Learning to Swim (37 page)

“But would they hang around after dumping a kid into the lake?”

“No one knew they had him, so how would it make any difference? Unless that’s the only reason they were staying here. But I can’t believe they were here so long and didn’t have contact with
somebody
. I mean, these are guys, scumbags at that. I doubt they spent every evening at home watching the telly. I’ll take a girlfriend and go out tonight and ask around in the bars near that neighborhood.”

I wished her luck, and rang off. It was strange to have someone helping, someone who could dig in places and ask questions where I couldn’t, and who thought of things I didn’t. But it was a relief to know she was working on this while I was revising my article. Alyssa
wouldn’t be at this newspaper long, I thought—she’d be off to bigger and better things.

I polished off the article Sunday night and sent it to the editor before I went to bed, wondering how Alyssa and her friend were doing on their bar-hopping jaunt. Monday I started calling about rentals again and checking out apartments to see if I could find the second place Paul had been kept. I hadn’t gotten any email responses to my ads or posters. In the afternoon Alyssa and I compared notes.

Three days later my personal cell phone rang, with a number I didn’t recognize—from a 613 area code. I answered it.

“Troy?”

This time I recognized his voice. “Detective Jameson. What a surprise.” I’d never given him my cell phone number.

“You’ve made some contacts in Burlington.”

“Not really. I’ve just been looking around a little.” My mouth was dry.

“You found the apartment; you got a description of the van. Sounds like more than a little looking around.”

“I found the right person to talk to on the ferry. It was luck.”

“And just stumbled across the apartment.”

“Mmm. I checked out some basement apartments. Actually, a lot of basement apartments.” If it hadn’t been Jameson, I’d have thought what I heard was a muffled chuckle. “I haven’t been doing anything illegal. I mean, I didn’t break in or anything.”

“These guys aren’t Boy Scouts, Troy.” His voice was serious.

“I know.”

“They may still be there, and they may not have worked alone.”

I didn’t say anything. He sighed. “Troy, someone kidnapped two people, murdered a woman, and tried to drown a child—and tried to run you over. You have to be careful. And if you know anything or even suspect anything, you can’t keep it to yourself.” It was the longest speech I’d heard from him.

“I won’t, I promise. I mean, I’m not. I’m telling you and the local police everything I know. Really.”

“Next time you find something, call me, Troy. Don’t just email.”

I agreed, and we hung up.

He hadn’t told me to stop looking around. Either he understood I had to do this or he was happy that some progress was being made on the case.

On my way back to Thomas’s I stopped at a McDonald’s to use the bathroom, and once back in my car it dawned on me: one of these guys had routinely bought Happy Meals for Paul. Maybe an employee would recognize the guy, or if he’d gone through a drive-through someone might remember the car, as the ferry worker had. But this area had several McDonald’s, with large and probably ever-changing shifts of workers. No doubt proprietors wouldn’t look kindly on me coming in and showing my poster to all their employees, and I’d find myself making explanations I didn’t want to have to make.

Maybe the Burlington police had thought of this, but maybe not. I could have Alyssa ask them, but I thought it would have more weight coming from Jameson. Once I got back to the house I emailed Jameson and asked if he could check to see if the local police had shown the pictures of the kidnappers to McDonald’s employees.

For good measure, I set up a new Craigslist posting looking for a guy driving a Voyager who had bought Happy Meals regularly.

Jameson emailed back:
We’re on it
. This, for some reason, made me smile.

T
HE NEXT MORNING MY CELL PHONE RANG EARLY. THE POLICE
, Alyssa told me, had located a broken-down van that had been abandoned near the tiny town of Chazy in upstate New York. It matched Dwight’s description, and had been registered to a phony name and address.

She had an interview to do in Essex Junction, a few miles east of Burlington, so we met at a wine and cheese shop where she said the owners made stupendous sandwiches. Alyssa had called ahead, and huge, wax paper–wrapped sandwiches were waiting when we got there.

“So how does it help to find the van?” I asked. I took a bite of the sandwich, which was stuffed with green and red pepper, roast beef, cheese, and other things I couldn’t identify. It was incredible.

“Forensics,” she said, pushing a bit of escaping salami into her mouth. “You’d be surprised what clues they can find from an empty van. Maybe not enough to locate the guys, but things that will help convict them when they’re found.”

I tried to imagine it: kidnappers found, Paul safe. My own guilt dissipated. To celebrate, we had slices of rich chocolate cake.

Alyssa was going cruising for information the next evening, and I agreed to go along. Bar crawling isn’t my forte, but I figured I’d follow her lead.

We met near one of the bars, and she seemed to have morphed into another persona altogether. She had made only a few alterations
in her appearance, wearing her hair loose and extra makeup, with jeans and a top that seemed to have shrunk slightly. But she seemed a different person, more sensual and slightly trashy.

And it got results—fast. Men lit up as soon as we walked in the door. Like clockwork, a minute or two later, two men ambled over and said, as if in a bad movie, “Can we buy you ladies a drink?”

Like my conversation with Gina, it was almost too easy. They sipped beer and I sipped Diet Coke, and Alyssa adroitly brought up the mysterious French-Canadian men, one possibly named Jacques. This was my cue to pull out the poster and show it. Eager to please, they took us around the room to talk to their friends and show the pictures. No one had seen or heard of the men, and after a few drinks and a few games of pool, we said goodbye to our increasingly inebriated new friends. On to bar number two, and an almost identical scenario. I discovered I wasn’t bad at pool.

At bar number three, where I switched from Coke to wine so I’d have a chance of getting to sleep tonight, a friend of one of the men who had just bought us drinks squinted critically at the picture.

“I think I’ve seen this one guy,” she said. “Yeah, he looks like the guy my friend Tammi went out with a couple of times.”

Alyssa and I exchanged looks.

“So do you think we could talk to her?” I asked.

The woman shook her head. “Tammi moved away and I don’t know how to get ahold of her. She didn’t have her own place even then, just stayed with friends.”

“What was the guy’s name?”

Again she shook her head. “I don’t know that she ever said. I just saw them together here a few times; didn’t really talk to them.”

Alyssa asked a few more questions, and had the woman write down Tammi’s name and the names of some of her friends. By the time we left the bar to walk back to our cars, my head was spinning from the smoke, the Coke, and the wine. Not a great combination.

“Damn, girl,” I said. “This is rough work.”

Alyssa laughed. “Yeah, and you never know if any of it is going to
turn into anything. I’ll call some of these people and see if any of them knows anything about Tammi or this guy, and I’ll pass on the info to the police.”

When I let myself into Thomas’s apartment, Tiger sniffed me disapprovingly. I’d promised to call Jameson if I found out anything, but this didn’t seem to qualify, so I just emailed him. I stood under the shower a long time. At last it seemed I was getting somewhere.

The weekend slid past. Alyssa hadn’t turned up anything, and apparently the police hadn’t either. I kept doggedly searching for the second apartment, putting up my little posters, and updating my Craigslist posting. I went to another French club function, without Thomas this time. No leads, but it was good to get out. Marguerite was there, but not Vince, who had had to attend a faculty meeting. She was congenial and convivial, managing to greet every person who entered the room, while still chatting with me. She had a talent for noticing or remembering something about each person and working it into the conversation.

I did have to turn aside a clumsy pass from a graduate student, one I didn’t see coming until almost too late. Just what I didn’t need, although maybe it was good for my ego. I emailed Alyssa, weaving it into an amusing tale, but ending on a disgruntled note:
I know this is probably just a letdown after feeling like we were starting to get somewhere. But this is really frustrating
.

She must have been at her computer—or else she had a smartphone—because her reply arrived moments later:
Don’t despair! Remember, the lull comes before the storm. Genius is one-tenth inspiration and nine-tenths perspiration. And all those other clichés. Hang in there!

She was right, but this was getting tedious. I’d been poking around—and imposing on Thomas’s hospitality—for what seemed like forever. Thomas had been great about it, but he needed to get on with his life. While he seemed to have adjusted to us not dating, having an ex-girlfriend staying with him couldn’t be the best thing for his social life:
Who’s that at your apartment? Oh, some woman I used to date who’s living with me for a while
. Maybe I’d ask Alyssa about bunking with her, if she didn’t think that would infringe on her journalistic integrity.

That evening while I was out walking Tiger, Philippe called my cell phone. The audit was nearing completion, and it seemed evident the culprit was Claude. I couldn’t pretend to be shocked, although it seemed unlike Claude to do something so clumsy. Maybe he had assumed Philippe was too busy or too grief-stricken to realize someone was cooking the books. As he almost had been.

“Be careful,” he said, just before he hung up.
Careful careful careful
. I’d been careful my entire life. It had never gotten me anywhere.

Suddenly I desperately wished I could unburden myself, talk about my fear that none of this was actually going to resolve anything, tell someone that I had no idea what to do next. I thought about calling Baker, but I wasn’t going to dump this on her. I wished I could talk to Simon, but I couldn’t, not this time.

And I couldn’t face Thomas’s bland politeness. I couldn’t pretend to be interested in a PBS special; I couldn’t make polite, meaningless conversation. So I kept walking. The only movie within walking distance was a Kenneth Branagh flick, and that I couldn’t handle either. I tried calling Alyssa, but she wasn’t home.

I pulled the card Jameson had given me out of my wallet and turned it over, where he’d written his home number in bold black letters. Without letting myself think about it, I punched his number in my cell phone. It rang once, twice, and then he answered, a gruff “Hello.” I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. A long second, and I hung up. I turned my phone off so he couldn’t call back.

Tiger and I walked for what seemed like hours more, until I found a bench and sat with her beside me, my face buried in her fur. It wasn’t the contact I longed for, but it was better than nothing.

I didn’t go back until I knew Thomas would be asleep.