Missing Persons (17 page)

Finally, I came across an episode of
Matlock
. Andy Griffith as a cranky Southern defense lawyer. It was one of Frank’s favorite ways to waste time. He was always telling me about how one station played marathons of it, and he would get sucked in.

“You have to watch a bunch in a row to get the essence of the show,” he would say, as if he had figured out the Tao of Matlock. “If you ever stopped analyzing everything, and just relaxed, you would love it.”

So, too late for Frank to know, I put the remote down, curled up on the couch, and watched Andy Griffith use country good sense to solve crimes.

S
ix hours later, my doorbell rang.

It was Andres. “Hey.” He sounded cheery until he noticed I was wearing sweats and a camisole. “Did you forget about the shoot?”

“No, sorry. I fell asleep watching a
Matlock
marathon.”

He smiled. “Seriously?”

“It’s a really good show.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Well, sometimes you just have to let yourself relax and stop analyzing everything.” I could see I was amusing Andres. “I’ll get dressed,” I told him. “Give me five minutes.”

I tried to compensate for my lack of sleep with two large cups of coffee and three doughnuts—two glazed and one chocolate—but sugar and caffeine weren’t doing it for me. I tried to think of the questions I’d planned to ask but nothing came to me. I was starting to feel like I was ready to finish with Theresa Moretti’s life and get back to my own. Not entirely accurate. I wanted someone else’s life—someone with no problems, no hang-up calls, no dead husband’s girlfriends, and preferably beachfront property.

On the way to the shoot, I told the guys what I’d learned about Theresa.

“So she was a hooker.” Victor sat back, satisfied that people were as sleazy as he wanted to believe they were.

“We don’t know that,” I pointed out.

“But that’s how you’re going to play it in the show, right?” Andres looked worried.

“I don’t know. If it didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance,” I said, “why should we drag her name through the mud? So Crime TV can get ratings?”

“Isn’t the point of doing this show . . . so that Crime TV can get ratings?” Victor asked.

“Yeah, it’s just . . .” I stumbled. “I feel bad.”

“Okay, but before you grow a career-ending conscience, consider this. We don’t know it had nothing to do with her disappearance,” Andres said. “Maybe that’s exactly why the police crossed it out. Maybe they want us out here chasing our tails.”

I considered it. “Maybe they are. What do we care? We’re not looking for the truth. We’re looking for a good story.”

“Which is why we usually play up the ‘secret life’ shit. Whether it’s true or not.”

I looked at Andres. I could see that he didn’t feel any better about it than I did. We both just stared ahead of us for the rest of the trip.

 

 

“We’re here.” Andres pulled up in front of Wyatt’s elegant apartment building and pointed toward the doorman standing at the entrance. “What does this guy do for a living?”

“He’s an aspiring actor.”

“Must have a side gig.”

I approached the doorman, who called upstairs to Wyatt, and after waiting for several minutes, we were directed to the fifteenth floor. Wyatt was waiting for us at the door to his apartment, looking as if we’d just woken him. He was a good-looking guy: tousled dark blond hair, muscles pressing against his T-shirt, an all-American grin. He looked casual and relaxed, but in his eyes I could see the “tell” of every actor: the need to be liked.

We brought the equipment into the apartment, which was as beautiful as the building. It was perfectly furnished with oil paintings on the walls, sculptures decorating the tables, and cashmere throws tossed over the couch.

“This is your place?” Victor asked.

“My girlfriend’s.” Wyatt smiled. “She’s a doctor.”

“How long have you been together?” I asked.

“About a year now, I guess.” He set out some mugs and a pot of coffee. “Make yourself at home, guys. There’s milk and sugar, and some bagels, I think. I need to change into something a little better than this.” He pointed to his T-shirt and sweats.

“Take your time. We’ll be setting up for an hour or so,” I told him.

Once he’d left the room, Andres whispered to me, “Didn’t the mom say Wyatt had a photo of Theresa next to his bed?”

“I guess he’s moved on.”

“How long has Theresa been gone?”

“Just over thirteen months.”

“So he waited a whole, what, six weeks before hopping into bed with someone else?” Andres shook his head. “I change my vote from the ex-boyfriend to this bozo.”

“Come on,” Victor said. “Look at this place. What intelligent man would turn down a chance at this view—or that one?” He pointed to a photo of Wyatt with a very pretty woman who seemed about ten years his senior.

I shrugged. “Maybe Victor’s right. Maybe he wasn’t getting any support from anyone, and he needed someone. A friend, maybe. Someone who believed in his dreams, who would watch TV with him. And then the friendship turned into something else. It doesn’t make him a bad guy.”

Andres gave me a look. “Yes, it does, Kate. He stepped out on his wife. That’s not what good guys do.”

“They weren’t married,” Victor said, unaware of what had been so obvious to Andres. “Besides, look at this place. She’s hot, she has a great apartment, probably buys him clothes and vacations. It’s a sweet gig. Any guy would go for this. It’s not like Theresa was around to shine his pipes.”

“Jesus, Victor,” Andres said. “Just a little class, sometimes, would be nice.”

“What?”

“Play nice,” I said.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Victor was the most thin-skinned insensitive person I knew.

“Doesn’t matter,” I told him. “I’m interested in what you were saying. Your theory on this case.”

“Thank you, Kate,” Victor said, his hurt feelings put away for the moment. “I’m saying that it doesn’t mean anything that Wyatt didn’t stick around waiting to find out if Theresa resurfaced. He needed some comfort. And what’s more comfortable than a place like this?” He did a
Price Is Right
Showcase Showdown hand gesture of the living room.

If Victor was right, maybe more than just Wyatt had gotten sucked into a nicer lifestyle with a new woman. Maybe Frank had gotten caught up in all Vera could offer: an art studio, a nice apartment, new clothes, a forty-two-inch flat-screen television. And maybe just before he died, he’d realized it was meaningless because he was in love with me.

“You’re saying that a man can have his head turned by a woman with a lot of money, even if he’s in love with someone else?”

Victor scrunched his face in disbelief. “No. Jeez, Kate. Never took you for a cynic. If a guy is in love, really in love, nothing and no one can take him away.”

Ouch. Back to square one.

“T
ell me about Theresa.”

Wyatt had reemerged in a light-green shirt and dark jeans. He said he was anxious to get to the interview, but once we started, he wouldn’t stop shifting in his chair. For an actor, he seemed remarkably uncomfortable in front of a camera.

“She was nice,” he said. “You know, pretty, smart, easy to be with. We had fun together.”

For ten minutes I threw him softballs and in return got well-prepared answers about Theresa, the saint. Finally, after he started to relax, I got to the questions that interested me.

“I was under the impression she was looking for work and had been volunteering. Did she have a job I don’t know about?”

“No.”

“What about an income, maybe gifts from Linda or even something on the side that maybe she didn’t tell her mother?”

He smiled. “Theresa was broke all the time. Her mom gave her some money for gas and stuff, maybe a couple hundred a month, and she had a credit card she maxed out.”

“So no way to get something like ten thousand dollars?”

“That would have been sweet. We could have done stuff with that. We talked about going to New Orleans a couple of times but neither of us had the juice for it. If Theresa had ten g’s we would have gone. And we should have. My girlfriend now, she and I went down there a few months ago. Cool place.”

“It is,” I said. “Did Theresa ever talk about the Kitty Cage?”

“The strip club?”

“Yes?”

“Why would she talk about a place like that?”

“Just curious,” I said. I should have pushed harder, but his blank expression made it clear he didn’t know anything. I changed to a different line of questioning. “How long had you and Theresa dated?”

“Four or five months, nothing serious. She mostly came to the bar where I used to work and she’d hang out.”

“Did you go on dates?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like go dancing or to the zoo—something like that?”

“No, not really. She seemed pretty happy at the bar, so we never bothered.” He took a deep breath, trying to rid himself of his nervousness.

“Didn’t she want to do things like that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “If she did, she never mentioned it. She liked hanging out where I worked.”

“And after work, what would you do?”

He turned slightly red. “You know, we’d go back to my place.”

“So your relationship was hanging out at the bar where you worked or at your apartment?” I didn’t know why, but I was annoyed at Wyatt and I was letting it show.

Wyatt picked up on it. “She came to see me in a couple of plays,” he offered.

“That’s right; you’re an actor.”

“Yeah. I’m doing something right now. It’s sort of experimental and we’re doing it at this really small theater next to a Laundromat, or really in a Laundromat, but it’s great. I have head shots if you need them.”

“I might.” I never turned down photos of possible suspects, no matter how self-serving they might be. “Let’s get back to Theresa. Were you in love?”

That took him by surprise. “It was too soon to tell.”

“Four or five months? That seems about right to know if you’re serious about someone.”

“I guess. Maybe we weren’t.”

“You had a big fight at the bar a few nights before she disappeared. What was it about?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Did you have a fight?”

“Yeah, it was nothing. Theresa was pissed at me about not being more attentive. She wanted me to notice what she was wearing and crap like that.”

“She screamed at you. That sounds like more than just about being attentive.”

He chewed on his lip for a moment, then looked at me. “She was drunk. I didn’t really pay attention to what she was saying. My feeling was if she wanted to be with me that was cool, but if she didn’t, then that was cool too.”

“She was dating someone named Jason when you met, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah, he was just some guy who lived in her neighborhood.”

“And she broke up with him for you.”

“I guess. I think she was breaking up with him anyway. When something’s not working, it’s not working, you know what I mean?”

“I suppose. Did she ever talk about him?”

He thought about it for a minute. “Yeah. She said he called her a lot. He showed up a couple of times where she was volunteering.”

“Did it bother her?”

“It was a little pathetic.”

“But she wasn’t worried he would do something?”

“I don’t think so. He seemed like a nice guy.”

“You met him?”

“After Theresa went missing.”

“Tell me about meeting Jason.”

“It was a couple of days after. Her family set up a call center and I went down to help. He was there for a while.”

“He was helping?”

“No. Her family didn’t really want him around. I didn’t get it. He was a nice enough guy. He wanted to help find Theresa and they needed help, but . . .” He shrugged. “Her family didn’t like him.”

“What about her brother, Tom? What was his relationship with Theresa?”

“Tom’s okay. He’s had some trouble but he’s okay.”

“Trouble?”

“You know, problems with the law. Theresa said he was going to go to New York for bakery school when he got enough money together. I thought that was crazy because the guy already knows how to bake, so I figured maybe he had other reasons.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”

“I’ll do that,” I said. “Let’s talk a little about what happened after Theresa disappeared. What were those first few weeks like?”

“I was torn up. Everyone was. A lot of people came to help.”

“Like Gray Meyer?”

“He’s a great guy, isn’t he?”

“Why do you think he got so involved? My impression is he didn’t know Theresa very well.”

“Gray is just one of those guys who likes to help, I think. He even introduced me to an agent who is thinking about taking me on.”

“You were in the middle of searching for your missing girlfriend and he mentions an agent that might represent you?”

Wyatt squirmed. “No. Not like that. I’d been spending a lot of time with the police, at the call center, you know, helping out. I was neglecting my career. Gray thought it would be good for me to get back into it. That’s why he set up a meeting.”

“Okay.” It left me with more questions for Gray. Questions I would never have a chance to get answered, since
Missing Persons
didn’t have the budget for follow-up interviews. “What did you think happened to Theresa?”

“At first I figured she just took off, but then when she didn’t call her mom and days were passing, I knew something had happened.”

“She was close to her mom.”

“Crazy close.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He shifted in his chair again. “I just mean her mom’s opinion meant a lot to her. I like my parents too, but Theresa . . . it was like she was a kid, trying to please her mom.”