TWO
JIMMY POLETTI LIVED in an upper-end neighborhood on the western edge of the city. According to the bio Connie had given me, he was on his third wife, had two adult sons, and owned a second home on Long Beach Island.
I took Hamilton to Broad and then cut onto State Street. I turned off State and wound around until I found the large brick colonial that belonged to Poletti and his wife, Trudy. I pulled into the drive court, and Lula and I got out and took it all in. Professional landscaping. Four-car garage. Two stories. Oversize mahogany front door. Dog barking somewhere inside. Sounded like a small dog.
I rang the bell, and a woman answered. She was slim. In the vicinity of forty. Long brown hair. Dressed in black Pilates pants and an orange fitted short-sleeve tee.
“I’m looking for Jimmy Poletti,” I said.
“Take a ticket,” she told me. “We’re all looking for him.”
“Does that mean he isn’t here?”
“Last I saw him was at breakfast on Friday. I went to my Pilates class, and he was gone when I came back.”
“Did you report it to the police?”
“No. I didn’t see much point to it. It’s not like he was kidnapped.”
“How do you know he wasn’t kidnapped?”
“He left me a note telling me to remember to take the garbage out on Monday and Thursday.”
“That was it? Nothing else in the note?”
“That was it.”
“No sign of struggle or forced entry here?”
“Nope.”
“Did he take anything with him?”
“Some clothes. One of the cars. He took the Mustang.”
“And you haven’t heard from him?”
“Not a word.”
“You don’t seem too upset.”
“The house is paid off, and it’s in my name. And he left the dog and the Mercedes.” She checked her watch. “I need to run. I’m late for Pilates.”
“Guess it was one of them love matches with you and him,” Lula said.
“Yeah,” Trudy said. “I loved his money, and he loved himself.”
I gave her my card. “I represent his bail bonds agent. I’d appreciate a call if you hear from him.”
“Sure,” she said, and slammed the door shut.
Lula and I got back into my Explorer.
“I don’t think she’s gonna call you,” Lula said.
I dialed Connie.
“Did you check on his dealerships?” I asked her. “Has he been going to work?”
“One of them was shut down. I spoke to the managers of the remaining two, and no one’s seen him since his arrest. I guess he talked to them on the phone a few times. But not since he disappeared.”
“Do you have addresses for his kids?”
“One is in North Trenton, the other’s in Hamilton Township. I’ll text Lula the street addresses and also places of business.”
I returned to State Street and headed for North Trenton.
“His one kid lives on Cherry Street,” Lula said, reading Connie’s text message. “And it looks like he works at the button factory.”
Twenty minutes later I parked in front of Aaron Poletti’s house. It was a narrow two-story row house, similar to my parents’ home in the Burg. Postage-stamp front yard with a small statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle of it. American flag hanging from a flagpole jutting out from the tiny front porch.
“It’s a pretty Virgin,” Lula said. “I like when they got a blue dress like this one. It looks real heavenly and peaceful except for the chip in her head. She must have gotten beaned by a baseball or something.”
Lula and I went to the front door, I rang the bell, and a young woman with a toddler on her hip answered.
I introduced myself and told her I was looking for her father-in-law.
“I do not know where he is,” she said. “And he certainly isn’t welcome here. He’s a horrible person. I mean, honestly, I have a little girl, and what he was doing was so awful.”
“Has he been in contact with your husband?”
“No! Well, at least not that I know. I can’t imagine Aaron even talking to him.”
“Aaron works at the button factory?”
“He’s on the line. His father wanted him to be part of the business, but Aaron declined. They’ve never gotten along.”
I gave her my card and asked her to call if she learned anything new about her father-in-law.
“Okay, so she’s not gonna call either,” Lula said when we were back in the Explorer. “Jimmy Poletti’s not gonna hide out there.”
Probably true, but you never know for sure.
“We gonna go to kid number two now?” Lula asked.
“Might as well.”
Kid number two lived in an apartment in Hamilton Township. According to Connie’s information he was twenty-two, single, and worked as a fry cook at Fran’s Fish House on Route 31.
The apartment complex consisted of three unimaginative redbrick chunks of building hunkered down around a blacktop parking lot. Each building was two stories with a single door in its middle. Landscaping was nonexistent. This was not a high-rent deal.
I parked, and Lula and I entered the center building and took the stairs to the second floor. The building was utilitarian. The hall was dimly lit. Probably that was a good thing, because the carpet didn’t look wonderful. We found 2C and rang the bell.
The door got wrenched open, and a skinny guy peered out at us. He was around 5′ 10″, with bloodshot eyes, bed-head hair, reeking of weed, and his arms were decorated with burn scars, which I supposed were from working the fry station. He was wearing pink boxers with red hearts on them.
“Oswald Poletti?” I asked.
“Yeah. You Girl Scouts selling cookies?”
“Nice shorts,” Lula said.
He stared down at them as if he was seeing them for the first time.
“Some girl gave them to me.”
“She must hate you,” Lula said.
I introduced myself and told him I was looking for his dad.
“Haven’t seen him,” he said. “We aren’t close. He’s an even bigger dick than me. I mean, dude, he named me Oswald.”