The Couple Next Door

Now Anne and Marco are alone in the house. The number of reporters outside on the street has dwindled as well. With no developments the media have little to report—they are losing enthusiasm. The pile of wilted flowers and teddy bears is not growing any larger.

“They think I killed her,” Anne says, “and that you covered it up.”

“They can’t think that,” Marco says, trying to reassure her. There isn’t much else he can say. What’s he going to tell her? Either that or they think I took her and faked the kidnapping for the ransom money. But he doesn’t want her to know how bad their financial situation really is.

Marco goes upstairs to lie down. He is exhausted. His grief and distress are such that he can hardly bear to look at his wife.

Anne putters around the house, somewhat relieved to be rid of the police after all, tidying up. She moves in a sleep-deprived fog, putting things away, washing coffee cups. The kitchen phone rings, and she stops. She looks at the caller ID. It’s her mother. Anne hesitates, not sure she wants to speak to her. Finally, on the third ring, she picks up the phone.

“Anne,” her mother says. Anne immediately feels her heart sink. Why did she answer? She can’t deal with her mother right now. She sees Marco coming quickly down the stairs, his eyes alert. She mouths My mother at him and waves him away. He turns and goes back upstairs.

“Hi, Mother.”

“I’m so worried about you, Anne. How are you doing?”

“How do you think?” Anne holds the phone to her ear, walks to the rear of the kitchen, and looks out the window to the backyard.

Her mother is quiet for a moment. “I just want to help.”

“I know, Mom.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re going through. Your father and I are hurting, too, but it must be nothing compared to what you’re feeling.”

Anne starts to cry, the tears rolling silently down her cheeks.

Her mother says, “Your father is still very upset about the police taking you in for questioning yesterday.”

“I know, you told me that yesterday,” Anne says wearily.

“I know, but he won’t stop talking about it. He says they should be focusing on finding Cora, not harassing you.”

“They say they’re just doing their job.”

“I don’t like that detective,” her mother says uneasily. Anne sinks into one of the kitchen chairs. Her mother says, “I think I should come over and you and I should have some tea and a private talk. Just the two of us, without your father. Is Marco home?”

“No, Mom,” Anne says. Anxiety rises in her throat. “I can’t today. I’m too tired.”

Her mother sighs. “You know your father is very protective of you,” she says. She pauses, then adds tentatively, “Sometimes I wonder if it was right for us to keep things from him when you were younger.”

Anne freezes. Then she says, “I have to go,” and hangs up the phone.

She stands by the window looking out at the backyard, trembling, for a long time.

? ? ?

Detectives Rasbach and Jennings are in a police cruiser, Jennings behind the wheel. It is hot in the cruiser, and Rasbach adjusts the air-conditioning. They soon arrive at St. Mildred’s School, an exclusive private school in the northwest part of the city for girls from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Anne Conti spent her entire academic life here before college, so they ought to know something about her.

Unfortunately for the detectives, it is the middle of the summer holidays, but Rasbach called beforehand and made an appointment with a Ms. Beck, the headmistress, who apparently has plenty of work to do, even in the summer.

Jennings parks in the empty lot. The school is a lovely old stone building that looks a bit like a castle, surrounded by greenery. The place oozes money. Rasbach imagines all the luxury cars driving up and disgorging privileged girls in uniform at the front doors. But at the moment it is dead quiet, except for the sound of a man on a riding mower cutting the grass.

Rasbach and Jennings walk up the shallow stone steps and press the buzzer to get in. The glass door opens with a loud click, and the two detectives enter and follow the signs down a wide hall to the main office, their shoes squeaking on the glossy floors. Rasbach can smell wax and polish.

“I don’t miss school, do you?” Jennings says.

“Not a bit.”

They arrive at the office, where Ms. Beck greets them. Rasbach is immediately disappointed to see that she is relatively young, in her early forties. The chances of her having been at St. Mildred’s during Anne Conti’s years there are remote. But Rasbach is hoping there might still be some staff around who’d remember her.

“How can I help you, Detectives?” Ms. Beck asks as she conducts them into her spacious inner office.

Rasbach and Jennings sit in the comfortable chairs in front of her desk as she positions herself behind it.

“We’re interested in one of your former students,” Rasbach says.

“Who is that?” she asks.

“Anne Conti. But when she was a student here, her name would have been Anne Dries.”

Ms. Beck pauses, then gives a small nod. “I see.”

“I imagine you weren’t here yourself when she was a student here,” Rasbach says.

“No, that would have been before my time, I’m afraid. The poor woman. I saw her on TV. How old is she?”

“Thirty-two,” Rasbach says. “She was at St. Mildred’s from kindergarten to twelfth grade, apparently.”

Ms. Beck smiles. “Many of our girls start here in kindergarten and don’t leave until they attend a good college. We have an excellent retention rate.”

Rasbach smiles back at her. “We’d like to look through her file, ideally speak to some people who knew her while she was here.”

“Let me see what I can do,” Ms. Beck says, and exits the room.

She returns a few minutes later holding a buff-colored file. “She was here, as you say, from K to twelve. She was an excellent student. Went on to Cornell.”

Most of the woman’s job is PR, Rasbach imagines as he reaches for the file. Jennings leans in to look at it with him. Rasbach is sure that she wishes the now possibly notorious Anne Conti had never graced the halls of St. Mildred’s.

He and Jennings review the file silently while Ms. Beck fidgets at her desk. There is not much there except solidly excellent report cards. Certainly nothing leaps out at them.

“Do any of her former teachers still teach here?” Rasbach asks.

Ms. Beck considers. Finally she says, “Most of them have moved on, but Ms. Bleeker just retired last year. I saw in the file that she was Anne’s English teacher for several years in the later grades. You could talk to her. She lives not too far from here.” She writes down the name and address on a piece of paper.

Rasbach takes the paper and says, “Thank you for your time.”

He and Jennings get back into the sweltering car. Rasbach says, “Let’s go see Bleeker. We’ll grab a sandwich on the way.”

“What do you expect to find out?” Jennings asks.

“Never expect, Jennings.”

FIFTEEN

When they arrive at the retired teacher’s house, they are met by a woman with a straight back and sharp eyes. She looks just the way a retired English teacher from a private girls’ school would look, Rasbach thinks.

Ms. Bleeker studies their badges closely and then sizes up the two detectives themselves before she opens her door. “You can’t be too careful,” she says.

Jennings gives Rasbach a look as she leads them down a narrow hall and into her front room. “Please be seated,” she says.

Rasbach and Jennings promptly take seats in two upholstered armchairs. She settles down slowly on the couch opposite. There’s a thick novel—a Penguin Classics edition of Trollope’s Barchester Towers—on the coffee table and an iPad beside it.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” she asks, and then adds, “Although I think I can guess why you’re here.”

Rasbach gives her his most disarming smile. “Why do you think we’re here, Ms. Bleeker?”

“You want to talk about Anne. I recognized her. She’s all over the news.” Rasbach and Jennings exchange a quick glance. “She was Anne Dries when I taught her.”