Lethally Blond (5 page)

I’d missed most of the commuter traffic, but there were still bumper-to-bumper patches on the Major Deegan, and by the time I reached the New York State Thruway, I’d been warming the seat of my Jeep for well over an hour. As I pulled away from the tollbooth, I experienced a moment of brain spritz—why in God’s name was I spending an entire day in my car looking for a guy I’d never even
met
? Because I’d promised Chris I would help. Because I was moved by Tom’s story. If the good professor couldn’t help, though, I didn’t know what else I could do.

The second half of the trip turned out to be relatively painless. I stuck in a CD of Maria Callas arias, and since there was nothing complicated about the route—New York State Thruway to Exit 24 and then the Adirondack Northway to Saratoga—I listened to her haunting voice and kept my speed at around seventy-two most of the way. The suburbs fell behind me, and before long the Catskills rose in shades of blue and lavender off to my left. I passed stretches of woods and marshes, interrupted periodically by giant eyesores, like mini self-storage units that seemed to go on for miles. When I passed the first Albany exit, my tummy did a weird nostalgia flip, as I remembered my job as a beat reporter for the
Albany Times Union
my first two years out of Brown.

It was just after noon when I pulled off onto the main exit for Saratoga. Though my stomach was starting to rumble, I figured food could wait until after I’d located Carr. I’d visited Saratoga a few times when I was working for the paper—to take in the races, to hear concerts at the performing arts center—and I didn’t need to ask directions. The road off the exit turned into Main Street, which I knew led through the town center, and then flowed right into Broadway. As I passed through the downtown area, I checked out the scene. Though Thoroughbred racing season was over, the town was bustling with people. They strolled along the street in shorts and tank tops and formed bunches in front of the shops and cafés in the five-story brick buildings, which dated back to the 1800s. Some of the buildings displayed American flags, which snapped in the end-of-summer breeze.

I decided I’d stop first at Carr’s house, and if he wasn’t there, I’d proceed down the road to Skidmore. Broadway was an amazing little street lined with glorious old houses that had once been owned by rich horse-loving families like the Vanderbilts. The owners would arrive in August for Thoroughbred season and then depart immediately afterward, leaving the servants to re-cover the furniture in big white sheets. Carr’s house wasn’t one of the near mansion-size places, but it was a nice big yellow one with a wraparound porch. Chances are he’d bought it run-down and had worked to restore it to its previous glory.

I was in luck, it seemed. An old Volvo sat in the driveway, and I could see that the front door was wide open to the day. I hopped out of the Jeep and scampered up the steps. Somewhere deep inside, classical music was playing, the perky sounds of Mozart, from what I guessed.

I peered through the screen door and, not seeing anyone, rapped on the frame. Nothing. But someone had to be here. There was the music, after all, and besides, there were cooking smells, something cuminy. I rapped again, louder this time.

“It’s open!” a man yelled over the music. “I’m in the kitchen.”

I stepped inside and adjusted my eyes now that they were out of the glare of the day. I was standing in a hallway with a parlor on either side, the one to the right set up as a study/library. Dark wood antiques filled the rooms, but they seemed mostly of the flea market variety, and the art on the wall was mainly framed museum posters. I followed the cooking smells and music to a kitchen in the back, a room that looked as if it hadn’t been overhauled since at least the 1970s. A tall, lean guy with a dark brown beard, who could have been anywhere from thirty-eight to fifty, stood at one of those rolling carts with butcher block on top, chopping away at a red pepper, with a pile of ten others awaiting execution. He glanced up when I entered, a look on his face of expectation that was immediately chased away by puzzlement. Clearly, I wasn’t who he’d been waiting for.

“Can I help you?” he asked, pausing midwhack.

“Sorry to barge in like this. I did try to call you a couple of times. I’m Bailey Weggins. Are you Alan Carr?”

He scrunched his mouth over to one side and mentally tossed around what I’d just said. “Oh, you’re the one with a question about Tom. Sorry not to get back to you—I’m serving chicken chili to twenty tonight, and I’m about an hour behind schedule. You’re not a student, are you?”

“No, I live in New York City, and I drove up this morning. Why don’t I get right to the point. Tom seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. A friend of his asked me to try to find him, and since I heard you stayed in touch with Tom, I was hoping you might be able to help.”

“Dropped off the face of the earth?” he said soberly, wiping his hands on the red cook’s apron he wore. “What do you mean by
that
?”

“There hasn’t been any sign of him at his apartment for nearly two weeks, and he hasn’t showed up for work on his TV show. He did withdraw a large sum of money, so it seems as if he may have wanted to take off for a while. I’m wondering if you’ve seen or talked to him lately.”

There was a telling beat before he answered.

“No, I haven’t.”

“You hesitated.”

“That’s because I
did
talk to Tom fairly recently, but now that I think about it, it was probably more like a month or two ago. Not long after they starting shooting this show he’s in. He called to give me an update.” Pensively, he strode over to the CD player and killed the Mozart. “When was the last time someone actually saw him?”

“The last person who saw him that
I
talked to was a guy at his parking garage. Tom picked up his car early in the morning two weeks ago this Saturday. The last time he used his cell phone was that morning, and it was from a place downstate not far from the thruway. That’s what made me think he might have been heading up to see you.”

“No, there weren’t any plans for him to come up here. Jesus, I don’t like the sound of this at all.”

“Is there any chance he could have just taken off for here, planning to show up unannounced?”

“You mean and then run into trouble. God, what if he’s had an accident and gone off the road and no one has spotted the car?” With one hand he squeezed his cheeks together and shook his head. “Tom never showed up unannounced before, but who knows, maybe he
was
headed here. He wasn’t thrilled with his part, that much I know. He was supposed to have had a much bigger role, and then all of sudden, bam, the rug got pulled out from under him. And yet, I can’t see him just walking away from the job. It was a start in TV.”

I massaged my temples, trying to think. I’d half convinced myself Tom was here or that I would at least walk away with a clue to his whereabouts. But I’d driven all this way simply to face another dead end.

“Is there anything, then, you can tell me that might help me find him?” I asked, looking up. “Anyone he knew in the Northeast that he might have decided to hole up with? Any secret problems in his life?”

“You want a cup of coffee?” Carr asked, yanking open a hulking old refrigerator that was the yellowed hue of old piano keys. He withdrew a carton of milk and set it down next to the peppers.

“Sure,” I said, using the invitation as a sign it was okay for me to take a seat on one of the scattered stools in the room.

Carr took his time—filling the mugs slowly from the coffeemaker pot, pouring sugar from a yellow sack into a chipped bowl—and I sensed he was deliberating whether or not to make a disclosure. After he’d set everything on the butcher block, he wiped his hands again on his apron and looked me straight in the eye.

“Do you know or
not
know about Tom’s stint in rehab?” he asked finally.

Oh wow, I thought. “When was this?”

“About a year ago.”

“Are we talking coke?”

“Nope, antidepressants. He started taking them last year right after his mother died, along with sleeping pills, and he just got hooked. He did two weeks at a place in Massachusetts and then crashed here afterwards for another couple of weeks. It was actually great. He helped me on a project, and he worked in my garden every day. And he seemed in great shape when he left.”

“Could he have relapsed?” I asked, reaching over and helping myself to a mug of coffee.

“I suppose it’s a possibility, but Tom’s not really the druggie type. I saw his situation as an isolated incident, all tied in with the depression he felt over losing two parents so close together.” He shook his head hard in a gesture of frustration and worry. “No, that’s not what concerns me. I keep seeing a car wreck in my mind. And we’ve got to do something.”

“Okay, I’m going to explore that end next,” I said. “I’ll contact the state police. And I promise to keep you posted.”

My stomach was churning when I left a few minutes later, a combo effect from downing an entire mug of coffee in two minutes and the new concerns I felt about Tom. What if he
had
had an accident? I was anxious to be on the road again, but I also needed to eat—and to think. I found a parking spot downtown, and before heading into a small restaurant, I picked up a New York State tourist map at the shop next door. After I’d ordered a Caesar salad, I spread out the map in front of me.

Tom’s call to the assistant director had been made when he was less than an hour north of the city. If Tom had indeed had an accident in the hours after that, locating his car would be tough since we had no idea where he was actually headed. He might have been going to Saratoga, in which case he would have stayed on the New York State Thruway. But he could have gotten off onto a smaller road or picked up the Mass Turnpike in Albany to head to Boston or someplace else in New England. He could have even been on his way north to Canada for all I knew. I let my eyes roam the map. North of Newburgh Junction were Ulster and Greene counties. North and to the west was the Catskill Mountain region, with old-fashioned-sounding towns like Mar-garetville and Loch Sheldrake.

And then I spotted it. I nearly gulped. A town called
Andes
. Like a flash, I saw in my mind the photo of Tom and his parents, with “Andes” written on the back. Because of their many travels, I’d instantly assumed Peru. But what if it was
this
Andes? According to Chris, the family had a weekend home, and Tom had been in the process of selling it this year. But what if he hadn’t done so yet? The turnoff for Andes was right near Newburgh Junction.

My salad arrived, and I wolfed it down while I simultaneously phoned the intern ghetto at
Buzz
. I asked the chick who answered to pull up a Web site we used to check property records and told her to find anything belonging to Tom Fain. She promised to call me back in a few minutes.

“No, I’ll hold,” I told her, totally wired. I could hear the tap of her computer keys as she worked.

“There are a few Tom Fains,” she said. “I’m not sure—”

I interrupted, giving her the address on Mercer.

“Okay, I see it,” she said after an agonizing minute. “There’s another place, too. Do you want it?”

“Yes!” I nearly screamed.

“Dabbet Road, Andes, New York.” She pronounced “Andes” like “Ands,” but I forgave her. I couldn’t believe it. Mentally, I calculated how long it would take me to drive there. Just a couple of hours—south and west.

As I raced along in my Jeep minutes later, I considered the likelihood of Tom going there. Though earlier he had told Chris he was unloading the place, the sale might have fallen through, or he might have changed his mind. This could also explain why he hadn’t made any more phone calls from his cell. Reception might be bad in the mountains, and he could be relying on a landline for any communication. I tried 411 and found a listing for Fain on Dabbet Road, but no one answered when I called it.
Why
would he have gone there? I wondered. Was it to chase the boredom because his weekend plans had fallen through? He’d told Harper that he had work to do. Was he working on the property? Getting it ready for a sale? Then why not return? Or let anyone know his whereabouts? Maybe his real goal had been to place himself far from the madding crowd for an indefinite period of time. Or maybe something had happened to him.

It was nearly six by the time I arrived in Andes, and the sun was sinking in the sky. Though it was still technically summer, the days seemed so much shorter now. I rolled down my window and felt a blast of cool mountain air. Figuring I’d probably be back in the city by this time, I hadn’t brought along a sweater or jacket.

The town of Andes was small and charming without trying too hard. Along the main drag were a few little shops, a general store, and a little café where a few people still lounged at tables on the porch. I pulled into a parking spot, looking for someone to ask directions from. A tall older woman, her gray hair pinned up dramatically on top of her head, was sweeping the sidewalk in front of a red-painted antiques shop, with a sign that read NEST OF TREASURES.

“Excuse me,” I said after climbing out of the Jeep. “Could you please tell me how to get to Dabbet Road?”

“You’re looking for the Fain house?” she asked in a husky, cultured voice that suggested she might have packed up her life in Manhattan and moved here for a simpler existence.

“How did you know?”

“It’s the only house on that road. Are you a potential buyer?”

“Buyer? No, I’m actually looking for Tom Fain. My name is Bailey Weggins. I’m a friend of a friend of Tom’s.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize he was up here this week. Okay, then, you’re going to have to head back the way you came and make a left on Harrow. Just before you reach the outskirts of town, you’ll see Dabbet on your left. Tell him Beverly said hi, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

My whole body was buzzing as I jumped back into the Jeep. I hadn’t wanted to be too nosy with the woman, but it sounded as if the deal for the house, the one Tom had told Chris about,
had
fallen through and the house was once again for sale. Maybe that was why Tom had come to Andes—to goose the sales process.