www.theShorelineBlotter.com_july23
by Margie Nichols
Have the police finally caught a break in the Madeline Snow case?
Sources close to the investigation tell this reporter that the police have named Nicholas Sanderson, 43, an accountant with a home in the upscale beachfront community of Heron Bay, a “person of interest.”
What does this mean, exactly? According to Frank Hernandez, the commanding officer in charge of the search for Madeline Snow, “We’re investigating a possible connection between Sanderson and the Snow family. That’s all. No further comment.”
No further comment? Really? After a little digging, here’s what I’ve learned: Nicholas Sanderson and his wife vacation a good forty-five miles from the Snow residence. They attend different churches, and at no time have Mr. or Mrs. Snow used Sanderson for his accounting services. Nicholas Sanderson has no children, and no obvious connection to Springfield, where the Snows live.
So what’s the connection? Post your thoughts/comments below.
Doesn’t mean anything. Sanderson could’ve met Madeline anywhere—hanging out at the beach, shopping at Walmart, whatever. Maybe he reached out to her online. Madeline’s sister has a car, doesn’t she?
posted by: bettyb00p at 10:37 a.m.
Why are you assuming there is a connection? Cops are just grabbing at straws, IMHO.
posted by: carolinekinney at 11:15 a.m.
That guy is the worst!!! Tried to charge me 3K just to do my taxes. What a scam artist.
posted by: alanovid at 2:36 p.m.
bettyb00p is right. Everything happens online nowadays. Was Madeline on Facebook?
posted by: runner88 at 3:45 p.m.
No. I checked.
posted by: carolinekinney at 3:57 p.m.
Still. These sickos always find a way.
posted by: bettyb00p at 4:02 p.m.
See additional 107 comments
JULY 23
Dara
8:30 p.m.
Until I turned fourteen, my parents took Nick and me to Sergei’s every other week. Sergei’s is wedged between a dentist’s office and a children’s shoe store that I have never known a single person to shop at. There is no actual Sergei; the owner’s name is Steve, and the closest he ever got to Italy was the time he lived for two years in an Italian neighborhood in Queens, New York. The garlic is from a jar and the Parmesan cheese is the crumbly kind that comes in an airtight container, the kind you can keep in a pantry for years or through nuclear catastrophes. The tablecloths are paper, and each place setting comes with a different-colored crayon.
But the meatballs are fluffy and as big as softballs, and the pizza comes in thick slices, layered with melted cheese, and the baked ziti is always bubbly brown and crusty at the corners, just how I like it. Besides, Sergei’s is ours. Even after Mom and Dad started making excuses to avoid each other, claiming late hours at work or developing colds or other obligations, Nick and I used to go together. For $12.95 we could get two Cokes and a large pizza and hit up the salad bar, too.
Il Sodi, the restaurant Cheryl has selected, has crisp white linen tablecloths and fresh flowers arranged in the center of every table. The floors are polished wood and so slick even standing up to go to the bathroom makes me nervous. Waiters swan between tables, cranking out fresh pepper and grating fine flakes of cheese onto pasta portions so small they look accidental. Everyone has the pushed and prodded and tugged look that rich people have, like they’re just giant pieces of taffy, ready to be molded. Cheryl lives in Egremont, just next to Main Heights, in the house she inherited after her last husband got flattened by an unexpected heart attack the day before his fiftieth birthday.
I’ve heard the story before, but for some reason she feels the need to tell it to me again, as if she’s expecting my sympathy—the phone call from the hospital, her frantic rush to his bedside, regrets about all the things she wishes she got the chance to say—while Dad sits and fiddles with a sweating glass of whiskey on the rocks. I’m not sure when he started drinking. He never used to have more than a beer or two at barbecues; he always used to say alcohol was how boring people had fun.
“And of course it was just devastating for Avery and Josh.” Josh is Cheryl’s eighteen-year-old son. He goes to Duke, a fact she has found ingenious ways to work into almost any conversation. I met him once, at a meet-and-greet dinner for the new “family” in March, and I swear he spent the whole dinner staring at my tits. Avery is fifteen, about as much fun as a Band-Aid, and just as clingy. “To be honest, even though we lost Robert five years ago, I don’t think we’ll ever be done grieving. You have to give yourself time.” I shoot my dad a look—does she think this is good dinner-party conversation?—but he’s studiously avoiding my eyes and instead using his phone under the table. Despite the fact that this dinner was his idea—he wanted some “quality time” with me, to “check in,” which I guess is why he didn’t invite Nick—he’s hardly said a word to me since I sat down.
Cheryl keeps prattling on. “I wish you’d talk to Avery. Maybe we can have a girls’ day. I’ll treat you to the spa. Would you like that?”
I’d rather spend the day sticking needles under my nails, but of course at that precise moment Dad’s eyes tick to mine, both a warning and a command. I smile and make a noncommittal noise.
“I’d love that. And Avery would love that.” Three things about Cheryl: she loves anything having to do with “girl time,” “spa time,” or “sauvignon blanc.” She leans back while three waiters materialize and deposit identical plates of what look like bean sprouts in front of us. “Micro greens,” Cheryl clarifies, when she sees my face. She has insisted on doing the ordering. “With chervil and fresh chives. Go on, dig in.”
Digging in is the wrong expression. I’ve finished the plate of rabbit kibble in about two bites, and I can’t help but think of the all-you-can-eat salad bar at Sergei’s: the electric glowing cubes of cheddar cheese, the proud trays of iceberg and individual tubs of store-bought croutons and pickled green beans. Even the beets, which Nick and I both agree taste like an open grave.
I wonder where Nick is eating tonight.
“So how’s your summer going?” Cheryl says, once the plates have been cleared. “I hear you’re working at FanLand.”
I shoot Dad another look—Cheryl can’t even keep Nick and me straight. For Christ’s sake, there’s only two of us. It’s not like I sit around asking how Avery likes Duke. But once again, he has returned to his phone.
“Everything’s fine,” I say. No point in telling Cheryl the truth: that Nick and I have been completely avoiding each other, that I’ve been bored out of my mind, that Mom floats through the house like a balloon, lashed to the TV.
“Listen to this.” Dad speaks up suddenly. “‘The police have named Nicholas Sanderson, forty-three, an accountant with a home in the upscale beachfront community of Heron Bay—’”
“Oh, Kevin.” Cheryl sighs. “Not here. Not tonight. Will you put your phone away for once?”
“—a ‘person of interest.’” Dad looks up, blinking, like a person emerging from sleep. “I wonder what that’s about.”
“I’m sure the Blotter will tell us,” Cheryl says, swiping the corner of her eye with one perfectly French-manicured fingernail. “He’s been obsessed,” she says to me.
“Yeah. Mom too.” I don’t know why, but I get pleasure out of talking about Mom in front of Cheryl. “It’s, like, the only thing she can talk about.”
Cheryl just shakes her head.
I turn to Dad, struck by an idea. I’m still thinking of what Sarah Snow said: You look familiar. “Did the Snows ever live in Somerville?”
He frowns and returns to his phone. “Not that I know of.”
So that’s a dead end. Cheryl, who can’t stand to keep her mouth shut for more than .5 seconds, jumps in. “It’s terrible, just terrible. My friend Louise won’t even let the twins out on their own anymore. Just in case there’s a”—she lowers her voice—“pervert on the loose.”
“I just feel so sorry for her parents,” Dad says. “To keep on hoping . . . to not know . . .”
“You think it’s better to know?” I say. Once again, Dad looks at me. His eyes are red, bloodshot, and I wonder whether he’s already drunk. He doesn’t answer.
“Let’s change the subject, shall we?” Cheryl says, as once again waiters appear, this time bearing thimble-size portions of spaghetti on vast white plates. Cheryl claps her hands together, and a massive ruby sparkles on one of her fingers. “Mmm. This looks delicious, doesn’t it? Spaghetti with garlic scapes and fresh ramps. I absolutely love ramps. Don’t you?”
After dinner, Dad drops Cheryl off first, a sure sign he wants to talk to me—which is funny, both because he was almost entirely silent at dinner, and because I’m 90 percent positive he’ll drive straight back to Egremont when he’s done dropping me off. I wonder what it’s like to sleep in the bed of Cheryl’s dead ex-husband, and I have a sadistic urge to ask. He white-knuckles the wheel as he drives, leaning forward slightly, and I wonder whether it’s because he’s tipsy or so he doesn’t have to look at me.
Still, he doesn’t speak until he’s pulled up in front of the house. As usual, only a few lights are burning: Nick’s, and the one in the upstairs bathroom. He jerks the car into park and clears his throat.
“How’s your mother holding up?” he asks abruptly, which wasn’t what I expected him to say at all.
“Fine,” I say, which is only half a lie. At least she goes to work on time now. Most days.
“That’s good. I worry about her. I worry about you, too.” He’s still gripping the steering wheel, like if he lets go, he might go flying off into outer space. He clears his throat again. “We should talk about the twenty-ninth.”
It’s so typical that he refers to my birthday by the date, as if it’s a dental appointment he has to keep. Dad is an actuary, which means he studies insurance and risk. Sometimes he looks at me like I’m a bad return he’s made on an investment.
“What about it?” I say. If he’s going to pretend it’s no big deal, so will I.
He gives me a funny look. “Your mother and I—” His voice hitches. “Well, we were thinking we should all get together. Maybe go to dinner at Sergei’s.”
I can’t remember the last time Mom and Dad were in the same room. Not since a few days after the accident—and even then, they stayed on opposite sides of the minuscule hospital bedroom. “The four of us?”
“Well, Cheryl has to work,” he says apologetically, as if I would have invited her otherwise. Finally he releases his death grip on the wheel and turns toward me. “What do you think? Do you think that’s a good idea? We wanted to celebrate somehow.”
I’m tempted to say Hell no, but Dad isn’t actually waiting for an answer. He slides his fingers behind his glasses and scrubs his eyes. “God. Seventeen years old. I remember when—I remember when you were both babies, so small I was terrified to hold you. . . . I always thought I would crush you, or break you somehow. . . .” Dad’s voice is thick. He must be drunker than I thought.
“Sounds great, Dad,” I say quickly. “I think Sergei’s would be perfect.”
Thankfully he regains control. “You think?”
“Really. It’ll be . . . special.” I lean over to give him a peck on the cheek, extracting myself before he can wrap me in a bear hug. “Drive home safely, okay? There are cops everywhere.” It’s weird to have to parent your parents. Add it to the list of the two thousand other things that have gone to hell since the divorce, or maybe since the accident, or both.
“Right.” Dad seizes the steering wheel again, bobbing his head, obviously embarrassed by his outburst. “Looking for Madeline Snow.”
“Looking for Madeline Snow,” I echo, as I slide out of the car. I watch Dad reverse in the driveway and hold up a hand as he passes me again, waving to his dim silhouette in the window. I watch until his taillights turn to tiny, glowing red points, like lit cigarette tips. Once again, the street is quiet, silent except for the constant throaty humming of the crickets.
I think of Madeline Snow, somewhere lost in the darkness, while half the county searches for her.
And it gives me an idea.