Vanished in the Dunes (9 page)

Henry takes a few steps towards a floor-to-ceiling glass window and looks out.

“That's quite a view.”

“Sure. Most houses anywhere this close to the beach usually have some ocean view. It's what people pay top dollar for.”

Henry takes a chance and decides to see if Posner's home without first calling since the drive is only minutes away. Welbrook's house is clearly larger and closer to the beach than Posner's, but both houses do indeed seem to have an ocean view. Henry's rented Chevy climbs the driveway and stops behind a parked Lexus.

Without an entry bell he raps with the brass knocker that guards the door. There is no response for at least thirty seconds, and he's just about to leave when he hears a voice from inside.

“Who is it? I'll be there in a minute.”

The voice is clear and slightly faint, almost tired, Henry thinks,
before he raps again, more briefly this time, and announces himself as a doctor friend of Heidi, whom he describes as the missing woman from the bus. The door opens. He apologizes for the unannounced nature of his visit and watches as Posner releases the door even wider as an unspoken invitation to enter. He follows Posner up the stairs to a living area with its own ocean views. He sees the twin green sofas, set around the art deco coffee table, and imagines that Heidi might have been here, just as she might have been in Welbrook's home, or one like it. He inhales the affluence of the room. Doctors may be paid well by comparison to other work, but there is no way he can ever see affording such luxury. There is art on the walls, probably original prints. Some of the images are familiar: a Picasso Don Quixote and a full-sized Rauschenberg share space on the far wall. From what he's read on Google, Posner has not worked for a few years, yet his art collection seems significant enough, and the house is quite grand by Henry's standards even if slightly more modest than Welbrook's.

Further introductions are brief. Posner clearly prefers that he not be there, but Henry is now used to this attitude after his time with Welbrook.

“Do you remember this woman?” he asks when the preliminaries are over.

Posner looks briefly at the photo Henry presents. Almost too briefly, Henry thinks, but he sees Posner clearly stare at the image with the pink-and-white dress.

“Oh, that's definitely her,” he says, echoing Welbrook's recollection.

As with Welbrook, Henry has prepared himself for some confession of sorts, an act of contrition, and an acknowledgment that the man had some involvement with Heidi, but there is nothing. In this regard, Posner behaves much the same as Welbrook. He relates his recollection of their brief bus conversation. Heidi appears to have asked both men for a ride to the beach. He sighs and wonders whom
else she spoke to after she left the bus. Conversation then stalls. Henry stands and walks toward the steps. He moves down the stairs without incident, stands beside the front door, turns, and asks, “Would you mind if I called on you again? There maybe something else you might remember.”

Posner doesn't answer. He merely shrugs his shoulders a moment before the door clicks shut.

Peter Wisdom watches the lazy fly ball float toward his son Kevin in right field. Kevin moves to his left, hesitates as he squints into the late afternoon sun, wavers for a moment as he surely loses sight of the ball, then lunges to the side and stabs it inches above the ground. The gathering of parents and friends applaud the effort.

Wisdom joins in, then turns around, faces the setting orange ball, and thinks again of the missing woman. She has become hard to forget. Perhaps the sun has been in his eyes too long. He's missing something and realizes it's become personal. He admits that the woman holds some physical attraction for him.

He remembers an old film where a police detective investigates the suspected murder of a beautiful woman and becomes obsessed with her portrait, until events change and she turns up alive. In this case, the missing woman doctor named Heidi Kashani has not turned up, yet Wisdom feels an uncontrolled obsession beginning to grow. Perhaps that is why he carries the color photo of her in the pink-and-white dress that Stern gave him. There is an exotic sexuality in her eyes, and from the way Stern describes her, he can understand Stern's own obsession. Moreover he can understand why other men might easily become attracted.

He notes that he should ask NYPD for a detailed check on Stern, and particularly his whereabouts on the day the woman disappeared. Obsession can beget violence. He has seen it too often. Still, there is no evidence of a crime, much less a death. Wisdom knows they
would need considerable circumstantial evidence in the absence of physical proof. All the more reason for him to inquire about the whereabouts of Dr. Henry Stern on a chilly day this past May. Since so many capital crimes involve people who know each other, this is as good a place to start as anywhere else. He knows that the NYPD won't be too happy. If someone goes missing outside of the city, then another jurisdiction has the problem, but in the end they'll still help out.

He becomes lost in thought as the teams change sides. Since early in the case he's assumed that the woman is dead. It might not even have been murder. She might have become lost in the woods and fallen into a sinkhole. All he knows is that she disappeared after leaving the bus in East Hampton, and apparently after trying to induce two separate men to drive her to the beach. She might even have gone back to Austria as some of his colleagues at County have suggested, although there is no record of her being on any scheduled flight. The fact that her parents have not offered to come to America puzzles him. The reasonable conclusion is that they know where she is, but they neither offer nor ask for help from the police.

By all accounts the woman was reasonably content at work and had a rather active social life, especially with Henry Stern. Yes, he tells himself, we'll start with a closer look at Dr. Stern. If he was involved in Heidi's disappearance, his behavior since then would give him an opportunity to deflect suspicion. Stern's actions in providing the photos and insisting on interviewing other passengers all represent the expected activity of a concerned boyfriend, except that Wisdom could hear an obsession in the man's voice that gives him pause. His contacts at NYPD will give it all a good look. No one has yet suggested that they call in the FBI. Hell. There isn't even any evidence of a kidnapping.

He looks up just in time to see his son swinging a bat as he moves into the on-deck area. There is only an inning to go and he wants to watch the whole game. In the summer he never knows how many
Little League games he'll get to. You never stop being on the job even when you're off the clock.

The next morning Detective Wisdom sits at his desk, yawns, and reaches for the Starbuck's iced cappuccino. It's Thursday, a late-June Thursday, and every Thursday he promises himself a stop at the East Hampton Starbuck's even though it's a bit out of the way. He's already savored the last few crumbs of the bran muffin. He flips open his notebook and rereads his neat printed summary of what he needs to do that day. For the moment he ignores the files that lie on the corner of his desk regarding detailed follow-up of police-related activities; a break-in and robbery at an expensive house in East Hampton, a possible hate crime assault of a local Hispanic landscaper in the Springs, and a fight outside a bar in Montauk in the early morning of the past Saturday. Things will be getting worse. The season has just begun. There will be fights, robberies, even the rare possibility of a murder. There will likely be more overtime, although he would prefer there wasn't. He's already missed two of his son's Little League games.

He closes the pad and sighs. Something gnaws at him. The missing woman from New York. He hasn't made any progress. Then a small kernel of an idea grows. He picks up the phone and dials the extension of the department's tech specialist.

After two rings, Ray Baxter picks up.

“Ray. Peter Wisdom. Can you please clarify something for me? If someone used a two or three-year-old Verizon wireless cell phone six weeks ago, can you still tell me where the call was made from? Sorry, but we don't have the phone. I'd rather ask you first than depend on Verizon. I'll talk to them when we know more.” Wisdom fills in more of the details and leaves the rest to the resident techie.

Ray calls back the next morning.

“Sorry it took so long, but I wanted to check something with the
Feds before getting back. You were right to ask. The technology changes so fast these days that something new could turn up tomorrow. Anyway, the story is this: If the woman's phone was a few years old, it probably didn't have one of the new embedded chips. If she did, the new tracking systems would enable Verizon to pinpoint the source of the call to within fifty feet or less. Assuming she didn't have the chip, and the call was made a few months ago, the best they could do would be to determine that the call was transmitted through a local tower. In this case it was probably in Amagansett.”

“Remind me. Where's the tower?” asks Wisdom, oblivious to his admission that he didn't remember exactly where, although he'd knew about the construction several years before.

Ray gives the location. It's a quasi-industrial area away from the larger summer homes. The rich don't want a tall radio tower in their backyard.

“What's the area range that it covers?” asks Wisdom.

“That's the problem,” said Ray. “It's a pretty big area. Look at it as a pie shape with a diameter of two to three miles. Around here that especially covers a lot of space with water views. You did say the call came from a house with water views, didn't you?”

Wisdom sighs and breathes faint curses into the receiver. Ray doesn't need to repeat the question.

“As long as the Feds aren't involved there's not usually a problem and city hasn't suggested calling them in as yet. Nor should we or County. So far there's absolutely no hint of a kidnapping. Damn!”

Chief Ferris manages to get all but the last few words out before a drop of yolk from his fried egg breakfast sandwich leaks onto his shirt. He looks down, wets his handkerchief with a daub from his tongue, and blots the spot as he shakes his head.

“Lucky I always keep extra shirts in the office closet, but first let's see how it dries.”

He's called Wisdom into his office on a cool August day to fill him in on the “Heidi case” as they called it in the office. He doesn't often get so involved in a case, but Wisdom is happy for the input. The chief has been around and knows the score. He pulls a folder up from his clean desk and reads from the combined NYPD and town reports.

“After nearly three months of waiting, nothing's turned up. When she disappeared, she had over thirty thousand dollars in her bank account at Chase, and more to the point there weren't any recent major cash withdrawals. The last one was the day before she took the bus and that was only for a hundred. All of the last checks she wrote were for normal commercial expenses like rent, Con Edison, Verizon, and the Food Emporium. She has one credit card, a Chase Visa. Not much there except for some department store clothing purchases. Again nothing since she went missing. Certainly no purchase of airline or railroad tickets.

“They haven't heard anymore from her parents in Europe, which boggles the mind, nor have they opted to call in the Feds. What they have done is follow an idea you had to check out Dr. Stern more closely. Initially they thought it was far-fetched. After all he was the one who first reported her missing. They had a strong emotional relationship and he brought in the cell phone message where she said she was in some nice house out here with a water view.”

“We know all that,” says Wisdom. “Did they find anything?”

“More than a little. First thing is that Stern can't confirm an alibi for that day. Says he wasn't on call on the day she disappeared. Says he rented a car and drove upstate to the area where he grew up, had a bite at some diner and came back late afternoon. Didn't talk to anyone who would remember him, didn't use a credit card for anything. Nada.”

“So what's wrong with the picture?”

“The mileage to start with. Several weeks later he rented another car also from the same Avis East Side pick-up location. You'll
remember that's when he came out here with the FOIA list and spoke to some people from the bus. The mileage on the day he came out here was almost the same as the time when he claimed he went upstate.”

“Meaning he could have been here and not upstate on the day she disappeared. Meaning he could have followed her out to East Hampton and trailed her from the bus stop. But what about the cell phone call he got from her? Wouldn't his phone have shown that he was out here when he received the call?”

“Claims he forgot the phone that day. Says he was pissed that she didn't want him to come along and accidentally left it back in his apartment and only got her message when he got home.”

“That sounds lame. He's a doctor for chrissakes. He needs to be available twenty-four seven.”

“Says he did have his pager but had no messages.”

“Anything else?”

“NYPD also says they made some discreet inquiries about the relationship between the two of them. Seems they were getting it off pretty regularly, but she wasn't doing it only with him. She was pretty accommodating to anyone on the staff who showed any interest. So much so they had some fights that weren't so private, but they haven't hit him yet with any of this.”

“Jesus!” Wisdom shakes his head sideways in a universal sign of disapproval. “So are we still involved at all?”

“Not directly, but there are two more things you should know about. When New York was talking to Stern, he volunteered that he had a feeling that either of two guys from the bus probably knew more than they were letting on. They'd like us to talk to them again. It's Welbrook and Posner. Before you say anything, I know you already spoke to both of them and they were clean, but we'd be doing the city boys a favor, and I like it when they owe us. And before you see them, do some research on their backgrounds. If by any chance
they're lying to us, I want to know enough so we can catch them in it. I spoke to County and they're with us on this.”