A trim, well-composed woman with steel-gray hair cut into a severe bob sat on a chintz slipcovered double-wingback chair. She wore a lavender dress with prominent white stitching and a hem that prudently fell beneath her knees. Her shoes were patent leather with little black bows. A silver tea service sat on a round table next to her. She took off her reading glasses and lowered the magazine as I entered. She was reading the New Yorker. Of course.
“I’m Cecily Morgan,” she said, not getting up and not extending her hand. “How can I help you?”
“Ashe Cayne,” I said. “Mind if I have a seat?”
She nodded toward the other side of the table. The chair was identical to the one that she sat in. Her expression was flat and disinterested. I wasn’t sure if it was her attitude or the side effects of too much Botox. Either way, no one would make the mistake of calling her friendly.
“Very comfortable,” I said, taking in the room.
She mustered half a smile and nodded slightly. “How can I help you, Mr. Cayne,” she said.
“I was hoping to speak to your daughter about Tinsley Gerrigan,” I said. “Just some routine questions. I’m working on behalf of the Gerrigan family.”
“And why do you feel the need to speak to Hunter?” she asked, keeping her thumb in the partially closed magazine as if our conversation would be only a brief distraction.
“Because I’m a private investigator, and this morning Mrs. Gerrigan hired me to help find her daughter. Hunter may have been one of the last people to see her.”
“Hunter has not the slightest idea where she might be,” Mrs. Morgan said. “So, I don’t know how she might help you. And it’s hard to believe that she would know more than Tinsley’s own mother. Violet runs a very organized household.”
“I’m sure she does,” I said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Hunter most likely was one of the last to speak with Tinsley before she disappeared.”
“Hunter already talked to Violet,” Mrs. Morgan said. Her irritation wasn’t well disguised. “She told her everything that she knew, which wasn’t much.”
“I understand that,” I said. “But sometimes a different person can ask the same question in a way that brings out a different answer. I’ve been talking to witnesses for ten years. People often don’t know what they actually know.”
Mrs. Morgan studied me as she weighed my words, then placed the magazine on the table. She picked up a porcelain bell off the tray and rang it three times. The old black woman appeared at the door before the bell was back on the tray. She was wiping her hands on her apron.
“Ask Hunter to join us, Gertie,” Mrs. Morgan said. “Tell her it’s important she come right away.”
Gertie looked at me, then back at Mrs. Morgan, then disappeared without saying anything. Our silence went unabridged until footsteps arrived on the hardwood floor just outside the room. Hunter Morgan smiled as she entered the parlor. She wore a pair of tight running pants, black with Princeton in orange lettering running down the side of her right leg. Her shoulders were broad and her legs strong. Her hair was short and lacked styling. She was both beautiful and handsome at the same time. Gender nonconforming was the term the kids were using. She had a pair of rose gold Beats headphones in her hand.
“What’s up, Mom?” she said.
Mrs. Morgan motioned for her to sit, and Hunter obliged, leaning back comfortably on the sofa to the left of her mother. Brief introductions were made.
I said, “So, you’re a Tiger?”
Hunter looked at me quizzically.
“Didn’t you go to Princeton?” I asked.
“Oh, that,” she said, looking at the lettering running down her leg. “My ex ran cross country there. I went to Georgetown.”
“So, you’re a Hoya,” I said. “Great school. Never been, but a guy I grew up with went there. Studied computer science. He loved it. You played sports there?”
“Track and field,” Hunter said.
“What was your event?”
“Javelin.”
All the muscles now made sense.
“You and Tinsley went to Georgetown together?” I asked.
Hunter laughed. “Tins at Georgetown? That would be hilarious. She’d slit her wrists before going to a school like that.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “The professors have too much personality.”
“I like you,” Hunter said, before shooting a quick glance at her mother, who remained stone faced. “Tins went to Oberlin.”
I was surprised. Oberlin was a small private liberal arts school. I’d expected the Gerrigan clan to have a dynasty set up at one of the East Coast Ivies, not a tiny school hidden in northeast Ohio. Maybe this was the free spiritedness that Mrs. Gerrigan had alluded to in our conversation.
“So, Tinsley was supposed to come over and see you the night she disappeared,” I said.
Hunter nodded. “She called and said she was coming over. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of days, because she was finishing up a painting. She was gonna spend the night, but she never showed up.”
“Did you call her to find out what happened?”
“No, I was watching Colbert; then I fell asleep waiting for her.”
“Did she call the next day to tell you what happened?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you find it strange that you were waiting for her, she never shows up, and then doesn’t even call to tell you what happened?”
Hunter shook her head. “Sometimes Tinsley shows up, and sometimes she doesn’t. That’s just the way she is. She’s not big on predictability. She finds it boring. She does her own thing a lot.”
“Other times when she hasn’t shown up, did she call the next day to explain what happened?”
“Sometimes.”
“But this wasn’t one of those times?”
Hunter shook her head again, then looked toward the door. I turned to find a tall man in his late twenties. He was very square at the shoulders and angled at the jaw, not unlike Hunter. He wore a dark tailored suit and light-blue dress shirt without a tie.
“I’m heading out, Mom.” He glanced at me. “Everything okay?”
“Everything is fine, darling,” she said. “This is a private investigator looking for Tinsley.”
“She’s still missing?” he said. “Figured someone would’ve heard from her by now.”
“Not yet,” Mrs. Morgan said. “But hopefully it’s all a misunderstanding.”
The man nodded, then said, “I’m sure it’ll work out. Gotta run to a meeting before I go back home. See you tomorrow night for dinner.”
He turned and walked out of the room with a canvas duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
I turned my attention back to Hunter. “So, what’s stopped her from showing up in the past?” I asked.
“You name it,” Hunter said. “Sometimes she just changes her mind or finds something different she wants to do.”
“Such as?”
Hunter looked at her mother, whose stoic expression hadn’t changed since I had gotten there.
“Lots of things,” Hunter said. “Stop by a bar in Bucktown. Hook up with some of her friends from college who live up in Lincoln Park. Go watch a game somewhere. Tins loves sports.”