One of the downed thugs began to groan, and I said, "We'd better get
the paddy wagon around to pick these boys up. You'll prefer charges,
Joey?"
"Damn right I will! I didn't let myself get slugged for nothing!"
It was nearly forty-five minutes later that the Duke and I found
ourselves in my apartment again. The ice in our drinks had melted, so
I dumped them and prepared fresh ones. The Duke took his, drained half
of it in three fast swallows, and said: "Ahhhhhh! I needed that."
We heard a key in the door, and His Grace looked at me.
"That's my son," I said. "Back from his date."
Steve came in looking happy. "You still awake, Dad? A cop ought to get
his sleep. Good morning, Your Grace. Both of you look sleepy."
Stevie didn't. He'd danced with Mary Ellen until four, and he still
looked as though he could walk five miles without tiring. Me, I felt
about as full of snap as a soda cracker in a Turkish bath. The three
of us talked for maybe ten minutes, and then we hit the hay.
* * * * *
Three and a half hours of sleep isn't enough for anybody, but it was
all we could afford to take. By eight-thirty, the Duke and I were in
my office, sloshing down black coffee, and, half an hour after that,
we were cruising up Amsterdam Avenue on the second day of our hunt for
Mr. Lawrence Nestor.
Since we were now reasonably sure that our man was in the area, I
ordered the next phase of the search into operation. There were squads
of men making a house-to-house canvass of every hotel, apartment
house, and rooming house in the area--and there are thousands of them.
A flying squad took care of the hotels first; they were the most
likely. Since we knew exactly what day Nestor had arrived, we narrowed
our search down to the records for that day. Nestor might not use his
own name; of course, but the photograph and description ought to help.
And, since Nestor didn't have a job, his irregular schedule and his
drinking habits might make him stand out, though there were plenty of
places where those traits would simply make him one of the boys. It
still looked like a long, hard search.
And then we got our break.
At 9:17 am, Lieutenant Holmquist's voice snapped over my car phone:
"Inspector Royall; Holmquist here. Child missing in Riverside Park.
Officer Ramirez just called in from 111th and Riverside."
"Got it!"
I cut left and gunned the car eastward. I hit a green light at
Broadway, so I didn't need to use the siren. Within two minutes, we
had pulled up beside the curb where an officer was standing with a
woman in tears. The Duke and I got out of the car.
We walked over to her calmly, although neither one of us felt very
calm. There's no point in disturbing an already excited mother--or
aunt or whatever she was.
The officer threw me a salute. I returned it and said to the sobbing
woman, "Now, just be calm, ma'am. Tell us what happened."
It all came out in a torrent. She'd been sitting on one of the
benches, reading a newspaper, and she'd looked around and little
Shirley was gone. Yes, Shirley was her daughter. How old? Seven and a
half. How long ago was this? Fifteen minutes, maybe. She hadn't been
worried at first; she'd walked up and down, calling the girl's name,
but hadn't gotten any answer. Then she saw the policeman, and ...
and--
And she broke down into tears again.
It was the same thing that had happened a few days before. I had
already ordered extra men put on the Riverside and Central Park
details, but a cop can't be everywhere at once.
"I've got the rest of the boys beating the brush between here and the
river," Officer Ramirez said. "She might have gone down one of the
paths on the other side of the wall."
"She wouldn't go too near the river," the woman sobbed. "I just know
she wouldn't." She sounded as though she were trying to convince
herself and failing miserably.
Nobody said anything about Nestor; the poor woman was bad enough off
without adding more horror to the pictures she was conjuring up in her
mind.
"We'll find her," I said soothingly, "don't you worry about that.
You're pretty upset. We'll have the police doctor look you over and
maybe give you a tranquilizer or something to make you feel better."
No point in telling her that the doctor might be needed for a more
serious case. "Keep an eye on her till the doctor comes, Ramirez.
Meanwhile, we'll look around for the little girl."
* * * * *
I walked over to the wall and looked down. I could see uniformed
police walking around, covering the ground carefully.
Riverside Park runs along the eastern edge of Manhattan Island,
between Riverside Drive and the Hudson River, from 72nd Street on the
south to 129th Street on the north. In the area where we were, there
is a flat, level, grassy area about a block wide, where there are
walks and benches to sit on. The eastern boundary of this area is
marked by a retaining wall that runs parallel with the river. Beyond
the wall, the ground slopes down sharply to the Hudson River, going
under the elevated East Side Highway which carries express traffic up
and down the island. The retaining wall is cut through at intervals,
and winding steps go down the steep slope. There are bushes and trees
all over down there.
I thought for a minute, then said, "Suppose it was Nestor. How did he
get her away? It's a cinch he didn't just scoop her up in broad
daylight and go trotting off with her under his arm."
"Precisely what I was thinking," the Duke agreed. "There was no scream
or disturbance of that kind. Could he have lured her away, do you
think?"
"Possible, but not likely. Little girls in New York are warned about
that sort of thing from the time they're in diapers. If she were five
years old, it might be more probable, but little girls who are
approaching eight are pretty wise little girls."
"It follows, then, that she went somewhere of her own accord and he
followed her. D'you agree?"
"That sounds most reasonable," I said. "The next question is: Where?"
"Yes. And why didn't she tell her mother where she was going?"
I gave him a sour grin. "Elementary, my dear Duke. Because her mother
had forbidden her to go there. And, from the way she was talking, I
gather the mother had expressly directed her to stay away from the
river." I looked back over the retaining wall again. "But it just
doesn't sound right, does it? Surely someone would have seen any sort
of attack like that. Of course, it's possible that she _did_ fall in
the river, and that this case doesn't have anything to do with Nestor
at all, but--"
"It doesn't feel that way to me, either," said the Duke.
"Let's go talk to the mother again," I said. "There are plenty of men
down there now; they don't need us."
The woman, Mrs. Ebbermann, had calmed down a little. The police
surgeon had given her a tranquilizer with a hypogun, Officer Ramirez
was getting everything down in his notebook, and his belt recorder was
running.
"No," she was saying, "I'm sure she didn't go home. That's the first
place I looked after she didn't answer when I called. We live down the
block there. I thought she might have gone home to go to the bathroom
or something--but I'm sure she would have told me." She choked a
little. "Oh, Shirley, baby! Where are you? Where _are_ you?"
I started to ask her a question, but she suddenly said: "Shirley,
baby, next time, I promise, you can bring your water gun with you to
the park, if you'll just come back to Mommie now! Please, Shirley,
baby! Please!"