Learning to Swim

The next morning I drove out of town to see two apartments in the surrounding semi-rural area, but they clearly weren’t what I was seeking. On a whim I decided to take the afternoon off, and looked up movie schedules. The latest Gerard Butler movie was playing at the Roxy on College Street, and I could make the next matinee showing if I hustled. I took Tiger out, left a note for Thomas, and set off at a fast clip, eating a yogurt on the way.

I’d been a Gerard Butler fan since some friends had talked me into watching the TV movie Attila from Netflix. Never in a million years would I have thought I would enjoy a three-hour movie about Attila the Hun, but, hey, it was Gerard Butler. Next came Dear Frankie and 300, and even P.S. I Love You and Nim’s Island—but I did draw the line at his screwball romantic comedies.

I love going to the movies and prefer going alone, because then you don’t have to worry if the other person is enjoying it and can just lose yourself in the film. After the final credits, I sat in darkness a minute or two before emerging, blinking, into the sunlight.

I’d once seen an old Albert Brooks movie about writers who required a muse for inspiration, and theirs was Sharon Stone. Mine, I thought, would be Butler, unshaven, rambling, gorgeous.

“So, Gerard,” I would say. “I’m getting kind of stuck here. I’m not finding anything out.”

He would look at me with that sideways grin and say in his delightful Scottish brogue, “Well, Troy, I think you need to try something new.”

I was striking out with the apartments and the posters. Nothing had developed with the French club, and I’d gotten no replies to my newspaper or Craigslist ad or email. The only other possibility I could see was asking around at the Burlington ferries. Surely the police had already done this, but it couldn’t hurt to do it again.

“Ferries,” I said to the imaginary Gerard. “I’ll try showing pictures and asking questions down at the docks.”

He grinned and winked, and disappeared.

That night I slept soundly. Maybe there was something to this muse thing.





THE NEXT DAY, I BORROWED THOMAS’S OLD THREE-SPEED, pumped up the tires, and rode to the docks and locked it to a nearby fence. I wouldn’t leave a decent-looking bike locked outside in a university town, but this one was decrepit enough that no one was likely to cut through a cable for it.

I had planned to show the ticket seller the picture and ask if she had seen the men, but when I saw her downward-turning mouth and dead stare, I chickened out. Instead I just bought a round-trip ticket.

I watched the incoming ferry chug in between the pilings. When it docked, the ferry workers moved quickly, securing the boat, lowering the ramp, and motioning the cars off while the foot passengers walked off.

I boarded, handing my ticket to a blond kid, and went on deck to wait while the cars drove on. Today was a clear day, not misty and drizzly like the afternoon I had found Paul. This wasn’t the boat I’d been on that day or the one Paul had been on either. Ours had had a separate section below deck for cars.

When the ferry was under way, I walked about, trying to get up my nerve to ask questions. The first worker I tried, a thirtyish tanned guy with a black brush cut, neatly snubbed me. “I wouldn’t know,” he said, sneering, and hustled off as if he had something important to do.

I turned, flushed, and the blond kid who had taken my ticket winked at me. “Don’t mind Horse. He just likes to throw his weight around.”

“Horse?” I thought I hadn’t heard right.

He grinned widely. “His name is Horace, but we call him Horse. He hates it. What is it you need?”

I pulled out the folded paper with the kidnappers’ pictures on it. “I’m looking for these two guys. They were on the last ferry going to Port Kent on the last Sunday in May.” This was a long shot. But it had been the first week this ferry route was open—ice on the river kept it from running year-round—so maybe it would stick in someone’s mind.

The kid took the paper and squinted at it. His snub nose was sunburned and peeling, and he looked like a grown-up Dennis the Menace. “Why are you looking for them? Are you a PI or something?”

“No, nothing like that. They snatched a friend’s kid, and we’re trying to track them down.”

“Wow, a kidnapping. Or a custody thing, maybe, huh? Are these guys local?”

“They’re French Canadian, from Montreal, I think, but they may have lived here.”

“Which boat was it? We have three that sometimes run this route—the Adirondack, the Champlain, and this one, the Valcour.”

“It wasn’t this one,” I told him. “It had a long lower deck for cars.”

“Hey, Jimmy,” someone yelled to the blond kid.

He looked up. “Be right there!” He started to hand the paper back to me. “That sounds like the Champlain. I don’t recognize these guys, but I can do some asking around and find out who was on that shift. Can you come back tomorrow?”

“Sure, but keep the picture, I have a bunch.”

Finally I’d met someone willing to try to help. Emboldened by my success, when the ferry docked I approached the ticket seller in Port Kent, who was younger and friendlier than the one in Vermont.

“Hey, I’m looking for these guys who ran off with my sister’s kid, who were on the late-afternoon ferry from Burlington the first week the ferries ran,” I told her. “I’m wondering if you’ve seen them.”

She looked at the picture. “Wow, that’s really tough. Nope, sorry.” As I turned away, she called out, “I hope you catch the bastards.” I thanked her and reboarded as the waiting cars filed onto the ferry.

The blond kid, Jimmy, took my ticket. “You again, huh?” He winked.

It did feel strange to cross to New York and then cross right back, spending an hour on a ferry and then heading back where you started from. I sat out on the deck, leaning back against the rail and feeling the wind on my face. I tried not to think of the last time I’d been on a ferry to Burlington. Another worker came by, this one with dark reddish hair, also young and tanned.

“Hey, I was probably on that shift,” he said. “You want me to take a look at that picture?”

I pulled a fresh one out of my daypack and handed it to him. He studied it and shook his head. “Don’t remember ’em. But that was one of the first trips of the year and I think Dwight was on that shift with me. If anyone will remember them, he will. He has an incredible eye for people and cars.”

I perked up. “Dwight?”

“Yeah, he’s not on today, but he’ll be working this boat tomorrow. I’ll give him a heads-up when I see him in the morning, if you wanna come back.”

“Yeah, sure!”

“Just be sure you get on the right ferry. Check the name.” He pointed it out, painted on bow and stern, and rattled off the departure times. I scribbled them down. If I missed it, it would be a two-hour wait before it returned.

You wouldn’t think a six-block bike ride followed by two hours on a ferry would be exhausting, but it was. I pedaled up the hill toward the apartment, wishing for a lower gear. Or a lighter bike. I’d left my bike at home so I’d concentrate on this—not that I ever would have left it at the dock. It would have been stolen in a flash.

I threw rotini on to cook, and cut up some apples I found in the back of the fridge, mixed in oatmeal and cinnamon, dabbed butter on top, and popped it in the oven. I cooked green peppers and cauliflower, then added Ragu from a jar.

Thomas sniffed appreciatively when he came in. “Apples?”

“Yeah, I made an apple crisp with those old Granny Smiths.”

Maybe it should have seemed odd eating dinner with him, but it just seemed like dining with an old friend. It had been a lifetime ago that I’d dated Thomas. I’d been someone else then.

He reminded me about dinner at the Thibaults’ the following night, and said he’d like to leave around 6:10. We’d be the first ones there, I figured, but these were his friends, so it was his call. I wished I could bow out of the whole thing, because I thought it might be awkward and almost assuredly a waste of time. But I didn’t want to let Thomas down. And maybe it would be good for me to get out.

From my futon I called and talked to Paul, and then Philippe. We chatted about Paul, Elise, the weather, about anything but what I was doing in Burlington. The computer firm had set up office-wide backup and security, he said, and the accounting firm had turned up a steady flow of discrepancies, with figures altered to show more expenses than had actually occurred. Someone in his office had been skimming.

My vote would have been on Claude, but it would be stupid of him to bite the hand that fed him. Claude, I suspected, was many things, but stupid was not one of them.



Riding to the ferry the next morning in the brisk air felt good, and on the way I stopped at a bakery and got a selection of fresh pastries. I bought another round-trip ticket and boarded, double-checking the ship’s name.

Jimmy must have pointed me out, because Dwight came to find me about ten minutes into the trip. He was a big guy, older than Jimmy and his red-haired friend, with scruffy brown hair that stuck up, a thick neck, and scars from what looked like a bad case of acne. Jimmy had given him the by-now dog-eared picture. He gestured toward the faces. “Yeah, I remember these guys. They had a van, an older Plymouth Grand Voyager, maybe a ninety-six or ninety-seven. Sort of a dark green.”

Hope rose in me, tightened my throat. I’d never expected someone to have remembered this much. Could it be this easy? How could the police have missed this?

He grinned. “Doesn’t look like much up here,” he said, pointing to his head, “but I remember faces and I remember cars. I thought maybe they didn’t know much English, because the driver seemed confused when I told him where to put his car.”

“Do you remember the license or anything else about the van?”

“Nah, pretty ordinary looking. A Vermont plate, I think, but I couldn’t swear to it.”

I could barely get out my next question. “Did you see a child with them, a little boy?”

He shook his head. “Nope. But you couldn’t see in the back of the van. They could have had half a dozen kids in there.”

“You didn’t see which direction they drove when they got off the ferry?”

Another head shake. “Nope, once they’re off, I don’t look.”

“Did the police show you this picture?”

“Nope. They probably only talked to the bosses. Or maybe asked on a day when I wasn’t here. I had a few weeks off a while back, when my sister was sick.”

“Well, thanks. I really appreciate it.” I handed him the bag of pastries. “I thought you might like these.”

He peered inside and sniffed. “Hey, great, the guys will love these. But don’t you want one?”

I reached in and took one without looking. “Thanks, Dwight.”

“No problemo!” He took off, bag in hand.

I looked down. I’d pulled out a chocolate-filled croissant. A good omen.

I’d finally found something.



The last thing I wanted to do now was go to a dinner party, but I’d promised. It didn’t take long to shower and change, and Thomas had already walked Tiger. I was neglecting her, but she was happier than if I had left her in Lake Placid. And I needed her, especially at night.

I put on a colorful silk shirt Kate had talked me into buying last summer and the cord slacks again. I was going to have to break down and buy another decent pair of pants.

We found the house easily, an imposing brick three-story with large white columns in front. We were shown into an ornate entry-way, near an elaborate curving staircase. Thibault was well-off for a university professor, even a department head. Family money, I supposed, his or hers.

We’d arrived what I thought was early, but we weren’t the first ones there. A couple in their late thirties, dark and slender, was ingratiating themselves with their hostess, and greeted us perfunctorily, which suited me fine, because even from across the room I didn’t like them. I’m beginning to learn to trust first impressions. I sipped the oaky red wine Marguerite had delivered into my hands, and Thomas went off to greet Vince.

“Your house is gorgeous,” the woman gushed to Marguerite. “I adore your color scheme.”

Gack. Burlington high society, I suppose, or the edges of it. I walked around. The rooms were decorated in golds and whites, with furnishings to match. Not my taste, but striking. My eyes were drawn to a huge photo on one wall, an artful shot of an attractive boy and girl with shiny brown hair and bright faces, holding tennis racquets and wearing immaculate tennis whites.

“That’s nice, isn’t it,” Marguerite said, noticing me looking at it. “The twins had just turned eleven.” She started to say something else, but as the doorbell chimed she excused herself.

The other two couples were more congenial than the first, but all the women wore dresses and heels. Their definition of casual was clearly very different from mine.

Marguerite came over to me. “How absolutely lovely your hair is,” she said, almost touching it.

“Thank you,” I said brightly, making myself not move away. If I don’t tie my hair back, it automatically springs into curls. I never do much with it, and don’t own a hair dryer. Although I’ve discovered that when you go out in an Adirondack winter with wet hair it freezes into brittle little sticks, which probably isn’t particularly good for it.

The food was excellent: lamb and vegetables in a cream sauce, served with fluffy hot rolls. Vince told amusing stories about his escapades as a child in England, where his father had been a French attaché. Marguerite was his perfect counterpoint, feeding him lines and laughing at just the right moment. It seemed a routine they’d perfected years ago. I made a comment or two, but mostly just watched and listened. Thomas was clearly enjoying himself.

The first couple, who I’d gathered were both bankers, excused themselves before dessert. “We’re terribly sorry, but our sitter just couldn’t stay any longer, and we couldn’t find anyone else,” the woman said. “You know how difficult it is to get good sitters these days.” Marguerite made commiserating noises and went to show them out.

“Speaking of children, how are Ryan and Rebecca?” asked a jovial red-haired man, who owned a real estate firm.

“Oh, they’re doing marvelously,” Thibault said, waving his arm. “They’re spending the summer with their grandparents in France, and working on their French accents.”

“They attend school in Connecticut, don’t they?” Thomas asked.

Thibault chuckled. “Yes, the twins long ago decided that they wouldn’t be caught dead in high school here. They’re in their second year now and doing wonderfully. Becca’s decided to be a doctor and Ryan still wants to be a photographer.”

Dessert was chocolate mousse, served with coffee in thin china. I prefer my chocolate not so airy, but it at least was chocolate. Afterward we retired to the living room for after-dinner drinks, which seems an odd practice, considering that most people drive themselves home. I wasn’t driving, but didn’t care for liquor, so I sipped more wine. I let myself relax, and for the moment forget about kidnappers not found. I sat next to the wife of the real estate man, a sturdily built woman with a blond pageboy and a hearty laugh, who asked intelligent questions about writing. Marguerite was showing Thomas a painting behind one of the sofas, listening to him avidly. Vince was telling another funny story, and I gave it half my attention. After he finished and the laughter died away, Thomas caught my eye.

“We should get going,” he said. The other couples simultaneously decided it was time to leave, and we thanked the Thibaults and made our farewells.

The air was cool as Thomas and I walked to his car. “That was fun,” he said cheerily.

He was being great for letting me stay with him and helping out with Tiger, so I made an agreeable sound and commented on how good the meal was.

Before Ottawa, I would have been supremely uncomfortable at this dinner. While I did like Vince and maybe the real estate man’s wife—and Marguerite was all right, if maybe a little too carefully polished—to me these people mostly seemed like actors playing roles, reciting their lines, acting like they were having a good time whether they were or not.

It made me long to be somewhere I felt I belonged—either home or Ottawa. Just not here.





I SLEPT HEAVILY, AND AWOKE WITH A SLIGHT HEADACHE, PROBABLY from the wine. The note I found in the kitchen said Thomas had gone for a run with Tiger. My dog had abandoned me. Illogically, this made me cross.

I drank two glasses of water and swallowed an aspirin, then had a slice of whole wheat toast spread thickly with crunchy peanut butter. I brewed tea, and thought as I sipped it. Now I had information to turn over to the police, but I wasn’t going to waltz into the police station. I didn’t know how the police would view the type of nosing around I was doing, or even if it was legal. I plugged my laptop into Thomas’s modem and looked up the Burlington Police Department website, but it didn’t list email addresses or fax numbers. I wasn’t going to leave all these details in an anonymous phone call, so I’d have to resort to regular mail. I wrote:

Concerning the kidnapping of Paul Dumond, age 6, a Canadian citizen from Montreal: The kidnappers, who threw the boy off the 3:20 Burlington ferry the last Sunday in May, were driving a green 1996 or 1997 Plymouth Grand Voyager, according to a ferry worker named Dwight.



I used Thomas’s printer to print out the note and an envelope. Then I emailed the details to Jameson. Of course he could tell the Burlington police about me, but I wasn’t going to keep this from him. If the police here tracked me down and I got in trouble, so be it.

I dropped the letter in the drive-by box at the post office, then went inside to check my box. It had been empty except for an advertising circular the last time I’d looked, so hope flickered when I saw several envelopes stuffed in it.

After I’d looked them over back at the apartment, I realized some people have nothing better to do than read personal ads and compose replies. And apparently a lot of them are crackpots. The pile included cryptic notes that said things like All foriners are devils and should be sent back where they come from, and a long letter in crabbed handwriting warning me about the end of the world and how to save myself. The saving process apparently involved much praying and copious donations to the included address.

Thomas, back by now, glanced over my shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

“Apparently classified ads bring out the nutcases,” I said. When my TracFone in my pocket rang, I jumped. I gave Thomas a look before pulling it out to answer it. He knew me well enough not to laugh at me.

“Hello,” I said.

The voice on the other end was female, young, decisive. “Hello, this is Alyssa Cox from the Burlington Free Press. Is this the number to call about the two Canadian men?”

My pulse quickened. I got up and walked into my room. “Yes-s-s. Do you know their whereabouts?”

“No, but I’d like to talk to you about them.”

I was automatically shaking my head. “No, no press coverage.”

“Does this have anything to do with a young missing Canadian boy?”

My brain did a stutter stop. “Why do you think that?”

“Is your name by any chance Troy Chance?”

I should have said a quick “No,” but I wasn’t thinking fast enough. Where could she have gotten my name? I had sent an email to the news desk at the Free Press the day I’d found Paul, but hadn’t used my name or real email address. But somehow she’d connected that email with me.

“Look,” the woman said, “I don’t mean to upset you or anything, but I’d really like to talk to you. Do you think we could get together?”

It didn’t seem I had a choice. We agreed to meet at a coffeehouse in the Church Street marketplace, a four-block area of shops with streets closed to traffic. Before I left I looked her up on the newspaper’s website, and read several of her stories. She was a good writer, her stories well sourced and rich with details.

She was waiting for me in front of the coffee shop: a slight woman in her mid- to late twenties, with wiry brown hair in a French braid and a skin color that at first seemed to be a deep tan. But her features weren’t quite Caucasian. Part Filipino, I guessed, plus maybe Mexican or even African. Or all three. We ordered coffee and sat in a corner.

She pulled out one of my posters from a voluminous bag and slid it across the table. Next came a copy of my classified ad, then a printout of my long-ago email, a screen shot of my eBay identity with the same email address I’d emailed the newspaper from, plus the same page with the coding revealed. She’d highlighted the URLs of the photos on my eBay page, which were hosted on my home page under my real name. She was thorough. The only thing she hadn’t found was the Craigslist posting.

For a moment I looked at the papers on the table. I wasn’t used to people being as smart as me, let alone outsmarting me. Who traces email addresses to eBay accounts and looks at page coding to see where photos are stored? I would, but I never would have anticipated someone else doing it.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “This looks like a hell of a story.”

“It is a hell of a story,” I said slowly. “But it isn’t my story, and if anything is printed it would endanger the child.”

“Has he been kidnapped?” She leaned forward.

I grimaced. “If the story gets out he could be in danger. Like, real danger.”

She nodded. “I’ll agree not to print until the boy is safe, and I always keep my word. I’ll give you names of people you can call and ask.” She scribbled names and numbers on a page from her notebook, and pushed it at me. She handed me photocopied pages from a folder, saying, “These are some articles I’ve done recently, so you can see the type of work I do.”

I took them. I didn’t mention that I’d already read some of her work. “Let me think about it. I’ll let you know.”

“I can help,” she said. “Whatever you’re trying to find out, I have a lot of sources.”

The coffee wasn’t as good as Elise’s, but I sat there until I finished it, and thought hard. This woman could put together a story based on what she had so far—the poster, the ad, a missing child—which would send the kidnappers into hiding, if they weren’t already. If she found out Paul’s name, and I had no doubt she could, we could kiss his chances of a quiet and safe life goodbye.

At Thomas’s kitchen table I read the articles Alyssa had given me, and then I called her references, people she’d written about. None of them had anything but praise for her.

I called her back an hour later, with the phone set to speakerphone and my recorder running. I told her I was taping the call, and she reiterated her promise not to print anything until it was safe. I told her the basics: the kidnapping, the murder, the attempted drowning.

“The police are looking for these guys, but it doesn’t seem that they’ve even come close,” I told her. “And if there’s any news coverage, they’ll almost certainly track the boy down and try to kill him. Somebody already tried to run me over, and to pick him up from school.”

She was a good reporter. She listened intently and asked pointed questions. “I won’t print anything until the kidnappers are caught. But I’ll do some checking for you if you promise to give me the first interview.”

“His life may depend on this, Alyssa.”

“Yes, I realize that.” And I thought she did.

I gave her the description of the van, and the date Paul had been kidnapped and when I’d found him. We promised to keep each other updated.

I hoped I hadn’t just made a serious error. I hoped I wouldn’t see headlines in tomorrow’s newspapers about a lurid murder and an unsolved kidnapping.



It shook me that a tiny, forgotten act like a random email and an eBay account using photos stored on my personal web space might have jeopardized Paul’s life. It reminded me that I had no idea what I was doing. I was going to have to be very careful, more careful than I had been. And I had to stop underestimating people.

I drove to the apartment-viewing appointment I’d made for that afternoon, in an older part of Burlington. Another dreary apartment, another dead end. I had four more appointments booked for tomorrow, back-to-back.

I’d looked at so many apartments that it was becoming almost routine—so routine that at that third apartment the next day, I almost missed it. The middle-aged owner handed me the key, telling me to look around and that she’d be down in a few minutes. The smart ones did this, let you look around alone so you could envision yourself in the apartment, see your furniture in the rooms, imagine your posters on the walls. This apartment had three rooms, all a bright off-white. As I glanced around I noticed a faint smell.

The rooms had been freshly painted, I realized. I walked into the smallest room. I went to the corner where a mattress could have lain, and ran my hand over the wall. My fingers found what I hadn’t seen: the slight unevenness of well-sanded patching material.

I felt as if I had just stepped into a freezer. This was where Paul had scratched and dug into the particleboard with his little plastic toy, and kept the hole covered with his pillow. It had been a small hole, leading to nowhere, and had been spackled over neatly.

Now I heard the woman’s footsteps, and I straightened quickly. “This is nice,” I told her. “You’ve just painted it.”

“Well, yes. It was so dark down here the way it was, and it really needed painting, too.”

“Has it been vacant long?”

“Oh, not long,” she said vaguely. “A few months. We took over when my mother-in-law had to go to a nursing home. She had it rented to some people who left without telling her, and she didn’t notice until she went down to see about the overdue rent. They left it a real mess, too, let me tell you. You wouldn’t believe how some people live.” She shook her head.

“Did you know them? I thought I might have known the people who lived here.” I kept my voice casual.

“No, no, I just saw them once from across the yard, two men it was, foreign, I think. Some kind of accent, anyway.”

My pulse quickened. I forced my tone to be casual. “Yeah? It could have been the guys I knew.”

“We’ll never know.” She made a face. “Granny didn’t take references and she let people pay in cash, and now she doesn’t even remember their names. I’ll tell you, I’d track them down if I could, and make them pay what it cost to clean and paint this place and haul off their trash. They left it like a pigsty.”

“Did they leave furniture?”

She nodded. “It was all junk. Some old mattresses, an old sofa. We had to cart it all to the dump.”

I looked around the small rooms. Through the faint aroma of fresh paint and cleaning products, I thought I could smell evil. Suddenly it was difficult to breathe. I told her I didn’t think the apartment was quite right for me, and made my escape.

As I drove back to Thomas’s, I couldn’t shake a crushing sense of depression. Yes, I’d made a big discovery—but how did it help? The apartment had been cleaned so thoroughly the chance of any clue remaining was infinitesimal.

But perhaps the police could find clues that I couldn’t, and they could interview the landlady and the neighbors. I emailed details to Jameson, as promised, and wrote another note to the Burlington police and went out to mail it. I called Alyssa at home, and left a message when her voice mail clicked on.

That night I dreamed that I saw the green van drive slowly past. As it went by I saw Paul’s forlorn face in the back window. I yelled and started running, chasing the van, banging on its side as it pulled away. I ran as hard as I could, but the van was pulling away from me.

I awoke in a cold sweat.





ALYSSA WAS A FAST WORKER. WHEN SHE CALLED THE NEXT morning she had already talked to the police. “So you found the apartment?” she asked.

“It’s the second apartment where Paul was kept, I’m pretty sure, but I think it’s going to be a dead end.”

She whistled. “Hey, good going. But why a dead end?”

“The apartment’s been painted and cleaned from top to bottom, the guys paid in cash, and the owner is in a nursing home and apparently doesn’t remember their names.”

She groaned. “You’re kidding. You’ve got to be kidding. You couldn’t have luck that bad.”

“Yep. I talked to the daughter-in-law. I sent a note to the police, for what it’s worth.”

“Unbelievable. Hey, I’ve read the police reports and asked around. You’re right, they basically know zippo, but they did get your note about the van. I suggested that they go have a chat with Dwight and maybe check out the apartment address you left on my voice mail.”

“You told them about me?” My voice rose.

“No, I just told them someone had mentioned those things to me. I get anonymous tips all the time; they’re used to it. They’d know by tomorrow, anyway, when your note gets there. Hey, somebody’s calling, I’ve got to go look something up. I’ll be in touch.” She broke the connection.



When I checked my email, I saw a note from Alyssa’s home account that read, “Hi, you can email here; more private than work address.”

I also had an email from the editor at Women’s Sports and Fitness about the article on gender testing in sports that I’d finished while in Ottawa. She’d attached a copy of my piece, with questions and suggestions typed into the text. Easy changes, but they’d take a while. I wasn’t in the mood, but I wouldn’t get paid until the piece was accepted. Might as well get it done.

Alyssa rang me back in the afternoon. “Listen, the police have talked to Dwight, and he confirmed the identification. They’ve also had the daughter-in-law take the pictures of the guys to the old lady in the nursing home, and she said that it could be them.”

“Could be them?

“Well, she’s old and doesn’t see that well. Poor old coot. I talked to her for a while; she was happy to have a visitor. She never saw a kid, but she thought she heard a child crying once, but the guys convinced her it was just the TV. And here’s the clincher: the daughter-in-law says she found some little toy figures in the room when she cleaned it. They were those little McDonald’s toys, and sometimes adults collect them, so she didn’t think anything of it. But it all means the police for sure are buying the story that the kidnappers were here, and may still be here.”

“But would they hang around after dumping a kid into the lake?”

“No one knew they had him, so how would it make any difference? Unless that’s the only reason they were staying here. But I can’t believe they were here so long and didn’t have contact with somebody. I mean, these are guys, scumbags at that. I doubt they spent every evening at home watching the telly. I’ll take a girlfriend and go out tonight and ask around in the bars near that neighborhood.”

I wished her luck, and rang off. It was strange to have someone helping, someone who could dig in places and ask questions where I couldn’t, and who thought of things I didn’t. But it was a relief to know she was working on this while I was revising my article. Alyssa wouldn’t be at this newspaper long, I thought—she’d be off to bigger and better things.



I polished off the article Sunday night and sent it to the editor before I went to bed, wondering how Alyssa and her friend were doing on their bar-hopping jaunt. Monday I started calling about rentals again and checking out apartments to see if I could find the second place Paul had been kept. I hadn’t gotten any email responses to my ads or posters. In the afternoon Alyssa and I compared notes.

Three days later my personal cell phone rang, with a number I didn’t recognize—from a 613 area code. I answered it.

“Troy?”

This time I recognized his voice. “Detective Jameson. What a surprise.” I’d never given him my cell phone number.

“You’ve made some contacts in Burlington.”

“Not really. I’ve just been looking around a little.” My mouth was dry.

“You found the apartment; you got a description of the van. Sounds like more than a little looking around.”

“I found the right person to talk to on the ferry. It was luck.”

“And just stumbled across the apartment.”

“Mmm. I checked out some basement apartments. Actually, a lot of basement apartments.” If it hadn’t been Jameson, I’d have thought what I heard was a muffled chuckle. “I haven’t been doing anything illegal. I mean, I didn’t break in or anything.”

“These guys aren’t Boy Scouts, Troy.” His voice was serious.

“I know.”

“They may still be there, and they may not have worked alone.”

I didn’t say anything. He sighed. “Troy, someone kidnapped two people, murdered a woman, and tried to drown a child—and tried to run you over. You have to be careful. And if you know anything or even suspect anything, you can’t keep it to yourself.” It was the longest speech I’d heard from him.

“I won’t, I promise. I mean, I’m not. I’m telling you and the local police everything I know. Really.”

“Next time you find something, call me, Troy. Don’t just email.”

I agreed, and we hung up.

He hadn’t told me to stop looking around. Either he understood I had to do this or he was happy that some progress was being made on the case.

On my way back to Thomas’s I stopped at a McDonald’s to use the bathroom, and once back in my car it dawned on me: one of these guys had routinely bought Happy Meals for Paul. Maybe an employee would recognize the guy, or if he’d gone through a drive-through someone might remember the car, as the ferry worker had. But this area had several McDonald’s, with large and probably ever-changing shifts of workers. No doubt proprietors wouldn’t look kindly on me coming in and showing my poster to all their employees, and I’d find myself making explanations I didn’t want to have to make.

Maybe the Burlington police had thought of this, but maybe not. I could have Alyssa ask them, but I thought it would have more weight coming from Jameson. Once I got back to the house I emailed Jameson and asked if he could check to see if the local police had shown the pictures of the kidnappers to McDonald’s employees.

For good measure, I set up a new Craigslist posting looking for a guy driving a Voyager who had bought Happy Meals regularly.

Jameson emailed back: We’re on it. This, for some reason, made me smile.





THE NEXT MORNING MY CELL PHONE RANG EARLY. THE POLICE, Alyssa told me, had located a broken-down van that had been abandoned near the tiny town of Chazy in upstate New York. It matched Dwight’s description, and had been registered to a phony name and address.

She had an interview to do in Essex Junction, a few miles east of Burlington, so we met at a wine and cheese shop where she said the owners made stupendous sandwiches. Alyssa had called ahead, and huge, wax paper–wrapped sandwiches were waiting when we got there.

“So how does it help to find the van?” I asked. I took a bite of the sandwich, which was stuffed with green and red pepper, roast beef, cheese, and other things I couldn’t identify. It was incredible.

“Forensics,” she said, pushing a bit of escaping salami into her mouth. “You’d be surprised what clues they can find from an empty van. Maybe not enough to locate the guys, but things that will help convict them when they’re found.”

I tried to imagine it: kidnappers found, Paul safe. My own guilt dissipated. To celebrate, we had slices of rich chocolate cake.

Alyssa was going cruising for information the next evening, and I agreed to go along. Bar crawling isn’t my forte, but I figured I’d follow her lead.

We met near one of the bars, and she seemed to have morphed into another persona altogether. She had made only a few alterations in her appearance, wearing her hair loose and extra makeup, with jeans and a top that seemed to have shrunk slightly. But she seemed a different person, more sensual and slightly trashy.

And it got results—fast. Men lit up as soon as we walked in the door. Like clockwork, a minute or two later, two men ambled over and said, as if in a bad movie, “Can we buy you ladies a drink?”

Like my conversation with Gina, it was almost too easy. They sipped beer and I sipped Diet Coke, and Alyssa adroitly brought up the mysterious French-Canadian men, one possibly named Jacques. This was my cue to pull out the poster and show it. Eager to please, they took us around the room to talk to their friends and show the pictures. No one had seen or heard of the men, and after a few drinks and a few games of pool, we said goodbye to our increasingly inebriated new friends. On to bar number two, and an almost identical scenario. I discovered I wasn’t bad at pool.

At bar number three, where I switched from Coke to wine so I’d have a chance of getting to sleep tonight, a friend of one of the men who had just bought us drinks squinted critically at the picture.

“I think I’ve seen this one guy,” she said. “Yeah, he looks like the guy my friend Tammi went out with a couple of times.”

Alyssa and I exchanged looks.

“So do you think we could talk to her?” I asked.

The woman shook her head. “Tammi moved away and I don’t know how to get ahold of her. She didn’t have her own place even then, just stayed with friends.”

“What was the guy’s name?”

Again she shook her head. “I don’t know that she ever said. I just saw them together here a few times; didn’t really talk to them.”

Alyssa asked a few more questions, and had the woman write down Tammi’s name and the names of some of her friends. By the time we left the bar to walk back to our cars, my head was spinning from the smoke, the Coke, and the wine. Not a great combination.

“Damn, girl,” I said. “This is rough work.”

Alyssa laughed. “Yeah, and you never know if any of it is going to turn into anything. I’ll call some of these people and see if any of them knows anything about Tammi or this guy, and I’ll pass on the info to the police.”

When I let myself into Thomas’s apartment, Tiger sniffed me disapprovingly. I’d promised to call Jameson if I found out anything, but this didn’t seem to qualify, so I just emailed him. I stood under the shower a long time. At last it seemed I was getting somewhere.

The weekend slid past. Alyssa hadn’t turned up anything, and apparently the police hadn’t either. I kept doggedly searching for the second apartment, putting up my little posters, and updating my Craigslist posting. I went to another French club function, without Thomas this time. No leads, but it was good to get out. Marguerite was there, but not Vince, who had had to attend a faculty meeting. She was congenial and convivial, managing to greet every person who entered the room, while still chatting with me. She had a talent for noticing or remembering something about each person and working it into the conversation.

I did have to turn aside a clumsy pass from a graduate student, one I didn’t see coming until almost too late. Just what I didn’t need, although maybe it was good for my ego. I emailed Alyssa, weaving it into an amusing tale, but ending on a disgruntled note: I know this is probably just a letdown after feeling like we were starting to get somewhere. But this is really frustrating.

She must have been at her computer—or else she had a smartphone—because her reply arrived moments later: Don’t despair! Remember, the lull comes before the storm. Genius is one-tenth inspiration and nine-tenths perspiration. And all those other clichés. Hang in there!

She was right, but this was getting tedious. I’d been poking around—and imposing on Thomas’s hospitality—for what seemed like forever. Thomas had been great about it, but he needed to get on with his life. While he seemed to have adjusted to us not dating, having an ex-girlfriend staying with him couldn’t be the best thing for his social life: Who’s that at your apartment? Oh, some woman I used to date who’s living with me for a while. Maybe I’d ask Alyssa about bunking with her, if she didn’t think that would infringe on her journalistic integrity.

That evening while I was out walking Tiger, Philippe called my cell phone. The audit was nearing completion, and it seemed evident the culprit was Claude. I couldn’t pretend to be shocked, although it seemed unlike Claude to do something so clumsy. Maybe he had assumed Philippe was too busy or too grief-stricken to realize someone was cooking the books. As he almost had been.

“Be careful,” he said, just before he hung up. Careful careful careful. I’d been careful my entire life. It had never gotten me anywhere.

Suddenly I desperately wished I could unburden myself, talk about my fear that none of this was actually going to resolve anything, tell someone that I had no idea what to do next. I thought about calling Baker, but I wasn’t going to dump this on her. I wished I could talk to Simon, but I couldn’t, not this time.

And I couldn’t face Thomas’s bland politeness. I couldn’t pretend to be interested in a PBS special; I couldn’t make polite, meaningless conversation. So I kept walking. The only movie within walking distance was a Kenneth Branagh flick, and that I couldn’t handle either. I tried calling Alyssa, but she wasn’t home.

I pulled the card Jameson had given me out of my wallet and turned it over, where he’d written his home number in bold black letters. Without letting myself think about it, I punched his number in my cell phone. It rang once, twice, and then he answered, a gruff “Hello.” I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. A long second, and I hung up. I turned my phone off so he couldn’t call back.

Tiger and I walked for what seemed like hours more, until I found a bench and sat with her beside me, my face buried in her fur. It wasn’t the contact I longed for, but it was better than nothing.

I didn’t go back until I knew Thomas would be asleep.





MARGUERITE HAD ASKED ME TO MEET HER FOR COFFEE, so the next afternoon we met at a little pastry and coffee shop, where we had brownies with our cappuccinos. A triple hit: chocolate, sugar, and caffeine. She was wearing a crimson dress that shouldn’t have worked with her hair color, but somehow it did. We chatted about the university and my work, and I found myself relaxing and telling her more about myself than I had intended. I could see why Thomas was drawn to her: she had a talent for focusing on you, and seeming genuinely interested in what you were saying.

“So have you found those people you were looking for?” she asked.

“No, but it’s looking up. I think things will wrap up soon.”

“And then you’ll head back to—where was it, Lake Placid?”

I nodded.

“The four of us should get together before you leave,” she said. “I’ll check with Vincent tonight, but let’s plan on doing something this weekend.”

I made noncommittal noises. I wasn’t going to commit Thomas to anything, and it seemed that doing something with just the four of us, as if we were two couples, might be awkward. I knew Thomas wouldn’t misunderstand, but the idea made me uneasy.

On the way back, I stopped to check my mail at the post office. My mailbox held two envelopes. One was junk mail, but the other was a handwritten note I read twice before its significance sunk in. It said:

One of these guys looks like a guy I was with a couple of months ago. He was cute but a real a*shole and didn’t speak English very good. He lived near Pearl St, but I’m not sure where because I never went there. My phone won’t be hooked back up til Monday, but you can call me then 555-4636.





Shawna

Bingo. The apartment where Paul had been kept had been one street away from Pearl Street. Maybe this woman would have enough information to help lead the police to these guys, or at least this one.

Back at the apartment I scanned the note from Shawna, emailed a copy to Jameson and one to Alyssa, then left her a phone message. I printed a copy of the note with Concerning the people who kidnapped Paul Dumond typed on top to mail to the Burlington police.

Between the van and this woman, surely the police would be able to track those guys down. Kidnappers would be caught, ghosts laid to rest. I’d be able to move on.

By that evening we had an invitation to spend Saturday on the lake on the Thibaults’ sailboat, a forty-two-footer. We would spend the night on the boat and return in the morning. Thomas was as enthusiastic as I’d ever seen him.

“Yikes, that sounds pretty fancy,” I said, none too sure about this. I wasn’t eager for this much socializing, especially this close up, and overnight.

Thomas clearly wanted to go. “It’ll be fun. You’d be amazed how much room there is on board—they’ll have their own separate room, and there’ll be bunks for us.”

This would be more than a little awkward, I thought. But I owed him, and I knew he wouldn’t go on his own. I was sure Alyssa would take Tiger for the night. If nothing else, this would be something to tell her and Baker about—another new experience.

I tried the phone number the woman Shawna had sent, just in case. As she’d said, it wasn’t hooked up yet. I’d call Monday.