The Happy Birthday Murder Page 9

  It took a while to steer her to the subject, but when we did she remembered the search for Darby and a lot of details that impressed Betty.

  “Our kids were young then,” she said. “My father joined the search party right away. They had a skirmisher line—you know how they walk in a line touching fingers? I don’t think he came home till almost morning.”

  “Do you know where they started from?”

  “Where the boy was last seen, southwest of here. My husband couldn’t join the search because he was out of town when it happened, but I went into the woods back there,” she pointed toward the rear of the house, “and did some looking myself. I never saw any trace of him.”

  “Do you know who found him?” I asked.

  “That was old Mr. Dailey. He’s gone now. He was out with a whole lot of men and he sighted the boy first. At least that’s what they said.” She turned to Betty. “This must be very painful for you.”

  “I need to find the truth,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. Just keep talking.”

  “What can I tell you?”

  “We think Darby may have stopped at a house in the days before he was found.”

  “I don’t think so,” Michelle said. “Everyone knew he was missing. There were flyers all over town, on the school bulletin board; they talked about it at church. I even saw you on television,” she said to Betty. “Why would anyone take him in and then not call the police?”

  “We aren’t sure,” I said. “I thought maybe someone you know might have let something slip over the years.”

  She shook her head.

  “Were there any empty houses or barns in the area at that time?”

  “There are lots of empty barns and some empty houses. I’m sure the police checked them all out. They really worked very hard to find him.”

  “What about the people next door?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t remember exactly, but I know they usually go away around Labor Day for a few weeks. That happened in September, didn’t it?”

  Betty nodded.

  “They were probably away. They’re a couple with grown children now. He does some computer work and he’s been working out of the house for a long time, from before when it became the thing to do. She does some work at the hospital, in the accounting department, I think.”

  “Are you friends?”

  “We’ve known each other a long time and we get together, but we’re not close friends.”

  “And you think they weren’t home when Darby disappeared.” I made a note in my book.

  “It’s hard to tell. They often drive up the road that way.” She pointed toward the house next door. “We usually go the other way. So if they don’t pass my house, I don’t know if they’re home or not. I don’t really see their house through the trees. And frankly, there’s no way they would take in a boy like your son and then just let him go. They’re good people.”

  I asked if she knew anyone named Filmore and she said she didn’t. “Wasn’t there a president with that name?”

  “With two ls. This one has only one.”

  “Sorry.”

  We left a little after that. The couple next up the road were Dave and Frannie Gallagher and we drove over to see if they had anything to contribute. The door was opened by a tall man in black corduroy pants, a gray knit shirt, and a black sweater over it. He called his wife, who came into the living room and greeted us.

  “I don’t have much time,” she said. “I’m due at work.”

  “Just a few questions, Mrs. Gallagher.” I explained quickly what our mission was and asked if she remembered what had happened.

  “We were away,” her husband said. “When we came back, we heard about it, but it was all over.”

  “Do you leave your house locked when you’re gone?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” his wife said. “Always. We even have lights that go on and off. Dave jokes that it’s to keep the squirrels happy, but I like to think it’s a kind of security.”

  “Does anyone ever look into your house when you’re away?” Betty asked.

  “Only if we’re gone a month or more, and that doesn’t happen very often.”

  “Have you ever known a Lawrence Filmore? Larry Filmore and his wife, Laura?” I asked.

  They looked at each other. “Never heard the name,” Dave said.

  “Me, neither.” Frannie looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta run. I’m on afternoons this week.”

  We were still wearing our coats. Frannie put hers on, grabbed her purse, gave her husband a quick kiss, and the three of us went outside.

  “Nice to meet you!” she called, taking off for her car, which was in the driveway next to Betty’s. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  —

  We went into town and had lunch, taking our maps and notes into the coffee shop with us.

  “It’s very discouraging,” Betty said. “Not that I had any reason to think we’d find something new.”

  “Don’t be discouraged. We’re just starting. We may stumble on information and not be aware that it’s relevant right away. But my impression of the three families we’ve talked to is that they’re not suspects. They didn’t cringe when I mentioned the name Filmore. Somewhere along the way, someone may.”

  “You’re right. I’ll have to watch their faces when you ask the question. But from what I’ve seen, we can scratch these three houses from the list. One helped in the search, one doesn’t seem likely, and the third was out of town.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Maybe they were out of town.”

  “What an awful business this is,” Betty said sadly. “You have to keep thinking that people may be lying to you.”

  “The trick is to figure out which one.”

  Betty opened a map and folded it. “Want to pick the next place we look?”

  “Let’s just take whatever is closest to where we are now. And before we do that, do you remember where that phone booth was that the man who called you used?”

  “It’s across the street. We can walk by it on the way to the car. How do you plan to find out whether the Gallaghers were really out of town during that time period?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “If they didn’t have children in the schools, it’s likely to be difficult. It’s so long ago at this point that I wouldn’t expect the post office to have a record of holding their mail or of the newspaper a suspension of delivery. I’ll think about it.”

  “They were probably gone,” Betty said. “Michelle Franklin is the one who first suggested it. If it’s something they do every year—”

  “You’re right. It would stand to reason that they did it that year, too.”

  “OK. I’m done with my coffee. Are we ready to go?”

  “Absolutely.”

  We crossed the street and went down the block to where a phone box stood. Beside it was a pole that carried electric wires.

  “The flyer was just about here,” Betty said, pointing to a spot about eye-high. “I seem to recall they were about six by nine inches with a picture of Darby taking up the top half. The word lost was in heavy print, I think above the picture.”

  “So he read it as he walked down the street and then just stepped over to the phone.”

  “Or he could have seen it on that pole across the street and come over here to the phone.” She pointed to another pole, almost exactly opposite where we stood.

  “OK,” I said. “It’s reasonable to think that’s what happened.”

  “Ready to move on?”

  “Ready.”

  11

  We drove to some houses to the north of where Darby had disappeared. The first one had been sold, bought, sold, and bought again in the intervening years. The current owner had no idea who the owner had been twelve years ago and didn’t even know for certain where the most recent former owner now lived. Down the road was a larger house with no one home. I could sense Bett
y’s disappointment. But the third house yielded a talkative woman who remembered the incident and had been at home the whole time.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Delia Farragut said. “It was all over the news. My son, who lives a mile or so from here, was in the search party. It was your son it happened to?” She looked at Betty.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “You poor dear. I am so sorry. What is it you ladies are trying to find out all these years later?”

  I explained and she nodded, leaned back in her rocking chair, and said, “I see. But I don’t have a clue who would do such a thing. And why? You think maybe he was kidnapped?”

  “Not kidnapped. We think maybe someone took advantage of a situation.”

  “I see, yes. Took advantage. People do that, don’t they? Did you pay someone money?”

  “No,” Betty said. “We’re just trying to find out what happened.”

  “The people two houses down that way, did you know them?” I asked.

  “The Criders? I knew them. Moved out a long time ago.”

  “How long?”

  “That house was up for sale for almost a year. They thought it was worth a whole lot more than it was and they wouldn’t come down. When they did, they sold it pretty quick and moved out even quicker.”

  I knew we could check the date of sale at the town hall, but I asked, “Do you remember when they moved?”

  “They sold it just before Labor Day to a family that had two children that they wanted to put in the schools here. They didn’t quite make it for the start of the school year, but they closed sometime in September, maybe the last day, maybe a week before.”

  “What year was that?”

  She looked a little puzzled. “The year we were talking about, whatever it was, the year the boy disappeared.”

  “You’re sure of that?” I said.

  “Sure I’m sure. I remember the night they came over to say they had a bona fide offer on the house. They were so happy, you’d think they’d won the lottery. They started packing the next day.”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  “Somewhere warm. They’d had another house for a long while, Florida maybe. The Carolinas.” She looked thoughtful. “Could even have been Arizona. I wrote it down, sent them a Christmas card for a couple of years, then didn’t bother when they stopped. You know how it is? They tell you to come and visit and then they don’t really invite you.”

  “Could you find the address?” I asked.

  “If you pushed me, I guess I could.” She looked at both of us, gave us a grin, and got up. She was in the kitchen for several minutes, and when she came back she had a piece of paper with her. “Found it in the old, falling-apart address book that I’ve never had the heart to throw away. You never know when you’ll need it, like now, right?”

  “Thanks so much for looking,” Betty said.

  “It’s Florida after all, West Palm Beach. Does that ring a bell?”

  “I’ve heard of it,” I said.

  “You gonna call them?”

  “I may. What can you tell me about the people right next door?”

  “The Pasternaks? Nice people, good neighbors.”

  “How long have they lived there?”

  “Must be twenty years now.”

  “Were they here when Darby was missing?”

  “Must have been if they’ve lived there twenty years.”

  “They’re not home,” I explained. “That’s why I’m asking.”

  “They’re working. They both work.”

  She didn’t seem to want to say any more, so I asked about the next house along the road.

  “Down that way? That’s the Wilsons. I don’t know them too well. They built that house maybe ten years ago.”

  “So you don’t think they were here when Darby was lost?”

  She thought about it. “Maybe they were building the house then, but I don’t think so. I think they moved in later. Cleared a whole lot of trees to build that house.” She seemed sad at the thought. “I can give you their number if you’d like. Harry and Diane.” She gave me the number from memory. “She might be home now, but he won’t. You can give ’em a try.”

  “Mrs. Farragut, did you ever know anyone named Filmore? Larry and Laura Filmore?”

  “Don’t think so. You think they live around here?”

  “No, I was just wondering.”

  “Sorry.”

  Betty and I got up and we both thanked her. She told us to come back soon, but I took it the way she took the invitation to Florida, a pleasant way to say good-bye.

  We sat in the car for a few minutes while I made some notes and clipped the phone numbers to my page.

  “Did we learn anything?” Betty asked.

  “I’ll call Florida tonight and see if the Criders are still at this number. There’s something a little strange about their moving out right after Darby died, but life is full of coincidences.”

  “Especially if they’d had the house on the market for such a long time and they had another one ready to go to.”

  “Right.” I looked at the next name on the page. “Are you ready to try the Wilsons?”

  “I guess we could, but it sounds as though they didn’t live there twelve years ago.”

  “Then we won’t spend much time.”

  Betty backed out of the driveway and went up the road to the next house. It was quite a beautiful house, very modern, with beautiful wood and lots of glass. I could imagine it had taken a while to build it and to clear the lot as well. There were still plenty of trees around, and I thought they must have tried hard to preserve as many as possible.

  The woman who answered the door was dressed in a black pantsuit and heels, and I had the feeling she was getting ready to go out. We talked to her for only a couple of minutes, standing in her foyer, which was lighted with a sky light two stories above us. They had bought the lot eleven years ago and moved in nine years ago and she didn’t know anything about anyone who had been lost in the woods.

  When we got back in the car I felt we’d done a day’s work. I had a child to go home to and a call to make to Florida. Betty drove us back to her house and we went inside.

  “Where do we go from here?” she asked. We were in the dining room and she laid the maps on the table.

  “There are more houses, more people to talk to. If you’d rather not join me, just give me the maps and I’ll do it myself.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I think I’m finding this very depressing. I don’t like to see you out there all by yourself, Chris.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ve been doing this for several years and I’m always alone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Then take the maps. Call me if you need information on anyone at all. There’s a list of names and addresses in there somewhere. If I can add anything, I’d be glad to.”

  I picked up the pile, glad I would be able to look at it all at my own pace.

  “You’ll call, won’t you?” Betty said.

  “Of course.”

  She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Thank you for doing this.”

  “Let’s hope we learn something.”

  —

  Jack brought home only a small amount of information about the Filmores. “There’s nothing of importance on either of them,” he said in the evening. “They’re not wanted anywhere. They have no arrest or prison records. It looks pretty dull, the way your record or mine would look.”

  “That dull?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that dull. But remember, computers only go back so far. This guy died a dozen years ago and computers don’t go back a lot more than that. So if there’s something from way back, it’d take a lot more work to find it.”

  “I wasn’t really expecting anything.”

  “But I found out about the gun that was used in the Filmore suicide.”

  “Laura said it was stolen or something.”

  “That’s true.�
�� He leafed through some pages of notes and pulled one out. “The gun was a Smith and Wesson six-shot made in 1968. Twenty-five hundred of these were bought for use by the NYPD.”

  “It was a cop’s gun?” I said.

  “Looks like it. He lost it in Harlem, Two-Six Precinct, in a bad snowstorm in ’69.”

  “He lost his gun?”

  “That’s what the Oakwood Police have. He reported it lost, got a complaint for ‘failure to safeguard a weapon,’ a trip to the department trial room, and a five-day rip. Sorry, I mean a five-day suspension of pay, a fine.” He looked at me. “You’re not supposed to lose your gun.”

  I smiled. “Gotcha.”

  “The gun was recovered in the Filmore car and it made the department and the ATF happy. Nobody likes loose ends, especially when they involve guns.”

  “So anyone could have it.”

  “And probably did. Filmore could’ve picked it up somewhere. Whoever he went to Connecticut to meet that night could’ve had it. They gave me the name of the guy that lost it.” He handed me a sheet of paper. “And I looked him up. Believe it or not, he’s still on the job after all these years. He’s a one-twenty-four man, you know, clerical duty, property clerk vouchers, gofer, down in a Brooklyn precinct.”

  “Jack, that’s great.”

  “He’s probably old and fat and slow. He works eight-to-four tours, Monday through Friday.”

  “Which makes it easy for me to drop in on him.” I looked at the name Jack had written down. “P.O. George Reilly.”

  “Thirty years ago you still had a lot of young Irish cops.”

  “I’ll try to get into the city this week. But the gun was lost for quite some time, so it could have passed through a lot of hands.”

  “And maybe it did. If it was Filmore’s, I’d like to know who he got it from.”

  “If Larry Filmore had a registered gun, it’s hard to believe he’d have an unregistered one, too.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  When Jack says something like that, he’s not talking hypothetically. It’s because he’s been involved in cases where such things have happened. But nothing that I knew gave me a clue to whether the suicide gun was Filmore’s or someone else’s.