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It didn’t take too long. Afterward Decker said, “Two things come to mind. Who is Hank Carter? And more important, why didn’t the colleges institute the walking-home policy after Yvette disappeared?”
“Can’t help you with the second question,” McAdams said. “I can look up Hank Carter when I get some Wi-Fi. Unless you want me to use my phone, but it’s always pretty slow when we leave Greenbury. It gets very rural.”
“Indeed.” Rina gazed out the window at the open road. It was all green and leafy but within a month or two, it would catch fire with the brilliance of autumn. City folk poured into the area to leaf watch.
From the backseat, McAdams said, “Interesting theory about a serial killer, Rina. All of them in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Decker said, “What did you do with the original list of missing women in the area?”
“It’s on my iPad.”
“Can you pull it up?”
“I think it’s in my e-mail, so no. As soon as I get connected, I’ll give it to you.”
Rina said, “Are you looking for other remains near where you found Pettigrew?”
“Not actively, no.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Not a bad idea,” McAdams said. “We should at least look around before the ground gets frozen over.”
It was a good point. Decker said, “Maybe I’ll ask Radar about bringing in a cadaver dog, but first let’s identify the body. If it’s Pettigrew, I’d be interested in knowing who he was meeting up with in Greenbury.”
“And you think the parents would know?”
“Perhaps his mother might. Usually, kids talk more to their mothers than their fathers.”
McAdams said, “It’s kind of a toss-up with me. My mother is nice, but she really isn’t listening to what I’m saying. My dad is listening. That’s the problem.”
Rina smiled. “If this Pettigrew was undergoing hormonal therapy, how could you keep that from your parents?”
“You could if you were estranged from them,” McAdams said.
“I suppose, although if he was that in your face when he went off to college, the parents would suspect something, right?”
Decker said, “They probably knew something but maybe they didn’t know everything. And I’d just like to point out that we’re getting a little fixated on Pettigrew’s sex change. The murder could have nothing to do with Pettigrew, the woman. It’s better if we first find out about Pettigrew, the person.”
After dropping off Rina at their son and daughter-in-law’s apartment, Decker wended his way through the neighborhoods of lower Brooklyn, relying on navigation because he sure as hell wasn’t familiar with the area. Within ten minutes, he hit the on-ramp to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, better known to natives as the VZ, crossing over the bay until he exited into Staten Island. The Pettigrews lived five minutes from the VZ in a compact, one-story brick house on a block of one-story brick houses. Daylight was almost gone, but there was enough to see the sidewalks lined with old oaks and yellow-tinged leaves although the weather was still hot and muggy. Eastern summers were one of those things that Decker had forgotten about after living in L.A. all those years. Southern California was hot but for the most part dry, and even when people complained it was muggy, it usually wasn’t all that bad.
After parking curbside, he and McAdams got out, their faces hit by a wave of wet heat as they walked to the front entrance. Someone must have been watching because the door opened before either of them knocked.
They came face-to-face with a woman in her midfifties: five nine, average build, short brown hair, dark eyes, thin lips, roman nose set into a long face. She wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and baggy jeans a tad too short for her height. There were slippers on her feet.
“Joanne Pettigrew,” she said. “Please come in.”
Decker and McAdams followed her into a tidy living room—couch, chairs, tables, and a baby grand piano that couldn’t be played because the lid was weighted down with framed pictures of family adventures. Plenty of photos of a long-haired teenager, but as he grew older, the pictures disappeared. Before Decker sat down, he introduced himself and McAdams. Both of them gave the woman their cards. She pointed to the couch. The men sat, but she didn’t. Instead she walked out of the room and came back holding a manila envelope.
“I had plenty of time to pick up the dental records.” She handed the envelope to Decker. “If they don’t match, could you please get them back to me?”
“Of course,” Decker said. “Thank you so much. I know this must be hard for you.”
She let out an exhale. “The local police have a copy so if they come across unknown bones or whatever you call them—remains, I guess—they automatically plug them into their system.” She dropped down into a chair and dry-washed her face. “What makes you think it’s Lawrence?”
Decker said, “The description we got of your son roughly matches the dimensions of the body that we found.”
“There are a lot of men who could match my son’s dimensions, Detective.”
“Of course.”
“So …” She held up her hands in a shrug. “You must be going on something else.”
Decker said, “The body had long, dark hair. The coroner also described him as having piano fingers. There were remnants of nail polish on his fingers and toes. We also found an earring. We asked around the colleges and found someone who told us the description might match Lawrence. We don’t have a whole lot to go on and we may be completely wrong. And if we are, I’m sorry to put you through all this. But I’m following the meager leads we have.”
Joanne nodded. “So you know that Lawrence went to Morse McKinley.”
“Yes,” Decker said. “He dropped out after his junior year.”
“Do you know why?”
“I heard he dropped out to get hormonal treatments.”
“So you know.” She rolled her eyes. “He went around calling himself Lorraine. The boy always had a flare for the dramatic.”
“Tell me about him.”
“I have three children. The first two were just …” She threw up her hands. “Like normal people. Lawrence was the youngest and he was always different. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my son. I won’t exactly say I was supportive of his choices, but I accepted who he was. There are men who are gay. And then there are gay men. Lawrence fit the gay men category. Everything he did revolved around showing the world his sexual identity. And if you didn’t like it, he was right there in your face. I stopped counting how many times I got a call from high school: ‘Don’t worry. No one was hurt, but Lawrence got into an altercation.’”
“It can get wearisome.”
“You’ve got that right. Lawrence kept claiming he was being bullied and that he had to defend himself. That was probably true. There were a lot of, you know, regular kids who went to his high school. We have a lot of cops and firemen and just normal guys in the community. I’m sure the school wasn’t big on sensitivity training.”
“Do you think he was bullied?” McAdams asked.
“I don’t know. But he certainly didn’t act like a bullied teenager. He wasn’t the least bit withdrawn. He did really well in school. And he had friends, Detectives. Lots of friends. Lawrence could rein in the act if he had to. For instance, he never got into fights with the neighborhood boys. They liked him even though they knew what he was.”
“The people in college who knew him described Lawrence as very bright and very friendly.”
“All true.” She looked down. “Lawrence changed drastically after puberty. He became so overt. It was embarrassing at first, but eventually my husband and I got used to it. And, yes, Lawrence was very smart. Everyone knew that. His teachers knew that. They recommended Morse McKinley to him. He was always interested in government and economics.”
“Morse McKinley would be a good fit then,” McAdams said.
“We thought it would be a terrific fit. And we hoped that maybe he’d settle down in college with more expected of him. Of course, he just went even more extreme without any family constraints.” A shrug. “I may not have understood my son—he could be challenging—but I loved him.”
“Of course you did,” Decker said. “When did you find out he was undergoing hormonal therapy?”
“He told us right away. He announced: ‘I’m dropping out of school to become a woman.’ You know what my husband said?”
“What?”
“He said, ‘There aren’t women in college?’” Joanne shook her head. “I think it deflated the shock value that he hoped he’d get. Like I said, I loved my son. I would have loved him as a daughter.” Tears moistened her eyes. “Male or female.” The tears escaped and fell down her cheek. “When he started taking hormones … it seemed to me that he was starting to find peace. He took the test for his stock brokerage license and got a job with a small firm as a woman. He started dressing like a conventional woman—clothes, makeup, the whole bit. So maybe he did find his true self.”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“He didn’t come around the house anymore—that was probably for our sake—but he did call. And we had normal conversations. He talked about work instead of his gender. It was refreshing. When he hadn’t called us in over two weeks, I got concerned.”
“Where was he living, Mrs. Pettigrew?”
“Joanne. He was living in the city, but I didn’t know where at first. Later on, after he went missing, I found out he was living in the East Village in a very nice studio apartment in a doorman building. So he must have been making money.”
“You were at his apartment?”
“Yes. When he stopped calling and wouldn’t answer his cell, I began to get very worried. I called up his work. I didn’t have the number, but I knew the name of the firm. After a couple of tries, I found the right branch. It’s when they told me he hadn’t been at work for the last two weeks. I became … that awful feeling of dread. Like his life on the fringes finally caught up with him.”
“His life on the fringes?” McAdams asked.
“Parties, alcohol, drugs, and lots of weirdos.”
“You think it was someone from his fringy life?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Do you have any names?” Decker asked.
“Not a one.” She waved it off. “Anyway, I finally got his city address from his work files and I went over to the apartment. At first, the super wouldn’t let me in. But I pleaded, and he finally opened the door.”
She stared off into space.
“His apartment was very large—superneat—he was always a neat person. There was no sign of him.”
“What about things in the apartment?” Decker asked.
“His clothes and personal items were still there.”
“Did you happen to check the refrigerator?”
“A few items—mostly water, beer, and club soda. I think Lawrence ate out a lot. I guess he could afford it. His clothes were nice—custom made to fit his body.”
“And that was the only time you ever visited his place?”
“No, there was another time afterward. The management called me to say he hadn’t paid his rent. At that point, I knew something was wrong. I told the police something was wrong. But they kept insisting that without anything to go on, they couldn’t do much. Lawrence could have disappeared on his own accord. When they found out he was undergoing a sex reassignment, they really stopped paying attention. They thought that if something terrible happened, it was because of his lifestyle. Which may be true. But that doesn’t mean you don’t investigate.”
Decker said, “You must have been frustrated.”
“Beyond frustrated. No one was listening to us.”
“What happened with his apartment?” McAdams said.
“I paid his unpaid bill for the month, but I told the apartment management I wasn’t paying anything else. I didn’t cosign the lease. I wasn’t obliged to pay them anything. After I explained the situation, the building supervisor let us in there to clean up. I boxed up Lawrence’s things …” She lowered her head. “My husband and I went through everything we could find. Every bill, every piece of correspondence, every scrap of paper. We didn’t find his phone or laptop or iPad. And the service providers wouldn’t give me access to his information because they didn’t know if Lawrence was alive or dead. He was a grown man—or grown woman. For all we knew, he could have been put in witness protection.”
“Why would you think that?” Decker said.
“Like I said, he knew a lot of counterculture people. Not that Lawrence seemed to be the type of guy to become an informant, but I really didn’t know a whole lot about his life, did I?”
“Right.”
“Besides, Lawrence bucked authority wherever, whenever. Anyway, when it was plain that he wasn’t going to suddenly show up, we hired a private eye.”
“And?”
“He talked to people—Lawrence’s old friends, his new friends, his friends on Facebook. The investigator talked to people Lawrence worked with, talked to old college friends and faculty. He charged us a lot of money. He got nowhere.”
“Did he give you the files, Mrs. Pettigrew?”
“He gave us a report. You can have it if you want. But if the body isn’t Lawrence, I’d want that back as well.”
“Of course,” McAdams said. “Could we have the PI’s name? He probably has an entire file on Lawrence—more than he included in the report.”
“His name is James Breck. He was a former New York police detective. He came highly recommended. My opinion is he was just churning up hours. But of course, I wasn’t thinking charitably about anyone at that point.”
“We’ll check him out,” Decker said. “Where is his office?”
“Somewhere in Queens. I have an address, but I don’t know if it’s current.”
“Anything you can give us will help,” McAdams said.
Decker said, “In the report, did he list the people he talked to?”
“I don’t remember. I haven’t looked at the report in a while. I did have a list of people that I thought he should talk to. If you hold on, I’ll get you the report and see what I still have in the file.”
“That would be great,” Decker said.
As soon as she left, McAdams said, “Breck is in Astoria.” He took out his cell and called him up. He reached a human voice. Surprise, surprise. “Hello, this is Detective Tyler McAdams from Greenbury Police Department in Upstate New York. I’m trying to get hold of James Breck … okay, do you have any idea how often he calls in for messages?” Tyler paused as he listened. “Could you please have him give us a call as soon as possible? It’s important … yes, thank you.” McAdams spelled his name and left both his and Decker’s cell numbers. He hung up.
“Answering service?” Decker asked.
“Yes. It’s strange to actually talk to someone. Here’s the address.” McAdams looked at his watch. It was seven in the evening. “I don’t think he’ll be in, but we could swing by and leave cards to show we’re serious.”
“Let me call Rina after we’re done here …” Decker stopped talking as Joanne Pettigrew came back into the room.
She said, “Yes, I suppose we did give James a list of all Lawrence’s friends.” She handed it to Decker along with a folder. “Tell me if you find anything interesting.”
“I’ll keep you posted.”
“Although I suppose you won’t want to be wasting your time if it’s not Lawrence.”
“I’ll be happy to look it over regardless.” Decker smiled. “Anything you’d like to ask me?”
