Free Vanished in the Dunes by Allan Retzky Page A

passengers, more due to Detective Wisdom’s intervention than anything else. He recognizes none of the names. People who live in the New York area. Some of them in the town of East Hampton. He makes a copy of the list. He decides to start with the driver, who lives in a small town on the eastern end of Long Island, but the results are spotty.
    “I wouldn’t even have remembered her if the police hadn’t asked some questions,” the driver says. “There’s not much I can add to what I told them. I think she spoke to a few people on the bus, but that was when she was getting ready to leave.”
    He doesn’t really expect anything more. The bus driver clearly spent his time looking at the road ahead and not at the passengers seated behind him. There is also a female attendant who left the bus at an earlier stop, but the young woman remembers nothing. Then he searches for the male names on the listing. There are nine of them. The seventh name on the list is a man named Amos Posner in Amagansett. The name means nothing to him.
    He decides to visit the area, books a rental car and a motel room for one night. He opts not to call anyone in advance, but to take his chance that some of the people will be available. Heidi has been gone for nearly six weeks, and there is no word, sign, or evidence that she was ever there. He has paid her rent for the past two months. He learns that her parents in Austria have already been informed of her disappearance by the NYPD, but a short answer in good English says they are not planning to come at this time. A third party signs the reply. The response confuses him. He wonders what kind of people they are, and immediately speculates what kind of relationship they had for them to take such a distant approach. Most families would have arrived on the first available flight. Was it a Muslim or an Austriancultural thing, or something else? His confusion grows apace with his fear. He increases the dosage of the anxiety meds he’s taken for several years. He needs a clear rational mind if he has any chance of finding out anything more.
    He sits on the bed in his East Hampton motel room with the police summary he obtained from his FOIA filing. Amos Posner is one of only three people on the bus who live in the town of East Hampton. All of the names came up on Google. One was an eighty-year-old former staff member of The New Yorker magazine, but the man was clearly barely coherent when Henry called.
    Posner’s Google listing was brief. He had been involved in international trade for years with a large firm, but suddenly lost his position two years before. He is married and lives in Amagansett.
    Henry calls and after four rings expects an answering machine to pick up, but the dial tone continues. The man must be away, or has turned off his machine. He marks the space next to Posner’s name for follow-up after noting the time of his call.
    The final name is a man named Welbrook who also lives in Amagansett. A number of Google references indicate a position in entertainment law. He answers on the first ring.
    “Well, I already told the police that I didn’t remember her. It’s been a while since the day they said she disappeared, and I go back and forth to the city at least once a week, sometimes more often.”
    Henry has introduced himself as a doctor and a friend of the missing woman. The doctor part always helps. There is still respect in society for the profession, although far from where it was when he was a kid. Today’s icons are more likely to be athletes, investment bankers, or maybe international specialists like that guy Posner.
    “Could I stop by and show you some other pictures of Heidi? They’re much better than the fax copy the police showed you. I promise you it won’t take much time and it might jog your memory.”
    “As long as you make it quick,” says Welbrook and gives directionsfrom the motel. Henry has already picked up an area map at the front desk provided by a local real