“So they leave you shorthanded.”
The woman blew the smoke out on an angry blast through her nostrils. “Shit. We always shorthanded.”
Marie looked sympathetic. “Trying to cut down on costs, I guess.”
“You got that right. Ole bitch. I ought turn this place in to the state, ’cept I need the job. Don’t know why Violet ain’t done it.”
“So Violet’s the one that got fired?”
The woman threw the cigarette down angrily. “Now you got me sayin’ too much. Who you say you was again?”
“I work for Alyssa’s mom. She’s worried sick about her daughter.”
“Huh,” the woman said. “That’d be a change.”
“What do you mean?”
She ground the cigarette into the dirt with the toe of her running shoe. “I tole you, I ain’t got nothin’ to say. An’ my break is over.”
“Okay,” Marie said. She started to walk away. After a few steps, she heard the woman’s voice. “Hey.”
Marie turned around. The sullen look had left the woman’s face. When she spoke again, the defiant hardness had left her voice. “That little girl in any danger?”
Marie spread her hands, palms up. “I don’t know,” she said. “I have to find her first.”
The woman looked around furtively. “Lady got fired name Violet Prickett. She know something about it, and the ole bitch ain’t got nothin’ to hold over her no more.”
Marie nodded. “You got an address? A phone number?”
The girl nodded. “She move in with her son. He stay in Wilmington. We talk sometimes.” She told Marie the number. Marie memorized it; she didn’t want to be seen writing it down in case Miss Melanie was watching.
“Thanks, ah…”
“Janica,” the woman said. “You find that little girl you tell her Miss Janica said hi. She’ll know who you talkin’ about.” She shook her head sadly. “She a sweet little thing. I hope you find her.”
***
Violet Prickett lived in one of the areas near the Cape Fear River where older houses had yet to be bought up by affluent white people and turned into “historic” homes. The house, while clean and recently painted, was losing the battle with gravity and dry rot. The front porch visibly sagged in places, one of the carved support posts slightly askew. The screen door behind which Prickett stood had been torn and patched and torn again.
Prickett was a slightly built woman who appeared to be in her early sixties. Marie was surprised at her age; most of the other women at the day-care center had appeared to be in their twenties. She stood ramrod straight behind the door, no expression on her face. Her skin was a light brown, only slightly creased with laugh and worry lines.
“Ms. Prickett?” Marie said. “I’m Marie Jones. We spoke on the phone?”
“It’s Mrs.,” Prickett said.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said Ms. It’s Mrs.,” Prickett said. Her diction was crisp and precise, like a schoolteacher’s. “I was married twenty-nine years. I raised seven children. I’m not ashamed of it.”
“No, ma’am,” Marie said. “Mrs. Prickett, I really need to talk to you.”
The woman made no move to open the door. “You work for that Fedder woman,” she said. “Why should I talk to you?”
Marie decided to gamble. “Because I’m not sure my client is telling me everything I need to know. I’m doing my job, but I want to know who I’m doing it for.”
Prickett didn’t move. “And if you find out something that makes you think twice about giving that little girl back to that woman,” she almost spat the last two words, “what then? You going to give the money back?”
“Well, actually,” Marie said, “I haven’t been paid yet.”
Prickett remained silent for a long moment. Then she smiled sadly. “You really are new at this, aren’t you, Miss Jones?” She opened the door. “Come on in.”
Marie entered. The front room was dimly lit by the light through the big front windows. There was a worn couch by the door, covered by a crocheted afghan. A matching and equally ancient easy chair stood beside it, facing a console television.
“I was just getting ready for some tea,” Prickett said. “You want some?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Marie said. “One sugar, please.” She sat down on the couch. There was a coffee table in front of it, with copies of The Watchtower and Modern Maturity arranged in neat rows.
There was the rumbling of feet on stairs somewhere out of sight. A slim young black man came into the room.
He stopped short when he saw Marie. “Who are you?” he demanded.
Marie stood up. “Marie Jones,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m—”
The young man cut her off. “I know who you are,” he snapped. “You’re that investigator.” Before Marie could respond, he turned and shouted toward the back of the house. “Mama?” he called. “Mama!”
“Don’t you shout at me like that, Curtis,” Prickett said as she came back in the room, carrying a tray with a teapot and two cups. “I haven’t gone deaf yet.”
Curtis was unabashed. “I thought we talked about this, Mama.” He gestured toward Marie.
“This lady, son,” she said, setting the tray down on a clear space on the table, “is a guest in our home. And she’s shown better manners so far than you have. Now, don’t you have to get to work?”
“You said you weren’t going to—”
She cut him off decisively. “I changed my mind,” she said. “Which is my right. Last I checked, I am a grown woman.”
He stood firm. “Haven’t white people caused us enough—”
“That’s enough, Curtis.” The tone was calm, but Curtis’s mouth snapped shut as if he’d been slapped. His mother walked over to him and hugged him. The top of her head nestled comfortably under her son’s chin. “Now go on to work. I’ll be all right,” she said. Curtis gave Marie a stormy look over the top of his mother’s head, but he hugged back.
“You be careful, Mama,” he said in a low voice. She nodded. Curtis left, giving Marie one last hard look.
Prickett sat back down. “I apologize for my son,” she said formally as she picked up the teapot.
“No apologies necessary, ma’am,” Marie said. “He’s trying to take care of you.”
“You’re very sweet.” She poured a cup of tea for Marie and one for herself. “I suppose that should worry me, coming from a police officer.” She raised a hand as Marie started to speak. “No, no,” she said. “I know, you’re one of those private detectives. But you haven’t been for long. And you used to be a policewoman, didn’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “If you don’t mind my asking, how could you tell?”
Prickett blew on her tea. “Just something about you. The way you speak.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement. “The way you say ‘ma’am’ sometimes, like you don’t really mean it.”
Marie flushed. Prickett smiled. “Don’t worry, Miss Jones, most times you do. Mean it, that is. I can tell you were raised right. Sugar’s in the bowl right there.” As Marie spooned the sugar into her tea, Prickett asked “So why aren’t you a policewoman any more?”
Marie hesitated, the cup halfway to her lips. “Mrs. Prickett,” she said. “I don’t think that has anything to do with what I need to know.”
Prickett was unperturbed. “Well, now,” she said. “Seems to me I’m about to give you a lot of information that might come back to bite me if I give it to the wrong person. You said you wanted to know who it was you were doing this for. Well, so do I.”
Marie took a sip of her tea. The hot liquid had to fight its way past the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat. Finally, she said, “I got shot. Me and another officer. He died.”
“Oh,” Prickett said. “I’m sorry to hear that, dear. And they blame you for that?”
“They didn’t need to,” Marie said. “It was my fault.”
“Seems to me I saw something on the TV a
bout all this. You and some bounty-hunter fellow went after those two that did all that killing.”
Marie gritted her teeth. One of the things she had hated most about the whole experience was having the distorted details on every local newscast for weeks.
“Yeah…I mean yes, ma’am.”
Prickett nodded. “I remember now. That was quite a story.” She took a sip of her tea. “Seems to me I remember that bounty hunter from the TV. Big, good-looking fellow. You two—”
“Mrs. Prickett,” Marie said. “Can we talk about something else now?”
Prickett looked startled, then contrite. “I’m sorry, Miss Jones,” she said. “I’m being a nosy old woman. Go ahead and ask your questions.”
Marie took out a pad and pen. “How did Lundgren get possession of his daughter?”
Violet arched an eyebrow at her. “Possession? That little girl wasn’t a possession, Miss Jones, however her mother may look at it. She was a child.”
Marie took a deep breath. “Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry,” she said. “How did Sergeant Lundgren get his daughter?”
“That’s simple,” Violet said. “He called and asked to pick her up.”
“Didn’t her mother object?”
Violet snorted. “I should say she did.”
“That’s not what Miss Melanie…um, your former boss…said.”
“Hmph,” Violet replied. “That woman would say anything to keep herself out of trouble. Well, the only reason no one is going to say anything about it now is none of us want to do anything to help that Fedder woman.”
“Mrs. Prickett,” Marie said, “let’s cut to the chase. It’s pretty clear to me that no one where you worked liked Carly Fedder. Did you have any reason to believe that Alyssa’s mother was abusing her?”
Violet sat a long time, staring into her teacup. Finally, she shook her head. “No,” she said in a low voice. “At least not physically.”
“How do you mean?”
Violet looked up. Marie saw tears in her eyes. “I’ve never seen a child so starved for affection,” she said. “She’d get up on your lap at story time…and when it was over, she’d just hang on, like she was afraid she might drown if you let her go.” She took a tissue out of the pocket of her dress and dabbed at her eyes.
“So you felt her mother was neglecting her.”
Violet nodded. “Sometimes she’d wear the same dress to school two, three days in a row. I’d ask her why, and she’d just say it was her favorite. When I asked if Mommy didn’t want to take it and wash it, she’d just shrug and say, ‘Mommy doesn’t care.’ ” Violet’s voice broke on the last word. “And the way she said it…so matter of fact…like caring was more than a little girl should expect…” She brought herself under control. “So, yes, it’s fair to say none of us liked that woman.”
“Did you ever call Social Services?”
Violet looked out the window. “God forgive us,” she said. “We should have. We should have. But Miss Melanie let us know that anyone who did that would be out of a job. And we needed the jobs. Most of those girls working there had little ones of their own to look after. So we tried to give Alyssa all the love we could.”
“Until her father came for her.”
“When he called to ask after her…Well, Miss Melanie told him everything was fine, that there were no problems. I snuck into her office and got the number off her message pad. Me and a couple of the other girls called him after work. We told him he needed to come get his daughter.” She sighed.
“How did you know that he wouldn’t turn out to be worse?” Marie asked.
“We thought about that. I arranged a time to meet him. We talked for almost three hours.” She shrugged. “Maybe that’s not much. But he seemed sincere. He talked about what he’d seen, how it had changed the way he looked at things.”
“What did he say he’d seen?”
“He couldn’t be too specific. But he let me know he’d seen fighting.” Her eyes went far away. “My husband, God rest him, was in Korea,” she said. “He wouldn’t talk about it much, either. But when he came back is when he settled down. I saw the change in him then. It’s when I finally agreed to marry him.” She collected herself and looked at Marie. “So I decided to trust Sergeant Lundgren.”
“Did he say where he’d been?”
“No,” Violet said. “But I figured he’d been over to that Afghanistan.”
Marie nodded. “That makes sense. But how was he going to take care of a little girl? He’s Special Forces. He could get sent off anytime.”
Violet nodded. “I asked him about that. He just smiled, sort of mysterious. Said he had everything he needed now to take care of her.”
“Now? He said now?”
Violet looked troubled. “Yes. Come to think of it, that was a strange way to put it. Wonder what he meant by that?”
Good question, Marie thought. “So,” she said, “did he say anything about where he was going? Where he was taking her?”
Violet shook her head. “Just that she’d be safe. Among friends.”
Marie stood up. “Mrs. Prickett,” she said, “thank you for seeing me.”
Violet stood up as well. “Thank you, Miss Jones,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to tell somebody the straight story on this. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Marie said. As soon as I figure out what the hell that is, she thought.
***
Alyssa was bored. She had already seen all the stuff that was on TV, and most of her toys were back at her house. She still had FredtheFrog, and the baby doll she had named Abby. Miss Violet had made sure her dad got those. She wished her dad would come back. He had bought her a couple of games to play with, but then he’d left for a little while. The two guys Dad had introduced as her uncles were nice to her, but they didn’t seem interested in board games.
She got up and walked to the kitchen. Uncle Mike and Uncle Bobby were sitting at the table talking. They seemed upset.
“Can I have some juice?” she asked.
They jumped like she had stepped up behind them and said “boo!” She giggled. Then she saw the look on Uncle Mike’s face and she didn’t feel like laughing any more.
“Sure, honey,” he said as he got up to go to the fridge.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“Nothing, sweetheart,” Uncle Bobby said. “We’re just having a grown-up talk, okay?”
Uncle Mike brought her some juice in her sippy cup. She took a swallow and stood there looking at them.
“When’s my dad coming back?” she asked.
“A little while,” Uncle Mike said. “A little while longer.”
She sighed. When her mom said “a little while,” it could mean anything from minutes to days. But she knew better than to ask again. She might get smacked. Her new uncles had never hit her, but you never knew. She went back into the living room and turned on the TV. She kept it on low, so she could hear the conversation in the other room. It was a trick she’d learned. If the TV was on, they didn’t think you could hear them. She had to strain her ears to listen and even then she could only catch a few words. They were talking about something being blown. Maybe something had blown up. Or maybe it had fallen over in the wind. Grown-ups were weird.
That scared feeling came back in the pit of her stomach. She picked up FredtheFrog and squeezed it tight against her chest. She felt something hard beneath the worn green felt. She wondered if she should tell Uncle Mike or Uncle Bobby about the secret that FredtheFrog had swallowed. But Dad had told her to keep it to herself.
She’d keep the secret till her dad told her it was okay.
CHAPTER SIX
Angela looked up from behind the counter as the bells on the front door jingled. The first man who walked in was young, slender, with short, perfectly cut blond hair. He was dressed in a dark blue business suit that looked as if it had been tailored to fit him. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans. The woman who accompanied him l
ooked as if she had been stamped from the same mold, except that her hair was light brown, slightly longer. She might have been attractive except for a weak chin beneath a small, thin mouth that seemed permanently pursed in disapproval. She was also conservatively dressed, if less expensively, in a pantsuit of the same shade of dark blue.
The man took off his shades. He tucked them in an inside jacket pocket. His hand came out of the pocket with a slim brown wallet. “Ms. Hager?” he said. Without waiting for an answer, he flipped the wallet open, showing a flash of gold badge that swiftly disappeared as he tucked the wallet back in his pocket. “I’m Agent Gerritsen. Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is my partner, Agent Rankin.” Rankin performed the same conjuror’s trick, the badge flashing like summer lightning, then disappearing into a coat pocket.
“I’m Angela Hager,” she said, standing up. “What can I do for you?”
“We’re attempting to locate a Jackson Keller,” Gerritsen said. “I understand that he’s employed here.”
“Mr. Keller is an employee of mine,” Angela said guardedly. “May I ask what you want to see Mr. Keller for?” she asked.
“First off,” Gerritsen said, “do you know where he is?”
“It’s his day off,” Angela said.
“That wasn’t what we asked,” Rankin said.
“No,” Angela said. “I don’t know where he is. As I said, it’s his day off.”
“He’s not at his house,” Gerritsen said. “We also had people check Miss Jones’s office and her home in Fayetteville. He’s not there, either.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about him already,” she said.
They ignored the observation. “Does he have a cell-phone number?” Rankin said.
“First, I think you need to tell me what this is about,” Angela said.
The two FBI agents looked at each other. Finally, Rankin nodded. Gerritsen turned back to Angela. “Do you know why Mr. Keller is looking for a Sergeant David Lundgren?” he said. “Sergeant Lundgren isn’t a client of yours, is he?”
“No,” Angela said. “Mr. Keller is helping out Miss Jones. She’s a friend of his. She’s a private investigator.”
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