Never Look Away (37 page)

I didn't leave one. I was starting to feel like I was spinning my wheels.

The day dragged on.

At one point, Dad said he needed something to eat, so he went out and bought us a couple of submarine sandwiches stuffed with meatballs and provolone. We took a break and ate them sitting at the kitchen table.

I said, "Thanks."

"No big deal," Dad said. "Just a couple of sandwiches."

"I'm not talking about the sandwiches."

Dad looked embarrassed and opened the fridge to see whether there was any more beer.

Late afternoon, not long after I'd tried the Catalina listing a second time with no luck, the phone rang. Mom said, "Ethan wants to talk to you." Some receiver fumbling, then, "Dad?"

"Hey, sport, how's it going?"

"I wanna come home."

"Soon," I said.

"Nana says I have to stay here all day."

"That's right."

"I've been here for days and days."

"Ethan, it's only been a couple."

"When's Mommy coming home?"

"I don't know," I said. "Are you being a good boy for Nana?"

A hesitation. "Yes."

"What did you do?"

"She yelled at me about jumping on the stairs."

"Is that all?"

"Yes. Now I'm playing with the bat."

"Bat?"

"The okay bat."

I smiled. "Are you playing
croquet
with Nana?"

"No. She says it makes her back hurt to hit the ball."

"So how do you play by yourself?"

"I hit the wood ball through the wires. I can make it go really far."

"Okay," I said. "Is Nana making anything for dinner?"

"I think so. I smell something. Nana! What's for dinner?" I heard Mom talking. Then Ethan said, "Pot roast." He whispered, "It's got carrots in it."

"Try to eat just one carrot. It's good for you. Do it for Nana."

"Okay."

"What time's Nana serving dinner?"

Ethan shouted out another question. "Seven," he said.

"Okay, I'll see you then, okay?"

"Okay."

"I love you," I said.

"I love you, too," he said.

"Okay. Bye, sport."

"Bye, Dad."

And he hung up.

* * *

I tried the Rochester Pirelli number again.

"Hello?" A woman.

"Hi," I said. "I'm trying to find Tina Pirelli."

"Speaking."

I tried to hide the excitement in my voice. "Would this be the Tina Pirelli who once taught kindergarten in Rochester?"

"That's right." A suspicious tone in her voice. "Who's calling?"

"My name is David Harwood. I'm trying to find someone who I think was a student of yours, very briefly, back then."

"David who?"

"Harwood. I'm calling from Promise Falls."

"How did you get my number?"

I told her, briefly, about the steps I'd taken to find her.

"And who are you trying to find?" she asked.

"Constance Tattinger."

There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment. "I remember her," Tina Pirelli said quietly. "Why are you trying to find her?"

I'd thought about whether to make up a story, but decided it was better to play it straight. "She grew up to become my wife," I said. "And she's missing."

I could hear Tina draw in her breath. "And you think I'd know where she is? I haven't seen her in probably thirty years, when she was just a little girl."

"I understand," I said. "But when her parents moved away from Rochester, did they say where they were moving to?" Having had no luck so far tracking down a Martin Tattinger in the United States, I wondered whether they could have moved to Canada or overseas.

"Considering the circumstances," Tina Pirelli said, "they didn't really have much to say to anyone. They just moved away."

"The circumstances being ... the accident?"

"So your wife has told you about that," she said.

"Yes," I lied.

"Poor Constance, everyone blamed her. Even though she was just a child. Her parents pulled her out of school, and eventually moved away. I don't have any idea where. I'm sorry. You say she's missing?"

"She just disappeared," I said.

"That must be terrible for you," she said.

"It is."

"I only had Constance for a couple of weeks. The accident was in September. But she was a good girl. Quiet. And I saw her only once after the accident."

"How was she then?" I asked.

Tina Pirelli took so long to answer, I thought the connection had been broken. "It was like," she said, "she'd stopped feeling."

I called the Pittsburgh listing for M. Tattinger.

"Hello?" A man. Sounded like he could be in his sixties or older.

"Is this Martin Tattinger?" I asked.

When the man didn't respond right away, I asked again.

"No," the man said. "This is Mick Tattinger."

"Is there a Martin Tattinger there?"

"No, there isn't. I think you must have the wrong number."

"I'm sorry," I said. "But maybe you can help me. My name is David Harwood. I'm calling from Promise Falls, north of Albany. I'm trying to find a Martin Tattinger, who's married to Thelma. They have a daughter Constance, and last I heard, they were living in Rochester, but that was some time ago. You wouldn't by any chance be a relative, know anything about how I might find Martin?"

"The Martin Tattinger you're looking for is my brother," he said flatly.

"Oh," I said, suddenly encouraged.

"He and Thelma, they moved around a lot, ending up in El Paso."

I'd seen no Tattinger listing for El Paso. "Do you have a number for him there?" I asked.

"Why you trying to get in touch with him?" Mick Tattinger asked.

"It's about their daughter, Constance," I said, not disclosing, this time, my relationship to her. "There's reason to believe she might be in trouble, and we're trying to contact her parents."

"That's going to be hard," Mick said.

"Why's that?"

"They're dead."

"Oh," I said. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize they'd passed on."

Mick snorted. "Yeah, passed on. That's a nice way to put it."

"I'm sorry?"

"They were murdered."

"What?"

"Throats slit. Both of them. While they were tied to the kitchen chairs."

"When was this?"

"Four, five years ago? It's not like I circle the date on my calendar, if you know what I mean."

"Did they catch who did it?" I asked.

"No," Mick Tattinger said. "What's this about Connie?"

"Constance--Connie is missing," I said.

"Yeah, well, there's nothing exactly new about that. She's been missing for years. Martin and Thelma, when they died, they hadn't heard from her for ages, had no idea what happened to her. She took off when she was sixteen or seventeen. Not that I could blame her. You telling me she's turned up?"

"It looks that way," I said.

"Son of a bitch," he said. "Where the hell is she? She probably doesn't even know her parents are dead."

"I think you might be right," I said.

"She might get some satisfaction from knowing," Mick Tattinger said. "Martin was my brother and all, but he was an ornery son of a bitch. We hadn't been close for years. Him and Thelma wouldn't ever have won any Parent of the Year awards. His bitchin' and her drinkin' and mopin' about, they were a pair. But still, that doesn't mean they deserved what they got. Martin was fixing cars, running a garage in El Paso. Far as I know, he was keeping his nose clean. So why does someone come and kill them? Nothing was stolen."

"I don't know," I said quietly.

"But Connie's alive? That's a kick in the head. I figured she was probably dead, too."

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't know. She was so screwed up, you know? It all goes back to something that happened when she was little, but no sense getting into that."

"The girl that got run over in the driveway."

"Oh, so you already know about that? Martin was a prick even before that, but after the accident, things really turned sour. He was working for a dealership that was owned by the dead girl's uncle. He took it out on Martin, fired him. Martin blamed Connie, which to a degree I suppose you could understand, but she was just a kid, right? But he never did let up on her. Found another job at a dealership in another town, ended up taking the fall when someone broke in and stole a bunch of tools. Wasn't Martin that did it, but management thought it was and fired him. Now he'd been fired from two jobs and things got worse. He finally found some other work, but it didn't matter what happened, he always put the blame on Connie, like she was their own bad luck charm." Mick paused, trying to recall something. "What was it he used to call her? He had a name for her."

"Hindy," I offered.

"Yeah, that was it. For 'Hindenburg.'"

"How'd she handle it?" I asked.

"The few times I saw them all together, it was kind of strange."

"What do you mean?"

"It was like ... it was like she was in another place."

"Excuse me?"

"Like she wasn't there. It was like she was imagining she was someplace else, or
someone
else. I think it was her way of surviving."

I was listening, nodding my head.

"Who'd you say you were?" he asked, and I told him my name again. "If and when you find Connie, you tell her to get in touch. Would you do that?"

"Sure," I said.

"What are you? Some kind of private investigator?"

"A reporter," I said. "I'm a reporter."

Dad came down to the kitchen.

"It must be dinnertime," he said, looking at the clock. It was 6:40 p.m. "When did your mother say we were supposed to go over?"

I said, "Huh?"

"What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

"Something like that," I said.

The phone rang. I glanced down at the display. Mom. Or possibly Ethan, who had learned some time ago how to use the speed dial on his grandparents' phone.

I picked up. "Yeah."

"I can't find him," Mom said, her voice shaking. "I can't find Ethan."

FORTY-SEVEN

For the better part of half an hour, Jan drove randomly. Go a few miles, turn left. Go a few more, turn right. Get on the interstate, go two exits, get off. She hoped the more randomly she drove, the harder she'd be to follow.

And she hadn't noticed any black Audis in the pickup truck's rearview mirror. When she got on the interstate, and was able to see a good mile or so behind her, and when there was no sign of the Audi, she started to feel more confident that Oscar Fine was not on her tail.

But that was not a great comfort.

If he could find her once, it seemed likely he could find her again.

She must have looked like a madwoman to other motorists who happened to glance her way. Wide-eyed, her hair a mass of tangles from the wind blowing through the open side windows and the new crack in the windshield. She was holding on to the steering wheel as hard as she could not just to maintain control, but to keep from shaking.

She was a disaster.

Dwayne had to be dead. No way Oscar Fine was letting him walk out of that basement alive.

The question was, how much had Dwayne said before he died?

Did Oscar know who she was?

Did Oscar know who she'd been?

Had he already known before Dwayne walked in to trade his fake diamonds for six million?

Think
, she told herself, heading west on the Mass Pike.
Think
.

One thing was a no-brainer. Banura had turned them in. Once they'd been to see him, and he'd examined what they had to sell, he must have tipped off Oscar Fine. But why was Oscar on alert now, after all this time? Had he been checking in with everyone in the diamond trade regularly for the last six years, reminding them to be on the lookout for those worthless stones as a way of tracking Dwayne and her down?

Maybe. But it was also possible something had triggered Oscar Fine to start looking now, perhaps more vigorously than he had been lately.

Had he seen a news report about her disappearance? Even if he had, those stories carried pictures of her looking like Jan Harwood, and Jan Harwood didn't look anything like that girl who got the drop on him in the back of the limo. But maybe, when you've had someone cut off your hand, you remember a little more than hair color and eye shadow....

Jan let go of the steering wheel long enough to bang it several times with her fist. Was there any part of this that she hadn't fucked up?

Where to start?

Pulling the stupid job in the first place. Hooking up with Dwayne Osterhaus. Being so incredibly dumb as to not know the value of the goods they'd stolen. Coming back to Banura's when she knew the deal was too good to be true.

Walking away from what she had
.

She glanced down at the dash, saw that the truck was nearly out of gas. Now she had a practical matter to contend with. She took the next exit, which was littered with gas stations and fast-food joints. She put thirty dollars' worth into the tank, then crossed the street and parked in a McDonald's lot.

She bypassed the ordering counter, went straight to the ladies' rest-room, rushed into a stall, and vomited before she could get the seat up. She had her hands on the stall walls, steadying herself. She was sweating and dizzy.

And then she was sick again.

She flushed the toilet and stood in there, blotting her face with toilet tissue. Once she was sure she was ready, she opened the door, went to the sink, and splashed water on her face, trying to cool herself down. A woman helping her daughter wash up at the sink next to hers gave Jan a cautious look.

Jan knew what she was thinking.
You're some sort of crazy lady
.

There were no paper towels, just those confounding hot-air blowers, and the last thing Jan wanted blowing on her face was hot air. So she walked out of the restroom, and out of the restaurant, droplets of water running down her face.

She leaned up against the brick wall of the restaurant, keeping an eye on the pickup and the traffic, always on the lookout for a black Audi. She stood there for a good half hour, as though paralyzed, not knowing what she should do next.

A restaurant employee emptying trash cans asked if he could help her. Not really wanting to help, but wanting Jan to move on. She got back behind the wheel of the truck, sat there a moment.

A cell phone rang, making Jan jump. She didn't even have a cell phone. Then she remembered the one she'd stolen from the woman's purse at the gas station. She reached into her own purse, found the phone, looked at the number.

There was no way anyone knew how to get in touch with her, was there?

But Dwayne had used the phone to call Banura. He probably had it on his phone's log.

She flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Who is this?" a woman asked. "Have you got my cell phone? I've spent all morning looking for it and--"

Jan broke the flip phone, like she was snapping its spine, got out of the truck and threw the two pieces into a garbage can.

When she got back into the truck, she was shaking.

And thinking. Thinking all the way back to the very beginning. Back to when she pushed the Richlers' daughter into the path of that car.

Wasn't that when it all started, really? If she hadn't done that--and God knows she never meant for that to happen--then her parents would never have had to move away. And then her father's work might not have gone down the toilet, and he might not have hated her quite so much, and she might not have been so desperate to leave home so young, taken up with someone like Dwayne Osterhaus and--

No, she never meant to kill the Richler girl. She was just angry, that was all. Angry about something she'd said. Constance Tattinger was jealous of Jan Richler. Jealous of the things she had. Jealous of how much her parents adored her. Gretchen and Horace Richler bought her Barbies, and pretty shoes, and on her birthday let her order in Kentucky Fried Chicken. They'd even bought their girl a necklace that looked like a cupcake. It was the most beautiful necklace Constance had ever seen, and she had coveted it from the moment she first laid eyes on it.

One day, when Jan Richler wore it to school, and took it off briefly when it was itching her neck, Constance Tattinger reached into her jacket pocket and took it. Jan Richler cried and cried when she couldn't find it, and became convinced Constance had taken it. Two days later, on Jan Richler's front lawn, she told Constance what she believed she'd done, and Constance, angry and defensive, shoved the girl out of her way.

Right into the path of the car.

All these years, the woman who would steal Jan Richler's identity hung on to that necklace. She'd been tempted many times to throw it away, but could never bring herself to do it. It wasn't that she loved the piece of jewelry. Far from it. The necklace was a reminder of a terrible thing she'd done. It signified not only the moment Jan Richler's life ended, but the moment Constance Tattinger's own life changed forever.

She was pulled out of school.

Her parents moved away.

Her father began his never-ending resentment of her.

The day she took that necklace was the day it was determined she would leave home at seventeen and never get in touch with her parents again. She wondered, sometimes, whatever had happened to them. And then she realized she didn't much care.

She hung on to the necklace for what it represented. A defining moment in her life. Even though it was a bad one.

One day, Ethan would see it in her jewelry box and ask if he could have it--cupcakes were his favorite snack in the whole wide world--and his mother would say no, it really wasn't something a boy would wear, so he begged her to wear it when they went on a trip to Chicago.

She agreed to wear it for a day, and then never wore it again.

She thought about all these things, about her life, about Ethan, about David, as she sat in that truck. She thought about the life she'd had with them and--

Focus
.

The woman known as Jan gave her head a small shake. There'd be plenty of time later to wallow in self-pity, immerse herself in it like a hot bath.

Something more urgent was nagging at her.

There was every reason to believe Oscar Fine knew that she had been living the last few years as Jan Harwood. He could have learned this from Dwayne, or he could have figured it out from the news reports of her disappearance.

If he knew about Jan Harwood, it wasn't going to take him any time at all to figure out where she was from.

If she were Oscar Fine, she told herself, wouldn't Promise Falls be her next stop?

She reached down next to her, looking for the photograph of Ethan she had taken from her purse only an hour or so earlier.

It wasn't there.

Jan put the key into the ignition and started the engine. Without even realizing it, she'd already been driving in the direction of the place she'd called home the last five years.

She had to go back.

And she had to get there before Oscar Fine did.

She made no further pit stops on the way to Promise Falls, even when she was rounding Albany and saw that she had less than a quarter of a tank left. She felt she could make it.

She wondered where Ethan would be. It made sense that, considering the predicament she'd left David in, their son would not be at their house. David, if he hadn't already been arrested, would probably be at the police station, or meeting with a lawyer, or driving all over hell's half acre trying to figure out what had happened to her.

Jan almost laughed when it hit her:
I wish I could talk to David about this
.

She knew that wasn't possible. There would be no room for forgiveness there, even though all she had to do was walk into a police station to put him in the clear. The things she'd done--you didn't put that kind of stuff behind you and start over. Maybe, someday, some evidence might come along that would clear him. So be it.

By then she and Ethan would be long gone.

Ethan was her son. She was going to come out of all this with something that was hers.

It was most likely he was with Nana and Poppa. She'd take a drive by there first.