by Kate White
“You also said that the cops always wonder about the husband.”
“They do; that’s just a fact of life.”
My hands were lightly fisted, I realized, and I forced my fingers to relax. If I was going to defuse the situation, I needed to appear calm myself.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I added. “And though I’m here as a reporter, I’m moved by your situation. I want our coverage to play a role in helping find your wife.”
He took a step closer, muscling into my space, and glared at me.
“You have no freaking clue what my kids and I are going through,” he said.
I didn’t like the hostility I felt radiating off him. The guy, after all, might be a killer. I let my eyes dart quickly to the right, to the office. It was brightly lit, but from this angle I couldn’t tell if anyone was at the front desk.
“You’re right. But I imagine it must be beyond horrible.”
“Then why aren’t you digging up stuff? Looking for leads? Isn’t that what reporters are supposed to do? At least the ones who are any good?”
He shifted back slightly on his heels, easing out of my space bubble a little.
“I am looking for leads, that’s why I wanted to meet with you. But you can talk to me now, and I promise to help in any way I can. Had you noticed anything different or secretive about Shannon’s behavior lately?”
“So now you’re suggesting she was having an affair.”
“No, I’m wondering if she was under any kind of stress.”
“If she was depressed or especially stressed out, she never showed it. And she’d never willingly leave our kids.”
“Didn’t it seem odd not to hear from her while you were at work on Monday?”
“I tried her around midday but it wasn’t a big deal when she didn’t call back. I knew she had a lot of errands to run that day.”
“What about the possibility of someone keeping tabs on her? Did she ever mention noticing anyone weird when she was running? Or anyone in her life saying or doing something that seemed hostile?”
“If she had, don’t you think I would have shared that with the cops? What I’d love to see is reporters making themselves useful, turning up fresh information.”
“Do—”
“I can’t stand here all night. My kids need me.”
He turned his back to me and strode toward a silver Lexus. I waited until he’d chirped the door open and then quickly let myself into my room. After placing the chain lock on, I nudged the curtain aside with my pointer finger and watched the car buck backward from its space and then practically tear out of the parking lot.
I wrenched off the cap from a bottle of water I’d stashed in the cooler and took two big gulps. Cody Blaine’s visit—the way he’d popped out of the shadows, the anger in his voice—had unsettled me, and my heart was still thrumming.
What had the encounter really been about? I wondered. A desperately concerned husband who didn’t like the way he was being portrayed, or a guy who was totally on edge because he’d bludgeoned his wife to death in the kitchen, dumped her body deep in the woods, and couldn’t handle having his buttons pushed?
I let out a deep breath. Right now I had no clue. But I didn’t like the guy.
After changing into a T-shirt, I grabbed my composition book and laptop, peeled back the duvet, and slid into bed. First, I scribbled my impressions of Cody while they were still fresh. Though I rely on those slim reporter pads for doing interviews, I find that when I’m on a story, jotting down observations in a marble black-and-white composition book with a number two pencil somehow manages to clarify my thinking and enables me to see emerging patterns.
Next, I clicked on the link for yesterday’s press conference. I’d already viewed it twice before I’d left the city, but I wanted to check out Cody’s behavior more closely now that I’d had a couple of interactions with him.
Though his confrontational attitude tonight hadn’t served him well, I still had to hand him an A for his performance in front of the crowd. He had positioned himself just to the right of the sheriff, and listened intently to the remarks, his face pinched in serious distress. After the sheriff concluded, Cody took a turn at the mic. He was composed, but you could hear the anguish in his voice, which broke more than once.
“Shannon,” he said. “If you are hurt or in any kind of trouble, we are here for you. And if someone has taken you, I want to say to that person, ‘Please, Shannon’s kids need her, and I need her. I plead with you to let her go.’”
There wasn’t a single red flag, at least from what I could see. In fact, his behavior was in stark contrast to the way Scott Peterson had acted in the days following the disappearance of his wife, Laci, back in 2002. I was still in college at the time, but the case had fascinated me and I’d devoured every detail. Peterson, I remembered, had betrayed no anguish, refused to be interviewed about Laci, and hadn’t participated in either the search efforts or the press conferences. It wasn’t a surprise to most of us who’d been following the case when it turned out he’d murdered her.
I leaned back against the wooden headboard, reflecting. Was Cody just a far better actor than Peterson? He certainly seemed smarter. Even tonight, as he stood there with his boxer briefs in a twist, I couldn’t miss the air of sophistication about him. I would have to see how I felt as the days progressed—and more facts emerged.
Next, I reread Alice Hatfield’s stories about the case in the Post Star. They were good, well researched and compellingly written, which wasn’t always a guarantee with a small-town paper. It would be smart for me to find a way to win her over and encourage an exchange of information going forward.
I checked the clock on my phone. It was after ten and Beau should have arrived in Bogotá by now. As if I’d somehow managed to communicate with him telepathically, my phone pinged with a text. Just landed. Clearing customs. Love you. Wc tomorrow when settled.
Love you, too. Miss you already, I wrote back, relieved to have heard from him. Though violence in Colombia had declined significantly since the Pablo Escobar days, street crime and muggings were still a problem, and I felt more than a twinge of worry.
My eyelids were drooping by this point, and after double-checking that I’d bolted the door, I turned off the light and wiggled down under the duvet. Though my thoughts were churning, I fell asleep quickly from sheer exhaustion.
By half past seven the next morning, I was at the local elementary school, a one-story redbrick building. Since I’d managed to arrive on the early side, I stood for a while in the parking lot, pretending to read content on my phone so I wouldn’t look too conspicuous. About ten minutes later, the drop-offs began, not only via family minivans and SUVs, but several school buses as well. Near the entrance of the building, people clustered briefly to chat—moms in jeans or tracksuits and little kids hoisting backpacks featuring images like the Little Mermaid and the Jurassic World T. rex. I was looking for any woman dropping off a child who appeared to be between six and nine years old—the ages of Noah and Lilly Blaine—and who also had a friendly face. Buddy, an old crime-beat reporter I’d worked alongside when I was first in newspapers, always said that zeroing in on the right person to talk to in a crowd made him feel like a lioness eyeing the weakest gazelle in the herd.
Soon enough, I spotted her: a sweet, guileless-looking woman, probably in her mid-thirties, who had just emerged from a red minivan with a boy of nine or ten. The pair meandered up one of the cement walkways, and I followed behind, pausing when she bear-hugged him under the portico at the front of the school.
When another mom yelled, “Hi, Missy,” and she paused to chat with her, I hung back. Two minutes later she began to retrace her steps toward the van, and I made my move.
“Missy, excuse me,” I called out as she crossed the grass. “Have you got a minute?”
She spun around, her face already set in a receptive smile, though her expression clouded once she realized that the words had come from a stranger.
“Someone told me you might be able to help me,” I said, reaching her. “I’m a reporter covering Shannon Blaine’s disappearance, and I’m eager to talk to a few of her friends.”
“Oh, gosh,” she said. “I feel awful about the whole thing, but I don’t really have much to offer. I barely know her.”
“Sorry, maybe I have you confused with someone else. Do you happen to know the names of any of her friends?”
“Um, she’s kind of private from what I’ve heard, and I don’t think she pals around with many other mothers. I mean, there’s her friend J.J., who the paper mentioned. You could ask her.”
“But apparently she’s still somewhere in the Adirondacks and can’t be reached.”
“Oh no, she’s back now. I just saw her up on the grass.” Missy swiveled her head toward the school and pointed her chin up. “She’s over there. The woman in the pink jacket.”
My heart already skipping, I followed her gaze until I spotted a woman with honey-colored hair standing under the portico, deep in conversation with another mother. So J.J. was back. And the word didn’t seem to be out yet in the press corps. I had no freaking clue why the gods were blessing me this way, but I wasn’t going to question it.
“Great, thank you, Missy. Have a good day.”
I turned but didn’t make a beeline toward J.J. quite yet, deciding that my best strategy would be to corral her in the parking lot so our exchange would be more private. I was close enough to see that J.J. was attractive, though not in the refined way Shannon was. She was fairly big-boned, the kind of woman you could picture not only riding a horse but also mucking the stall cheerily. She didn’t look very happy this morning, though I couldn’t blame her. Her friend was missing.
She finally nodded solemnly to the other parent and then started to move, but instead of heading to the parking lot, she began to move in the opposite direction, following one of the cement paths running across the school lawn.
I broke into a sprint until I almost caught up and then followed her as the sidewalk looped around to the far side of the school. When it eventually intersected with a village sidewalk, J.J. hung a left. She was walking home, I realized.
She eventually made another left, down Elm Street, and I decided to strike while I had a clear field. I called out her name, and she turned around, her expression guarded. After closing the gap, I quickly introduced myself and added, “I’m sure it’s been awful to come back and hear the news. Would you have a few minutes to talk?”
“Did you follow me?” she demanded. I could see why the idea would upset her, but I had a funny feeling it wouldn’t take a lot to work J.J.’s last nerve. Now that I was up close, I had a sense from the set of her jaw and the look in her wide-set eyes that there was an edge to her.
“I actually dropped by the school for another reason and happened to see you leave,” I said. “We’re trying to paint a really vivid picture of Shannon for our readers, and it would be so helpful to include your impressions.”
She threw her head back disdainfully. “My best friend is missing. How are my impressions supposed to get her back?”
“The more information about Shannon that’s out there, the greater the chance that someone will call in a legitimate tip about her whereabouts.”
I was waiting for another blunt retort, but instead her shoulders sagged and her expression softened.
“I’ll talk to you,” she said, “but it has to be tit for tat. I need to know what’s going on. All the sheriff’s office wanted to do was pump me for information.”
“Absolutely. I’ve got info to share.”
“We can do it at my place. I need a hit of coffee.”
I walked alongside her for a half block to a cute, yellow-painted clapboard house with white shutters and a front porch lined with pots of orange and yellow mums.
After unlocking the door, J.J. ushered me through the living room into a sparkling white, nicely appointed kitchen, and as she poured us each a mug of coffee, I slid onto a barstool at the counter. There were echoes of kids in the kitchen—a wicker basket of sneakers by the back door, school photos and award ribbons tacked on the fridge by magnets. But no masculine vibe. I remembered Kelly mentioning that J.J. was divorced.
“I really appreciate your time, because I can only imagine how tough this is for you,” I said, pulling out my notepad and pen. “How did law enforcement finally get ahold of you?”
“I actually got ahold of them,” she said, after taking a slug of coffee. “I’d been staying in the Adirondacks without any cell service, and when I stopped in a town for lunch yesterday, I saw that my phone was blowing up with calls and texts. I drove straight to the sheriff’s office yesterday afternoon.”
That probably explained the canceled press conference.
“I heard you and Shannon spoke by phone on Monday. Did she say anything that might hold a clue to where she is?”
“No, but it was all very quick. Hi, bye, see you in a couple of days.”
I studied her face as she spoke, alert for any sign that she was lying. There was still the possibility that if Shannon had run off, she’d been assisted by J.J.
“Did she say she was going for a jog?”
“No, but I assumed she was. She does every day.”
“Did—?”
“OK,” J.J. interrupted, raising a hand. “It’s time for the tat part. I need to know what the hell is going on. I’ve tried to reach Cody, but he hasn’t returned my calls, and neither has Kelly.”
I took her through the highlights that I’d garnered from the news coverage and my afternoon at the volunteer center. I sensed from her expression that some of it was new to her—and that it was scaring her even more.
“Those poor kids,” she said. “Do you think the cops are really doing everything they can?”
“It seems that way, and there are a ton of volunteers, coordinated by a guy named Hank Coulter. Do you know him?”
“Yeah, I know him. Used to head the Lake George police before they disbanded it and put the village under the county sheriff’s office. He can be gruff, but people always felt he knew what he was doing.”
“And what about Cody?” I asked. “Is he a good husband?”
J.J. pulled back in her stool, narrowing her pale-blue eyes. “Are you thinking there’s a chance he’s responsible?”
“That’s always a possibility in these situations.” There was another possibility occurring to me now, too, but I didn’t raise it with her. Sometimes a husband has an affair with his wife’s best friend and then plots to remove the wife from the picture.
J.J. pinched her thumb and forefinger together and tapped the counter a couple of times. “Off the record—isn’t that how you guys put it?—I don’t like him and never have. He’s got this too-cool-for-school swagger, like he owns the world. But, that said, Shan’s crazy about him, and she’s been a perfect wife for him. As far as I know, he’s never given her any reason to think he was catting around.”
Which didn’t mean, of course, that there wasn’t a girlfriend tucked in the wings.
“Ever any sign of domestic abuse?”
“No way. And Shannon and I went to the local beach a lot—not so much this past summer but every other summer—so I would have noticed something like that.”
“Why not so much this summer?”
“Since March she’s been helping Cody out a little at work—at Baker Beverage. They’re expanding, and she said he needed her to lend a hand in the office. It’s only part-time, but it takes up a chunk of her week.”
“I saw the house. Cody’s business must be doing well.”
She paused for a drink of coffee, but I wondered if she was also choosing her words. “Seems to be. They’ve got a big boat. Condo in Florida. Take pricey vacations with their kids.”
Was J.J. envious? I wondered. It couldn’t be easy for her as a single mom.
“How did they meet, do you know?”
“In the Caribbean, actually. Shan was in her twenties
and looking for a fun change of scenery, so she took a job doing marketing for a resort down there. Cody had just finished a tour in Afghanistan and ended up working at the same place.”
“And he’s from Texas?”
“Yup. Near Fort Worth.”
“How’d they end up coming back here?”
“Shannon was a little homesick, I think. Plus, not all that long after she met Cody, she ended up pregnant.”
“Was he happy about it?”
“I guess so. Apparently they’d already decided to make it official. They had the wedding down there—one of those destination deals—and moved here in time for Noah to be born.”
“Do you mind if I switch gears for a sec? I’m wondering if Shannon does any kind of volunteer work, like an activity that could have inadvertently put her in proximity with someone unsavory?”
J.J. lowered her gaze, tapping her fingers again. “She volunteers in the school library but not as much as she used to—because of her work at Baker.”
“Was Shannon feeling stressed or upset about anything lately?” Cody had told me he didn’t think she was, but women didn’t always share inner turmoil with their husbands.
“Not stressed. Maybe a little preoccupied, but who isn’t when they have kids at home? Besides, why would that even matter?”
“I’m just wondering if maybe life got too crazy for her and she needed a break . . . and now doesn’t know how to come back.”
J.J. was already shaking her head before the words were out of my mouth.
“No way. Even if she was a stress mess, Shan would never abandon Noah and Lilly that way.”
But her eyes suddenly flickered.
“What?”
“There’s something I told the sheriff, but I don’t want this showing up in any article of yours.”
“You have my word.”
“That day on the phone? She seemed kind of off, like she wasn’t really focusing on the conversation. She didn’t take any interest in my trip, which was unusual for her.”
“Did you ask her if something was the matter?”
