Chapter 10.

10.

We left Errol’s office and went out to the lawn, where dinner was already underway. There were close to a hundred guests and every table was full, so the caterers were scrambling to carry out extra high-tops and chairs. A jazz trio was playing “It Had to Be You,” and for the life of me I could not imagine how they had maneuvered a baby grand across the lawn without destroying the grass. The buffet table was a mile long, with a prime rib carving station, fresh New England crab cakes, huge ears of corn on the cob, and countless salads and side dishes. Plus three different cocktail stations so no one would have to wait for a drink. I drifted over to the closest one and was surprised to recognize the bartender.

“Mr. Szatowski,” he said. “What are you having tonight?”

It was the man from the restaurant in town, the one who’d rescued us from Brody Taggart. He’d traded his dirty apron for a crisp white button-down shirt and a black vest and bow tie. I asked for a Coors Light and he offered me a Smuttynose lager. “Close enough,” I said.

As he tipped the bottle into a pint glass, he encouraged me to pair it with the crab cakes, his wife’s specialty. “She and my sister run a catering business. They’re doing the whole wedding.”

“Do you work here a lot?”

“In the summers, I’m here all the time. The Gardners have always done a lot of entertaining. But this wedding’s taking things to a whole new level. We’re cooking enough to feed an army.”

I thanked him for the beer and then plunged into the crowd to search for my daughter. I needed to talk to Maggie right away. I needed to know if Aidan’s story was true—and if it was, why hadn’t she told me?

Maggie always compared her apartment on Talmadge Street to a dungeon prison cell. She called it dark and damp and claustrophobic, a place to sleep while she scraped together a living. When the company offered to let employees work remotely, Maggie refused. She even went into the office on weekends. Or she’d escape to Boston Common with her picnic blanket and laptop and work outside. Anyone who’d heard her complain about the apartment would have a hard time believing Aidan’s story.

The crowd was younger than I’d been expecting—mostly people in their twenties and thirties—and I gathered most of them worked for Capaciti. Several wore zip-up fleeces with the Miracle Battery logo, and I spotted a woman in a tank top with a circuitry schematic tattooed across her bicep. There was no one on the lawn that I recognized, and certainly none of Maggie’s friends from back home. But after several minutes of searching, I finally heard her calling me.

“Dad! Hey, Dad!”

I turned and saw Maggie hurrying toward me, running barefoot across the grass in a swishy yellow sundress and carrying her sandals.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” She explained that she’d just returned from town, where she’d succeeded in finding a new bus company to handle the transportation. “So now I’m ready to celebrate. Do you want to come to the bar with me?”

“Could we talk about something first?”

“We’ll talk in line. I really need a glass of wine.”

“It’s personal, Maggie. I don’t think anyone else should hear this conversation.”

She pointed me toward an empty high-top at the edge of the lawn. It wasn’t exactly private—we were still in full view of everyone at the party—but it would have to do. When we reached the table, Maggie stood with her back to the crowd, so no one would see her irked expression.

“What is it? What’s the emergency?”

“I just had a drink with Errol and Aidan. And their attorney, Gerry Levinson? It was a really strange conversation.”

“Why?”

“We talked about Dawn Taggart. The girl who went missing?”

“Yes, Dad. I know who she is.”

“Right. Well, the weekend she disappeared, Aidan says he was in your apartment. The place on Talmadge Street. The dungeon.”

Maggie waited for me to continue. “And?”

“You never told me that.”

“Never told you what?”

“When we talked about Dawn Taggart, you said Aidan was two hundred miles away in Boston. You never said he was two hundred miles away in Boston with you .”

Maggie shrugged, like I was getting hung up on a trivial and insignificant detail. “I’m sorry. I thought I mentioned it.”

“You definitely did not mention it.”

“So what? Why does it matter?”

I forced myself to keep a pleasant expression, because I could see the other guests stealing glances in our direction. Everybody look at the bride and her father, sharing a precious moment before the big wedding.

“Because you’re his entire alibi!”

“Jesus, Dad. Is this Law and Order ? Why are you talking like a special prosecutor?”

“Aidan says he spent the entire Saturday in your apartment. He says no one saw him there except you.”

“Exactly.”

“You hated that apartment, Maggie! You said it was dark and drab and you couldn’t stand being there.”

“Most weekends, that was true.”

“So why was that weekend any different?”

She opened her mouth to answer and seemed to find herself at a loss for words. “Dad, that’s a really personal question. I don’t think you want to hear the answer. I mean, how graphic would you like me to get?”

“I just want a story that makes sense.”

Look, I wasn’t naive. I remembered what it was like to be twenty-five years old. I’d have no trouble believing that Maggie and Aidan spent the entire weekend in a nice hotel room, ordering room service and rolling around on a king-size bed. And I could easily believe they’d spent the weekend in Aidan’s luxury penthouse, eating Lucia’s cooking on the balcony and soaking in the LeBron James–size bathtub.

But nice hotels and luxury apartment buildings had security cameras and Maggie’s shitty basement apartment did not. If any police officers from Hopps Ferry had traveled to Boston to see her place firsthand, I think they would have found her story very hard to swallow.

“I don’t know why you’re overthinking this,” Maggie said. “Aidan didn’t hurt Dawn Taggart. He has a beautiful soul. A gentle soul. I know him, and I trust him, and I have zero doubt.”

But this just made me more confused.

“Are you saying you have zero doubt because he has a beautiful, gentle soul? Or because he was at your apartment when she disappeared?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because there’s a big difference!”

“Dad, please calm down. I don’t know how many times I can answer the same question. I met Aidan on Halloween at a costume party. We went out the next night for dinner. And the night after that, I invited him to my apartment. He came over on Friday and left on Sunday, and we spent a wonderful weekend together. He is the sweetest, kindest, most compassionate man I’ve ever met, and I wish you could just be happy for me. Why can’t you just be happy?”

“Because I’m worried, Maggie. I worry that maybe you love him so much, you’re not seeing this situation clearly.”

“Dad, believe me, I see the situation just fine.”

My daughter could be very stubborn. Once she committed to a certain point of view, it was difficult to rattle her belief system. I’d always found it one of her most admirable qualities, but right now it was driving me bananas.

“Maggie, listen to me. Earlier this afternoon, we stopped at a restaurant in town—me and Tammy and Abigail—and we met Dawn’s uncle. A man named Brody Taggart. And he’s convinced that Aidan did something to her. He thinks her body’s still here at the summer camp.”

She laughed like I’d just told a joke. “Let me ask you something, Dad. When you spoke to Brody Taggart, was he intoxicated?”

“Yes, but—”

“So why would you trust a drunk over your own daughter?”

She had me there, but I wasn’t finished. Next I told her about the conversation I’d overheard between Aidan and his art school friend Gwendolyn. “And I couldn’t hear all of it, but he was threatening her, Maggie. He told her to stay the ‘eff’ away from you.”

Again, she laughed. “That’s because I don’t like her. No one in the family likes her. Gwen’s only here because Aidan feels sorry for her.”

“They’re keeping secrets, Maggie. There’s something you don’t know, and I think it’s about Dawn Taggart.”

“Oh my God, Dad. Enough with Dawn Taggart already. Are you going to talk about Dawn Taggart all weekend?”

“I think you should talk to Gwendolyn. Find out what she knows.”

“That woman’s a train wreck. She doesn’t have any friends, so she just messes around in other people’s business. And she’s always giving Aidan shit about his money. She hates Capaciti and she hates his dad and therefore she hates me, too.”

“Why does she hate Capaciti?”

“She thinks we use too much cobalt. Or the wrong kind of cobalt? I have no idea. We get it from this tiny region of Africa where—it’s true—the working conditions are not ideal. When your job involves digging tunnels into the earth, you don’t always get central air and a good 401(k). But guess what? The exact same cobalt goes into Gwendolyn’s cell phone, and her laptop computer, and her e-book reader, and her environmentally sustainable electric toothbrush, so why is she picking a fight with us?”

Once again, it seemed like I’d managed to work my daughter into a bit of a frenzy—and this last outburst must have traveled across the lawn, because heads were turning in our direction. But before I could respond, Errol Gardner came walking over with a smile and a glass of white wine. “This is for you, Margaret. I know you’ve had a long day. I figured you could probably use it.”

“Oh my God, yes,” she said, reaching for the glass with both hands and drinking like she was parched. “Thank you, Errol.”

He clapped a friendly hand on my shoulder. “How are you, Frank? Have you tried the crab cakes?”

“Not yet.”

“Phenomenal. Make sure you get some before they run out. And would you mind if we grabbed a quick photo? Just the dads?” I realized a woman with a large camera was trailing him at a respectful distance. “ Boston mag is here.”

The quick photo actually took several minutes, because the photographer coached us through a variety of poses and angles, and then she asked for my name and home city and occupation. I said that I worked for UPS and Maggie inserted herself into the conversation. “He drives for UPS,” she said. “He’s gone twenty-six years without an accident. More than one million miles without a scratch.”

The photographer wrote everything down in her notepad. “They’ll love those details. Thanks for letting me know.”

Once our photo shoot was finished, Errol asked if he could borrow my daughter for a minute. “Patrick from GM is here, with his wife, Jenna. Can I make a quick intro?” He shot me a look of apology. “They’re really good people for Margaret to know.”

She didn’t wait for me to grant permission. She just told me to go enjoy the buffet and said she’d catch up with me after she made her rounds.

“Sure,” I told her. “Go make your rounds. I’ll be fine.”

“Good man,” Errol said, and then he rested his hand on the small of Maggie’s back and guided her through the crowd, leading her farther and farther away from me.