Chapter 4
Finding Michael Kurscics changed Dorothy's life forever. Never again could she deny the import of her visions, nor the fear she was experiencing. At the age of forty-three Dorothy had spent most of her life raising her family. But the little drowning victim had become a part of her soul, as would dozens of other children in the coming years. Little Michael's face would never leave Dorothy's mind, sometimes bringing her comfort, sometimes sadness.
Dorothy now began to see more and more, but she still understood very little. Images of death or unknown faces would creep into her consciousness without warning or emotional preparation. For the next several years the usually buoyant woman would often teeter between emotions, many times forcing her to retreat into solitude. Concerned for her welfare, her husband and children imposed a moratorium on her work.
Word eventually got around to neighboring police departments of her success with Michael Kurscics. They would call on Dorothy to help them on dead-end cases. From Newark to the northern reaches of New Jersey, police came to her with robberies, assault and batteries, missing persons, and arson cases.
Though she sometimes would try and help the police, her abilities were mostly in the abstract. She had not yet learned to focus and interpret images that came to her, though she was willing to try. Nor did she have anyone, except Vicaro and Justine, who would sit down and listen to her visions. Often Dorothy and Justine would talk about the people she saw, the mother hoping to find in her daughter both an identifier and a sympathetic ear: Justine was both.
Justine and Paul loved to hear of their mother's involvements with the police, often coming home to find a patrol car sitting in front of their house. But they were also frightened when they saw their ebullient mother plunged into depression by an inexplicable vision. Dorothy would try not to reveal the horrors she saw to her family, but they could see how she was affected. Bob and Justine would take over the cooking and shopping when they felt she needed total rest.
The summer after Dorothy found Michael Kurscics she received a call from an acquaintance who reported the son of her closest friend missing. Eighteen-year-old Barney Berke had gone to Asbury Park on a date with his girl friend, Molly. Barney and Molly had been spending the day on the beach when Barney said he wanted to fetch something from his car, and he left, supposedly to return momentarily. But he never came back. Barney had disappeared, wearing only a bathing suit, and with his car still parked where he had left it.
The Berkes were frantic. The area was scoured by police and detectives for days, but Barney was not found. Daily the parents went to the shore and watched over the ocean for any sign of their son. Helicopters and boats provided no more clues.
Dorothy listened to the voice of the mother on the phone, which helped her form a picture of the son. She immediately felt that the boy was not dead, though she saw that he was trapped in some entanglement.
"I don't see him drowned or dead at all," Dorothy told the parents. "I know he will return. He's caught in some kind of Houdini act. You will just have to be patient. He will return."
Two months passed and the Berkes lost patience. The mother told Dorothy she didn't want to hear her predictions anymore because they only gave her and her husband false hopes. She informed Dorothy that they were planning a funeral for their son.
The night before the funeral Dorothy called the parents to say that she felt they were wrong in losing faith, but that she had done everything she could to help.
Two weeks after the funeral Barney Berke reappeared at his home, bedraggled and wearing ill-fitting clothes. He told his parents he had been a victim of amnesia, and had no recollection of his whereabouts for the past months, nor could he remember who had given him his attire.
The "Houdini act" Dorothy had seen was later explained by the apologetic parents. Barney was studying to be a professional magician, and the psychic had obviously picked up this aspect of his life.
Regardless of occasional successes, Dorothy was still too emotionally involved with her visions to be able to objectify and interpret. Sleepless nights of agonizing dreams rendered her vulnerable and without resistance.
As the years went on, she would take on occasional cases. In 1973, she was asked by New York's Midday Live television show to appear with writer William Blatty, whose new book, The Exorcist, had just been published.
One of the program's viewers was a detective from the New Brunswick Police Department Phyllis Thompson, a twenty-eight-year-old schoolmaster, had been brutally murdered on September 2,1973, in East Brunswick, New Jersey. In one of Dorothy's finest psychic sleuthings since the Michael Kurscics case, she was able to describe with alarming detail the victim's last hour, giving not only the birth dates of the last two people to see her, but the murderer's name and background, as well.
A detective from the East Brunswick police called the Nutley Police Department in search of Dorothy. On Dorothy's first visit to East Brunswick with the detective, she led them directly to the bar where Phyllis had been having a nightcap with friends.
The mother later detailed the events in the following manner:
Mrs. Allison told me she saw Phyllis being forced into a car, raped, struck three times with a heavy object, and drowned. All of these things were indeed found to be true. She further described a cemetery where the man took the body. It was the very cemetery the body was actually taken to.
Mrs. Allison said the murderer's name was Krug. She gave his birthday and said he was short with powerful arms. He was an ex-convict. He had even hurt his leg the last time lie was in jail. The police found all of this was indeed the case when Krug was arraigned.
She mentioned that Phyllis's wristwatch would show the time 3:25 A.M. When the body was found, the watch had stopped at that very time.
One of her most important clues, which she mentioned on the very first visit, concerned an article of Phyllis's clothing. She said Krug tried to burn the clothes, but that a fingerprint of Krug's would remain on Phyllis's panty hose. This was found and used later as a major piece of evidence in the trial. She said Krug would be picked up while committing another crime. Her description exactly fit that of Frederick Krug, twenty-seven, of South River, New Jersey. He had just been picked up on alleged charges of rape and had a long record of violent attacks on young women.
Thanks to Mrs. Allison, Krug was indicted for the murder of Phyllis Thompson on January 16, 1974. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnap-murder.
Although saddened and often sickened by the sight of the victims, whether child or adult, Dorothy believed that finding a body and therefore being able to have a funeral were as comforting as anything else that might be done. She came to feel that a funeral at least put an end to the torture, and as a concluding rite, helped some faltering families begin to reestablish a more normal pattern, and sometimes brought them closer to God again. In the period between the Michael Kurscics case and her work on the Phyllis Thompson murder, she gradually learned to render her own sadness into positive energy and focus on her objectives: finding the victim and then, if possible, the culprit.
Waiting, in Dorothy's mind, was torture. Part of her mission in her new life, she hoped, would be to end the interminable period of waiting, speculation, and false hope for the parents of missing children. She saw firsthand how parents were destroyed by the lack of resolve, never knowing if their child ran away for emotional reasons, or was abducted. As long as there remained a chance that word would come of the missing child, parents always kept the fire of hope alive. Dorothy felt, particularly if she saw the victim dead, that hope was another ingredient in the torture.
One of Dorothy's greatest gifts, which would help endear her to the staunchest police skeptic, was her comic aspect. The child in Dorothy was an important source of life. From that irrepressible side of herself she would summon the spirit of adventure and faith, of humor and unadulterated compassion for others. Laughter, she felt, was the antidote to tragedy and her greatest defense against overwhelming depression. The child in her loved to play pranks, often using her psychic powers as the source of humor. The fact that most of the police she would deal with towered over her in height and bulk made her antics seem all the more childlike.
The blossoming of her psychic abilities opened up channels of her intellect she had never before realized she possessed. Her ability to objectify herself and call to account her various personal aspects would allow her to question the prejudices with which she bad grown up. Through the years Dorothy would become a campaigner on issues she learned about from her new encounters with people from all backgrounds. And while a firm believer in God, she could be both iconoclastic and irreverent.
***
On February 8, 1974, Dorothy was asked by Randolph Hearst to assist him in finding his daughter, Patty, who had been kidnapped on February 4. Dorothy, before that weekend, had never heard of either Randolph or Patty Hearst.
"Would you help us? We're desperate," Hearst pleaded with Dorothy. He would fly her out and pay whatever price she requested for her services.
"I don't take money, Mr. Hearst. There's no price for a child."
During that weekend Dorothy had watched coverage of the kidnapping on television. All she knew was that a teenage girl had been taken and the girl's parents had money. Dorothy agreed to fly to San Francisco and work under hypnosis for two days. She would bring two people with her, she told Hearst, so she would need fare and rooms for three: Dorothy, Vicaro, and Dr. Ribner, her psychic guide and interrogator. Carmen A. Orechio, Director of Public Safety for the town of Nutley, cooperated by allowing Detective Vicaro to accompany Dorothy.
Hearst agreed, and the trio flew to California. For two days Ribner and Vicaro worked with Dorothy and the FBI, going over clues and details of Patty's life that might trigger something in Dorothy's psyche. Dorothy spent hours under hypnotic trance, being interrogated about places and people she had never heard of or seen.
They worked while hundreds of agents, detectives, and police across the country built a network of communication in the most publicized kidnapping the world had witnessed since the Lindbergh child had been reported missing.
In her hotel room perched over the bay, Dorothy searched for Patty. She could do little more than say the girl was still alive, frightened, and hidden in a place that was dark, like a prison cell. "There is a small light in the room," she explained. "It's dark like a closet."
Time and again she saw the girl alive in a dark cell. She could describe the room with some accuracy of detail, but she could not determine its whereabouts.
Dorothy left San Francisco to work on other cases, telling Hearst and the FBI that she would work on his daughter's case from her home. But it was not until five months later that she had a psychic run-in with Patty Hearst while searching for the bodies of two men in central Pennsylvania.
On July 20, Dorothy had been in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, looking for the bodies of Richard Wyler and Alfred Sutley, New Jersey and Long Island businessmen whose single-engine Beechcraft had plunged into the night somewhere between Cincinnati and Teterboro, New Jersey, on July 10.
Ruth Wyler, wife of forty-nine-year-old victim, had contacted Dorothy from her Westwood, New Jersey, home. She explained to Dorothy that the last time the men had been heard from was from the Flight Service Station at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, not far from Altoona, at 8:00 P.M. on July 10.
Despite the combined efforts of the Federal Aviation Administration and local and state police, as well as a five-state search by the Civil Air Patrol, the plane had not been found, Mrs. Wyler reported.
Mrs. Wyler later gave the following statement to Dorothy:
Mrs. Allison worked by providing description, of people, places, and things, that she felt were relevant to the case. To further aid us, she went through three hours of detailed questioning under hypnosis which was taped for later reference. It is necessary to interpret her material and for this she collaborated with the Civil Air Patrol units, the state police, and knowledgeable local citizens. She also spent ten days hiking in the mountains working with these groups, our two sons, and me. Early in July she predicted that if the plane was not found by July 15, it would be found on December 9, as it was.
The affidavit goes on to say that "the plane made a U-turn" in Dorothy's description, and when found, the plane was heading west, not east, as it should have been heading; she reported the plane "leaving a trail, and the tail of the plane separated from the plane," whereas it had indeed crashed through the trees, leaving a trail of plane parts and belongings over a 350-yard path. Dorothy saw "cotton candy all over the ground," and the night it crashed the weather reports indicated the site was shrouded in fog. "I see checkered jackets," Dorothy had reported. Both men were wearing checkered jackets. "The men aren't together," she said. Only one man was found in the plane, the other having been blown some twenty feet away by the impact.
During one of the early hypnosis sessions Dorothy was told to get in a car and drive toward the wreck from New York City. Mrs. Wyler reports that "through questioning we led her through New Jersey en route to Pennsylvania, where we were convinced the plane had gone down. Mrs. Allison strongly objected to leaving New Jersey. Had we allowed her to follow her own instincts and questioned her more skillfully as to her reasons for wanting to stay in New Jersey, perhaps we could have found the plane earlier."
While in central Pennsylvania Dorothy had gotten some feelings about Patty Hearst. She felt Patty was somewhere in the area, somewhere in Pennsylvania. She insisted upon calling the FBI agent in San Francisco who was in charge of the Hearst case. From the state police office in Holli-daysburg Dorothy reported to the agent that Patty was in Pennsylvania in a farmhouse, not in California as they felt. He accepted the information and gave her the name of an agent in Johnstown whom she could call if she got anything more specific. She did contact the Johnstown agent, calling him at home at 2:00 A.M., reporting to the sleeping agent that she was a psychic and that she felt strongly about Patty Hearst being in the area.
"What?" the dubious agent asked. "You saw Patty Hearst in Hollidaysburg?"
"No, I didn't say I did. I said I feel she is in Pennsylvania, not California. I see her in my head," Dorothy explained.
"Are you for real lady? How did you get my number?" His voice did not hide his agitation.
Dorothy gave him the name of the agent in San Francisco. "He said to call you if I felt anything about Patty being in the area," Dorothy said, not pleased at the credibility problem.
"You live in Hollidaysburg?" the agent asked.
"No, I don't live here. I'm looking for two bodies and a missing airplane. I live in New Jersey."
The thoroughly confused agent said he would check with headquarters the next morning. He quickly said good-bye and hung up.
Months later it was discovered that Patty Hearst had been in Pennsylvania at the time of Dorothy's call. However Dorothy had no way of knowing whether the agent she had spoken to had ever acted on her call.
On December 9, Ruth Wyler called Dorothy to say that the remains of the airplane and the two men had been found not in Pennsylvania, but in Morris County, New Jersey, in an area very much like that described by Dorothy during hypnosis. A hunter trekking through the woods half a mile south of Jefferson Township Middle School had found the plane's wreckage unburned, as Dorothy had envisioned.
Ruth Wyler expressed her thanks and allegiance to Dorothy and her work.
"You've put my mind at ease," Dorothy told Mrs. Wyler. "Not bad marksmanship, finding the plane on the day I predicted. My stars are in a good place today."
Dorothy felt terrific that week as she prepared for the holidays. Articles appeared in the papers from Altoona to Nutley claiming that Dorothy's predictions had been corroborated five months after the plane had crashed.
The next day Dorothy was pleased to find a letter from Catherine Hearst thanking her for the St. Anthony statue the psychic had sent as a gift. She thanked her, as well, for the efforts she had made in the investigation. The mother of the still-missing girl expressed her faith in God and the hope that Patty would be found alive, as Dorothy insisted. Dorothy continued to work on the Hearst case with New York FBI Agent Bob McDowell.
On Friday, December 13, Dorothy took Justine and Paul for an early dinner and some shopping at the neighboring Bloomfield shopping center. Thousands of pre-Christmas shoppers prowled through the stores, bumping into one another with the resignation of the inevitable.
While Dorothy and her children pranced around the mall, fate prepared to alter the life of another shopper that evening.
Francis Carlucci, a heavyset, quiet, unassuming mother of four from Colonia, New Jersey, was shopping with her daughters Justine and Doreen, and Doreen's new girl friend, Jeanne Delardo. Francis moved slowly and patiently after a long day of work as a nurse at Rahway Hospital, thinking about the presents she had yet to buy for her children, husband, and parents.
Joe Carlucci, her husband, had taken their two sons for haircuts, and would retrieve the women at an appointed spot. Joe Carlucci, a machinist for fifteen years, had worked closely with his wife to raise a family who believed in God and the freedoms that their country offered. Religion formed a strong foundation for the Carlucci family: that foundation's strength would soon be tested.
The night was clear and crisp. Everyone's mind was on gifts and holiday spirits and the tree that was to be picked out on Sunday.
When the family arrived back at their split-level home, Doreen, fourteen years old, and her friend Joanne, fifteen, discussed evening plans while the rest of the family unpacked purchases and talked about the exciting things they had seen in the stores.
Doreen stood at the kitchen phone, leaning on the Formica counter, checking with friends about the evening's recreation, mindlessly doodling on a note pad a cartoon of shoes and feet. Of medium height and attractively slim, Doreen was feeling particularly good because she had just had her long, dark hair cut into a more modern short style, like her girl friends'. She wanted to show it off that night.
Bright, compassionate, and artistic, Doreen had a niche in her heart for the underdog; she had befriended one or two boyfriends whom others felt were undesirable. A student at Colonia Junior High, her grades were very good and her participation in school activities enthusiastic. She had become friends with Joanne, who lived several blocks away and was a year ahead of her in school, through Joanne's sixteen-year-old brother, Joseph. A junior in high school, Joseph liked Doreen and had visited the Carlucci house on several occasions. Friday, December 13, was the first time Joanne had ever visited the Carlucci house, and was the last time Francis and Joe saw either girl alive.
The girls decided to go to the Delardo house to watch a Christmas special on the Delardos' color television. Francis called Jeannette Delardo, whom she had never met, to see if it was okay with her.
"No problem," Mrs. Delardo said. "I'll be home all evening. Doreen's welcome here."
Francis told Doreen that 11:00 P.M. was the latest she could be out. She kissed her daughter on the forehead and went back to wrapping presents.
Doreen and Joanne watched the television special and then walked the eight blocks to St. John Vianney Church where a coffeehouse called Shalom House was sponsored on weekends to give the teen-agers a place to get together.
At 11:15, Francis called the Delardos to find out whether Doreen had left for home yet. She found that her daughter had gone to the Shalom House, and the girls were expected home momentarily. At 11:45, Francis got into her car and drove to the church, where teen-agers were talking in the parking lot.
Two friends of Doreen's reported that they had last seen the two girls sitting on the steps, eating ice cream. That was at around 10:00 P.M. No one had seen them since. No one knew where they were heading, or if they had any plans.
At 4:00 A.M., Francis and Joe phoned the Woodbridge Police Department to report their missing child. Francis, normally a quiet worrier, had to stop several times during the policeman's questioning to stifle the rush of tears. The police reported they had not heard of any problems in the area.
On Friday, December 20, Detective Salvatore Lubertazzi sat in the Nutley Police Department thinking that the clock was crawling at a snail's pace. "What could be accomplished in the next hour," he wondered, "before splitting for home?"
Christmas always had its freak emergencies; incidents of vandalism and theft also ran higher than at other times of the year. The holiday season always brought out the difficulties in life, with Santas on every comer as reminders of loneliness and economic strife. The detective smiled, recalling a Santa they had picked up for pickpocketing people who were standing on the corner waiting for the light to change. He had turned out to be a bald former Hare Krishna follower.
A call did come that Lubertazzi, known as Lupo, had to handle: a call that would lead the shy Italian down on a trail of frustration, sadness, and discovery.
The call came from Nutley resident Elaine DeMars, who lived with her husband, John, and their two little boys in a quiet, well-to-do neighborhood. The woman's voice was nervous but contained. She had never had occasion to call the police before.
Lupo listened while the woman explained that her husband, an upstanding citizen, a man of reliability, an officer of the Chemical Bank of New York, was missing.
"He calls if he's going to be five minutes late," the twenty-six-year-old wife said. "It doesn't stand to reason that he would stay out late at a friend's without letting me know."
Six feet three inches tall, weighing over two hundred pounds, John DeMars lived his life with regularity and reason. A man of habit, he parked his car each morning at the Delawanna Station in Nutley, rode the Erie Lackawanna Railway to Hoboken, where he picked up the PATH train to the Church Street stop, four blocks from his Chemical Bank branch. The same route, in reverse, was repeated each evening, getting him home between 6:30 and 7:00 P.M.
With only half of their Christmas shopping done, and tree ornaments still sitting in the box ready to adorn the tree, Elaine DeMars sat anxiously as the minutes and hours passed and still no word from her husband came.
By 10:00 she had called every possible friend or bank acquaintance, looking for her husband. Two friends who had lunched with him said he had talked about bowling that night. She also found out from his secretary that he had left the office full of holiday spirit, saying he was looking forward to playing with his kids over the weekend. That was the last time anyone reported having talked to him.
Lupo went to the DeMars home where he took down the information from Elaine DeMars and John DeMar's mother and brother-in-law, a deacon in the diocese of Paterson, New Jersey. When they had finished talking, Lupo thought to himself that the description of the missing man given by the family made him think a saint was missing, not a mortal.
John DeMars was an unlikely candidate for the many possible explanations the detectives had to pursue: a 1966 Rutgers graduate, a former intelligence officer in Vietnam, assistant manager of commercial accounts at Chemical Bank, a district deputy of the Knights of Columbus and a past Grand Knight of Council 6159, plus the father of two boys. A man like John DeMars would be difficult to lose between the cracks.
Investigatory agencies, like all bureaucracies, observe weekends and holidays to some degree. If a person is reported missing on Friday, the wheels of the investigation do not begin to turn until Monday. It is also standard procedure to wait twenty-four hours before full-scale investigation begins on a case; in many instances a missing person shows up, having forgotten to mention a prior engagement or having been lost in someone's arms.
Beginning Monday morning, Deputy Chief Salvatore Dimichino coordinated the efforts of his men, the newspaper, television, and radio stations. Chief Buel put the investigation in his charge, asking for a daily report on his findings. Each evening Dimichino would sit with Lupo, analyzing the steps that had been covered that day, taking in the phone calls of people reporting having seen the man whose photo appeared in newspapers throughout the New Jersey and New York metropolitan area.
After five days of investigation they had come up with nothing more than the clockwork routine of a man who seldom, if ever, was deflected from his daily course. Dimichino was baffled as he heard about the hundreds of interviews his men conducted in Nutley, in the subway stations, on the train platform, and the train itself, without a single clue to the man's whereabouts.
A missing person stops time and alters life irrevocably for the family. Suddenly a phone ringing becomes a symbol, one that Francis Carlucci, Jeannette Delardo, and Elaine DeMars listened for constantly in tearful hope that the next call would be the familiar voice that resounded in their dreams, in their prayers, in their every waking moment. Waiting for the unknown to be disclosed is torture to thousands each year whose family members are reported missing.
Each evening Lupo sat with the DeMars family and gave them a progress report. Passengers on the train were being questioned, he told them, as well as cabdrivers. Some commuters recognized the photograph of DeMars, having silently traveled with him to and from Manhattan, briefly acknowledging one another over newspapers and briefcases. The conductor and train personnel had also been questioned and all recognized DeMars, but no one confirmed his having been on the train that evening.
"If Mr. DeMars left 199 Church Street at four-thirty P.M., then he would have been at the World Trade Center subway station in time to catch the five-oh-five PATH train for Hoboken," Lupo explained. "But there was a delay in the PATH that night, so he had to take a later train, and would have been on the five-twenty Erie Lackawanna."
A PATH official confirmed that there had been a ten-minute delay in service on that line during the December 20 rush hour because of equipment problems.
Possibilities of kidnapping were investigated thoroughly, since any bank official has access to material and information that might provoke a crime. Bank records and notes afforded no explanations for the police, as well DeMars' files were in perfect order and no money had been removed from his own account apart from the usual weekend fare.
Lupo's heart weighed heavily each time he left the De-Mars home. A Christmas tree sat in their living room, unlit and simply decorated; no presents were visible. Expecting her husband to walk in at any time, Elaine DeMars had decided to leave the tree ready for celebration.
Each evening Lupo went home to Ms wife, Phyllis, and their five children. A detective with a great store of compassion and an unprepossessing manner, Lupo spent much of his time wondering how so much suffering existed in the world.
As a child growing up in Nutley, he had experienced anti-Italian feelings that lingered still in his reticent, if not shy, demeanor. Underneath his facade remained a hard core of skepticism, however, that would soon be tested by Dorothy.
The day before Christmas, at 8:30 that chilly morning, Dorothy received a call from Francis Carlucci. The hushed-voiced woman from Colonia explained that one of Dorothy's neighbors, whom Dorothy had never met, was an old school chum of hers and had reported to her that Dorothy had psychic abilities. The tearful caller wondered whether Dorothy might have a moment to spend with her as her daughter had been missing with her fifteen-year-old-old girl friend since Friday, December 13.
"She had no reason to run away." Francis's tone was adamant after weeks of listening to police theorize and insist that her daughter had, indeed, run away. She had pointed out that the girl's $50.00 in Christmas money still sat on her dresser.
Dorothy believed the mother. She could feel instantly that the girls had not run away. She could not tell if they were still living, but her inclination weighed heavily toward the belief that they were dead.
"Could we come up and see you, Mrs. Allison?" Francis Carlucci asked. "Whenever is good for you."
"Would you wait till Thursday so I can spend Christmas with my family? I'm having twenty-seven people for dinner tomorrow. Anyway, you should spend tomorrow thanking God you have other beautiful children," Dorothy advised.
Francis didn't know what to say. Had she mentioned her other children to the psychic?
"Also," Dorothy said, "bring one or two articles belonging to the girls. You know, a necklace or a glove, or better yet, something they loved wearing. And bring the exact time of birth for both girls. Be sure it's the exact moment. That's very important," the psychic instructed.
Francis thanked Dorothy and told her that her prayers would include her. A Roman Catholic, Francis's faith in God was being tested beyond any of her prior experiences. A woman who spent her days caring for the sick and her evenings tending and loving her family was a sadly ironic candidate for the tragedy she and her family were suffering.
In her mind Francis connected Dorothy with her faith in God. She felt certain that Dorothy's spiritual and psychic abilities were closely knitted to her own faith. Before she ever met the Nutley psychic, she believed in her, as she believed in God.
Early Thursday afternoon Bob Allison opened the door for the Carluccis, the Delardos and the Carluccis' Nutley friend, Maureen. They all sat down in the Allisons' den, where Dorothy served food and introduced Justine and Paul to the families, telling them that she felt certain she would find their children within the next three days.
Any trepidation the strangers might have been feeling was quickly assuaged by the familial spirit of Dorothy's home. Justine and Paul told them about other cases Dorothy had worked on, and resolved, most of them within thirty days.
The doorbell rang again, and Dorothy shouted that the door was unlocked and that Jason was in the basement. The door opened, revealing the energetic and smiling face of Don Vicaro. Dorothy kissed him and wished him a happy holiday. Then she introduced him to the two Colonia families.
"This man has worked with me on cases over the last several years and can help interpret things that I'm seeing," Dorothy explained. "Let's sit in the living room and talk seriously."
The parents of the missing girls told the story of the night their daughters disappeared, and the police investigation that ensued. In solemn detail the families told how a thirteen-state alarm was in effect; of the days and nights that schoolmates, relatives, neighbors, and rescue-squad volunteers had joined in an intensive search in the towns of Colonia, Edison, Clark, and Rahway; of questioning dozens of schoolmates and subjecting them to polygraphs; of walking through dense brush and forests in the cold rain and snow; of finding caves and holes and hoping against hope that their children might be buried there; of the dozens of crank calls and hopeful sightings of their little girls; of the $1,500 reward that was offered; of posting the girls' photographs on bulletin boards in shopping centers, office buildings, schools, and shop windows; and of the desperation and futility they had faced.
While they spoke, Dorothy watched them closely, sizing them up as parents of the missing girls. In her hand she held the photograph of Doreen Carlucci. She had seen plenty of cases in which parents had lost children due to negligence. The world was full of negligent parents, Dorothy knew; but such was not the case with Doreen's and Joanne's parents.
Francis Carlucci handed Dorothy some articles belonging to Doreen. Dorothy took a little gold bracelet in her hand, feeling it with her entire being. She felt sad as she held the precious possession and saw, without commenting to the families, the brutalized bodies of their little girls. She saw clearly that the girls were dead.
Tears began to form in her eyes as Dorothy heard from Francis that the bracelet had been a confirmation gift from Doreen's grandmother, whom she called Nanny. Dorothy thought of her own grandchildren, Sam's children, and how she loved to give them presents. A single clover leaf gleamed from the chain-link bracelet, "Love, Poppy and Nanny" inscribed on the back.
Dorothy knew she had to divert the parents' attention from too morbid thoughts. She swallowed, suppressing the tears.
Can't let them get depressed, she thought to herself. She remembered how her mother had taken traumatic situations into hand with a sudden change in mood, steering people away from their tragedies. Dorothy knew she had to reach for something to destroy the prevailing mood.
Dorothy looked at Vicaro. "Hey, Vic, who was that I saw you with the other night?" Dorothy suddenly called across the room.
Vic blushed. "Where're you talking about?" he asked. "You can't hide from me, I know I saw you with someone the other night," Dorothy joked.
His face reddened; he knew there was no escaping Dorothy's vision. Everyone laughed as the suave cop realized the only person he had been with was his wife, Maryanne.
"I didn't say who I saw you with," Dorthy laughed. "I saw you with your wife, you guilty bastard."
Before they settled down to more direct questioning, Dorothy and the policeman told stories that had occurred over the years while they had worked together. As soon as Dorothy saw Francis and Jeannette relaxed and smiling, she knew it was time to get to work. She began to concentrate.
At first, in Dorothy's mind, the glow of silver metal seemed to radiate in the sun. She saw large metal boxes in a row. As she got closer, the boxes grew and she saw they were like vans. Five rows of metal vans stood next to what looked to be a wooded area.
As she described what she was seeing, Vicaro said, "Probably a trailer camp."
"That sounds right," Dorothy agreed. "I think it is a trailer camp."
"Is that where the girls are hidden?" Joe Carlucci asked.
"It's hard to tell," Dorothy said. "I don't get them in one of those trailers. They are nearby, somewhere, though."
Shoes. She saw shoes, both as a cartoon and as real shoes. Nurse's shoes. Soft white shoes and glistening stockings. She saw a woman, her face indistinguishable, in a nurse's uniform.
"These shoes bother me. So does the nurse," Dorothy said. "I can't figure them in this, but somewhere along the line they'll be involved. Maybe just in the area where you live."
After dinner Justine and Bob helped set out coffee and dessert for the families. Dorothy began to see things more clearly.
The trailer camp was in sharper focus, and she pin-pointed one trailer with blue and silver coloring. But the words "silver" and "trailer" seemed significant in themselves. And the letters "m-e-a-d" appeared in conjunction with the camp.
"I don't know what it means, but I see the word 'silver' and the word 'mead,' like on a sign. Also the number 'nine' is important. Does any of this make any sense to you?" She looked at the parents, hoping for some indication of recognition. But none came.
"You're going to find the girls," she said slowly, in the manner of a pronouncement, "within the next three days. Probably tomorrow or the next day.
"I know it's rough, but let's work together in finding those two children." She sat between the two mothers, speaking forcefully, trying to support them in their grief.
After awhile Dorothy bounced up and looked at the clock. It was nearing midnight and she still wanted time alone to work on the girls' charts. She felt the presence of death inside her, and she knew from years of experience that she could not let it destroy her, as it nearly had with Michael Kurscics. She would not fall prey to the emotions being generated around her.
After talking with Vic, Dorothy suggested to the parents that they call the Woodbridge police with the clues Dorothy had given them.
"Maybe they can make heads or tails of it. They ought to, for all they haven't done yet," Dorothy suggested.
Francis Carlucci called the detective she had been dealing with and gave him the information about the trailer camp and the descriptions Dorothy gave of the area; Dorothy listened on another extension, finishing the conversation by mixing force with expletives. She feared the police would do nothing with the clues Francis Carlucci had asked them to pursue.
It would take twenty minutes for one of those cops to locate that trailer park, if they wanted to, she thought to herself. I'm going to have to find another way of locating that place.
That night Dorothy slept fitfully.
Once again she "spirited" in search of the resolution, hunting for facts not yet disclosed, for landmarks that would help locate the two slain bodies she saw in the underbrush.
This time, in contrast to her experience with the Michael Kurscics case, Dorothy was in command. She saw the faces of the girls, wracked with the agony of final fear. Though saddened by the sight, the psychic was not as vulnerable as she once had been; now she moved upward, like a spiraling hawk cutting the chilly night with determination in its helix path. Around and around the landscape seemed to turn, as her eye searched for landmarks on which to prey.
The unfamiliar land seemed covered by spongelike darkness. Trees blanketed the ground. Light gently shimmered over a large area. As she aimed for the light, the area began to take a more definite shape. She saw a metallic glow, not shiny like glass, but softer, like a brushed metal reflecting the moon's glow. Lines took the form of square shapes. Row after row of metal rectangles. Dorothy knew she had found the trailer park.
She focused closer in search of landmarks. Now she could see the long low sign made of cinder blocks, with the word "silvermead" on it.
Down through a dark vein running through the woods she moved, undaunted by the darkness that harbored the bodies of the two victims no one else could see. Past where the girls lay, on and on through the serpentine artery, she silently glided until she reached a crossing of channels and a building. It was a small office structure. The mind's peri-scoping eye saw "Goldstein lawyer." Dorothy fell into a deep slumber.
The next morning Dorothy called the Carluccis. While she had prepared breakfast, the word "silvermead" continued to come to her, as did the vision of the trailers. Now, however, she felt that the "Goldstein" of her dream was also connected with the trailer camp.
"Goldstein? Who is he? Where is he?" Francis asked Dorothy.
"You know I can't tell directions very well, but I see him out at a crossroad somewhere about a mile or so from these trailers. Maybe a couple of towns below you, heading for Florida," Dorothy conjectured.
With the description and direction given by Dorothy, Joe Carlucci acted decisively. He phoned his brother-in-law, Tom Barbuda, in Freehold, which was in the direction indicated by Dorothy, and asked him to drive with him.
The two men spent hours driving around. Finally, after questioning people along the way, a lawyer's office was found that fit Dorothy's description.
Joe Carlucci entered the small, single-level office building and asked the receptionist if he might have a word with a lawyer named Goldstein.
"Do you have an appointment with Mr. Goldstein?" the young girl inquired.
"No, this is not really a business matter. I was sent here by a psychic and I need to see if Mr. Goldstein can help me with some information."
Confused, the secretary went into the office and came out with a short, middle-aged man who introduced himself to Joe Carlucci as Goldstein. The two men went into the lawyer's office where Joe sat down and eyed the small, prefabricated office.
The desperate father briefly explained what had brought him to the lawyer's office. As soon as Joe mentioned that a psychic had sent him, the balding lawyer indicated that his time was valuable and that he didn't believe in psychics. Not until Joe told him the psychic had pinpointed him and said that he might, be able to decipher the words "silver" and "mead" and some connection to trailers, did Goldstein remove his wire-rim glasses and focus on the man sitting before him.
"Silvermead?" the incredulous lawyer stammered. "Are you saying 'Silvermead' as one word?"
"Any way you want it, I'll take it," Joe said.
"How does this psychic know me?" the lawyer asked.
"She doesn't. She doesn't even know where you are," Joe told him, confusing the lawyer even more.
The lawyer swiveled in his desk chair and looked at the three diplomas on the wall. "I know where she's talking about. I own a trailer there," he said as if talking to himself. "But not many people know I have it, since my name's not on it and I don't live there."
"Listen, Mr. Goldstein, I don't care what you do in your trailer, or why you have it. That you have a trailer is what I'm glad to hear. Just tell me where this camp is. My daughter is supposed to be near there."
Goldstein walked Joe outside and pointed to the right, down a road leading into a wooded area. "The camp is called Silvermead Trailer Park and you'll run into it about a mile and a half down the road."
Joe was heartened by the finding of Goldstein, although he didn't know what connections to make between his daughter and the lawyer. All he could do was follow his instincts with the details Dorothy had given the day before. She had mentioned a trailer that was blue and silver, so the two men headed down Route 9 for the Silvermead Trailer Camp in hopes of a resolution.
The trailer-camp entrance was a dirt road off to the left of a heavily wooded area. The mobile homes lined up in five rows formed an odd community, situated in an isolated area. The two men parked the car at the entrance and walked around the ground, looking for anything that might trigger a response or connection to Dorothy's clues. Each"person they met was questioned and shown the photographs of the two adolescents.
After they had walked through the area and felt nothing more could be done, they drove around to diners and supermarkets to show people the photographs of the girls. The hours slipped away until the sun began to set and Joe Carlucci sighed with sadness and disappointment.
He believed in Dorothy, and he was frustrated that the police had evidently refused to consider her clues as a possibility.
As they drove north on Pergolaville Road toward Tom Barbuda's house, a screaming ambulance flared past them, going in the opposite direction. Joe was frightened that the sirens might be heading for his daughter. After leaving his brother-in-law at his home, Joe drove north quietly and slowly, sad at the thought of facing his hopeful wife.
Thirty minutes after Tom Barbuda had finished telling his wife of their afternoon encounters with Goldstein and the Silvermead Trailer Park, the phone rang. It was the Manalapan Police Department. The bodies of two girls had been found in the underbrush alongside Pergolaville Road by a bicyclist at around 4:00 P.M. No positive identification of the girls had been made. Could he pick up Joe Carlucci and bring him to Monmouth Medical Center for possible identification?
"Be prepared for an unpleasant sight," the lieutenant warned Tom. "These girls are in bad shape."
The eighteen-year-old bicyclist had spotted one of the girls lying faceup about ten feet off the road. When the police arrived, the second girl was found some ten feet away. One girl was wearing only work shoes, while the other had on a sweater and shoes.
The two men were led into the basement morgue of the hospital, where the air was chilly and the click of their heels resonated. The bodies lay rigid on steel tables covered by white starched fabric. Frightened by the sight of death and the moment of possible resolution, the two men moved with trepidation toward the tables where a hospital attendant stood waiting to show them the corpses.
Tom Barbudo held onto his brother-in-law while the sheet was removed, revealing Joe's daughter, Doreen. Brutality and death had worked an ugly alchemy on the girl; her flesh showed bruises that spread over much of her body.
"Yes," the weakened man moaned. "This is my daughter."
The other body was quickly identified as Joanne Delardo, and the two men left the room to breathe and regain their strength.
Medical Examiner Dr. Edwin Albano and a police detective sat with the saddened father. The examiner said that the bodies were "very cold" and had probably been "outside for some time." Curiously the area in which the girls were found had been searched earlier that week and no bodies had been discovered then. The Manalapan policeman said "they had to have been dumped there sometime yesterday afternoon."
"I don't know if yon noticed the marks on your daughter's neck," the examiner continued, "but they are strangulation marks. A rubber-coated electrical cord was used to strangle the two girls. The cord was found around Joanne's neck."
The time of death was estimated to be at least ten days before but the doctor said "they could have been killed shortly after they disappeared sixteen days ago." A vaginal-semen test had been run and had proven negative: neither girl had been sexually molested.
Finally Joe asked exactly where the girls had been found. The policeman took out a map and showed him the spot indicated by a circle on the map.
"Is that anywhere near the Silvermead Trailer Camp?" the father inquired.
The policeman pointed to an area directly behind the circle. "Not more than a half a mile away, I'd say," the policeman estimated.
Joe looked at his brother-in-law in amazement.
"Did you have an ambulance with sirens going to pick up the girls, around four-thirty this afternoon?" Tom Barbuda asked.
The policeman thought for a moment. "That's about right. And yes, the dude had his sirens going."
Arrangements were made to have the bodies moved north to Colonia for burial preparations, and Joe and Tom left, both feeling numb from the experience.
While the police departments of Woodbridge and Mana-lapan met to exchange facts and organize material, the area in which the girls were found was combed thoroughly by police and hounds. Woodbridge Police Chief Anthony O'Brien said the officials had no leads or suspects in the case.
Francis Carlucci called Dorothy and told her that the girls had been identified in Manalapan Township, in an area very much like the one described in her vision.
"I would like to come down for the mass," Dorothy said. "I would also like to see where the girls were found."
While the girls' bruised bodies were prepared for the funeral, friends and relatives gathered together in the Carlucci living room. Dorothy sat with the family, helping them cope with the tragedy. While she sat talking with people, she again saw in her mind the uniform of a nurse.
Then she saw two men, one very tall, one of medium height. The taller man seemed considerably younger than the other man. Dorothy spoke with Francis in private.
"Maybe you're seeing me," Francis said. "I'm a nurse, and you said Thursday that you saw a nurse. I figured it was me."
"No," Dorothy insisted. "The nurse still bothers me. So do the shoes I keep seeing. There's something odd about those shoes."
Francis jumped up and went to a drawer in the china closet, pulling out several sheets of paper. Out of the pile she handed Dorothy a single piece of paper on which a cartoon of three pairs of feet and shoes were drawn.
"Are these the shoes?" Francis asked.
Dorothy smiled. "These are the shoes I saw before when you came to my house. Now I see different shoes. Who made this?"
"Doreen. The night she was killed. This was on the kitchen counter when the girls left for the Delardos."
"I think I see the men who killed your daughter," Dorothy said to Francis. "I keep seeing two men. The shorter one is middle-aged, heavyset, with a face that could kill. The taller one is younger, wears glasses, has a buck-tooth smile like a beaver. Does that sound familiar?"
No one recognized the men Dorothy saw. As they rode to Manalapan and the wooded area where the bodies had been found, Joe Carlucci pointed out Goldstein's office. Dorothy smiled, thinking how she must have unsettled the unsuspecting lawyer.
"He probably thinks that I know what he does in that trailer of his," Dorothy laughed. "You should have told him I was a friend of his wife. That would have made him think for awhile."
Dorothy got very strong feelings again about the nurse and the shoes.
"I know I see that nurse and those shoes. There's something going on around here that involves a nurse. You'll see."
As no one, including the police, could make sense of her descriptions, the matter was dropped. Dropped by everyone but Dorothy.
***
The next day, on her birthday, Dorothy received a phone call from Elaine DeMars. The woman had read about Dorothy in the papers, and about her involvement with finding the body of murdered schoolteacher Phyllis Thompson the previous year. Dorothy had not read about John DeMars's disappearance in the Nutley Sun. Elaine DeMars wanted to pay a visit to Dorothy - that day, if possible.
The desperate wife also told Deputy Chief Dimichino that she wanted Dorothy Allison brought in on the case. Dimichino was frustrated. A cop for twenty-nine years, he felt obsessed by the case, which after two weeks ranked as one of the most intensive searches in the history of the middle-class community of thirty-two thousand people.
Dimichino had heard of the Nutley psychic, and knew of Vicaro's involvements with her over the years. He wasn't a believer, but as nothing else had proven fruitful, he would send a detective to the Allisons' on Monday to talk with the woman.
Elaine DeMars and her mother-in-law went to Dorothy's on Sunday morning, ringing her doorbell at 8:00 A.M. The women were alarmed by the frightening reception they received from Jason, Dorothy's black German shepherd. Unsettled by the mastiffs greeting, they then found themselves at the mercy of a fast-moving psychic.
Dorothy set out coffee cups and plates for pastries, while the two well-dressed women nervously looked around at the Formica kitchen. Dorothy showed them her Capricorn stockings commemorating the day, her birthday.
"Don't tell me a thing about your husband or anything about what the police have done. Let me ask you questions first," Dorothy instructed them.
Again Dorothy saw the same two men she had seen the previous day while at the Carlucci house.
"Who's this funny-looking tall man with the long face and thick glasses and buck teeth? Ugly man, with another fatter, older man. The other one reminds me of a priest. Maybe he was once a priest or something in the church."
Elaine DeMars began to cry. Her mother-in-law took her hand and told her to compose herself. Then the older woman turned to Dorothy.
"Why are you describing these men?" she asked,
"I don't know. Somehow I think they are connected to this case," Dorothy explained.
"Well, your description sounds very like my missing son, John, and my son-in-law, Brian. He's a lay deacon for the diocese in Paterson, so maybe that's why you saw the priest's robes."
Dorothy began to laugh. "Believe it or not," she said, "I described your son to the Woodbridge police yesterday as the murderers of Doreen Carlucci. Isn't that funny?"
Only Dorothy laughed at the fact that she had not only seen John DeMars and his brother-in-law prior to meeting the two women, but that she had misinterpreted them as murderers.
Dorothy was able to change the subject quickly. She saw how unhappy John DeMars's mother was with what she had said.
"Have faith," Dorothy told the woman. "I've been looking for people for eight years now, and I've been very successful. I know I get my cases confused a lot of the time. I can't even read a map. It just happens that I pick up things that may have something to do with a case I'm working on elsewhere, or in the future. Imagine how confusing it is for me.
"When I was out in Pennsylvania last summer," the psychic continued, "I told the police to watch for an airplane that was yellow and silver and had something to do with Yankee Doodle Dandy. I said it was a small' plane and that something was going to happen to it in the nearby area. I wasn't sure it had anything to do with the case I was working on, but I knew the plane was in trouble. The next day a plane crashed in the next town. It was July Fourth and the plane was the Yankee Tripper. Who knew?
"I see a woman with white hair," Dorothy said, getting down to business and focusing on John DeMars. "I think she's in an office. She would have had something to do with your husband, probably at the bank. Her name is Margaret."
Elaine DeMars said nothing, but she knew that the white-haired woman Dorothy described did work at the Chemical Bank and her name was Margaret. She listened closely to everything Dorothy said.
Dorothy poured coffee all around, giving orange juice to Paul and Justine, who sat listening to the fate of the Nutley man whose disappearance was also being discussed at school. The police, everyone knew, had come up with very little.
While her children talked with the two women, Dorothy saw an arrow flying across the sky, zooming against a sky-blue backdrop. As if propelled of its own accord, the arrow glided and began to descend. Water. Dorothy saw water and she knew that John DeMars had drowned.
She looked at the two women. The young wife was anxiously listening to her every word, watching her closely as if scrutinizing her facial movements for possible clues as to what was going on inside the psychic's head.
"Mrs. DeMars, did your husband ever suffer from amnesia?" Dorothy asked.
"No, not that I know of," she replied, and her mother-in-law nodded her head in agreement.
"I do see your husband, I can't say where or when right now, but I do see him. I think he had something like amnesia. I really can't tell. He's moving, and yet he's not. I see him sleeping or unconscious, but still in a suit and still alive. Your husband wore a suit to work everyday, didn't he?"
"Yes," the woman said.
"I'm getting a glimpse of him before he ran into trouble. Why don't you give me today to think and tomorrow we'll talk about it Today is a national holiday in this house, so I'm gonna unplug this thing," she said, pointing to her head, "and be with my family."
"I appreciate your helping." Elaine DeMars extended her hand. "I have asked the police to involve you in the investigation. Please work with them. I just know you can find my husband."
Dorothy gave the woman a warm hug and told her to rest, that her husband would be found. She didn't say, however, whether he would be dead or alive.
As the two women walked out the door, Dorothy stopped them. "Does your husband take the same train home everyday? I mean, he's usually regular, right?"
"Clockwork. His life is like clockwork," Elaine DeMars replied. "Everyday he rides the same train from Hoboken. Almost without fail, unless the trains are broken down, or there's something on the line."
"On the line," Dorothy repeated. "I've got a feeling there is something on the line. Have the police investigated the train?"
The anxious young wife assured Dorothy that the police had interviewed hundreds of people, including commuters and all the train personnel. Mrs. DeMars told her nothing had come of the investigations. People had recognized her husband, but no one could swear he had gotten on the train that night.
"Someone is swearing wrong, I think. I'll talk to the police. Good-bye," and Dorothy closed the door.
On Monday morning Deputy Chief Dimichino called Detective Lubertazzi into his office.
"You've got an appointment this morning," Dimichino told Lupo. "Call this lady and tell her what time you're going over to talk with her."
Lupo took the paper and read the name "Allison" and a phone number. "What's this about?" Lupo asked.
"The DeMars case. This woman says she sees him," Dimichino said, trying not to give away too much.
"Sees or saw?" Lupo asked again.
"Sees," The deputy chief smiled behind his cigarette.
"You're not serious about this, are you? I'm not going to work with some nut who says she sees John DeMars. Why not get one of the religious nuts to meet her? This is a joke, right?"
"This is no joke, and you're going to talk to her this morning whether or not you like it. Elaine DeMars was at her house yesterday and she called me at home to say that this Allison woman sees her husband. So what am I supposed to say?" Dimichino paused. "This is the woman Vicaro worked with on the Kurscics case. We've got nothing more to lose than an hour of your goddamn time, right?"
Dimichino demanded, standing before the quiet cop and staring him down. "I suggest you move your ass and call her before Mrs. DeMars and her Knight of Columbus brother-in-law come down here and knock it out of you."
Lupo shrugged bis shoulders and turned away, muttering to himself in Italian.
Lupo had never met a psychic. He had heard about the Nutley woman from the other cops, but Vicaro, having been the focus of some derision, kept his dealings with Dorothy fairly quiet. Lupo was nervous. He even felt nauseated as he phoned the woman and told her he would be at her house in forty-five minutes.
"Come right in if I don't get to the door. I may have my hands in dough, so answering the door may be hard," Dorothy cheerfully told the cop.
Lupo first tried to find Vicaro, but the other policeman was in Newark transporting a criminal. Lupo thought of what he knew about psychics. Pictures of turbaned swamis in white robes made him even more nervous. He decided, while he drove to Dorothy's, that if she wore huge black earrings and played organ music, he would leave and lie to Dimichino. Lupo felt like a child going into a haunted house for the first time.
He parked the squad car on the steep incline in front of Dorothy's house and looked at the two-story white and brown house ensconced in bushes and trees. He took in a deep breath and walked up the steps to the front door. A large black dog barked angrily in the window to the right of the door, giving Lupo a stare that made him want to turn around. A second later an attractive woman in black slacks and a white silk blouse with sleeves rolled up to the elbow answered the door.
She looked at the shy green eyes and brush moustache of the detective in his tan suit.
"What's the matter? You cops afraid of a sweet dog? I thought you guys could handle them." Dorothy led Lupo into the den, tossing his overcoat on the sofa. "Come into the kitchen while I finish this bread. Then we can have some for lunch."
Lupo sat down at the Formica table and looked in wonder at the woman claiming to see John DeMars. His eye wandered over the stacks of newspapers and police data in the dining room.
"Looks like headquarters. How come you've got so much police stuff around? You in business?" Lupo asked.
"Business? Are you kidding? That's what my husband wants to know. Am I in business. I'm not like all those other money-hungry psychics. I got something most people don't have, and I don't think it's right to charge. Saint Anthony doesn't charge for finding kids," Dorothy said.
"Listen, Mrs. Allison," Lupo tried to get her attention, "I can't stay all day. I've got other people to talk to this afternoon."
"No one is going to tell you where the body is, but me," Dorothy challenged him. "No one you're going to talk to this afternoon will be able to help. So sit there and be quiet for a minute, or I'll stuff you," and she laughed.
Lupo had never met anyone like Dorothy. He was intimidated, at the mercy of this unusual woman.
While Dorothy cleaned and rinsed dishes that were scattered around her kitchen, images began to appear in her mind. An arrow soared across the sky, slowly descending to earth. The arrow landed in underbrush, which seemed to be along the shore of a river. Dorothy sensed water all around.
"I'm gonna tell you from the start," Dorothy said to the cop, "your man is dead. That banker was great with loans and money, but he wasn't so careful with himself. He's dead, and you're going to find him in water."
Lupo sipped steaming hot coffee and jotted notes as Dorothy spoke. He wasn't sure what he could ask her, or what he could expect from her. Dorothy, growing more accustomed to police work and jargon, knew how to be direct with investigators. Lupo merely took down what she said.
"The most important thing right now is that someone you've already interrogated hasn't told you the full story. When you find out the rest, it will change the whole case for you. You'll probably find out about it today or tomorrow."
"Who was this person?" Lupo asked.
"I'm not sure. It's not anyone in the family. I see someone in a uniform, like yours. But he's not a cop. He's some other type of official. Go down your list of people you've talked to and see who wears that land of uniform. It might be a train conductor," Dorothy concluded.
The arrow, as Dorothy could see it from above, was not far from a row of old tires, scattered in a line on the ground. She could make out the numbers "166" in the far distance, and then, in a different way, the numbers "222" appeared.
"Look for the numbers 'one, six, six' and 'two, two, two' around the body. They don't have anything to do with each other, and they might not be places," she warned him, and then added, "I see a playground, too."
Dorothy made him a turkey and ham sandwich and stayed with her psychic periscoping at the same time.
"I see that arrow and archer again," she said.
"What do you suppose archery has to do with John De-Mars?" Lupo asked.
"I can't tell. There might be an archery range nearby, or maybe he was killed accidentally by a flying Indian with a bow and arrow." Dorothy looked over at the cop to see if he had taken down her little joke. He was looking at her, wondering what she meant by a "flying Indian."
"You'd be a horse's ass if you'd taken that down," Dorothy laughed. "Relax, I'm not going to fly across the room."
Dorothy began to catalog her details. "I see the playground, tires, two guys, and a place that looks like a plant or factory that has burned down. You know, like charred slabs of concrete. Does any of that mean anything to you?"
"What the hell are two guys in a playground supposed to tell me?" the cop demanded.
"I didn't say there were two guys in a playground. I don't know what it means, either. It might not be two people," Dorothy explained. "I don't always know what I'm seeing. I never know where I am or in what direction I'm going. You've got to know that. I may say head for Mexico meaning walk thirty yards in that direction. When you find DeMars's body, you'll see that all these things are around him."
Lupo's green eyes bulged like an inquisitive mantis's. He didn't know what to think of the list before him. He knew he wasn't going to show it to anyone at the police station, nor would he consider discussing it with anyone. The skeptic in him stood his ground.
"This last weekend I looked for two kids down below Colonia," Dorothy told him. "Two little murdered teenagers. How I hate those murderers." Tears came to her eyes, and her voice got louder. "If I could get my hands on these bastards who did it, I'd strangle them and call it self-defense. As long as I'm alive, I'll try to get a picture of the bastard that murdered those girls."
Lupo was moved by the feelings Dorothy exhibited. The thought of the short woman attacking thugs and getting away with it amused him, however. He felt certain she could do it.
"I'll bet you could get them, too," Lupo said.
"Damn right I would. One of these days I have a feeling you and I are going to have just that opportunity. I have a feeling you and I are going to work together on another case, more important than this one."
Lupo wasn't sure whether he was pleased or nervous about Dorothy's prediction. For the time being he wanted to get out of her house and be alone. He thanked Dorothy for her help and sandwiches and told her that if anything came of the clues, he would let her know.
"Listen, paesan. Between us, I don't think you believe a word I'm saying." Her large brown eyes challenged him. "That's fine with me. Just don't waste my time coming back if you're not going to check into those clues. You tell Mrs. DeMars to leave me alone if you're not going to take me seriously. Okay?" Dorothy challenged him.
Lupo blushed. He managed to stammer a farewell and a promise to be in touch. With that, he was out the door and hurrying to his car.
Back at his desk Lupo quietly went over the clues given to him by the psychic. A row of tires. That could be any dumping ground. What two guys and what park?
Maybe the two guys are archers. Or underwater divers with spears. Lupo's mind reeled with possibilities.
In the meantime dozens of calls and reports from around the metropolitan New York area came in from people claiming to have seen DeMars. Cabdrivers, postal workers, commuters, convenience store managers called in reporting that someone looking exactly like DeMars had just been seen.
The most important call of the day came from a Lynd-hurst resident. The caller, who wouldn't give his name, was a bond broker in Manhattan. He reported that he was a regular commuter on the Erie Lackawanna, and that he got off each evening in Lyndhurst, the stop just before Nutley. He had seen the articles in the papers about the Chemical Bank officer and recognized him as one of the nightly commuters.
On the night in question the anonymous broker reported that he had absentmindedly missed his own stop in Lyndhurst. He said that he had asked the conductor to stop the train because he had missed his stop. The train had only moved forward a hundred feet or less and was brought to a quick stop.
"It was very dark outside," the man told Lupo, "and there was no light when I looked out the doors when the train stopped again. We were probably a hundred feet away from the Lyndhurst station, on the tram bridge over the Passaic," the broker reported. "I decided it was too dark and too far to walk back to the station, so I went back to my seat and waited for Nutley." When he got back to his seat, the man next to him offered to drive him to Lyndhurst.
"In any case, anyone could have gotten off that train mistakenly," the voice conjectured. "You ought to check with the train officials," he suggested and then hung up.
Lupo could not evade the fact that Dorothy's words of the morning might have come true. If the man's call was legitimate, then someone on that train was not telling the truth, because someone had to have stopped it.
At the railway office Lupo tracked down the conductor and one of the engineers from the train DeMars had usually taken out of Hoboken. This tune, with the bond broker's report in hand, plus Dorothy's warnings in the back of his mind, he interrogated the two men for the third time in three weeks.
As the engineer recaptured the scene, he recalled that a businessman in the third car had run to him just after they left the Lyndhurst station and asked him to stop the train. The commuter had missed his stop.
"Isn't that unusual, to make an extra stop?" Lupo asked.
The engineer, a man in his thirties, nodded in agreement.
"Why didn't you tell me about this man before?" Lupo asked.
"Your picture of DeMars and the man who asked me to stop the train aren't the same person," the engineer defended himself. "I never saw DeMars that night."
"That's the problem," Lupo said. "No one can place him on the train that night. At least, not yet I can see we'll have to jar a few more memories." Lupo gave each man a final stare and left.
Lupo called Dorothy and told her that he had found the missing part of the story.
"The train made an extra stop over the Passaic," he told her. "What do you think?"
"I think you should pick me up tomorrow and we should start looking for his body along the river," she suggested. "If that's okay with you, I'll cancel my hair appointment."
"I'll pick you up around ten o'clock," Lupo said.
"What's the matter, you busy at nine?" Dorothy asked.
"No, I just thought ...," Lupo stammered.
"Pick me up at nine. The earlier the better. See you tomorrow," and she disconnected.
Based on the suspicion that DeMars was on the tram, although that fact had not been proved, and on the fact that the train had made an extra stop on the bridge, Lupo suggested to Dimichino that the Passaic be thoroughly checked.
"It's mighty cold out there." Dimichino rolled his eyes. "I'll tell the chief and he can call the Essex County divers for help. I'll tell him you're going too, floating on your psychic," Dimichino laughed and walked away.
Lupo was not willing to believe so readily in Dorothy's powers. That the men "in uniforms" had been found might have been coincidence. He was going to check out everything that came over the transom, hoping to counter her predictions.
For three days, eight hours a day, Lupo joined the Essex County divers under the train trestle in the cold Passaic. Dorothy walked along the swampy, rubbish-ridden banks, trying to ascertain which way DeMars's body had gone. She was certain that he had been on the train and had suffered some sort of amnesia which caused him to leap unwittingly to his death.
Through mud and sludge, along the banks of the Passaic, Dorothy trampled in knee-high boots and a pink ski parka with a fluffy white hood. Their hope was to catch the body before it traveled to Newark Bay. The pair ceaselessly worked together tracking down clues and interpreting Dorothy's feelings. Three days of diving and swimming in the river proved fruitless, but left Lupo with a case of influenza.
Four days later, after Lupo regained his strength, he and another cop chased down reports that DeMars had been jogging in Newark. It took two days to track down the jogger, who resembled the missing man only from the rear. Another report came from a taxi driver who swore he had picked up DeMars at the Lyndhurst station on the day in question and left him at Newark Airport. Two days of questioning dozens of people at Newark Airport proved fruitless.
Lupo was still unwilling to believe totally in Dorothy. He chased a caller's clues from Long Branch, New Jersey, a city forty miles south of Nutley on the Jersey shore, with dogged tenacity. So positive was he that DeMars would be found in Long Branch that he dragged Dorothy down to the Seven Eleven store where the pair stood for two days talking to customers and passing out pictures of DeMars. The caller insisted that he had seen him; none of the convenience store shoppers recognized the six-foot-three man with wire-rim glasses. So far Dorothy had been more right than wrong.
Everyday Lupo stopped at the DeMars home and reported the findings of the detectives working on the case. Dimichino was frustrated, the chief was angry, and the detectives felt their angst. From day one, DeMars's deacon brother-in-law had called out the Knights of Columbus to assist in the investigation. More and more they got on the police department's nerves, raveling and unraveling details that had been gone over time and again.
To add to Dimichino's frustration, the New York Daily News ran an article on January 13 entitled, "Nutley Cops Draw a Blank on Missing Banker." Chief Buel was angered and embarrassed by the article, and he let his men know his feelings.
By late January, Lupo and Dorothy had traveled back and forth along the riverbanks in the vicinity of the Lyndhurst stop dozens of times. Dorothy began to feel that searching any more was futile. Then the numbers "222" came to her again and she told Lupo that he should hold onto those numbers. They would be important.
That night Dorothy called Lupo at home and told him that DeMars would not be found until February 22. She had decided that was the meaning of the numbers.
"I don't think we should search anymore. Don't be like that crazy Vicaro who wouldn't believe me when I gave him a date and he told me I should keep searching anyway," Dorothy warned. "I've got other cases I'm working on, too, so I better give them a little more attention. They're kids, and I think they need my help more than this banker."
"You mean we just sit around till the twenty-second? What am I going to tell the DeMars family?" Lupo wondered.
"Tell them you're following leads and trailing down clues like always. You police know how to lie better than anyone. You won't have any problems." Dorothy laughed. "The only thing that will bring him up sooner than that date will be those Knights of Columbus. Maybe they'll bless him so much the river will choke and spit him up."
Lupo was surprised at Dorothy's humor, but before he could respond, she had disconnected.
Two days later Dorothy received a call from the Woodbridge police. They wanted to visit her for a little while that afternoon. Dorothy made herself available to them.
Two police detectives arrived around 3:00 P.M. They reported to Dorothy that they still had no leads in the Carlucci-Delardo murders. The only suspect was in jail for the murder of a teen-ager in a community not far from Colonia. Nothing, however, would link him to the two girls.
Dorothy asked the two men if they had any suspects who had anything to do with shoes or shoemaking, who might have raped or murdered a woman. Probably a nurse.
The older man asked Dorothy if she had read any of the recent reports about Joseph Kallanger. Dorothy seldom read the newspapers or listened to television. She relied on her family to point her toward pertinent news. Dorothy had not heard of Kallanger.
A shoemaker from Philadelphia, Joseph Kallanger, with the aid of his teen-age son, had raped and brutally murdered a nurse in Leonia, New Jersey, on January 8. In a case that would stun and frighten people everywhere, the story of Joseph Kallanger took months to unravel, while a growing number of female victims in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey were attributed to him, many only on speculation.
Dorothy was sickened to discover the source of the shoes and the nurse that had haunted her. She felt, however, that the man the detective spoke of had nothing to do with the murdered girls.
Dorothy sensed an unfriendly air about the two cops. It took her only a moment to realize what they had on their mind.
"Mrs. Allison, would you answer a few questions for us? You seem to know an awful lot about this case and we thought you might be able to help," the stern-looking detective said.
Dorothy asked if the Carluccis knew they were questioning her. The blond-haired, younger man said they had not been notified of the visit. That confirmed Dorothy's suspicions.
"Mrs. Allison, where were you the night of December thirteenth?"
"Listen, you guys, you can ask all the questions you want. I just want you to know that I think you're cheap, half-baked cops, and your handling of this entire investigation has been rotten." Her eyes glared with anger. "Now you're questioning someone who had never seen these people till the day after Christmas, two weeks after the disappearance."
She stopped short for a moment and looked at the older man, "I can't tell you why I know you have a mentally retarded daughter," Dorothy said to him. "I just see it. Have you ever met me before?" she challenged him.
The man looked at his partner and told Dorothy he was amazed that she knew his daughter was retarded.
"Well, be amazed that I knew those two poor girls were murdered and would be found quickly, while you men insisted they'd run away. You cops certainly did nothing to make life easier for those two suffering families." Dorothy stood tall as she confronted the two men.
After fifteen minutes the two men left like puppies leaving an obedience school. Dorothy was angered at their reasoning, suspecting her of having any connection to the murder of two beautiful children. The saddest fact would be that the murderer of Doreen and Joanne was never to be found.
It was on February 22 that the Kearny Police Department phoned Lubertazzi in Nutley. The Kearny assistant detective reported that a body had been found in the Passaic River. A wallet had been found on the body, with Nutley identification inside.
"What's the name in the wallet?" Lupo asked.
"DeMars. I think we've found your man," the detective said in a congratulatory tone.
Lupo hopped into his car and drove the several miles to the site of the body as described by the Kearny cop.
Lupo parked his car in the dirt near the muddy shoreline of the Passaic River, five miles downstream from Nutley. He walked alongside the park and discovered that the body had been found some fifty feet behind a Two Guys department store. As he walked and mentally crosschecked the scene with Dorothy's vision, he was amazed by her accuracy. Here was the Two Guys department store, there the playground, and as he stood on the chalk-lined grave, he saw the charred ruins of what had been a paint factory across the river.
It was not until a few days later, when the railway bridge next to the Lyndhurst station was investigated, that he saw the number "166" emblazoned on a tugboat that was permanently stationed under the bridge.
Lupo could see the tracks made by the coroner and all the policemen in the mud. He followed the tracks through to the park where a teen-aged boy watched him approach,
"Did they find anything else with the body?" the sixteen-year-old inquired.
Lupo explained that he was not part of the Kearny investigation, that he had only come down to see the place.
"Do you know how they found the guy?" Lupo inquired.
The boy's face lit up.
"Yeah, me and my Dad found him," he said proudly. "We were shooting arrows at a target, and one got away. I ran to chase it way down by the river's edge, and I saw that man's leg in the mud and plants. I ran back and my dad went over to Two Guys and called the police."
Lupo was stunned at the sight of the archer. "You've done terrific, kid. Keep it up."
Lupo walked to his car and drove to Dorothy's to share the news with her.