Show w at bar hauM sMn h SchauactadFi I IS THIS TONY?" the woman caller inquires "Mty I speak to your mother?” As the boy puts the phone down the caller hangs up triumphantly She turns to die distraught man sitting nearby and places a piece of paper in Ins hand Tfere" she declares "Your son is at this address” The father is ecstatic In 20 minutes this woman has found the son for whom he has been searching seven years “It's a miracle” he shouts “a miracle!" No it's strictly elementary my dear Watscn Simply by linking the mother's first and middle names and calling the openin’ the investigator has found her client’s former wife listed right in the local directory Marilyn Greene may be the country’s foremost finder of lost people “It’s s lot of mindwork” she says “Finding the missing piece toapuzzle"The sleuth is proud of her track record having located more than 200 missing people many ofthan children over die put two decades baseAs we sit in the wood-panelment office of her Schenectady NY home— which brims over with reference books on everything from Satanism to psydwtogytohowtogetanew identity— Greene talks abour some of her cases Once she was asked to look for agminate student after a y search foiled to turn up any trace of him “I knew exactly what happened lohimusoonulheard he waa a straight A student who had been upset over a grade” she recalls As Greene stood in the electrical engineering student’s room her eyes focused be- the window Sad Relying toona her theory tut people who kill themselves outside often are found within a quarter of a mile of where they were last seen— and often atahigher elevations— she led the search party to the overgrown hillside Within 20 minutes of Greene’s arrival at the school the young man’s body was found under a light coating of soon wu led to the man’s best friend the last person to see him alive “The police got nowhere with him” she says buthe was very comfortable with me— which wu a mistake We talked and walked along the path the two men had last taken I sensed the friend wu not telling the truth he related their u area the man suddenly stopped “He looked at me nervously” she recalls “pointing and shouting ‘No we went this way? His manner his body movement his eyes told me they hid gone into that wooded area and mat a crime had been committed there” Recognizing that her own life could be in jeopardy Greene did not let on that she knew the man had tripped himself tm Later a body was found in the wooded area the friend wu arrested and subsequently convicted of murder As die nurses a coffee mug bearing the likeness of Sherlock Holmes Greene says she feels women are better suited for thejob than men “It's called women’s intuition” she says “Men can never find the mustard in the refrigerator Why? Because it’s behind something Do you want someone looking for your missing child who cannot find the mustard in the ed ituigcntorr Public information is Greene’s best source ofdues She explains that rmrd-leuo- f how far people run they leave behmdapapertrailftThe most common is the transfer of a license or vehislip-u- p 10-da- Greene rarely has been unable to Tm extremely thorough" she says “and I make very few errors so I don’t run into many dead ends” She bristles when friends suggest that her work is glamorous “The stakea are too high” she insists “and there is no timefwsdf-congritulation- ” After returnan from search in which ing she located fouroffive missing children she remembers how impressed a friend was ’Xfoe” the ftiena said “four out out-of-to- ILY mwEj Ppom cle registration to another state” die points out nn JL Uaril3rnGreezioa8eIf-taii(rlitBlevit- i ihimta imu 200 individuals many of thorn missing1 children — — hag of five That's great news” Greene shot back “Not for the mother of the fifth child” ' But there’s a glint in her bbe eyes as die tells how friends tcaac her about being similar to Columbo the TV detective “You kind of bumble along” they tell her “but you always know the answer to the quetiioa you’re asking just from looking at the reaction” Greene agrees “Those things that are not spoken— the Y XX A BV eyes the body die tension— sometimes tell you the answer you want without any words” she explains adding that she can see a lie in the eyes of an adult “If you know what the lie is you alao know what the truth is” Such was the case during a search for amissina young man in his 20s His family and mends offered the police little to go on Greene who was brought in by die family questioned neighbors and X XT S 0 O T T She never accepts anything at free vahie luce the case of a young man who wu suspected of commit-tin- g suicide He had family problems a rope wm missing from his garage and us car was found with the key in the ignition and his waDet on the seat Vet Greene couldn’t locate a body She finally concluded that there wu no body because the man wasn't dead She lain found him in Boston in the company of an old girlfriend He apparency wanted his family to think he had done himself in Greene is often called upon by She gained national attention durmg the search foraweahhy Wisconsin real-esta- te developer who became lost while Local offidalsand the Qvfl AjrRdrol searched in vain for e joined the effort she foimd the hunter's frozen body in just over six hours She attributed her succeu to her most valuable tool — her trained “air scent" dogs Unlike traditional search dogs that follow footprints these German ahepherds follow a scent deer-hunti- fourdays-WneaGreen- ng |