The Lady Vanishes
A case, in which Jack is missing sleep, Sam is missing simpler times, Martin is missing lunch, Vivian is missing her family, Danny is missing a vacation, and a Society matron is plain missing.
Disclaimer: Mine, all mine! Oh, well, a girl can dream.
I am very grateful to all who commented. Jera, you got me misty-eyed for a moment. Actually, all the reviews did. Thank you, every one of you:)
xxxxx
"Did I hear correctly? Our wandering chauffeur is in the building?"
Danny exited the elevator and flashed a bright smile at Sam. It was too bright a smile for anyone forced to terminate sleep to be at the office at 6:45 on a Monday morning, and Samantha guessed that Danny hadn't gone to bed at all. Not a big surprise with Danny. He seemed to have subsisted on very little sleep and fewer meals than an average person.
"Yep, he is here. Signed, sealed, and delivered by the good men and women of the Atlantic City Police Department. He is sulking in the interrogation room."
"What's he saying?"
"He isn't saying much of anything. He asked for a lawyer - smart man - and he's been sipping on a Cherry soda ever since. Jack gave him a phone and a soda in exchange for a definite 'no' on the question of whether Mrs. Stevens-Newberg went with him to the Atlantic City. More than that we couldn't get out. I am guessing someone's gotten to him before we did, and I also have a pretty good idea as to who it was. Frank, it appears, has made a phone call from the same pay phone he used to call his wife, right after he called her. You'd think he would have contacted us, considering the information and the number he received from her, but no. The call went out to a certain tastefully-understated home on the Upper East Side. Suffice it to say that the lawyer we are now so anxiously awaiting is from the esteemed firm of Peabody Morgan. Ring any bells?"
Danny's smile gotten even broader, though it lost almost all of its mirth: "Not the honorable Leonard Morgan of Peabody Morgan? Darn it! I knew I should have worn my 'special occasions' tie today!"
Sam chuckled: "The yellow one with brown specks? I'm glad you didn't. We don't want to dazzle the Stevens-Newberg lawyer, we want to subdue him."
"Now, is it me, or does it seem suspicious that the concerned family of the missing lady is providing their employee - the one who can shed light on her very disappearance - with an attorney?"
"Suspicious, odd, and suspiciously and oddly expected." Sam shrugged - a gesture infused with sarcasm and resignation. "I have a distinct impression that our dear Coco is running this show, and she'd be damned if one of 'the help' says something unedited."
Danny raised his eyebrows. "This is bizarre! Doesn't she get that all this maneuvering just makes her look suspicious?"
"I honestly don't think she cares. At least I don't think she believes we can seriously suspect her, or anyone in her family, of anything. She cares about the family's public image, though, and that's where the damage control comes in."
"That figures," Danny made a face indicating disgust. "I wonder what Mr. Stevens-Newberg is thinking."
"He is probably thinking that in his wife he found the mommy he always wanted, and that he better listen to her. He craves being told what to do, and, I bet, he gets indulged in that at home. The guy is totally whipped."
"I don't know, Sam. He may be whipped, and, in fact, probably is, but he may also genuinely love his wife. Allie thinks so, and she is a very astute observer."
Sam nodded acknowledgment as her cell phone beeped. She listened to a short message on the other end and smiled up at Danny.
"That's Jack. The lawyer is here. Wanna go observe the circus?"
"Hell, yeah. You know, jokes aside, I am really worried about the old lady. I feel like I know her by now, and it seems to me, that, if she was able to, she would have contacted someone already."
Again, Sam acknowledged this with a nod.
xxxxxx
Frank Argello, a large, graying man in brown jacket, fidgeted with his hands and finally settled on thrusting them into his pockets. He was clearly uncomfortable. By contrast, Stevens-Newberg family attorney Leonard Morgan was all business and practiced ease. Armed with an imposing metal briefcase, several pens, two manila folders and severe, wire-rimmed glasses, the Man of the Law was telegraphing to the agents that there will be no intimidating, coercing, or otherwise confusing of anybody here today.
Jack, suppressing a smile, shot a meaningful glance at Martin.
Before Martin could ask any questions, though, Frank, finally overcome by the situation, announced to the agents: "I don't know anything!"
Danny and Sam, looking on from behind the glass outside the room, shook their heads in unison.
"Now, that's what I call an impressive preemptive strike!" Said Danny.
"Eloquent man, Mr. Argello," concurred Sam with the same sarcasm in her voice.
"Sir," Martin smiled at the agitated chauffeur affably, "we haven't asked you anything yet."
"I know what you're thinking! I didn't do nothing!"
The stalwart lawyer put a calming hand on Frank's shoulder, shooting a warning glance at the agents at the same time.
"What my client means is that he would gladly answer any questions you deem necessary to ask, but he wants to stress that he has no knowledge of Mrs. Stevens-Newberg's whereabouts, nor is he responsible for her disappearance in any way."
"Wow. Way to parse a simple statement! All I heard was 'I didn't do nothing,' but, clearly, I don't have a fancy Harvard Law degree. They so didn't give us a course in that at the lowly NYU!" Danny's mock awe made Sam smile again.
Visibly less amused was Jack, who gave the lawyer his patented fiery stare and turned to Martin, nodding at him to proceed.
"Mr. Argello, we know that you drove Mrs. Stevens-Newberg to her son's house after 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon. We know that you waited for her outside that house until just after 7 p.m. What we don't know is where you took her later and why. You called your wife soon after 7 and informed her that you were driving your employer to the Hamptons and were likely to remain there for some time. Now, everybody here knows that's not what happened. Care to enlighten us?"
Frank shifted in his seat. "You make it sound like I did something! I didn't! She gave me time off, all right? She wanted to go off on her own. I took her to the station, and then I parked the limo in the garage and went to Atlantic City."
Jack raised an eyebrow: "That's not what you told your wife."
"You always tell your wife everything?"
Jack wisely chose to treat this question as rhetorical.
The man shifted again, discomfort so apparent on his face that Martin briefly wondered if Frank suffered from hemorrhoids. "Look, I am not a bad husband. I don't cheat on my wife, I don't drink, and I help around the house. So, if sometimes an unscheduled time off falls into my lap, I think I am entitled to treat myself to a day or two of playing the tables, and I don't see why I should trouble my wife with the details!"
"Some details, Mr. Argello," Martin picked up the thread. "There are seems to be a lot you are not troubling your wife with. When you were picked up, you had close to $4,000 on you. In cash. Your Hotel bill was nearing $300 and you left almost $500 at the tables in the casino. That, together, tells us you had something like $5,000 to indulge yourself with. Now, I checked your financials very thoroughly, and there were no recent withdrawals of any amounts even close to $5,000 from any of your accounts. Not even your personal one, the one you also don't trouble your wife with. Where did you get the money for this mini-vacation?"
"The lady gave it to me, all right?" Frank's face was read now, but it was difficult to say whether he was afraid, angry, or indignant about the implication.
"Why did she give it to you?" Jack's tone was even and conversationally soothing.
"As a bonus, may be. I don't know!"
"That's some bonus, Mr. Argello. And for no apparent reason, too. It's not the holidays, it's not your birthday, your anniversary, or any known red day what so ever."
"So? She just gave it to me. Along with the time off. She's generous like that!"
"You mean she is in the habit of slipping you a thousand or so on a regular basis?"
"Well, no. . . . But, I guess she was going away and all. . . . May be she isn't coming back, and my job with her is over. May be she gave me that as a parting gift!" He said it triumphantly, as if solving a problem.
"Did she tell you she wasn't coming back? Or did you just infer that?"
"No. She didn't tell me much of anything. . . ."
"Look," the honorable Leonard Morgan chimed in with a cool and detached voice, "my client has already answered your direct questions. Now you are just asking him to speculate, and we can't have that."
"No, we certainly can't! Parish the thought!" Jack's voice was only a tad sarcastic. "Mr. Argello, speculations aside, let's go back to Saturday evening. You said you took her to a station. Which station?"
"Eh, Grand Central?" Frank suddenly sounded unsure.
"You are asking me?"
"No. I mean, it was Grand Central."
"Where was she going?"
"I don't know, she just told me to drop her off at the main entrance. Which I did."
"What time was that?"
"Eh. . . . About 8? Yeah, 8, may be a little later."
"Are you sure she didn't ask you to take her home first?"
"I'm sure. Why?"
"Well, your employer suddenly tells you to take her to a train station. Even without knowing the details, it's obvious she intends to take a train somewhere. I mean, if she was picking someone up, it stands to reason she would have asked you to wait or pick her and that someone up later. Therefore, if she was going somewhere, it didn't occur to you to wonder why she wouldn't stop at home and pack a thing or two? A toothbrush, may be, or a change of clothes?"
Frank shrugged. "May be she wasn't going for long."
"Why then did she give you all that time off?"
"May be she was late for a train and didn't have time to pack. She can get a toothbrush anywhere!"
"That she can, but unless she had a rather pressing appointment somewhere - and we are almost certain that she didn't - missing a train from the Grand Central is not a disaster one might think should be avoided at all costs. Trains from that particular station only go as far as Connecticut, and they are scheduled at half-hour intervals. An hour, at most, for some destinations. Hardly worth the rush and forgoing the packing."
"You are doing it again, Agent Malone," the attorney's voice sounded bored, but full of warning non the less. "You are asking my client to account for his employer's actions. He neither can nor should do that."
Frank interrupted his lawyer before Jack or Martin had a chance to respond: "Look! I don't pry into my employers personal plans. If they want to tell me, fine, but otherwise, I keep my mouth shut. She was upset, all right? I could tell that. But I didn't ask, and it's not like Mrs. Stevens-Newberg would ever bitch to a chauffeur. I drove her there, we said good-bye, she gave me the money and the time off, and that's the end of it! I took the limo to the garage, East 86th and Lexington. And I took a bus to Atlantic City. I'd give you the ticket stub, but I threw it away! I don't know what else you can want from me."
Martin and Jack looked at each other and got up.
"OK, Mr. Argello, thank you for your cooperation," Jack even managed to sound sincere, with only a hint of sarcasm. "We'll be in touch."
xxxxx
"All right, let's run it," Jack looked around the table, where most of his troops gathered once more. "We need to check the Grand Central. Surveillance, ticket sales, possible eye witnesses. We've got the people, but that doesn't mean we'll have results."
"Yeah, it's literally the Grand Central Station," mused Sam, "it could take us, oh, until mid-July to collect and process all the possible leads."
"Let's not be pessimistic. If we are lucky, we will be done with it by April!" Vivian faked enthusiasm.
They all laughed, but the levity was forced. If the driver's story checked out, they were left with no real leads and an elderly lady, whose trail was rapidly growing cold, out there somewhere in a very possibly harmful or dire situation.
"Jack," Martin raised his head from the notes he was rereading, "something here doesn't seem right." He indicated the notes, "I mean, before we do the grand tour of the Grand Central, we should look at Frank much more carefully."
He glanced around the table. No one was interrupting, and, encouraged to proceed, Martin went on: "Why did Frank, when informed of our search by his wife, instead of contacting us, called the Stevens-Newbergs? He never really did answer that."
Jack shrugged: "To see if the old lady checked in? To get a lawyer?"
"Why? Surely, if his employer checked in with her family, he could have gotten this information from us. Why not hurry and clear himself? Why call them first? He isn't a family, he worked almost exclusively for the old lady. Why did he think Mrs. Stevens-Newberg the Younger would bother to advice him either way, let alone provide him with an attorney? Why did he even think he would need an attorney, if, as he so eloquently put it, he 'hasn't done nothing'?"
"Knee-jerk reaction. Could be, you know. Those 'old school' service types always consider their employers first. They also tend to think the authorities are out to screw them. He probably heard 'FBI' and got scared, regardless of his guilt or innocence. That doesn't prove anything."
"May be not, but it raises my red flags. And then there's the matter of $5,000. He says the old lady gave it to him, but where did she get it?"
"Ah, Martin, she is loaded," Vivian pointed out.
"I know, and she is also an astute business woman and not at all one of those old fogies who keep large wads of cash rolled up in their sock drawers. She has bank accounts, investments, bonds, and annuities. She conducts her shopping almost entirely with her Platinum American Express. She has a check book at home. She has an ATM card. All of which we checked and did not come up with any large withdrawals lately. Or any withdrawals since last Friday. At all. So, my question remains: where did she get $5,000 to casually hand over to Frank on a whim? I highly doubt she just happened to have carried it around in her clutch purse for months and months."
"She doesn't have a safe at home?" Asked Jack.
"She does," answered Vivian, "but it's filled with two jewelry boxes, a folder with old photos, and a pack of yellowing letters tied with a ribbon, and it looks like it hasn't been opened in months. Clearly, it's a sentimental and not financial storage. No, Martin's right, she wasn't the type to have lots of cash at home or in her bag. She used the modern financial system well. She was part of it."
"Good point," Sam agreed, "something definitely doesn't add up here."
"Frank is either lying entirely or twisting something," Martin insisted.
Sam nodded. "Practically all of them do. Save for Allie, Mrs. Harriford, and, may be, the maid, everyone we talked to in the course of this investigation has either lied to us or didn't tell the whole truth. Mrs. Stevens-Newberg certainly tried her darnest to withhold information. Blake was evasive on some points. Mr. Stevens-Newberg was defensive to a fault and less than forthcoming. And Frank - I agree with Martin - is lying about something. We just don't know why the are doing it. Is this a conspiracy or do they all have something personal and completely unrelated to the matter at hand that they don't want us to find out? I mean, besides the Junior and his fraud investigation. It could be as innocent as that they are all extra reticent with the law enforcement, not being used to being questioned. Or, it could mean that they are all guilty of something incredibly sinister and are covering up for each other. And the maddening thing is that, unless we catch any of them in an outright lie, we can't do anything about it."
"Funny you should say that," Danny's voice made them all turn, as he approached the table, a folder and a phone in his hands. "One of the guys just got back to us. They checked the garage on East 86th and Lexington. There are records and the surveillance tapes. Our Frank does park the car there. He's got a permanent, prepaid spot. And here's the kicker: the security tape shows him parking the limo, like he mentioned, but guess what the time stamp says? 7: 48 p.m.! Now, I am not an expert, and I don't have his lifetime experience of chauffeuring, but I don't think even a man of Frank's impressive driving abilities could have made it all the way from the Upper East Side to the Grand Central Station and then back to 86th in roughly 45 minutes. In Manhattan traffic. Not to mention, he claims he dropped the lady off at the station in the limo around 8 p.m. Even if he is confused about the timing, it is still not enough time for him to have driven all the way to the Grand Central and back."
"And here it is," said Jack quietly.
"What?"
"An outright lie. Let's get him back here, shall we?"