Just then her radio crackled again.
"Be advised a female child has reached the Cook County Morgue. Officers have your victim's mother en route. Proceed to M.E.'s office and meet her there to view the body. There is a match in the general description. Repeat, there is a match."
"Oh, shit," McMann whispered under her breath. She jumped back onto the Eisenhower and began racing east. She had to be there ahead of Melissa in case there was positive ID. She didn't want her to go through it without a strong female presence at her side.
That thought prompted her to hit the siren and lights.
The waters parted, and she was flying along the 290 ready to do the unthinkable with a woman she hardly knew.
She prayed that the trip solved nothing, a strange prayer for a detective.
7
Kendra McMann was the daughter of a retired Chicago Police Department sergeant who had done his twenty on the streets and then launched his own detective agency. She was the granddaughter of a New York City police officer who had walked a beat in Brooklyn his entire career. Both men had stories that kept the family up late at night on a Saturday, usually loosened up with plenty of bourbon and beer.
She was married to a man who worked as a county computer programmer, a man who was working on his master's in software engineering at an online school. Matt was gentle and loving; one of his hobbies was repairing old pianos and organs. He excelled at this and over the past year had talked about starting his own company doing nothing but keyboard repairs.
They were a happy, childless couple. McMann herself had seen enough on the streets of Chicago and from the front seat of an unmarked vehicle that she had decided against having children of her own. As it was, her sister in Elm Grove had two kids that McMann doted on. That was close enough to the fire for her. She refused to venture any nearer.
Her supervisor was Denny Lambert, a black man with an eye on becoming chief someday. Lambert was very political, which meant that too many of McMann's cases were suddenly pulled away from her and disposed of without explanation. In those times she knew that someone with juice had approached Lambert and asked for a favor or made a threat that could have political ramifications, so he had dropped an investigation to turn the heat back down.
McMann's partner, Sherry Escanaba, was stay-at-home sick when Lisa Sellars was abducted. McMann was handling their cases herself. Some days she would have a temp join her: usually a uniform who'd been pulled off the street and told to come to work wearing a suit. These helpers were usually over-eager and grasping at the small window of time during which they might solve an important case and get considered for detective school.
As McMann drove to the Medical Examiner's building, she considered what Melissa Sellars was actually up against. For one, she hadn't told the woman that the way the case was developing—or, rather, not developing—she'd probably never see her daughter again until some hikers or hunters found a shallow grave giving up the bones of a four-year-old female. That was the usual result in these cases where the victim wasn't located in the first twenty-four hours. It was a result that the police department had to let parents experience for themselves because they forever believed their child would be one of the lucky ones. Even after a positive ID, some hope remained. It was human nature, and Melissa Sellars would be no different, McMann was sure.
Driving along, her windshield wipers beating the snow away, she could feel the old familiar tightening in her chest as the day drew inexorably closer to that moment when she'd have to tell Melissa that she'd been assigned a new case and would have to move on. She usually tempered that by saying the new case wouldn't be given the same priority by her as Melissa's case. That would help assuage the mother's panic and fright, but it was also untrue. The fact was, these grab-and-run cases were the stuff of daily reports and were so constant that new files were being opened by CPD at a rate that kept the investigators "knee deep in files," as one investigative reporter had put it.
She pulled her Impala into the M.E.'s parking lot and the constant sorrow she would forever feel when she came here suddenly washed over her. No police officer looked forward to views. It was heartbreaking, of course, to be there when family or friends ID'd a loved one. But it was part of the job, and McMann was determined she would be there with victims' loved ones whenever possible as the sheets were peeled back from the frozen faces.
She pocketed her keys and hurried inside.
8
Detective McMann had me ride to the M.E.’s office with two uniformed officers. She was going to be driving in a different direction when we finished so the officers would take me back home. Later that day, she told me she'd pulled into the M.E.’s parking lot and run inside. Her goal was to beat me there. She badged the clerk and found, to her enormous relief, that I hadn't arrived. She told the clerk to hold me at the front desk when I arrived. Meanwhile, she went off in search of coffee.
I was alone in the backseat of the squad car with two uniformed officers in the front. They were talking together as they proceeded down the 294 and then rejoined the 290 for the last leg of the trip to the morgue on Harrison Street. At the parking lot, they pulled in beside Detective McMann's ride, and everybody got out. The police officers took their places on either side of me, and we began the long walk inside. Honestly, at that moment I knew how prisoners felt when they were being walked to the electric chair. At any moment, I feared, I would just collapse and turn into a black spot on the parking lot.
I felt my heart pounding in my chest by the time we reached the entrance. Then we walked through the small lobby and up to the reception window. The woman behind the glass slid it open. "You Ms. Sellars?"
"I am."
"Detective McMann will be right back. She asked that you wait here in the lobby for her."
The officers escorted me to a waiting area and remained standing until I was seated. Then they sat down close by and said nothing. I was too numb to even speak. Besides, words were useless in this place.
Five minutes and here came Detective McMann, a cup of coffee in hand. She nodded to us and we stood then followed her through a hospital-style door marked PRIVATE.
Down the hall to a second desk.
The morgue clerk nodded as we approached his desk. "Yes?"
"Unidentified white female child. Arrived sometime this morning?"
"Sure. Let me get an attendant." He lifted the phone and paged someone to his desk. Minutes later, a young Asian man wearing a white lab coat and a look of deep concern came for us. We followed.
Inside was a huge wall of cadaver drawers. The attendant checked his clipboard against a date and time entry and then motioned us down to the far end where the more recent bodies were stored. He reached and drew open a drawer at waist level. The body was covered head-to-toe by a sheet.
I felt like I was about to black out. I saw spots, and I almost lost my footing. I would have fallen if the officers hadn't steadied me. I drew a deep breath and nodded.
The attendant peeled back one corner of the coverlet. I leaned across his arm and peered down at the face.
"Jesus," I said in the shakiest voice. "Jesus, thank you."
"Not?" McMann said.
"No, not her," I said. With that, I erupted into a sobbing hulk that the two officers had to help out of the morgue. They half-carried me back to their car and lowered me inside.
"No, change of plans,“ called McMann across the parking lot when she had finished with the front desk and caught up. "Put her in my car."
The transfer was made. Detective McMann leaned in through the passenger's door and buckled my seatbelt. I looked in the outside mirror and was shocked at my white face and dilated eyes that were wide and staring. There were no words to help; McMann didn't even try. She hurried around to the driver's side and climbed in.
My head flopped back against the headrest. I was crying softly, shaking my head from side-to-side.
"Did you see that baby's face?" I whispered. "Jesus, what a beautiful little girl
. And no one has claimed her yet?"
"It happens. Usually, the parents haven't been notified by the police that there's a possible match. It's early in the day yet. Someone will be in by nightfall to claim her body."
"Oh, my God. My baby, my precious Lisa, where are you?"
"Look, I'm going to drive you home, and then we'll meet with the officers who've been out in your neighborhood. Then I need to head back downtown."
"Downtown? Does that mean you're moving onto the next case?"
"Well...it means a lot of things. There isn't much I can do until I have leads. Right now my partner, Jerry O'Reilly, is waiting to talk to the man who owns the black SUV from your neighborhood. That could be huge. And of course I'll be there when those questions get asked. Jerry'll call me."
"So until then, we're kind of stuck?"
"I don't know that I'd call it stuck--"
"Come on, Detective McMann, you're going to have to level with me. We're at a dead end here if this black SUV guy isn't a lead, am I right?"
I heard the air whoosh out of McMann's lungs. What was the sense in dancing around it?
"You're right. We have nothing if the black SUV doesn't take us to a new understanding."
"What about the hospital? You're sure they've searched every room?"
"Yes, every room and every closet."
"What about the hospital morgue?"
"That too. I wasn't going to bring it up."
"Well, leave it to me."
"Yes."
FOUR POLICE OFFICERS from the citywide search of bus stations and airports had assembled around my kitchen table. One-by-one they recited what efforts they had made and what results--or lack of results-- they had to report. The whole purpose of this exercise, I was told, was to see whether other vehicles had been seen in the area that were perhaps lurking close by my house or whether other neighbors had actually seen faces or had descriptions of people and so forth. But so far, nothing.
But then McMann's phone chimed, and she pulled it out. She spoke for almost a minute. Then she listened before speaking again. She finally hung up.
"Well?" I whispered, afraid to say it out loud.
"Joplin, Missouri. Another body that fits Lisa's general description."
"Oh, my God!"
"They're sending photographs."
"Oh, my God."
"So how do you want to handle these, because there will be more. Should they come directly to your phone or do you want them to come to my phone and then we meet and go over them all at one sitting?"
"Send them to me. I can't wait between."
"Can do. But call me just in case."
"In case of what?"
"You know. In case one is Lisa. Call me before you do anything else, and I will be here in ten minutes from anyplace in the city. Okay with that?"
"Okay."
"Now, for the other officers here, let's go around the table, and everybody give three minutes on your morning up and down the block. We good?"
Nods and grunts of assent.
"Good. Michaels, let's start with you."
The uniformed officer with the silver name tag that said ROBIN MICHAELS began nodding. "I had the next block north, south side. Out of eleven homes, six had somebody home. All six invited me inside to talk. What I found out was that most of the people don't pay much attention to local traffic. I think that's because their road makes a T-intersection into a very busy secondary road with traffic that constantly turns and comes up their road to go back and go the other direction. In other words, their road is the next best thing to a U-Turn out on Abbott Expressway."
"Did anyone have anything?" McMann pressed.
"Nothing actionable. Sorry."
"Officer Periwinkle?"
"Yes, Sergeant. I had the north side of the victim's road. A dozen houses, seven invites. Three of them noticed the black SUV hanging around, but nobody thought to write anything down. They all said the same thing: by the time they realized it had come back two more times, it was too late, the thing was gone and didn't come back again. So nobody got a license plate except one older lady who thought it began with an 'S' because her first granddaughter is 'Stephanie' and it made her think of that name."
"Nothing actionable, fine. Next?"
The round-table continued much the same way, and I was struck by how little people actually noticed what was going on in their neighborhood--hell, even on their own street.
My face and chest were suddenly hot. My thoughts darted back to Lisa, and my heart began crying out for my missing daughter. The proceedings around the table dissolved in my mind and all I could imagine was the man who had come into Lisa's hospital room and how swiftly he had made off with her. I hadn't been gone from the room for ten minutes, and Lisa went missing. I kicked myself for leaving my daughter alone, and I wondered whether all hospital security was so lax that just anyone could come and go on hospital floors and take people out of their rooms under the guise of a hospital orderly taking someone to radiology or to PT or whatever.
I came out of my daze--for a moment. I checked my watch. 1:07 p.m. Then a cold hand gripped me as I realized that very soon all the people gathered around me would be gone on other assignments. Time was running out; even Detective McMann had other cases that would take away her time and attention.
I found myself wanting to cry out, to insist that enough wasn't being done, to demand that everyone stay another full day and help. But I didn't. I knew this was routine to the lot of them, this coming together and canvassing after a child went missing. I also knew that after their shifts they would all go home to their families and say a silent prayer of thanks that it wasn't one of theirs that was gone.
When the updates concluded, I looked up and realized I had actually heard very little of what had been said. But that was okay; no new action was planned as a result of the canvass. Everyone was leaving on other assignments now. Even Detective McMann was gathering her things together although she wasn't actually unplugging her laptop and folding it away. So I got up and made another pot of coffee in hopes of impliedly inviting the detective to stay on and continue with her work.
It wasn't necessary. McMann explained that she would be remaining with me until it was time to go and confront Grant Baedeker. She had many questions for the man in the black SUV who just might have been staking out my house before Lisa disappeared. Her intensity sparked new hope inside me; maybe this was, in fact, the break that would crack the case. I began praying the same beseeching prayer over and over, crying out for help and praying for my daughter's well-being and safety.
The rest of that afternoon was spent fielding calls from my staff who were calling with offers of help and prayers for a quick recovery of Lisa. Then even the star of the TV show herself called to wish me well and to tell me that others were covering my job. Of course, they weren't covering as well, which made me feel good knowing my job was safe and that my boss missed me.
Calls from family were intermingled. Along with those I also called Mark's parents and let them know what was going on. Mark's father insisted they were driving in to help and this time around I didn't resist. I actually thought it would be good to have them around my first night home alone. So I agreed that it would be best if Rebecca and Charlie drove into town and stayed with me. Who could say? They might even have ideas to offer, to follow up. Additionally, Rebecca was a force to be reckoned with--the woman who wouldn't hesitate to shoot the kidnapper who had taken their granddaughter. She would have to be restrained if it ever came to court appearances or that sort of thing. But I decided their presence far outweighed the negatives. In the end, I couldn't help it and broke into tears and admitted I needed all the help I could get and that they should come without delay.
I then called my parents in London. My father was a diplomat specializing in trade policies between the U.S. and the U.K.—so he claimed. My mother worked as a buyer for Macy's, chasing down the latest in fall, spring, and summer fashions for the U.S. market. It was a job s
he loved; I doubted that my parents would ever return to the U.S. to live, they so thoroughly enjoyed England.
The terrible news was shared with all relatives and close friends. When it was done, I sat down in the family room conversation pit. I was testing what it felt like to be alone in the house without my daughter.
Then I abruptly stood and went back into the kitchen, where McMann was typing rapidly on her laptop. I filled a coffee cup and sat down across from the detective.
That "being all alone" feeling was too much.
I didn't think I'd ever be able to do that--not after having my daughter and then losing her. Being alone was one thing. But being alone during a tragedy-in-the-making was more than any human being should ever have to face.
It felt good to be near the detective.
I hoped she would stay around-the-clock until Lisa was found.
9
Detective McMann left Melissa's at three-thirty that first afternoon. She was off to interview Grant Baedeker, the man whose name was on the registration of the black SUV. She began driving east on the Eisenhower and got off on First Avenue in Maywood. Five minutes later she came to the Jif-Lube next door to Gigi's Nails. She parked and headed inside.
Her partner, Jerry O'Reilly was still waiting in the office. With him was the same cashier, but this time a new face had arrived. McMann knew he was Baedeker before they were even introduced.
"Is there an office where we can talk?" McMann asked.
O'Reilly answered. "No office. Can we do this in your car?"
"Surely." It was snowing and blowing outside, so the trio hurried into McMann's still-warm automobile, and she started it up and switched the heater on. McMann was behind the wheel, Baedeker had been directed into the passenger seat by O'Reilly, and O'Reilly now occupied the backseat right behind Baedeker so the subject couldn't see him. McMann half-turned in the seat, drawing her leg up and across the leatherette seat cover. She knew that O'Reilly had already patted the guy down; that was SOP with them. So she launched right in.
The Empty Place at the Table Page 5
