The Missing Chapter

It was a tree-lined block with three- and four-story brick flats on both sides, many also painted in bright colors and every one of them well-kept despite their age, which in most cases was pushing the century mark. I found the address Saul had given me — a light green brick building with a maple tree poking up through uneven bricks in a small courtyard enclosed by a black iron fence with a gate. After glances to the right and left, I opened the squeaking gate and walked to the door of the garden apartment, which had a typewritten C. WINGFIELD in the plastic-covered holder above the bell. Pulling a key from my pocket, I took aim at the lock. It slipped in smoothly, and I could feel it slide the bolt, which was all I had come for. I eased the key back out, did a snappy about-face, and returned to the art gallery.

This time I went in. Clarice, now seated at the ornate cherry wood desk shuffling some papers, rose fluidly as I entered and smiled. “Hello, may I help you?” she asked in a pleasant, cultured voice.

“Possibly. Are you Clarice Avery, née Wingfield, formerly of Mercer, Indiana?”

She recoiled as if she had been slapped. Her “What do you want?” came out in barely more than a whisper.

“Just to talk,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to disarm her with a smile. “Is there anybody who can take over here so we can grab a cup of coffee?”

“Who are you?” Her voice was slightly stronger than before, but her face stayed frozen and white.

“I work for the private investigator Nero Wolfe in Manhattan,” I responded, holding up my license. She stared at it, and then at me. As she began to hyperventilate, another young woman, this one Oriental, emerged through a doorway from the rear.

“Anything I can help with, Clare?” she asked, obviously puzzled.

“No — well, yes,” Clarice said, recovering her composure. “Amy, this is someone I know, Mr. ... Goodwin. And we need to talk for a few minutes. Over coffee. I won’t be gone for long.”

Amy nodded and said she would hold the fort. We were outside in the sunlight before Clarice turned to me again. “Really, what is it you want? I’ve never heard of you, or — who’s that person you work for?”

“Nero Wolfe, and he happens to be a legend. Where’s a good spot for coffee?”

She gestured toward a sign a few doors down the block at a corner. It was an Italian restaurant — there is no shortage of them in Hoboken. The pink neon-bordered clock on the wall above the bar read two-thirty, so whatever lunch crowd they attract had dispersed; the place was almost empty, and we slipped into a booth near the door.

After a tired, indifferent waitress took our coffee orders and shuffled off, Clarice leaned forward and fixed me with light blue eyes. Close up, she looked surprisingly young and fresh-faced. “All right, you got me to come here,” she said, lapsing into a twang not unlike what I heard — and probably used myself — growing up in Ohio. “Now will you tell me what this is all about?”

“I’ve got to believe you have at least an inkling,” I responded as thick mugs of very black coffee were plunked unceremoniously on the spotless Formica in front of us. “It has to do with Charles Childress.”

I thought she might start her panting again, but she fooled me. “Yes, I did have that inkling,” Clarice said, letting out air and leaning back against the brown leatherette seat. “How did you find me?”

“That’s not important. Almost anyone can be located if the resources are available. I assume you are aware that people in Mercer are worried about you and wonder where — and how — you are?”

She forced a smile. “That’s a gallant thing for you to say, Mr. Goodwin, but I happen to know that it isn’t true. And I’m damned if I’ll ever go back there. Did someone from Mercer — or Merciless, as I like to call it — send you to find me?”

“No, although I won’t deny that I’ve been there. Returning to Charles Childress — he was your cousin.”

“That’s right,” she said stiffly.

I drank the below-par coffee, cupping the mug with both hands. “Miss Wingfield, or Mrs. Avery, or whatever name you prefer, we could dance around each other for another half-hour or more, or we could get straight to the point. I prefer the second option. When did you last see Charles Childress?”

Now it was Clarice’s turn to sip coffee; her pale, unmanicured hands trembled slightly as she lifted the mug to her mouth, then made a face. “Wingfield is my name. Forget Avery. I did, long ago. What did they tell you about me in Mercer?”

“I know about the pregnancy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

She nodded. “Uh-huh, that’s part of it. You must have seen my mother, right?”

“Briefly. Very briefly. She wasn’t inclined to pass the time with me.”

That brought a slight smile. “I’ll just bet she wasn’t. Did she threaten you?”

“With the wrath of the sheriff, which was enough to discourage me. I left.”

“She uses his name more than once when it serves her purpose. So then you went and saw Aunt Melva and Cousin Belinda, right?”

“Your order is slightly off, but yes, I talked to them, too.”