The Last Romantics(80)

Caroline stopped and turned to face me. “We need to find Luna,” she said. “We need to give her the ring.”

I nodded. “I’ll get someone to really help us,” I said. “Let me do the legwork.”

Caroline held her arms in front of her, hands cupping opposite elbows. I noticed a series of small round holes in the hem of her sweater. Moths.

“Thanks,” she said. “I can pay, I’ll find the money, but I just don’t have the time. The kids—”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know.”

*

I found Gary Lightfoot, private investigator, online. He had a slick website featuring grateful testimonials from a host of articulate, attractive clients. Gary himself was very attractive. On the site he appeared in a short promotional video where he tilted his head slightly to the left and spoke with an accent that moved between English and Australian. His office was located in an old redbrick building overlooking Grand Army Plaza. The plaza’s formidable stone arch was just visible from the reception window. There was no secretary. Gary himself opened the office door.

“Ms. Skinner?” Thick eyebrows, lifted. Neat suit, shiny shoes, teeth that dazzled. The palm of his hand grazed the small of my back as he ushered me into his office. The room was small but well appointed. Leather chairs. A wide, weighty desk.

For two hours I told Gary Lightfoot about Luna, Joe’s accident, my trips to Miami. He nodded with sensitivity, asked the occasional question, and took detailed notes by hand on a yellow legal pad. His office smelled masculine and spicy, like cinnamon or cloves. The accent made every word sound charming and insightful.

How much did these details sway me? At the time I would have claimed not at all. But afterward I recognized their pull. I was no longer writing the blog; I had not slept with anyone since Joe’s accident, but I was beginning to miss the heady thrill of attraction and flirtation. It was Gary Lightfoot’s job to persuade me. And he did.

“I’m thinking one month or two,” he said. “I may need to travel. Of course I’ll run that past your sister before making any arrangements.” He smiled at me, each white tooth nestled soundly within the gum, and I smiled back.

Outside, I stood before the stone arch and studied the sculpture at its top: the winged goddess of victory, a horse and chariot straining forward. It was spring, the earthy flowerbeds pungent and soft with thaw. Traffic flowed around me on Flatbush and Vanderbilt Avenues, but the green northern edge of Prospect Park dulled the noise and fumes. That day it seemed not that the world was right again but that perhaps the possibility of rightness would return. Gary Lightfoot’s calm confidence, the loping curl of his script across the page, the long haughty Ah: for the first time since Joe’s death, I did not feel crushed by the weight of his absence. The idea of Luna filled me like helium, and I ran down the subway steps and toward home.

But Gary Lightfoot did not find Luna. After four months he announced that Luna Hernandez was almost certainly dead.

Caroline and I met him in his little Brooklyn office. Rain fell heavily against Gary’s one window, which shook and rattled with the wind. The room appeared shabbier and smaller than I remembered.

“You’re almost certain she’s dead?” Caroline said. Already she had paid him sixteen thousand dollars.

There were no credit-card records, no travel records, no rental cars or car purchases, Gary explained. Internet searches turned up nothing. The last known address for Luna and her mother proved unhelpful, as had the national databases. “She’s a naturalized citizen, but she never applied for a Social Security number,” Gary said. He had found no death certificate, but this meant very little. Thousands of people died every year in the United States without identification or family to claim them, their bodies summarily cremated, the ashes scattered at sea. “And those are the ones who are found!” Gary exclaimed. “Imagine how many people stay where they fall. Those people are just gone.” I thought he said this with rather too much gusto. “Luna has effectively disappeared,” he concluded, waving his hand with a sharp downward chop.

“But we knew that already,” Caroline said. “That’s why we hired you.” A sudden flash of sun entered through the rain-spattered window and cast speckled shadows over the papers and books on Gary’s desk. The Best of Raymond Chandler, I read on one spine. Fingerprint Analysis for Dummies on another. I felt a mild responsibility for this situation, but it was dull and distant. Gary had done his best. Look at his sharp suit, the shirt cuffs white and starched stiff. Listen to the honey pour of that voice.

“Well,” Gary said to Caroline, shrugging, “disappeared and dead are versions of the same thing. I’m not a miracle worker, Mrs. Duffy.”

Outside on the street, Caroline turned to me. We had no umbrella, only our coats. I shivered. The rain plastered Caroline’s hair to her head and darkened it into rivulets of brown that streamed rainwater down her shoulders and chest. Her blue eyes blazed. “Fiona. What was that?” She pointed a finger in the general direction of Gary Lightfoot’s building. “Why didn’t you find someone better? That was all you had to do. That was it. I told you to find someone to help us. You have nothing else going on. You barely go to work, you’re not even writing anymore. You have all this time. I paid that man so much money. So much! Nathan and I can barely afford it. And for what?” She paused for the briefest moment, too short for me to formulate a response.