“Know anything Healy doesn’t?”
“Nope, we’re sharing.”
“That’s so sweet,” I said.
“We try,” Epstein said, and sipped some bourbon. “People aren’t liking federal agencies much these days.”
“Is it because we’re being governed by a collection of nincompoops?” I said.
Epstein grinned at me.
“Yeah,” he said. “Pretty much.”
“It’ll pass,” I said. “We got through Nixon.”
“I know,” Epstein said. “You got anything for me?”
“Heidi Bradshaw’s birth name was probably Hilda Gretsky,” I said. “She might have been born in 1959 in Dayton, Ohio.”
“Busy, busy,” Epstein said.
“I got nothing else to do,” I said.
Epstein nodded.
“You been out there?” he said.
“Dayton? Not yet. I was hoping maybe you could enlist one of your colleagues out there to run it down.”
“Where’d you get your information?” Epstein said.
“Heidi’s first husband, a professor at Lydia Hall College in New York.”
“Name?”
“J. Taylor Washburn.”
Epstein nodded. He didn’t write anything down, but I knew everything was filed.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll run that down for you.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“It’s our case, too,” Epstein said. “She go to Lydia Hall?”
“No,” I said. “But I suspect she has claimed to.”
“Some reinvention going on?” Epstein said.
“It’s the American way,” I said.
“Sure,” Epstein said. “You told Healy this?”
“Yeah, but we both figured your resources in the Dayton area were better than his.”
“Or yours,” Epstein said.
“Much better than mine,” I said.
“You were there,” Epstein said, “at the wedding when the whole thing went down.”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Her story is that she was at the moment between husbands and needed an adequate substitute for the wedding,” I said.
“So if, say, the wine wasn’t chilled, she could ask you to fix it?”
“I guess.”
“You believe her?”
“No.”
“There are women like that,” Epstein said. “I’m Jewish, I know a lot of them.”
“Isn’t that anti-Semitic?” I said.
“Only female Semites,” Epstein said.
“You’ve not had good fortune with the women of your kind?” I said.
“Or any other,” he said.
“So it’s more misogyny,” I said.
“You’re right,” he said. “I was imprecise. Anybody paying you on this case?”
“I’m looking into it on my own,” I said.
“Because they kidnapped somebody on your watch,” Epstein said. “So to speak.”
“Something like that. I wasn’t very useful.”
“You were looking out for Susan,” Epstein said. “That’s useful.”
“How do you know?” I said.
“Because she was there. Because I am a skilled investigator. And because I know what you’re like.”
“Didn’t do the kidnap victim much good,” I said.
“What I hear, no one could. If you had it to do over again, would you do it different?”
“No,” I said.
Epstein grinned.
“That’s right,” he said. “You wouldn’t.”
24
Peter Van Meer
lived in a very big condominium on top of the Four Seasons, with a view of the Public Garden and eternity. I had a long time to study eternity because Van Meer kept me waiting for at least twenty minutes in the room where the maid left me. It was a big room with heavy furniture and leather-bound books. Many of the books had Latin titles and looked as if they had been printed in the nineteenth century. Van Meer probably called the room his study. Everything was expensive and perfectly matched and color-coordinated, and arranged, and appropriate, and as warm as a display room in Bloomingdale’s.
I turned from the window when he came in.
He said, “Sorry to keep you waiting, my man.”
He put out his hand as he walked toward me.
“Pete Van Meer,” he said.
He was a large man with a big, square face, gray hair, and a swell tan. He wore a black shirt with several buttons undone, and a black watch plaid sport coat over pearl-gray slacks. We shook hands and I sat down in a dark brown leather armchair on the far side of a low mahogany coffee table with fat curved legs. Van Meer stood beside his desk.
“Drink?” Van Meer said.
“No, thanks,” I said.
Van Meer grinned.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said.
He went to a sideboard, which concealed a refrigerator, and made himself a tall Courvoisier and soda. He brought it back with him and sat on the edge of his desk. He made a faint toasting gesture toward me and took a pull.
“First of the day,” he said.
“Always the best,” I said. “You were married to Heidi Washburn.”
He smiled down at me happily.
“Man,” he said. “What a ride that was.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
He took another pull.
“She could fuck the hinges off a firehouse door,” Van Meer said.
“Good to know,” I said.
“Oh, momma,” he said, and drank some more cognac.
“How’d you meet?” I said.
“My wife at the time, Megan, was a big patron of the arts, you know? I was with her at some gallery reception for some whack job that threw paint on his canvas, you know?”
“I sort of like paintings where a horse looks like a horse, or at least reminds me of a horse,” I said.
“You and me both, brother,” Van Meer said. “Anyway, my wife at the time, Megan, is taking this dildo around, and introducing him to the guests, and I’m trying to gag down enough white wine to get me through the evening, and I look around and I’m standing beside this firecracker of a broad. You seen her?”
“I have,” I said.
“Then you know what I mean,” Van Meer said. “So she looks at me and says, ‘You bored?’ And I say, ‘Not a big enough word for what I am,’ and she goes, ‘Do you like white wine?’ And I say, ‘No.’ And she says, ‘Me, either. Let’s get out of here and get a real drink.’ So we did.”
“When was this?”
“Nineteen eighty-two,” he said.
“She still married to Washburn?” I said.
“The art professor, yeah.”
“Adelaide was born in 1985?” I said.
He nodded.
“You having any luck finding her?” he said.
“I’ve not found her yet,” I said.
“But you will.”
“Yes,” I said. “I will.”
He went to the sideboard and made himself another drink.
“I’m a lush,” he said. “But a jolly one.”
He drank some of his cognac and soda. His face darkened.
“And I love my daughter.”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I need to ask if you’re sure she’s yours.”
His face stayed dark.
“We never DNAed her,” Van Meer said.
He sipped his drink.
“You know,” he said. “Even if we DNAed her now, and she turned out to be Washburn’s or something? It wouldn’t matter. She’s my daughter.”
His eyes were wet-looking. I thought he might cry.
“Do you think she’s alive,” he said.
“Have you heard from the kidnappers?” I said.
“No.”
“There’s no reason to do such an elaborate kidnapping and then kill her,” I said. “She’s alive.”
“What do they want?” Van Meer said.
“I don’t know yet.”
“I have tons of money,” Van Meer said.
“Can’t hurt,” I said.
“I can hire you to find her,” Van Meer said. “Any amount, doesn’t matter.”
“No need,” I said. “I’m looking for her now.”
“If you need anything, anything that money can buy, just say so. It’s yours.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “How long did the marriage last?”
“Me and Heidi? We got divorced when Adelaide was five.”
“Nineteen ninety,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why did you get divorced?”
Van Meer took a slow drink and shrugged.
“Bradshaw,” he said.
“She was having an affair with him.”
“Yeah, sure. I mean that wasn’t such a big deal. She’d fooled around before. Hell, so did I. All during the marriage. We both did. But Bradshaw . . .”
He finished his drink and went to the sideboard and refreshed the glass.
“She was too far into Bradshaw,” he said. “She stopped coming home. Stopped having sex. Stopped being fun. When she was with you, Heidi could be a big lot of fun.”
He stayed at the sideboard holding his drink.
“Divorce contentious?” I said.
“No. I liked her. Hell, I probably loved her.”
“Generous settlement?” I said.
“Oh, sure,” he said. “I set up a big trust fund for Adelaide. She’s set for life. And Heidi got a lump-sum settlement instead of alimony. It was how she wanted it. Alimony would have stopped as soon as she married Bradshaw.”
“Ever meet Bradshaw?” I said.
“No.”
“Know anything about him?”
“No,” Van Meer said. “Heidi never talked about him. Never said a word.”
“Who asked for the divorce?”
“Her,” Van Meer said. “Told me she was in love with Bradshaw and wanted a divorce so she could marry him.”
“And he was the one she’d been seeing?”
“I assume so.”
“But you don’t know,” I said. “You didn’t put a private eye on her or anything?”
“No,” he said. “But I can tell you there was someone. On the rare occasions in that period when she would consent to sex, I knew. I don’t know how. I just knew I wasn’t the first one of the day. You know?”
I nodded.
“Do you know Heidi’s birth name?” I said.
“No.”
“Do you know where she’s originally from?”
He shook his head. He was looking past me now, out across the Public Garden, at the slow rise of Beacon Hill.
“Why would someone take Adelaide?” he said. “And not ask me for money?”
I had no answer for him. Which was all right, I guess, because I don’t think he was asking me. He took a drink. There were tears on his face. He kept studying the view out his expensive window.
“I want to know why that is,” he said.
25
Epstein came into my office
on the day before Halloween and sat down, put his feet on the edge of my desk, and tilted his chair back.
“Hilda Gretsky was in fact born in Dayton,” he said. “She attended Stebbins High School but didn’t graduate, went to beautician school and didn’t finish, worked at a bookstore called Books & Co. for a couple years, and headed for New York, looking, I assume, for Mr. Right.”
“That’s where he usually is,” I said.
“I’ll mention it to my daughters,” Epstein said.
“You have daughters?”
“Three.”
“Wife?” I said.
“Not currently,” Epstein said.
“Anything else interesting about Heidi?” I said.
“People at the bookstore say she wasn’t much of a bookseller. Said she spent most of her time reading the books,” Epstein said.
“That’s it?” I said.
“Yep. No record. Nobody much remembers her.”
“Parents?”
“Deceased,” Epstein said.
“Siblings?”
“None.”
“Boyfriends?” I said.
“None that we could find,” Epstein said. “We have located her current husband.”
“From whom she’s estranged.”
“Yeah.”
“Healy gave me an address in Padanarum, on the south coast,” I said.
“That’s one,” Epstein said. “He’s got houses in London and Tuscany, too.”
“What’s he do?”
“Seems to be some sort of consultant for the Information Agency.”
“That doesn’t support three houses.”
“Probably not,” Epstein said.
“So,” I said. “He’s got money, too.”
“Apparently.”
“What a coincidence,” I said. “All her husbands have been rich.”
“Lucky her,” Epstein said.
“Where’s Bradshaw now?” I said.
“Padanarum, last we checked,” Epstein said.
“How did he make his money?”
“The old-fashioned way,” Epstein said. “His father earned it.”
“What’s he do with the Information Agency?” I said.
“Information adviser.”
“Propaganda?” I said.
“We don’t do propaganda,” Epstein said. “Our enemies disseminate propaganda. We provide information.”
“It’s good to be us,” I said.
“Used to be,” Epstein said.
“Is that subversive?” I said.
Epstein shook his head and didn’t answer.
“Is it a civil service job?”
“Nope,” Epstein said. “I don’t think so. I think it’s a campaign contribution at the right time to the right guy’s job.”
“He work regularly?”
“He consults from time to time,” Epstein said.
“How long they been separated?” I said.
“Year and a half,” Epstein said.
He balanced easily on the hind legs of the chair. He seemed confident that he wouldn’t go over backward.
“Know anything about the current escort?” I said. “Guy named Clark.”
“I know you knocked him on his ass,” Epstein said.
“Piece of cake,” I said. “What’s his last name?”
“Morrissey,” Epstein said. “Clark Morrissey. Competed for a while as a bodybuilder. Male stripper. Bouncer at some upscale clubs. Probably where she met him.”
“Can’t fight a lick,” I said.
“Most folks can’t,” Epstein said. “But people like Heidi Bradshaw don’t know that.”
“And he looks good,” I said.
“That’s what I been getting by on,” Epstein said.
26
There was something
a little serpentine about Harden Bradshaw. He was tall and smooth, with a smallish head and dark eyes. His eyelids drooped. His movements were very supple. His handshake was languid. His hand was cold. We talked in a glassed-in section of the wraparound veranda of his home, looking across the marsh grass and the sand at the ocean. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and a camel-colored corduroy sport coat with the collar turned up.