Yang stayed with Samantha, going over each picture. Soon they were joined by another policeman and another woman, this one a bride in her early twenties whose new husband had suddenly disappeared. Samantha overheard their conversation, peppered with words like "bankruptcy," "creditors," "loan sharks." That sounded logical. Man in financial trouble just chucks it all.
After a time, the pictures began to look like blurs. Besides, Samantha saw nothing familiar. None of those men even remotely resembled Marty. She didn't know whether to be happy or depressed. Some clue, however grim, would be better than this perpetual mystery, this wondering, this not knowing. Or would it? She doggedly went through pile after pile, one minute hoping to recognize Marty, another minute hoping not to.
The pictures of the younger men fascinated her, for here was a chance to encounter Marty's past. Some of the pictures had been taken 10 or 15 years earlier. Marty would have been in his late twenties, the time when many men marry and have their first children. She'd watched Marty at friends' houses holding their children. He'd always seemed awkward, unaware of what to do. No, it didn't seem possible that he'd been one of those with a family before.
And then …
A picture came up.
A man in jeans, with a sport shirt, two little boys beside him, in front of a large ranch house.
Samantha held the picture, studied it. She blinked her searching eyes a few times to clear them, to fight the fatigue and double vision.
Marty liked ranch houses. He'd said so. A ranch house in the country. That's what he wanted for summers.
Maybe he'd always liked them.
Maybe he'd lived in one.
The facial features in the picture were so familiar. Yang caught Samantha's reaction. Once again he remained silent. Let the witness study. Let the witness ponder. Don't suggest or lead.
There was a companion picture. The same man, this time with a young woman, brutally attractive. Once more Samantha felt the tears well up. Could it be? The pictures weren't that clear. They'd been taken in 1970. But that face, and the build, and the shape of the shoulders, and the ranch house.
With a slow, gentle motion, meant not to disturb or jar, Yang reached over to a shelf and took down a loupe, a small magnifier. He slid it over to Samantha. She placed it over the face in the second picture and bent her head down, centering her eye in the glass. She clenched her fists, then bit her lip. Her body seemed to stiffen, as if receiving a sudden, stabbing wound.
"Marty," she whispered, "I found you."
10
"Wait one moment," Yang advised Samantha. He showed no jubilation at her discovery. He knew the meaning of the moment. She was going through agony. It was the low point of her life, a discovery that would change her forever, probably destroy her marriage, possibly lead her to try something drastic. It wasn't the time for celebration or cries of "Eureka." It rarely is in missing-person-cases, for the familiar picture usually confirms the darkest fears.
Yang went to another file and took out a brief written report whose serial number linked it to the pictures Samantha had just identified. As he pulled it out, he glanced back at her. Now she sat motionless, staring at the pictures, her face blank except for the moist eyes, her hands not even trembling. It was the shock effect, Yang knew. She was probably looking more at the kids and the woman, especially the woman, than at the man. She was meeting people who, inevitably, were very important to her.
Samantha felt more numb than angry, but one question gnawed at her: Was that woman, were those children, still alive? Maybe they weren't. Maybe there'd been a tragedy—a fire, a car crash, something. Maybe that's why Marty…
What should she hope for?
What was right?
Was it right to pray that they were dead, that Marty had escaped a horrible past and found his Samantha? Was it cruel, immoral, obscene, to think that way? It was, but it was also natural. And so, with no embarrassment, Samantha secretly hoped that this was a family of the past, no longer on earth, residing in the recesses of Marty's mind and the cause of constant anguish—but gone forever
Yang brought her the report, contained in a yellow folder marked BRANNEN, KENNETH.
"Your husband know anything about banking?" Yang asked.
Samantha shrugged. "He knows about money. We've never talked about banks, except to open accounts."
"The man in the pictures was a banker. He had this wife and two kids. They were living in Green Bay, Wisconsin—they have a football team, you know."
"I've heard of it. Marty sometimes watches…"
"He does?"
"But he watches other teams too."
"I see. The report says that this man disappeared in 1969 on his way home from an Army Reserve meeting. He was in a finance unit."
Samantha's heart suddenly sank. "You mean…the family was alive when he disappeared?"
"Yes, I suppose so. There's nothing here to contradict that."
"I see," Samantha said quietly. Yang knew she had crossed the river into that world of ugly reality where men do indeed leave their families and start new lives. He knew it was best to keep her mind focused on the problem at hand, not to let her eat her insides out.
"Does Marty talk about the Army?" he asked.
"Yes, but nothing about finance. He says he was other places. It wasn't true."
"Please look at the pictures again. Are you sure it's Marty?"
Samantha glanced at the photos, and studied them through the loupe. "It sure looks like him," she said, ice in her voice. "I mean, he hasn't changed that much. Yes, that's Marty." Now the reality was building, grasping her, overpowering her "That's Marty. And that's his wife. And those're his kids. He's certainly good at keeping secrets, isn't he? Never even a slip of the tongue. Real good, this Marty. This husband. What he did to her. What he did to them. To me!"
"Try to control yourself," Yang suggested softly, "Remember, there's no positive identification."
"I'm the positive identification," Samantha snapped. She felt rationality slip away. It was all emotion now, but she didn't want to sob again. She controlled it, held it in.
"There's very little in this man's folder," Yang told her. "It's incomplete, which happens when we're depending on a small police department. Of course, he's committed a felony."
"He has?"
"Abandonment. He abandoned his family. If this is your Marty, there might be charges in Wisconsin."
Now Samantha thought back to lawyer Grimes. He had cautioned about this—that she might get Marty into trouble by going to the police. But she cared no longer. If he could do what he'd done, he deserved the worst.
"I've got to get more data on this man," Yang said. "I need an ironclad identification, even with your testimony."
Yang took Samantha, with the photos, back to his office. Using his desktop Hewlett-Packard computer terminal, he tried to search out more information on Brannen, Kenneth, in national crime files. He drew a blank. While he worked, Samantha could hear a man in another cubicle pleading, half in English, half in Spanish, for information on his missing son. The boy had left his upper Manhattan apartment for a job at Macy's, and had never reached the store. Samantha suffered with the man, who kept moaning over and over that this was his only child, that his wife was dead, that he was alone and afraid. Some have it worse than I do, Samantha thought. Losing a son is worse than acquiring a criminal for a husband.
The computer search kept turning up nothing. Yang gave up and decided to call the police department in Green Bay, Wisconsin, directly.
He was connected in less than a minute. The sergeant-in-charge located the old missing-persons file on Kenneth Brannen, but it was also incomplete. Data was missing—borrowed over the years, not returned, then lost. However, there were some things that Yang could use. "The subject has a short scar on his right knee from surgery," the sergeant in Green Bay said, in a raspy, cigarette-ruined voice. Yang jotted it down, then turned to Samantha.
"Does your husband have a scar on his right knee?"
&n
bsp; "No," Samantha answered.
"This man does. But plastic surgery could've changed that."
The sergeant in Green Bay went on. "This man had an interest in railroads."
"Your husband like railroads?" Yang asked Samantha.
She almost jumped. The trains. Those silly trains. "Yes. Definitely yes!" She knew this was the right man.
The rest of the data from Green Bay was nondescript—it could have applied to most men. Kenneth Brannen liked to talk about sports. He'd served a two-year hitch in the Army, mostly in Europe. He'd always gone to church and had insisted his family go too. The medical and dental records were missing, but might be located if an official search were conducted. There was one piece of information, though, that Yang had to pass on to Samantha, no matter how much pain it might cause, no matter how much bitterness. A 1982 memo inserted to update the file read:
Mrs. Kenneth Brannen (Kathleen) has not remarried although she had her husband declared legally dead after the usual seven-year period. She works as a bookkeeper and resides at 27 Mulberry Drive West. Both her sons are in college, on scholarships. Mrs. Brannen still seeks information about the whereabouts of her husband, and his fraternal order continues to offer a $5,000 reward.
Yang repeated the memo to Samantha. "She would be the main supplier of any information," he said. "Unless you object, I'm going to check with her. By putting everything together, I hope to get positive identification…if this is Marty."
Samantha was exasperated. "It's him. Believe me. But… do you think she'll cooperate?"
"She still seeks information," Yang repeated from the memo.
"Does she seek it from the new Mrs. Brannen, or Mrs. Shaw, or whatever my name is?"
Yang hadn't thought about that one. He'd never had a case where the old wife and the new were converging on the same target. "I can't answer that," he said. "But my hunch is that any woman in her position would cooperate. The only complication is her having had her husband declared legally dead. If there was an insurance payment, and Marty is the man, the insurance company might decide to sue her."
"Could they win?"
"I'm not a lawyer. But let's play dumb and go at it. Okay?"
Samantha sighed. The turmoil inside made any careful decision-making impossible. "I guess so," she said.
Yang was about to get back on the line with Green Bay when Samantha suddenly reached forward and touched his arm, restraining him. "Wait," she said.
"What's wrong?"
She took a deep breath. She knew that what she was about to say might sound silly, or worse. "I want to talk to her."
"You what?"
"I want to talk with Mrs. Kenneth Brannen, the first wife of my husband…his only legal wife."
"You sure?"
"Yes," Samantha said firmly. She was amazed at her own control. If life was shattered, she told herself, pick up the pieces with style. Her mother would have said that. But how long would her nerves hold? How long before the pain became too much?
"It could be difficult," Yang cautioned.
"I'm ready. We have a lot in common."
Yang nodded, sensing Samantha's resolve. He got back on the line to Green Bay. "My subject wants to talk with Mrs. Brannen," he said. "Can it be arranged?"
The sergeant at the other end laughed, a hoarse laugh that dissolved into a throaty cough. "I never heard of that," he said.
"This is her wish," Yang insisted, now Samantha's advocate. "Can it be arranged?"
"I can try," Green Bay replied. "I'll get back to you."
"Thank you, Green Bay."
Yang hung up. "Now we wait," he said.
One floor below, Spencer Cross-Wade checked off another day on his calendar. Eleven days to December fifth, and he had absolutely nothing new. He was reduced to going over evidence from past murders and trying to find some new twist. Arthur P. Loggins sat heavily in a visitor's chair, equally stumped. Cross-Wade began to pace, his shoulders rounded, his head down, a man who, seemingly, had lost.
"I am humiliated," he announced. "Even my flowers look sad. They'll say upstairs that I'm not modern enough, that I haven't used the computers properly, that I'm depending on old-fashioned police work. Well, they're right. That's what I know. That's what I believe in."
"Yes, sir," Loggins answered, with his usual dullness.
"You have reinterviewed all the witnesses, and only the whistle shows up?"
"Not exactly a whistle, sir."
"You know what I'm talking about, Arthur."
"Yes, sir. The who was near last year's murder site said she heard a person sounding like a train horn."
"It could have been anyone," Cross-Wade said.
"Yes sir. But this was right off Route I-95 in Greenwich, Connecticut. The lady said very few people walk there. We've confirmed that. And it was around the time of the murder."
"So? Do we put out an all-points for anyone who impersonates trains?"
Loggins didn't answer. Like Cross-Wade, he was humiliated.
"I'm considering a very quiet request, passed by local patrolmen, to all beauty shop owners," Cross-Wade announced. "They'd be on the lookout for auburn-haired-women. We might have the local precincts visit them. But…I'm afraid word would get out and we'd have the same problem as with a general alert. A freak show."
"Yes, sir."
"It's a bad idea. I'm glad I thought of how bad it is. Look, Arthur, there must be a picture of this man as a boy. We know where he lived. I can't believe all pictures have disappeared."
"They have, sir, except for that grainy newspaper picture, and even that negative is gone. The picture is very blurry. We talked about that."
"Yes. Well, I have nothing else. This is a man who makes no mistakes, who leaves no real clues. He could even strike in Alaska this year, for all we know. He may even be dead."
"Sir," Loggins said, "this may be one of those cases where the killings just go on until the guy messes up, like 'Son of Sam.' Remember? He got caught 'cause he got a parking ticket."
Cross-Wade stopped pacing and slumped down in his desk chair, fatigued by the ordeal. "You're right, of course," he said. "A life might be saved, or lost, because of luck."
The room fell silent, each man lost in his own thoughts—thoughts of failure, of another victim. Finally, quietly, Cross-Wade spoke up, in terms he had never used before. He hated himself for what he was saying, but he knew he had clear responsibilities.
"Let us, Arthur, draw up a plan of action to follow the next murder. We must know exactly how to react, what questions to ask, what steps to take. Witnesses's memories fade quickly."
"I'll draw something up," Loggins said.
"Do that."
Samantha waited.
Yang did paperwork while the sergeant in Green Bay tried to reach Kathleen Brannen. But Yang's mind was on Samantha, and her emotional condition. He saw the delayed reaction setting in, as it does when someone loses a relative, handles all the arrangements calmly, then dissolves when the reality hits home. Yang could see Samantha's hands trembling slightly, and her skin losing its color. Then he saw her reach down to her stomach.
"What's wrong?"
"A little pain," she replied, her voice quivering. She thought back to Fromer's warnings. The stress could cost her the baby. "I'll be all right."
"We have paramedics," Yang said, with a touch of alarm. "You want me to call?"
"No. Please." Samantha feared they'd take her to a hospital, and she'd miss Kathleen Brannen. "It'll go away. I'm just nervous."
"I can understand," Yang said.
His phone rang.
They both stared at it. Yang was now emotionally intertwined with his "subject." He let the phone ring again, then picked up.
"Yang."
There was a pause. Yang was expressionless. "I see," he replied to the caller. "I appreciate this." And then he hung up. "She's calling here," he told Samantha. "Any time."
"Did he say how she sounded?" Samantha asked.
"Dazed, confuse
d."
Then the phone rang again.
Yang reached out, but Samantha reached first. Yang made no effort to stop her.
She picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
There was static at the other end, but the voice came through clearly. It was a lazy voice, common, not what Samantha had expected of Marty's first wife. "Can I talk to Sergeant Yan?" Kathleen Brannen asked, dropping the last letter of Yang's name.
"Is this…Mrs. Brannen?" Samantha replied.
"Yeah."
"This is…" Samantha hesitated. What should she say? How should she introduce herself? My God, she thought, I'm the other woman. The other woman—right out of a romance novel or a soap opera. She knew what Kathleen would think of her. She'd think the same thing if she were in Green Bay, abandoned, with two children.
"This is Mrs. Martin Shaw," she finally blurted out. "I'm the one."
"Oh," Kathleen answered, subdued but not angry. "I guess maybe we…know the same fella."
"I think we do," Samantha replied. She felt a sudden kinship with Kathleen, something she hadn't expected. They'd both been cheated by the same man. What stories they could tell. "Was he interested in trains then, too?" she asked cynically.
"Yeah. A lot of the guys here are. Y'know?"
"I know. Did he have his little model trains?"
"Nah. He liked the regular ones."
"Well, he's graduated to toy trains, you'll be happy to know."
It was a bizarre conversation, neither knowing what to say, how to say it, precisely how to get down to the business of positive identification.
"Look," Kathleen said, "I'm not angry or nothin'. I'm not interested in him anymore. What he did. I had him declared a corpse."
"I know."
"Why'd you go to the cops?"
"A long story," Samantha answered.
"With Kenny everything's a long story. The booze is a long story. The other women. The gambling. Even the eye."
"The eye?"
"Yeah. He loved to tell how he got it."
"It?"
"Miss, you readin' me?" Kathleen asked. "The glass eye."
"What! What are you talking about?" Samantha's heart pounded like a repeating cannon. She suddenly gasped for breath.
Surprise Party Page 11
