“Actually, he likes to say, ‘Marry a rich old man. Repeat if necessary.’ That’s coming from a man who’s been married thirty-eight years.”
“Some guys are lucky.”
Not long after grabbing a few things from the office and trading jabs with Terri Hernandez, I was in the neighborhood of Natalie Lunden’s apartment near NYU. This was a younger neighborhood with an interesting vibe. The students from NYU mixed with young professionals and the occasional stockbroker from the financial district. The area was loaded with mom-and-pop restaurants and that made me realize I hadn’t eaten. I don’t know if it was the relief of being back at work, but I was suddenly famished.
I swung a few blocks out of my way to the Burger & Barrel. It was a little nicer and more expensive than my usual lunch places. But, I reasoned, it was well after lunch; if I didn’t have some protein immediately, I might faint. Sometimes I’m dramatic even to myself.
The sports bar sat right on Houston Street and looked a little touristy but was known by the locals for its burgers. I wouldn’t call it a cop hangout, but cops liked eating there. Service was decent and the burgers outstanding.
One of the TVs above the bar had the news on instead of ESPN. I didn’t pay much attention until the camera cut away to a shot outside some city administration buildings. I saw the Reverend Caldwell speaking into a microphone like he was addressing a crowd of thousands. It took even me a moment to realize it was simply a one-on-one interview with a local reporter. All I heard him say was “And now a murderer is walking free among us. Are the streets really safe?”
The older African American man behind the counter walked past the TV and absently switched it to Fox Sports 1. I didn’t even mind the negative story about the Giants’ offensive woes. Anything was better than hearing the tubby reverend call me names in public.
In my notepad, I looked at the list of several names the mayor had come up with of Natalie’s friends. A kid named Tom Payne, a woman named Chang, and a couple of other names. All of them supposedly computer people.
I wolfed down my burger and even considered adding a beer to my tab. I stuck to a Coke and gathered my notes together.
I caught the attention of the bartender. He was older than I’d thought. Maybe in his early seventies. But he looked good. Like an in-shape grandpa.
I said, “Can I grab my bill?”
He shook his head. “You don’t get a bill. Thank you for your service.”
Holy cow, did I need to hear something like that about now. I laid a ten-dollar tip on the bar. I was a little choked up and couldn’t speak. That surprised me.
The bartender said, “This too shall pass. That’s what they told me when I came back from Vietnam. No one gave a damn about me. I remember walking through East Harlem in my uniform and someone threw a tomato at me. Another woman called me a baby killer. But they all came around. It may have taken twenty-five years, but people finally understood that we were just doing our duty. You’ll see. The same attitude will come around about cops. In the meantime, stay safe.”
I had to shake the man’s hand before I headed over to Natalie Lunden’s apartment.
CHAPTER 21
I USED THE key the mayor had given me to slip into Natalie’s apartment. I took a run-through quickly to make sure no one was home. It would be embarrassing to discover her asleep in her bed. Stranger things have happened. Kids are called in missing all the time who end up being exactly where they’re supposed to be.
I had a case when I was in the Bronx of a missing three-year-old. The call came in at about four in the afternoon. The mom was frantic. She was also suspicious of her boyfriend. I made a cursory check of the apartment, then went looking for the boyfriend.
I found him in a sports bar near Yankee Stadium. He had an attitude that was infuriating. He said, “Why you bothering me about that brat? He’s Valerie’s problem, not mine.”
I thought he was lying. I asked him where the boy might go or what interested him. The man ignored me, watching a Yankees– Red Sox game on TV.
No way I wanted to waste time. Every minute counted with a missing child. I wanted to threaten him or scare him in some way. He’d spent a year in Rikers, awaiting trial on a robbery, and been arrested half a dozen times over the years. I couldn’t threaten much that would scare him.
Then I had another idea. I’d let others threaten him. I took the remote from the bar and changed all the TVs at the same time to HGTV. The reaction was understandably outrage.
I said in a loud voice, “I’ll turn the game back on as soon as this man answers my questions about a missing boy. A three-year-old. So you need to decide if it’s easier to take the remote from me or make him talk.” I noticed all the eyes in the place fall on the boyfriend.
Someone said, “Why won’t you help someone looking for a missing kid?” That was the nicest thing said.
Quickly, the boyfriend realized the danger he was in and jumped up to tell me that his girlfriend’s sister always took the boy without telling anyone. She felt like the boy was more hers than her sister’s.
Twenty minutes later, I was back at the apartment, asking about the mom’s sister, Crystal Fuches. According to the mom, Crystal was, let’s just say, untrustworthy. They clearly didn’t get along.
I found Crystal Fuches two blocks away. She was nothing like her sister had made her out to be. She was a bank teller who was concerned about her nephew. She took him some afternoons to give him a healthy meal and read to him. I was impressed.
She said, “I’m surprised my sister and her no-good boyfriend even noticed he was missing.”
“To be fair, only your sister missed him. She seems nice. Just in a difficult situation.”
“A situation she constantly puts herself in.”
“Have you seen your nephew?”
“Of course. I put him to bed an hour ago. My sister never looked up from her phone.”
When I rushed back to the apartment and checked the boy’s room, he was snoring, bundled in his blankets.
That’s why I always check every room in an apartment more than once during an investigation.
Natalie’s apartment looked fine. A little messy, but it was a typical twenty-one-year-old’s apartment. Except that she had no roommates. That was unusual down here where an apartment like this regularly went for more than four thousand dollars a month.
The quick background I had done on Natalie and her mother hadn’t shown any large incomes. I knew the mayor was proud of coming “from the people.” He lived on the mayor’s two-hundred-thousand-dollar salary. That sounded like a lot of money, but in New York, even when you were living for free in Gracie Mansion, it didn’t get you that far.
There was no super in the building, so I called the leasing office. I explained to the property manager who I was and that I was looking for a missing person. The woman on the phone sounded helpful, and I found the office a few blocks away.
The woman who met me at the office, Renee Schobert, was about my age and very well put together, in a professional dress with a colorful scarf. Her sandy hair draped down her right shoulder.
Renee ushered me into her office, crammed with file cabinets. She said, “I pulled out Natalie’s file after you called. There’s nothing out of order or unusual. Except her deposit and six full months of rent were paid at the same time.”