A Matter of Chance Read online

  From the beginning, I knew Vinni was a different child. She had a strong presence that made me aware when she was near, even before I could see her.

  “Mommy, watch me,” Vinni used to say.

  When I looked up from stirring a pot of chicken soup that I made one winter Saturday, Vinni was staring up at me with a napkin floating on her head. “Doesn’t this make me look like a fairy?” Vinni danced around me in a circle, her eyes looking upward like safety nets ready to catch the floating napkin should it dare to slip. Once, she told me she was practicing being “invisible.”

  “How do you do that?” I asked.

  “I tiptoe.” With a scholar’s concentration, Vinni stepped one foot in front of the other. She kept her gaze locked on the tile floor beneath her and held her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Can you still see me?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “But you look smaller.”

  Vinni smiled up at me. “That’s how it starts,” she said. “I get smaller until I’m invisible.”

  STEVE FLEW IN and stayed with me in the rental in the guest bedroom. We walked around like zombies, not touching each other. We ate standing up, each of us looking out an open window, as if Vinni might run by and we would reach out and grab her. I avoided Steve’s stares as much as I could. At first, he bombarded me with questions: Why had I left Vinni alone? How long had I been gone? What did I know about Hilda and Rudy?

  ONE EVENING, THEY had invited us to a dinner served on blue plates at their home. Over sauerbraten and potato dumplings, Rudy reminisced about his days as a student and then as a professor at Heidelberg University in Germany.

  “This is where I met my sweet Hilda,” he said. He closed his eyes for a moment—long enough for Vinni to ask, “What was she doing there?”

  “Vinni, honey,” I interrupted.

  “Ah, it is all right.” Rudy sat up a little taller in the chair and twisted his body in Vinni’s direction. She sat on the floor, with her arms wrapped around the tops of her knees.

  “I was a professor in the philosophy department. I like ideas. I like to make people think about what they believe.” Rudy leaned in closer to Vinni. Hilda’s eyes fixed on her husband. She listened to him speak and nodded in agreement.

  “Hilda was just a girl,” he said.

  “I was twenty-one!” she exclaimed.

  “Just a girl.”

  Hilda clasped her hands with excitement, fingers tip to tip in what resembled a jubilant prayer.

  “I was at the Hackteufel café with my colleagues when I saw Hilda with her friends across the room. We used to go there, the young professors, and talk philosophy. We smoked and drank coffee and beer.”

  Vinni was insistent. “And did you like her?”

  Rudy laughed. “Ah, yes, my little girl—I liked her from the start.”

  “Why did you leave Germany?” I asked.

  Hilda set down on the table a pedestal cake dish filled with vanilla iced strudel. “Come and taste,” she said. “I had a doctor’s appointment today in New York and stopped off at my favorite bakery.” Hilda looked over at Rudy. Their eyes locked as she smiled without parting her lips. Hilda tilted her head.

  So this is what it could be like, I thought. A man and a woman loving each other after all this time. Sending messages without words.

  Rudy continued. “The opportunity to come to the United States to head the philosophy department at Columbia University . . . well, this, I couldn’t pass up. Twenty-three years ago.” Rudy sighed as he placed the coffeepot on an iron trivet on the table. Hilda touched his wrist with the tips of her fingers but then withdrew them onto her lap.

  “And you stayed all these years? Didn’t you miss Heidelberg?” I asked.

  Hilda surprised me by answering before Rudy.

  “I miss Rodenbach more than Heidelberg. I grew up on a farm with lots of pigs.” Hilda leaned forward and fixed her eyes on my only child.

  “And, oh, the smell in the summer was so strong—those pigs! But most of all I miss the smell of the land,” she said. Her long hair, twisted into a graying bun, sat on the top of her head like a cupcake. Curly wisps framed her face. She touched her temple as she remembered.

  After dinner, Hilda asked Vinni direct questions.

  “Tell us, what is your favorite thing to do?”

  “Be with Mommy,” Vinni said.

  I knew Vinni liked to be with me. It’s natural. Children are supposed to like their mothers, aren’t they? Mothers are supposed to hold their hands when they’re afraid.

  I’m the one who grew up unnatural. Vinni knew nothing about this. There was nothing for me to hold on to when I was afraid. Instead, I stood still. My arms hung.

  “Mommy works a lot, and so this is our special summer.”

  “Special?” Hilda asked.

  “We have breakfast on the beach. Early. Mommy reads and writes.”

  “And tries to paint,” I added, with a nervous laugh. I picked at the overgrown cuticle on my left index finger. The summer sky began to darken, making way for an early-evening shower.

  “When she’s busy, I read. Mostly books for school. I like to find out about people.”

  “What kind of people, dear?” Hilda asked.

  Vinni’s face creased into a bright smile. No wonder she was the center of attention.

  “The kind of people who get into trouble and then have to find a way out.”

  “I believe we have a budding philosopher in our midst!” Rudy said.

  Hilda turned toward me. “Your work . . . it keeps you away from your child?”

  Her voice had a sternness I hadn’t noticed before. I continued to pick at my finger without looking at it. For a moment, I wanted to be gone from there. I needed air.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer without stuttering. My neighbor Evelyn was always inviting me to come down to the studio to paint with her. It simply wasn’t possible to do what I had done before Vinni was born. I was uncomfortable with any answer I could think to give. I hesitated, realizing I had dug too hard on the crusty cuticle, until it bled.

  Hilda’s gaze hardened, but then she said, “Listen to me. I sound like an old woman. Let’s have dessert.”

  Tenderness returned to her round face as quickly as it had disappeared.

  THREE

  THE FIRST NIGHT IS NOT THE WORST WHEN SOMETHING bad happens. Every night that follows is the worst.

  The FBI took over the police station in Spring Haven. I could see from the beginning how John D’Orfini searched for solid footing as the men in suits claimed his space. Two from the team had been assigned to stay at the rental house with Steve and me. In the beginning, they stayed there for hours and hours. But that was in the beginning, when I wondered if I was supposed to prepare and serve coffee in ceramic mugs or Styrofoam cups for the investigating agents. Were there rules written for mothers of missing daughters?

  Everything they asked, I did. I asked questions. I gave answers. I appeared on the local television news. I helped at the checkpoints with the rest of the fourteen full-time police officers called in to search for a missing child. We held up Vinni’s photo to drivers, passengers, and curious children in seat belts who strained their necks forward to see the picture.

  I did what I was told to do.

  You would not have done more than I.

  In the beginning, things appeared to happen. Steve set up two websites and hired a young student from Rutgers University Law School who was on summer break to manage them. I let him take the lead. I knew the rhythm. John D’Orfini instigated the reverse 911, something I had never heard of, that moved the investigation forward. Officers on duty and those called in on their vacation day made calls alerting the community to a missing child.

  “Vinni. Full name Lavinia Stewart. Eight-year-old female. Dark hair. Last seen wearing a yellow two-piece bathing suit with blue hooded sweatshirt. Could be traveling with an older woman.” Snippets of conversation drifted in and out, as I was part of the call team. When the
detective pulled up a seat for me next to him, I was aware of my own sound and how it sat inside my chest. Flat, uncurled, like broken sticks.

  SIX DAYS AFTER Vinni disappeared, Steve and I listened to John D’Orfini explain why he rejected an immediate AMBER Alert, a cooperative program between the law enforcement community and the media that sends a warning when a child under eighteen has been taken. On highways, electronic signs beam information about the missing child. In theory, an observant driver who calls the police after seeing a child fitting the description has the ability to stop an out-of-state kidnapping. Maybe a murder.

  John D’Orfini lifted his green gaze above mine so he wouldn’t see me when he spoke.

  “All the pieces have to fit together before we sound the AMBER Alert. If we overutilize it without due and prudent fact finding, we can abuse it. Prudence is key.

  We don’t know if it would have helped. We had to piece together that the suspect was headed out of state,” he said. “We didn’t have the answer. First, we had to check the hospitals to see if someone matching Hilda’s description had been admitted. We contacted other law enforcement agencies to see if she had shown up—alone or with a child.”

  “I need you to be more specific, Detective!” I said. “What agencies?” My voice cracked.

  John D’Orfini hesitated and looked down, but only for a second. Then he focused on me and me alone when he spoke. “To the south, we’ve hit every police department from Sea Girt through to Philadelphia. To the north, we’ve spoken to departments from Belmar through to Bergen County and upstate New York. These are the quickest routes out of the state, and since the car has been missing, we’re assuming that the suspect drove out of here. Public transportation would have tracked her and the child by now. An APB—uh, sorry, all points bulletin—went out after twenty-four hours to points of nearby public transportation.”

  “Twenty-four hours?” I jumped up. How do you sit still and talk about a missing child when it’s not somebody else’s? “That was too damn long to wait to do this!” I pushed my fingertips into the middle of my forehead, sliding my thumb back against my left temple. I pressed hard, as if I could jam everything back into my head, away from spilling into the room. Steve sat next to me. At any moment, I suspected, he would reach for my arm and tell me to sit the hell down. He was used to men sitting around a conference table and talking in turns.

  Three FBI agents sat stiffly in their seats, their suit jackets thrown over the backs of their chairs. One leaned forward and said, “We narrowed the investigation, but only after we confirmed that Hilda wasn’t on the outer perimeter.”

  I mumbled the words outer perimeter and shook my head. I pressed my top teeth onto my tongue. I said the words again, but more loudly. “Is that an FBI term? Because I don’t get it.” My voice was high, shrill, like it had sprung out of the top of my head. Whose voice is this?

  It wasn’t an actual question, but John D’Orfini answered, “We still don’t know for sure—that is, we don’t know if Hilda has left the immediate vicinity—but we’re proceeding.” He stopped and cleared his throat, as if the words he had uttered were about to grow thorns.

  I stared back at him, and for the first time I noticed he had a small mole to the left of his chin, on the lower half of his cheek.

  I was still standing when I raised my voice. “But an AMBER Alert might have slowed Hilda from wherever she was headed. We could have tracked her car,” I said. I could feel the heat on my face. Accusation rose up through my throat. I leaned farther over the table, with my knuckles folded tight underneath my palms.

  John D’Orfini listened but then shook his head. “There aren’t any rules on how much time needs to pass before we instigate the alert. I thought it was the right call.” He hesitated but then plunged forward. “I take full responsibility.” He swallowed and waited, as if I might like the idea of “no rules.” There was no manual detailing protocol. It was all about judgment and John D’Orfini and how I had to trust this man to help me.

  “One more thing.” John D’Orfini spoke slowly. “We found out that Rudy and Hilda put their house in a trust.”

  “Which means?”

  “They hired a lawyer to take care of everything: taxes, all the bills, including selling the house. I checked with our tax office, and they sent the tax bills to the trust in care of a lawyer in New York City.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I’ve already tried to talk to him, but he won’t speak to me; he cited attorney-client privilege. What I can tell you is that Rudy and Hilda planned on leaving Spring Haven.”

  “Is the house for sale?” I asked.

  “Not officially, but we’ve learned it’s going on the market in a few weeks.”

  I looked down and fought back tears. Would all traces of Hilda and Rudy disappear, like Vinni? Darkness filled me so completely that I almost missed hearing John D’Orfini. If I could have gone back and begun Vinni’s life again, I’d have stayed closer.

  “Our agents have already visited the philosophy department at Columbia University, where Rudy was a professor and head of the department before he retired.”

  “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  “Maddy, for God’s sake,” Steve said, “let him finish.”

  I glared across the table at my former husband.

  “We hoped we’d get something from Rudy’s former colleagues. About either Rudy or his wife.”

  Was it compassion or pity that I detected in John D’Orfini’s voice? I couldn’t tell.

  “Rudy was there for over twenty years. He was highly respected as a scholar. ‘Brilliant’ is what they said. Clear-minded and brilliant. Devoted to his students. Of course, we’ll want to talk to everyone who worked with Rudy. It’ll take time.”

  I remembered what he had said earlier. Time counts. I wouldn’t forget this.

  WHILE RUDY’S BODY lay cold and unclaimed at Monmouth Medical Center, Hilda and Vinni disappeared under the closed eye of the amber light. Along with the police department, I canvassed the neighborhood. We went door-to-door. People looked at me with pity and horror. I spun in and out of that first week. Steve grew quieter in the second. Time passed. When he returned to San Francisco, I cried on a bench on the Spring Haven boardwalk. The night’s summer breeze felt warm, until I realized I couldn’t stop shaking. While the moon’s face lit up the world, I sat in the dark and cried. Hilda and Rudy hadn’t seemed like bad people. Now that Rudy was dead and Hilda and Vinni were missing, I traveled to a place where evil prescribed the itinerary.

  By the time I returned to my apartment in New York City, Vinni had been gone for thirty-one days. It is impossible to understand how time does not stand still even when we beg it to stop. Day becomes night and repeats itself.

  Steve was back at work in San Francisco. I stopped in at the editorial offices for Hot Style magazine in the evenings, after I was sure everyone had left for the day. When I walked into my office, I let out a deep sigh. I wasn’t even sure that I belonged there anymore. I picked up a framed photo of Vinni sitting on a gold-colored horse at the carousel at Bryant Park in the middle of Manhattan.

  “Where are you, love? Where the hell are you?” I said out loud.

  I left notes for the young intern I had hired for the summer. I talked on the phone to the editor in chief, who told me to take as long as I needed . . . but this was all in the beginning, when everyone clung to the hope that the police would find my daughter and together our lives would go on and bad things would happen to other people.

  During the second month that Vinni was gone, life had no timetable. John D’Orfini called me daily, but with nothing to report. I dreaded his “hello.” My day-to-day living consisted of going for long walks or staying in bed and waiting. I ate in spurts, collapsing on the couch with a bowl of cereal or crawling into bed when I could no longer bear the silence in my life.

  Then John D’Orfini stopped calling.

  Had he sensed my despair?

  ON A COLD aftern
oon in November, I drove down to Spring Haven. Detective D’Orfini offered me coffee. I refused twice. After that, he fixed me a cup and put it on the desk, with a pack each of Equal and sugar next to it, two mini-creamers, and a wooden stirrer on a napkin.

  “Madeline? Or is it Maddy?”

  For more than two months, John D’Orfini had been calling me Ms. Stewart. I hadn’t cared until he said my first name and it sounded . . . sweet.

  “Maddy’s fine,” I said.

  John D’Orfini began, “I thought . . .” His eyes changed from green to blue, depending on what tie he wore.

  I hesitated, moving my chin forward, as I did when I was about to say something I’d rather not. I liked him, but I wish I hadn’t met him.

  “Detective D’Orfini, I’m not interested in your thinking process.” I moved my hips to one side of the folding chair, letting my cashmere skirt ride up where it wanted. I continued talking, sensing that at any moment John D’Orfini was going to interrupt, like a parent unwilling to wait for a child’s explanation.

  “I’m tired,” I said. “My daughter’s been missing for almost three months. I don’t sleep. I’m living on yogurt and Grape-Nuts and lots of coffee. I hang out at Barnes and Noble to lose myself in a book, but instead I just lose my self a little more. I’m scared that if we don’t find her . . .” I dropped my head back and closed my eyes.

  Since that day in August, John D’Orfini’s skin had lost its shade of summer. His cheeks had thinned, making his eyes look wider and deeper set. His impenetrable stare made it impossible for me to read what he was thinking. Why did I care? I turned my head and looked out the window to the right of the detective’s desk. It faced a quiet seaside town where disappearing children were unheard of.

  Until Vinni and me.

  “I keep asking myself what I did wrong.” I moved closer to the edge of my seat, gripping D’Orfini’s desk. He leaned back in his chair without taking his eyes off me. I could feel their presence on my face, watching for what? For me to confess that I had hired a private investigator after trolling the Internet for someone with credentials who looked like he was hungry?