Manhattan Is My Beat

when I lived at home. I handled it badly. Last summer we were arguing and I said some terrible things. I didn’t mean them, I really didn’t. They weren’t even true. I thought Dad’d just fight back or ignore them. Well, he didn’t. What he did was he took some things and disappeared.” Her voice quaked.
    Emily fell silent. She held her cigarette in an unsteady hand. “I’ve been trying to find him ever since. He stayed at the Y for a while, he stayed at a hotel in Queens. He had an apartment in the West Village. I don’t know when he moved here. I’ve been calling people he knows—some of his old co-workers, his doctors—trying to find him. Finally a receptionist at his doctor’s office broke down and gave me this address.”
    Emily smoothed her skirt. It was a long skirt, expensive silk. Slinky was the only way to describe it, Rune decided. “Now I’ve missed him again,” Emily told her.
    “Didn’t you just call and apologize?”
    “I tried a few months ago. But he hung up on me.”
    “Why don’t you just give it time? Maybe he’ll calm down. He’s not that old, is he? In his sixties.”
    A look at the carpet again. “The thing is, he’s sick. He doesn’t have much longer. That’s why the doctor’s receptionist agreed to tell me where he was. He has cancer. Terminal.”
    Rune thought of her father. And now she recognized Symington’s gray face, the sweaty skin.
    She thought too: He’d better not die before she herself had a chance to find him and ask him about Mr. Kelly and the stolen money. Feeling guilty. But thinking it anyway.
    “So what is it
you’re
not telling
me
?” The adult Emily had returned. “Time to show me
yours
.”
    “I’m not sure he’s just a witness,” Rune said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Okay, if you really want to know. I think your father might be the murderer.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN
     
    “Impossible.”
    Rune said, “I think Mr. Kelly found some money and your father found out about it. I think your father stole the money and killed him.”
    Emily was shaking her head. “Never. Dad’d never hurt anybody.”
    Once again Rune thought of Symington’s face—how terrified he’d seemed. “Well, maybe he had a partner who killed him.”
    Emily started to shake her head. But then she paused.
    “What?” Rune asked. “Tell me.”
    “Dad wouldn’t kill anybody. I
know
that.”
    “But …? I see something in your face. Keep talking.” A good adult line to say. Right out of a Cary Grant movie, she believed. The sort Audrey Hepburn had said a million times.
    “But,” the woman said slowly, “the last time I talked to him I asked if he needed money and he said—he was really angry—but he said that he was about to get more money than I could imagine and he’d never take another damn penny from me or Hank ever again.”
    “He said that?” Rune asked excitedly.
    Emily nodded.
    “We’ve got to find him,” Rune said.
    “Will you turn him in to the police?” Emily asked.
    Rune was going to say no. But she stopped herself.
    You only lie to people who can control you
.
    “I don’t know. I think I believe he didn’t kill Mr. Kelly. I want to talk to him first. But where is he? How can we find him?”
    Emily said, “If I knew I wouldn’t be here now.”
    “Is there anything there?” Rune nodded toward the mail Emily had been looking through.
    “No, it’s mostly just Dear Occupant…. The only lead I’ve got is the name of his bank. I tried calling them to see if they had an address but they wouldn’t talk to me.”
    Rune was thinking about another movie she’d seen a few years ago. Who was in it? De Niro? Harvey Keitel? The actor—a private eye—had bluffed his way into a bank and gotten information.
    Maybe it was Sean Connery.
    “
Look, you don’t understand … The man is dying! For God’s sake, give me his address. Here’s his account number
.“
    “
Sir, I can’t. It’s against policy
.”
    “
Hell with your policy. A man’s
life
is at stake
.”
    “You have the account number?” she asked Emily.
    “No.”
    “Well, how about the branch?”
    “I’ve got that.”
    “That should be all we need.”
    “I don’t think they’ll give you any information.”
    “You’d be surprised. I can be extremely persuasive.”
    Rune wiped her eyes—thinking how Stephanie, the only real actress she knew—would do it.
    “I’m sorry. But it’s really, really important.”
    The young man was a vice president of the bank but he