Missing Persons (35 page)

“You’ll make it work.”

“Is that what you would have done?”

“I don’t know if I would have had the chance. Vera makes for pretty stiff competition.”

He smiled, then seemed to weigh whether he should say something. “I have a beach house in St. Joe’s, right on Lake Michigan,” he said finally. “I’m not going to be using it, so if you want a place to go for a while and just hang out . . .”

“You have a real knight-in-shining-armor complex, don’t you?” I said. “Thanks, but I’ll be okay.”

“I know I can be pushy. But I’ve seen too many people like Theresa. They don’t ask for help until it’s too late, so I offer even when it’s none of my business. I’m sorry, if it’s too—”

I stopped him. “It’s very kind of you. Thank you.”

He smiled. “And listen, I heard about what happened at the tea shop. I’m really sorry about your husband.”

“Tell me, Gray, do you also know where they buried Hoffa?”

He laughed. “That was Detroit. I don’t have a lot of connections in Detroit.”

 

 

We stayed together in the restaurant for several hours. Eventually we did get hungry, and the food was amazing. When I was ready to leave I saw Linda sitting with Tom and went over to say good-bye.

“I have a feeling my boss will want some comments from you,” I said, “but not today.”

She hugged me, and I hugged back. I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks. It was annoying. I couldn’t seem to stop.

“Thank you, Kate. Thank you so much.”

“I think you’re the one who at the very least stopped a suicide from happening, so I should be thanking you. How did you know what to say?”

“I knew my daughter. I knew what she would have said if she were here.”

I smiled. “I know what she’d say now. She’d say she was very proud of you.”

“She’d say I was always interfering, and I was too pushy and I liked being the center of attention too much. And she’d be right. It breaks my heart we’ll never argue about those things again, but at least I know she’s not in pain.”

“I don’t know how you manage to be so at peace about it.”

She leaned in. “Believing she was alive kept me alive, and now keeping her memory alive will get me up in the morning. If I think about what I’ve lost, I’ll lose my mind. So I’ve decided to focus on what Theresa brought to my life while she was with me.” She took my hand. “And who she has brought to my life even after she was gone.”

We hugged again and I promised to keep in touch. I say that to nearly all the people I interview, but this time I meant it.

I moved over to Tom and hugged him as well. “I have to ask you,” I said quietly, “if you know anything about some money Theresa had in her account. I didn’t want to ask your mom, in case . . .”

“It was mine. I was saving it to go to New York for school.”

“Why not put it in your own account?”

He looked sheepish. “I had some trouble a while ago. Writing bad checks. It was stupid but it’s sort of followed me. I couldn’t get a bank account. But I’ve been doing catering jobs on the side, fancy weddings and shit. I gave the money to Theresa to keep so I wouldn’t do something stupid, like spend it.” He glanced at his mother, talking with Gray. “My mom didn’t know at the time that I was thinking of moving. She’s a little overprotective.”

“And then you withdrew the money after she disappeared?”

“I told my mom when Theresa went missing. She was on Theresa’s account so she took the money out. We needed it to put together a reward for information . . . It’s a little embarrassing so I hope you won’t use it.”

“I won’t.”

An innocent explanation. I could have pretended not to understand why Rosenthal had blacked it out, but I knew. If I had been doing my job properly, I would have played that up. I would have turned a nothing trip to a strip club, a few too many drinks in a bar, and some large bank deposits into a potential secret life. By the end of the show, the truth would have been revealed, but by then the damage would have been done. Rosenthal had tried to protect Theresa and her family from me. And I was glad that she had.

As I was about to leave, I thought of another question for Tom. “Not that it’s any of my business, but why did you gouge out Julia’s eyes in those photos?”

Tom and I looked over at Julia, who had joined Linda and Gray.

“She told me a few weeks before her wedding that Theresa’s disappearance was upstaging her big day. I took my revenge on her photos.”

“Is that why she and David said you had issues? They made kind of a deal out of it.”

He laughed. “Well, the photos weren’t my only revenge. They wanted chocolate cake with vanilla icing for their wedding cake. I made banana. Julia breaks out in a rash when she eats bananas. She itched all day.”

I
t took me almost a week, but eventually I drove out to the graveyard. The stone was new and the grass beneath it freshly cut.

“Hi, Theresa,” I said. “We didn’t meet, but I know a lot about you.”

I laid a bouquet of fresh flowers at the edge of the stone. I wasn’t the only one who’d been there. Ribbons, photos, and other bouquets nearly covered the grave.

“I just wanted to say I hope that I do your story justice. I want you to know I’ll try to keep it respectful and honest.” I paused. “You never worked in television, so you probably don’t realize just how hard that’s going to be.”

 

 

An hour later, I was in another graveyard. This time there was a bench facing a large headstone. It said, “Francis John Conway. Loving Husband. Adored Son. Devoted Friend.”

If Frank’s death had been an episode of one of my true-crime shows, it would have ended here. We always take the loved ones to the grave, often providing the flowers and balloons they leave there, so we can get that nice end shot of them mourning their loss.

Instead of flowers, I laid one of those kid’s paint sets at his grave, with a new paintbrush, and sat on the bench.

“I love you. I just want you to know that.”

The tears came easily, as they’d done all week. I’d been through three boxes of tissues and two rolls of toilet paper in just the last few days. It was getting to the point where I was thinking of buying in bulk.

“Mike—you remember Mike, don’t you, Frank? He was really happy with the footage we shot. And we even got Linda to do another interview. She said that
Missing Persons
had helped solve her daughter’s murder. She said it on tape. Mike is going to use that to promote the show. He’ll probably be sending me a lot more work, which is kind of a mixed blessing if you know what I mean.”

I looked at the grass beneath my feet.

“I had lunch with your parents. I’ve promised to come by once a month for lunch. Also a mixed blessing. But I told them about Theresa and they’ve contributed to the fund for a nursing scholarship and we’re even going to set up an art scholarship in your name at the community center. Some of your insurance money will go toward that and some of it has to go to getting a new roof. Remember how I used to nag you about how we need a new roof? Well, it’s leaking.” I smiled. “I guess that’s not very important. It’s just something that’s going on.

“The woman from the store where you bought the tea, she’s facing charges of involuntary manslaughter. I know she didn’t do it on purpose, but I’m helping Detective Podeski with all the information I can. It was just so careless. Right when you were finally coming into your own. I know there might be some people who think that you would have been all gung ho for a while and then lost interest in it. But I don’t think you would have, this time. I think you would have stuck with it, Frank. You would have made a success of it.”

I looked at the marble with his name carved in it. He would have thought it was too stuffy and formal, but it looked strong. Like it could withstand anything.

“I’m really proud of you, Frank.”

There was of course only silence in response. I didn’t want to, but I laughed. For so much of our marriage, when I talked, Frank ignored me. Especially when there was a basketball game on TV. I guess from now on whenever we had these little chats it would be just like Frank was watching a game.

 

 

After I left the cemetery, I drove to her house and sat in my car. I’d already told her I was coming but for some reason I was reluctant to go inside. But I saw Vera and her dogs watching me out the front window, so I had no choice. I grabbed the painting and met her at the front door.

I handed her a painting Frank had made about five years before. It was of the Montrose Avenue Beach dog park. It had been a beautiful summer day and Frank had perfectly captured the carefree fun of a summer afternoon.

“I know it was before he met you,” I said, “but you said Frank hadn’t painted anything for you yet, so I thought this might be something you would like.”

Her eyes widened and her hands came to her heart. “But are you sure? It belongs to you.”

“I have about thirty of Frank’s paintings. I gave several to his parents. Neal took one. The painting of the couple on Michigan Avenue is back over the fireplace, and I’ve put two in the bedroom, one in the kitchen, and one in the guest room. There’s plenty to go around.”

She started to tear up. “I’m sorry, Kate. For everything. I don’t know if I really said that before.”

“It’s okay,” I said. We sat in her kitchen and watched as a gardener worked out back, getting her garden into the kind of shape that Frank had planned to do. Or had said he planned to do. Of all the answers I’d found over the last few weeks, in both Frank’s and Theresa’s death, the one question that remained was whether Frank had intended to stay with Vera or come home to me.

And it was a question that would never be answered.

 

 

After about an hour I let Vera walk me to my car.

“I almost forgot,” she said as she took a key from her pocket. “Gray stopped by the other day. He asked me to give this to you. It’s a spare key to his house in Michigan. He said you might want to go there for a rest.”

I laughed. “He never stops trying.”

“No, he never gives up. He told me he and his wife are going to Europe for the entire month of August. Second honeymoon kind of thing. He said you inspired it so he wanted you to have the house.”

“I’m not going to use it. You go, Vera.”

“My family has three houses on Lake Michigan, two on Martha’s Vineyard, a place in the south of France, and a small estate in Scotland. And I think we still have a place somewhere in the Caribbean. I can’t remember where.”

“So you’re saying you have somewhere to go if you need to get away.”

She laughed. “I’m good, yeah.”

I took the key. Maybe a few weeks dangling my feet into one of the Great Lakes wasn’t a bad idea.

“I’ve got a million errands to run today,” she said. “But normally I’m around. If you ever want to talk. Or just anything.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And Victor’s band is playing Friday. He called and invited me to come, so if you want to have a night out . . . ”

“Maybe.”

“I think Andres and his wife are going so it would be a bunch of friends.”

I got in my car. “I’ll see you around, Vera.”

As I drove away, I saw Vera talking to an elderly neighbor. They sat on her front steps and were laughing. It was just like something Frank would have done. A million errands to run, and yet he’d get distracted by a friend.

I had gone only three blocks when I pulled over and looked at my cell phone. Her number was the last I’d dialed. I could delete it, or I could just do nothing. Within days, as I made and received new calls, it would disappear from my phone, and I could let go of Vera forever.

I hesitated, then pressed “Add to my address book” and typed in her name. I hesitated again before pressing “Save.”

ALSO BY CLARE O’DONOHUE