The Same Mistake Twice (8 page)

Tillotson’s cell phone rang.

He had crossed four names off Rennert’s list without leaving his desk in his apartment. Maybe there was a point to this whole Internet thing.

On the other hand, nothing that kept him in this apartment was entirely a good thing. He had furnished the apartment in Separated Middle-Aged Man Modern, which meant the few pieces of furniture that his wife had let him take. Only his desk was really his own. His wife had taken one look at his face and let him have the desk.

The paint on the walls was a shade of yellow that should never have been born, but doing something about it would be a commitment to staying awhile.

And so he concentrated on his list, futile as it was.

All four men were still living. Three had left the area completely, and the fourth was the owner of record of a pizzeria with mob connections. That meant something. Rennert seemed to straddle the border between government and business, if there really was a line at all. In New Jersey, that would make it hard to ignore the Mafia. Rennert must have some kind of arrangement with them, but unless that proved to be part of the John Doe murder case, Tillotson didn’t plan to go there.

“Hello.”

Immediately he grimaced. He was a cell phone veteran by now. When was he going to learn to glance at the caller ID and spare himself these nasty surprises?

But it didn’t really matter. He couldn’t refuse a call from his divorce lawyer. Her voice told a story of years of martinis and menthol cigarettes. She sounded as tough as any cop of the old, male school.

“Your wife filed an amended complaint.”

“She can always find more to complain about.”

“Yeah, well, if it’s true, it could be a problem.”

“What?”

“An investigator for her attorney has you on film visiting a prostitute.”

She gave Diana’s address.

“This woman is known to be in that line of work.”

“Which is why I visit her.”

“Great. You admitting it is just what we need. Dale, this is no way to get custody of your son.”

“She’s a source. Diana Andrews has solved more cases than I have.”

That was an exaggeration, but he felt like exaggerating. His wife, soon but not soon enough to be ex, brought out the competitive streak in him.

“Is she a registered confidential informant?”

“Nothing that formal. And if she was, I couldn’t say.”

The lawyer paused, and he knew she was lighting a cigarette.

“Okay, we tough this one out. Which is my cue to remind you that hiring me is the smartest thing you ever did.”

Chapter Thirteen

Diana left the mall through Macy’s. In the parking lot she unlocked her Taurus. With one foot in the car and one still on the ground, she paused and looked across the blacktop to the satellite stores that flanked the mall. The CompUSA outlet was the one that caught her eye. She kept looking at it as she finished climbing into the car.

Twenty minutes later she drove away from the store thinking, what have I done?

The cardboard box riding on her passenger seat told her nothing except “Compaq” in bold lettering. She already knew that.

At home she made coffee in the kitchen. She had left the box on her bed. If she put her new toy someplace out of the way, she might lose her nerve and leave it there.

But setting the computer up was easier than she had feared. The hardest part turned out to be clearing the top of her desk in the spare room. She had never thought much about the extra phone jack clinging to the baseboard, but it was right where it would do the most good. She hooked a few cables up, inserted the AOL disc that came with the computer, and followed the instructions. In minutes she had the familiar Yahoo screen in front of her. She searched for James Zakrewsky.

And found nothing. He didn’t exist.

Just for something to compare, she searched for “Diana Andrews.” There must have been over a hundred women with the same name, but she found herself among them with little effort. She read about her successes in high school swimming. Her grandmother’s retirement from the high school cafeteria had earned a story in the weekly local newspaper.

But the Internet had never heard of James Zakrewsky. It wasn’t proof, but it suggested that his life had stopped before it got started.

She tried to find someone who could be a parent or sibling or some other relative, but the surname brought up no one local at all. Maybe his parents had died, or his mother had remarried, but wouldn’t there still be some mention of James?

It was time to call Tillotson. She might have enough to interest him.

But when she had finished her story, his silence lacked enthusiasm. He didn’t even ask her for the name of her informant.

“There’s a problem. The ME’s findings are only preliminary so far, but he thinks our skeleton is much older than, what, sixteen?”

“Is he sure?”

“No, that’s my point. He’s not sure, but for now, I’m going with it. I need that list.”

“I’ll get it to you.”

She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, but that was what happened when she didn’t plan an escape route.

He hung up. She sat at the kitchen table and wondered what to do next. Maybe she was just being stubborn, but it seemed impossible to her that the disappearance of James Zakrewsky had nothing to do with the case.

When in doubt, she thought, go back to the yearbook.

There must be some kind of rule about that.

She opened it and found that James had a tiny underclass picture. She studied it, but it refused to summon a single memory. He looked vaguely familiar. That was probably his epitaph.

She made herself think. James Zakrewsky seemed to have had no local ties at all, and yet he had attended Driscoll High School for a while. He must have lived in town, or been able to make it look as if he did. Diana knew every inch of Driscoll. The town didn’t offer many ways to come up with a spurious address.

But one possibility did occur to her. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

She went back to her car and drove to the Regina Motel. The clerk, a gaunt middle-aged man named Sven, sat behind the desk. He didn’t seem to have moved an inch since the last time she had seen him weeks earlier, and she had never seen anyone else in the chair.

“Hey, Di,” he said in his low-key way.

Early in her career she had used the Regina often, before she learned to keep some distance between her business and personal lives. The motel was just blocks away from her home. These days she went there mostly for a few veteran clients. She suspected that some of them knew more about her than they let on, but as long as they respected boundaries, she would pretend that her professional identity was intact.

She opened the yearbook to the page she had marked and turned it toward him.

“This one of your flock?”

Diana kept her tone free of mockery. She had no use for religion, but she didn’t mind Sven’s beliefs. He lived them.

“James,” said Sven. “I wondered what happened to him.”

“Did he live here?”

“Sometimes, when he had the money. I would have let him crash, but the boss wouldn’t go for it.”

“But you let him use this address for mail and stuff, right?”

“Sure. He needed to go to school, didn’t he?”

“No argument there, Sven.”

“I was disappointed when he didn’t finish.”

“I think somebody didn’t give him the choice.”

Sven looked sharply at her.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll let you know. That’s a promise.”

“You found his girlfriend yet?”

“News to me. What was her name?”

“Patty something. From what he said, she worked at the mall, I think maybe in the multiplex.”

“You didn’t meet her?”

“James never brought her into the office.” Sven grinned. “It might hurt my feelings that they were cohabitating.”

“Nice kids.”

“I’d say so.”

“Was she a dropout?”

“Not necessarily. She was a few years older than James.”

Another lead at the mall. No wonder downtowns were in trouble. It meant another trip through the endless traffic.

She walked past the familiar stores to the multiplex. It was almost time for the late afternoon matinees. She asked the ticket clerk for the manager. The young woman didn’t appreciate being summoned away from her private thoughts.

“He’s busy.”

“It’s important.”

The clerk didn’t look impressed, but she picked up the phone and pressed an in-house button. She spoke briefly and hung up.

“He’s busy.”

“Try again, please.”

Diana tried to look as if she wouldn’t go away. It must have worked, because the girl picked the phone up again.

The manager appeared. He was forty, a little soft, with a well-tended mustache that didn’t help. He reminded Diana of clients who saved their twenties to see her every couple of months. They were always gentle and considerate, and she wished she could like them better.

He saw her and froze with his mouth hanging open. She wondered what his problem could be. Maybe he just hated confrontations and was fighting an urge to flee.

After a long moment he recovered.

“How can I help you?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Were you working here ten years ago…?”

“Todd. Todd McNally.”

Diana knew she had no way to justify her interest. If their roles had been reversed, she would have told him to get lost. But he kept making those gooey eyes at her. She knew the look from clients who had decided they were in love, but most spent a few minutes on top of her before they succumbed. Todd was setting a record for infatuation.

“Uh, yes. I was assistant manager then. I’m the manager now.”

“Then you’ve got a head for business.” She was making herself sicker than the odor of rancid popcorn had already done. “Good with numbers, good memory?”

“I guess.”

Diana looked around for a flat surface and decided on the refreshment counter. For the moment no one was waiting for service. She went through the routine with the yearbook. He took a long look at the picture of James Zakrewsky.

“Don’t think I know him,”

When he looked at her again, he seemed to have fallen out of love.

That’s another record, she thought.

“You’re sure?”

He shrugged. “I see hundreds of people every day.”

She didn’t believe him, but she had lost her leverage.

“Thanks for your time.”

She drove home again. It was starting to feel as if she had a job at the mall.

Chapter Fourteen

Tillotson would never admit it to Diana, but he had never considered ignoring the lead she had given him. She was right too often.

But this time going through old paper files exacted a heavy price in time wasted, dust inhaled and paper cuts endured, and it looked as if she had it wrong. James Zakrewsky had no arrests or convictions. No one had ever filed a missing persons report on him, which wasn’t as unusual as it should have been. He must have been one more kid who had no one who cared enough to look for him. Tillotson knew his next step—visit Driscoll High School and request their files.

Instead he lifted the phone on his desk and used his shield number to obtain Gary Rennert’s unlisted office number from the phone company.

“Yes, Detective.”

“Thanks for your list. All of those men are accounted for, but I have another name to run by you. This one’s different.”

Rennert listened. Tillotson had already learned that the man didn’t fill perfectly good silence with unnecessary words.

“James Zakrewsky. Know him?”

“No.” Pause. “Should I?”

The timing was perfect. Tillotson had to admire it.

“I don’t really know,” he said. “It’s just a name that has come up.”

Rennert didn’t follow up with questions of his own, which most civilians would have done. But Rennert would know better than most that a detective didn’t give out information. His silence proved nothing. That was the annoying thing about silence.

Rennert’s performance was flawless, which meant that Tillotson couldn’t be sure it was a performance and not the truth. Which meant he had learned exactly nothing.

He was pressing buttons again, and he shocked himself with the recognition of the number he was calling.

“Hello?” said his wife’s voice.

“It’s me.”

The pause held years of frustration and disappointment with him.

“Why are you calling? We’re not supposed to have any contact.”

“I need help with a case.”

He wondered what he was doing. Late in their marriage he had consulted her several times as a last-ditch effort to reconnect with her. It hadn’t worked even before they gave up on saving the marriage. And the fact was, in her job with the Division of Youth and Family Services she had confidentiality issues similar to his.

He pictured her as he had last seen her: mid-forties, a dark-complexioned brunette, nothing like Diana Andrews.

He had known the risks of making that comparison for some time now.

The two women in his life did have similarly excellent legs, which he always appreciated. His wife would probably have little trouble building a social life around dating other men. Right now the prospect didn’t affect him. He wondered if the indifference would last.

“Oh, what the hell,” she said after a moment. “This could come up again. Might as well practice a little.”

“James Zakrewsky,” he said. “Would have been about sixteen ten years ago. Ever run across the name?”

“I never dealt with him. I can say that for sure. Local case loads aren’t huge in Sussex County, you know that.”

“Right.”

“But I can’t say for sure he never attracted our attention until I look at the files. Which I never did, should anyone ask you.”

“Goes without saying.”

“Can you narrow it down? I mean, what town?”

“Most likely Driscoll.”

She paused again, and he knew what was coming. Their cease-fire was coming to an end.

“Driscoll. Doesn’t your girlfriend know anything?”