The Girl in Times Square (5 page)

“Leave me alone, will you?” said Allison. “You’re just like your father. Stop forcing me into your pointless regimens.”

Lily went alone. How could she manage even another day?

But it’s Hawaii, Hawaii! The rainforests, the volcanoes. What would she prefer, yesterday’s dinner conversation, or the beach by herself? The choice was so clear.

And so it was the beach by herself, and lunch, and walks through the palms, and the sunsets, and the community pool at the condo.

Days went by. Concentration drained out of Lily. She was unable to focus long enough to sketch. She kept rendering the same palms over and over. Charcoal was an insult to Hawaii, watercolors did not do justice to Hawaii, and oil paints she did not have, nor a canvas for them. All she had was her charcoal pencils and her sketchbook, and there was nothing to draw in Maui with charcoal except the inside of her mother’s colorless apartment and the numbers 1, 18, 24, 39, 45, 49.

Andrew had not called to tell her how it was going with Papi. Amy had not called. She had not heard from Joshua.

For hours during the day, Lily busied her mind with being blighted with the lottery ticket. Cursed.

Simply, this is what she believed: she believed that the universe showed each of us certain things, that it made certain things open.

Many people lived a peaceful life with nothing ever happening to them. But into some families other things fell. Some families were afflicted with random tragedies—car accidents, plane accidents, hang gliding accidents, bus crashes, knifings, drownings, scarves getting caught under the wheels of their Rolls Royces, breaking their necks. The lovely girl in the prom dress standing in the dance hall and suddenly a titanium steel pipe from above breaking, falling on her, impaling her through the skull on her prom night! The valedictorian high school graduate headed to Cornell, standing on the street corner in New York City, suddenly finding himself in the middle of a robbery. A stray bullet—the only bullet fired—hitting him, killing him. Lily was not worried about old age or hereditary illness, she was worried about portholes of the universe opening up and demons swallowing her.

Lily believed that the portholes that allowed random tragedy to fall in were also the portholes that allowed lottery tickets to fall in. Out of control SUVs at state fairs. A sunspot in your eye, and wham, your child is dead. Plane crashes, ten-car collisions, freak lightning storms, fatal infections from a harmless day at the farm, and 1, 18, 24, 39, 45, 49. All from the same place. All leading to the same place—destruction.

And Lily Quinn prided herself all her life on being exactly the kind of girl who’d never won a single thing. Her karma had been being not just an un-winner, but the anti-winner. In fact, she could be sure that if she picked it, it would never win. She couldn’t win so much as a pack of cigarettes on a free tour of the Philip Morris tobacco factory in North Carolina. She couldn’t win a no-homework weekend when there were only ten entrants and the professor picked three names. She didn’t win the short or the long straw. She didn’t get to lose and clean the toilet, or come up to the headmaster and ask for more gruel, any more than she got to win a prize at a baby shower contest. She played a game at her sister’s shower called, “How well do you know your sister?”—and came in third!

49—for the year her mother and grandmother came to America.

45—for the year of the end of the war that changed the world.

39—for its beginning.

24—for her age. Last year Lily played 23.

18—Because it was her favorite number.

1—because it was the loneliest number.

She bought herself a lottery ticket every single week for six years, playing the numbers that meant something to her not because she had hope, but because she wanted to reaffirm the order of her quiet universe. Because she truly believed that the Force that let her numbers
never
be pulled out of a hat at Saturday night’s drawing was the same Force that did not place the titanium rod at her two feet of life.

Unable to draw or read or focus, Lily concentrated all her efforts on getting a tan. In a secluded part of a small semi-circle of the local beach near Wailea, Lily took off her bikini halter and sunbathed topless, getting a very thorough tan indeed. After almost three weeks her breasts looked positively Brazilian and even her nipples got dark brown.

In the first week of June, Lily was sitting outside on the patio,
home from the beach, thinking about what to do for the rest of her day—for the day was so loooong—when the phone rang. The phone never rang! Lily was so excited, she nearly knocked over a chair getting to it.

“Hello?” she said in an eager-lover voice.

“Lilianne Quinn?” said an unfamiliar man’s baritone on the other end.

“Yes?” she said, much more subdued, in a voice unfamiliar to herself.

“This is Detective O’Malley of the NYPD. I’m calling about your roommate, Amy McFadden.”

Excitement was instantly supplanted by something else—worry. “Yes? What’s happened?” From his tone, Lily thought Amy might have been in a car accident.

“Have you heard from her?”

“No.” She paused. “I’m here in Hawaii.”

“Well, I know,” said the detective. “I’m calling you there, aren’t I?”

That was true. “What’s happened?”

“She seems to have disappeared.”

“Oh.” Lily immediately calmed down. “Hmm. Have you checked with her mother?”

“Her mother is the one who reported her missing, which is why I’m calling
you.
According to Jan McFadden, Amy hasn’t called home in three weeks. Their repeated attempts to reach her at the apartment have failed. Do you recall the last time you saw her?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said, deflecting. “I’d have to think about it.”

There was silence on the other end. “Are you thinking about it now?”

“Detective, I don’t know. I’ve been here three weeks. I guess I saw her right before I left.”

“When was that?”

“I…I can’t remember now.” Dates had been singed out of
her head by the Tropic of Cancer sun. “Can I think about it and call you back?”

“Yes—but quickly.”

“Or…” Something occurred to Lily. “Do you think I should come back? Is this something you need to speak to me about in person?”

“I’m not sure. Is it?”

“Yes, yes, I think I should come back. I’ll be able to give you much more detail.”

“Well, I appreciate that, Miss Quinn. This seems quite serious.”

Lily didn’t think so, but then this detective didn’t know Amy.

“You need me to come back right away? The sooner the better?”

“Well—”

“Of course. This is an emergency. I’ll be glad to be of any help. I’ll fly back tonight. Is that soon enough?”

“Yes, I think that will be fine. I apologize for having you leave Hawaii. You don’t really—”

“No, no, I do. It’s really no problem. I want to help. Where do I go?”

“Come to the 9th Precinct on 5th Street between First and Second Avenues. Ask for me.”

“Who are you again?”

“Lieutenant-detective O’Malley. Spencer Patrick O’Malley.”

Lily called United Airlines to find out about the next available flight: it was in four hours. It took her forty-five minutes to pack, then she called a cab.

She carried her suitcase out with difficulty. Her mother was on the patio, smoking, drinking cranberry juice.

“I have to go back to New York. Something…something’s happened,” she said, and didn’t want to give voice to anything more. “That was the police on the phone.”

“Police? What’s happened? What did you do?”

“Nothing, but…no one can find Amy. The police want to talk to me.”

“They can’t talk to you on the phone?”

“No. I guess it’s serious.” Lily said it, but didn’t believe it for a second.

She wasn’t worried about Amy. She thought Amy’s disappearance was a beautiful karmic ruse to get her out of Maui.

She threw herself into the cab with relieved haste. When the plane was in the air heading back home she found herself exhaling for the first time in three weeks. She was sure Amy would have turned up by the time she got home.

Amy hadn’t turned up by the time Lily got home, but their apartment looked as if the police expected to find Amy in Lily’s closet. A copy of the warrant was plastered to the wall in the hallway. Nothing obvious had been disturbed in Lily’s room—though she had the feeling that all her things had been looked at, even touched—but Amy’s room had been turned upside down.

Without even unpacking, still in her traveling clothes—a white spaghetti-strap tank top, a small cropped cream cardigan, and a denim mini-skirt, Lily dropped her suitcase and left for the precinct. She gave her name and waited ten minutes before a heavy, out-of-breath man came downstairs. “Detective O’Malley?” she said, sticking out her hand.

“No, no, my partner always sends me. He thinks I need the exercise,” the man puffed.

His hand was wet and clammy and unpleasant. She pulled hers away. “How thoughtful of your partner,” said Lily, warily eying him, a little bit relieved that this detective wasn’t the lead detective. He had a sour, greasy look about him, his thin, long, scraggly hair needed washing, or at best combing; he was very tall, but was ungainly about his limbs, listing slightly to the right, his head bobbing slightly to the left. His paunch was so large that the white dress shirt he was wearing couldn’t contain it, and
both, the shirt and the belly, were spilling over the top of the pants, onto the belt and downwards. Lily almost felt like telling him to tuck himself in. He didn’t look jovial and jolly though; he was not a happy fat man.

“Detective Harkman,” said the panting man, then motioning her to follow him. As he walked by her, she smelled what she knew unmistakably to be uric acid. Detective Harkman had gout—his body couldn’t metabolize the nitrogenous wastes properly, hence the sour smell emanating from him. Her paternal grandfather had had it at the end of his life. Involuntarily she held her breath as she followed him three flights up (“What, no elevators?” she quipped. “It’s either elevators or our salaries,” he unquipped back.) and was out of breath herself when they entered a high-ceilinged plain open room with a dozen wooden cluttered desks, behind one of which sat a man, who was not heavy or out of breath.

“Lilianne Quinn?” The man stood up and extended his hand. “I’m Detective O’Malley.” He did not have gout.

She looked up at him. Her handshake must have seemed formal, uncertain, and mushy compared to his, which was casual, certain and un-mushy. Despite the moist heat in the room, his hand was dry.

Lily was usually good with ages, but Detective O’Malley she couldn’t quite place. He moved young—he had a wiry build that came either from sports or from not eating—but his eyes were old. He looked to be somewhere around forty, and somewhere beyond a sense of humor, though that could have been an affect—affecting to be serious in front of her. He had lots of light brown hair, graying slightly at the temples and was wearing black metalrimmed glasses. His gray suit jacket was hanging evenly on the back of his chair. His nondescript gray tie was loosened, and the top two buttons of his tucked-in white dress shirt unbuttoned. All the windows in the open room were flung ajar and there was a hot breeze coming through in the early evening. He buttoned his shirt after he stood up, fixed his tie and put his jacket back
on; Lily noticed the massive black pistol in his holster. “Why don’t we go in here,” he said, pointing to a door that said
Interrogation #1.

He was half the width of his partner though Lily couldn’t tell if O’Malley seemed thin simply by comparison. No, he was definitely thin, and he didn’t look like he had time for sports. His desk was stacked a foot high with files and papers. Maybe he played a little baseball. He looked fast like a shortstop. Did shortstops wear glasses? Perhaps he played soccer? Thus occupying her slightly anxious brain with idle observations and impressions, she followed him, with Detective Harkman panting behind. She hoped the room would be air-conditioned, but she found it to be heated by a whooshing large fan that spun the hot air around her in a clammy vortex. She resisted the impulse of sticking her head out the open window and panting like a Labrador. Her cardigan was too hot for this room, but she wasn’t about to take it off in front of two police officers, leaving herself in a barely-there top.

Detective O’Malley invited her to sit down (she did) and asked her if she wanted something to drink (she said no, though she did). He began without waiting. Drumming a pencil next to his notebook on top of the table, he put up his feet on the chair next to him. “Okay, tell me what you know.”

“Well, nothing.” Lily nearly stammered. What kind of a question was that? “About what?”

“About where Amy is.”

“I don’t know that.”

“Why aren’t you concerned? Her mother is out of her mind with worry. Amy didn’t go to her college graduation. You—didn’t attend either, I take it?”

“Urn—no.” She wasn’t going to be telling a stranger, was she, why she had not attended. But the detective knew she was in Hawaii, he knew she couldn’t have attended. Her eyes narrowed at him. His eyes widened in response. They were extremely blue. They seemed to know things, understand things without her
opening her mouth. Then why were they staring back at her, expecting an answer?

“Why not?” he asked.

Oh, here we go. “Unlike Amy, I’m not officially graduated.” Lily cleared her throat. “I have some credits still to take.”

“You’re not a senior?”

“Yes. Just not a”—-she lowered her gaze to study the complexities in the grain of the wooden table—“a graduating senior.”

“I see.”

She wasn’t looking at him so she couldn’t tell if he saw. Oh, she bet he understood everything. He just wanted to watch her squirm.

“How old are you, Miss Quinn?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Did you two start college late? Amy is also twenty-four.”

“I didn’t start late, I just…kept going.”

He was observing her. “For six years?”

“For six years, yes.”

“And still not graduated?”

“Not quite.”

“I see.” He switched subjects then, as if they were file folders lying on his desk. “So—you didn’t go to your graduation, because you weren’t graduating. Fair enough. But Amy didn’t go either, and she
was
graduating.”

“Hmm.” That
was
surprising. Lily had no answer to it.

“Were you and Amy close?”

“We were, yes. Are I mean. Are.” She paused and decided to take the direct approach. “You’re confusing me.”

“Not deliberately, Miss Quinn. So what were you doing in Hawaii?”

“Sunbathing looks like,” said Harkman from behind her.

Detective O’Malley didn’t say anything, but in between the blinks of his eyes, behind his black-rimmed glasses, his flicker of an expression made Lily blush, almost as if…he could see her sunsoaked brown nipples.

Pulling the cardigan closed, she looked down at the table and bit her lip. “My parents. I went to visit my mother.”

“You left when?”

“On the Thursday morning, very early. My flight was at eight. I took a cab to JFK at six in the morning.”

“Was Amy up?”

“No.”

“Was Amy home?”

“I think so. I didn’t check her room, if that’s what you mean.”

“So she could’ve not been home?”

“She could’ve not been, but—”

“So the last time you actually saw her would be…”

“Wednesday night, May 12.”

“Had time to recall some dates since our phone call?”

Lily lifted her gaze. Detective O’Malley’s eyes stared at her unflinchingly from his clean-shaven, calm, angular face, and she suddenly got the feeling that the firm and casual handshake
was
a ruse, was an affect, that she should be very careful with the things she said to this detective because he might remember every syllable.

“Yes.” She crossed her arms. “Initially I had been taken aback by your phone call.”

“That’s understandable. Did she seem normal to you that Wednesday?”

“Yes. She seemed the same as always.”

“Which is how?”

“I don’t know. Normal.” How did one describe a normal evening with Amy? Lily became flummoxed. “She was her usual self. We drank a little, talked a little.”

“About what?”

“Nothing. Everything. Movies. Finals. Really, just…regular girl things.”

“Boyfriends?”

“Mmm.” Lily didn’t want to tell this detective about her pathetic love life, and since that’s all the boyfriends they talked
about, she couldn’t tell the detective anything. “We talked about our mothers.”

Detective Harkman stood behind Lily and every once in a while, Detective O’Malley would glance at him for a silent exchange and then look back at her. Now was one of those times.

“Then you left…”

“And I haven’t heard from Amy since.”

“You never called to tell her how you were getting on in Maui?”

“I did, a couple of times, I left messages on the machine, but she never called me back.”

“How many times would you say you called her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe three?”

“Three?”

“Around three.”

“So possibly two, possibly four?”

“Possibly.” Lily lowered her head. She didn’t know what he wanted from her.

“Does she have a cell phone?”

“No.”

“Do you?”

“No. I can’t afford one. I don’t know why she doesn’t have one.”

“So you called a few times, she didn’t call back, and you gave up?”

“I didn’t give up. I was going to call again. I was even thinking of calling at her mother’s house.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t remember the number.”

“Did she tell you of her plans to visit her mother the weekend you flew to Hawaii?”

“I don’t remember her telling me anything like that, no. Did she go visit her mother that weekend?”

“No,” said the detective. “What time did you call her?”

“In the evenings, I think.”

“Your evenings?”

“What? Yes. Yes, my evenings. Midnight Hawaii time. Before I went to bed, I’d call.”

O’Malley paused before he said, “Hawaii is six hours behind New York.”

Lily paused, too. “Yes.”

“So your midnight would be six in the morning New York time?”

“Yes.” Lily coughed. “I guess I should have been more considerate.”

“Maybe,” O’Malley said non-committally. “What I’m really interested in, though, is Amy not picking up the phone at six in the morning.”

“She could have been out.”

“Out where?”

“Well, I don’t know, do I? Perhaps she was sleeping.”

“Perhaps she could have called you back, Miss Quinn. Would you like to know how many times the caller ID showed your Hawaiian phone number on the display? Twenty-seven. Morning, noon and night is when you called her. The answering machine in your apartment had nine messages from you to Amy. The first one was on Sunday, May 16, the last one was after you and I spoke, on June third.”

Lily, flustered and confounded, sat silently. Was she caught in a lie? She did call a few times. And she did leave some messages. But nine? She recalled some of those messages. “
Ames, ohmigod!!! I can’t take another day. This mother of mine, call me, call me back, call me.” “Ames, how long have I been here, it feels like five years, and I’m the one who is sixty. Call me to tell me I’m still young.” “Amy, where in hell are you? I need you. Call me.” “I’m going home, home, home, I can’t take another minute. My dad is not here, just me and my crazy mom. If I don’t talk to you I’ll turn into her.” “Amy, in case you’ve forgotten, this is your roommate and best friend Lily Quinn. That’s L-I-L-Y Q-U-I-N-N.”

She was profoundly embarrassed. Strangers, police officers, detectives, these two men, this grown-up man listening to her
sophomoric jabberings, her tumult and frustration on an answering machine!

Harkman panted behind her, sneezed once, she hoped it wasn’t on her. Detective O’Malley at last said, as if speaking directly to her humiliations, “Okay, let’s move on.”

Yes, let’s. But Lily didn’t know what to say. Harkman’s gaze prickled the back of her neck. She felt intensely uncomfortable. O’Malley’s hands were pressed together at the fingertips, making the shape of a teepee as he continued to study her. Lily couldn’t take it anymore, she looked away from him and down at her own twitching hands and noticed that a small cut near her knuckle was oozing blood.

“Miss Quinn, are you bleeding? Chris, can you please get this young lady a tissue. Or would you prefer a first-aid kit? When did you cut yourself?”

Lily didn’t want to be evasive, considering the amount of fresh blood that was coming out of an old wound, but she couldn’t tell him when. “It’s an old thing,” she muttered. “It’s nothing.”

Harkman came back with cotton wool and a bandage. Lily dabbed at the cut, feeling ridiculous.

O’Malley said, “You might want to get that checked out.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Well, Miss Quinn, it may seem
fine
to you, this ability to bleed spontaneously, but you weren’t bleeding when you first came in here, and the bright color of your blood tells me you may be anemic.”

“Yes, I’ve always been a little anemic.” She emitted a throaty laugh. “Never could donate blood.”

He wrote something down in his notebook, not paying attention to her. “I just have a couple more questions, if you think you’re all right to go on.”

“I’m fine.”

“Tell me, did Amy have any enemies?”

“Enemies? We’re college girls!”

“The answer is no then? You can just reply in the negative.”

“No.” In the smallest voice.

“What about a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Was she seeing anyone at all? Casually?”

Lily said, “What kind of a question is that?”

O’Malley stopped looking into his notebook and looked up at her. “I’m not interested in passing judgment. Now was she or wasn’t she?”

“Well, she’s single, so…yes.”

“Did she ever stay overnight somewhere else?”

“Once in a while.”

“How often?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know that either.”

O’Malley exchanged another look with Harkman. What, Lily wanted to exclaim, what are you looking at each other for? What am I not telling you? She glanced back at Harkman herself. She started to actively dislike his eyes, which she realized were like two small, round, ugly drill holes. They were lost on his big, round, double-chinned face, but boy did they manage to bore into the back of her friggin’ head.