Dave Zeltserman - Bad Thoughts

“To find my husband.”

He straightened up on the sofa, letting his head nod in a knowing way. “It happens all the time,” he started.

“No, it doesn’t. Not like this, anyway. My husband’s sick. He’s got some sort of amnesia.”

“How long has he been missing?”

“Since last night.”

“Last night, huh?” Dornich rubbed his face, his thick, stubby fingers kneading into the flesh. “What makes you think he’s got amnesia?”

“Because he gets it every year,” Susan said.

Dornich wiped his handkerchief across his face and then shifted his round body forward as he attempted to broach the delicate subject. “I had a client once,” he began, “whose husband would sleepwalk every couple of months. He’d just get out of bed, hands held out in front of his face, and walk out of the house and then drive off.” He demonstrated briefly, holding out his own two arms and looking ridiculous.

“A couple of days later,” he continued, talking quickly, “he’d come back home completely disoriented, claiming he had no clue where he’d been. Well, one time the wife was worried so sick she hired me to find him.

“I found him shacked up,” he said after taking time to wipe his face. “His girlfriend would come in from Atlanta every couple of months and he’d go through his sleepwalking act. Now, maybe your husband has some sort of yearly rendezvous-”

“He doesn’t have anything of the kind,” Susan insisted, rejecting the idea flatly.

“But-”

“There are no buts here. It’s simple. My husband has amnesia and I’d like to hire you to find him. Do you want the job?”

Dornich sat with his mouth hung loosely open. He started to say something, obviously frustrated, then pushed his mouth closed, nodded and told Susan Shannon that he’d be happy to take her job.

“I’ll need some photographs,” he said. “Preferably a full shot and both sides. Also a list of all bank accounts and credit cards. And a list of his friends-”

“He’s not with any friends.”

Dornich stared straight ahead at Susie Shannon and smiled congenially. “Of course, he isn’t,” he explained. “But maybe he mentioned something to someone or-”

“He didn’t mention anything to anyone.”

“Of course, he didn’t.” Dornich forced a thin smile. He took a notepad from his overcoat pocket. “You said your husband’s a police officer. Which department-here in Cambridge?”

“Yes. He’s a detective out of the Central Square station. He’s been working mostly violent crime cases.”

“Who’s his commanding officer?”

“I don’t see how that could help you-”

“Well, it might. Maybe someone he works with knows something. It’s possible.”

“No one knows anything. If they did, Joe wouldn’t have spent last night driving around looking for him.”

“Joe?”

“Joe DiGrazia. His partner.”

“His partner did that, huh? Hell of a nice thing to do. Could you spell his name?”

Susan hesitated, then spelled it out. Dornich wrote it down and got his home phone number.

“Well, now,” he said, looking up, smiling. “Do you think you could find me those pictures?”

Susan got up. As she left the room the smile evaporated from his face, leaving it drawn, his eyes tired, glassy. He reached for the coffee and sipped it slowly. When Susan came back his smile flashed back on like a neon sign. He took the pictures from her and studied them quickly.

“Good-looking guy,” he observed pleasantly. “How old, thirty, thirty-five?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Thirty-three, huh? That’s nice. I remember the way I was at that age. Boy, you can make real stupid mistakes when you’re young, and probably even stupider mistakes when you’re that good looking. I don’t know about the last, but I do know about the first. You see, the problem is you start thinking with something other than your head.. .” He stopped himself. Actually, it was the look forming across Susan Shannon’s face that stopped him.

“But then what do I know,” he said, shrugging. “Except I’ll need a five-thousand-dollar retainer.”

She wrote the check out for him. As he took it from her, he hesitated and then asked if he should wait a couple of days before cashing it.

“The money’s there to cover it.”

“Of course it is.” He folded the check and slid it gently into his inside overcoat pocket. “I’m planning on handling this job myself. I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything.”

As he started to get up to leave Susan Shannon stopped him. “There’s something else,” she said. “I’d like you to do something else.”

Dornich looked up at her.

“There’s a reason my husband’s acting like this.” She looked away from the detective. “I think it’s something from his childhood. I’d like you to find out what it is.”

She told him the little she knew about Shannon’s childhood, that both his parents were dead and that he had grown up in California.

“You never met any of his family?”

“No. They had died before we met. And he won’t talk about his family.”

“So you think someone abused him as a kid? Maybe one of his parents? Or another family member?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“And you don’t know what part of California he’s from? Or when he left?”

“No, I don’t.” A defensiveness edged into her voice. “He won’t talk about it.”

Dornich sighed heavily. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll see what I can find. Some of the stuff like where he went to high school should be on record at his department. We’ll see where it leads.”

He let her escort him to the front door. Once outside a gurgling noise seeped from his lips. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to laugh. He felt sorry for Susan Shannon, but it was just too damn funny.

Hell of a partner that woman’s husband had. Hell of a guy, out the whole goddamn night for him.

Dornich didn’t doubt it a bit, at least the part about being up all night for his partner’s sake. The two of them probably spent it shacked up with a couple of hookers and a couple of grams of coke. As he wanted to tell the lady, he’d seen it a hundred times before.

As he walked to his car he gave the matter of how to approach DiGrazia some thought. There were a couple ways to play it out. He could wait until evening and then follow DiGrazia. Odds were their little party was going to last a few more days. The problem with that, though, was he didn’t like the idea of tailing a cop. It’s as good a way as any to get shot at. So it came down to either leveling with DiGrazia or playing innocent. Either way, word would get to the lady’s husband to zip his pants back up and head home. Pretty soon he’d be recovering from his amnesia. Dornich had little doubt about that.

The other part, though, about digging into the guy’s childhood sounded like a wild-goose chase. Well, first things first. He had a party to crash.

“Oh God-”

Linda Cassen turned quickly behind her. She felt stupid as soon as she did. There was no one following her, no one lurking in the shadows. She was standing in broad daylight in the middle of Newbury Street which was probably the safest spot in the city. The only thing she had to worry about was being gouged in the pocketbook by one of the high-priced boutiques lining the street.

Still, she couldn’t help feeling shaken. The fear was irrational but it was there and it was intense. A cold sweat started down her back. She turned and entered a gourmet coffee shop. Once inside she stood by the door and stared out at the street. People walked past, but no one paid any attention to her. No one looked in her direction. No one was following her. There was no bogeyman out there after her.