Mary Clark - Where Are You Now?

Tall, with the lean figure of a disciplined athlete, Nick walked with long strides, a worried frown on his forehead. Absentmindedly, he passed a hand through his short hair, which, despite his best efforts, curled when it was damp.

I should have stopped home long enough to change, he chided himself. He was wearing an open-necked checkered blue and white sport shirt, which felt too casual, even with a light blue jacket and dark blue slacks.

“This is the detectives’ squad room,” the secretary explained, as they entered a large room in which rows of desks were haphazardly clustered. Only a half dozen of them were occupied, although piles of papers and ringing telephones testified to the fact that all of the others were active workstations.

The five men and one woman who were there looked up as he crossed the room, threading his way between the desks after the secretary. He was keenly aware of being the object of sharp scrutiny. Ten to one, they all know who I am and why I’m here, and they resent me. They have me pegged as the owner of one of those raunchy bars where underage kids get drunk, he thought.

The secretary knocked on the door of a private office to the left of the squad room and, without waiting for an answer, opened it.

Captain Larry Ahearn was alone in the room. He got up from behind the desk and offered his hand to DeMarco. “Thank you for coming in so promptly,” he said briskly. “Please sit down.” He turned to the secretary. “Ask Detective Gaylor to join us.”

DeMarco took the chair nearest Ahearn’s desk. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t available last night. Early yesterday morning I flew to South Carolina to meet some friends.”

“I understand from your secretary that you flew your own private plane from Teterboro Airport,” Ahearn said.

“That’s right. And I flew back this morning. I couldn’t get an early start because of the weather down there. They had heavy storms in Charleston.”

“When did your staff notify you that Leesey Andrews, a young woman who left your club at closing time early Tuesday morning, had disappeared?”

“The call came to my cell phone about nine o’clock last night. I was out to dinner with friends and hadn’t carried it with me. Quite frankly, as a restaurant owner, I consider people who make or take calls in restaurants pretty insufferable. When I got back to the hotel at about eleven, I checked my messages. Is there any word about Ms. Andrews? Has she called her family?”

“No,” Ahearn said briefly, then looked past DeMarco. “Come in, Bob.”

Nicholas DeMarco had not heard the door open. He stood up and turned as a trim man with graying hair who looked to be in his late fifties crossed the room with a quick stride. He smiled briefly as he reached out his hand.

“Detective Gaylor,” he said, then pulled up a chair and turned it, facing Nick at a right angle to the captain’s desk.

“Mr. DeMarco,” Ahearn began, “we are very concerned that Leesey Andrews may be the victim of foul play. Your employees tell us that you were in the Woodshed at approximately ten o’clock on Monday evening and were speaking with her.”

“That’s right,” Nick answered promptly. “Because I was leaving for South Carolina, I worked late at my office at 400 Park Avenue. Then I stopped at my apartment, changed to casual clothes, and went down to the Woodshed.”

“Do you visit your club frequently?”

“I would say I drop in frequently. I no longer do, nor want to do, hands-on management. Tom Ferrazzano runs the Woodshed for me as both host and manager. And I might add he does an excellent job of it. In the ten months we’ve been operating, we’ve never had one single incident caused by an underage drinker being served or an adult being served too much for his or her own good. Our employees are thoroughly checked out before they’re hired, as are the bands we book to perform.”

“The reputation of the Woodshed is good,” Detective Gaylor agreed. “But your own employees tell us that you spent quite a bit of time talking to Leesey Andrews.”

“I saw her dancing,” Nick said promptly. “She’s a beautiful girl and a really excellent dancer. To look at her you would think she was a professional. But she also looks very young. I know her ID had been checked, but if I had to bet on it, I’d have sworn she was underage. That’s why I had one of the waiters bring her over to my table and asked to see it myself. She had just turned twenty-one.”

“She joined you at your table,” Gaylor said flatly. “You bought her a drink.”

“She had a glass of pinot grigio with me, then returned to her friends.”

“What did the two of you talk about while she was sipping that glass, Mr. DeMarco?” Captain Ahearn asked.

“The usual social-type conversation. She told me she was graduating from NYU next year and still deciding what she wanted to do. She said her father and brother were doctors but becoming a medical doctor wasn’t right for her. She said that more and more she was thinking of going for a master’s in social work but she wasn’t sure. She was going to take a year off after college and then figure out the next step.”

“Didn’t that seem to you to be a lot of personal information to impart to a stranger, Mr. DeMarco?”

Nicholas DeMarco shrugged. “Not really. Then she thanked me for the drink and went back to her friends. I would say she was at my table for less than fifteen minutes.”

“What did you do then?” Ahearn asked.

“I finished dinner and went home.”

“Where do you live?”

“My apartment is on Park Avenue and Seventy-eighth Street. However I recently bought a building in TriBeCa and have a loft apartment there. That was where I stayed Monday night.”

Nick had debated about furnishing that information to the police and decided it was wiser to put it on the table immediately.

“You have a loft in TriBeCa? None of your employees told us that.”

“I don’t share my personal investments with my employees.”

“Is there a doorman in your building in TriBeCa?”

He shook his head. “As I told you, my apartment is a loft. The building is five stories high. I own it and have bought out the leases of the tenants. The other floors are now unoccupied.”

“How far is it from your bar?”

“About seven blocks.” Nicholas DeMarco hesitated, then added, “I am very sure you must have most of this information already. I left the Woodshed shortly before eleven o’clock. I walked to the TriBeCa place and went to bed immediately. My alarm went off at five A.M. I showered, dressed, and drove to Teterboro Airport. I took off at six forty-five, and landed in Charleston at Charleston Airport. I teed off at the club at noon.”

“You did not invite Ms. Andrews to stop in for a nightcap?”

“No, I did not.” Nicholas DeMarco looked from one to the other of the detectives. “From the news reports I heard driving in from the airport, I know that Leesey’s father has posted a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward for any information leading to her whereabouts. I intend to match that sum. More than anything, I want Leesey Andrews found alive and well, primarily because it would be horrifying if anything happened to her…”

“Primarily?” Ahearn said, taken aback momentarily. “What other reason do you have to want her found?”

“My second very selfish reason is that a great deal of money has been spent buying the property on which the Woodshed is situated, renovating the premises, furnishing and staffing it. I wanted to create a safe, fun place for young people and not-so-young people to enjoy. If Leesey’s disappearance is traced to an encounter she had in my club, the media will hound us, and within six months our doors will be closed. I want you to investigate our employees, our customers, and me. But I can promise you that you’re wasting your time if you think I had anything to do with that girl’s disappearance.”