Idyll Fears

by Stephanie Gayle

  “Between the first and second kidnappings.” When Cody had returned home. Maybe they’d decided they wanted a dog, on top of two kids and a third on the way? No. I’d seen the way they lived. There was no way a puppy fit into that home.

  “Seems like an odd decision,” he said. “Taking on the responsibility of a pet with two kids, one of ’em so sick.”

  “It’s worse than that. They knew Cody wasn’t staying. They planned it.”

  “They helped Mrs. Donner?” he asked.

  “Yes, but we need more. Wait. Who reserved the puppy and paid for it?”

  “I didn’t ask. I assumed it was both parents.”

  “Call the breeder. Confirm it.”

  I called Agent Waters. She was out, but Agent Mulberry was in. I told him about the puppy and the TV show. He didn’t think it was damning evidence, but he agreed to review the Forrands again, beginning with their first statements about Cody’s disappearance.

  “You mind if I do some digging?” I asked. Yes, it was Idyll’s case. However, I needed the feds’ help, and I didn’t want to step on anyone’s sensitive toes.

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked. I told him, and he said, “Door-to-doors? Please, be my guest.” He paused. “You know, if it was them, they actually had me fooled. I’ve seen my share of bad parents, but they’re in a new class.”

  Were the Forrands worse than parents who beat their kids, who neglected or molested them? Were they worse than parents who murdered? Were they the same? We wouldn’t know until we found Cody Forrand. Knew if he was alive, or dead. Then we could judge them.

  Lord, preserve nosy neighbors. Keep them safe from harm and watch over them. At 4:35 p.m., I found Geraldine Howard, who lived directly across the street from Sharon Donner. She’d greeted my introduction with a curt, “I’ve already answered questions about that woman.” When my questions included new photos, of Peter and Jane Forrand, she grew curious. She invited me in, muted her television, and offered me tea.

  She looked at the pictures long and hard. “This one.” She waved the photo of Jane Forrand in her hand so that the photo buckled, “She stopped by.”

  “Once? Twice?”

  She twisted the photo to look at it again. It was from the press conference. Jane’s face was startled and pale. “Several times, mostly in the fall. October, before Halloween, it was. She had a boy and girl with her, but after that she came alone.”

  “And him?” I pointed to the picture of Peter Forrand.

  “Never saw him.”

  “How long did she stay when she visited?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t really say.” She ducked her head. Played shy. “I don’t spy on my neighbors.”

  “Of course not. Only, you might have looked outside to check the weather and seen her car still in the drive, after an hour or more.” I’d give her excuses. I’d hand her a bucket full of them, if only she’d say what she’d seen.

  “She stayed at least three hours. I know because One Life to Live was beginning when she left, and she’d arrived during The Price Is Right. Twice she came and stayed about that long.”

  Where were the kids during this time? School. Right.

  “Were they good friends?” I asked.

  She leaned back. “Now, how would I know a thing like that? It’s not as if I listen at keyholes.”

  “No, no. I wondered if, when you saw them, they seemed chummy.”

  She moved her lips as if swishing mouthwash. “I wouldn’t have thought so. Mrs. Donner, she was a queer bird. Always off to church with her little boy, always talking about her burdens and how God never gave you more than you could handle. Pious.” She spat the last word. “The other woman, she was younger and not churchy.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “It’s how she struck me.”

  “They got along?”

  “The younger one yelled at Mrs. Donner once, in the drive. Something about her not doing something right. She seemed upset.”

  “Do you know when that was?”

  “Jennifer escaped from an elevator shaft, and John convinced Susan not to kill herself.”

  “Suicide?” What was she talking about?

  “On Days of Our Lives. That show is spiraling out of control. Honestly. I think they’ve got monkeys writing those scripts.”

  I jotted this down. Maybe someone could figure out what date that episode had aired. “And you only saw the children the one time?”

  “Yes. The little boy, that was Cody Forrand.” She didn’t make it a question.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “So she took him then, Mrs. Donner? Abducted him after her boy died?”

  “Did you know her boy, Aaron, well?”

  She snorted. “Not hardly. She barely let him out of the house. Claimed his ‘condition’ made it too dangerous. Too dangerous to ride a bike, too dangerous to play on the slides, too dangerous to swim. Poor mite. Always at church or the hospital.”

  “You remember when he died?”

  “Yes. I saw the ambulance and police come. Sirens fit to split your ears.”

  I thought back to the medical report. “Did you notice anything odd, before the ambulances?”

  “Just the light.”

  “The light?” I asked.

  She pointed to the picture window. “His bedroom faced the street. Second floor. The light flicked off and on, several times, like someone was flipping the switch.”

  The fuse had gone. The air-conditioning unit turned off. The fuse? Had it controlled the whole room? I wrote fast, words blurring. “You’re sure about the light?”

  “Yes. Later I thought how it seemed almost prophetic, the light flickering, like the last little bit of Aaron before he departed this world.”

  “Do you know how long it was before the ambulances came? The lights flickering?”

  “Least an hour. I’d gone to the grocery and back. I was unpacking when the sirens started up. I dropped a box of cereal.”

  “Right. Thank you, you’ve been most helpful.”

  “Well, I’m no busybody,” she said, puffing her chest. “But what’s the world coming to when one doesn’t watch out for one’s neighbors, am I right?”

  I stuffed my notepad in my pocket and stood. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Agent Waters listened to my summarized interviews with Sharon Donner’s neighbors. Several had identified Jane Forrand as a visitor of Mrs. Donner’s, though none had been as helpful as Geraldine Howard. Waters asked, “So, how would it have gone down? They agree to give Cody to Mrs. Donner? Why didn’t he ID her after the first grab?”

  “Maybe he only saw the mask. She drugged him with the cocoa. Maybe he never got a good look at her.”

  “Or maybe Mommy told him not to tell,” she said. “Wait. Didn’t Wright say his parents would answer for him during interviews? You think both parents were in on it, right?”

  “Peter didn’t visit Mrs. Donner. Still, it’s hard to imagine he didn’t know.”

  “Impossible,” she said.

  “Although it seems he doesn’t know she was cheating on him.”

  “Are we sure about that?” she asked. “Sure his vasectomy didn’t fail?”

  “How can we be sure without a paternity test?” I asked.

  “That might be a useful tool,” she said.

  “I’m not sure we can get one without consent.”

  “Do they know that?” she asked.

  “Probably not.” I began to see how Waters had gotten to where she was. “By the way, a couple of the guys’ wives and mothers are fans of Days of Our Lives. Two of ’em said that the episode with the elevator escape aired December 18th.”

  “So after the first grab went wrong,” Waters said. “You think Jane Forrand went to bawl Sharon Donner out?”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  She said, “Let’s hope we don’t have to explain it to a judge. Right now, it’s all conjecture. Circumstantial. We’d never get a trial, much less a conviction.” H
er frustration was audible.

  “Yeah.” The Forrands had plotted their child’s abduction while they hung his stocking and talked of Christmas presents with him. They’d led us as if our noses had strings. Anger rose up again like bile. Those fuckers had given their child to a woman who might’ve been involved in her son’s death. They’d handed him over like a gift, while weeping on camera and calling us incompetent in our search efforts. I’d see them in handcuffs. I would give them something to cry about.

  “Chief, call!” One thing I appreciated about Mrs. Dunsmore. She didn’t yell. Didn’t need to. And now I never knew whether “Chief, call” meant it was for me or aimed at me. I snatched up the phone.

  “Chief, this is Mike Shannon.”

  “Hey, Mike. How are you?” Was this a social call?

  “Good. Wanted you to know. We got some prints off your kidnap car. Hairs too.”

  “That’s great.” Two and a half months after they’d been taken. Just about right.

  “It’s some young guy, Mark Farraday. Report is headed your way, but I wanted to give you the scoop.”

  “Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it.”

  I had Billy run Mark Farraday through the system. He was twenty-two years old. Busted for being involved in a hit-and-run at which the driver had left the scene of the crime. Farraday was a passenger. Born and raised in Chaplin, Connecticut. Chaplin, where everyone knew their neighbors.

  I called Waters. She perked up at the news of Mike Farraday’s prints. “Guy from Chaplin, huh? I like that. Hey, how did you get the report already? I don’t see it.”

  “I’ve got friends,” I said. Left it at that.

  “You think this Farraday kid knows the Forrands?”

  “He must.”

  “Damn,” she said. “We need to get him in here.”

  “Mind if I watch?” I asked.

  “If that’s what you’re into,” she said, laughing. “Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The FBI interview room looked proper, with wooden chairs, a heavy table that could seat six, and a two-way mirror. The room was wired to tape audio and video. A few subtle logos here and there reminded you where you were at all times. Even the folder Waters had in front of her had the FBI seal on it. Plus Mark Farraday’s name, big and bold, on the front.

  Mark Farraday was a lanky kid with big hands and big brown eyes. Maybe his eyes were so big because of the terror he was experiencing. His eyes flittered from the folder with his name on it, to Waters, to me, and then to the mirror. When he’d shown up, alone, Waters and I had heaved sighs of relief. He hadn’t lawyered up. Now he sat, scared, watching us like we were big bears about to devour him.

  “Hello, Mark,” Agent Waters said. “Thanks for coming. Like I said, I’m hoping you can help us with our inquiry into Cody Forrand’s abduction.” She leaned on the last word, abduction. Subtle, and effective. Mark swallowed, hard, and audibly.

  “Cody was taken on December 22nd. We’ve determined he was driven in a silver Toyota Camry belonging to Arlene Pearl, of Barkhamsted. Mrs. Pearl reported her car stolen when we found it parked on Weymouth Avenue.”

  Mark watched Agent Waters turn pages in the folder. He couldn’t quite read what was on the pages, but he strained forward as far as he could.

  “The crime technicians processed that car and found DNA that matches Cody Forrand. They also found fingerprints.” She looked up, at him. “Your fingerprints.”

  “Mine?” His voice cracked.

  “Yours,” she said. “Can you explain that?”

  “I think I need a lawyer,” he said.

  “I think you need to tell us where you took Cody Forrand before I charge you with federal kidnapping.” This time the emphasis was on federal.

  “I didn’t drive him anywhere,” he said. “I swear. I just stole the car. I didn’t know they were going to move Cody in it. I like Cody. He’s a great kid. Really.” His words emerged all at once, leaving him breathless.

  “Why did you steal the car?”

  “She asked me to,” he said.

  “She?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Forrand. Jane.”

  I fought back the smile that spread inside me.

  “Jane Forrand asked you to steal this car,” Waters said.

  “A car. One that wouldn’t be reported stolen anytime soon. I do landscaping, and I’d worked a job in Barkhamsted a month back. I knew Mrs. Pearl had a car she barely drove. I figured it would work. I didn’t know they meant to use it more than once.”

  “You stole it more than once?” Waters asked.

  “She needed it more than once. She didn’t tell me why.”

  “And you didn’t ask?” Waters didn’t bother to hide her skepticism.

  “She was very upset, especially the second time. She’d been through so much, what with Cody going missing. Plus she and Mr. Forrand were having trouble.” He spoke Mr. Forrand’s name with the deference you pay to one’s elders whom you met when a child. Yet he called Mrs. Forrand by her first name.

  “Why did you steal the car for her?” Waters asked.

  “She asked me to, plus she paid me. I needed the money. I owe so much in student-loan money, and work was slow, before all these winter storms hit.”

  “She paid you?” Even better, from a prosecution perspective. “When?”

  “October. She said she’d pay half upfront, before she needed the job done, but she didn’t have that much.”

  October. Waters and I shared a look. Bingo. We now had evidence of her planning as far back as October.

  “How much did she pay you?”

  “One hundred and twenty five dollars.”

  “You took one-twenty-five for a four-hundred job?” I asked, critical.

  “She paid me another way.” The red spread down his neck. Another way, huh?

  “She had sexual intercourse with you?” Waters made it sound cold, clinical.

  “It wasn’t like, I mean, I didn’t do it because of that. I’ve been in love with her since I was sixteen. And she said her husband never touched her anymore. That she felt ugly and old, and that I made her feel special. She’s a beautiful woman. She’s just had a tough life, taking care of Cody.”

  Wow. This guy might as well have “patsy” tattooed on his forehead.

  “She’s pregnant,” Waters said. “Did she tell you?”

  “What? No. I heard rumors.” Of course he had. In a town like Chaplin, probably everyone knew. “I assumed she and her husband made up.”

  “So you didn’t consider that the baby might be yours?” she asked.

  “What? No. She was on the pill. She told me.”

  “You might find this difficult to believe,” Waters said dryly, “But she lied.”

  Mark Farraday unraveled. He babbled about not being ready to be a father, and how would he support a child, and why would she do this to him? We let him rant for a few moments before we insisted on getting a full statement from him. He was only too happy to oblige, especially when Waters spelled out his criminal charge options and what the power of cooperation might mean for him. He forgot his teenage fascination with Jane Forrand in the face of federal charges and pending fatherhood.

  Once we had the statement, Waters and I conferred. We had enough to grab Jane Forrand, to get a warrant to search her house. But would a search tell us where Cody was? Would coming at her with a full-frontal attack guarantee we’d find him?

  “I can get Wright in,” I said. “To help.” I knew better than to offer Finnegan.

  “No,” she said. “We keep this small. We’ve been the ones talking to them lately. We’ll keep it that way. Coffee?”

  I took her up on the offer and discovered that if my tax money was being misspent, it certainly wasn’t on the FBI’s coffee budget.

  There is no such thing as the perfect crime. No matter how carefully someone plans, no matter how detailed the bank schematics or how trained the sniper, mistakes happen, and evidence exists. A loose thread from a jacket,
droplets of blood, an unexpected witness, or plain old bad luck. Detectives work hard, but sometimes it’s the little unexpected gift the universe throws at you that breaks a case open. That explodes the otherwise-perfect crime, leaving bits of plans and better futures scattered like shrapnel.

  Gretel was an eager, face-licking, silky-eared pup that jumped on me as soon as I stepped inside. After she’d slobbered over my proffered hand, she went at Waters, who said, “Stop!” in a tone that made Gretel yip, and back away.

  “Come, Gretel!” Anna called, patting the front of her pants. “Come here!”

  Gretel ran to Anna and licked her face, making Anna laugh and say, “Stop” in a tone that guaranteed Gretel wouldn’t. Happy family.

  “We have some news,” Agent Waters said. She stood with her hands at her waist.

  She slid her eyes to Anna and Gretel and shook her head at Peter.

  “Anna, take Gretel out back, will you?” Peter said.

  “She just went out.”

  “Anna, remember what we agreed upon? You’d take Gretel for walks.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Come on, Gretel!” She gathered her coat and a turquoise leash.

  “Hat!” Jane called. “It’s freezing out there.”

  Anna grabbed a pom-pom hat. Gretel pranced, her nails clickety-clacking on the floor. Anna had to calm her before she could attach the leash, then she took Gretel out the front door.

  “Stay near the house!” Jane yelled.

  “A young boy was found recently, dead. We think it may be Cody,” Waters said.

  Peter’s face tightened. Jane’s hands covered her mouth. She squeezed her eyes closed. “No,” she whispered.

  “Are you sure?” Peter asked. His voice broke.

  “No. That’s why we came. We’d like you to come to the station and look at some pictures.”

  Jane sat on the sofa. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “It can’t be him.”

  “Where is he? I mean, his body,” Peter asked. His voice shook.

  “At the state medical examiner’s office.”

  “It may not be him,” I said. “That’s why we need you to come and look at the photos first.”

  “What about Anna?” Jane asked.