“I’m not here to prove you did.”
His gaze returns to mine. “Then what do you want? Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“I’m a consultant. I’m working with Jason Faircloth’s brother, Anthony.”
“Wait.” I can see the wheels spinning behind his eyes. “The special needs kid?”
A grim smile crosses my face. “That’s the one.”
For a moment, Glenn Hartman isn’t a prisoner or a murder suspect, but a teacher. The calm that crosses his face echoes in his thoughts. Even in this place, a part of him cares. The smile worn by the kind Cart Man who offered me tea in an upside down house flashes across my memory. Perhaps Anthony’s instincts about the man aren’t so far off the mark after all.
“What does he have to do with me, or Julianna for that matter?”
“Anthony started having issues the day Julianna went missing. Serious issues. Pretty big coincidence, wouldn’t you agree?”
Hartman leans back in his chair and studies me. “You’re hoping if you can figure out what happened to her, you’ll have your answer about what happened to him.”
“More or less.”
“You really aren’t here for me.” His eyes well with emotion. “Help me, Ms. Tejedor. They’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Hartman. The only two things I know for sure about you outside your resume are that you sleep with your students from time to time and have a history of assaulting teenage boys in their homes. Why should I help you or believe anything you say?”
“I loved her, dammit.” He rubs the sleeve of his orange jumpsuit across his eyes. “The rest of society may see what I did as wrong, but that doesn’t change a thing.”
“You’re referring to Julianna in the past tense.” My words come out crueler than I intend, but I can’t seem to stop myself. “Any reason for that?”
He glowers at me through squinted bloodshot eyes. “You know as well as I do how these things turn out.”
Not the first time I’ve heard those words.
“Still, you seem pretty confident―”
“I didn’t hurt her,” he shouts, pounding the table with a white-knuckled fist. An officer from the opposite corner of the room takes a step in our direction. The cool smell of mint, however, lets me know Hartman’s already starting to calm and I motion for the guard to stay back and let him be. Once Hartman regains his composure, we begin anew.
“You’re in love with Julianna Wagner.”
“I am. Was. Whatever.” He looks away. “She said she felt the same way. More than once.”
“But she was dating Jason Faircloth.”
A sad grin overtakes Hartman’s face. “She broke up with him to be with me.”
My arms cross before me. “Must’ve been pretty thrilling, bedding a seventeen-year-old girl. Nothing tastes quite as good as forbidden fruit, does it?”
“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all.” Grief contorts his already miserable face. “A question, Ms. Tejedor. Do you actually know anything about Julianna Wagner?”
“Only what her parents and the Faircloths have said and what I’ve picked up from the news. Honor student, cheerleader, athlete.” I raise an eyebrow. “And ‘talented’ enough to score the lead in the school play.”
“She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.” Hartman’s eyes drift closed. “Crystal blue eyes. Flawless skin. The voice of an angel.”
I’m filled with Hartman’s sense of Julianna. The scent of roses and fresh-cut grass and rain compete in my head for supremacy.
“She sounds perfect. Couldn’t leave her alone, could you?”
“The truth?” he asks. “At the beginning, she was the one that put the moves on me.”
“Really?”
He answers my deadpan question with a simple shrug. “Do I seem like the kind of guy who would put his entire career in jeopardy over a girl?”
“Foregone conclusion. You did put your entire career in jeopardy over a girl.”
A bitter smile invades the grimace occupying his face. “She was worth it.”
“Worth jail time? Julianna is a minor, Mr. Hartman.”
“For four more months.” Hartman lets out an overwrought sigh. “I’ve watched more than my share of great women walk out of my life. I wasn’t letting another one go, especially one who said I was her everything.”
Roses. Cinnamon. He really loved her, or at least he thought he did. Frustration, anger, and guilt all emanate off him like heat off a radiator, but no hint of anything that would lead me to think he would harm her in any way.
“And you honestly didn’t know she was pregnant.”
For the first time, he seems embarrassed. His gaze cast downward, he mutters, “We’d only been… intimate a few times. She was on birth control. Even showed me the pills. Still, we were careful.” He clears his throat. “At least most of the time.”
“But not every time.”
“No,” he whispers. “Not every time.”
“Any others? Anybody she mentioned?”
“She told me she and the Faircloth kid had fooled around some, but things hadn’t gotten much past a little fumbling in the dark.” The earnest teacher makes a brief reappearance on Hartman’s face as he meets my gaze for the first time in almost a minute. “Everything considered, Jason’s a pretty good kid. I’m sorry things have ended up like this.”
“You mean you’re sorry you went to his house and tried to kick in his teeth.”
“I’ll admit, I went a little crazy when I saw those pictures. I don’t know about you, but I don’t take well to being blackmailed.”
“I’m going to level with you, Mr. Hartman. I’m not the biggest fan of most of the decisions you’ve made in the last few months, but strange as it sounds, I believe you. I’ll talk to the good detective out in the hall and see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“No promises.”
“Right. But that’s not all.” He glances in the direction of the guards in the corner. “There’s something else on your mind, isn’t there?”
A pretty good kid.
A twinge of pain forms above my right eyebrow as Jason Faircloth’s angry stare fills my mind. For the first time, I entertain a thought that chills my blood. The main clue that led us to Glenn Hartman in the first place was an image I gleaned from Jason’s memories.
What if what I saw was nothing but exactly what Jason wanted me to see?
still can’t believe you got Hartman to admit he was sleeping with the girl.” Thomas checks his mirror before passing a VW bug that’s been creeping up the highway in front of us. “How’d you manage that one, Mira?”
“Not much left to lose when you’re already in jail and people are dropping off photographic evidence of your illicit activities at your house.” I roll down the window to let in a bit of fresh air. “Besides, I think he kind of wants people to know.”
“Because he ‘loved’ her so much?”
“Maybe.”
“And you don’t think all that talk is just a ploy to make himself look sympathetic?”
“I’m sure that’s part of it, but like I said before, it’s hard to lie to me. My particular skill set makes me a pretty good emotion detector.”
“Emotion detector.” Thomas chuckles and shakes his head. “Clever.”
“It’s not mine, but thanks.”
Thomas taps the brake and slides his car back into the right lane. “One more time. Our visit with the Wagners this evening is supposed to accomplish exactly what?”
Though he sounded less than enthused when he took my call an hour ago, Mr. Wagner all but jumped through the phone when I told him I had news about his daughter’s case. I didn’t have the heart to tell him my every instinct says I’m three weeks too late for this story to have a happy ending. All he and his wife have is hope and I have no desire whatsoever to take that from them.
“I need to see her space, where she lived, ate, slept. Hopefully, there’s s
omething I can glean from her things. Impressions. Images. Feelings. Julianna and her disappearance rest at the center of all of this and I’ve pretty much ignored her till now. Her room may give us some answers we can’t get anywhere else.”
Thomas exits the highway and in less than a minute, we’re into the suburbs of Charlotte. I chafe a bit as we pass house after house bigger than my entire apartment building. He slips off his shades as the sun disappears behind the trees lining the road to the west.
“According to the GPS, it’s only a mile or so now,” he says. “What are you going to tell them? You can’t let on anything about the pregnancy and if you tell them what Hartman said, you’ll just make things worse. They’re looking for anyone or anything to get their daughter back and you and I both know that’s looking pretty damn unlikely.”
“God knows I don’t want to make anything worse for them, but I need to find out what happened to Julianna if I’m going to have any hope of discovering what happened to Anthony. I’m hoping something of hers will at least corroborate the pregnancy. All I’m going on now is the offhanded comment of a dreamed up character in a near-comatose boy’s mind.”
Thomas laughs. “And you think some psychic impression off a teenager’s jacket will hold up better in court?”
“Careful, Dr. Archer. The cynic in you is peeking through.”
“Cut me some slack, Mira. In just over a week, I’ve had to learn to accept the existence of telepathy, astral projection, and the weirdest case of multiple personality disorder anyone’s ever heard of. I’m doing my best to keep an open mind, but give me a break.”
I smile for the first time in an hour. “You have been playing nice, I suppose.”
“So.” Thomas turns onto a tree-lined two-lane avenue. “You plan to get inside, see if they’ll let us inspect her room, and wing it from there?”
“You have a better plan?”
We round another corner and Thomas’ GPS announces we’ve arrived. Directly ahead, a media circus, complete with tents and no doubt a few clowns, fills the street and the adjoining front yards. Several news vans, each adorned with its own two-story satellite dish, form a four-wheeled phalanx before the three-story brick home. A dozen or so reporters and cameramen have various territories staked out in the yard. Another shrine to Julianna at the corner of the sidewalk looms even larger than the one at her school. Even now, as the day approaches twilight, a small crowd stands by to pay their respects, or perhaps watch the spectacle.
“It’s a madhouse.” I glance over at Thomas. “Just like Mr. Wagner said.”
Thomas passes the clot of news vans and makes a right, pulling his car to the curb one block behind the Wagners’ home. Grateful this neighborhood isn’t too keen on fences, we sneak across the lawn of an old bungalow and into the Wagners’ backyard like Mr. Wagner suggested. As we pass an old wooden swing set, the image of a little blonde girl flying down the sliding board floats across my mind. My heart grows cold when the imagined child’s hair goes black and her features flow into Isabella’s.
Thomas steps onto the Wagners’ back porch. “Shall we?”
He knocks at the door, and after a few seconds, cautious footsteps sound from within.
“Who is it?” The voice is Mrs. Wagner’s, though fatigue has taken any life from her words. A scent reminiscent of old socks fills my senses.
“It’s Mira Tejedor.”
The door opens a crack and Margaret Wagner peers out at me from below a brass chain before opening the door.
“Come in, before they see you.”
She leads Thomas and me into their living room and seats us on their leather couch before dropping into an oversized recliner and grabbing a half-empty martini.
“Stuart will be down in a moment.”
A few seconds later, Mr. Wagner steps into the room. “Good evening, Ms. Tejedor.” He shoots a puzzled glance at Thomas. “I see you’ve brought a friend.”
Thomas rises and shakes Mr. Wagner’s hand. “Thomas Archer. I suppose you could say I’m here for moral support.”
I rise from my chair and shake Stuart Wagner’s hand. “Thanks for agreeing to see me.”
“Frankly,” he says, “we were surprised to get your call. Detective Sterling told us yesterday you were no longer working on the case.”
I catch Thomas’ concerned gaze and carefully choose my next words. “I’m afraid Detective Sterling and I had a bit of a disagreement yesterday regarding how I was handling certain aspects of the investigation.”
“And?” Hope and fear battle in Mrs. Wagner’s eyes as she joins us.
“We were able to come to an understanding earlier today. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Has there been a break in the case?” Mr. Wagner asks. “We saw on the news you interviewed Glenn Hartman yesterday. Did he say anything about Julianna?”
“I don’t care a whit about Glenn Hartman,” Mrs. Wagner says. “Have you or the police found out something about our daughter?”
Thomas and I share another quick glance, his admonition from the car echoing in my mind.
“Nothing yet.” As the words leave my lips, I can’t help but imagine how it would feel if the child were Isabella and I were on the other end of the conversation. The guilt coursing through my mind is only made worse by the double dose of sorrow and frustration that washes over me from two parents who deserve better than a pack of half-truths. “At least nothing substantial. I do have a favor to ask, though. Is that all right, Mrs. Wagner?”
“Please. Call me Margaret.” She glances down at her nearly empty glass. “Can I get either of you a drink?”
Thomas and I both request ice water. As Margaret disappears into the kitchen, Mr. Wagner leans in close and lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Listen to me. I’m only allowing you in my home because it’s what Margaret wants. Whatever you do, don’t go getting her hopes up. You know as well as I do how this is most likely going to turn out, but my Margaret hasn’t given up hope yet. I’m afraid when she finally accepts Julianna is gone, it’s going to destroy her.”
“We’re not here to cause you or your wife any more pain. We’re just here to help.”
Mr. Wagner lets out a forceful exhalation through his nose. “Unless you can bring our daughter back to us safe and sound, I’m afraid there’s not much you can do.”
“Let her try,” Thomas says. “She’s doing all she can.”
“Two ice waters.” Margaret reenters the room and sets two glasses down on stone coasters on the wood and glass coffee table. “If I can’t interest the two of you in something a little stronger.”
I glance over at her nearly finished martini, the staked olive abandoned in the almost empty glass. “Not today, but thank you.”
“Ditto.” Thomas smiles. “Water’s fine.”
Margaret goes to the bar, pours herself a glass of wine, and rejoins us around the glass table. The four of us sit and stare at each other for what feels like forever until Mr. Wagner finally breaks the silence.
“I’m confused, Ms. Tejedor. You’ve gone out of your way to meet with us but don’t seem to have any new information. What exactly is it you need?”
“I was hoping I could see Julianna’s room, maybe go through some of her things, see if anything gives me an impression that might shed some light as to what’s happened to her.”
“Her room.” Mr. Wagner glances over at the stairs peeking through from the foyer.
“Is there a problem?” Thomas asks in the same practiced “avoiding confrontation” voice I’ve heard him use with me more than once.
“No,” Mr. Wagner says. “It’s just―”
Mrs. Wagner cuts in. “We haven’t set foot in there since the police searched the room three weeks ago. It’s too painful. Too many memories.”
“You don’t have to come,” I say. “In fact, it may be better if I can do my work there alone.”
“Very well.” Mr. Wagner rises from his seat and directs me toward the stai
rs. “Come with me.”
I raise an eyebrow at Thomas. “Coming, Dr. Archer?”
“No,” he says. “I think I’ll stay here with Mrs. Wagner. See if I can help on this end.”
“All right. See you in a few.”
Mr. Wagner leads me up the hardwood stairway, the wrought iron bannister beneath my hand cool to the touch. At the top of the stairs, he pauses for a moment before leading me down the hall to a door covered in purple and pink hearts. He rests his hand on the doorknob as his gaze drops to the floor.
“The police have already scoured the hard drive on her computer and the forensics people have been here more times than I can count. Not sure what you hope to find in there, but take all the time you need.” As I step past him into the room, Mr. Wagner grasps my wrist, not hard, but insistent. “Find her, please. Dead, alive, just so we know. Anything is better than this.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Closing the door behind me, I walk over to Julianna Wagner’s bed and lie back on the pastel comforter. A stuffed black and white tiger smells of sweat and faint perfume and exudes the essence of a thousand nights of deep slumber. The sensation nearly renders me unconscious. I catch myself mid-yawn and force my eyes open.
“Can’t let that happen, Mira.” I slap myself on the cheek hard enough to sting. “You’ve got work to do.”
Julianna’s closet is packed tight, and going through her clothing piece by piece is like a roller coaster of emotion as images from almost two decades of experience filter through my head. The first day jitters from Julianna’s college prep calculus class that left their mark on a silky green blouse. A tray full of spaghetti dumped in the lap of a yellow and red flowered sundress as the entire cafeteria looks on in shocked laughter. Jason Faircloth waiting for her at her locker and helping her into a burgundy jacket.
An image of Glenn Hartman helping her out of the same jacket.
At the back of the closet, I find a pair of jeans a size larger than the rest, tag still in place and hung inside an old raggedy sweatshirt. As evidence of pregnancy, it’s far from irrefutable, but it’s something. Holding the midnight blue denim to my chest brings flashes of a department store to my mind’s eye. Julianna stands at a cash register, but she’s not paying. Someone else is there with her. I can almost see their face.
The Mussorgsky Riddle Page 28
