Vanished in the Dunes

by Allan Retzky

  Wisdom leans back and focuses his eyes on a square white ceiling tile. If Stern needs Seroquel, it’s very likely that he may suffer from hallucinations, and if so, then what would he have thought when he caught a quick glimpse of Brigid in Posner’s driveway, looking for the entire world like the Heidi in his memory? How would a troubled mind react to seeing his presumed dead lover turn up alive and as beautiful as he remembered? Maybe it wouldn’t mean much if he was on his meds, but they did find the mostly filled pill bottle in his apartment, didn’t they? If he’s off the meds, then he could really be off-the-wall.

  His thoughts are interrupted by another call from Bennett.

  “Got some more interesting news for you. After Brigid told us about Stern having a white car we checked registrations for white cars against local addresses. Seems the people down the block who live in a house on the far corner of Posner’s street have a white Chevy Malibu. And get this. It’s the same location where Stern’s cell phone calls were made. Only he wasn’t standing outside when he made them. He was in the house. A team just got back from there. No white Chevy, but Stern’s rented Ford is in the garage. And one more thing. There’s plenty of evidence that the guy spent time upstairs, and from the bedroom window he’d have a clear view of anyone around Posner’s house.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he could have doubled back and watched everything going on from his cozy little window seat. He could have seen all of us come and go as well.”

  “Including Brigid. He could have seen Brigid.”

  “Right. And he could have followed her back to her house. When did she leave Posner’s? Late afternoon?”

  “That’s it. But I had a cruiser stop by after she got home as well as this morning. Everything seemed quiet.”

  “Did patrol speak to her?”

  “Yes. Yesterday as well as this morning. Everything seemed normal and quiet.”

  “I wouldn’t trust quiet in a case like this.”

  “Roger that. I’m on it.”

  He presses another button to dial the patrol dispatcher and asks them to patch him through to the cruiser that checked out Brigid’s house that morning.

  “It was exactly eight-o-five when I knocked on the door. I’m reading right off my book.”

  “Anything unusual?”

  “Nothing I could see. Oh, she did take more than a few minutes to answer the door. Said she was sleeping. And she was wearing that same dress that she had on the day before. You know, the pink-and-white one.”

  “I know,” agrees Wisdom, but a bell goes off. Why would she be still wearing the dress she claims she dislikes so much on the next day? Or, for that matter, even a minute longer than she ever needed to?

  “Anything else? Did she say there was any problem?”

  “No. Said everything was fine. Thanked me and said goodbye.”

  At that moment Wisdom’s mind starts to wander and his silence is obvious.

  “Anything else, sir?”

  “No. that’s all. Thanks. Unless you can think of something else.”

  “Well there’s one thing. Maybe it’s nothing, but all the time we spoke, and it couldn’t have been for more than half a minute, she kept rubbing her wrists. Alternating hands.”

  “Like to get the circulation going?”

  “Right. Like someone just took the cuffs off. We’ve sure seen it enough to know the motion.”

  “Holy shit! He’s there. He’s with her. He’s holding her hostage. Where are you now?”

  “Montauk village.”

  “You’re a good ten minutes closer than me. Get over there right away but stay on the main road away from the driveway until I get there. I’ll call in for backup. No one in or out.

  “And pass the word that I’m driving over there and should make it in about twenty minutes.”

  He disconnects and jumps out of his chair. In the process he knocks the rest of his already cold coffee off the desk and onto the floor. He snatches his jacket, hops over a puddle, and races out the door. The wall clock he passes in the hall reads a minute before ten.

  He presses the gas pedal halfway to the floor and sticks the overhead on the roof. Just enough time to call Bennett, who’ll get onto County. He doesn’t care who gets the collar. After all the mistakes he’s made, starting with his agreeing to the pink-and-white dress masquerade, he just wants Brigid to be safe. He sees the Old Montauk Highway fork and veers to the right. He risks keeping the speed at fifty despite the blind hills.

  “Hang in there, Brigid. I’m coming. I’m coming.”

  Even though he’s alone in the car and still a few miles from her house, he still hopes she can somehow hear him.

  CHAPTER 25

  The next morning arrives with shafts of sunlight that steal around the curtains and outline Brigid’s rigid body as it lays spread across the white duvet cover. Her eyes are shut, legs splayed apart, as if posed in a men’s magazine, but there’s no overt eroticism. Her arms stretch above her head where the wrists are tied to bedposts with her own stockings. A shallow breathing betrays the only sign of life. The only clothing is a white bra and matching cotton panties. No thongs in her life, Stern thinks. Not like Heidi who sought the prospect of sexuality in every garment. The plainness and simplicity of the underwear actually desexualized the woman, although he knows it’s more than that.

  He studies her body again. Her breasts seem smaller when she lies flat and the few tiny black curls that escape the underwear are the only hints at what might have propelled him into a state of erotic arousal, only it didn’t work. Nothing worked.

  He remembers the previous night. She lay there just as she does now. He’d tied her arms and she began to cry, which he blatantly ignored. He removed his own shirt, pants, shoes, and socks. He hooked his fingers into the elastic of his Jockey shorts and then stopped. Nothing happened. He wanted to fuck this woman out of anger, yet nothing happened. He stroked himself, but arousal still eluded him. She watched him for a moment then averted her eyes.

  Just like with Heidi, he remembers. Maybe she really is Heidi. He isn’t sure whether he speaks or thinks the words. Logic tells him it’s the fucking Seroquel. He started taking the pills randomly again a few weeks ago from the old bottle, but the results are mixed. Sometimes he feels calmer, yet he still imagines things. Sometimes he still feels like he’s in another person’s body. Half of him wants to believe Heidi’s still alive. The other side to the medication is that it depresses his sexual desire to the point of nonexistence. He accepts now that he’s in some kind of sexual twilight zone, where relatively normal social behavior can arrive at the risk of losing all sexual drive. Conversely, if his old sexual appetites return, he assumes it will be at the cost of more serious mental disorders. He clinically dissects his condition, as he always has, mentally adding up the gains and losses of any approach. Sometimes he makes the wrong choice, just as with a patient. Last night he was determined to fuck this woman’s brains out but couldn’t even get semihard. In the end he tied her up and fled to the living room couch, but sleep joined sexual performance as elusive goals.

  When he heard her calling, “Bitte, toilet, toilet, bittz, please,” sometime during the night, he went in to untie the knots so she could use the bathroom. Then he positioned her as before and at that time felt even less aroused than he had earlier.

  His watch shows eight and she looks as if she’s still sleeping, but he guesses she’s only faking it. Like she faked being Heidi yesterday. Her whole story is just so much bullshit.

  He puts on his jacket and drops the gun into a side pocket outside of the flap.

  “Time to get up, sleepyhead,” he says and loosens the stocking around her right wrist.

  He’s just starting to untie her second wrist when he hears a knock at the door. There’s a moment of paralysis when everything he’s ever feared in his life leaps out at him; his father’s endless stream of disapprovals, anxiety over possible rejection by girls, passing the MCATs, loss of Heidi’s affection,
and now the police. He shakes her into a wakefulness he knew was there all the time. Her eyes are open and alert.

  “Get dressed.” He throws her the same pink-and-white dress.

  “Get up! Now! Someone’s here.” His words arebookended by another round of raps at the front door.

  She scrambles into the dress, staggers across the room and then down the corridor as she rubs her wrists with alternate hands.

  “Not a word,” he tells her in a hoarse whisper. “Or I’ll kill you and whoever else is there.”

  He hoists the gun above his head to be sure she sees it and waits at the edge of the corridor where he can see both her and the front door, yet stay unobserved.

  “Ja. Yes.”

  “Police.”

  She opens the door. From his hidden position, Stern sees that the zipper on the back of her dress is half open and she’s not wearing shoes, but the cop won’t see anything unusual. Overall, she’ll appear as normal as anyone who’s just woken up.

  “Morning, ma’am. Just checking in to see how you’re doing.”

  “I’m fine. I just got up. Sorry it took so long to answer the door.”

  “That’s okay. Sure everything’s fine?”

  “Quite sure, thank you. Goodbye then and thank you for stopping by.”

  Stern pictures the cop tip his hat as the door closes. He waits until he hears the engine cough its way into smoothness, and then ten seconds more before he checks the front window just in time to watch the taillights turn out of her driveway and onto the main road.

  “Too many cops around here. We need to leave,” he tells her in a matter-of-fact way as they walk back down the corridor toward the bedroom. A distant observer might think they were discussing a movie date or details for a picnic rather than a life-threatening circumstance.

  “Put enough things for a few days in a small bag and be ready in ten minutes.”

  He doesn’t know why he says this, and then realizes he does it to make her think it’s all just temporary, and that in a few days everything will revert to normal. She does seem calmer at this point, and he assumes his ruse will work. He also senses a kind of serenity working its way through his own body. This is the upside. If he can’t get it up, at least he can begin to act like a normal person. He’s already glad he didn’t force himself on her last night.

  She takes a few items from a top dresser drawer and turns to him.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Not far,” he answers as his mind impels an image of a gnarled sand pine and the ground beneath it. “Not far at all.”

  CHAPTER 26

  She begins to relax as soon as he agrees to let her change into pants and a sweater. They take the Audi and he drives. As soon as they’re on the main road heading east toward Montauk village, he glances sideways at her.

  “You don’t look like her at all anymore.”

  “It was the dress. I was supposed to wear the dress to fool you and the other person.”

  “You mean Posner?”

  “Yes.”

  “He did it you know. He killed Heidi and buried her. That’s where we’re going now. To where she is. To be sure.”

  “How do you know he killed her?”

  This time Stern steals a longer look but keeps driving. He is no longer the wild person she remembers from yesterday. Maybe he’s taken some medication. Maybe he realizes she’s not a threat.

  “He told me so. Oh, he first gave me some bullshit story that she had an accident in his house while he was out, and then when he came home and found her he got scared and buried her. But he killed her. Either he raped her or he tried and killed her when she resisted. He killed her all right.

  “Second, and most important, I know I didn’t do it. I loved her. I still do.”

  He pauses and she sees one eye begin to well up. He makes no move to wipe it.

  “I know that. She told me.”

  “She told you? When? What did she say?”

  He doesn’t wait for an answer. They are nearly through the village of Montauk when he makes a sharp turn onto South Edison Street. He drives until the street ends and pulls into a small stretch of alley behind two shuttered seasonal motels, and then stops. A dumpster blocks any cursory view from the road. There is a narrow sliver of beach and ocean through the front windshield. He turns the engine off and leans back.

  “I have to rest. Too tired. Need to rest for a bit.”

  She says nothing. After a minute he leans forward and pulls out a packet of Winstons and offers her one. She accepts and he lights them both up. The digital clock on the dash flashes 9:44 as he puts the lighter back.

  “Now tell me. Please.”

  She looks around at the quiet space they sit in and then back at him.

  “Don’t be afraid anymore.”

  She looks at him, sees the earnestness of a teenager, and begins to relax.

  “Now tell me everything she said.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Wisdom parks behind the cruiser that waits on the road apron some fifty feet west of Brigid’s driveway. In less than a minute, two more blue-and-whites appear. Wisdom directs them to park on the east side of the driveway. He sends two men to cover the road access and two more to the rear of the house.

  “No one in or out. SOP.” They all voice agreement. Logistics aren’t an issue. They’ve all been trained.

  Wisdom walks down the driveway to the front door, which is slightly ajar. He identifies himself and slowly pushes the door open. He turns and calls for one of the uniforms to join him.

  He advises the men in the back by radio to stay on the outside.

  “Anything moving back there?” he asks.

  “Negative. But there is a car parked here.”

  “What make?”

  “White Chevy Malibu. Two years old.”

  “Stay where you are. We’re going in.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Even as he pulls the Glock from his holster belt, Wisdom wonders about Brigid’s red Audi. Is it parked in a garage somewhere in back or is she gone? Gone with Stern?

  He moves forward into the house and announces his presence. Police presence. There’s no answer. They cover every room. The house is immaculate except for one bedroom. A bed is messed up and two nylon stockings lay discarded across a pillow. The pink-and-white dress is on the floor. He asks one of the uniforms to pack it up together with the nylons.

  The search is futile. The house is empty. There is no Audi. No obvious clues as to where she might have gone. Wisdom returns to his car and calls in. He decides to leave two uniforms at the house and passes instructions to get the plate number on the rented Audi. A call to Weis confirms that it’s from a local Audi dealer. Shouldn’t take long. As soon as they confirm the plate, every cruiser in the area will be alerted with an APB.

  He sits in his car after passing out instructions. Frustration overwhelms him. His anger is directed internally more than anything else. It’s all his fault. He should have protected Posner. If he had, Posner’s wife would still be alive. He shouldn’t have gotten involved with Brigid’s masquerade idea. He should have picked up Stern earlier. All the things he should or shouldn’t have done. All the things he’s fucked up just on this one case.

  A call from Bennett shakes him back. Yes, Bennett had already heard about Stern and Brigid. But he has something new. Posner called. He wants to speak to both of them. Has something important to say, but wants them all to meet at the house. His house in Amagansett.

  “I thought he was sedated and in the hospital.”

  “He was, but won’t take any more pills. He sounded pretty lucid considering everything that’s gone down. Insists he needs to talk to us. He specifically mentioned that he wants you there. Seems like a man who desperately needs to get something off his chest, even if part of him is falling apart. I spoke to the doctor who confirms he’s okay to travel, at least physically.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as we can all get there. He’s still in Sou
thampton Hospital. I’ll pick him up and meet you at his house.”

  “Okay. I’m on the way. Right now I can’t do anything more here.”

  Southampton Hospital has no formal psychiatric ward, or other comparable isolation area, so Posner is placed in a private intensive-care room as soon as he arrives, which is about six that evening. Sedation does little to halt his spasms of grief. At first he cannotbelieve what’s happened. He lies in bed and asks over and over for Sara. A doctor checks the laceration on his scalp and pronounces it minor. Nurses enter and leave. One shakes her head and disappears without comment, yet he knows. Bit by bit he remembers and knows she’s gone. The crying then begins with hysterical ferocity, yet after a few hours the worst passes. He is left with nothing except an overwhelming emptiness, a numbness he feels will never pass.

  He declines an offer to speak with a local clergyman, but allows a staff psychologist a few minutes. It helps a bit and he begins to calm. He’s told that the police wish to speak with him and agrees to meet with them early the next day.

  At seven the next morning Detective Bennett and Detective Cooper from the County police together with a stenographer come to sit with him. He has declined any more tranquilizers, yet fights to put aside what happened. He begins to speak, but his recall is interrupted more than once by convulsive sobs. He can’t help himself. He manages to tell them about the confrontation and Stern’s threat to kill him. He describes the fight, but only speaks minimally of the part when Stern runs out and Sara dies. He omits the period where he tells Stern about finding a dead Heidi and burying her. It is as if that part never happened.