Close to You, page 20
Just walk in calmly with all the others.
Meat sauntered right past the security guards and the camera crew, up the ramp and into the World of Darkness.
It didn’t take long for his eyes to get adjusted.
“Janie, James! Don’t run off,” Eliza commanded. “Stay with me.”
The children had beelined to the next window.
“Ewww! Bats!” Eliza heard Janie’s voice.
“Cool!” exclaimed James.
It took awhile to make them out, but Eliza, Keith and Samuel stared right along with all the other visitors at the thick clusters of dark bats that hung from the tree limbs. From time to time, one of the bats would spread its wings, revealing its distinctive, eerie silhouette.
It was more than Meat could take.
Eliza was standing right in front of the bats. The two guys and the little kids were with her and there were other visitors in the large, dark room, but he could contain himself no longer.
Eliza held back for just a minute as the others moved on, rereading the information on the mounted plaques. She felt the warmth of a hand against her neck and at first she found it surprising yet pleasing, thinking Samuel might be reaching out to her in the darkness, like a high-school kid at the movies with a date. But as the voice whispered hotly into her ear, Eliza instinctively recoiled in fear.
“Why do you insist on dressing like a slut? Learn from these bats and be a good example for your daughter.”
“Mommy, Mommy! Come see this.” Eliza could hear Janie’s voice in the split second it took for her to scream out.
In the shadowy darkness, Samuel and Keith found her and wrestled Meat to the floor.
Chapter 106
Joe was in his backyard putting away the lawn furniture in the shed for the winter when his wife called out from the house. The office was on the phone.
Ten minutes later Connelly was driving to the Bronx precinct house. When he got there half an hour later, he immediately recognized the scruffy man in the holding cell. It was the same guy who had been camping out in front of the Broadcast Center. Only now the man had a name and a hometown. Cornelius Bacon of Moonachie, New Jersey.
The Bronx cops had already called the Moonachie Police Department. They knew the guy. He was a bartender at one of the local gin joints. He was a strange one. Kept bats in his backyard.
Bats. The letters to Eliza ran through Connelly’s quick mind. “VAMPIRE BATS SUCK BLOOD LEARN FROM THE BATS. . . .”
Just for fun, Connelly had asked the arresting officer to call the Moonachie police again and ask if they knew whether the suspect had any nicknames. The answer came back and Joe heaved a deep sigh of relief. Thank God they had caught this guy.
Joe didn’t even want to think about what had almost happened. But he had to. The security guards had been right there, yet this animal had gotten to Eliza.
And the phone lunatic was still out there somewhere.
Chapter 107
When Eliza arrived at work Monday morning, Paige greeted her with the news that Entertainment Tonight had called and wanted to see if she would do an interview about the episode at the Bronx Zoo over the weekend.
“Absolutely not,” Eliza replied. “That’s the last thing I need. More publicity. I don’t want anyone else out there getting any crazy ideas.”
“The producer told me they are doing the story whether you talk with them or not. They know that our camera crew got pictures. They want to know if they can have a dub of those, too, and credit KEY News for their usage,” Paige said timidly.
A deep sigh heaved from Eliza’s chest. This whole thing was getting to her. She noticed she had selected the most conservative suit she owned to wear this morning. She felt vulnerable and exposed.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Eliza said with determination. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll supply then sound bites for them.” She would go to Yelena Gregory if she had to, but the chaotic video the crew had shot outside the World of Darkness was not going to make air. Janir crying and holding on to her mother, James Feeney’s solemn little face. Hell would freeze over before Eliza would let that tape be seen. She didn’t give a fig in this case about the journalistic troth or the public’s right to know. Was she being a hypocrite? Perhaps. But she didn’t care.
Paige scribbled a note on her pad and glanced at the call log. “Mr. Connelly has called twice this morning already.”
“Okay. Get him on the phone for me, please, Paige.” Eliza walked toward her office and turned to her assistant. “And Paige? Happy Columbus Day. I’m sorry I had to make you come in to work today.”
“This guy Meat’s fingerprints cleared. The criminal judge set a measly one-thousand-dollar bail and his mother came over and got him out. But at least the civil court judge issued a temporary restraining order against him until the case goes to court. He can’t come within five hundred feet of you.”
“All this happened on a holiday weekend?” Eliza asked incredulously, pulling tensely on the telephone cord.
“Yeah. These things can be arranged when you put the pressure on.”
“How long until it comes to court?”
“Don’t know for sure. It might be a couple of months.”
Eliza digested his words but felt no less worried. “And who’s to say that he’ll obey the restraining order?”
Connelly hesitated. “We don’t know for sure. But we still have the security detail on you, Eliza.”
Neither of them said what they were thinking.
The security detail had been there at the zoo, too.
Chapter 108
The familiar opening theme of Entertainment Tonight blared and the announcer teased the upcoming stories.
“KEY News anchorwoman Eliza Blake stalked at the Bronx Zoo.”
A publicity photo of Eliza filled the screen.
The story reported that thirty-two-year-old Cornelius Bacon had been arrested for harassing the network anchor-woman while she was at the zoo over the weekend with her daughter and a KEY News crew. Bacon was a bartender at the Like It Rare steakhouse in Moonachie, New Jersey. The ET camera was there when Bacon showed up for work on Sunday night. The suspect walked brusquely past, covering his face with his jacket.
How dare this Bacon? Eliza wasn’t his. Eliza belonged to another.
The legal system didn’t always take care of things the way it should. There were other ways this guy could be dealt with to make sure he didn’t get to Eliza again.
Chapter 109
Gray-haired Florence Anderson was a survivor and much of what she had been through showed in her gaunt face. Deep lines creased her forehead and the area that led downward from her nose to her mouth. Frown lines. She hadn’t had much to smile about over the last five years. Yet the clear blue eyes that peered from the hollowed sockets sparkled with heated determination. Florence welcomed the KEY News crew into her home.
As Eliza and Florence shook hands, their eyes locked in mutual understanding.
“I saw Entertainment Tonight last night,” Florence said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m so glad they got that nut. But I can’t understand how they let him out of jail.”
Eliza shrugged. “That’s how it works, I guess. He made bond and he’s out there until we go to court.”
“That sucks,” Florence spat.
Eliza almost laughed at the incongruity of the words coming from the older woman’s mouth, but Florence was absolutely right. It did suck.
The crew set up in the living room, a shrine to Florence’s daughter. Pictures of Linda Anderson hung on the walls and sat in frames on the tables. Linda as a baby; Linda as a toddler; Linda as a little girl in her Brownie uniform; Linda in a bathing suit, holding a trophy; Linda in cap and gown; Linda holding a microphone, doing an interview in front of a courthouse; Linda sitting behind an anchor desk. Eliza felt a chill as she looked at the pictures that documented a life that was too close to being her own.
She wondered how Florence Anderson could stand being surrounded by all these reminders of her missing daughter each day. If anything ever happened to Janie, Eliza didn’t think she could bear looking at her pictures. If anything ever happened to Janie, she would get a hose, attach it to the tailpipe of the Volvo and run it back into the car and sit there, inhaling deeply until peace came.
Don’t go there!
Keith suggested that Mrs. Anderson sit on the sofa for the interview. Eliza knew he selected the spot because the pictures of Linda would hang on the walls behind her in the shot. A tiny Mack microphone was clipped to the edge of Florence’s blazer.
‘Tell me about your daughter, Mrs. Anderson.”
“Linda was everything a parent would want,” Florence began. “She was a sunny little baby, had a great personality, did well in school, never gave her father—God rest his soul—and me any real trouble. That’s not to say she was a goody-goody, mind you. She liked to have fun and she did the usual things in high school that kids do.” Florence smiled wryly as she remembered. “One time we had to go down to the police station and pick her up. She had been stopped with a bunch of other kids riding around in a car. They’d been drinking.”
Eliza nodded as Florence continued.
“But basically she was just a good, decent kid. Ever since she was a teenager she wanted to work in TV. But this isn’t what Linda had in mind when she said she wanted to be on television.”
Eliza could identify with that, too. “I understand that her career was really on the rise. I’m told there was calk of Linda being hired by KEY News.”
“Yes, an agent had approached her and submitted her audition tape and there was actually an interview set up. Linda was so excited about the possibility of going to work for one of the big networks.” Florence slumped a bit and looked down at the wringing hands in her lap. “But everything happened before Linda went in for those interviews.”
“Linda must have been very good. Agents don’t usually do the approaching. You have to do the approaching and convince them to take you on.”
“She was good,” answered Florence softly. “I know I’m her mother and so I’m biased. But people said that when you met Linda, you felt like you knew her. That came across on TV as well.”
“Can you tell me about the period right before Linda disappeared?” Eliza asked gently.
Florence paused and then straightened resolutely. “Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Linda thought she was being followed. She called me crying about it a few times. I wanted her to move home and live with us until everything straightened out. If only she had.” The tortured blue eyes looked imploringly at Eliza.
“Linda went to the police?” Eliza led.
“Of course she did. In fairness to them, they put a police escort on her for a while, but while they were around, nothing happened. They said they couldn’t go on escorting her forever. Linda said she wasn’t going to live in fear. She started taking a self-defense course at her health club. But I guess she wasn’t strong enough or skilled enough to save herself.”
“And after Linda disappeared? What happened then?”
“In the beginning, the police went all-out. They searched everywhere, interviewed people who knew her, questioned old boyfriends, spoke to her co-workers. The story was on the Garden State Network every night. People tied yellow ribbons around trees. There was a reward offered for information, but nobody came forward with anything. But if you ask me, as time went on the police gave up. One of the detectives called me into the station and told me that the more time went by, the less chance there was of finding out what had happened. He said the police thought it probably was a mentally disturbed viewer who had become obsessed with Linda and since there were so many people who could have seen Linda on television, the suspect pool was limitless.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Anderson,” said Eliza, reaching out to pat the woman’s hand. “I appreciate you talking to us so candidly. I can only imagine how difficult it is for you.”
“It’s worth it if it can somehow help to figure out what happened to my daughter. I want whoever did this to Linda to be caught.”
The cameraman took some reversal shots of Eliza making small talk with Mrs. Anderson to be used later in the editing room as cutaways. Next he videotaped close-up shots of some of the framed pictures of Linda.
As the group was leaving the house, Florence asked a question as an afterthought.
“Do you know Abigail Snow? She works at KEY.”
Eliza looked at her sharply. “Yes, I know Abigail. She works in our promotions department.”
“Would you please tell her I was asking for her? She and Linda were good friends when they worked together at Garden State Network. They took that self-defense course together. But after Linda disappeared, Abigail got her job in New York and we lost touch. My other daughter, Monica, sees her at the gym once in a while.” Mrs. Anderson sighed. “Yes, Abigail and Linda were great pals.”
On the way back to the Broadcast Center, Eliza and Keith rode in the backseat of the crew car and discussed the interview.
“Can you imagine what life has been like for that poor woman?” Eliza asked, staring out the window.
Keith shook his head.
“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. Just wait until your baby is born, Keith. The fear of losing that child will be beyond anything you can imagine.”
“That certainly gives me something to look forward to,” he said glumly.
Eliza looked at her producer sitting beside her, biting anxiously at the side of his thumbnail. Her disdain for Keith’s behavior in Dallas had turned to pity. Here he was, going out to make his living in a very pressurized environment each day, clearly unhappy at home. With a child on the way, he was truly forced to join the world of adults. Big responsibilities and no turning back. It was easy to feel trapped.
Eliza wanted to tell him that she understood, but she refrained. He might misinterpret what she said and think she was reaching out to him. Better to keep the personal side of things out of their relationship.
“You know, Keith, I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should do a FRESHER LOOK on the loss of a child.”
“Sure, Eliza, whatever you say.” There was no enthusiasm whatsoever in Keith’s voice.
Chapter 110
Samuel waited for the light to change and strode across Fifth Avenue at Fifty-seventh Street. He was very concerned about Eliza. That nut at the zoo, all the threatening calls, the gift of lingerie, the burglary at her home. Samuel was on a mission to make her feel better and, in the process, to ingratiate himself as well.
He entered the cavernous street-level floor of Tiffany’s and perused the dazzling display cases, spending a good deal of time looking at the rings. The diamonds, sparkling in their near-perfection, were cut in all carat weights and shapes. Solitaire, marquise, emerald, pear, oval, even heart-shaped. Samuel spotted a large emerald-cut white diamond beautifully set in platinum. If it came to it, as Samuel hoped it might, that ring would be perfect for Eliza.
Samuel spent another forty-five minutes in the jewelry store, looking for an appropriate gift among the treasures. Finally he found it. Eighteen-karat-gold-and-diamond earrings, designed by Elsa Peretti in the shape of starfish.
Perfect. They would remind Eliza of the sea, their shared love.
“Samuel! I was going to call you.”
“That’s certainly good to hear.”.
“You might not think so when I tell you why.”
“Oh?”
“I’m going to be working on a piece about . . .” Eliza tried to find the right words and then decided it was best to be direct. “Well, it’s a piece about parents who have lost a child. I was wondering if you could help me out with it.”
Samuel didn’t know what to say.
“I know I’m putting you on the spot, Samuel,” Eliza apologized.
“Gee, Eliza, of course I’d want to help you in any way I could. What exactly did you have in mind?” he asked cautiously.
“Well, we’re calling Sloan-Kettering to see if we can get permission to shoot in their pediatric unit, and we’re trying to find some parents who are going through the painful process with their children right now. But I was thinking you might be willing to be interviewed from the other side of the loss.”
“It’s awfully fresh, Eliza.”
“I know it is, Samuel. But that’s one of the reasons why what you would have to say would be so strong.”
Eliza heard a long silence on the other end of the phone.
“Samuel?”
“I’m here, Eliza,” he answered wearily. “Can I think about it and give you my answer a little later?”
“Of course.”
“Are we still on for Saturday night?”
“We are if you don’t mind going out to New Jersey again. I’m going to have Mrs. Garcia come and stay with Janie and I’ll make a reservation at this restaurant I’ve been hearing such great things about. It’s called Esty Street.”
Chapter 111
Augie hadn’t had a house to hit since Eliza Blake’s and he was getting desperate. He still had a few of Eliza’s things to take into New York. The New Jersey fence hadn’t offered close to what Augie felt the jewelry must be worth. Those were quality pieces.
Even if Augie got a couple grand for them, it wasn’t enough, though. He wanted the money he had invested in that bogus business deal of Larson’s. But on the rare occasion that Larson took Augie’s call, that son-of-a-bitch always gave him the runaround.
“Soon. Soon.”
Augie was sick and tired of “soon.” He wanted his money and he wanted it now. But his hands were tied. The papers Augie had signed stated that the money was committed to Richards Enterprises until the deal came to completion. Then, and only then, would the payoff come due.
What the hell was he supposed to do in the meantime? What if there never was a completion of the deal?
