by Mary Cantell
“How many on the rescue squad?”
“I’ve got all my expendable men on duty right now. We have SAR dogs and the state police from Howard, and we’ve called Carroll’s jurisdictions… should be here soon. We’re on top of it.”
“What about the people in the housing development, will they be interviewed?”
“Hastings should be on that. You can ask him—there is he is now.”
With his lanky stride, Detective Hastings stepped out of the shadows. His slow measured pace reminded her of a stork making its way out of marshy water. Doesn’t he know every second counts?
“Detective,” Brian called out, before she had the chance, from where they stood under the lamp post and signaled with his hand.
“We meet again,” the detective said as he approached.
“Yeah, um, she—we couldn’t just sit around—”
“We’re here to help. If that’s all right,” Lissa interjected.
“Can’t stop you.” He took a final drag on his cigarette and tossed it to the ground. “Actually, I need all the help I can get.” He blew out a trail of smoke and glanced in the direction of Sgt. Matthews. “No offense, Matthews.”
“None taken, Hastings.”
The detective turned to Lacy and Brian. “We have a long history,” he said just above a whisper. “But we have each other’s backs just the same.”
“Find anything?” Matthews asked.
Detective Hastings shook his head and mashed the tossed butt with his shoe. “So far, we’ve come up dry.”
“Nothing?” he inquired, grim-faced.
“Not yet.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Polygraph?” Lissa exclaimed. “Why on earth do I need to take a polygraph test?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Logan,” the detective said, dryly. “It’s standard protocol.”
Lissa stared at him in disbelief, her blood pressure rising. “I can’t believe this. You think that I—somehow, I’m responsible for this? Is that what you’re saying?” Incredulous, she pointed to her chest. This is ludicrous.
“Most of these cases turn out to be domestic in nature,” said the detective.
“Well, not this one.”
Brian put his arm around her. “Liss, it’s not a big deal. You take the test, and it’s all done. You prove your innocence. Painless.”
Lissa inwardly balked at the insult. “But I have nothing to prove here. I’m her mother for Pete’s sake—not like some crazy…” She stopped herself. She didn’t want to implicate anyone.
Detective Hastings lit another cigarette. “Doesn’t have to be right now, we can schedule it tomorrow or the next day. Not a problem.”
Tomorrow or the next day? I don’t think I can live past tonight if we don’t find you, Lacy. Please God, ordain my steps.
Her gaze followed his hand as he took a drag and blew the smoke out. She squelched the urge to snatch it from him and yell he should be doing more to find Lacy. She found it hard to breathe.
“You up to speaking to the press?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.
****
Channel 11 news…live, local, late breaking. The graphics burst onto the TV along with the theme music. Lissa’s breath caught at the sound of the trumpet crescendo and the fast pan of the camera to everyday slice-of-life scenes all over the county—a kid eating water ice, a horse being fed in a stable, a girl scout troop lined up to board a bus—and, of course, a dog. Next to babies, dogs owned a monopoly on cuteness over and above anything. She turned up the volume.
“I don’t know whether this is the top story or not,” she said. “We might have to sit through most of this broadcast before it airs.”
When Detective Hastings suggested she go home and he’d contact her if anything new came in, she couldn’t leave. She had a desperate urgency to stay planted right there—the place where Lacy had last been. Just in case by some slight chance her daughter was found inside the woods—dead or alive—Lissa wanted to be there for Lacy. Through the urging of both Brian and the detective, she grudgingly left.
The dark-haired male and blonde female anchor duo alternately read the copy and jovially bantered during the newscast. Then a solemn expression overcame the blonde as she began the story of the missing child. Here it comes. Lissa’s stomach dropped when a picture of Lacy appeared on the screen. The news people cropped the color photo and enlarged it to reveal just her head. When picture day rolled around at school, Lissa recalled Lacy wanting to wear her new pink Little Princess T-shirt, but she ended up changing her top at Lissa’s encouragement. A stab of guilt hit her at the thought of Lacy never wearing her favorite T-shirt again. The picture disappeared from the screen and segued into the interview with the reporter.
“Mrs. Logan, do you have any idea where your daughter could be right now?” the fresh-faced reporter dressed to the nines in professionally applied makeup asked.
“No—no idea at all,” she replied softly.
I look horrible. “I wish he never talked me into that interview.” Lissa lamented, cringing at her ghastly pale image under the bright camera lights.
Her gaze glued to the TV as if reliving an out-of-body experience. She hoped the viewing audience saw her demeanor as genuine, garnering a sympathetic reaction, not one of judgment that she may have been just one more half-crazed loony responsible for the disappearance.
The reporter asked her several more questions. Lissa nodded and attempted to keep calm, but the tremor in her voice indicated her desperation.
“I—I just want to say,” she began, steeling herself under the harsh camera lights, “I want to say, please. Please give me my Lacindra—my Lacy,” she said, correcting herself into the microphone. “Please… just…wherever she is, whoever you are that has her, please bring her back to me… I need…I want my little—” Her voice broke with the strain of emotion pressing in from all sides.
As strong as she tried to be in front of the camera, her eyes filled with tears. She struggled to keep her face from awkwardly crumbling but lost the fight.
“Oh, cut away already,” she yelled at the screen that captured her breaking down at the podium.
“You look fine, Liss, considering everything.” Brian put his arm around her. Normally, his touch would have melted her into a puddle. Now, anxiety simmering, her senses dulled to his touch. The scene cut back to the anchor desk. She clicked off the TV. She couldn’t sit through any more, much less watch the pretense of the news readers feign a concern they didn’t really own. Her daughter could be dead for all they truly cared, despite their worried expressions.
“Brian, I don’t think I can stand another minute of sitting here. I’ll never be able to sleep.” She folded and unfolded her arms across her chest, not finding a suitable position for them. Her body charged with energy that begged to be released.
“Liss, there’s not much we can do ourselves. Just let the cops do their work. You’ve got to trust that they’re doing what they can,” he told her.
“I feel so helpless.” She shook her hands nervously. “I need to do something.”
“But you’ve got help. There’s a competent detective working as we speak. And, you’ve got the Pinewood police force along with the help of the other counties, Howard, and Carroll, too. The detective himself gave you his word he’d call with breaking news, right?”
Lissa pictured all the people dispatched to where Lacy disappeared and hoped they’d find her soon. At least, a clue. She wondered why Lacy had discarded her ghost costume. Did she leave it behind as a clue? Was she alone in all of this? Was she being chased? Lissa’s mind raced with one horrible scenario after another.
With the celebrity of the situation, the whole county now knew. Her face had been splashed over the news channels, and bulletins were being announced by radio. Had they seen her? Would they rise out of the comfort of their homes to help look for her? Would they care?
A tumult of emotion and rage rose inside her. Something evil happened at the Robson
home. Like a prop in a movie set, all was not what it seemed inside the well-appointed house. She berated herself for her decision to let Lacy go to the party. The bad mommy demon plagued her while her thoughts telescoped back to the past several hours. Lissa imagined an alternative evening—an invitation to Uncle Charlie and Aunt Celia’s house. Surely, she’d have been safe with them. They would have gone trick-or-treating and then returned home. This nightmare would never have happened. The demon circled around her, taunting her with a picture of what could have been if she had been more insistent.
Lissa ran to Lacy’s room and flung herself on top of her bed. The weight of her anguish pressed like a vice. She wanted to die.
****
Detective Hastings snuffed out his cigarette at the curb. “No sign? Nothing? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No scent…the dogs couldn’t pick up a thing… that’s what the K-9 unit said,” Officer Jennings explained. “Maybe Sergeant Matthews has a more recent update but that’s what I heard, sir.”
Detective Hastings thought about his next move, which would be to start knocking on doors in the immediate neighborhood. He got in his car and began with the first house adjacent to the parcel of woods.
“Evening.” He flashed his badge. “Have a word with you?”
The short man wearing boxers and a T-shirt pulled the door open.
“Hope it’s not too late. Saw your light on.” He shrugged. “Thought I’d take a chance.”
“Anything the matter, Officer?”
“Detective. Detective Hastings.”
“Detective. Yes, sir,” the man repeated, nervously.
“Not a problem. Sorry to bother you so late but…” He let his words dissolve and pulled out his notebook and pen. “Just have a few questions for you. Won’t take long.”
“Have we done something wrong?”
“Depends,” the detective replied. “Have you seen a little girl this evening? Eight years old, reddish-brown hair?”
He curled his lips downward. “I—I don’t know. All the kids who came to our door had costumes on.” He turned to the woman standing next to him. “Honey, do we know her?”
Puzzled, the woman replied. “Every kid’s head was covered. At least as far as I know.”
“You sure?”
She nodded with certainty. “I’m sure.”
Just then the detective’s phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said to the couple, holding his hand over the phone. “Okay. Got it. Great.” He hung up and turned back to them. “If you do see her, here’s my card. Have a good evening.”
****
“Liss?” Brian called from the doorway. The only light in the dark room came from the tiny glow of a pink nightlight on the wall in the shape of a tiny poodle. He stepped toward the bed where she lay face down, curled in a fetal position. “Liss, listen to me,” he said, gently rubbing his hand along her back.
As much as she loved him, even the sound of his voice could not persuade her to move. She wanted to be alone, to burrow inward and shut everything out, including Brian. The world and everything in it meant nothing at that moment. She wanted to spiral to where the pain couldn’t find her and longed for God to take her—right then and there.
“If I can’t have my daughter, there’s nothing to live for,” she said, choking out the words muffled by her emotions.
“Your cell rang while you were in here,” he said. “I answered. It was Hal.”
Hal? She remembered the detective mentioning his first name, but for her, he’d always be Detective.
“He said there’s a lady…and she has information.”
A ray of hope sparked inside her; she opened her eyes and turned over. “A lady? Who? What kind of information?” She propped hrself up on one elbow.
“He didn’t say. Only they got a call from someone. A woman in Elmdale.”
“She knows something?”
“Hal said to meet him there.”
“Where?” she demanded.
“The lady’s house.”
As though a switch turned on, a surge of energy released in her. “He wants us to go to her house now? Where does she live?”
“I wrote it down.” He handed her the paper.
“I can’t see…turn on the light,” she said, and Brian sat up and reached for the switch on the wall.
“722 Larchmont in Elmdale? That’s the Robsons’ street,” she said with excitement and bolted off the bed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
On the ride from Pinewood to Elmdale, Lissa kept her eyes peeled to the sides of the roadway, desperately darting her sight in both directions looking for Lacy along the way. At the approach to the Golden Meadows estates, her heart rate quickened as Brian made the turn off I-70 into the development at Castleview Court.
“Larchmont is around here somewhere,” she said. “Keep going…there—on the right.”
Brian drove through the stately homes in the development and Lissa squinted to make out the addresses. “There’s 808,” she said, pointing to the mailbox. “The Robsons.” Aside from the tiny orange-glow lanterns along the fieldstone walkway, their imposing house stood completely dark. Lacy is missing, and you have the nerve to go to bed? “Sleep tight, Jay and Janet,” she said under her breath.
Brian turned to her. “You say something?”
“Nothing, just talking to myself.”
They drove to the end of the block where the development ended at the intersection with Rt. 13 near Old Orchard Lake.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, where is 722?”
“It must be somewhere in the next block,” he said.
When they crossed the road, Larchmont Drive turned into Larchmont Lane where older, more modest looking homes dwelled among thick stands of trees. In the darkness lit only by the moon, an eclectic blend of A-frames and small ranch-style homes nestled in large plots on top of land that retained its original natural charm and character. The preserved land hadn’t been cleared to make way for a developer’s dream of creating a burb for the nouveau riche. At least, not yet.
“It’s so dark, I can’t make out the numbers,” she said in frustration. “Can you see them?”
“Not really, but it looks like that might be the detective’s car up ahead on the left.”
Moments later, the door to a black SUV opened and a tall skinny figure stepped out. The sight of the detective’s vehicle resembled a movie prop. Didn’t they all drive black SUVs?
A running tape threaded through her mind again; the scenario of what could have played out if Lacy had gone to Aunt Celia and Uncle Charlie’s for Halloween instead of Becca’s party. She paused to recall what day it was. Sunday? Monday? Her mind swirled. What if she’d picked her up sooner instead of dawdling on the phone with Robin? Though, deep down she knew this wasn’t her fault. Lacy was a carefree spirit, sometimes losing track of time and worrying Lissa to the point of distraction, but this was not one of her pleasant diversions or episodes of side-tracked lateness. With each passing moment, she pictured the worst thing imaginable. She struggled with her own imagination and fought, once again, to shed the horrible images from her head.
Brian leaned in closer. “We’ll find her, Liss.” He squeezed her hand and gently wrapped his arms around her. “Just breathe.”
The scent of cigarette smoke drifted through the night air as the detective approached their car in his stork-legged stride.
“Hey, Hal,” Brian said as he rolled down the window.
“Evening. Okay, lady’s name is Lydia Petruzzi,” he told them, pulling out his notebook. “Her call came right after the ten o’clock news. Sounded pretty normal—not like some of these nut jobs who give you the run around and sound like they got a screw loose, ya know what I’m sayin’? But I could be wrong. Can’t tell you how many wrong numbers I’ve had to deal with over the years.” He shook his head. “People are kooky, I tell ya. Already been up this side of the street for the past hour.” He indicated the direction somewhere on the newer end of Larchmont. �
��Was about to head over here when my phone rang. The station said there were about a half-dozen calls with sightings so far.”
“A half-dozen,” Lissa exclaimed, her hope coming alive again. “Already?”
Hal nodded. “We’ll check ’em out, but…” He snapped his notebook shut. “I’m not expecting much. Gonna check the local hospital soon—just in case. It takes a while before the real ones come along. A lot of the early ones turn out to be bogus.”
Her hope deflated.
The detective and Brian took the lead as they walked along the dark street to the front door of Lydia Petruzzi’s tiny rancher set among a cluster of too tall pines. One lightning storm and the fall of even one of the trees could smash the poor woman’s roof in. Lissa saw the curtain move at the side window followed by the door opening. A short, rotund woman in her mid-to-late 60s with jet black hair threaded with gray and kind eyes peered out from behind it.
“Ms. Petruzzi? I’m Detective Hal Hastings, and this is Ms. Logan and Mr. Pickering.”
“The mother of the little girl?” She beckoned them inside. “I’m so glad you came.” She clasped her hands together, saying, “I have coffee,” as though preparing to perform an opera solo.
Detective Hastings politely shook his head and waved away the suggestion.
“Or tea, would you prefer some tea? I have some biscotti—”
“No, no,” he interrupted politely, “but thank you, Ms. Petruzzi. Very kind of you but we won’t be staying long.”
This isn’t a social call, Lissa thought. The woman’s kindness reminded her of her mother’s side of the family—particularly Aunt Celia, who always demonstrated the need to feed everyone. Salt of the earth.
“We’re here to find out,” he began, exchanging glances with Lissa, “about Ms. Logan’s daughter.”
“Oh, yes, such a pity that she’s missing,” she said, leading them into the kitchen. “Please sit down.” She pointed toward the table. “Please, sit down—all of you.”
The kitchen walls, painted in pale blue, held copper molds, and trails of ivy grew in containers on a low dividing partition between the kitchen and dining room. Lissa hadn’t seen such old-fashioned décor since last visiting her grandmother decades ago before she passed away. A statue of the Virgin Mary stood in the corner; in the shadowy lighting, the figure appeared eerily life-like.
