The Happy Birthday Murder (10 page)

“Maybe,” I said.

“What?”

“Maybe they were out of town.”

“What an awful business this is,” Betty said sadly. “You have to keep thinking that people may be lying to you.”

“The trick is to figure out which one.”

Betty opened a map and folded it. “Want to pick the next place we look?”

“Let's just take whatever is closest to where we are now. And before we do that, do you remember where that phone booth was that the man who called you used?”

“It's across the street. We can walk by it on the way to the car. How do you plan to find out whether the Gallaghers were really out of town during that time period?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “If they didn't have children in
the schools, it's likely to be difficult. It's so long ago at this point that I wouldn't expect the post office to have a record of holding their mail or of the newspaper a suspension of delivery. I'll think about it.”

“They were probably gone,” Betty said. “Michelle Franklin is the one who first suggested it. If it's something they do every year—”

“You're right. It would stand to reason that they did it that year, too.”

“OK. I'm done with my coffee. Are we ready to go?”

“Absolutely.”

We crossed the street and went down the block to where a phone box stood. Beside it was a pole that carried electric wires.

“The flyer was just about here,” Betty said, pointing to a spot about eye-high. “I seem to recall they were about six by nine inches with a picture of Darby taking up the top half. The word
lost
was in heavy print, I think above the picture.”

“So he read it as he walked down the street and then just stepped over to the phone.”

“Or he could have seen it on that pole across the street and come over here to the phone.” She pointed to another pole, almost exactly opposite where we stood.

“OK,” I said. “It's reasonable to think that's what happened.”

“Ready to move on?”

“Ready.”

We drove to some houses to the north of where Darby had disappeared. The first one had been sold, bought, sold, and bought again in the intervening years. The current owner had no idea who the owner had been twelve years ago and didn't even know for certain where the most recent former owner now lived. Down the road was a larger house with no one home. I could sense Betty's disappointment. But the third house yielded a talkative woman who remembered the incident and had been at home the whole time.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Delia Farragut said. “It was all over the news. My son, who lives a mile or so from here, was in the search party. It was your son it happened to?” She looked at Betty.

“Yes, it was.”

“You poor dear. I am so sorry. What is it you ladies are trying to find out all these years later?”

I explained and she nodded, leaned back in her rocking chair, and said, “I see. But I don't have a clue who would do such a thing. And why? You think maybe he was kidnapped?”

“Not kidnapped. We think maybe someone took advantage of a situation.”

“I see, yes. Took advantage. People do that, don't they? Did you pay someone money?”

“No,” Betty said. “We're just trying to find out what happened.”

“The people two houses down that way, did you know them?” I asked.

“The Criders? I knew them. Moved out a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“That house was up for sale for almost a year. They thought it was worth a whole lot more than it was and they wouldn't come down. When they did, they sold it pretty quick and moved out even quicker.”

I knew we could check the date of sale at the town hall, but I asked, “Do you remember when they moved?”

“They sold it just before Labor Day to a family that had two children that they wanted to put in the schools here. They didn't quite make it for the start of the school year, but they closed sometime in September, maybe the last day, maybe a week before.”

“What year was that?”

She looked a little puzzled. “The year we were talking about, whatever it was, the year the boy disappeared.”

“You're sure of that?” I said.

“Sure I'm sure. I remember the night they came over to say they had a bona fide offer on the house. They were so happy, you'd think they'd won the lottery. They started packing the next day.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“Somewhere warm. They'd had another house for a long while, Florida maybe. The Carolinas.” She looked thoughtful. “Could even have been Arizona. I wrote it down, sent them a Christmas card for a couple of years, then didn't bother when they stopped. You know how it is? They tell you to come and visit and then they don't really invite you.”

“Could you find the address?” I asked.

“If you pushed me, I guess I could.” She looked at both of us, gave us a grin, and got up. She was in the kitchen for several minutes, and when she came back she had a piece of paper with her. “Found it in the old, falling-apart address book that I've never had the heart to throw away. You never know when you'll need it, like now, right?”

“Thanks so much for looking,” Betty said.

“It's Florida after all, West Palm Beach. Does that ring a bell?”

“I've heard of it,” I said.

“You gonna call them?”

“I may. What can you tell me about the people right next door?”

“The Pasternaks? Nice people, good neighbors.”

“How long have they lived there?”

“Must be twenty years now.”

“Were they here when Darby was missing?”

“Must have been if they've lived there twenty years.”

“They're not home,” I explained. “That's why I'm asking.”

“They're working. They both work.”

She didn't seem to want to say any more, so I asked about the next house along the road.

“Down that way? That's the Wilsons. I don't know them too well. They built that house maybe ten years ago.”

“So you don't think they were here when Darby was lost?”

She thought about it. “Maybe they were building the house then, but I don't think so. I think they moved in later. Cleared a whole lot of trees to build that house.” She seemed sad at the thought. “I can give you their number if you'd like. Harry and Diane.” She gave me the number from memory. “She might be home now, but he won't. You can give 'em a try.”

“Mrs. Farragut, did you ever know anyone named Filmore? Larry and Laura Filmore?”

“Don't think so. You think they live around here?”

“No, I was just wondering.”

“Sorry.”

Betty and I got up and we both thanked her. She told us to come back soon, but I took it the way she took the invitation to Florida, a pleasant way to say good-bye.

We sat in the car for a few minutes while I made some notes and clipped the phone numbers to my page.

“Did we learn anything?” Betty asked.

“I'll call Florida tonight and see if the Criders are still at this number. There's something a little strange about their moving out right after Darby died, but life is full of coincidences.”

“Especially if they'd had the house on the market for such a long time and they had another one ready to go to.”

“Right.” I looked at the next name on the page. “Are you ready to try the Wilsons?”

“I guess we could, but it sounds as though they didn't live there twelve years ago.”

“Then we won't spend much time.”

Betty backed out of the driveway and went up the road to the next house. It was quite a beautiful house, very modern, with beautiful wood and lots of glass. I could imagine it had taken a while to build it and to clear the lot as well. There were still plenty of trees around, and I thought they must have tried hard to preserve as many as possible.

The woman who answered the door was dressed in a black pantsuit and heels, and I had the feeling she was getting ready to go out. We talked to her for only a couple of minutes, standing in her foyer, which was lighted with a sky light two stories above us. They had bought the lot eleven years ago and moved in nine years ago and she
didn't know anything about anyone who had been lost in the woods.

When we got back in the car I felt we'd done a day's work. I had a child to go home to and a call to make to Florida. Betty drove us back to her house and we went inside.

“Where do we go from here?” she asked. We were in the dining room and she laid the maps on the table.

“There are more houses, more people to talk to. If you'd rather not join me, just give me the maps and I'll do it myself.”

“I don't know,” she said. “I think I'm finding this very depressing. I don't like to see you out there all by yourself, Chris.”

“Don't worry about me. I've been doing this for several years and I'm always alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Then take the maps. Call me if you need information on anyone at all. There's a list of names and addresses in there somewhere. If I can add anything, I'd be glad to.”

I picked up the pile, glad I would be able to look at it all at my own pace.

“You'll call, won't you?” Betty said.

“Of course.”

She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Thank you for doing this.”

“Let's hope we learn something.”

Jack brought home only a small amount of information about the Filmores. “There's nothing of importance on either of them,” he said in the evening. “They're not wanted anywhere. They have no arrest or prison records. It looks pretty dull, the way your record or mine would look.”

“That dull?” I asked.

“Yeah, that dull. But remember, computers only go back so far. This guy died a dozen years ago and computers don't go back a lot more than that. So if there's something from way back, it'd take a lot more work to find it.”

“I wasn't really expecting anything.”

“But I found out about the gun that was used in the Filmore suicide.”

“Laura said it was stolen or something.”

“That's true.” He leafed through some pages of notes and pulled one out. “The gun was a Smith and Wesson six-shot made in 1968. Twenty-five hundred of these were bought for use by the NYPD.”

“It was a cop's gun?” I said.

“Looks like it. He lost it in Harlem, Two-Six Precinct, in a bad snowstorm in '69.”

“He lost his gun?”

“That's what the Oakwood Police have. He reported it lost, got a complaint for ‘failure to safeguard a weapon,' a trip to the department trial room, and a five-day rip. Sorry, I mean a five-day suspension of pay, a fine.” He looked at me. “You're not supposed to lose your gun.”

I smiled. “Gotcha.”

“The gun was recovered in the Filmore car and it made the department and the ATF happy. Nobody likes loose ends, especially when they involve guns.”

“So anyone could have it.”

“And probably did. Filmore could've picked it up somewhere. Whoever he went to Connecticut to meet that night could've had it. They gave me the name of the guy that lost it.” He handed me a sheet of paper. “And I looked him up. Believe it or not, he's still on the job after all these years. He's a one-twenty-four man, you know, clerical duty, property clerk vouchers, gofer, down in a Brooklyn precinct.”

“Jack, that's great.”

“He's probably old and fat and slow. He works eight-to-four tours, Monday through Friday.”

“Which makes it easy for me to drop in on him.” I looked at the name Jack had written down. “P.O. George Reilly.”

“Thirty years ago you still had a lot of young Irish cops.”

“I'll try to get into the city this week. But the gun was lost for quite some time, so it could have passed through a lot of hands.”

“And maybe it did. If it was Filmore's, I'd like to know who he got it from.”

“If Larry Filmore had a registered gun, it's hard to believe he'd have an unregistered one, too.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

When Jack says something like that, he's not talking hypothetically. It's because he's been involved in cases where such things have happened. But nothing that I knew gave me a clue to whether the suicide gun was Filmore's or someone else's.

I called Laura after we'd had our coffee and went through the list of names of families we had visited, or tried to visit, during the day.

“Alice Warren?” she said. “I knew a Barbara Warren once. She'd be about my age.”

“Too young. Her daughter's name is Michelle Franklin.”

“No.”

“Dave and Frannie Gallagher?”

“Doesn't sound familiar.”

“Crider,” I said. I read from the piece of paper. “Joe and Bea Crider.”

“No.”

“Ever know a Pasternak?”

“Never.”

“Delia Farragut?”

“Sorry.” She sounded sad.

“Those are the ones we covered today. They live in an area where Betty's son might have knocked on a door.”

“I wish I could help you.”

“I'll check back when I have some more.”

When I got off the phone, I called the number in Florida I had gotten from Delia Farragut. A woman answered.

“Mrs. Crider?” I asked.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“My name is Chris Bennett. I'm looking into an incident that happened in the part of Connecticut you lived in some years ago.”

“We haven't lived there for a long time.”

“I know that. Do you remember when a retarded young man was lost in the woods?”

“Yes, I do. It was just before we moved.”

“That's the one. What do you remember about that?”

“Well, I know he got lost in the woods and I remember they found him dead somewhere, but I don't recall where. My husband thought about joining the search, but we had just agreed to sell the house and we had so much packing to do, he just didn't have the time. Why are you asking?”

“We think the young man's death may not have been accidental. I just wondered if you might have come across him or if you knew anyone who did.”

“I certainly didn't.” She sounded a bit indignant. “And I don't know anyone who did. If I knew, I'd have told them to call the police.”

I knew I was antagonizing her. “What about the people right next door to you?” I asked.

“The Pasternaks?”

“Yes. I rang their bell today, but they weren't home.”

“I don't know anything about them. You'll have to talk to them yourself.”

She was the second person who didn't want to talk about them. “Do they both work?” I asked amiably.

“I don't know what those people do. And I have no interest in finding out.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Crider. You've been very helpful.”

“How did I help you?”

That was a good question. “I'm trying to get the chronology of events straight. Do you remember when you closed on your house?”

“Not the exact date. It was going to be the last of September, but we were able to get packed and get a mover a few days before that. The buyers were very anxious to get in quickly. I just don't remember the date anymore.”

I thanked her again and got off the phone.

That left the mysterious Pasternaks. It wasn't likely that Mrs. Crider, who had lived next door to them on a fairly lonely road, knew nothing about them. Still, they could be people who preferred to be by themselves. But the voluble Mrs. Farragut had also declined to say anything about them. I had their phone number, and I dialed it, hoping I wouldn't trigger a barrage of criticism for invading their privacy.

After three rings I got an answering machine message asking me tersely to leave my name and number. I thought for a few seconds, then hung up. I would try again tomorrow.