Vanishing Act

by Barbara Block

  “My sister and her husband moved away right after the accident,” Ms. Cascoff said, throwing the words over her shoulder. “They’re in Arizona now. In Phoenix. They just couldn’t bear being here anymore. Who can blame them?” She handed me a napkin and pointed to where I was sitting. “That used to be her seat. She used to come here when my sister couldn’t watch her.”

  I helped myself to three cookies. As I ate them, I realized I felt so hungry because I hadn’t had lunch yet.

  Ms. Cascoff began pleating the napkin in front of her into tiny little folds. Her fingers were long and thin and I couldn’t help thinking that they suited the job she did: lab technician at one of the local hospitals. “I don’t know what I can tell you,” she said for the second time. “There’s nothing really to tell. One moment she was here. The next moment she wasn’t.”

  I took a sip of my tea and remembered why I preferred coffee, but Ms. Cascoff hadn’t offered any and I hadn’t asked. As I put my mug down, I studied her face. She had deep lines running from her nose down to her mouth, and more lines radiating from her eyes. If she hadn’t told me she was in her forties, I would have made her for fifty at least. Her hair didn’t help. A deadening shade of black, it leached the color out of her skin, giving it a sickly pallor.

  “She wasn’t used to drinking,” she continued. “She really wasn’t. I don’t know what could have possessed her to do what she did.”

  I didn’t tell her that wasn’t what I’d heard about Jill. Her memories were all she had left. I wasn’t going to spoil them. Instead, I asked her if the police had hinted at anything peculiar occurring.

  She cocked her head to one side and looked at me as if she were a sparrow and I was a bug she’d never seen before. “What do you mean?”

  “Was there anything peculiar regarding Jill’s death?”

  “Are you saying there was?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you ask that question?” Ms. Cascoff’s voice was sharp with suspicion.

  I absentmindedly ran my finger around the rim of my mug. “I guess I’m looking for something that would help me understand Melissa’s disappearance.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t make statements like that,” she exclaimed. “Especially if you don’t know anything.”

  I conceded that was true, which seemed to mollify Ms. Cascoff, because a few seconds later she started talking again. “Those two were good friends. The best of friends. Melissa was always at Jill’s house. I think she just couldn’t stand the idea of her death. She could never accept it. She didn’t go to the funeral, you know. Her suitemates said she couldn’t stand the idea of seeing Jill in a coffin.”

  Ms. Cascoff sniffed and began pleating the napkin again into smaller and smaller folds. “It was an accident. Just one of those stupid things that happen.” She gestured at the newspapers. “Why don’t you take them with you. I’ve kept them too long. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.” She stood up abruptly.

  I thanked her and left, which was just as well, because I couldn’t think of anything else to ask. I’d gone fishing and come back with nothing.

  My failure and the absolute pointlessness of Jill Evans’s death combined to depress me, and I was glad to get back to the store. At least I could do something productive there. For the next three hours I cleaned cages in the bird room, rehoused a couple of boas, and rearranged the terrarium in the front of the store. But no matter what I did, I still couldn’t stop thinking about Jill Evans and Melissa and the connection between them. It seemed fairly obvious.

  Best friend dies in a drunken accident. You feel doubly guilty because you think you should have done something about the problem that killed her and didn’t. You show your distress by giving your religious keepsake away to a friend. The guilt doesn’t go away. It gets worse, till it colors everything you do. Finally you can’t stand it anymore and you take off, planning to kill yourself somewhere where no one can find you.

  Maybe what happened to Melissa was as simple as that.

  Or maybe not.

  I stretched, then refastened the loose strands of my hair in the clip that was holding it off my neck.

  Because even if she had offed herself, one question remained.

  Where was her body?

  If she had shot or stabbed herself, her remains would have been found by now.

  Because for them not to be found, for Melissa to get to a deserted enough area for no one to come across her body, for a dog not to have dragged part of her home to his master, Melissa would have needed a car.

  Melissa didn’t have one.

  And she hadn’t gotten on a bus or train or plane because the police had canvassed them all and come up empty-handed.

  Which left me back where I started.

  I sighed and began taking the newspapers Jill’s aunt had given me off the front counter, when an article down on the bottom of the first page caught my eye. I hadn’t noticed it at Helen Cascoff’s house because I’d been concentrating all my attention on her. A column and a half long, the piece described a hit-and-run that had taken place on the night Jill Evans had died. The police were estimating the time of the accident somewhere between two and four in the morning. The accident had taken place on East Genesee Street. The victim was a male in his late sixties. No identification of the body had yet been made. The article urged anyone with any information to contact the police. A number to call was given.

  I closed my eyes and thought.

  I thought about Melissa coming into Holland’s room around four-thirty in the morning.

  I thought about Tommy West’s reaction when I asked him if he’d been at the party with Melissa.

  Just for the hell of it, I thumbed through the paper till I came to the weather forecast. Rain had been predicted for later on in the evening.

  Interesting.

  I thought about the bundle of clothes I’d found shoved in the back of Melissa’s closet, the ones that had been rotten with mildew.

  Zsa Zsa nudged my calf with her nose. I gave her a rub as I stared at the rain cloud pictured in the weather forecast section.

  Was everything connected, or was this just chance?

  I wondered if the police had ever made an arrest in this guy’s death.

  I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, then I picked up the phone and dialed Calli’s number. She should know. And if she didn’t, she could find out.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t there.

  I left a message on her voice mail, telling her what I needed, and hung up.

  I called George next. I wanted to bounce my idea off him, but he wasn’t around either. Who knew? Given the other night, maybe he was out making Raymond disappear. I left a message on his answering machine and hung up.

  Where was everyone anyway? I bit a cuticle and told myself to get back to work.

  But I couldn’t concentrate.

  As my grandmother used to say, I had ants in my pants. Only she’d have said it in Yiddish.

  I wanted confirmation and I wanted it now. So even though I knew I should wait until I had more info—asking questions is like investing money: You get more if you have some to begin with—I called Tommy West. But he wasn’t in either.

  Great. I was the only person left on the planet.

  On a whim I tried Con Tex. Which was when I got lucky. West Sr. was still there.

  I launched into my spiel before he could hang up on me. He heard me out. I think he was afraid not to. Then he told me I was mistaken, his son was at home that night.

  “I thought he was at a party.” I didn’t say which one.

  “No. He was home with me.” The voice of total confidence.

  “Why am I not surprised?” I shifted the phone from my right ear to my left one and began filling in the two As on one of the Noah’s Ark flyers that was lying on the desk.

  “You think I’m lying to protect my son?” Factual. No emotion.

  “I think most parents would lie to protect their children.”
I moved on to the O.

  “Well, I wouldn’t,” West insisted.

  I couldn’t argue with that, so I came at it from a different angle. “How can you remember back to that night? That was over a year ago.”

  “Because I remember reading about the Evans girl’s death in the paper the next morning and thinking how horrible it was and asking Tommy if he knew her.”

  “What did he say?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Of course he knew her.” Irritation at my denseness? My clumsiness? “She was Melissa’s roommate. But I’m sure you knew that.”

  I told him I did. “What else did he say?”

  “That she had been upset. That she had been going out with someone. That he had broken it off.”

  “Did he say who this someone was?”

  “No. He told me he didn’t know. Melissa knew. But she never told him.”

  “Isn’t that odd?”

  “Everything about that girl was odd,” West replied. This time there was heartfelt emotion in his voice. “Is that enough, or do you still want to talk to my son?”

  “Wouldn’t you if you were me?” I started filling in the H and the N.

  West’s sigh traveled along the wire. “I suppose.”

  “Why are you afraid to let me speak to Tommy directly?”

  “I’m not afraid.” A touch of asperity. “It’s not that at all.”

  “Then, what is it?”

  “I know, given the way he acts, you”ll find this hard to believe, but Tommy is more sensitive than he looks. Even though it might not seem that way, this thing with Melissa has really affected him. It bothers him when he talks about it. He ends up going out with his buddies and drinking, which is what happened the last time you visited him. Frankly, I’d rather have him finishing up his papers. Actually, he’s on academic probation. He can’t afford not to.”

  “But this isn’t about Melissa, this is about Jill Evans,” I objected.

  “Don’t insult my intelligence,” West rapped out. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “I thought you were trying to keep me from talking to your son.”

  “I’m trying to do both.” There was a short pause. “The way I see this is we can both get what we want or I can have a son who could fail out of college and you can be arrested for ignoring the order of protection.”

  “How can we both get what we want?”

  “Tomorrow I’ll arrange to have Tommy talk to you.”

  “I want to talk to him tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m tired of being jerked around.”

  “All right,” West said. “If you insist.”

  “I do.”

  There was another pause on the oher side of the line, then West said, “Tonight, then. I have to pick someone up at the airport, but Tommy and I could meet you on the way.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “But I’ll be there,” West warned. “And if I don’t like what you’re saying, I’ll step in.”

  “Does your son ask permission to piss too?”

  “My relationship with my child is none of your business,” West snapped. “I’m giving you an opportunity to talk to my son. Take it or leave it.”

  I took it.

  It wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing.

  Or so I thought at the time.

  Which shows you that I wasn’t thinking at all.

  Chapter 29

  The house where I was supposed to meet West was located somewhere near Mattydale. Even though the area was called suburban, some of the houses around there were spaced fairly far apart from each other. The homes tended toward the modest and the working-class and it wasn’t uncommon in the summer to see flower borders made of triangles of black rubber and lawns decorated with wooden deer.

  What this area didn’t have was streetlights, and given the moonlessness of the night, the numbers on the mailboxes were impossible to read. I’d gone up and down the road several times before I’d spotted the place I’d been looking for. As I negotiated the long, narrow driveway that led from the main road to the house, I remember being worried I’d missed West. He didn’t strike me as a man who would wait if I were late.

  I felt a momentary qualm when I saw the Camry parked by the garage. West’s Infiniti was nowhere in sight, but I told myself maybe the Camry was West’s second car. Given his financial position, he could have afforded a fleet of vehicles. Or, best of all, maybe the car belonged to the people who lived there and West hadn’t arrived yet. I pulled up in back of it and cut the engine. When I jumped out, I was struck by how dark it was. If the snow was still on the ground, the lights coming from the house would have reflected off it, but since, except for a few patches here and there, it had melted, the lights served only to accentuate the surrounding blackness.

  As I moved toward the house, I automatically began buttoning my jacket. The wind was blowing, making it feel colder than it had back in the city, and I could hear the rustle of the branches on the cedar trees surrounding the house as they tossed this way and that.

  Maybe that’s why I began to feel nervous. Because I should have heard more noise. People talking. Voices from the television. A radio. Dogs barking. Something. Anything. But all I heard was the susurration of the trees. The word setup flashed through my mind, but being eager to talk to Tommy, I ignored that little warning voice and continued toward the house. So I guess you could say I deserved what I got. Because by now I should know better.

  I was about about fifteen feet from the front porch when I sensed rather than saw someone coming up from behind me on my left side.

  “I have a message to deliver,” the person said.

  And then, before I could turn or answer, I felt pain roaring through my body, inhabiting every cell of my being, taking everything else away. I heard a strangled high, keening noise. What an awful sound, a corner of my brain thought before it rolled itself up into a ball. Later, of course, I realized I was the person who’d been making it. The next thing I knew I was rolling around on the ground, gasping for breath. Everything was spinning. Tears were pouring out of my eyes.

  I heard a voice speaking. It seemed to be coming from somewhere above me. I knew it was telling me something I needed to know, but the words were garbled. I couldn’t understand them, and then somehow the noise arranged itself into syllables.

  “Let me repeat myself,” it told me. “That was a Taser. Think of it as an aide-memoire, to help you remember what I am about to tell you. Now, my employer is a busy man. He doesn’t appreciate being bothered by you. He doesn’t appreciate having his son bothered by you. Nod your head if you understand what I said.”

  I did, surprised that I could.

  “Good. You’ll be all right in about twenty minutes.”

  “Who’s your employer?” I heard myself croak, even though I knew. For some reason, I just wanted to hear West’s name.

  “Guess,” the man said.

  Or at least I think that’s what he said, because at that moment, overcome by a wave of nausea, I turned my head and threw up. Just as my stomach stopped heaving, I heard a car door close. Then I heard an engine start and tires going over gravel. The man was leaving. I didn’t have the strength to try to see the license plate on the car. I didn’t even care. I was just profoundly grateful he was gone. The cold rising up from the ground was seeping into my back. A rock was poking into my shoulder. I didn’t care about that either. Instead, I closed my eyes again, listened to the cedar branches talking, and waited for my heartbeat to return to normal.

  When I could finally muster the strength to get up, I found I’d peed in my pants. My legs were wobbling. Little red clusters of light were still dancing before my eyes. I had trouble opening my car door. For some reason, my fingers weren’t doing what they were supposed to and the palms of my hands were slick with sweat. Later, when I came back the next day, I saw the For Sale sign leaning against the maple tree. But I didn’t see it then. I wasn’t looking
to see anything. The only thing I wanted to do was get the hell out of there and go home.

  Michael West’s secretary gave me a blank look. “You’re not in the appointment book,” she informed me, checking it again. “I don’t see you down for this morning.”

  Damned right she didn’t, since I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I smiled and fiddled with the collar of my brown cashmere coat, having dressed for the occasion. “Maybe you made a mistake,” I suggested.

  “I doubt that.” She emphasized the word doubt while she frowned and touched her blond hair. Clearly she, unlike lesser mortals, did not make errors.

  I wanted to tell her her hair wasn’t going anywhere. Lacquered to within an inch of its life, it was piled on top of her head in a style that had been resurrected from an earlier era and should have been left to die.

  “Why didn’t the receptionist call and announce you?” she demanded, asking me the question she should have asked me first.

  “How should I know? Don’t blame me for her incompetence.”

  The fact is, she couldn’t have seen me because I’d come in through the side entrance, but I saw no reason to share that information.

  The secretary, one Beth Ann Widner according to the nameplate on her desk, narrowed her eyes. The lines radiating from their corners looked like a road map on her leathery skin, making me thankful that my grandmother had made me stay out of the sun when I was younger. “What’s your name again?”

  I told her to go back to reading her magazine. “I’ll tell your boss I’m here myself.” And I brushed passed her and headed for his office.

  I could hear her squawking in the background. I ignored it. No doubt she was now paging West to tell him I was on my way. Too bad. It would have been more fun to take him by surprise, but I didn’t have the patience setting something like that up would entail. I was too angry. I’d had the whole night to stew about what had happened to me and think of something to do about it.