Here and Gone

by Haylen Beck

  ‘She’s lying too. Don’t you see that?’

  ‘I also spoke very briefly with a Mr Emmet Calhoun just about thirty minutes ago, and he tells me there were no children around when he towed the car. He thought it odd at the time, because of the booster seat and various bits and pieces he saw in there. He said it was just you in the back of Sheriff Whiteside’s cruiser.’

  ‘But he came after,’ Audra said, loud enough to make Showalter wince. ‘Of course he didn’t see them, he didn’t get there till after my children had been taken.’

  Mitchell laid her hands flat on the table, spread her fingers, like smoothing a sheet. ‘Audra, I need you to calm down. I need you to try to do that for me, okay? I can’t help you unless you’re calm.’

  ‘I’m calm,’ Audra said, lowering her voice. ‘I’m calm. But I want my children back. They took them. Why aren’t you out looking for them?’

  Showalter spoke for the first time. ‘We’ve had a helicopter up in the air since first light, searching from here down to Scottsdale. My colleagues are liaising with police and sheriff’s departments in neighboring counties, getting search parties together. Don’t worry, Mrs Kinney, whatever you did with those kids, we’re going to find them.’

  Audra slapped the table with her palm. ‘I didn’t do anything with them. Whiteside and Collins have them, for Christ’s sake, why won’t you listen?’

  Mitchell held her gaze for a moment, before turning it to the iPad that lay on the table in front of her. She entered a passcode, illuminating the screen.

  ‘Audra, I need to show you something.’

  Audra sat back in the chair, fear tightening her chest.

  Mitchell said, ‘Agents from the Phoenix field office have given your car a preliminary search before it goes to the CID pound for a more detailed analysis. They took a few pictures. Do you recognize this?’

  She pulled up an image, turned the iPad so Audra could see it. A striped T-shirt. Sean’s. A reddish-brown stain on the front.

  ‘Wait, no—’

  Mitchell swiped a finger across the screen, replacing that image with another. ‘And this?’

  The interior of Audra’s car, the rear footwells, the back of the passenger seat, the passenger-side rear door. With the tip of her pen, Mitchell indicated several points across the image.

  ‘I’d say those look like bloodstains. What do you think?’

  Audra shook her head. ‘No, it’s Sean, he gets nosebleeds. He had one day before yesterday. I had to pull over and get him cleaned up. I wiped around the car, but I couldn’t do it properly, there was no time, it was getting dark.’

  Mitchell swiped again. Another image.

  Audra said, ‘Oh God.’

  ‘Audra, tell me what you see in this picture.’

  ‘Louise’s jeans,’ Audra said. Fresh tears came as she began to quiver. ‘Oh God. And her underpants.’

  ‘Lying in the rear passenger-side footwell,’ Mitchell said. ‘They were tucked underneath the passenger seat.’

  ‘How … how …?’

  ‘Audra, can you make this out?’ Mitchell put the tip of her pen to the image. ‘The jeans appear to be ripped, with blood on them. You can’t tell from the image, but they’re also damp with what seems to be urine. Is there anything you want to say about that?’

  Audra studied the photograph, the jeans, the stitched tulips for pockets.

  ‘She was wearing them,’ she said.

  ‘Your daughter was wearing these jeans,’ Mitchell echoed. ‘When was she wearing them?’

  ‘When she took her.’

  ‘When who took her?’

  ‘Deputy Collins. When she took my children away, Louise was wearing those. But they weren’t torn. There was no blood on them.’

  ‘Then how did these jeans wind up back in your car? After it was towed away, how did they get there?’

  Audra shook her head, tears free-flowing down her cheeks, dropping fat and heavy on the table. ‘I don’t know, but the sheriff and the deputy, they took my children, they know where they are. Please make them tell you.’

  An idea sparked in her mind so bright and clear that she gasped. She put a hand to her mouth.

  Mitchell leaned back. ‘What?’

  ‘The cameras,’ Audra said, feeling a giddy fizz behind her eyes. ‘The police cars, they all have cameras, right? Like you see on TV, when they do a traffic stop, they record it all, don’t they? Don’t they?’

  Mitchell gave her a sad smile. ‘No, Audra, not in Elder County. Deputy Collins’ cruiser is almost fifteen years old, it’s never had a dashcam fitted, and the one in Sheriff Whiteside’s car stopped working three years ago. There’s never been spare change in the budget to fix it.’

  ‘What about GPS, anything like that?’

  ‘Nothing like that.’

  The weight of it settled on Audra’s shoulders again – the fear, the anger, the impotence. She covered her eyes with her hands as Mitchell spoke.

  ‘Now, I’ve listened to what you’ve told me about Sheriff Whiteside and Deputy Collins, and believe me, I will speak with them about that. But right now, even if I discount the things we found in your car, it’s your word against theirs. And I’ve talked to some people today. Including at the diner you ate in early yesterday morning. The manager confirmed Sean and Louise were with you then. As far as I know, she’s the last person to have seen you and your kids together. She said you looked nervous.’

  ‘Of course I was nervous,’ Audra said through her hands. ‘I was trying to get away from my husband.’

  ‘I spoke with him too.’

  Audra’s hands dropped away from her face. ‘No. Not him. Don’t listen to him. He’s a liar.’

  ‘You don’t know what he told me yet.’

  ‘He’s a goddamn liar.’ Audra’s voice rose again. ‘I don’t care what he said. He did this. He paid Whiteside and Collins to take my children from me.’

  Mitchell sat quiet for a moment, let the silence dampen Audra’s anger.

  ‘I spoke with Patrick Kinney early this morning while I was waiting to board the flight from LAX to Phoenix. He told me about the problems you’ve had in the past. The alcohol. The cocaine.’

  ‘The cocaine was a long time ago, before the children, before Patrick even.’

  ‘Maybe so, but not the alcohol. Or the prescription meds. He told me you had three different doctors handing out uppers and downers like they were candy. He told me there was a time you barely knew your own children.’

  Audra closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Goddamn him. He did this. I know he did.’

  ‘Mr Kinney told me since you left and took the kids, he’s been trying to get them back.’

  ‘There, see?’ Audra said, ignoring Mitchell’s irked expression. ‘He’s been trying to take them from me. He paid the sheriff—’

  ‘Let me finish, Audra. You’ve had New York Children’s Services circling, threatening to take the children back to their father. That’s why you upped and ran four days ago. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to let him take my—’

  ‘What happened, Audra?’ Mitchell leaned forward, her forearms on the table, her voice smooth and soft and low. ‘I have three kids myself, and an ex-husband. I’m lucky my mom’s around to help, but even so, they’re a handful. Raising children is hard. So hard. It’s stressful, you know? Even with all the love I have inside me, when they push hard, I can only bend so far. Every mother should get a medal, I think, just for getting through a day with children.’

  She leaned closer still, her voice dropping in pitch, honey-sweet, her brown eyes fixed on Audra’s.

  ‘So tell me what happened. You’ve been driving for four days straight, you’re tired, you’re scared, the heat is getting to you. Maybe Sean and Louise are bickering in the backseat, you know the way children do. Maybe they keep asking for things they can’t have, even though you told them no a hundred times already. Maybe they’re shouting and screaming, over and over and over, louder and lou
der, and they just won’t stop. Did you do something, Audra? Did you pull over someplace out in the desert and go back there to them? Maybe you only meant to chew them out. Maybe a little smack on the leg or the arm. Maybe a shake, that’s all. I know that’s all you meant to do, I’ve wanted to do it to my own kids plenty of times, but you just lost control for a moment. Just for a split second, that’s all, and you did something. Is that what happened, Audra? I know it’s eating you. All you have to do is tell me, and we can go get them and this will all be over. Just tell me, Audra, what did you do?’

  Audra stared at Mitchell, something burning inside her chest.

  ‘You think I hurt my children?’

  Mitchell blinked and said, ‘I don’t know. Did you?’

  ‘My son, my daughter, they’re both out there somewhere, and you’re not looking for them because you think I hurt them.’

  The same soft smile, the same honey voice. ‘Did you?’

  With no conscious thought, Audra’s right hand lashed out, across the table, her palm striking Mitchell’s cheek hard and clean. Mitchell recoiled, anger in her eyes, the sting blooming on Audra’s hand.

  Audra got to her feet and said, ‘Goddamn you, find my children.’

  She didn’t see the patrolman come at her, only felt his bulk slam into her body, the floor racing up at her. Her chest hit the linoleum, crushing all the air from her lungs, the patrolman’s knee on her back, big hands seizing her wrists, forcing them up behind her shoulders.

  Audra kept her gaze on Mitchell, who stood at the far wall, breathing hard.

  ‘Find my children,’ Audra said.

  14

  ‘JESUS,’ WHITESIDE SAID, turning his attention away from the video feed on the laptop’s display to the young fed who’d set it up. He gave the kid the full force of his sneer. ‘That went well.’

  The fed – Special Agent Abrahms, if Whiteside recalled correctly – did not reply. Instead, he tapped a few keys, making windows appear and disappear on the screen.

  The laptop had been placed on the rearmost desk in the open office, a handful of state cops looking on, a couple more talking on the phones, taking calls, organizing a search operation. Already a map of Elder and the surrounding counties had been stuck up on a wall, a red pin marking the spot where he had picked up Audra Kinney, more pins marking her last known locations, a string from one to the next giving an approximation of her route over the last few days. More feds and state cops were due to arrive in the county between tonight and the morning, the motel over in Gutteridge about ready to burst. Talk was they’d move the operation over to the town hall soon.

  Collins haunted the spaces between the station’s desks, pacing the room, sometimes meeting Whiteside’s eyes, sometimes not. A couple of the state cops tried flirting with her and got shot down pretty hard.

  The door to the interview room opened and the patrolman emerged, one big hand on Audra Kinney’s arm, her other held by the detective. Whiteside stood and went to the far wall, leaned his back against it. Collins came to his side.

  Audra saw them both and bared her teeth. As the two cops led her back to the custody suite, she craned her neck so she could keep them in sight.

  ‘Where are my children? What did you do with them? What did my husband pay you? You bastards, you tell the truth. Tell them where my children are. You hear me? You tell them. I swear, I’ll …’

  Her voice faded to a muted cry as the door closed behind her.

  ‘Hold your nerve,’ Whiteside said, low enough so only Collins would hear.

  ‘I’m trying,’ she said, her voice wavering.

  ‘Trying won’t do it. You keep it together or we’re dead.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’

  ‘Keep your mind on what comes after,’ he said, ‘what that money’s going to do for you.’

  ‘Won’t do me any good if—’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Mitchell approached, her iPad in one hand, her notebook and pen in the other. Her gaze travelled from Collins to Whiteside and back again, her face unreadable. Then she smiled and said, ‘Sheriff Whiteside, can you spare me a minute?’

  ‘Sure I can,’ he said.

  He left Collins where she stood and went to the station’s side door, Mitchell following. Heat blasted in as he pushed the bar to open the door. He held it wide for Mitchell to step through, closed it behind them both. A sliver of shade on this side of the building shielded them from the worst of the sun, but still the air bore down on Whiteside, the glare on the fleet of state police cars and black federal SUVs making him squint.

  ‘What’s that over there?’ Mitchell asked, pointing. ‘Those orange streaks on the hills. Like steps.’

  ‘Copper mine,’ Whiteside said. ‘Used to be, anyway. Open pit, all the work on the surface. The red is the clay they laid on top of the earth they exposed; they did it when the mine closed. Supposed to stop rainwater leaching acid and stuff into the environment. Not that it rains enough to wet much more than a tissue around here. They call it “rehabilitation.” Isn’t that just great? They rehabilitated the mine like it was some dealer just got out of the penitentiary.’

  Mitchell shielded her eyes from the glare as she studied the hillside. ‘What happened to it? Why did they close?’

  ‘Stopped being profitable,’ he said. ‘They weren’t getting enough out for the work they put in, so, pfft! Gone. This town used to make its living from that mine. Whole damn county, in fact. This used to be a wealthy place, believe it or not. Sort of place a young man could raise a family and know he could provide for them. There’s still copper up there, but the suits figured out it was cheaper just to leave it in the ground, and that was all she wrote. The world still needs copper, needs it more than ever to make all our laptops and cell phones and whatnot, but the world wants it cheap. Just you wait, sooner or later, the bean counters are going to figure out it’s more cost-effective to get all our copper from China, same as they did with steel, and then the whole country’s screwed. It starts in places like this, but it doesn’t end here. Towns living or dying by whatever some Ivy League college boy works out on his calculator or his spreadsheet. They closed that mine, it was a death sentence for us. Anyone fit to work got out long ago. What’s left is living from one social-security check to the next, just waiting to die, along with Silver Water.’

  ‘I suppose that’s why you haven’t got the money to fix your dashcam,’ Mitchell said.

  Whiteside let the air out of his lungs in a long exhalation before turning to look at her.

  ‘Special Agent Mitchell, what is your salary like?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not going to answer that.’

  ‘Well, I’ve had to take a pay cut for five years straight. Either that or lose my job, that’s how the mayor put it to me. I’d wager you pay more in taxes than I take home in a year. You know, I voluntarily gave up my salary for three months last year, just so there was money to pay Deputy Collins. And as shitty as my pay is, hers is worse, and she needs it more. Right now, you might be standing on the poorest patch of ground in the United States, and I’ve got a budget of about two quarters, a nickel, and a stick of gum to keep it safe.’

  Mitchell stared at the distant mountains for a time, her lips sealed tight, before she said, ‘You know I’m going to have to ask the question.’

  Whiteside nodded. ‘Yeah, I figured that. Go on, then.’

  ‘Is there any truth to what she said? Did you or Deputy Collins play any part in the disappearance of Audra Kinney’s children?’

  She turned her eyes to him and he held her stare, hard as it was.

  ‘You know we didn’t,’ he said. ‘It’s a fantasy. Maybe she believes it. Maybe it’s easier for her to dream up a story than it is to face the truth.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Mitchell said. ‘But I have to investigate all possibilities. Whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I got nothing to hide,’ Whiteside said.

  ‘I’m sure. I’ll have Special Agent Abr
ahms send that video to the behavioral analyst at the Phoenix field office. We’ll know soon whether or not she’s lying. And I’ll have my team search the back of Collins’ cruiser. If there’s no truth to Audra Kinney’s allegations – well then, you have nothing to worry about. Do you?’

  ‘No,’ Whiteside said. ‘I don’t.’

  Mitchell smiled, nodded, and opened the door. She stepped into the station, let the door swing closed.

  Whiteside put a hand against the wall to stop himself from falling.

  15

  AUDRA WOULD HAVE screamed if she’d had the voice for it. Every time she tried to shout, it turned into a squeak and whisper in her throat. She paced the cell, willing herself not to bang her head on the bars. A coiled spring strained at the middle of her chest. Panic lurked at the edge of everything, threatening to swoop in and take her control away. So she focused on the anger. Anger was more use to her now than fear.

  No one would listen. No one. As though what she said meant nothing to them. She had felt certain when Mitchell walked into the interview room that this woman would at least consider there might be truth in her words. But no, Mitchell was just another cop in a suit, unable or unwilling to look past what Whiteside had put in front of her.

  By the clock on the wall, forty-five minutes passed before Mitchell entered carrying a Styrofoam container in one hand, a plastic bag in the other, and a large paper sack tucked under her arm. Audra kept pacing as Mitchell approached the cell.

  ‘Have you eaten since yesterday?’ Mitchell asked.

  As if woken by the words, Audra’s stomach let out a long, deep growl. She stopped walking, wrapped her arms around her belly.

  ‘I guess not,’ Mitchell said. ‘I got this from the diner down the street. It smells pretty good.’

  She placed the container on the desk by the door, a napkin and a plastic fork beside it, along with the paper sack.

  ‘First, though, I want those clothes. I went over to the Goodwill store and got some things. I had to guess your size, but they should do for now. They didn’t have any underwear, so I put in some things of mine.’