Missing Persons (19 page)

“He was stalking her.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it stalking. He was just around a lot.”

“Was she afraid of him?”

“You know, in a weird kind of way, I think she liked it. I think she encouraged it. I told her one time that she should make it clear to him that she wasn’t interested, but I think she wanted him hanging around. Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“I don’t know. In case she didn’t find anyone better.”

“That doesn’t make Theresa seem like a very nice person.”

She nodded. “She was. But she wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t the saint her mother wants to remember her as. She did some things that she probably shouldn’t have. She took advantage of Jason, because he let her, and Wyatt took advantage of her because she let him. It’s screwed up, but that’s love, isn’t it.”

“In my experience, yes.” I shifted gears. “Would it surprise you that Theresa had nearly ten thousand dollars in her bank account deposited over the six months before she went missing?”

Julia’s face told me that it did surprise her. “That can’t be right,” she finally mumbled.

“Any idea where she got that money?”

“No.”

“Not her mother?”

“She would never give her that kind of money. She didn’t have that lying around. She’s just getting by like everyone else.”

“Not a wedding fund, maybe?”

“If her mother had money put away for her wedding, she would never give it to Theresa. Her mother is too controlling for that.”

“Or maybe some job, something she didn’t talk about? Maybe something illegal or something no one would approve of?”

“Like what? Like a drug dealer? Theresa wouldn’t be that stupid. She wanted to be a nurse, and a mom. I don’t know where the money came from but Theresa didn’t do anything illegal to get it.” Her defense was the first spark of friendship I’d seen from her.

“What about a strip club called the Kitty Cage?”

Julia turned bright red. “She’d booked it for my bachelorette party. They have a smaller club that’s for, you know, ladies. It’s next door to the original.”

I almost laughed at my stupidity. I’d been producing salacious television shows for so long that something as innocent as a bachelorette party had never occurred to me. Still, it didn’t explain the money.

“Tell me about her brother, Tom,” I said.

She turned and looked to David and met his eyes. Whatever they had almost told me the other day, it was pretty clear they’d decided against saying it now. When Julia turned back to me, she said, “He’s a great baker. Have you eaten at his mom’s bakery?”

“I have.”

“Well, then you know.”

“I heard he had some issues with the police. What did he do?”

“I think you would have to ask him.”

“Before Theresa disappeared he was planning to go to New York,” I said. “He seems to have abandoned that dream to be with his family.”

“I didn’t know he was planning to do that.”

“Theresa didn’t talk about him?”

“They weren’t close.”

“Because of his temper?” It was a guess, but I’d seen a glimpse of anger at the bakery.

One look in Julia’s eyes confirmed I was right. “I think all siblings have differences” was all she would say.

I took a breath. Maybe off camera she would tell me something, though if she did, I wouldn’t have the quote on tape. Still, I was curious. “What do you think happened to Theresa?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes got watery. “I just don’t think she walked away, though I hope she did. I hope she’s somewhere having a blast. But I can’t picture her doing that. I just think . . . I don’t know. I just think something bad happened.”

“You think she’s dead?”

Tears came. “I ask myself that every day. Is she dead? Is she okay? Where is she? Even when I’m happy. Especially when I’m happy. It’s always there. It’s hell.”

“I think she needs a break.” David jumped up from the couch and came over to his wife, wrapping his arms around Julia.

“Of course,” I said. This was why I hated having friends and relatives hanging out at interviews. The interview subject can’t see my manipulations, but the bystanders often can.

 

 

“It’s great you were able to get off work,” I said to David, while Julia went to touch up her makeup.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“What do you do?”

“I work at the DMV.”

“That must be an interesting place to work. Lots of crazy people coming in every day.”

“I don’t work with the public,” he said, a touch of disdain in his voice at the thought. “I work in an office downtown.”

“And how did you meet Julia?”

“At a party to raise money for some state candidates. We just clicked right away.”

“Was Theresa at the party?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did Gray Meyer throw the party?”

“What difference does that make?”

Julia reemerged. “I’m ready for the rest of the interview.”

She returned to her chair, and I asked her several more questions, but I could feel David looking at me, and I knew that I’d gotten everything from Julia I was going to get.

“You said Theresa did some things she shouldn’t have,” I said. “Like what?”

Julia thought for a moment. “Like dating the wrong man. Not everyone is as lucky as I am.”

I could see by the smile on David’s face that Julia had given the right answer. Or at least the answer he wanted her to give.

I
wasn’t sure what to expect at the Morettis’ bakery, but when we arrived it was clear that Linda had planned each moment. The pastry case had been scrubbed and stocked with perfect-looking desserts. The windows had been cleaned, letting in more light. The café tables had cherry-themed tablecloths on them. Even the photo wall had been reworked. The defaced photos of Julia were gone, replaced by a half dozen new photos of the Moretti family in happier times.

Linda greeted us in a pair of tan pants, a white shirt, and a pink check apron. She was so neat and put together that she looked more like Hollywood’s version of a baker than anyone I’d seen in the real world.

“Before you start,” she said, “you have to have something to eat. Tom just made cream puffs.”

That was all it took. Andres and Victor sat at one of the tables, a plate piled with cream puffs in front of them. I admit to taking one or two for myself, but mostly I was interested in the photo wall.

“This looks different,” I pointed out.

“We wanted to spruce the place up,” she said. “We don’t want Theresa thinking the place has gone to pot in her absence.”

“You think she’ll watch the show?”

“If she can. Wouldn’t it be great? She’d see that we were still looking for her. That would boost her spirits.”

“You don’t, even for a second . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to ask her the question again.

She shook her head. “My baby is alive. I know it.”

Tom had opened the kitchen door slightly, and I could see him listening and rolling his eyes. And there was something else too. Anger, maybe. Resentment. Hatred. I couldn’t be sure.

“We’ll want to get footage of you at work, Tom,” I said.

“I don’t like to be on TV.”

Linda opened the kitchen door fully to reveal Tom, with flour and dabs of frosting all over his apron. He looked like a real baker.

“You have to be on the show. Theresa needs to see her brother.”

“Theresa is dead, Ma.”

“You have to be on the show.” Linda’s voice was stern, uncompromising. I could see Tom relent.

“We won’t get in your way too much,” I said.

“I’m finishing the Murphys’ wedding cake.” He turned and went back into the kitchen.

“Never mind him,” Linda said. “He’s just shy.”

 

 

Twenty minutes later we were setting up in the kitchen. Tom was ignoring us, focused on the wedding cake he was decorating. It was a masterpiece of five layers of square cake, each layer resting slightly askew on the layer below. It looked, quite purposefully, like it might fall over, but it was clear from the way Tom moved it as he worked that he had no concerns. Each layer had tiny pearl-like dots of icing at the base and white and cream flowers climbing the sides. It was the kind of cake featured in magazines and cake contests, far more upscale than one would expect in a local bakery.

“Fondant?” I asked just to make conversation.

“Buttercream.”

“Wow. You get it so smooth.”

“I guess.”

“I’ve been eating your pastries, and they really are spectacular.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you trained? I mean, not just at your mom’s bakery?”

He looked up momentarily from the cake. “I mostly picked it up from working here. I took some bread-making classes but I haven’t gone to culinary school.”

“Was that what you were planning to do in New York?”

“Who said I was going to New York?”

“It was something I heard.”

“You heard that, did you?”

“I also heard you might have had some trouble with the police.”

Tom ignored me. I was getting nowhere. I stepped back and let Andres get several good shots of Tom working on the cake, then some wide shots of the kitchen.

“Get the rest of the pastries in the case and shots of Linda waiting on a customer,” I told him. He and Victor left me alone with Tom in the kitchen.

“Did you and Theresa get along?” I asked.

“She was my sister.”

“Yeah, I know. I have a sister. We get along okay but we also get on each other’s nerves.”

He looked at me. “What are you wanting to ask me?”

“Some people think you and Theresa didn’t get along, and maybe you have some issues.” It occurred to me that I had no reason to ask these questions. I wasn’t interviewing Tom. I wasn’t using any of this in the piece. I just wanted to know.

“Everyone has issues, Mrs. Conway.”

“It’s Kate.”

“Maybe in Bucktown people like to stick their noses in other people’s business, Kate, but we like to be respectful in this neighborhood. We like to mind our own business.”

“How do you know I live in Bucktown?”

“It was just something I heard.”

His stare was icy and he held the decorating bag of buttercream icing like it was a weapon. When Andres called to me from the other room, I was glad of the excuse to walk away.

“I need you to be a customer,” Andres said when I joined him in the front of the bakery. “Go outside, count to ten, and come in.”

I nodded and went outside. Whether it was the July heat or Tom’s coldness, I couldn’t be sure, but suddenly I felt shaky. I forgot to start counting and then just guessed and walked in the store.

“You looked at the camera,” Andres said.

“Sorry.”

I walked outside again and this time forced myself to count to ten. If anyone had been a huge fan of my work, and no one was, they would have seen me in a dozen or so television shows. I’ve been a diner at restaurants, a dead body in reenactments, a lady trying on shoes, and a housewife taking cookies out of the oven. Whenever we’ve needed someone for a B-roll shot, and no civilian was handy, I’d fill in. Unless we needed a guy; then it was Victor’s moment of glory.

I walked up to the counter and chatted fake chat with Linda, who played along beautifully. After Andres got the wide shots, I ordered two dozen cookies. While she packed them, Andres got close-ups of her hand putting them into a pink box. She had to do it several times so he could be sure he had exactly the right shot. When Andres was satisfied, Linda tied the box, handed it to me, fake chatted some more, and I left the store. When I got the nod from Andres, I came back in and returned the box to Linda.

“Thanks so much. I think we have everything we need,” I said.

“Keep the cookies. In fact, I’ll send you each home with a box. Just my way of saying thank you.”

“That’s very nice. And completely unnecessary.”

She waved off my protest and started packing two more boxes. “What happens next?”

“I look at all the tapes, write the script, and it goes to New York for editing. It will probably be three or four months before it hits the air, but someone from Ripper Productions will be in touch with a specific date before then.”

“I’m amazed at how fast you do this,” she said.

“Four ten-hour days for twenty-two minutes of show,” Andres said.

Linda nodded. “You all worked so hard. Someday I hope you’ll cover the story when Theresa comes home.”

I smiled as warmly as I could. “Absolutely.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tom watching from the kitchen.

I
overnighted the last of the shot tapes to Mike in New York, and then Andres, Victor, and I went out for a few drinks to celebrate our final night of the shoot. It felt good to relax and talk about something other than dead husbands and missing women, two subjects we had banned for the evening. While I had a few too many beers, Victor told us about his new band, which played some combination of punk and rap, and Andres talked about his golf lessons.

It was nearly midnight when Andres dropped me off. I hadn’t left the porch light on, so I nearly tripped over the package that sat at my front door. It didn’t have stamps or some marking of a delivery service, but it did have my name and address carefully printed on it, so I brought it inside and left it on the kitchen table next to the pink box of Linda’s cookies. I intended to dive into the cookies but first I needed actual food, so I made myself a sandwich.

I can cook, I just don’t bother. It was fun to cook when there were two of us, and when Frank was around to finish the leftovers. And there was a time when Frank was very into cooking. He took some classes and talked about going to culinary school but never did. I used to bring him cookbooks from any food shows I worked on, and he’d make all the recipes. He even grew herbs and a few fruits and vegetables in the garden, carefully finding ways to outwit the rabbits who liked to eat his strawberries. I used to love coming home to his meals. Everything from the bread to the lemonade was homemade and often homegrown. But then he lost interest. All the recipe books collected dust. I took over the cooking for a while, but without his talent or enthusiasm. And once it was just me, I resorted to takeout and whatever sandwiches I could put together quickly.