Dead Red (19 page)

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you both.”

“You can thank us when we bring her home. And we will. Is there anything that you’ve thought of since I last spoke with your husband?”

The Goldens looked at each other. Mrs. Golden said, “No. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. It’s just that in cases like this, sometimes people remember a small detail that seems unimportant at the time. You’ve been through a lot, and now with the pregnancy, your mind is probably all over the place.”

She nodded. “It is.”

“If you think of anything, no matter how insignificant it may seem, tell your husband. He’ll tell us,” Jack looked at Mr. Golden, “and we’ll consider it.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“It’s what we do,” Jack said.

I found myself surprised by how good Jack was at this.

“Well,” Mr. Golden said as he stood up. “I’ve got a phone conference in my den in a few minutes. If there’s nothing else…”

Jack got up and I followed his lead. “We’ll be in touch, Mr. Golden.”

I almost asked if we could check out Angela’s bedroom, but kept my mouth shut as Jack had instructed me. Besides, I figured, Jack had probably already done so. It’s the first thing you do when a kid goes missing.

“Gentlemen.” Mr. Golden gestured toward the door like a game show host. On our way, we passed Agnes bringing Mrs. Golden her coffee. Agnes did not say good-bye, keeping her total syllables addressed to us at under ten.

After shaking hands and agreeing to talk the next day, Jack and I were outside, standing on the front steps, taking in the neighborhood.

“You grew up out here, right?”

“On Long Island. But not this part. We had to bike or drive to the water.”

Jack took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. Now that our meeting was over, he seemed more relaxed, enjoying the surroundings.

“Check that out,” he said, pointing to a dock across the way from where he’d parked the car. “That’s funny shit.”

I looked over and couldn’t see what was so funny.

“The owl,” he said. “The plastic owl perched on the post.”

I squinted and noticed the owl for the first time. It was grayish brown and seemed to be an extension of the post on which it sat. Jack must have had pretty good eyesight to pick that up. Another investigative skill he possessed.

“What’s so funny about it? I see them in the city. They’re supposed to scare the pigeons away.”

He spit out some air. “You spend all this fucking money—two million on that house, at least—to live by the water, to commune with nature. And then you spend another lousy ten bucks to do what? Scare away the seagulls so they don’t shit on your precious dock?”

“You saying they don’t work?”

“Not if they’re just sitting there, Ray.” He laughed. “Let’s say you’re a seagull and you wanna land on Mr. Moneybag’s dock over there.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll admit, maybe the first time the seagull sees the fake owl, he thinks better of it and decides to do his business somewhere else. But after a while, don’t you think a seagull of even average intelligence is gonna figure out the owl’s never moved?” He laughed again and pointed. “I think I see some bird shit on the owl’s head.”

I nodded. “You get what you pay for, I guess.”

“Buy a fucking gun, shoot one of those flying rats, and leave the body. The rest of them will get the idea.” Jack opened the driver’s side door. “You wanna go see the big guy’s boat?”

“Do we have the time?”

“Lots.”

*   *   *

“Shit,” Jack said, pulling up to another
STOP
sign and slapping his steering wheel. “It’s all these damned lefts and rights and these cutesy nautical names.”

We’d been driving around for almost ten minutes trying to find the marina that was supposed to be five minutes from the Goldens’ house. Jack had been there before, but this was not his home turf.

“Make a right,” I said.

“Why, Ray? Why a right?”

“Why not?”

He made a right, took that street a few blocks, and we hit another
STOP
sign. “Now what, Magellan?”

I rolled down my window and stuck my head out. I looked up at the clouds and noticed the direction they were floating. I took a deep breath of the sea air. “Make a left and go about a quarter of a mile.”

“What? You know something I don’t know?”

I pointed in front of us. “I’m just good at reading.”

Jack looked to where I was pointing: a faded sign with the word
MARINA
written in faded blue paint and an arrow pointing to the left. ¼
MILE
was written below the arrow.

“Smartass,” Jack said and left some tire behind as he made the left turn.

There was no sign telling us whether we could park in the marina, so Jack played it safe by parking just outside the entrance, in front of a closed restaurant with a
FOR SALE
sign in the window. We walked through the entrance of the marina and were met by the cool ocean breeze again. Must be nice to experience this on a daily basis.

We moved toward the line of boats docked in their individual slots. Jack checked them out and found the one he was looking for.

“That’s Golden’s.” He pointed to the biggest boat in the line.

“Nice.”

We got closer and I saw the word
SILENCE
written in blue script on the back.

“Weird name for a boat,” Jack said. “Wonder what it means.”

“Silence is golden,” I said.

Jack looked at me and smiled. “Pretty sharp there, Ray. You should be a teacher when you grow up. Maybe even a cop.”

I gave him a weak smile. “He runs a public relations firm, right?”

“Yep. Pretty snazzy one, too, from what I’ve seen.”

“The name makes sense two ways then.”

“Really?”

“The obvious one.” I paused for effect. “And the not-so-obvious.”

I waited as he thought about it. When he didn’t come up with it, I spoke.

“Public relations. It’s not just what you want people to know about you, it’s also what you
don’t
want them to know about you.”

“You do something good,” Jack said, “you want that news getting out there.”

“And the opposite is true for when you don’t do so good.”

“Silence
is
golden.” He laughed. “Hell, for me,
Golden
is golden.”

“Help you, gentlemen?”

We turned to see a guy walking toward us. He was carrying a cooler and placed it down at the back of one of the other boats. He was dressed all in blue: denim work shirt, oil-stained jeans, and an old pair of blue sneakers. It looked like he had forgotten to shave … three days ago. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and let out a long stream of smoke. Then he licked his fingers, extinguished the hot coal on the end, and placed the remaining cigarette in his shirt pocket. Didn’t take much to figure this guy for the caretaker.

“We’re all full up, if that’s why you’re out here,” he said. “You can fill out an application in the office, if you want. Gotta waiting list, though, so…”

“Actually,” Jack said, “my partner and I were just interested in checking out Mr. Golden’s boat.”

“Partner?” the guy said. “You two cops?”

“Private. We’re working for the Golden family. I’m Jack Knight.” He handed the guy a card and pointed over his shoulder. “This is Raymond Donne.”

I gave a little wave, but he was too busy looking at Jack’s card to notice.

“Cool,” he said, slipping the card into the same pocket that held his recently dead cigarette. “I’m Lowtide. Kinda take care of things around here.”

“Lowtide?” I said.

“Well,” he said. “It’s not the name on my birth certificate, if that’s what you’re asking. My real name’s Louis Tedeschi, but nobody calls me that except my family, and they’re all dead except my sister in California, so, I guess, really nobody but my sister calls me that. I’m just Lowtide.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “You know the Golden family, Lowtide?”

“Oh, yeah. I know all the boat owners out here. Got to. That’s how I knew you two weren’t residents.”

“So you know about their daughter?”

He shook his head. “Angela, yeah. That’s a damn shame. She’s an angel, that one. Think that’s why they named her Angela.”

“You ever see her out here by herself. On the boat?”

“You mean without her folks?”

“That’s what I mean.”

He paused for a beat. “Yeah, a few times. She’d bring a couple of friends out here and they’d eat lunch on the boat or something. Do the fireworks on the Fourth, stuff like that.”

“Any boys?” I asked.

“A few. But never alone.” He stressed that part. “She wasn’t that type of girl. Some of her friends mighta been, but not Angela.”

“Any friends stand out?” Jack asked.

Lowtide shook his head. “That’s just what the cops asked me and I said no. They were just your average rich kids hanging around Daddy’s boat, you know?”

Jack said he did. “Any … minority kids?”

“Minority?” Lowtide said and then whispered, “You mean like Jews?”

“No,” Jack said, barely stifling a laugh. “She have any black or Hispanic friends that you mighta seen with her on the boat?”

“Nope,” he said. “Just the regular white kids from the neighborhood.” He seemed to catch himself as those words came out, and he said, “Not ‘regular.’ I mean just the kids from around here is what I mean. Kids she went to school with.”

Jack reached out and put his hand on Lowtide’s shoulder. “I know what you mean, man. It’s okay.” Jack took out his phone and showed it to Lowtide. “You ever see this girl out here?”

Lowtide studied the picture for a few seconds. “Nope.”

Jack looked back at the Golden’s boat. “How often do the Goldens take the boat out, would you say?”

“Almost every weekend,” Lowtide said. “Sunday mornings. Mr. G likes to get out on the water early. He’ll call the day before, and I’ll have his cooler and his fishing gear ready to go. I even put fresh bait in the cooler. He’s a good tipper.”

“That’s good to know,” Jack said, obviously thinking of the fifty-thousand-dollar tip he was hoping would be coming his way soon. “Thanks a lot, Lowtide. You’ve been a big help.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Knight.” I could see another thought forming on his face. It took a while before it came out. “Hey, as a private eye,” Lowtide began, “you gotta keep confidential, right?”

“Any information I gather relating to my clients—unless I find out they’re about to do somebody some harm—is between me and my client.”

Lowtide looked around as if making sure there was no one in the area who could hear him. Besides Jack and me—there wasn’t.

“Mr. Golden,” he said. “He’s been coming out here to sleep some nights.”

“Alone?”

It took Lowtide a few seconds to get Jack’s implication. “Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I wasn’t trying to say … no, absolutely. Alone.”

Jack lowered his voice. “Any idea why he’d sleep out here by himself?”

Lowtide nodded. “Sometimes, some of the folks come out here when it’s real hot. Sleep on the boat. But Mr. Golden? Got the feeling he doesn’t like being around the house too much these days. Especially now that the wife is pregnant, y’know? I don’t care how big your house is. It gets crowded real quick when the wife’s pregnant. And … the times they’re out here together? They don’t always talk so nice to each other.”

“Have they been out here together since Angela went missing?” I asked.

“No. Matter of fact, they ain’t. Guess they want someone at the house at all times case Angela shows up or calls, huh? Isn’t that what the cops always say?”

Jack said, “You seem to know a lot about what goes on around here, Lowtide.”

“You don’t know the half of it. It’s like a soap opera sometimes:
As the Prop Turns
. Everybody knows a little bit about everybody’s business.”

“And you know most of it, right?”

“I guess I do.” He seemed pleased with that. “The missus comes out here by herself, too. During the day, when Mr. G’s at work. She’ll sit on the boat, just staring into space.” He shook his head. “Can’t imagine not knowing where your kid’s at. Coupla times, I seen her sneaking a smoke. Can’t blame her, the stress she’s under.”

“Can’t imagine,” Jack said and then looked at his watch. “We gotta be heading back to the big city, Lowtide.” Jack offered his hand. “Thanks again.”

“Anytime,” Lowtide said. “You guys be careful.”

“Count on it.”

Jack and I watched as Lowtide made his way to the other end of the dock. We started walking back to the car, this time around the parking lot instead of across it. We stopped in front of an area of sand with four deck chairs. The folks here had made their own little beach, roughly the size of a classroom at my school. I turned back to face the water. The breeze was bringing in a low level of clouds, and there was the smell of distant rain. It was almost like being on top of a mountain.

“You figure out why they call him Lowtide, Ray?”

“Because he works by the water? And his name’s Lou Tedeschi?”

Jack stopped looking at the water and turned to me. “That’s half of it.”

“What’s the other half, Jack? Why Lowtide?”

“Because low tide is when the things that are usually hidden under the water wash up on shore, where you can see them,” Jack said. “And sometimes, Ray…?”

“Yeah?”

“It smells like shit.”

Chapter 17

BACK ON THE PARKWAY, JACK WAS weaving his car in and around the slower-moving vehicles—the ones doing only ten miles above the speed limit—when his phone rang. It was between us, mounted onto the dashboard. He pressed a button, which not only answered the call but also put it on speakerphone.

“Jack Knight,” he said.

“Jack,” the caller said. “Willy.”

“Willy D! My favorite bagpiper.” He turned to me and mouthed, “A guy from the nine-oh.” Back to Willy: “Whatcha got for me, bro?”

“I spoke with the lead on the case,” Willy said. “They got the ballistics back on all three shootings.”

“Lemme guess. They pulled two different slugs from Ricky’s case. One of them matches the gun that killed the dead kid in the park, and the other is was from the kid’s semiautomatic.