I only remember meeting him once, when he came to Sutton Place ten years ago, so either he remembered my face or, since I was the only one in the waiting room, he assumed I was Carolyn MacKenzie.
Lucas Reeves was even shorter than I remembered. I don’t think he was more than five feet four with shoes on. He had a thick head of wiry salt-and-pepper hair that had clearly been dyed to give the illusion of natural graying. His face was creased with small lines around the mouth which suggested to me that he almost certainly had been a serious smoker. His deep, pleasant voice was incongruous coming from such a small man, but it matched the warmth in his eyes and his hearty handshake.
I followed him into his private office. Instead of going to his desk, he led me to a seating area with two chairs, a couch, and a coffee table. “I don’t know about you, Ms. MacKenzie,” he began, as he waved me to one of the chairs, “but for me it’s time for midmorning coffee. How about you? Or, like my British friends, would you prefer a cup of tea?”
“Black coffee would be perfect,” I said.
“That’s two of us.”
The receptionist opened the door and poked her head in. “What’ll it be, Mr. Reeves?”
“Two black. Thanks, Marge.” Turning to me, he said, “In this day and age of political correctness, I started to make the coffee myself in our little kitchen. My assistant, my secretary, my receptionist, and my accountant bodily threw me out. They said my coffee would peel the paint from a wall.”
I was so grateful for his attempt to put me at ease that I felt quick tears rush to my eyes. He pretended not to notice. I had offered to bring Mack’s file with me, but he had said he had a duplicate of it. His was on the coffee table. He pointed to it. “Bring me up to date, Carolyn.” His eyes never left my face as I explained how, because of me, Mack had become a suspect in both the Leesey Andrews and Esther Klein cases.
“And now they think Mack has Leesey’s cell phone. Sure, we have a private number, but it’s been the same one since I was a child. Hundreds of people know it.” I bit my lip. It was quivering so much I could not go on. The thought flashed through my mind that the reason Mom wanted to stay in the apartment all these years was to be sure she’d never miss a call from Mack.
Listening to me, Reeves’s expression had become increasingly troubled. “I am afraid your brother is a very convenient suspect, Carolyn. I will be honest. I could see no reason why a twenty-one-year-old man with his background would choose to disappear. Quite frankly, in the last few days, with all the media attention on him, I have been studying his file and doing some follow-up, purely for my own satisfaction. Your father paid me generously, and I could give him absolutely no help in solving your brother’s disappearance.”
He looked past me. “Ah, here is the coffee I did not prepare.” He waited until the cups were on the table and we were alone again before he continued. “Now I am looking at it from the viewpoint of the police. The night the first girl disappeared, your brother was at that club, The Scene. But so were his two roommates, other Columbia students, and about fifteen more patrons. It was a small club, but there were also, of course, a bartender, some waiters, and a small musical group. That list, as complete as I could make it, is there in your brother’s file. Since the police now believe your brother may be involved in that first disappearance, let us think like them. With technology, it is increasingly easy to follow people’s lives. I am proud to say that this agency has a technical system second to none. We will begin to update our knowledge of everyone we know to have been in that club ten years ago when all of this started.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Excellent. Strength without bitterness. Admirable qualities, don’t you agree?”
I wondered if that was an admonition. Had he sensed my growing bitterness toward Mack, and even, I admitted to myself, to my mother?
He didn’t wait for an answer. “You said you felt that the superintendents, the Kramers, might have something to hide?”
“I don’t know whether they have something to hide,” I said. “I do know that they seemed terribly nervous, almost as if they were being accused of knowing something about Mack’s disappearance.”
“I interviewed them ten years ago. I’ll have my staff check to see if there was anything out of the ordinary in their lives that might be of use for us to know. Now tell me about Nicholas DeMarco. Trust me with any slight nuance that you may have received from him, either positive or negative.”
I wanted to be objective. “Nick is obviously ten years older now,” I said. “He’s more mature, of course. At age sixteen, I had a crush on him, so I don’t know that I could possibly have judged him honestly. He was handsome, he was fun, looking back I think he was flirting with me, and I was young enough to think that I was special to him. Mack warned me away from Nick, and after that, the few times he came to dinner I made it a point to be out with my friends.”
“Mack warned you away?” Reeves raised an eyebrow.
“Big-brother stuff. I guess I was wearing my heart on my sleeve and Mack said that all the girls fell for Nick. Other than that, I would say that when I saw him last, I had the feeling that Nick seemed like someone with a lot on his mind.”
“Did you talk with him about the other roommate in that apartment, Bruce Galbraith?”
“Yes. Nick is out of touch with him. Frankly, I don’t think he liked Bruce very much. He even called him ‘the Lone Stranger.’ I told you I left a message asking to meet with Bruce, but so far he hasn’t responded.”
“Call him again. I doubt that with all the media attention your brother is getting, Bruce Galbraith would ignore your request to see him. In the meantime, I’ll get started immediately on updating our files on the others. Because of the reference to Mother’s Day, the police were already trying to tie Mack to the disappearance of Leesey Andrews, and by extension to the disappearance of all those young women. Now that call to your home from Leesey’s cell phone will make them certain of his guilt. Every clue leads conveniently back to Mack. I am beginning to wonder if everything that has happened began that night in The Scene, weeks before Mack disappeared.”
I pounced on that. “Mr. Reeves, are you saying that someone else may be deliberately trying to tie Mack to the disappearance of those four women?”
“I think it’s possible. As you yourself said, there was a feature article some years ago that made public the fact that your brother only calls on Mother’s Day. Who knows if someone did not tuck that piece of information in his mind and is now using it to deflect suspicion from himself? There are all kinds of identity theft. Following the known pattern of someone who has vanished and chooses not to defend himself may be one of them. Leesey’s abductor has her cell phone. He may also have your unlisted number.”
It was a possibility that made sense. When I left Reeves’s office, I felt that this time I had come to the right person, somebody who would search for the truth without the preconceived notion that Mack had become a killer.
38
Accompanied by his lawyer, Paul Murphy, Nick DeMarco returned to the Detective Squad section of the District Attorney’s office on Thursday afternoon. This time, the atmosphere in Captain Ahearn’s office was openly hostile. There were no handshakes, no brief expression of thanks that he had promptly responded to the phone call requesting his presence as soon as possible.
But Nick had other problems on his mind. Early Tuesday morning, after a frantic call from his mother that his father was being rushed to the hospital with chest pains, Nick had flown to Florida. By the time he got there, the tests had so far been negative, but his father had been kept in the hospital to guard against the possibility that he was building up to a heart attack. When Nick entered the hospital room, his mother had rushed into his arms and hugged him fiercely. “Oh, Nick, I thought we had lost him,” she cried.
His father, an older image of himself, propped up on pillows, his face pale, an oxygen tube in his nostrils and an IV drip in his hand, was clearly unhappy. “Nick, I hate
hospitals,” was his greeting, “but maybe it isn’t such a bad thing this happened after all. In the ambulance, I was thinking about things I wish I’d said to you, only your mother wouldn’t let me say them. Now you’re going to hear them. I’m sixty-eight years old. I’ve been working since I was fourteen. For the first time in my life, I feel useless, and I don’t like it.”
“Dad, I bought a restaurant for you to run,” Nick protested. “You’re the one who decided to retire.”
“Sure, you bought a restaurant here, but you should have known it wasn’t right for me. I was a round peg in a square hole in that place. It made me sick to see you bleeding money with your fancy overhead and pricey food. I’ve seen these places come and go. Do yourself a favor and sell that one, or else put some staples on the menu that people can count on when they don’t want foie gras and caviar.”
“Dominick, don’t excite yourself,” his mother pleaded.
“I have to excite myself. I’ve got to get this off my chest before I do have a heart attack. Bachelor of the Month! It was disgusting to watch how pleased you were. You’d think you got the Congressional Medal of Honor. While I’m still around to tell you, cut it out.”
“Dad, I hear you. And believe it or not, I’m listening this time. Tell me, what do you want? What can I do to make you happy?”
“I don’t want to play golf and I don’t want to sit in a pricey condominium where I might get beaned by a golf ball because we’re next to the sixteenth hole.”
“Dad, all that’s easy to take care of. What else?”
Nick had not yet gotten over the look of scorn in his father’s eyes. “You’re thirty-two years old. Get real. Be the son we were so proud of. Stop running around with the women you meet in clubs. In fact, get out of the club business! You’ll get in trouble. Find yourself a nice girl. Your mother and I are pushing seventy. We were married fifteen years before God sent us a son. Don’t make us wait fifteen years from now to have a grandchild.”
All this was going through Nick’s mind as he and his attorney settled themselves in hard, uncomfortable chairs in front of Captain Ahearn’s desk. Detectives Barrott and Gaylor were seated on either side of the captain.
It’s a firing squad, Nick thought. A glance at his attorney showed him that Murphy was having the same reaction.
“Mr. DeMarco,” Ahearn began, “you didn’t tell us you have a Mercedes 550 sedan which you only use when you are being driven by your chauffeur.”
Nick frowned. “Wait a minute. If I’m right you asked about cars I drove. I never drive the sedan. It’s either the convertible or the SUV when I’m on my own.”
“You didn’t mention your chauffeur, either.”
“I wouldn’t have thought there was a reason to mention him.”
“We don’t agree, Mr. DeMarco,” Ahearn told him. “Particularly since your chauffeur, Benny Seppini, has an extensive criminal record.”
Without looking at him, Nick knew what Paul Murphy was thinking. Why didn’t my client tell me that?
“Benny is fifty-eight years old,” Nick told Ahearn. “As a kid, he had no home life and became involved in a street gang while he was in his teens. When he was seventeen, he got sentenced as an adult to prison for burglary and served five years. When he got out, he started working for my father. That was thirty-five years ago. When my father retired five years ago, he began working for me. He is a decent, good man.”
“Didn’t his ex-wife get a restraining order on him ten years ago?” Ahearn snapped.
“Benny’s first wife died young. His second was trying to get him to sign over their condo to her. That was a phony, trumped-up charge and she dropped it the minute she got the condo.”
“Uh-huh. Mr. DeMarco, do you do much walking around Greenwich Village in the daytime?”
“Of course I don’t. I’m a businessman.”
“Did you ever see Leesey Andrews before Monday night a week ago?”
“To the best of my knowledge, absolutely not.”
“Let me show you a picture we have of you, Mr. DeMarco.” Ahearn nodded to Barrott, who shoved copies of the enhanced photographs Leesey’s roommate had taken of her across the desk to Nick and Murphy.
“Recognize the fellow in the background of the second one, Mr. DeMarco?” Barrott asked.
“Of course that’s me in the background,” Nick snapped. “I remember that day. I was meeting a real estate agent for lunch. I’m interested in buying property in the area near where the old railroad tracks are being developed. Once that development starts, the surrounding property will go sky-high. I saw all the paparazzi in action and looked over to see what was going on. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were there.”
“Where were you having lunch?”
“At Casa Florenza, right around the corner from where the picture was taken.”
“Then you claim you didn’t see Leesey Andrews being photographed by her friend?”
“I not only claim, I didn’t see her,” Nick replied heatedly.
“Do you have the bill for that luncheon?” Gaylor asked in a tone that suggested he would be surprised to see one.
“No, I do not. The real estate broker is trying to sell me property, so he paid. If he succeeds, his commission will keep putting gas in his car for a long time.”
“How long will you be able to continue putting gas in all your cars, Mr. DeMarco?” Ahearn asked. “You’re stretched pretty thin financially, aren’t you?”
“What do Mr. DeMarco’s business affairs have to do with our presence here?” Paul Murphy demanded.
“Maybe nothing at all,” Ahearn replied. “And maybe a great deal. If the state decides to cancel the liquor license of the Woodshed, I don’t think your client will make a living selling Popsicles there. And trust me, we will find a reason to have it canceled if we even suspect that Mr. DeMarco is not being totally candid with us.”
Ahearn turned to Nick. “Do you have the unlisted phone number of the MacKenzie home on Sutton Place?”
“Unless it’s been changed, I’m sure I have it somewhere. I remember phoning Mrs. MacKenzie after her husband died on 9/11.”
“Do you think Leesey Andrews is dead?”
“I certainly hope not. That would be a tragedy.”
“Do you know if she’s still alive?”
“What kind of unbelievable question is that?”
“We’re out of here, Nick.” Murphy was on his feet.
Ahearn ignored him. “Mr. DeMarco, do you own a cell phone that is not registered to you, one that uses a prepaid card, the kind gamblers and wiseguys use?”
“That’s it! We’re not going to listen to any more of your cheap insinuations,” Murphy shouted.
It was as though Larry Ahearn had not heard him. “And does your troubled chauffeur have a similar phone, Mr. DeMarco? And if he does, did he respond to your frantic call to get Leesey out of your loft apartment? And if she wasn’t already dead, did he decide to keep her around for his own amusement? And if that was the case, has he kept you informed as to her welfare?”
Nick, his fists clenched, was almost at the door when he heard Ahearn’s final question. “Or are you protecting your college roommate Mack MacKenzie, or perhaps helping his pretty sister to protect him? You had a little tête-à-tête with her last Friday night, didn’t you?”
39
After I left Lucas Reeves, I met Elliott at Thurston Carver’s office in the MetLife Building. Instantly, I realized that I had seen Carver around court while I was clerking for Judge Huot. He was a big man with a mane of hair that I guessed to be prematurely white—I doubted that he was more than fifty-five years old.
I felt somewhat fortified by my meeting with Reeves, and told Carver the theory he had suggested to me. Mack was missing. That he called every year on Mother’s Day was public knowledge, and whoever had kidnapped Leesey Andrews was trying to throw suspicion on Mack by the phone calls he was making.
Elliott, who looked tired and deeply concerned, seized on that pos
sibility. He told me that last night my mother was so upset when they reached his apartment she broke down, crying and sobbing, to the extent that he was desperately worried about her now. “I realized last night that Olivia has always been sure that something must have snapped in Mack’s mind to make him disappear like that,” he explained to Carver. “Now she believes that if he is guilty of these disappearances, he may be completely insane and might end up being shot when the police find him.”
“And she blames me,” I said.
“Carolyn, she has to blame someone. That won’t last. You know it won’t.”
You’ve been my rod and staff through all this. That’s what Mom had said to me last week, after Mack’s call on the morning of Mother’s Day. I still had every faith that at some point she would understand why I had tried to bring Mack’s situation to some kind of closure. In the meantime, she had Elliott to help her, and I realized how deeply grateful I was to him for being there for her now. No matter how this turned out, at that moment, sitting in the elegantly paneled office of Thurston Carver, I surrendered any jealousy I felt at the probability that Elliott would replace my father in my mother’s life.
* * *
Later that day I called Bruce Galbraith. After I had waited for what seemed an eternity, he got on the phone and grudgingly agreed to meet me in his office on Friday afternoon. “I must tell you, Carolyn,” he said, “I have neither seen nor heard from Mack since the day he disappeared. I can’t imagine what you hope to learn from me.”
I was chilled by the venom in his voice but did not give him the answer that was on the tip of my tongue. I want to know why you hate Mack so much.
* * *
On Friday afternoon I was ushered into Galbraith’s office. It was on the sixty-third floor of his building on the Avenue of the Americas and offered sweeping views of the city. The only comparable view I can think of is from the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center.
Where Are You Now? Page 14
