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Wallace, my father s best friend, my surrogate uncle, my mother s suitor, and tell him that by violating our
agreement to accept Mack s wishes, I had made my brother a suspect in both a murder and a
kidnapping.
32
Nick DeMarco had spent an uneasy weekend. He did not want to admit to himself how unsettling it had
been to see Carolyn again.  Pizza and Pasta had been his code name for himself when he used to have
dinner at the MacKenzie home on Sutton Place.
I had zero social graces, he remembered. I was always watching to see what fork they used, how they
placed their napkins on their laps. Pop tucked his under his chin. Even hearing Mr. MacKenzie joke
about his own working-class background didn t do it for me. I thought he was just being a nice guy trying
to help an awkward idiot feel welcome.
And that crush I had on Barbara? When I look back, it was just one more way in which I was jealous of
Mack.
It wasn t about her at all.
It was about Carolyn.
I always felt comfortable with her. She was always funny and sharp. I enjoyed being with her the other
night.
Mack s family was my snobby ideal. I loved my own mom and dad, but I wished Dad didn t wear
suspenders. I wished Mom didn t give a bear hug to all the regular customers. What s that saying?
Something like  Our children begin by loving us; as they grow up they judge us; sometimes they forgive
us.
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It should be the other way around.  Parents start out by loving us, as we grow up they judge us.
Sometimes they forgive us. But not often.
I hadn t wanted Pop to have a storefront anymore. I didn t know what I was doing to him when I put
him in charge of my new restaurant. He was miserable. Mom missed being in the kitchen, too. Their
high-class son wouldn t let them be who they are.
Nick DeMarco, the big success, voted bachelor of the month, the guy the girls chased, he thought, with
an edge of bitterness. Nick DeMarco, the big risk-taker. And now maybe it s Nick DeMarco, the fool
who took one chance too many.
Leesey Andrews.
Did anyone hear me offer to help her get a start in show business? It wasn t on the camera when I gave
her the card with my address, but did anyone happen to see me slide it over to her?
33
On Tuesday morning, Captain Larry Ahearn and Detective Bob Gaylor, both relatively fresh from six
hours sleep, were back in the tech room of the District Attorney s office, reviewing security tapes from
the three other nightclubs in which young women had last been seen before they disappeared.
The cases of all three young women, Emily Valley, Rosemarie Cummings, and Virginia Trent, had been
reopened. The grainy photos from Emily Valley s case, now ten years old, had been sharpened and
brightened by the latest in cutting-edge technology. In the crowd of students who had entered the club,
named The Scene, it was possible to identify clearly Mack MacKenzie and Nick DeMarco.
 When we started looking for Emily Valley, all those Columbia kids came forward in a group after we
contacted the ones who signed with credit cards, Ahearn commented, thinking aloud.  It was only a
month or so after we talked to all of them that the MacKenzie boy disappeared. Looking back, maybe
we should have treated that disappearance as suspicious and tied it to the Valley case.
 He doesn t show up in any security videos of the clubs where the other missing girls were hanging out.
Of course, it was three years later that the Cummings girl vanished, and the Trent girl was four years ago.
In all that time, he could have changed his appearance a lot. He was heavy into dramatics in prep school
and in college, Gaylor pointed out.
 I d have sworn that DeMarco is our guy, but the missing tapes from the drama teacher s apartment and
the reference to Mother s Day throw it back into Mack MacKenzie s court, Ahearn said, frustration in
his tone and on his face.  How has he managed to hide for ten years? What is he living on? How can he
be moving between Brooklyn and Manhattan carrying her cell phone without somebody spotting him?
Every cop in New York has an age-enhanced picture of him. And where did he keep Leesey from the
time she disappeared till the time she made that call Saturday? And if she s still alive, where is he keeping
her now?
 And what is hedoing to her? Roy Barrott asked bitterly.
Neither of his associates had heard him come into the tech room. They both looked up, startled.
 You re supposed to be home getting some sleep, Ahearn said.
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Barrott shook his head.  I did. I got as much as I need anyway. Listen, I just stopped at the tech room.
They finished enhancing the two pictures that Leesey s roommate, Kate, took of her, including the one
we used on the poster. She took these two pictures less than a minute after she snapped pictures of
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and their kids. We can now see the faces of the people in the background.
 And what did you find? Ahearn asked.
 Look atthis picture. See if you recognize the guy on the left.
 It s DeMarco! Ahearn said, then repeated it as if he could not believe what he was seeing.
 DeMarco!
 Exactly, Barrott confirmed.  DeMarco never told us he had been in Greenwich Village a week before
Leesey disappeared and was across the street when Kate took her picture. He also told us that when he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]