by David Daniel
“Ben?”
“Yep. And I accepted.”
“Romantic.”
“Unmitigated disaster. He spilled popcorn, tried the whole movie to inch his hand around my shoulders. He never quite made it before a wicked attack of pins and needles felled him. When he finally dropped me at the dorm, I think we were both relieved. But I liked him. He was shy, and good-looking in this sort of intent, brooding way. So I took a chance, and next time I saw him I said, ‘Take me to the salt marsh.’ He did. He’d brought an extra pair of hip boots and a net. He pointed out things I’d never even thought about. Like how, in an ecosystem, everything there has a purpose. And he knew all the Latin names. Echinoderms, Mollusca … I still remember. The date was as wonderful as the movie date had been bad.”
“That line really worked, huh? ‘Take me to the marsh.’ I’ll have to try it. And brush up on my Latin. Would you say ‘crustaceans’ or ‘crustacea’?”
Smiling, Paula Jensen slid onto a stool across from me. “I think the hip boots were a nice touch,” she said.
“Most guys try to make do with rubbers.”
We laughed, with the result of her relaxing a little. I did, too. She poured more lemonade for us. “Later Ben got a teaching fellowship at Scripps, so we got married and went to San Diego together. I was twenty-one. I taught third grade, and he did research and taught. Eventually, he started his business and got away from teaching. There were hassles with the business, but it got off the ground—that’s what he does now—and then Michelle came along, and we were a family.”
It sounded nice in her telling. “What happened?” I asked.
She smiled, a trifle sadly. “I don’t know. When things are going good, people sometimes do things to mess it all up for themselves. Does that make sense?”
“I’m widely known for it.”
She gave me a look, and I had an idea she wanted me to go on. I might have said that she could ask Lauren, who was living in Florida at last check. I didn’t. “As the business grew successful,” she resumed, “the money—which is something neither of us had ever had—became important to Ben. He liked fancy things. Clothes, a sailboat, nice vacation trips. But none of it seemed to make him very happy. I think he should’ve gone back to teaching. That’s where he was most truly alive. I still think of that man wading in the salt marsh.” She stopped, and I saw her eyes were shiny. We drank lemonade in silence.
On the corner a stubby green-and-white school bus, with CAMP ESTES lettered on the side in red, drew to curb and began popping out small kids like a gaudy reptile giving birth. “Katie’s home,” Paula said, peering out the window. “They went hiking today.” In a moment, one of the kids came dashing across the lawn toward the house, two long sandy-blonde pigtails flying from the back of a blue baseball cap. Paula hesitated and added, “I haven’t told her anything about hiring you.”
“Hi, Mom.” Kate Jensen slung a daypack onto a counter stool and gave her mother a brief hug. She was a freckled string bean with the decided look of a kid who could outrun most of the boys in her class—and in a few years would have to. Her legs were tanned, her shorts and T-shirt grass-stained. She favored her mother in the bonny blue eyes and full-mouth department.
“Hi, Bug. How was camp?”
“Great. Dad home yet?”
“Not yet. He went to the Red Sox game.”
“Good.”
“This is Mr. Rasmussen.”
The girl gave me a fleeting Harriet the Spy glance, and I had the feeling she digested me, from my dusty brogues to the loose knot of the tie in my damp shirt collar. “When he does get home,” she said, “I hope he’s got over being pissed.”
“What did I tell you about your language?”
“I know. But did he call you about the juice I spilled on the way to camp this morning? That little cup-holder thingy in his car is majorly messed up. I tried to put the juice box in it, but it tipped. I thought he was gonna barf bricks. He said the thing was ergonomically designed and I’d neutralized it. I told him car engineers aren’t eight-year-olds. Is there any more lemonade?”
When Kate Jensen had poured herself some and gone out to change clothes, her mother shot me a look of frustration and pride. “Ergonomically designed?” I said. “Don’t ask me to spell it.”
Paula smiled. “She’s a reader, devours books. She calls them word sandwiches.”
“That’s a healthy diet.”
She took our empty glasses to the sink, businesslike now. I pulled out my notebook. “Is there anything else I should know about your ex?”
She considered this a moment. “Ben used to talk about coming back east and buying a place on the Cape. The business was doing okay … but we weren’t. Maybe the idea of returning here was one of those last-ditch efforts you make to try to fend off the inevitable. You know how people do. Anyhow, we never made it. We both wanted what’s best for Michelle, so neither of us made a battle over custody in the divorce. We share it.”
“What brought him back this time?”
“A chance to introduce Shel to his past, I think … his hometown. He wants her to know her roots. In some ways, he’s never let go of the idea of coming back. He subscribes to the Standish weekly paper, has it mailed to him in California.”
Beyond the picture window I saw a dark blue Audi sedan wheel into the driveway. “Here’s Ross,” Paula said, rising. I got up, too. “We talked on the phone again, and I did tell him I’d retained you.”
Good. I didn’t like surprises. At the door, a tall man in a gray suit set aside his briefcase and bent and pecked his wife’s cheek. Ross Jensen was athletic-looking and handsome. His tie, like mine, was loose, but his shirt collar wasn’t wilted, nor his suit rumpled—mine would need Botox injections to get the wrinkles out. “How was the game?” his wife asked.
“They got shelled. I left after the stretch.” He glanced past her. “Whose car is that in the driveway?”
I was standing in the living room. I raised my hand and pled no contest. “Ross, this is Mr. Rasmussen.”
“Oh, yeah.” He glanced my way. “It doesn’t leak oil, does it? I just had the driveway seal-coated.”
Certainly no one was making a fuss over me. “Not to worry,” I said. “It burns every drop of oil it can get.”
He gave it what it deserved. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
The Jensens excused themselves and went into another part of the house. I wandered through the kitchen entrance to the garage. Katie was there, listening to a Discman through headphones and trying to tighten the kickstand of her bicycle. She wasn’t having much luck with a pair of pliers. I got her attention, and she lowered the headphones around her neck. I showed her that a better approach was to turn the bike upside down, which we did. On the workbench, I found a can of WD-40 and a Crescent wrench. I sprayed the kickstand fastener and let her adjust the wrench. She applied it to the nut, and with a twist it came loose. “Cool,” she said.
“What are you listening to?”
“A CD.”
“Satan Bugg?”
She made a face. “They blow chunks.”
“Does your sister know you think that?”
She ventured a small grin. “I tell her, but she’ll just have to outgrow them on her own. I’m listening to an audio book. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
“Have you read all the Chronicles?”
She shrugged. “Three times.” She looked at me. “Are you supposed to find Shel?” At my surprised expression, she said, “Mom found you in the phone book. She left it open on the counter with your name circled.”
So much for keeping family secrets. “That’s the general idea,” I admitted.
“And what’ll you do? Bring her back here?”
“She lives here, no?”
“Shel should stay where she is.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Wherever, I mean. She ought to stay there. Maybe she’ll get a better deal than she gets here.”
Moving with care, I set the bike back on its wheels. With equal care, I said, “She doesn’t get a good deal here?”
Katie regarded me as if the question was stupid. “No, it’s just that—”
Ross Jensen appeared. He had changed into chinos and a green V-neck sweater with a local country club’s name monogrammed in gold on the right chest. He gave me a look and scrubbed Jenny’s head. “I’ll play with you in a little while, Champ. Get yourself some lemonade.”
“I already had some. I want to have a stand and make a sign and sell lemonade. Can I?”
“No one will stop. People are on their way home now.”
“Tomorrow, then. If it’s a really hot day?”
“You’ve got camp.”
“I could skip one time.”
“People are too busy for lemonade stands. Besides, how much would you sell it for?”
“I don’t know. Ten cents a cup. No, twenty-five.”
“You’d lose your shirt. You need to think about it. Put together a business plan and we’ll talk further. Maybe next weekend.”
She brightened. “I can do it?”
“We’ll see.”
She set the Discman on the workbench and pulled on a bike helmet. When she’d rolled out into the driveway and toward the empty street, Jensen watched her a moment, then turned to me. “What do you think about this whole thing, Rasmussen?”
“Twenty-five cents a cup sounds pretty good.”
He frowned. “My stepdaughter’s being gone. What’s your take on it?”
Attorneys were always more comfortable asking questions than answering them. I didn’t rush to respond. I hauled out my dog-eared notebook. “She isn’t where you think she should be, and you haven’t heard from her in a couple days. I can understand your worry.”
“Did Paula mention Michelle’s little vanishing act this past winter?”
She hadn’t, but then there were a lot of things no one was mentioning.
“Just an overnight to Lowell,” he said. “She snuck out to a concert, and she and some others ended up getting picked up by the police afterward. No charges were filed, except against the ringleader, because he was older. For loitering.”
“When was this?”
“February. Paula was down with the flu, so I retrieved Michelle. I told her if she’s going to run away, it makes more sense to go south. Or do it in warm weather.”
“You think that’s what happened now?”
“I hope she learned her lesson. I grounded her hard for that little stunt.” He frowned. “Paula told you about her ex?”
“Ben Nickerson.”
“I haven’t liked him from day one. Or I haven’t warmed up to him, put it that way. Maybe it’s just the scientist thing. His head is always in the clouds.”
“Yet he’s a successful businessman.”
“Did my wife tell you that?”
“I got that idea.”
“Well, I’m not sure how successful he really is. He approached me about borrowing some money for his business—presented it as an investment opportunity.”
“When?”
“Six months ago or so. He said he was planning to expand his on-line business. When I pressed him for specifics, he didn’t offer much. I told him I was going to pass. That’s the last I heard.”
“You didn’t check it out?”
“For what? Do you know how busy I am?” He grimaced. “We did pay for Michelle’s airfare out there this time, and the rental on the house down there in Standish, but he’s going to reimburse that. Look, does he figure in this?”
“You brought him up. What’s your sense?”
“I couldn’t say. I don’t think he’s a criminal. Leave it at that.”
I had the feeling that Jensen wasn’t going to be as generous with information or his time as even his wife had been. I followed him out to the driveway, where the Audi was parked.
“Nice ride,” I said.
He bent and stuck his head in the window and inhaled. “Smell that.”
I put my head inside and sniffed, too. It smelled a lot more expensive than Officer Ferry’s Crown Vic; forget any comparison to my heap. “The Moroccan leather?” I said. “Or the burled oak?”
“Mango Breeze. Spilled this morning.” He walked me toward my Ford. “My firm works with private investigators on occasion, Rasmussen.” I thought he was going to run some names by me, but he didn’t. “I’d have gone with one of them—they’re a known quantity—only I don’t like them being privy to my personal business. I checked on you. Your outfit’s pretty small.”
“Just me,” I admitted. “But I think the selection of magazines in my waiting room can hold its own against Pinkerton’s.”
“I want to be sure you’re not going to take my wife for a ride.”
“There might be some ops around who’ll make like cabbies and take the long way, to keep the meter running. I don’t personally know any. I don’t even know that many cabbies who do it.”
“Your faith in the honesty of your fellow man is touching.”
“I don’t spend a lot of time gilding it. We’ve all got to swim in the same waters.”
“Okay. Paula seems to have formed a favorable impression of you very quickly. Of course, she hasn’t really got any basis of comparison. But she tends to be right about people pretty often, I’ll give her that. So what’s your sense?”
“Standish isn’t a big town, and folks seem to know each other. I spoke with someone this afternoon who saw Nickerson the day he arrived. It’s reasonable to assume others have seen them. If he and your stepdaughter are there, they shouldn’t be hard to locate. If not, I ought to be able to get a line on where they’ve gone. Usually these are connect-the-dots cases. I’ve got Michelle’s photograph—actually, Mrs. Jensen said you might have a more recent family shot at your office.”
He frowned. “I’ll check.”
“I’ll go back first thing tomorrow. If I’m getting somewhere, I’d probably stay overnight in a motel. And I recommend that you file a report with the police down there.”
He shot me an interrogating glance. “I don’t think that it’s indicated yet.”
“It can’t hurt.”
“It might.” Reading my surprised expression, he went on, “My firm is wrapping up a sensitive litigation this week. I can’t go into it except to say that any publicity, for me or the firm, could cause a setback. A missing persons report is bound to become news, especially in a small town. And then the Boston papers get it? No. It isn’t the kind of notice one wants. It could make a parent seem … careless.”
It wouldn’t have been my take, but it wasn’t for me to tell him what he should do.
“Understand, I’m not against filing a report,” he went on in more measured fashion, “but I’m not convinced that it’s needed yet. I still believe that my stepdaughter and Nickerson just haven’t been in touch.”
“Do you think it’s possible that Michelle did a fade on her own?”
His smooth brow beetled. “I’m not ready to rule out anything. My stepdaughter has a pretty strong will. She’s at a stage where she feels a need to assert her independence.”
He made it sound like a character flaw. “I’d like to look into Nickerson’s background a little.”
“That’s okay with me. All of this is. I just don’t want to see my name in the papers.”
I nodded. “If it does get there, it won’t be through me.”
“Okay, Rasmussen, your price is competitive. Let’s give it two more days, shall we? I expect results. I’ll approve the motel idea if you think it makes sense.” He fished a little leather card case from his pocket and took out a card. He borrowed my pen and circled something on it and handed the card to me. The words were in raised black letters on the crisp ecru foolscap: his name, along with “Randolph, Blinkman & Bearse, Attorneys at Law,” and assorted phone and fax numbers, and e-mail and Web addresses. One number was circled. “If you need to reach me, you can call me at that confidenti
al number.”
His handshake was as dry as a salt cod. When I’d backed my car out, he walked over to check for oil drips. I guess I was clean; as I wheeled away, he was squatting, pinching a dandelion that had invaded the lawn; then he rose and went through his garage to his dinner.
I got back to Lowell, where the average car is nine years old and probably costs just as much to insure as this year’s model in Apple Valley—though nine years didn’t sound bad in a city where many of the landmarks go back two hundred. It was the best light of day, ambering across the Merrimack River, burnishing the granite and the brick of the old mills. They were the big-boned remains of what life had been long ago when their ilk stretched for a full mile on the rolling river and along its miles of branching canals, all of the mills going three shifts, a noisy, dusty warp and woof processing thousands of bales of cotton and wool a day, producing over two million yards of cloth a week, textiles that helped clothe a nation. A museum, Chief Delcastro had called it, and it was that, and a state and national park; but more than those things it was a city with a stubborn pride in work, holding its own in a tough world. Cloth had been something you could lay your hands on at the end of the day. Not like now. Now it was all bits and bytes and information at warp speed.
I was in the information business, too. From my office I called the Lowell police headquarters and asked for Sergeant Ed St. Onge. We’d been together in the Major Crimes Bureau when I was a cop and had kept a connection since. They tracked him down. Before I could utter a word, he said, “Is this about your vacuum cleaner?”
It took me a moment to realize what he was referring to. “I’m in awe of your prescience.”
“When your name turns up on any police notepad, it gets attention.”
A few years back, Lowell had gone an entire year without a single homicide: some kind of record, which had the U.S. Attorney General in town, pumping hands and talking tough. But it was where all records end up—in a book, collecting dust. There’d been a hatful of murders in town in the past month, with arrests running a few sizes behind, and the Sun editorialized about Dodge City. I mentioned this.
