The Girl in Times Square

“This is Detective O’Malley of the NYPD. I’m calling about your roommate, Amy McFadden.”

Excitement was instantly supplanted by something else—worry. “Yes? What’s happened?” From his tone, Lily thought Amy might have been in a car accident.

“Have you heard from her?”

“No.” She paused. “I’m here in Hawaii.”

“Well, I know,” said the detective. “I’m calling you there, aren’t I?”

That was true. “What’s happened?”

“She seems to have disappeared.”

“Oh.” Lily immediately calmed down. “Hmm. Have you checked with her mother?”

“Her mother is the one who reported her missing, which is why I’m calling you. According to Jan McFadden, Amy hasn’t called home in three weeks. Their repeated attempts to reach her at the apartment have failed. Do you recall the last time you saw her?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said, deflecting. “I’d have to think about it.”

There was silence on the other end. “Are you thinking about it now?”

“Detective, I don’t know. I’ve been here three weeks. I guess I saw her right before I left.”

“When was that?”

“I … I can’t remember now.” Dates had been singed out of her head by the Tropic of Cancer sun. “Can I think about it and call you back?”

“Yes—but quickly.”

“Or …” Something occurred to Lily. “Do you think I should come back? Is this something you need to speak to me about in person?”

“I’m not sure. Is it?”

“Yes, yes, I think I should come back. I’ll be able to give you much more detail.”

“Well, I appreciate that, Miss Quinn. This seems quite serious.”

Lily didn’t think so, but then this detective didn’t know Amy.

“You need me to come back right away? The sooner the better?”

“Well—”

“Of course. This is an emergency. I’ll be glad to be of any help. I’ll fly back tonight. Is that soon enough?”

“Yes, I think that will be fine. I apologize for having you leave Hawaii. You don’t really—”

“No, no, I do. It’s really no problem. I want to help. Where do I go?”

“Come to the 9th Precinct on 5th Street between First and Second Avenues. Ask for me.”

“Who are you again?”

“Lieutenant-detective O’Malley. Spencer Patrick O’Malley.”

Lily called United Airlines to find out about the next available flight: it was in four hours. It took her forty-five minutes to pack, then she called a cab.

She carried her suitcase out with difficulty. Her mother was on the patio, smoking, drinking cranberry juice.

“I have to go back to New York. Something … something’s happened,” she said, and didn’t want to give voice to anything more. “That was the police on the phone.”

“Police? What’s happened? What did you do?”

“Nothing, but … no one can find Amy. The police want to talk to me.”

“They can’t talk to you on the phone?”

“No. I guess it’s serious.” Lily said it, but didn’t believe it for a second.

She wasn’t worried about Amy. She thought Amy’s disappearance was a beautiful karmic ruse to get her out of Maui.

She threw herself into the cab with relieved haste. When the plane was in the air heading back home she found herself exhaling for the first time in three weeks. She was sure Amy would have turned up by the time she got home.

3 (#ulink_60288ed6-1486-5fea-883d-d9cddeaaea9d)

An Hour at the 9th Precinct (#ulink_60288ed6-1486-5fea-883d-d9cddeaaea9d)

Amy hadn’t turned up by the time Lily got home, but their apartment looked as if the police expected to find Amy in Lily’s closet. A copy of the warrant was plastered to the wall in the hallway. Nothing obvious had been disturbed in Lily’s room—though she had the feeling that all her things had been looked at, even touched—but Amy’s room had been turned upside down.

Without even unpacking, still in her traveling clothes—a white spaghetti-strap tank top, a small cropped cream cardigan, and a denim mini-skirt, Lily dropped her suitcase and left for the precinct. She gave her name and waited ten minutes before a heavy, out-of-breath man came downstairs. “Detective O’Malley?” she said, sticking out her hand.

“No, no, my partner always sends me. He thinks I need the exercise,” the man puffed.

His hand was wet and clammy and unpleasant. She pulled hers away. “How thoughtful of your partner,” said Lily, warily eying him, a little bit relieved that this detective wasn’t the lead detective. He had a sour, greasy look about him, his thin, long, scraggly hair needed washing, or at best combing; he was very tall, but was ungainly about his limbs, listing slightly to the right, his head bobbing slightly to the left. His paunch was so large that the white dress shirt he was wearing couldn’t contain it, and both, the shirt and the belly, were spilling over the top of the pants, onto the belt and downwards. Lily almost felt like telling him to tuck himself in. He didn’t look jovial and jolly though; he was not a happy fat man.

“Detective Harkman,” said the panting man, then motioning her to follow him. As he walked by her, she smelled what she knew unmistakably to be uric acid. Detective Harkman had gout—his body couldn’t metabolize the nitrogenous wastes properly, hence the sour smell emanating from him. Her paternal grandfather had had it at the end of his life. Involuntarily she held her breath as she followed him three flights up (“What, no elevators?” she quipped. “It’s either elevators or our salaries,” he unquipped back.) and was out of breath herself when they entered a high-ceilinged plain open room with a dozen wooden cluttered desks, behind one of which sat a man, who was not heavy or out of breath.

“Lilianne Quinn?” The man stood up and extended his hand. “I’m Detective O’Malley.” He did not have gout.

She looked up at him. Her handshake must have seemed formal, uncertain, and mushy compared to his, which was casual, certain and un-mushy. Despite the moist heat in the room, his hand was dry.

Lily was usually good with ages, but Detective O’Malley she couldn’t quite place. He moved young—he had a wiry build that came either from sports or from not eating—but his eyes were old. He looked to be somewhere around forty, and somewhere beyond a sense of humor, though that could have been an affect—affecting to be serious in front of her. He had lots of light brown hair, graying slightly at the temples and was wearing black metal-rimmed glasses. His gray suit jacket was hanging evenly on the back of his chair. His nondescript gray tie was loosened, and the top two buttons of his tucked-in white dress shirt unbuttoned. All the windows in the open room were flung ajar and there was a hot breeze coming through in the early evening. He buttoned his shirt after he stood up, fixed his tie and put his jacket back on; Lily noticed the massive black pistol in his holster. “Why don’t we go in here,” he said, pointing to a door that said Interrogation #1.

He was half the width of his partner though Lily couldn’t tell if O’Malley seemed thin simply by comparison. No, he was definitely thin, and he didn’t look like he had time for sports. His desk was stacked a foot high with files and papers. Maybe he played a little baseball. He looked fast like a shortstop. Did shortstops wear glasses? Perhaps he played soccer? Thus occupying her slightly anxious brain with idle observations and impressions, she followed him, with Detective Harkman panting behind. She hoped the room would be air-conditioned, but she found it to be heated by a whooshing large fan that spun the hot air around her in a clammy vortex. She resisted the impulse of sticking her head out the open window and panting like a Labrador. Her cardigan was too hot for this room, but she wasn’t about to take it off in front of two police officers, leaving herself in a barely-there top.

Detective O’Malley invited her to sit down (she did) and asked her if she wanted something to drink (she said no, though she did). He began without waiting. Drumming a pencil next to his notebook on top of the table, he put up his feet on the chair next to him. “Okay, tell me what you know.”

“Well, nothing.” Lily nearly stammered. What kind of a question was that? “About what?”