She walked back to Tommy and Tuppence, introduced herself to the hostess, and said she was an investigator working a case that had to do with a man who had stayed nearby last spring. It turned out the hostess was also part-owner, and with the evening rush still an hour away, she was perfectly willing to talk. Holly asked if she happened to remember just when the restaurant had leafleted the area with menus.
“What did the guy do?” the hostess asked. Her name was Mary, not Tuppence, and her accent was New Jersey rather than Newcastle.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Holly told her. “It’s a legal matter. You understand.”
“Well, I do remember,” Mary said. “It’d be funny if I didn’t.”
“Why is that?”
“When we first opened two years ago, this was Fredo’s Place. You know, like in The Godfather?”
“Yes,” Holly said, “although Fredo is best remembered for Godfather II, especially for the sequence where his brother Michael kisses him and says ‘I know it was you, Fredo, you broke my heart.’ ”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know that there are about two hundred Italian restaurants in Dayton, and we were getting killed. So we decided to try British food, you can’t exactly call it cuisine—fish and chips, bangers and mash, even beans on toast—and changed the name to Tommy and Tuppence, like in the Agatha Christie books. We figured we had nothing to lose at that point. And you know what, it worked. I was shocked, but in a good way, believe me. We fill this place for lunch, and most nights for dinner.” She leaned forward and Holly could smell gin on her breath, bright and clear. “Want to know a secret?”
“I love secrets,” Holly said truthfully.
“The steak and kidney pie comes frozen from a company in Paramus. We just heat it up in the oven. And you know what? The restaurant critic from the Dayton Daily News loved it. He gave us five stars! I shit you not!” She leaned forward a little more and whispered, “If you tell anyone that, I’d have to kill you.”
Holly zipped a thumb across her thin lips and turned an invisible key, a gesture she’d seen Bill Hodges make on many occasions. “So when you re-opened with the new name and the new menu . . . or maybe just before . . .”
“Johnny, he’s my hubby, wanted to paper the neighborhood a week before, but I told him that was no good, people would forget, so we did it the day before. We hired a kid, and printed enough menus for him to cover a nine-block area.”
“Including the parking lot up the street.”
“Yes. Is that important?”
“Would you check your calendar and tell me what day that was?”
“Don’t need to. It’s engraven on my memory.” She tapped her forehead. “April nineteenth. A Thursday. We opened—re-opened, actually—on Friday.”
Holly restrained an urge to correct Mary’s grammar, thanked her, and turned to go.
“Sure you can’t tell me what the guy did?”
“Very sorry, but I’d lose my job.”
“Well, at least come in for dinner, if you’re staying in town.”
“I’ll do that,” Holly said, but she wouldn’t. God knew what else on the menu had been shipped frozen from Paramus.
3
The next step was a visit to the Heisman Memory Unit, and a talk with Terry Maitland’s father, if he was having a good day (presuming he had good days anymore). Even if he was off in the clouds, she might be able to talk to some of the people who worked there. In the meantime, here she was in her pretty-good hotel room. She powered up her laptop and sent Alec Pelley an email titled GIBNEY REPORT #1.
Tommy & Tuppence menus were leafleted in a 9-block area on Thursday, April 19th. Based on interview w/ co-owner MARY HOLLISTER, I am confident this date is correct. Such being the case, we can be sure it was the date MERLIN CASSIDY abandoned the van in nearby parking lot. Note that MAITLAND FAMILY arrived Dayton around noon on Saturday, April 21st. I am almost positive the van was gone by then. I will check w/ local police tomorrow, hoping to close off one more possibility, and will then visit the Heisman Memory Unit. If questions, email or call my cell.
Holly Gibney
Finders Keepers
With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal (she never even considered room service, which was always ridiculously expensive). She found a Mel Gibson film she hadn’t seen on the in-room movie menu, and ordered it—$9.99, which she would deduct from her report of expenses when she filed it. The picture wasn’t great, but Gibson did the best he could with what he had. She noted the title and the running time in her current movie log-book (Holly had already filled over two dozen others), giving it three stars. With that taken care of, she made sure both of the room’s door locks were engaged, said her prayers (finishing, as she always did, by telling God that she missed Bill), and went to bed. Where she slept for eight hours, with no dreams. At least none that she remembered.
4
The next morning, after coffee, a brisk three-mile walk, breakfast at a nearby café, and a hot shower, Holly called the Dayton Police Department and asked for Traffic Division. Following a refreshingly brief interval on hold, an Officer Linden came on the line and asked how he could help her. Holly found this delightful. A polite policeman always brightened her day. Although to be fair, most of them were in the Midwest.
She identified herself, said she was interested in a white Econoline van that had been left in a public parking lot on Northwoods Boulevard in April, and asked if DPD regularly checked the city’s honor lots.
“Sure,” Officer Linden said, “but not to enforce the six-hour limit. They’re cops, not meter maids.”
“I understand,” Holly said, “but they must keep an eye out for possible dump-offs, don’t they?”
Linden laughed. “Your company must do a lot of repos and retrievals.”
“Along with bail-jumpers, they’re our bread and butter.”
“Then you know how it works. We’re especially interested in expensive cars that have been hanging around those lots for awhile, both in town and in long-term parking at the airport. Your Denalis, your Escalades, your Jags and Beemers. You say this van you’re interested in had New York plates?”
“Correct.”
“A van like that probably wouldn’t have drawn much attention the first day—people from New York do come to Dayton, strange as it may seem—but if it was still there on the second day? Probably.”
Which still would have been a full day before the Maitlands arrived. “Thank you, Officer.”
“I could check the impound yard, if you want.”
“That won’t be necessary. The van next showed up a thousand miles south of here.”
“What’s your interest in it, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Not at all,” Holly said. This was a police officer, after all. “It was used to abduct a child who was subsequently murdered.”
5
Now ninety-nine per cent sure the van had been gone well before Terry Maitland arrived in Dayton with his wife and daughters on April 21st, Holly drove her Prius to the Heisman Memory Unit. It was a long, low sandstone building in the middle of at least four acres of well-kept grounds. A grove of trees separated it from Kindred Hospital, which probably owned it, operated it, and made a tidy profit thereby; it certainly didn’t look cheap. Either Peter Maitland had a large nest egg, good insurance, or both, Holly thought approvingly. There were plenty of empty guest spaces at this hour of the morning, but Holly chose one at the far end of the lot. Her Fitbit goal was 12,000 steps a day, and every little bit helped.