—

That gave me a lift. If it came from someplace in Indiana, we could take out ads in local newspapers. I wondered whether Miller was her maiden name or the name of someone she had married. Sandy’s explanation of how she had not left a forwarding address certainly pointed to a woman trying to lose her past.

At a few minutes after nine I called Annie’s Angels again, and this time Annie herself was there. She asked why I wanted the information on Natalie and I told her the truth.

“I remember her,” Annie said, not giving anything away. “I went to her old apartment to give her an estimate.”

“Do you have that address?” I crossed the fingers of my free hand.

“I do, but I don’t know who you are and I’m kind of reluctant to give it out.”

“I’ll be glad to come down to your office. I can be there before noon.”

“What the hell, it’s five years.” She gave me an address on the east side over near Gramercy Park.

“You said you remembered her. I wonder if I could ask you a couple of questions.” I went on, not giving her a chance to turn me down. “Did she have a roommate?”

“She’s the only one I talked to and the only one I saw. She signed the contract and she paid for the move.”

“How did she pay?”

“In cash. That’s not unusual. We don’t take checks unless they’re certified. In this business, it’s easy to get stiffed.”

“Was the apartment pretty much a one-person residence or did it look like there might have been a family or another person living there?”

“It had one bedroom, but there were two beds in it. We only agreed to move one of them. She said she was selling the other one.”

“Do you remember anything about the furniture? Did it look like the kind of stuff you pick up at the Salvation Army or was it bought new?”

“I’d have to say a mixture. People don’t usually spend the money to move old furniture that they can replace. It just doesn’t pay. She had an old Formica kitchen table that she didn’t move either, and a couple of chairs. All she moved from the kitchen was a box of dishes and some pots and pans. The living room furniture went. I have that down here.”

“Thanks very much, Annie.”

“This gal’s really missing?”

“Over a year. Since Thanksgiving of the year before.”

“I hope you find her. I’ll ask the guys if they remember anything.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

—

So there might have been a roommate. It was like pulling teeth, but at least I was starting to get somewhere. And the picture was not all that promising for Sandy. It certainly appeared as though Natalie had tried mightily to cover her tracks. Only Susan Hartswell, of all the people I had spoken to, knew where she had gone when she got married. I picked up the phone and dialed her number. She answered quickly.

“Susan? This is Chris Bennett.”

“Oh, hi. Have you found Natalie?”

“No, I’ve just picked up a few crumbs of information. I’ve got an address for where she lived before she moved to Greenwich Avenue.”

“That’s great.” She sounded genuinely happy. “Maybe someone there will remember her.”

“I hope so. I’m going to visit the building today. I just heard some news that may interest you. Hopkins and Jewell are breaking up.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“It was on the radio this morning, on the advertising news. They’re splitting into two companies.”

“I can’t believe it. They’re, you know…” Her voice trailed off.

“They’re what?”

“Well—lovers. At least I thought they were.”

“I see. Maybe the magic ended.”

“I guess it would be tough to be partners if the other relationship came to an end.”

“I would think so,” I said.

“Keep me posted.”

I promised I would.

16

Gramercy Park is one of those pleasant anomalies in Manhattan, a private park, fenced in and locked, with keys available to the residents of certain buildings in the area. Ads for apartments often include the fact of a key. I had never been in it, although I had walked alongside it on several occasions. It lies between East Twentieth and East Twenty-first Streets only a block or so west of the Police Academy. On this sunny Thursday morning two women sat on a bench moving their strollers idly back and forth to keep their youngsters content.

I found the address Annie had given me. It was a small apartment house about a block from the park, and I guessed there were no keys to the park for the tenants. A superintendent with an apartment on the first floor instead of in the basement opened the door at my ring. The person turned out to be a woman and she said she remembered Natalie Miller.

“Do you know how long she lived here?” I asked.

“Maybe one lease, like two years.”

“Did she have any roommates?”

“Oh, honey, I couldn’t tell you that. They all do now. There was a time you had some control over who lived in your building, but no more. The courts let them do anything. She’s the only one who signed the lease.”

“Do you remember another woman sharing the apartment?”

“It could be.”

“A man?”

“Like I said—”

“Do you know if she moved out in a hurry?”

“Lemme check.” She consulted a file in a cabinet in the room we were talking in. “She didn’t skip out without paying if that’s what you mean. We let her apply her security to the last month’s rent because there wasn’t any damage to the apartment and it says here she left in the middle of the month.”

“Do you remember anything about her?”

“They come and go,” she said. “When they’re gone a while, I can’t really tell you very much.”

“Does anyone still live near her old apartment that lived there five years ago?”

“You got me. Not right near her, I don’t think. We been renovating those apartments, getting them off rent control one by one. Hers was first, then one across the hall. Hold on.” She went to a different file and turned some pages. “There’s a couple down the hall you could talk to. They’ve been living there six, seven years, since they got married. There’s two kids there now. They’re dying to buy a house in the suburbs, but they can never afford one. I’ll take you up.”

They were on the third floor and I could hear the children before we rang the doorbell. The woman inside shouted something at them and then opened the door. She was only about my age and quite pretty, dressed in wool pants and a paisley blouse with a couple of gold chains. The super made a quick introduction and then left us.

“Come on in, I’m Dickie Foster,” she said.

“Hi. Chris Bennett.”

“My kids are driving me crazy, but they’ll probably calm down now that there’s company.”

She was right. They were suddenly silent and wide-eyed, staring at me as though I were a visitor from a foreign planet. I smiled and said hello to them, and the younger one, a little girl, giggled and covered her face with her hands.

We went into the living room, which was set up like a day care center, a small, colorful wooden slide in one corner, toys everywhere, balls of all sizes. We walked through the children’s area and sat near the windows, the only part of the room that still looked as though it catered to adults.

“What can I tell you?”

“I’m trying to find Natalie Miller. Do you remember her?”

“That’s a long time ago, isn’t it?”

“About five years.”

“She lived down the other end of the hall, didn’t she?”

“So I’m told.”

“We used to say hello, sure.”

“Anything else? Were you friendly? Sit and talk once in a while?”

“Not really. I was working when we moved in, and she was, too.”

“Do you know where?”

She shook her head.