Vanished in the Dunes

by Allan Retzky

  CHAPTER 22

  Wisdom is officially out of the picture the moment the Suffolk County Police Department takes over. Still, Bennett is close to the County people and keeps him advised of the case’s status. An all out search is on, but by evening there’s no immediate sign of Stern.

  “He’s gone to ground somewhere,” Bennett notes, acknowledging the obvious. “We also found out something about his past that we never knew. Seems that when he was in his teens living upstate, he threatened to kill some girl who publicly humiliated him. A few hours later she was found dead in a car accident. The police investigated, but no charges were ever filed. The inquiry is public knowledge. The info came from the archives of a local paper, the Berkshire Eagle.”

  “That shows zilch, except that maybe he didn’t like girls who gave him a hard time.”

  “Exactly. It also covers every guy who ever lost out with someone they fancied.”

  “Anything official yet from the County Medical Examiner’s Office?”

  “No surprises. The County ME says that the preliminary result is that Sara Posner died from a lethal injection of insulin. She went into shock and died within a few minutes. It must have been rough shit for Posner. Holding her there while she convulsed then dies and unable to do anything.”

  “I should have known when I went inside. I should have spotted it. I’ve seen insulin shock before.”

  “It was already too late when you got there. And why should you have assumed it was insulin shock? She could have been unconscious for a dozen reasons. And remember, no one even found the needle until after the EMTs picked her up because she fell on top of it at some point.

  “We did find another needle upstairs. It was full to the brim with insulin, but unused. It was lying on the floor almost hidden amongst a pile of bottles, towels, and whatever. You name it. Stern must have dropped it when he and Posner fought. It’s the only possibility, but we’ll confirm it when we speak to Posner.”

  “So Stern came prepared to kill at least once and maybe again.”

  “How’s Posner?”

  “He’s at Southampton Hospital. Doc says maybe County can speak to him this evening. You’re welcome to join them. Unofficially, of course.”

  “I’d like that. Thanks, but I’m just too busy.”

  “Then I’ll fill you in later. Okay if I call?”

  “That’ll work. I’ll be here till at least eight.”

  “What about the sister?”

  “As far as I know she’s okay, although she was pretty shook up. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since this afternoon, but I think she’ll probably be leaving to go back to Geneva in a few days. I did have a cruiser check in on her just to be safe, but she told the uniform not to bother her. Said she’d be all right on her own. I believe she can handle it, but I’ll still have someone watch the house until we find this guy.”

  “That’s good. I shouldn’t have confirmed Posner’s location. It was stupid and unprofessional.”

  The comment surprises Wisdom. It is rare for Bennett to second guess any of his actions.

  “Not true. She just conned you good. Probably in the genes. Her sister, Heidi, must have been even better.”

  “Yeah, and look where it got her.”

  At eight fifteen that evening, Wisdom’s cell phone rings. He’s hoping it’s Bennett and it is.

  “Well, Posner’s still in a bad way and likely to be that way for a while. They plan to ease up on his sedation, but looks like they’ll keep him on it for at least another day or two.”

  “Any family to help out?”

  “Nothing here. She has relatives in Phoenix. We’ll contact them through local channels. He’s not yet up to anything like that. NYPD checked with her law firm in the city, but no one was that close. Or at least admitted to it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Only that some staffers thought she might have strayed off the ranch. But it might only have been office gossip. After all, they did live apart some of the time.”

  “This is getting too complicated. What did Posner say?”

  “Okay. Just let me smooth out my notes. We did have a stenographer there, so this is the quick-and-dirty version.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “To start with, Stern knocks and Posner lets him in.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes. That’s what he said. Told us he was expecting his wife, or even thought it might be you, since you’d called him earlier. Said Stern just walked in, went up the stairs, and began to threaten him. Accused Posner of having sex with Heidi, and then killing her. After Posner denies the whole thing, Stern pulls out this needle. Doesn’t tell Posner what’s in it, only that it could kill him. Posner tries to go down the hall to a closet where they keep a loaded gun. There’s a valid permit. It’s a relic from his wife’s brief career as a judge in Queens. Anyway, he doesn’t get there in time and they struggle. Stern drops the needle in the fight. That’s when Posner hits his head and winds up with the bloody scalp you saw.”

  “So when did the wife get involved?”

  “After Posner falls down and hits his head, Stern pulls another needle out of his pocket. Posner thinks he’s gonna come at him again when the wife walks in.”

  “And?”

  “And Stern decides to leave and runs down the steps. Posner sees all this from his spot on the floor near the top of the stairs. His wife has just come inside the front door when Stern tumbles into her with the needle. Then he’s gone. Runs by your friend Brigid in the driveway and a few minutes later you show up.”

  “Could it have been an accident? I mean, sticking the wife.”

  “Could have been, but we both know that if you show up with a lethal weapon and it causes a death, you’re still responsible. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Posner revises this sometime later. He was pretty messed up when we spoke.”

  There’s a pause. Wisdom has an uncanny feeling that both he and Bennett are having the same thoughts about distraught survivors. They both have a history of speaking to people who’ve overcome big-time trauma. It’s never easy. It’s never what he thought about before going on the job. Sometimes there’s very little to say. He remembers seeing Posner rockhis wife in his arms. He remembers how the poor son of a bitch struggled to keep the medics from taking her away. What could he have said to the man at that moment that would make a difference? But he did say something. He had to. Words of comfort that probably didn’t register but were still necessary. It’s important for people to know that they’re not alone, that someone else cares, however lame it might sound.

  Wisdom breaks into the silence. “Did he see what kind of car Stern came in?”

  “No.”

  “Okay then. We’ll have to work with Brigid’s visual description of a white car. Did he say anything else?”

  “One thing. I wrote it down to get it straight even without waiting for the transcript.”

  Wisdom hears the rustle of paper over his cell phone.

  “Posner said that, ‘Stern has the gun. He took it with him.’ They’re his exact words. ‘Stern has the gun.’”

  “Wonderful. Just fucking wonderful.”

  CHAPTER 23

  He shouldn’t be driving the Chevy. Someone might have seen it, but he isn’t worried. In just a short bit of time he expects to have Heidi’s shiny Audi to drive. She’s up ahead about a hundred yards farther down the road. The highway is flat and empty. A red Audi makes an easy target to follow despite the fading afternoon light that sends a shadow creeping halfway across the road.

  When the highway splits, she takes the right-hand fork onto Old Montauk Highway. In a moment he’s riding amidst a network of short blind hills and curves. He needs to slow down, so he takes the risk and brakes, hoping he won’t lose her even though he’ll fall farther behind. He passes Gurney’s Inn to his right on the side that faces the ocean just as he picks up her rear bumper gliding around another turn. When he comes to the top of yet another hill,
he sees a flash of red as she pulls a sharp right off the road into a crushed-stone driveway.

  He eases off the gas and coasts past the house just as he sees the car disappear around the side. He assumes she parks in back or in a hidden garage. He drives farther along the hilly road for another fifty yards until he finds what seems to be a deserted driveway. He parks behind a clump of trees and begins to walk back up the road.

  He’s no more than thirty feet from her driveway entrance when he sees a police car coming from the other direction. He slips behind a wall of privet and watches as the white cruiser boldly inscribed with POLICE in blue letters moves into her driveway. The police car stops in front. A tall muscular cop exits and moves to the main entrance. The man’s size is enough for Stern to unconsciously move a few feet farther back.

  He sees Heidi open the door. She’s still dressed in pink and white, but from his position behind a hedge, she somehow looks different. He’s not sure why and moves closer, now more confident in his ability to remain unobserved. The cop speaks and she answers. The whole conversation takes no more than thirty seconds. It ends as she shakes her head sideways and closes the door. Stern monitors the policeman as the man reenters his car and drives off back in the direction ofAmagansett.

  He waits another five minutes, and then goes back to the Chevy. He turns it around and follows the main road until it reaches Heidi’s driveway. He turns in and continues around to the back where he sees the red Audi and parallel parks a few feet away. When he’s sure he’s not visible from the road, he cuts the engine. He pulls the revolver from his pocket as he walks around to the front door.

  “Guess who’s coming, Heidi?”

  He speaks into the growing darkness, but a slight gust of wind rustles the pines and keeps any sound from the house. He becomes anxious. More than usual. Even more than at Posner’s house. From the space in front of her entrance door, he checks the road. There are no sounds; even the birds have given up their chatter for the day. One last spear of light glimmers through a far cluster of trees before it too moves on and plunges the house into night. So quick, he wonders. Almost too quick. He knocks twice, waits a few seconds, and then raps again. A voice calls out from inside, thought the words are indistinct.

  “It’s the police again. Sorry, we forgot something. It’ll only take a minute.” He smiles to himself at the calmness of his voice. I must even sound like a cop, he muses, but there’s no time to dwell on his impersonation.

  The door opens. She still wears the pink-and-white dress. From this close he sees that she looks very different. He levels the pistol at her, pushes the door open wide, and steps inside.

  “Remember me?”

  He stops speaking and studies her again. Now he’s less than two feet away. The hair looks pretty much the same and the body wrapped in the familiar dress is just as sexy as he remembered, but the overall effect he sees is that of a different person. This Heidi is slightly taller. The big difference though is in the face. It is definitely familiar, but it’s not Heidi’s. The eyes are just as black and the skin tone is just as olive, but the nose is too long and the bump in the middle is gone. He breathes deeply, and his eyes flutter closed for a moment before he rubs them with his free hand.

  “No. You wouldn’t remember me. I’m the man who fucked Heidi for over a year, but I’ve never fucked you. At least not yet. So who the hell are you?”

  There is no answer, just a short intake hiss as the woman gasps for breath. He enters the house and slams the door.

  “Where’s the bedroom?” His words fly out like a fist.

  She doesn’t answer and seems to struggle to stay upright. Her face pales in contrast to the olive complexion of her arms. He spins her around just as he sees her legs begin to shake. He pushes her forward. She stumbles across the room and stops when one hand grabs the door jamb at the edge of a long corridor. He drags her away and moves down the empty corridor, but this time he pulls at her arm rather than pushing at her back. He stops at the first room with a light, a bedroom.

  “This should do. Is it yours?” His voice trembles with anticipation. One hand holds her against the wall and the other waves the gun in a small overhead circle.

  “Ja.” She speaks for the first time and half raises one hand to point into the room.

  The room is painted a light blue. The only light comes from a single lamp that rests alone on a small table adjacent to a queen-sized bed that’s crowned with a light-colored wood headboard. There is no spread and the pillows are fluffed and the blanket turned down. A small dresser of similar wood occupies the opposite wall. Its surface is empty except for a television that plays an old movie with token volume. Dark curtains are drawn across the only windows.

  He pushes her across the room. She lurches to the bed and crumples at the edge. One hand reaches out and clutches a pillow to her chest.

  No. She isn’t Heidi.

  “Who are you? I won’t ask again.”

  She fails to react. His words fall on a woman paralyzed by fear. Paralysis makes him thinks of another chemical he almost used for Posner, the tropical poison curare. It works like deadly snake venom and leaves its victims paralyzed and unable to breathe. He will make her talk though. It’s easy enough.

  “Take your clothes off!”

  She pulls the pillow tighter across her chest, but he moves forward and pulls it away.

  “I said take off your clothes! Now!”

  She looks around as if help could be found somewhere in the sparse room, but the only diversion from her fear is a nearly soundless Cary Grant on the television. She looks at Stern again.

  “I’m Heidi’s sister, Brigid.”

  “She doesn’t have a sister. She would have told me.”

  “We had a big fight several years ago.”

  “Later,” he says. “Tell me all about it later.”

  He is no longer listening, just staring. Now she’s Heidi again, not Brigid or whoever. The face and body morph back into the woman he knows. The woman he thought he’d lost. But she’s back now. It’s not a great leap to have Heidi back again.

  He takes off his jacket and drops it on the dresser next to the television. Then he puts his gun on top of the jacket. When he speaks again his voice is very different, softer, and even tender.

  “Get undressed, Heidi. You know you want to. It’s what you always want.”

  She stands from the bed with effort and one trembling arm stretches behind for the zipper. He stares for a moment longer, tastes a sudden dryness in his mouth, and then begins to unbutton his shirt.

  CHAPTER 24

  Wisdom knows that with their current information, it’ll be no problem for the Suffolk County Police to get NYPD’s help in getting a warrant to search Stern’s New York apartment. Stern is now officially a fugitive. The day has passed, however, without a sign of the man.

  At a quarter to nine on the morning after the events at Posner’s house, Bennett calls Wisdom with preliminary results. Except for a few hours of troubled sleep, Wisdom hasn’t left his desk since he got back from Posner’s house. Brigid is back at her house and Posner is at Southampton Hospital for observation. The County police are in charge now, yet Wisdom won’t let it rest until they clear it all up, not with Stern still running around. He grabs for the phone and comes perilously close to knocking over a nearly full cup of coffee in the process, even though a few splashes fly across his desk. Bennett ignores Wisdom’s curses and plunges ahead.

  “Two things of interest: one, he had another six needles of insulin in his apartment fridge. The man could have been his own lethal-weapon machine, especially since his official hospital medical records show no evidence of diabetes.”

  “And the other?”

  “We found some unusual pills in his medicine cabinet. Notably a nearly full bottle of something called Seroquel.”

  “What?”

  “Seroquel. It’s apparently an antipsychotic drug prescribed for schizophrenia.”

  “God. This is getting messie
r. Who’s the prescribing doctor?”

  “He is. The hospital may have suspended him, but he still has his license. That’s why he can still prescribe. For himself or anyone else. That’s how he got the insulin. The needles were still in a bag with the pharmacy name on it.”

  Wisdom questions aloud what other prescription medications Stern’s helped himself to.

  “We’ll have a list of all other drugs he’s ordered either to self-medicate or otherwise in a few more hours, at least from that pharmacy.”

  “Okay and thanks for keeping me in the loop.”

  His last words disappear into Bennett’s dial tone.

  “So the doctor is psychotic.” His words tumble out and roll over a silent audience.

  Wisdom pulls up the Internet on his screen and starts to research mental illnesses. Police work provides a broad education beyond the law. Wisdom has a general fragmentary knowledge of many medical issues, but is probably less informed about mental health matters than anything else. He could call the department psychologist, but first opts for a quick check of the web. He finds a site with the heading, “An Introduction to Schizophrenia.” He opens it and begins to read, but almost as quickly has a chilling thought. Heidi used to be a resident in psychiatry, and now that her ex-lover might well need her professional help, it’s too late. A mental postscript forces him to wonder whether Heidi ever knew Stern had such a problem.

  The details go on for pages and there’s no end to the links available to other websites on the subject, but in twenty minutes he manages to absorb some basic essentials. A blurred distinction between truth and fantasy jumps out at him. A person might behave in a very normal fashion one moment, and then switch seamlessly into an entirely different person where a wide range of abnormal behavior is possible. Some references are to split personalities and there are many cases on record of multiple personalities in the same individual, each waiting for some trigger to release them. A person could curse, cry, hallucinate, and in general depart from normal human interaction in an instant. Violent behavior is possible. One of the medical treatments mentioned includes the drug Seroquel, the one found in Stern’s apartment.