Was this street familiar?
Myron frowned. He couldn’t say. Not much sameness during the day, but at night, it all looked woodsy. Loren headed down a cul-de-sac. Myron shook his head. Then another and another. The roads twisted seemingly without reason or plan, like something in an abstract painting.
More dead ends.
“You said before that Aimee didn’t seem drunk,” Loren said.
“That’s right.”
“How did she seem?”
“Distraught.” He sat up. “I was thinking that maybe she’d broken up with her boyfriend. I think his name is Randy. Have you talked to him yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I need to explain myself to you?”
“It’s not that, but a girl vanishes, you investigate—”
“There wasn’t an investigation. She’s of age, no signs of violence, missing only a few hours . . .”
“Enter me.”
“Exactly. Claire and Erik called her friends, of course. Randy Wolf, the boyfriend, wasn’t supposed to see her last night. He stayed home with his parents.”
Myron frowned. Loren Muse spotted it in the rearview mirror. “What?” she asked.
“Saturday night at the end of his senior year,” he said, “and Randy stays home with his mommy and daddy?”
“Do me a favor, Bolitar. Just look for the house, will you?”
As soon as she made the turn, Myron felt the pang of déjà vu. “On the right. At the end of the cul-de-sac.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Then: “Yeah. Yeah, this is it.”
She pulled up to it and parked. The Ridgewood police car parked behind them. Myron looked out the window. “Move up a few yards.”
Loren did as he asked. Myron kept his eyes on the house.
“Well?”
He nodded. “This is it. She opened that gate on the side of the house.” He almost added That was the last time I saw her, but he held back.
“Wait in the car.”
She got out. Myron watched. She headed over and talked to Banner and a cop with Ridgewood police logos on his uniform. They chatted and gestured toward the house. Then Loren Muse started up the walk. She rang the doorbell. A woman answered it. Myron couldn’t see her at first. Then she stepped outside. Nope, not familiar. She was slim. Her blond hair peeked out from a baseball cap. She looked like she’d just finished a workout.
The two women talked for a full ten minutes. Loren kept glancing back at Myron as if she feared he’d try to escape. Another minute or two passed. Loren and the woman shook hands. The woman went back inside and closed the door. Loren walked back to the car and opened the back door.
“Show me where Aimee walked.”
“What did she say?”
“What do you think she said?”
“That she never heard of Aimee Biel.”
Loren Muse touched her index finger to her nose and then pointed at him.
“This is the place,” Myron said. “I’m sure of it.”
Myron traced her path. He stopped at the gate. He remembered how Aimee had stood here. He remembered her wave, that there was something there, something that bugged him.
“I should have . . .” He stopped. No point. “She went in here. She disappeared from sight. Then she came back and waved that I should leave.”
“And you did?”
“Yes.”
Loren Muse looked in the backyard before she walked him back to another squad car. “They’ll drive you home.”
“Can I have my cell phone?”
She tossed it to him. Myron got into the back of the car. Banner started it up. Myron took hold of the door handle.
“Muse?”
“What?”
“There was a reason she picked this house,” Myron said.
He closed the door. They drove off in silence. Myron watched that gate, watched it grow smaller until finally it, like Aimee Biel, was gone.
CHAPTER 17
Dominick Rochester, the father of Katie, sat at the head of the dining room table. His three boys were there too. His wife, Joan, was in the kitchen. That left two empty chairs—hers and Katie’s. He chewed his meat and stared at the chair, as if willing Katie to appear.
Joan came out of the kitchen. She had a platter of sliced roast beef. He gestured toward his near-empty plate, but she was already on it. Dominick Rochester’s wife stayed home and took care of the house. None of that working-woman crap. Dominick wouldn’t have it.
He grunted a thank-you. Joan returned to her seat. The boys were all chowing down in silence. Joan smoothed her skirt and picked up her fork. Dominick watched her. She used to be so damned beautiful. Now she was glassy-eyed and meek. She hunched over in a permanent cower. She drank too much during the day, although she thought he didn’t know. No matter. She was still the mother of his children and kept in line. So he let it slide.
The phone rang. Joan Rochester leaped to her feet, but Dominick signaled her to sit with a wave of his hand. He wiped his face as though it were a windshield and rose from his seat. Dominick was a thick man. Not fat. Thick. Thick neck, thick shoulders, thick chest, thick arms and thighs.
The last name Rochester—he hated that. His father had changed it because he wanted to sound less ethnic. But his old man was a weakling and a loser. Dominick thought about changing it back, but that would look weak too. Like maybe he worried too much about what other people would think. In Dominick’s world, you never showed weakness. They had walked all over his father. Made him shut down his barbershop. Poked fun at him. His father thought he could rise above it. Dominick knew better.
You bust heads or you get your head busted. You don’t ask questions. You don’t reason with them—at least, not at first. At first, you bust heads. You bust heads and take licks until they respect you. Then you reason with them. You show them you’re willing to take a hit. You let them see you’re not afraid of blood, not even your own. You want to win, you smile right through your blood. That gets their attention.
The phone rang again. He checked the caller ID. The number was blocked, but most people who called here didn’t like people to know their business. He was still chewing when he lifted the receiver.
The voice on the other end said, “I have something for you.”
It was his contact at the county prosecutor’s office. He swallowed the meat. “Go ahead.”
“There’s another missing girl.”
That got his attention.