, she gave me a number that began with a 701 area code. I put her on hold while I googled it and discovered that the three-digit code was for a town in North Dakota. It didn’t make sense. I saw yellow flecks and my head began to spin. I needed to call Tig and Jane. Once again placing my children and Denny on the back burner, I asked Cassandra Thatchley to wait for me. I’d be over. I wanted to take a look at her phone, just to make sure. More important, I had more questions for her. Besides, I needed to sense the mood in the house, and if I were lucky, her son would be at home; I had as yet to interview him.
She objected, saying my visit was unnecessary, so I had to do more persuading, talking to my client in double time, but finally I convinced her a visit from me would be all right. She said there was a gated entrance from the Promenade to her backyard. It was hidden by vines, but if I were careful, I wouldn’t miss it. She gave me the combination to the lock and I told her to douse all the lights in the rear of the property; I’d call her when I got to her back door.
As I grabbed my coat from the front hall closet, I watched Denny returning with a bundle in his hand. Robbie, cooing, his eyelids heavy, seemed to be smiling up at his father. I thought of how lucky we were and wondered what I’d do if I ever lost my husband, a distinct possibility if he stayed with the NYPD. Just the other day a veteran officer lost his life in a Bronx shoot-out. Denny would be safer working in Poughkeepsie. Yet I winced at the thought of moving away. Would I be able to breathe outside of Brooklyn? I told myself I was being selfish. If we needed to move for the safekeeping of my family, then we’d do it.
I was halfway out the door when my phone began vibrating. It was Tig Able asking me if I had any information. My good luck, I usually had to get his attention, and now he was on the phone. I told him about my conversation with Cassandra Thatchley and gave him the number with the 701 area code.
I heard a chuckle on the other end.
“The kidnappers are in North Dakota?” I asked.
“Probably not. More than likely, they bought one of those pay-as-you-go cellphones and asked for an area code thousands of miles away. It’s like wearing a disguise.” He hesitated for a beat. “Let me see what I can find out, but don’t hold your breath. With our luck, the number will be untraceable.”
“So the call could have been made from anywhere?” Still, I wasn’t convinced it was so random. There were plenty of times I’d glossed right over clues, and I wasn’t going to take anything for granted. I’d get Lorraine, my research guru, on it. She loved stuff like that, so I put Tig on hold and my thumbs flew as I sent her a quick text, asking to see what she could dig up on Powers Lake, North Dakota, asking her to focus on a connection to Dorset Clauson.
When I got back to him, I could almost see Tig’s smirk. “You got that right. They’re probably in the tall grass, watching the house as we speak. You’re doing a surveillance, of course?”
“Natch.” Which reminded me, I hadn’t heard from Cookie since the meeting. I did a quick intake: the last time she’d been out of touch had not been good. Before I could tell Tig I was on my way to Cassandra Thatchley’s home, he hung up. I gulped, sent a quick text to Cookie, asking for an update, and then called Jane Templeton. She didn’t pick up, so I left a message, telling her things were moving fast with the Dorset kidnap. After summarizing everything I knew so far, I wound up with the fact that I’d given the information to the feds and asked her to meet me at the rear entrance to the Thatchley home. I was about to hang up when Jane picked up.
“I heard everything you said. You had to call your agent friend and give him the info first, didn’t you? Once again, working behind my back.”
I said nothing, waiting for the detective to calm down. After a rant during which she said she knew better than to work with me ever again and other unrepeatables she’d regret one of these days, she told me she’d meet me on the Promenade in five minutes and not to enter the Thatchley home ever again without her. Jane was worried, I could tell.
After I hung up, I texted Cookie again, telling her she was making me nervous and to get on the horn asap and update me. Then I phoned Lorraine and told her about Cassandra Thatchley’s call and the area code of the caller and what I’d lear
ned so far. Not much. I asked her to come over and help Denny with the twins.
“Bring your iPad,” I added, and she told me she was already on it and reeled off some statistics. “Powers Lake, North Dakota, population three hundred twelve. They have a website with names and numbers of their officials. If there is a connection to the kidnapping, it shouldn’t be too hard to find it.”
“Tig thinks we’re chasing a windmill.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Lorraine said. “But it’ll give me something to do while the twins are asleep.”
“Other than listening for their cries over the intercom.”
Denny overheard parts of my phone conversations, but I filled him in on the particulars of the ransom call Cassandra Thatchley had received.
“I’ll go with you. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“You’ve got to stay here. What if the twins wake up at once? We can’t do that to your mother, and besides, she’s got some research to do. I’ll be all right: I’m meeting Jane on the Promenade.” At the mention of Jane’s name, he agreed to stay and gave me his beat-up baseball cap. “Got your sunglasses?”
“Too dark.”
With Robbie still asleep in his arms, he led me to the front door. “Got your protection?”
I don’t carry, so a few years ago Denny bought me a can of pepper spray and made me promise I’d always take it with me. Most of the time I forgot it. Instead, I kept it in the hallway on a small table behind a vase filled with artificial hydrangeas.
“I won’t need it tonight,” I said and smiled up at him.
“You don’t know that.” With his free hand he reached over and stuffed the can of Sabre Red into my coat pocket. Then he gave me a slobbery kiss and I ran down the front steps, waving to Lorraine, who was trying to park her Plymouth into a too-tight spot across the street. I watched the back end of her tank kiss the front end of the neighbor’s Honda and held my breath.
Seeing me run over, she rolled down the window, the scene now filled with exhaust from the Plymouth’s tail.
“Anything yet on Powers Lake?” I asked, crossing my fingers. It was a long shot.
Lorraine shook her head. “I talked to a beautician who was just closing up her shop when I called. She wanted to help, but had nothing for me.” She held up her iPad. “I intend to make good use of this tonight. Have you talked to Cookie?”
I shook my head, coughing and waving away the fumes.
“I’ve just spoken with her,” Lorraine said. “She sounded breathless. Doing five things at once, you know how Cookie is. The little one was crying in the background and I heard Clancy’s voice saying they’d be back soon. But she managed to tell me she’s got news.”
Talking to Cookie
As I barreled down Henry in my BMW, I called Cookie. Typical, she was harried but bubbly, telling me about the woman she’d met in the park. “I don’t know how reliable she is, but when I showed her Dorset’s picture, she claimed she saw the girl with an older woman early this morning.”
My blood ran cold.
“Until she recanted, saying she couldn’t be sure she had seen the girl today, that maybe it was several weeks ago.”
So nothing new. Still, I believed the homeless woman had seen Dorset that morning, but put a lid on it, telling myself not to jump. I said nothing while Cookie updated me on her visits to the drugstore and to a deli on Montague that dispensed hot drinks in plain paper cups. “The only one I could find.”
We were getting warm but not hot. Grasping at straws, Tig would say.
“And the deli yielded next to nothing, this after a couple of visits. The owner couldn’t remember whom he had served that morning, only that business was brisk as usual. He didn’t even have the store’s cameras plugged in.”
My heart sank. I thought she’d had news for me.
Then she told me more about the deli—it was the only one in the area with plain paper cups. Most interesting of all, she said, was finding something unusual near their coffee containers. At least it was interesting to Cookie, the artist. She called it a collage, a sophisticated rendering, she said when I asked her if it could have been Dorset’s work.
“There were wood chips, pieces from a newspaper, a torn match cover, and a drawing in one corner,” Cookie said.
I remembered the piece of paper I’d found in in the tin box belonging to Dorset. Denny had called it a collage. They sounded similar, but there was no drawing on the one I’d found, just a bunch of found objects pasted together. Pleasing, all right, I’d give the artist that. I pulled over and told her about it. The two works sounded similar. “Tell me about the drawing on yours.”
“Realistic to the point of looking like a black-and-white photo. What’s more, I’m sure I’ve seen the place. If I think long enough, I’ll remember where. I can’t imagine it being the work of a ten-year-old.”
The two collages had to be connected. “Was yours signed?”
“Not exactly. There was a J in one corner. Whoever created these has to be the one who took Dorset,” Cookie said.
“That’s a real jump.”
Cookie stopped talking. I knew I’d hurt her. “Not exactly a jump. Was your collage signed?”
“With a J.”
“See? I tell you, this J fellow has to be connected to Dorset’s abduction.”
I tried to remain calm. More and more, it looked like Cookie had discovered the first real link. “We have to look at both collages together,” I heard myself say.
She reminded me how long it took to build Rome and I told her the longer Dorset was missing, the less likely we were to find her.
I knew Cookie’s silences. This one was like an open wound, so I told her how much I relied on her, agreeing that her finding the collage was a start, more than what I’d uncovered—which was nothing—and I was grateful for her work. Because of her, we were one step closer to finding Dorset.
“If you had found the collage in the deli, you’d be more excited. You’d tell me we were inches away from finding Dorset.”
I gripped the wheel, about to start up again. This was a waste of time. Yet … before this conversation, we had nothing. Now there were two similar pieces of paper, one found in Dorset’s tin box, the other at a deli near where she was abducted, the only deli we’d discovered that served their coffee in plain paper cups. Cookie was right. Whoever had made those collages had to be connected to the girl’s abduction. And Cookie had found the connection. I told her so. Now all we needed to do was find the artist.
I could feel her relax across the ether. I asked her about the drugstore.
She told me that while they were far from identifying the perps, they had a handle on it, thanks to Clancy, who had looked at the drugstore’s CCTV footage, and she wanted to do more surveillance.
“You don’t have to ask. We need whatever hours you and Clancy can spare and more, but tonight I’d like you to watch the Thatchley house.” I told her about Cassandra Thatchley’s phone call demanding a ransom. She hesitated for a beat longer than was necessary, then agreed, saying they’d be on it in an hour, after they’d dropped the kids off at her mother’s.
As I was talking to Cookie, the thought occurred to me that I could use my father’s help. Maybe he could even watch the twins—he was good with them. He might be out of the hospital by now. I bit my lip, picturing him, a sometime dad who thought nothing of leaving me and Mom when I was young. The image of the sun flashing off his Ray-Bans as he turned from me and walked away, his shoulders stiff, still hurt. In the last couple of years, though, he’d begged a return into my life. A retired undercover agent for the feds, he’d helped with some of my cases, even rescuing me from death at one point, to give the devil his due. More than that, he loved his grandchildren and was a marvel with them. The last time I’d seen him, though, his face had looked puffy and I thought I smelled beer on his breath; I’d be taking a chance if I called him, but right now, I needed an extra pair of eyes. What was to lose? I told Cookie I’d get my
dad to watch the drugstore, and putting her on hold, I looked up his number and left a message asking him to give me a call, rattling off a summary of the case and telling him I needed his help with surveillance.
After I disconnected from his answering machine, Cookie and I finished our conversation.
“The three robberies occurred at uneven intervals over the course of three months but roughly at the same time of day, early in the morning to ten thirty-ish,” she said. According to what Clancy judged from the CCTV footage, the two robbers had the same build on each occasion; he was almost certain they were the same two individuals. “The only thing the woman could remember was the relative height of both men and the shuffling gait of the lookout.”
I thanked her and asked her to continue her work with the homeless woman, as well as the drugstore and deli owners, then told her about the ransom call Cassandra Thatchley received. “She’s to deliver ten percent tomorrow at noon beneath the Brooklyn Bridge overpass.”
I could hear Cookie breathing as I went on. “While my father watches the drugstore, I need you to keep an eye out on the Thatchley home,” I said, and told her Jane and I were on our way to the Thatchleys to get more information.
Agreeing, she said, “This woman is one of your crazier clients,” and hung up.
The Back Entrance
Wouldn’t you know, I had trouble finding parking close to the rear end of Cassandra Thatchley’s home, where I was to meet Jane. I trolled around the neighborhood, finally stopping for red taillights four blocks away, and squeezed into the space after the subcompact left. Despite the chill of an early spring evening, I buttoned my coat and walked the distance to the back of Cassandra Thatchley’s home. Halfway there, a fog began playing about my feet, shrouding trees and houses. I jumped when some creature began howling—probably a beagle. Visibility lessened as I walked. Feeling the cold moisture, I stepped up my pace, looking up at the sky. Clouds covered the moon and stars.
Dorset in the Dark: A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Page 17
