Savage Lane (26 page)

“Ooh, a cat fight,” Nick said, smiling. “Does the waitress know what the argument was about? One reporter was saying that there were rumors that Mark Berman and this Karen Daily were having an affair. Is that true?”

“I don’t know,” Larry said, thinking he would ask Stu if he knew anything about this. “Jenna said names were exchanged—they were calling each other bitch, cunt, etcetera.”

“Sounds like a fun afternoon in Westchester,” Nick said. “We need to know more about the incident, though. Was Mark there at the time?”

“Yes, he was,” Larry said.

“But he didn’t tell you about this yesterday,” Nick said.

“No, he did not,” Larry said, knowing what Nick was hinting at.

“That sounds unusual, doesn’t it?” Nick asked. “Why keep it a secret if you don’t have to?”

“Maybe he was embarrassed or didn’t think it was important,” Larry said.

“Or maybe he had another reason not to talk about it,” Nick said. “Like maybe he was having an affair with Karen Daily and is trying to protect her.”

“It’s possible,” Larry said.

“Well, let’s look into all of that,” Nick said. “I’ll talk to Mark Berman and this Jenna at the club again and you track down Karen and get a statement from her. If we don’t locate Deborah soon, within the next couple of hours, we’ll have to expand the investigation. But after we get firm timelines for Mark and Karen, that might tell us something right there. We also need to find any witnesses who may have seen her in that parking lot where the car was discovered. How did she get out of the car? Walk? Probably not, there’s not much in that area. We need a description of another car—anything we can get. Let’s be wide open with all this with the press, we need as much publicity as possible to get as much help as possible from the public. The next couple of hours will be crucial.”

Nick left and Larry got Karen Daily’s home number and called her and got her voicemail—not very surprising since it was Monday morning and she probably worked. He was going to track her down, maybe at work, but realized there was a quicker, much more appealing way to get some of the info he needed.

“Um, I only have a few minutes,” Stu said. “What’s going on?”

Stu sounded uncomfortable, but Larry had expected this. He normally didn’t call Stu at work, at his law office, because Stu had asked him not to. Still, as always, just hearing Stu’s voice was exciting to Larry, made him feel more alert and, yeah, more alive.

“Can you talk for a sec?” Larry said.

“Hold on,” Stu said. Then several seconds later added, “Okay, I just locked the door to my office. What’s going on, man?” Now he sounded much more relaxed, like his usual self.

“It’s nice to hear your voice,” Larry said.

“You don’t know how good it makes me feel to hear you say that,” Stu said. “So is this really about work?”

“Unfortunately, yeah,” Larry said. “You know Deborah Berman, right?”

Pause then, “Deb Berman? You mean my buddy Mark’s wife? Yeah, I know her. Why?”

“She’s missing,” Larry said.

“
What
?” Stu sounded shocked. “What the fuck do you mean?”

Larry explained how her car had been discovered and that she hadn’t been seen since Saturday evening.

“Jesus Christ,” Stu said. “I can’t believe this. I guess that’s why Mark wasn’t on the train this morning. How’s he doing? He must be a total mess.”

“He was okay last night when I talked to him, but I don’t know about today,” Larry said. “What about a woman named Karen Daily? Do you know her?”

“Yeah, I know her,” Stu said. “I used to know her ex-husband Joe better than her, but I know her. She’s a member of the club too. She’s divorced now. What about her?”

“I heard she had an argument with Deborah on Saturday at the club,” Larry said.

“Oh yeah, she did,” Stu said. “I was there.”

“You
were
?”

“A lot of people were there. They were really going at it. Cat fight, you know?”

“Do you know what the argument was about?”

“No, not really,” Stu said. “I mean we guessed it had to do with something going on with Mark and Karen, but that was just a guess. Actually, that’s right, I called Mark after on Saturday just to check in on him, make sure he was all right. I thought he was in the dog house, you know?”

“Mark and Karen were having an affair?”

“I don’t know,” Stu said. “To be honest, I don’t know Mark all that well. I mean we play golf, ride into the city together sometimes, but we just bullshit with each other, you know on-the-surface type shit. We don’t discuss our personal lives at all. Obviously.”

“He talk about Karen a lot?” Larry asked.

“Yeah, sometimes,” Stu said. “I mean, I know they’re at least friends, neighbors, hang out a lot. But me and the guys, we kid around with Mark about it. I mean, just usual guy type talk, you know? I have to keep up a good front, right?”

Larry pictured Stu smiling with those incredible dimples.

“But actually, yeah,” Stu went on, “when we were playing golf on Saturday the guys were teasing Mark about it, and he flipped out.”

“Flipped out how?”

“Was gonna whack this guy Doug over the head with a golf club. I mean, I don’t know if he was
really
gonna do it, but he made like he was gonna do it, so let’s just say Mark seemed a little sensitive about the subject… Wait, why? You don’t think Karen has something to with Deb being missing, do you?”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Larry said. “But, yeah, her name has come up.”

“Wow,” Stu said. “Wow, I can’t believe that.”

“You can’t believe that she has something to do with it, or you can’t believe she was having an affair with Mark?”

“The affair part I can believe,” Stu said. “I mean Mark always denies it, yeah, but it’s pretty obvious
something’s
going on with them. I mean she lives right down the road from him, and she’s a good looking woman, and he always seems to be around her at the club, hovering.”

“But you don’t know if they’ve actually been having a relationship?”

“No, but I know she’s been playing the field, doing a lot of online dating,” Stu said. “She has a reputation.”

“What kind of reputation?”

“You know,” Stu said. “Divorced woman, going a little crazy with dating, playing the field. She’s had a lot of boyfriends, and she’s a good-looking woman.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” Larry said, pretending he was joking, but he actually wasn’t joking. Well, not totally joking anyway.

“Don’t worry, you have nothing to get jealous about, bro,” Stu said. “You know who I think the hot one is. But people definitely talk a lot about Karen. I guess because she dates a lot and women don’t seem to like her very much. I mean, my wife thinks she flirts too much with married men. I don’t see the big deal about it, but my wife doesn’t like it, and maybe she sees something that I don’t. I think it’s because of Karen’s looks to be honest. She’s in great shape, and she’s definitely a well-endowed woman, it’s hard not to notice
that
. Actually, something else happened the other day at golf.”

“What?” Larry asked.

“The guys were joking around about Karen,” Stu said, “and somebody, I forget who, made a comment, wondering if Karen’s tits were real or not. You know, usual dumb guy talk. But Mark made a comment that Karen’s tits were definitely real, that Karen had told him they were real. That struck me as kind of odd, you know? I mean, why would she just tell him that? I mean, I know they’re friends, but you see what I mean. Maybe he said it because he knew, because he’s having sex with her. Jesus, maybe they really are having an affair. I mean, when you think about it, it makes sense.”

“Do you know where Karen works?” Larry asked.

“Yeah, actually I do,” Stu said. “She’s a schoolteacher at Meadow Pond. She’s a speech pathologist, works with autistic kids, I think. But she has nothing to do with what happened to Deb, I’m telling you that right now. I know people talk about her, say things, but she’s a teacher, a mother, a good normal woman. She wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

“Thanks,” Larry said. “This has been enormously helpful.”

“What should I do now?” Stu asked. “Should I call Mark again? I feel awful. The poor guy’s probably a fuckin’ mess. And his kids? Jesus.”

“Do whatever you feel comfortable doing as a friend,” Larry said. “But I don’t think you should tell him that you and I spoke—for more than one reason, if you get my drift.”

When he ended the call with Stu, Larry didn’t waste any time. He coordinated with his people over at the John Jay High School parking lot and informed them that Detective Piretti and the Westchester Country Police were taking over the investigation, and then went down the hallway to Sam Allen’s office. Sam handled communications issues for the Bedford Police and Larry asked Sam to set up a press conference as soon as possible. There already had been a couple of reporters by the precinct and Larry assumed there were more in the area, or certainly would be more as the story continued to spread.

Although Larry was involved in getting the investigation underway, something—some underlying anxiety—was gnawing at him. For a while he wasn’t sure what was causing it then it hit that, of course, it had to do with the conversation with Stu. He’d gotten some great information, but it was always hard for Larry to not get insecure when Stu made innuendos about women. He knew that Stu was still having sex with his wife and, though Stu claimed that he didn’t enjoy it, how did Larry know if this was true or not? Larry wished this didn’t matter to him, but it did, and it reminded him of how fucked up the situation was. Larry had been tormented by the relationship since, well, pretty much since the relationship had started. Sometimes it seemed as if he couldn’t go five minutes without replaying conversations they’d had or trying to analyze Stu’s behavior. Was Stu really into him or was he just experimenting, having a midlife crisis? How could they be happy and together without hurting people around them and ruining their lives? Larry had once gotten a fortune cookie that had read, “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking,” and unfortunately that pretty much summed up his biggest fears about his relationship with Stu.

But Larry did his best to put Stu out of his mind and stay focused. The longer Deborah Berman remained missing, the more serious this case was going to become. Because of the situation—an affluent woman, a mom disappearing—this had potential to blow up; it was already getting more media attention than any case Larry had worked on in a long time, maybe ever, and Nick had been right—the next few hours could be key to the whole investigation.

On his way out to talk to Karen, Larry held a mini press conference in front of the precinct. There were several reporters and TV crews, including NBC and CBS. After a general statement about the case and the status of the investigation—providing information about the time Deborah Berman was last seen on Saturday evening and giving a description of her SUV that had been found at the John Jay High School parking lot—he took questions.

“What about Karen Daily?” the young male reporter from NBC asked. “Would you characterize her as a person of interest in the case?”

“The investigation is just underway, and we aren’t focused on any one individual at this time,” Larry said.

“But you do consider Karen Daily a suspect?” the reporter persisted.

“There aren’t any suspects,” Larry said. “Our focus is on finding Deborah Berman.”

“But you’ve spoken to Karen Daily?”

“We’re speaking to everyone who may have a connection to the case and Ms. Daily is one of them, yes.”

A female reporter asked, “Can you tell us about the incident that took place between Karen Daily and Deborah Berman on Saturday afternoon at the Oak Ridge Country Club?”

“I can’t really comment on that at this time,” he said.

“Are you aware of any specific threats that Karen made to Deborah?” another reporter asked.

“Again,” Larry said, “I can’t comment on that, and I want to stress that the investigation is fluid and ongoing, and we haven’t reached any conclusions at this time. Our focus is on following up leads related to the whereabouts of Deborah Berman.”

“Was Karen Daily having a relationship with Mark Berman?” the NBC reporter asked.

“I’ll say it again,” Larry said. “We’re looking at multiple scenarios. We don’t know what’s relevant and what isn’t at this time.”

“Is it true that during their argument Karen Daily called Deborah Berman the C-word?’” the CBS reporter asked.

“I can’t take any more questions at this time,” Larry said. “But we’re asking that if anyone has seen Deborah Berman, or been in contact with her, that they contact the police immediately. Thank you very much.”

As Larry headed to his car, the reporters shouted more questions, mostly about Karen. Larry wasn’t surprised that the media was so focused on her—a speech pathologist involved in a missing persons case was certainly a provocative story. But that was all it was at this point—a story. It was way too early to speculate.

Driving away, Larry was thinking about Stu again—how hard it was to hear his voice without seeing him—and then what Stu had said, about how Karen definitely didn’t have anything to do with Deborah’s disappearance. While Larry trusted Stu’s opinion, in cases like these you always had to throw opinions out. During his time as a cop Larry had learned two things—you never know who’s lying to you, and anyone is capable of anything.