I was putting a few files in my briefcase—the pessimist says the case is half full, the optimist that she’ll read them over supper—when the outer bell rang. I have a surveillance camera at the door so that I don’t have to run down the hall every time the UPS man is delivering a ton of steel to my lease-mate. I looked at the image on my computer screen.
It’s not a sophisticated system, but I thought I recognized the young woman I’d seen at the hospital earlier today with Elton. Elton! I’d completely forgotten him. My stomach tightened. Had she come to deliver bad news in person? I pushed the lock release and moved hurriedly down the hall to greet her.
When I asked about Elton, she took my hand reassuringly. “No, no. He seems to be okay. I talked to him for a bit this afternoon. He’s a vet, Vietnam, so he can be moved to the VA. He’ll get better care there.”
I thanked her for coming around in person to tell me, assuming Elton had given her my office address.
She smiled in embarrassment. “I didn’t come on his account, I’m afraid. But he told me you’re a detective, and you seem like the kind of person I need.”
Oh, boy. I do a good deed and I get a client. Who says we have to wait for our reward in heaven? When I ushered her into my office, she stood hesitantly in the doorway, looking around, the way people do whose ideas of private eyes are taken from Humphrey Bogart and James Ellroy movies.
“What is it you need detecting, Ms.—?”
“Lennon. Karen Lennon. It isn’t for me but one of my old ladies.” She sat on the couch and clasped her hands together on one plump knee. “I’m a chaplain. I work in the Beth Israel system and am assigned to Lionsgate Manor—it’s an assisted-living facility that Beth Israel runs—and my clients are mostly old and mostly women. One of my ladies, her son is missing. She and her sister, they’re the ones who raised him, they need to find him, it’s the only way they can be at peace before they die. I’ve been trying to figure out what I could do to help them. When I saw how compassionate you were with that homeless man and found out you were a detective, I thought I could probably trust you to treat my ladies right.”
“You know, not to turn down work, but the police have a whole department devoted to missing persons.”
“My ladies are African-American and very old,” Karen said. “They have bad memories of the police. A private detective wouldn’t carry all that baggage, in their eyes.”
“I don’t work for free, the way the cops would,” I said. “Or the Salvation Army—they have a service.”
“The Army says Miss Ella’s son’s been missing too long for them to do much for her, although they did file a report.” She hesitated. “She’s living on her small Social Security check, didn’t get a pension after all her years screwing gizmos together for the phone company. I looked you up online and saw the voluntary organizations you serve—women’s shelters, rape crisis, reproductive rights—I thought you probably would do pro bono work if the people were in dire need.”
My lips tightened. “I sometimes do pro bono work but not on missing persons, especially not a person who’s been missing for a long time. How long has it been, anyway, that the Salvation Army balked at searching?”
“I don’t know the details.” Karen Lennon looked at her hands. She wasn’t a skilled liar. She knew, and she thought I wouldn’t take the case if she told me. “Anyway, Miss Ella can explain it to you better than me. Her life’s been so hard, and it would ease the last stage of her journey if she saw someone was willing to help her out.”
“Someone will have to come up with money for my fee,” I said firmly. “Even if I don’t charge my full rate, which is a hundred fifty an hour, I cannot afford to pour time and money down a sinkhole in this economy. Does Lionsgate Manor have any kind of discretionary funds you can draw on?”
My old friend Lotty Herschel is the leading perinatologist at Beth Israel. We were having dinner later this evening. I could ask her, both about Karen Lennon and this Lionsgate Manor and whether Beth Israel might cough up money for a good cause. If it was, in fact, a good cause.
“Maybe if you have a conversation with Miss Ella, you can steer her toward a place she could afford.” Karen sidestepped my suggestion. “What harm can one meeting do you?”
4
HELLUVA CLIENT
OVER DINNER WITH LOTTY, I TOLD HER ABOUT MY RESCUE of Elton and Karen Lennon’s appearance in my life.
“Max knows more about the hospital’s subsidiaries and their staffs than I do,” she said when I asked what she knew about Karen Lennon and Lionsgate.