help them.”
“Did you already speak to them?’
“Yeah. About a week or two ago. The detective I spoke to said he’d probably have a few more questions. No sweat.”
Sara doesn’t comment. She just turns away from him with apparent disinterest and digs her chopsticks into a container of spicy chicken with cashew nuts.
Wisdom answers on the first ring.
“This is Amos Posner. You left a message for me to call.”
“Thanks for getting back so fast. Not everyone’s so good about responding.”
Posner pictures Wisdom sitting at a battered metal desk in a dingy room filled with smoke, and then catches himself in mid-thought. There is a brand new police department building in East Hampton. The desks are likely all new and smoking has surely been banned.
This is not some old film or television image.
“How can I help you?”
“I have a few more questions you might help us out with. Can I ask when you plan to be back in Amagansett?”
“I’m really not sure,” answers Posner. “Give me a second.”
He realizes that a hundred miles cannot separate him from this matter. Nor a thousand. Seconds of dead air follow. He sighs, but is sure Wisdom doesn’t hear him.
“The day after next,” he says.
“Can I come over about ten in the morning?” asks Wisdom. It is a formality, which Posner readily agrees to. There is no other option. He must play out his story to the end. He tells Sara he is going back to Amagansett the next day.
“Whatever,” is all she says, but her shrug reveals indifference. Still, he feels that even her verbalized apathy seems to be an improvement.
“Did you notice if the woman had a cell phone?” asks Wisdom.
The detective is dressed in similar clothes to those he wore on his first visit. Posner absently wonders if the man has multiple similaroutfits, or whether he never changes his clothes. He opts for the former, but the idea brings a smile to his lips, which he cannot disguise.
“Something funny about the question?” asks Wisdom.
“Sorry,” answers Posner. “Something unrelated. I apologize.”
Wisdom grunts and pulls a pad from his coat pocket.
“What about it? Did you see her with a cell phone?”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t,” says Posner. “We only spoke for a few seconds. You’re not supposed to use a cell phone on the Jitney.”
Wisdom nods. Something in his manner makes Posner definitely realizes the man is a long way from some bumbling cop. He is more like that shrewd, yet modest, television detective he watched years ago. That’s it. Colombo. Except that Wisdom has neither a cigar nor a raincoat.
“It seems she made a call to her boyfriend. Another doctor. A guy named Henry Stern sometime that afternoon. The day she disappeared. Said she was calling from some nice house in the area with ocean views.”
Wisdom puts his notepad down and his eyes rise to see through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Lots of houses out here have ocean views,” is all Posner thinks of saying, but it is the right comment.
“You’re right about that,” says Wisdom and returns his gaze to his notebook.
As Wisdom studies his notes, Posner’s memory fixates on the cell phone. The incessant ringing on the front seat of his car, until the last chimes die away, and his ultimate race the next morning to a local beach where he finds a stone and pummels the amalgam of plastic and metal into tiny bits; and then the drive to the town recycling center later that day to scatter the remnants, then little more than powder, amidst the piles of nonrecycling garbage; the chicken bones, orange peels, and assorted household waste that have become man’s footprint.
But the cell phone only rang sometime after seven that evening, he remembers. She must have called Henry earlier. From his house. It had to be from his house. When she was in the bathroom, but she used her cell phone, not his house phone. That’s good. Very good. So there is no further basis to connect him with Heidi
“Did you already speak to them?’
“Yeah. About a week or two ago. The detective I spoke to said he’d probably have a few more questions. No sweat.”
Sara doesn’t comment. She just turns away from him with apparent disinterest and digs her chopsticks into a container of spicy chicken with cashew nuts.
Wisdom answers on the first ring.
“This is Amos Posner. You left a message for me to call.”
“Thanks for getting back so fast. Not everyone’s so good about responding.”
Posner pictures Wisdom sitting at a battered metal desk in a dingy room filled with smoke, and then catches himself in mid-thought. There is a brand new police department building in East Hampton. The desks are likely all new and smoking has surely been banned.
This is not some old film or television image.
“How can I help you?”
“I have a few more questions you might help us out with. Can I ask when you plan to be back in Amagansett?”
“I’m really not sure,” answers Posner. “Give me a second.”
He realizes that a hundred miles cannot separate him from this matter. Nor a thousand. Seconds of dead air follow. He sighs, but is sure Wisdom doesn’t hear him.
“The day after next,” he says.
“Can I come over about ten in the morning?” asks Wisdom. It is a formality, which Posner readily agrees to. There is no other option. He must play out his story to the end. He tells Sara he is going back to Amagansett the next day.
“Whatever,” is all she says, but her shrug reveals indifference. Still, he feels that even her verbalized apathy seems to be an improvement.
“Did you notice if the woman had a cell phone?” asks Wisdom.
The detective is dressed in similar clothes to those he wore on his first visit. Posner absently wonders if the man has multiple similaroutfits, or whether he never changes his clothes. He opts for the former, but the idea brings a smile to his lips, which he cannot disguise.
“Something funny about the question?” asks Wisdom.
“Sorry,” answers Posner. “Something unrelated. I apologize.”
Wisdom grunts and pulls a pad from his coat pocket.
“What about it? Did you see her with a cell phone?”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t,” says Posner. “We only spoke for a few seconds. You’re not supposed to use a cell phone on the Jitney.”
Wisdom nods. Something in his manner makes Posner definitely realizes the man is a long way from some bumbling cop. He is more like that shrewd, yet modest, television detective he watched years ago. That’s it. Colombo. Except that Wisdom has neither a cigar nor a raincoat.
“It seems she made a call to her boyfriend. Another doctor. A guy named Henry Stern sometime that afternoon. The day she disappeared. Said she was calling from some nice house in the area with ocean views.”
Wisdom puts his notepad down and his eyes rise to see through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Lots of houses out here have ocean views,” is all Posner thinks of saying, but it is the right comment.
“You’re right about that,” says Wisdom and returns his gaze to his notebook.
As Wisdom studies his notes, Posner’s memory fixates on the cell phone. The incessant ringing on the front seat of his car, until the last chimes die away, and his ultimate race the next morning to a local beach where he finds a stone and pummels the amalgam of plastic and metal into tiny bits; and then the drive to the town recycling center later that day to scatter the remnants, then little more than powder, amidst the piles of nonrecycling garbage; the chicken bones, orange peels, and assorted household waste that have become man’s footprint.
But the cell phone only rang sometime after seven that evening, he remembers. She must have called Henry earlier. From his house. It had to be from his house. When she was in the bathroom, but she used her cell phone, not his house phone. That’s good. Very good. So there is no further basis to connect him with Heidi
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