Idyll Fears

by Stephanie Gayle

  Agent Waters smiled. “Get ’em while they’re young,” she said. He chuckled. Well, these two seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. Terrific.

  “Any other leads?” I asked.

  “More spottings, though none looked as good as the Sturbridge one. I’ve got someone checking on Uncle Greg.”

  “Still not home?” I asked. He was looking better and better for it. “Maybe we should throw more men at him?”

  “He doesn’t have a record of diddling kids,” she said.

  “Doesn’t mean he’s clean,” I said. “He certainly had access to the house.”

  She sipped her coffee. “We’ll see.”

  “What about the plumber?” I asked. The one Jane Forrand had mentioned.

  “There are an awful lot of plumbers out there,” Waters said. “And a lot of them are medium build with dark hair and eyes. She thinks maybe he drove a white van, maybe.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” I said.

  “Just,” she said.

  “Hey, Detective!” Johnson yelled. He poked his head around the corner.

  “What?” Wright barked.

  “Just picked this up for you, from Treasure Chest. Lady said it was important.” He held out a bag. Looked like it was empty.

  Wright pulled a red mask from the bag and settled it on his face. “How do I look?” he asked.

  “Stupid.” I said. And worse than that. The mask didn’t cover his face. The eyeholes didn’t align. I could see his chin and forehead. Not much of a disguise.

  “Is that an adult-sized mask?” Waters asked.

  Wright took it off and handed it to her. She looked at the back. Frowned. “Doesn’t say anything about size.” She slipped it over her face.

  “She’s hidden behind that,” I said, before turning to Wright. “A lot of your face showed. So if that’s the real size of the mask, Cody got grabbed by a woman or a man with a small face.”

  “Ugh, it smells,” Waters complained, unsnapping the elastic that held the mask in place. “Let’s check if the mask came in multiple sizes. See what type the store owner sold. If this is the only one, then we’re looking for someone with a small face.”

  “Any progress on the Lego kit or the sheets?” I asked.

  “Mulberry’s leading that effort. That man loves a list. Hey, there’s a guy in the Forrands’ neighborhood. Some teacher. Mr. . . .”

  “Calloway,” I said.

  “Right. He has a camera set up on his house.”

  “Surveillance? Where?” I asked.

  “Outside, near the eaves. If he has footage, we need it.”

  “I can get that for you,” I said.

  “Yeah?” she asked.

  “Leave it to me. Mr. Calloway and I are old friends.”

  My fist hammered Mr. Calloway’s door, the wood yielding to my assault. “Coming!” I heard, followed by the hammering of feet on stairs. The door opened. He was in sweatpants and t-shirt, his feet in thick socks with a red band on top. His hair stuck up every which way like a child’s. “You again?” he asked, blinking. I’d woken him.

  “Me again.” I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  “Don’t I have to invite you in?” he asked.

  “Why? I’m not a vampire.” I trod upstairs. Four large, lumpy black trash bags, cinched shut, awaited disposal. “Going out of business?” I asked, toeing one of the bags with my boot.

  “Hey! Leave that alone. Don’t you need a warrant?”

  “You have a surveillance camera mounted on your house.” The camera was aimed at the street. The street where the silver Camry had been parked.

  “Is that a crime?” His attempt at tough-guy was pathetic.

  “I want the camera footage,” I said.

  “I don’t record video. It’s just to deter burglars.”

  “Too bad. If you had video footage, it might help with our kidnapping inquiries. You remember, right? We came by, asking questions about a missing child? You not only didn’t help, you didn’t mention your camera. Oh, well. I guess it’s time to see how much marijuana you have. It’s like a game show, only in reverse. The more you have, the more you lose. I’m really hoping it’s in excess of four ounces.”

  “Wait!” He stepped in front of the trash bags. “Okay. I’ll check the footage.”

  “You’ll give me the footage,” I said.

  “If I give you the footage, you’ll leave?”

  “Once I watch you dispose of those bags.”

  “I’m getting rid of them.”

  “I’d like to make sure,” I said. “They’re collecting over on Main Street today.”

  “You want me to illegally dump my trash in someone else’s bins?” His outrage was adorable.

  “I don’t think that’s the most serious offense you’ve committed recently.”

  “I’ll grab the feed.” He walked down the hall, to a room at the end. I thought about following him but decided against it. What if the idiot had something else illegal in there and I had no choice but to bust him? I only wanted the footage.

  He handed me a heavy square disk minutes later. “It’s a zip drive. With DVR files on it.” He might have been speaking Swahili. “Have one of your young guys figure it out.”

  “Okay. Grab the bags. Let’s go,” I said.

  “What? Now?” he asked.

  “Yes, now.”

  “Are you gonna grab one?” He huffed under the weight of three bags.

  “Hell no,” I said. “See you outside.”

  Twenty minutes later, I watched him add his garbage bags to the waste bins lining Main Street. I prayed none of the bags split while being taken away, or the DPW workers would be in for a surprise.

  It turned out that Agent Cisco knew more than how to lift weights. He knew a thing or two about DVR files. He took the disk, smiled, and said, “I need a laptop.”

  “You’ve got more laptops?” I’d already seen two in use. Our station had three old desktop computers that weighed as much as Billy, and a lot of typewriters.

  “Your tax dollars at work.” He winked and walked away. I admired the view until Agent Waters said, “Did you get anything?”

  I told her Cisco was prepping the footage. “He’s good with computers and gadgets,” she said.

  “Mulberry loves lists and Cisco’s into gadgets. What’s your specialty?” I asked.

  “I’m a human lie detector,” she said.

  “Really?”

  She smiled wide. “Really.”

  Cisco watched the footage in the interview room, where no one would disturb him. I sent Billy to check if he needed food or drink. He came back to tell me Agent Cisco was drinking something called Red Bull from a can.

  “Red Bull?”

  “He says it’s got caffeine and drinking it’s the only way he’ll be able to watch hours of mind-numbing camera footage of one of the quietest streets in America.” Billy paused. “It’s hardly the quietest street. I mean, we had a drug dealer on it.”

  “We don’t know that he was dealing,” I said.

  “Are we really gonna let him off?” he asked.

  “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  Wright knocked on my doorframe. “You’ll never guess who we found!” he said.

  “Cody? Where is he? How—”

  “No.” He coughed. “Greg Baker.” He seemed annoyed by my leap.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Drunk tank over in Sprague.”

  “Drunk tank? How long?” I asked.

  “Since 6:00 p.m. yesterday.”

  “Hell.” He could’ve snatched Cody. Stashed him somewhere and then gotten drunk enough to get tossed in jail. It was a tight timeline, though, unless Uncle Greg was the easiest of drunks.

  Waters babysat him at Wright’s desk. Greg sat, head in his hands. When he lifted his face, it was not a good color. “I told you, I’d never hurt Cody.” He said it like a robot, without inflection and as if he’d repeated it a dozen times before. When he noticed W
right and me, he groaned. “I’ve been locked up all damn night. I just want to go home.”

  Waters said, her tone friendly, “You left work at—”

  “Two o’clock” I raised a brow. She shook her head. He’d have had to speed to Idyll to snatch Cody.

  “Do you usually leave work that early?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you have an appointment?” She picked up a snow globe Wright had on his desk. Some crappy souvenir his kids had given him.

  “No.” He crossed his arms, sullen.

  “Then why leave early?” She turned the snow globe over and watched the plastic white snowfall.

  “Because you’d just sent a guy to my job to ask people about me. Because people were talking. I overheard Cary Anne Shaw wonder aloud if I was a pedophile.” He spat the word, as if it was poison.

  “So you decided to leave. Where did you go?”

  “The bar,” he said. “In Franklin. Even though I just got my two-year chip. I flushed that all away yesterday on Jaeger and beer.” He clutched his skull.

  “Can anyone verify you were at the bar?” Waters set the snow globe down.

  “The bartender,” he said. “I didn’t get up until I left to drive home.”

  “And got picked up by the Sprague police.”

  “Yup. Over the limit. It’s my second violation, which means I can’t drive my car. Just another piece of my life you’ve destroyed.” Greg’s eyes settled on me. “Are you happy?”

  “No,” I said. “Cody’s been missing since yesterday. We want to find him.”

  “I have told you and told you. I didn’t take him!” His shout filled the space. He buried his head in his hands again.

  “You lied to me, more than once,” I said. “You told me Peter Forrand chose another job, but he didn’t.”

  “He got fired, okay? He got fired and I never told anyone cuz he’s my best friend, and it really didn’t seem pertinent to Cody’s kidnapping.”

  “Why was he fired?” Agent Waters asked.

  He sighed. “He’d missed a lot of work, and there were questions about expense reports he’d submitted.”

  “Stealing?” she asked.

  “They never charged him. They just asked him to go.”

  “You also lied about Cody’s favorite Power Ranger. Why’s that?” I asked.

  He winced. “I could tell where your line of questioning was leading. You thought I liked kids. I thought if I made it seem I didn’t know Cody so well, you’d drop it. Got that wrong, didn’t I?”

  “You’re in luck,” Agent Waters said.

  Greg Baker chuckled, a laugh of bleak despair. “Oh, really? How’s that?”

  “I believe you.” She tapped her lips. “So, who do you think kidnapped Cody?”

  He smelled like stale booze and sweat. “I don’t know.”

  “C’mon Greg, you’ve known the family since before Cody was born. You must know their family and friends. Who among them might be clever enough to kidnap Cody?” She waited and added, “Stupid enough to try twice?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Anyone like him more than he or she should?” She’d lowered her voice to a near whisper.

  Her words brought his head up fast. “That’s what you said about me! That’s what everyone thinks now, that I like kids. Jesus. I just like kids because they’re not fucking sneaky and awful the way adults are. Kids don’t drive you to drink.”

  “Some do,” Wright said under his breath.

  “Maybe someone didn’t like Cody, or thought his family would be better off without him,” I suggested.

  “That’s messed up,” he said. He stood, one hand on the desk for support. “I don’t know who took him. I can’t imagine who would, okay? I want to go home, to shower. To see if I still have a job.”

  I thought Waters would stop him. Clearly, he thought the same. As he walked toward the exit, he kept casting looks over his shoulder, checking to see if we’d pursue him. We didn’t.

  “So,” Wright said to Waters. “You believed him?”

  “He has a former DUI. And we did send a guy to his office to make inquiries. An innocent man would drink. Yeah, I believe him.”

  “Think we just ruined his life?” I asked. For weeks they’d look at him funny at work. I doubted anyone would ask him to babysit soon.

  “I want to find Cody Forrand,” Agent Waters said. “If someone ends up without his sobriety chip because of it, so be it.”

  Cisco came over as I digested Waters’s statement. “Who wants to watch some grainy camera footage?” he asked.

  In the interview room, Cisco sat at his laptop, two empty cans of Red Bull at his elbow. Agent Waters was behind his right shoulder. Wright stood to the left, which put me directly behind Cisco. His haircut looked recent, no stubble below the sharp edge of closely cut hair.

  “Watch this,” Cisco said. We looked at the screen’s low-quality picture of Weymouth Avenue. You could see a slice of Mr. Calloway’s yard and much of the sidewalk and street. “There.” He stopped the film. A car was caught, mid-street.

  “Is that the Camry?” Waters asked, quicker than Wright or me.

  “Yup.”

  “What’s the time?” Wright asked.

  “1:50 p.m.”

  He hit a button and the car drove past. “It moves out of frame. Stays that way until 2:18 p.m.” He hit buttons and sped the film. Then he slowed it. A dog and a man appeared and disappeared, then a car, driving in the opposite direction. “The Camry,” he said.

  “Let me see it again,” Waters said.

  He obliged, stopping the car mid-drive. The resolution wasn’t great. We could see a driver, but no facial details. “Not wearing a mask,” Wright said. That much was true.

  “Can we enhance it?” Waters asked.

  “I’ll ask the lab boys,” Cisco said. He punched some buttons. Made time speed by. “A few people walk by, and I’ll try to get higher-res on their faces, but at 4:15 p.m., this happens.” We watched as the Camry drove past, again.

  “Why return?” Agent Waters said. The question on everyone’s mind.

  “Unless the driver was expected someplace nearby,” I said.

  “Like the Forrands’ house?” Wright asked.

  “If Cody got in that car, how did no one see him?” Cisco asked.

  “Why doesn’t he appear on camera?” Agent Waters asked.

  “The car was parked out of the camera’s frame when we found it,” I said. “Assuming the driver parked in roughly the same place earlier, Cody wouldn’t have come within view.”

  “You think the driver knew about the camera?” Cisco asked.

  “If he knew, I doubt he’d have chosen that street,” Waters said. She tugged at the ends of her hair. “Let’s look at that timeline you guys made of the Forrands’ guests; and, Cisco, get the lab boys these files now. I want a better picture of the driver’s face.”

  “Gotcha,” he said.

  “You need a ride?” I asked. I could send Klein.

  He turned from the screen. “Nah. I can send it via e-mail.” He typed on his keyboard for a minute and said, “They’ve got it now.”

  “Like magic,” I said.

  “Something like that.” He rolled his neck. “It’ll take time before we hear anything. I got time for a sammie, boss?” He asked Waters.

  She said, “Grab me one too. Oh, hell, get lunch for the whole crew. I don’t want Mulberry bitching about being forgotten.”

  Cisco said, “Mulberry never forgives and never forgets.” He paused in the doorway. “Where am I going?” he asked.

  Wright said, “There’s Idyll Sub Shop or Papano’s.”

  I groaned. “Papano’s is overrated.”

  “Papano’s has a better meatball sub,” Wright said.

  “I suppose you want one,” I asked him.

  He half bowed. “That would be lovely. Thanks for asking.”

  Waters laughed. I shook my head and muttered, “No respect.”
<
br />   “Chief!” Billy called. “You got a call, from the mayor.”

  “Why don’t I take you to Papano’s?” I said to Cisco. “Home of the world’s most overrated sandwiches.”

  “What should I tell him?” Billy asked.

  I thought of several things Billy could tell his uncle. “Tell him I’m out.” I walked to the front door, Cisco following, whistling a tune I recognized as, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Cisco adjusted the passenger seat. “So, you’re avoiding your mayor?” he said.

  “Always.” The car before us wove slightly. Drunk driver?

  “Is it true he tried to quash press about possible hate crimes?” How had he heard about that?

  The car wove again. I couldn’t see the driver’s head. “One second,” I said. I checked for oncoming traffic, and then passed the vehicle, slowly. White hair, short, wearing eyeglasses. I got in front of her and checked the rearview. I could pull her over, but she hadn’t hit anything, and I didn’t have time to spare.

  “God save me from the elderly,” Cisco said.

  “It’s the teens who are more likely to kill you on the road.”

  “So, about the mayor?”

  “He tries to squash any bad press. He doesn’t want to scare tourist dollars away.”

  “Is that the sort of intrigue and dark secrets they talk about small towns having?”

  “No,” I said, turning onto Main Street. “By dark secrets, they mean the sudden, forced retirement of Mrs. Horowitz, beloved high school history teacher, who had a heroin addiction that would’ve killed lesser mortals.”

  He whistled.

  Papano’s had white flocking on its windows. Instead of festive, the windows looked dirty. Inside, it smelled of hot cheese and bread. Cisco read the giant blackboard behind the counter, with its list of sandwiches. Thirty of them. Never trust a menu with more than twelve items, my father told me. No one can make more than twelve items well. It’s the one piece of advice he’s given me that I follow.

  “What do you recommend?” Cisco asked.

  “Leaving,” I said. “Since we’re here, the cheesesteak is okay and the chicken cutlet is probably the best thing they’ve got.”

  “Okay.” He stepped to the counter.