Bright Lights, Big Christmas(54)

Three blocks away, she spotted Salon Stephanè, and an optician’s shop, Owl Opticals, and remembered that Heinz had said he encountered Austin after getting his glasses repaired.

The bell on the door jingled to announce her arrival. The front counter was vacant, but soon a middle-aged man in a white lab coat came bustling from the back room. “Help you?”

“Hi,” Kerry said. “This is going to maybe sound creepy, but I’ve been looking for a man I think might be one of your customers. His name is Heinz?” She produced her sketch.

“Heinz Schoenbaum? He was in here just the other day getting his glasses repaired.”

Kerry felt a glimmer of hope. Now she even had a last name for her elusive friend. “Yes! He told me he’d been here. But I haven’t seen him in a few days, and I’m getting worried.”

The optician crossed his arms over his chest. He was tall and thin, with a shiny bald head, and stylish Elton John–inspired glasses with sparkly oversized frames.

“What’s this all about?” he asked. “Not to be nosy, but what is Heinz to you?”

“He’s a friend. My brother and I run the Christmas tree stand over by the park, and he stops by there every day. Without fail. Until this week. The last time I saw him, he had a terrible cough, and he seemed really run-down.”

“I noticed he seemed under the weather,” the optician admitted.

“If I just knew where he lives, I could stop in and see if he’s okay,” Kerry said, her voice echoing her mounting desperation. “You must have an address for him, right?”

“Sorry, but no way I can share a patient’s private information with you.”

She’d expected that answer, but plunged ahead. “Do you know if he has family locally? Someone who’s looking after him? I swear, I’m not a stalker.”

The optician seemed to waver for a moment, but then shook his head. “All I can tell you is that he’s never talked about family, but then, Heinz isn’t much for idle chitchat.”

Kerry felt like crying, and the optician must have sensed her despair. He stepped over to a desktop computer, muttering as he typed. “I could lose my license for this.”

“I’ll never say a word to anyone,” she whispered. “Cross my heart.”

“No good. The only address I have for Heinz Schoenbaum is a post office box,” he reported, looking up from the computer. “But I can tell you he lives in the neighborhood. Once, after I’d dilated his eyes, I tried to call him a cab, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Then I asked if I could call someone to walk him home, but he said he lived only a few blocks away.”

“Doesn’t really narrow it down,” Kerry said. “Thanks, anyway.” She turned to go.

“Hey, miss,” he called out. “Can you let me know if he’s okay? Heinz has been a customer here for decades. He was my dad’s patient, before he retired.”

“I promise I’ll let you know,” Kerry said.



* * *



Murphy and Austin were waiting when she got back to the tree stand.

“Hey, Austin,” Kerry said, trying to sound cheerful when she felt anything but. “How’s it going?”

“Not so good,” Austin said, shaking his head.

“Austin here insisted to his mom that he needed to come down here to wait for Heinz,” Murphy said. “So we’ve just been hanging out, talking about hot cocoa and stuff like that. Austin says marshmallows are excellent with hot chocolate, but I say they’re garbage. Nothing but straight-up corn syrup. Nasty stuff. You agree with me, right?”

“I love marshmallows on hot chocolate,” Kerry said, drawing closer to the fire barrel.

Austin turned puppy dog eyes to her. “Did you see Mr. Heinz?”

“No, buddy,” Kerry admitted. “I couldn’t find him. Maybe he’s staying home, because the weather is so nasty.”

“That’s what I told him,” Murphy said. “Or he went to visit family out of town. After all, it’s almost Christmas.”

“No way.” Austin’s chin was stubbornly set. “He wouldn’t leave before we finish the story.”

His face clouded over. “Maybe something bad happened.” He pointed across the street, at the pile of debris where the Brody brothers had been. “Maybe the bad guys got him. Maybe they tied him up and put him in their truck and kidnapped him.”

“No, no, no,” Murphy said quickly. He squatted down on the pavement until he was at eye level with the boy.

“Me and the brothers patched things up. They told me they took my bike and trailer for kind of a joke. A not-funny joke. But we’re cool now. They decided to sell the rest of their trees someplace else. That’s all. They wouldn’t actually hurt Heinz.”

Austin shook his head. “I still think something bad happened. We need to find Mr. Heinz.”

Murphy looked at Kerry, and then back at the little boy. “We’re trying. Okay?”

Kerry took the child’s hand in hers and squeezed it briefly, before releasing it. “You know what I think we should do? I think we should work on the story ourselves. Just you and me. As a surprise for Mr. Heinz.” She was freezing and longed to get into dry clothes and out of the cold.