“That’s all you’ve got?”
“No. The answering machine was left behind, and it was hooked up to continue answering the phone and telling people to leave their messages. If she’d left on her own she’d have called and had the phone disconnected.”
“Not if she left in a hurry.”
“She probably would have called in somewhere along the line. But let’s say she didn’t, let’s say she was enough of an airhead to forget it altogether. Why would she leave the machine?”
“Same thing. She forgot it.”
“The room was left empty. No clothes in the drawers, nothing in the closet. There wasn’t a whole lot of clutter around for things to get lost in. All that was left was the bed linen, the phone, and the answering machine. She couldn’t have not noticed it.”
“Sure she could. Lots of people leave the phone when they move. I think you’re supposed to leave the phone, unless it’s one that you bought outright. Anyway, people leave them. So she’s gonna leave her phone. So the answering machine — where is it, it’s next to the phone, right?”
“Right.”
“So she looks over there and she doesn’t see something separate, an answering machine, a household appliance, keeps you in touch with your friends and associates, ends your worry of missing calls, di dah di dah di dah. What she sees is part of the phone.”
I thought about it. “Maybe,” I said.
“It’s part of the phone, it goes with the phone. And, since the phone stays, it stays with the phone.”
“And why doesn’t she come back for it when she realizes it’s missing?”
“Because she’s in Greenland,” he said, “and it’s cheaper to buy a new machine than to get on a plane.”
“I don’t know, Joe.”
“I don’t know either, but I’ll tell you this, it makes as much sense as looking at a phone and an answering machine and two sheets and a blanket and trying to make a kidnapping case out of it.”
“Don’t forget the bedspread.”
“Yeah, right. Maybe she moved somewhere that she couldn’t use the linen. What was it, a single bed?”
“Larger than that, somewhere between a single and a double. I think they call it a three-quarter.”
“So she moved in with some slick dude with a king-size water bed and a twelve-inch cock, and what does she need with some old sheets and pillowcases? What does she even need with a phone, as far as that goes, if she’s gonna be spending all her time on her back with her knees up?”
“I think somebody moved her out,” I said. “I think somebody took her keys and let himself into her room and packed up all her things and slipped out of there with them. I think—”
“Anybody see a stranger leave the building with a couple of suitcases?”
“They don’t even know each other, so how would they spot a stranger?”
“Did anybody see anybody toting some bags around that time?”
“It’s too long ago, you know that. I asked the question of people on the same floor with her, but how can you remember a commonplace event that might have taken place two months ago?”
“That’s the whole point, Matt. If anybody left a trail, it’s ice-cold by now.” He picked up a Lucite photo cube, turned it in his hands and looked at a picture of two children and a dog, all three beaming at the camera. “Go on with your script,” he said. “Somebody moves her stuff out. He leaves the linen because he doesn’t know it’s hers. Why does he leave the answering machine?”
“So anybody who calls her won’t know she’s gone.”
“Then why doesn’t he leave everything, and even the landlady won’t know she’s gone?”
“Because eventually the landlady will figure out that she’s not coming back, and the matter might get reported to the police. Cleaning out the room tidies a potential loose end. Leaving the answering machine buys a little time, gives the illusion she’s still there to anybody at a distance, and makes it impossible to know exactly when she moved. She paid her rent on the sixth and her room was found to be vacant ten days later, so that’s the best I can narrow down the time of her disappearance, and that’s because he left the machine on.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Her parents called a couple of times and left messages. If the machine hadn’t picked up they would have kept calling until they reached her, and when they didn’t reach her no matter what time they called, they would have been alarmed, they would have thought something happened to her. In all likelihood her father would have come to see you two months earlier than he did.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“And it wouldn’t have been a cold trail then.”
“I’m still not sure it would have been a police matter.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But if he’d hired somebody private back in the middle of July—”
“You’d have had an easier time of it. No argument.” He thought for a moment. “Say she left the machine behind herself, not by accident but because she had a reason.”
“What reason?”
“She moved out but she doesn’t want somebody to know she’s gone. Her parents, say, or somebody else she’s trying to duck.”
“She’d just keep the room. Pay the rent and live elsewhere.”
“All right, say she wants to move out and skip town but she wants to be able to get her calls. She could—”
“She couldn’t get her calls from a distance.”
“Sure she could. They’ve got this gizmo, you just call your machine from any touch-tone phone and punch in a code and the machine plays back your messages.”
“Not all machines have the remote-pickup feature. Hers didn’t.”
“How do you know that? Oh, right, you saw the machine, it’s still in the room.” He splayed his fingers. “Look, what’s the point going over this again and again? You were a cop long enough, Matt. Put yourself in my position.”
“I’m just saying that—”
“Put yourself in my fucking position, will you? You’re sitting at this desk and a guy comes in with a story about bed linen and a telephone answering machine. There’s no evidence that a crime has been committed, the missing person is a mentally competent adult, and nobody’s seen her for over two months. Now what am I supposed to do?”
I didn’t say anything.
“What would you do? In my position.”
“What you’re doing.”
“Of course you would.”
“Suppose it was the mayor’s daughter.”
“The mayor doesn’t have a daughter. The mayor never had a hard-on in his life, so how could he have a daughter?” He pushed his chair back. “Of course it’s a different matter if it’s the mayor’s daughter. Then we put a hundred men on it and work around the clock until something breaks. Which doesn’t mean something necessarily does, not after all this time and with so little to go on. Look, what’s the big fear here? Not that she went to Disney World and the Ferris wheel got stuck with her at the top of it. What are you and her parents really afraid of?”
“That she’s dead.”
“And maybe she is. People die all the time in this city. If she’s alive she’ll call home sooner or later, when the money runs out or her head clears up, whatever it takes. If she’s dead there’s nothing anybody can do for her, you or me or anybody else.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. Your problem is you get like a dog with a bone. Call the father, tell him there’s nothing to run with, he should have called you two months ago.”
“Right, make him feel guilty.”
“Well, you could find a better way to put it. Jesus, you already gave it more than most people would and took it as far as it would go. You even dug up some decent clues, the phone calls and everything, the answering machine. The trouble is they’re not attached to anything. You pull them and they come off in your hand.”