A Bookmarked Death (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

T
HE
J
OHN
D
ORY
Inn resembled a New England governor’s mansion, white clapboard with black shutters and a large screened-in side porch. There was even a square widow’s walk on top and pansies in the white window boxes. The restaurant was set back from the road, with parking discreetly off to one side. As I walked up the wide steps, I knew my instincts had been right. You couldn’t just appear at dinnertime and start asking questions. You especially couldn’t ask questions about a couple who had dined there a week earlier and been incinerated afterward, even though it was probably all the staff had talked about for days.

Patience was already in the small waiting room, poised on a delicate chair and looking down at her smartphone. If I had been a stranger, I would have been impressed by her exquisite profile and peach-toned skin, her blond French braid and black Armani jacket. I would have identified her as someone in television production or a gallery owner.

I had only a moment to admire her before she turned on me, appalled.

“Delhi?
What
is going on?” She was so agitated she did not even offer me the usual hug.

“Hey, Pat. Let’s get our table and I’ll tell you.”

The dining room reminded me of Williamsburg, with deep blue tablecloths, white napkins, and gold-framed portraits on the walls. There were only a smattering of diners so far, but the woman I’d spoken to had assured me they were fully booked later on. The hostess brought us to a table for two under the portrait of a gentleman looking over the room with a self-satisfied air.

She handed us menus. I didn’t ask her for the Early Bird Special.

Patience ignored the menu she was holding. “What’s going on?”

“You read the story?”

“Of course I read the story! I couldn’t believe it when I saw your photo. Why are they accusing Colin? The paper made it sound as if he did it!”

“Of course he didn’t do it.” It made me furious that people would read Louis Benat’s story and think it was true. Would the university think it was true? Some of Colin’s colleagues must have read it. “The judge
said
they had no case. He said—”

“Good evening, ladies. Would you prefer sparkling water or still?”

Patience glanced up at him, annoyed. “Tap.”

The cheerful server didn’t blink. “I’ll get that for you right away. Your waiter will be here to answer any questions you might have.”

Any
questions? The square root of 145? Who set the fire in Southampton?

I tamped down my hysteria. “The police have no real evidence.” I described Ethan’s letter and the boots with the mud from Southampton that the police found under the back porch. I detailed my interview with Agent Olson and Detective Carew, her disregard of my discovery of Kathleen. “They’ve decided it has to be Colin and they’re too lazy to consider anything else. The judge thought it was a joke. I think someone stole the boots, pressed them into the mud out there, then put them back. Would we be dumb enough to leave them there to be found?”

Pat played with her newly poured glass of tap water. “But if the Crosleys are dead, who’s left to do that? Elisa’s the only one left in the family.”

“No, she has a brother. Who didn’t get along with them.” But it planted the wild thought that maybe Elisa had finally believed what I’d been telling her and become so furious with the Crosleys for changing her life that she had ended theirs. I wasn’t sure why she would try to put the blame on Colin though. To divert suspicion from herself? She had been to our house and seen the boots lined up outside. I played out the scene. Elisa had set the fire, returned to Ithaca and then Boston, but decided it wasn’t safe. So she had taken what she needed from her room, cashed the check that Ethan had sent her, and was now God-knows-where.

That could also have been why she had let Hannah know she was all right, but had not told her where she was.

But that theory was ridiculous, as leaky as my parents’ old rowboat. Elisa had been at Cornell visiting Hannah when the fire happened. It would have taken her over five hours to drive from Ithaca to Southampton. And unless Hannah had been part of it, which I was sure couldn’t be true, there was no way that Elisa could have disappeared for ten hours without Hannah noticing.

“May I tell you this evening’s specials?” The waiter had introduced himself as Max and was smiling expectantly. I was glad this jaunty young man was waiting on us and not the dour, gray-haired waiter who looked like he belonged in a British country home.

“Go right ahead,” Patience told him pleasantly.

In the end my sister and I both opted for the seafood salad, which, our waiter assured us, was made from shrimp, crabmeat, and scallops that had been swimming in the bay that very morning! It reminded me of a dinner in France we had been treated to by a colleague of Colin’s. The waiter had gone into raptures over each course in heavily accented English. My favorite had been about a chèvre cheese: “The product of lambs—how you say—gamboling in the Languedoc region. They are treated to a grass found nowhere else on the continent.”

“Would you care to see the wine list?”

“No, I’ll have a glass of Chardonnay.”

Patience and I said it at the same moment, our voices so similar that Max blinked and then grinned. “Sisters?”

“Twins,” I assured him. Should I make my move now in this moment of conversation? I decided to do it closer to the tip.

“But why are we eating here?” Patience asked when he left. “Is it to help Colin, or did you just want to see me?”

“Both. The Crosleys ate here the night of the fire and spent over five hundred dollars. I want to know why.”

She nodded. “Pricey for two people.”

“Whatever I ask, just agree.”

A
FTER
WE
HAD
told our waiter regretfully that we were not having dessert, he brought the check. I smiled at him. “I understand you had some excitement here last weekend.”

“Excitement? You mean about the people who died in the fire?” He kept his voice low.

“We knew them,” I whispered back. “Do you remember who they were eating with?”

He nodded. “They were my table. No one.”

“No one?” I was stunned. “Someone told me their check was very large.”

He glanced around the room as if checking for spies. “They paid for a couple at another table. Now that you mention it, I wondered why they weren’t sitting together.” He laughed. “I thought maybe the man was going to propose and the Crosleys were treating them to dinner, but didn’t want to impose. They sent over several glasses of champagne.”

“Did the other people look like family members?”

He thought that over. “Maybe. The woman did. The man was shorter and had black hair. A burly type.”

“You remember them very well,” Patience complimented him.

“Hard not to. They must have been drinking before they came. They didn’t overdo it here, but they could barely get out the door.” He nodded at the leather folder. “I’ll take that whenever you’re ready.”

Patience already had her American Express card in her hand and was slipping it inside. “What do you think?” she asked me when Max had left.

“I think the Crosleys were setting them up for the fire. By the way: How much does a Patek Philippe cost these days?”

“You’re in the market now? Depends on the model. And the age. Some of the antique watches are priceless.”

“No, just an average. Does Ben have one?”

“Of course not!” My esteem for Ben rose, and plummeted only slightly when she said, “He’s such a klutz, he’d kill it in no time. I’d guess they start at around twelve thousand. But you can pay much, much more.”

I nodded. A minor point, yet it threatened to upend my theory. If you were substituting another body for your own, why would you destroy an expensive watch when you could be identified by a wedding ring instead? On the other hand, if Ethan and Sheila had been so badly burned that they could not be identified, how had the watch survived so easily that Frank Marselli could identify the brand? That made it sound as if someone had slipped the watch on the man’s wrist afterward. Perhaps the Crosleys considered it a small price to pay.

Outside the restaurant, Patience and I hugged for a long time.

“I’ve never been this scared,” I confessed.

“No, no, you’ll get through this. You’re strong.”

I couldn’t say anything, just held on to her.

“We’ll get the best lawyer in the country. If it even comes to that.”

“Thanks.” I was glad to have her on my side.

O
N
THE
WAY
home I went back and forth about whether I should call Frank and give him this new information. I wasn’t going to call Ruth Carew ever again.

Frank Marselli told me that you like to play detective
.

Though I tried to get past Carew’s comment, it smarted as fiercely as a towel snapped against sunburnt shoulders. Even if it were only her own interpretation, I could hear the words in Frank’s quick, dismissive voice. I hadn’t been
playing
at anything, I reminded him silently.
I’ve brought fresh perspective to your investigations, and kept you from making terrible errors more than once. Doesn’t that count for anything?

This time, unfortunately, Frank’s usual skepticism at my out-of-the-box perceptions was heightened because I was so personally involved. Still, I didn’t think I was that far off.

I left Sunrise Highway at the Manorville exit, and pulled onto the side of the road, across from a farmhouse whose fields lay in darkness beyond.

I had Frank’s number on speed dial. Even if he would not share information with me, I would make him listen to what I had to say.

“Marselli.”

“It’s me.”
Miss Marple, your favorite amateur sleuth
. “Before you remind me, I’m not calling you for information. I have to tell you something important.”

“Okay . . .”

“Did you see the story in
Newsday
today?”

He sighed.

“What it didn’t say was that the judge himself didn’t seem to think Colin was guilty. But I talked to the reporter and he told me that the Crosleys’ dinner bill came to over five hundred dollars. That’s too much for two people, even in the Hamptons.”

Silence.

“It turns out that they paid for a couple at another table. A woman who looked very much like Sheila Crosley. I’ve seen a photo of Kathleen, the Irish woman who’s missing, and
she
looks just like Sheila. I think the Crosleys treated her to dinner. Before.”

“Who told you all this about the restaurant?”

“Newspaper reporters do a lot of digging. Did you find Will Crosley?”

“Not yet, but—you didn’t hear this from me.”

“I didn’t,” I agreed.

“I mean it, Delhi, although it’s a moot point now, I guess. Will was picked up in a drug sweep in the South Bronx two months ago. He was dealing, but he negotiated his release.”

“How?”

“He offered to give the FBI Art Crimes Unit information about his father’s antiquities ring. Ethan Crosley was smuggling artifacts out of archeological sites and selling them to collectors. Will Crosley worked for him making fakes from the originals, and Ethan sold them as the real thing too. Will offered to give them a lot of solid information if they would make the drug charges go away.”

“Did they?”

“What do you think? The specifics checked out. The FBI was getting close to an arrest when the Crosleys disappeared to Barbados. Ethan Crosley had already been questioned once.”

“That’s why they left,” I cried. “Not because of some vague threat to prosecute them for kidnapping from me.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “He was already being tracked by several governments.”

“So he wasn’t that smart after all. Did you find Will?”

“Not yet. He’s deliberately gone to ground.”

“Well, I’m thinking that maybe it was his phone Elisa used his phone to text Hannah. It was a 917 number and Elisa said he lived in Spanish Harlem.”

“Did you tell Carew that?”

“I just thought of it now.” I should have thought of it earlier, but with so much else crowding my mind I hadn’t.

At the farmhouse, the porch light went on.

“Do you have the 917 number?” he asked. “It will be on her log of texts received.”

“It will? Even on a cheap phone?”

“The kind of phone doesn’t matter. It’s the server that keeps the record.”

Quickly I gave him Hannah’s number and told him it was hosted by T-Mobile.

“We’ll check it out.”

“I haven’t been able to reach her today, but I’ll try the landline when I get home.”

He rang off.

I had just pulled back onto the road when I heard my ringtone. Hannah!

But the identification came up as Louis Benat. Again. So far I had not taken the reporter’s calls, two or three of them today, but I considered that he might have some new information.

“Hello?”

“Hi there, Ms. Laine. You’re a hard person to get ahold of.”

“Just busy. I told you I’d call you when I knew anything.”

“Ah, but I bet you already know why the Crosleys’ bill was so high.”

I sucked in my breath, startled. “I just found out.”

“I knew it!”

“If I tell you, will you leave me alone?”

“For how long?” The man was insufferable.

“Two days,” I said firmly.

“Deal.”

Was it that easy? “They treated a couple at another table. They plied them with champagne.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m going to find out.”

“Me too.”

If Frank picked up on trying to identify them, it would be a three-way race.

Chapter Twenty-Six

M
Y
NEED
TO
reach Hannah had gone from
I’d better talk to her tonight
to
I have to find my daughter now.
I knew I could not rest until I heard her voice.

Driving home, I tried to remember the last names of Hannah’s three housemates. Like nearly half of Cornell undergraduates, she lived off campus, in the upstairs of a retired science professor’s home. I reminded myself that the girls probably used smartphones whose numbers would be impossible to get from an online directory. There had to be a landline in the downstairs of the home, but I didn’t remember the name of her landlord either.

But I had her street address in my book at home.

As soon as I unlocked the kitchen door, I went to the address book I kept on the counter near the phone and brought it to the kitchen table. Then, accessing the Internet on my phone, I typed in Whitepages.com and clicked on “Address.” It wouldn’t work if the professor had an unlisted number, but a name popped up and a phone number at the address. I told Siri to connect me.

The phone rang.

“Good evening.” An older man.

I glanced at the schoolhouse clock and saw it was just before ten.

“Yes, hello! This is Delhi Laine, Hannah Fitzhugh’s mother? I can’t reach her on her phone and it’s an emergency.”

“She’s not answering her phone?” he inquired politely.

“No! Is she there?”

“We don’t usually interfere with the girls. Young women, I mean.” He chuckled softly.

“
Please.
And if she’s not there, could I speak to one of the other girls?”

“You want me to go upstairs and ask?”

“If you would. It’s very important.”

“I’ll ask my wife to go up.” The sound of the receiver being laid gently on a table.

While I waited, my eyes squeezed shut, I did not allow myself the possibility that she might not be home.

Minutes passed before the phone was picked up again.

“Hello?” a voice said.

Not Hannah.

“Hi, Mrs. Fitzhugh, it’s Janelle. We met—”

“Yes, I remember. Hannah’s not home?”

“I thought she was with you. That maybe you’d come up early?”

I wasn’t prepared for the rush of panic that knocked me back against the wooden chair.

With us? “When did she leave?”

“Oh, gee. When did I last see her? You know, it was probably Sunday night when we were brushing our teeth. Everybody’s so busy . . .”

Another rush, this time of sadness. This was Tuesday night. Why didn’t Hannah have close friends who would have noticed that she was not around to walk with them to campus, friends who would become worried when she did not meet them for dinner Monday night? Close friends kept tabs on each other and always seemed to know where the other one was. Was this the reason Hannah had become so completely enmeshed in Elisa, finally deciding there was someone she could trust?

Suddenly I resented Janelle and her disregard of my daughter. “Could you do me a favor? Could you go up to her room and see if any of her clothes seem to be gone? Her laptop, things like that?”

“But if she’s not with you, where
is
she?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Hannah wouldn’t just—I mean, she doesn’t even have a boyfriend.”

Of course not.

“Could you please check those things for me?” Unfair, but I wanted to scream it at her.

“Oh, sure. Just a sec.”

I wasn’t even sure what it would tell me. Had
Elisa
come to Ithaca suddenly and the two of them gone off somewhere?

A too-long wait. And whoever finally picked up the phone was not Janelle.

“Mrs. Fitzhugh? This is Kim Collins. We met at—anyway, I was here yesterday morning when those men came for Hannah.”

“
What
men?” I was so astounded I could barely choke the words out.

“I was the one who answered the door. At first I thought they were college officials, they had on suits and all, but when Hannah came back upstairs to get her stuff she said that her sister was in trouble and that they were going to bring her to see her.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“She didn’t say. I’ve met her twin, she’s really nice. But—aren’t you
her
mother too?”

“Yes, but there’s no trouble. It must have been a trick to get Hannah to go with them.”

“Oh, my God! Who were they?”

Think, Delhi.
“What did they look like?”

“Well, I was in kind of a hurry, I was late myself, but one of them was kind of dark like he was Arabian. The other was younger, with glasses. Like a nerd? They were very polite, very nice to Hannah. I never thought . . .”

Then in one of those flashes that seem spontaneous but probably aren’t, I knew who the dark man had to be. He had shown up at the 7–Eleven, described as looking like Omar Sharif, but I hadn’t made any connection them. Now I was sure he was Ethan’s employee who had disappeared from Egypt before he could be prosecuted for antiquities theft. I had read the story online though I didn’t remember his name.

“Did she say anything to you about Elisa, where she was?”

“No, just what I told you.”

I remembered Kim then, a lanky, freckled blonde who played on the basketball team. “Listen, Kim, if you remember anything else, if you hear from Hannah at all, could you call me? I’ll give you my number.”

“Okay, sure. Are you coming up for graduation Sunday?”

I hope so.