Missing by Jonathan Valin

"You
do understand that this could be painful, don’t you, Cindy? You may
not want to know some of things I find out."
    "All I know for sure is that I can’t go on
like this."
    "Okay. But try to remember that I warned you."
    I got to my feet, feeling as if I’d gained fifty
pounds, as if I’d literally shouldered the burden of Greenleaf ’s
death like a pallbearer. I could think of all sorts of reasons not to
do this thing, not the least of which was the likelihood that, in
spite of my warning, Cindy Dorn would end up hating me for what I
revealed to her about Mason and herself. But it was a cinch that the
cops weren’t going to do any more work. And I didn’t want to send
her to a stranger.
    "I’ll start in the morning," I said, as I
walked over to the door. "You may want to collect Mason’s
effects. They’re in the CPD property room. The cops found his car
outside the bar and towed it to the Gest Street impoundment lot. Call
Jack McCain if you have any trouble getting a release."
    I went out the door and down the drive, knowing that
I’d made a bad mistake. It was going to be Ira Lessing all over
again—I could feel it in my gut. As I got in the car, Cindy Dorn 
stepped out on the stoop. She stood there in the moonlit driveway,
while all around us the sleepy yellow brick houses dreamed their
pleasant suburban dreams.
    "I didn’t say thank you," she said,
coming down by the car. She reached in the window and put her hand on
my face. "I’ve been a bitch tonight, and I’m sorry. If Mason
were around, I would have taken it out on him. Anyway, I wanted you
to know that it was a lucky thing the day I called you. Lucky for
me."
    "Let’s hope you feel that way when I’m
finished," I said heavily.
    "I will always feel that way," she said.
    Leaning through the window, she kissed me on the
mouth. "You know I’m fond of you, right?"
    The persistence of her candor made me smile. "I
know."
    She smiled back at me. "Good. Because I’m
depending on you, Harry. You’re about all I can depend on, just
now."
    Pulling her head back through the window, she walked
up the driveway with her arms wrapped tightly around her body. I
watched the woman go inside the house, then sat there for a few
moments, liking her and at the same time feeling burdened by the pain
Mason Greenleaf and I were bound to bring her.
 
    8
    DEL Cavanaugh’s home was on Rose Hill in North
Avondale. A great stone fortress with ivy walls and a watch tower
that rose above the surrounding trees. In the brilliant light of that
early Monday morning, it didn’t seem like a place that trouble
could touch.
    I hadn’t bothered to phone the man before driving
over to his house. I hadn’t wanted to give him a chance to say no
to an interview. But before leaving the apartment, I’d called Art
Spiegalman at the Enquirer metro desk and asked him to pull their
file on Cavanaugh. There were just two articles in the Enquirer
archive: one about a tony art gallery the man had run in Hyde Park;
and another about the mansion he lived in, which was on the
historical register. The article about the mansion mentioned that
Cavanaugh’s mother was a distant relative of Franklin Pierce and
that she still lived with her son in the mansion house. After talking
to Art, I called Dick Lock at the CPD Criminalistics Unit and had him
do a computerized LEADS search on Del Cavanaugh. There was no record
of criminal charges filed against him. I thought about phoning Ira
Sullivan to get a little more background on Cavanaugh and, perhaps,
to use him as an intermediary. I even went so far as looking up the
number of  Sullivan’s law office in the Dixie Terminal
Building. But the truth was, I was anxious to get the thing over
with—to get the Greenleaf case over with. In that sense, I suppose,
I was no different than the cops.
    It was just a little past ten when I pulled up in the
carriage circle of Cavanaugh’s fortresslike home. The day’s heat
hadn’t started yet in earnest, but