Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

chandelier overhead. Ted’s living room was white, white carpet, white sofa, white drapes. White, in New York City. How did he keep it so clean?
    The walls were covered with pictures, too, but unlike Leon’s, these pictures were all personal. They were all of Ted. Ted, it appeared, was an actor, so I got to see Ted in a hat, Ted in Cats (though with all the makeup, I couldn’t tell which one he was), Ted as the master of ceremonies in Cabaret —so that was why he looked slightly familiar; he was a Joel Grey look-alike, at least in makeup. I was looking at that poster, the one for the road show of Cabaret, when Ted appeared, now wearing an ecru linen shirt with pale blue linen slacks. He’d obviously taken the time to put his head under the faucet and apply a ton of product to his hair. It did the trick, too. Not only was his hair slicked back, but he looked awake now, lively, as if this weren’t a visit about a missing neighbor, but rather showtime.
    “I was his understudy on Broadway,” glancing at the poster, then back at me. “The man never so much as caught a cold.” He shook his head. “So talk to me. Do you think the kid did it?”
    “Do you?” Thinking about her fingerprints on the needle. “She’s angry, sullen, peculiar, pouty, exasperating, let’s see, what else? Oh, yes, she’s becoming an adolescent. Did you notice? Or was she wearing one of Sally’s shirts? I bet Leon hasn’t noticed. Did I mention angry? Or didn’t you get to see the eyes she hides behind those dark glasses?” He shivered dramatically. “And then there’s her father, so totally lost without Sally, he’s barely alive. Why wouldn’t the kid want to commit murder?”
    I looked at the sofa, then back at Ted, communicating the way Dashiell does.
    “I already told you to sit, missy. Do you want it engraved?” A moment later, from the kitchen, “What do you take in your tea?”
    “Nothing,” I said, anxious to hear what he had to say. “What makes you so sure?” I asked. “About Madison?”
    He poked his head around the comer. “I’m not. So if you don’t find Sally, then what? It doesn’t look like a very promising gig for you, does it, what with Sally gone so long and the kid not talking?”
    “I’m not ready to give up on it,” I told him.
    He walked back into the living room, glanced at a poster in which he was standing sideways, hat low over his brow, pelvis tipped back, arms at odd angles. “Theo Fowler is Fosse,” it said. And under that it said “October 1-22, 1994, Miracle Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota.”
    “If she’s still alive,” he said, “you won’t find her. Not unless she wants to be found.”
    “And what makes you so sure of that?” I asked. Dashiell was still checking out the room, poking his nose under things, around things, having a good sniff.
    Ted turned and left again, coming back a moment later with a tray which he put down on the glass-topped coffee table, coffee, tea, biscotti, linen napkins, sugar, lemon, cream, spoons. How had he done all that so quickly?
    He sat on one of the white leather chairs that faced the sofa, the coffee table between us. “She could come back, you know, even after all these years. He’d take her back. There’s no question in my mind.”
    “And you think she will, when she’s ready? You think until that time, should that time ever come, I won’t be able to find her?”
    “Are you good?”
    “I work hard,” I said.
    He looked at Dashiell, maybe for the first time, then back at me. “What do you have so far?”
    “A way she might have gotten out of town without money and without using her credit cards. Even with Roy.”
    Ted leaned closer. “How?”
    “I’m not saying this happened. I’m only saying it could have happened. I tried it myself last night.”
    “What? What did you try last night?” He reached for his coffee, then changed his mind. “I’m all ears. Don’t leave out any of the sordid details.”
    “Hitchhiking.”
    He sat back. “You’re kidding.”
    “No, I’m not. I went out the same time Sally did, more or less dressed the way she was dressed. I even took Dashiell with me. No cars stopped for me, but then I walked over to the meat market and it was a whole other story.”
    “The long-distance truckers?”
    I nodded.
    “I could have gone to Kansas, Ohio, North Carolina. I had my pick. And Sally, well, Sally was twenty-three, blonde . . .“
    “Unhappy.” He finally picked up his cup and took a sip.