Marisha Pessl - Night Film

Now I didn’t know what I believed. It was logical I’d simply been exposed to too many Mad Seeds. And anyway, what was Cordova — or Popcorn — doing, keeping that greenhouse thriving with enough toxic plants to wipe out an army?

The more missing-persons cases I read, the more those mysteries seemed to fray into a million threads. Still, I jotted down the various details, vague developments mentioned by local newspapers and missing-person blogs. Then, my mind overloaded, I tore myself away from the computer — deciding to head uptown to Klavierhaus.

If Ashley had frequented the shop as a child, as Hopper had told us, I wanted to talk to someone who knew her from those early days. The manager we’d spoken to, Peter Schmid, might be helpful finding such a person.

When I arrived, however, I was shocked to learn something odd had happened — or else, it wasn’t odd at all, given what I’d been researching the past three days.

Peter Schmid was gone.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He quit,” said the young man behind the Klavierhaus counter.

“When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Where did he go?”

“No clue. It was pretty sudden. Mr. Reisinger, our owner, was pissed ’cuz we’re short-staffed now. I’m just an intern. But Peter had been having some problems, so.”

“Do you have his phone number?”

The kid looked it up and I dialed it, heading out of the shop — the Fazioli piano that Ashley had played still in the window.

I stopped on the sidewalk in disbelief. A recording announced that the number had been disconnected.

I didn’t know what it meant — only that something was wrong.

I hailed a cab, and minutes later was striding into the lobby of The Campanile — Marlowe Hughes’s building. I recognized the chubby-faced doorman as the second one who’d been on duty the day I’d approached Harold.

“I’m looking for Harold,” I said, stepping toward him.

“He doesn’t work here anymore. Got a brand-new gig on Fifth. Some swank white-glove building—”

“ Which one? I need the address.”

“He didn’t say.”

“I need to go upstairs to see Marlowe.” I handed him my business card. “I’m a friend of Olivia Endicott’s.”

“Marlowe?”

“Marlowe Hughes. Apartment 1102.”

He looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, Miss Hughes isn’t exactly … home. ”

“Where is she?”

“I can’t discuss the particulars.”

Alarm flooding through me, I handed the man a hundred bucks, which he cheerfully pocketed.

“They packed her off to rehab,” he said quietly. “She had an incident. But she’s all right.”

“Could you still let me into her apartment?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, no. No one’s been up there since—”

“I know Olivia’s out of the country, but call her assistant. She’ll authorize it.”

He looked doubtful, but waited patiently while I found the number.

“Yeah, hi,” he said into the phone after I dialed for him. “This is The Campanile. I got a gentleman here.” He squinted down at my business card. “Scott McGrath.” He went on to explain the situation, falling silent.

And then, abruptly, his face — so amiable before — sobered. He glanced at me, visibly startled, then hung up without a word. He stood up, coming around the side of the desk, his arm out to escort me toward the door.

“You’re gonna have to be on your way, mister.”

“Just tell me what she said.”

“If you harass any of the people here again, I’m gonna call the cops. You don’t have any connection to Olivia Endicott.”

Outside, I turned back — speechless — but he was standing staunchly in the door, glaring at me.

I headed swiftly down the sidewalk. When I reached the corner, I dialed Olivia’s assistant’s number myself. She picked up immediately.

“This is Scott McGrath. What the hell just happened?”

“I beg your pardon, sir? I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Cut the bullshit. What’d you tell the doorman?”

She said nothing, seemingly deciding whether or not to feign ignorance. Then, in a cold, clipped voice:

“Mrs. du Pont would prefer it if you did not contact her or any member of her family.”

“Mrs. du Pont and I are working together.”

“Not anymore. She wants no further connection to your activities.”

I hung up, seething, and phoned The Campanile’s management company to get Harold’s home phone number.

It was disconnected.

I returned to Perry Street and systematically tried contacting every witness we’d encountered during the investigation.

Iona, the bachelor party entertainer who’d tipped us off to Ashley heading to Oubliette — I called the number on her business card and was informed by the automated recording that her voicemail box was full.

This didn’t change, not even after four days.

I dialed Morgan Devold. I no longer had the page torn out of the phone book — that had been stolen when my office was broken into — but found it after calling directory assistance for Livingston Manor, New York.

There was only a busy signal. I tried the number every hour for the next six hours. It remained busy.

After learning from the assistant director of housekeeping at the Waldorf Towers that Guadalupe Sanchez was no longer an employee at the hotel, I decided to track down the strawberry-haired young nurse who’d run out in front of our car at Briarwood. I remembered her name had been Genevieve Wilson; Morgan Devold had mentioned it.

“Genevieve Wilson was a student nurse in our central administration for three months,” a man in the nursing department explained.

“Can I speak to her?”

“Her last day was November third.”

That was more than three weeks ago.

“Is there a number where I can reach her? A home address?”

“That’s not available.”

Was this somehow my doing? Had I lost my mind? The primary symptom of madness was near-constant amazement at the world and a suspicion of all people from strangers to family and friends. I had both symptoms in spades. Why wouldn’t I? Every witness, every stranger and bystander who’d encountered Ashley, was extinct now. They’d silently receded like a fog I hadn’t noticed was lifting until it was gone. It was what had actually happened to my anonymous caller, John, years ago.

Or did I have it all wrong? Had these people run for their lives, going missing, absconding to the outer reaches of the world — like Rachel Dempsey and the countless other actors who’d worked and lived with Cordova — because they were fleeing something? Were they afraid of him, Cordova, because they’d talked to me about his daughter? With my notes stolen, there was no record of what they’d told me about Ashley. Their testimony now existed solely in my head — and Hopper’s and Nora’s.

But even they were gone now.

Then, it existed solely in my head.

Filled with sudden worry that Nora and Hopper might have vanished in the same way as the others, I called both of them, leaving messages to call me back. I then phoned Cynthia, suddenly wanting to hear Sam’s voice, irrationally worried she, too, was gone. It went to voicemail. I left a terse message, threw on my coat, and left the apartment.

In the fading daylight, Morgan Devold’s driveway looked so different from the night the three of us drove up here, I hardly recognized it. I pulled over to the shoulder, cut the engine, and climbed out.