“Forget something?” the receptionist said as I walked in.

“There was someone I wanted to talk to, but I didn’t meet her, the woman I spoke to on the phone.”

She looked baffled. “You talked to me.”

“It was someone else.”

“Arlene Hopkins?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Can I talk to Steve again, please?”

“Steve who?”

“In the word-processing room.”

“He just left.”

I hate when people think they can put something over on me. “I just talked to him five minutes ago,” I said.

“And he left right after you did. I’m surprised you didn’t run into him at the elevator.”

I knew how to get from where I was standing to the room where Steve had his work station, but I don’t really have what it takes to do something like that when it’s pretty clear I’ve been asked to leave. This was private property, after all, and I didn’t think I had any right to be there if they didn’t want me.

I left.

—

I rode down to the ground floor feeling irritable. My visit, now that it was over, seemed orchestrated. Arlene Hopkins had said the papers connected to Natalie’s tenure had been destroyed only last year, after her disappearance. Why would they have done such a thing? And the people they had invited me to talk to, the ones working in the word-processing area—weren’t there others in the agency who might have known Natalie? Why had I been steered only toward one group and kept carefully away from everyone else?

But what bothered me most of all was the voice on the phone when I called from Westchester. It hadn’t been Arlene Hopkins, and as a partner, she wasn’t likely to answer a phone without someone running interference. There had been a woman and she called Sandy while I hung on and then agreed to give me an appointment in an hour. Who was she and why couldn’t I talk to her again?

I buttoned my coat in the lobby of the building and pulled on my gloves. A man in a hurry opened the door and held it for me. As I thanked him, I thought I heard my name called. I looked around on the street and saw no one.

“Chris Bennett?”

I turned toward the building. The man named Steve was just coming out, still in his shirtsleeves. “Steve?”

“Glad I caught you. I missed your elevator going down and I must have lost you in the street. Did you go back inside?”

“I forgot something and went back up. Let’s go inside. You must be freezing.”

“I thought of something right after you left.” He was rubbing his bare hands together as though he had the first stages of frostbite. “Who else did you talk to besides our group?”

“Arlene Hopkins.”

“That all?”

“That was it.”

“I don’t know if they have something to hide or what, but Arlene is Miss Fixit around here. You’ve heard of the glass ceiling? She’s the iron wall. You talk to Wormy?”

“Who?”

“The office manager, Eleanor Wormholtz. She’s kind of a charter member of H and P. Wormy knows everything. Wormy knows things that haven’t happened yet.”

“I wonder if she’s the one I talked to when I called for an appointment.”

“She gets the overflow sometimes. Besides, she has brains. The girl at the door gave hers up a long time ago.”

“How can I talk to this Eleanor Wormholtz? When I asked the receptionist if I could talk to the woman who answered the phone, she said she had. She hadn’t.”

“They’re really giving you a runaround. You mind if I give Wormy your number?”

“I’d be grateful if you would. I don’t suppose you know her number?”

“I can’t do that.”

“I understand. I appreciate your help.”

“I told you. I liked Natalie. I want you to find her.”

We shook hands and he went off to the elevators.

8

I don’t think I ever quite appreciated the beauty of Friday night until I married. There are no classes, there are two days in the offing without work, there is the chance to be lazy, to talk, to do absolutely nothing. Of course, we don’t always get to indulge ourselves over the weekend, but at least the opportunity is there.

Jack came home just about when the chicken and rosemary and garlic fragrances were becoming intense and when the thermometer indicated I had a dinner ready to be eaten.

“Got you some stuff from the file,” he said after we kissed. “It won’t make you jump up and down.”

“Tell me.”

“They did a sixty-one on Natalie’s disappearance two days after Thanksgiving.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the initial report of a crime or an incident which may become a crime. The missing persons report would start with a sixty-one. They wouldn’t do that on Thanksgiving because in most of these cases the person turns up pretty quickly. The cop he stopped after the parade would have told him to call home, go to the car, hang around and wait, that kind of thing. Most uniformed cops have had this kind of case before, boyfriend loses girlfriend, girlfriend loses boyfriend. If it had been a child at the parade, it would have been a different story. In this case, if she didn’t show up eventually, they’d suggest he come into the precinct and talk to a detective, which is what he did. He brought a photograph with him and they did a send-around.”

“Which is?”

“They make copies and send the picture to all the hospitals in the city to make sure she isn’t in one listed as a Jane Doe, you know, a woman brought in without identification. Maybe she fainted and got picked up and taken somewhere and she hasn’t come out of it yet. Detectives are just as anxious to get a missing persons case closed with results as any other crime case. There’s a handwritten note that Sandy was asked to bring in all her prescriptions. There was only one, a cough medicine she’d gotten about a month earlier. So I’d guess she was in pretty good health.”

“I assume there were no positive responses from the hospitals.”

“Nothing. The detective working on the case, a Tony DiRoma, went out to New Jersey himself and talked to the neighbors.”

“Because he figured Sandy killed her.”

“It’s what happens, Chris. But he seemed pretty satisfied they had a good marriage. No one ever saw her with bruises, no one heard screams or arguments, she always looked happy, chatted with neighbors.”

“I’m glad to hear it. What did DiRoma do in New York?”

“He talked to the doormen on Central Park West and asked if they’d seen anything, and the answer was a pretty conclusive no.”

“Did he go to her last job?”

“Hopkins and Something? He called.”

“He didn’t go and talk to people?”

“She hadn’t worked there for a while, Chris. They told him everybody liked her and no one knew anything.”

“Did he go to the building she lived in before she was married?”

“Doesn’t look like it. He’d need a reason for that, Chris.”

“Someone there might have known her.”

“So what? They’re not looking to write a life story, they’re looking for a kidnapper. Anyway, DiRoma was transferred to another job about six months later and a new detective took over, Evelyn Hogan.”

“Interesting. She do anything?”

“Looks like she did. She reviewed the file and checked up on Sandy. What did you do to this chicken?”

“What do you mean?” I asked in terror.

“It’s great. I thought you said you couldn’t roast a chicken.”

“Melanie said anyone could roast a chicken and she told me exactly what to do.”

“It’s fantastic. You used rosemary.”

I glowed. “Isn’t it a wonderful smell?”

“Yup, I think I’m going to retire as chief cook in this house.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“Competition’s getting pretty keen around here.”