“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.
CHAPTER 5
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?”