“You ladies look like you’re on a mission,” Morse called after her. “Anything I should know about?”
Lauren followed Harriet.
“Probably not,” she answered over her shoulder and went out the door.
Harriet pulled into the parking lot of the Carey Bates Missing and Exploited Children offices and parked in front of the door in one of the visitor spaces.
“Looks like there’s someone in the waiting room,” Lauren commented. “What do you think they’re doing?”
“Given the center looks for missing kids and uses volunteers, I’d guess it’s either someone who lost someone or someone who’s helping find someone. Or, if they’re lucky, it’s someone donating money.”
Lauren strained to see through the sheer curtain that obscured her view into the building.
“Please let it be a donor, I’m not sure I’m up for any more drama than we already have.”
“I haven’t heard of anyone going missing lately, not that that means anything. I’m with you, though. Let’s hear it for another donor.”
“Only if they don’t want a quilt prize.”
“I’m betting they don’t get too many ten-thousand-dollar donations, and with three already this year, a fourth isn’t too likely.” Harriet unbuckled her seatbelt. “Enough stalling. Let’s go get the metal detector and get out of here.”
Lauren stopped a few steps from the door.
“Listen.” She paused.
Harriet stopped and listened.
“I can’t make out what they’re saying, but someone sounds mad.”
“You still want to go in?”
“We need the metal detector—it’s the only way we can confirm or dispel the idea that there’s a vent big enough to hold a five-year-old.”
Lauren stepped aside.
“Lead the way.”
Harriet opened the door to the reception area of the Center.
“I don’t care how many people donated money, I don’t care how many buildings were built, I don’t care that it was Molly’s last wish,” Sandra Price shouted. “That woman has tormented my family for twenty years, and it seems like she’s not going to stop just because she died.
“I don’t know how else to tell you no. I don’t want to come to your party, I don’t want Amber’s name on your building.” She spoke slowly like she was talking to a child or someone who didn’t have English as their first language. “I don’t want anything else to do with you people. Is that clear enough for you?”
Sandra stood in the middle of the room, her fists balled at her sides, her face red. Patrice looked even paler than usual, and Carla’s friend Sadie was backing her way toward the hall.
“Does this mean you aren’t coming to the donor celebration?” Patrice stammered. She looked like she was about to cry.
Sandra threw her arms up in exasperation and then caught sight of Harriet and Lauren. She spun to face them and made as though to speak. Then, she shook her head, let her arms fall to her sides, and, with one more glare at Patrice, stormed out the door, slamming it behind her.
Tears that had barely been held in check began to flow down Patrice’s thin cheeks. Harriet looked at Lauren and, finding no help, picked up a box of tissues from the lamp table and crossed to hand them to the crying woman. Sadie hurried out from the hall and launched herself at Patrice, hugging her before stepping back.
“What are we going to do?” Patrice snuffled. “We were going to dedicate the new building in the name of Amber Price.” She moaned. “Molly would have known what to do.”
Harriet cleared her throat.
“Aren’t you presenting your major donors with their quilts? Do you have anything for any of your other donors? Maybe you can make the ceremony be about the donors and the building they helped you build and just leave out the naming part.”
“Not every building is named after somebody,” Lauren added.
Patrice looked hopeful.
“Can we do that? Can we thank them without calling the building by its name?”
Sadie put her arm around Patrice’s shoulders.
“Of course we can. We can worry about a name when the board gets to town. Let me make you a nice cup of tea, and then we can work on a new celebration plan.” She looked over at Lauren and Harriet. “Would you like some tea?”
“No, thanks. We just came by to see if we can borrow the metal detector we saw here the other day,” Harriet said.
“Sure,” Sadie said and disappeared into the hallway.
“Well, that was weird,” Lauren said when they were back in Harriet’s car, the detector stowed in the back. Sadie had given them a quick tutorial on the unit before they left.
“Yeah, there’s no winner in that little scenario. I mean, we only knew Molly for a couple of weeks, and she was driving us crazy with wanting us to solve her crime. You can just imagine what it’s been like for Sandra Price, trying to get over the loss of a child with a survivor who won’t let it go, hounding her for years.”
Lauren gazed out her window.
“This just keeps getting better. And by the way, Molly never mentioned a new building to us.”
“Molly never mentioned a lot of things. In fact, if it didn’t have to do with Amber and her disappearance, she didn’t tell us anything.”
Harriet laughed.
“You’re right. She could have had a whole secret life we didn’t know about.”
“Unfortunately, with her obsession, I don’t think she had time for a secret life.”
Lauren wrestled the metal detector out of Harriet’s car. They were parked near the restrooms in the lot at Fogg Park. It landed on the ground with a thunk.
“Do you want to carry it, or shall I?”
“I’ll carry it, but I think we should swing by the homeless camp and see if we can get a better idea of where Molly was found the first time.”
“Lead the way.”
Harriet headed down the path behind the restroom building and into the woods. Joyce Elias met them a short distance into the trees, a reusable grocery tote in each hand.
“What brings you two into our fine forest today? And what is that contraption?” The faint English lilt to her voice seemed more pronounced than usual.
Harriet set the detector down.
“We’re trying to help bring some closure to our friend DeAnn. Her sister Molly was obsessed with finding out what happened to her when she was five, and now, as you know, she’s dead.”
“We’re well acquainted with that poor girl. Besides Max and me finding her body, she came out here many times since I’ve been here and probably before that, too.”
“Lauren and I are on a bit of a wild goose chase. Just before she died, Molly told me she’d spoken to a psychic, and it had caused her to remember everything. Carla and I visited the psychic, but unfortunately, Molly didn’t have her breakthrough until after she’d left.
“We asked the woman what she’d told Molly, but it was a bit vague. She said that Molly felt cold metal around her shoulders. She told us she couldn’t tell what Molly was actually remembering and how much was fantasy based on Alice in Wonderland.”
Lauren crossed her arms.
“Can we get to the point?” she finally said.
Harriet glared at her before continuing.
“Okay, okay. We got the idea maybe Molly was held somewhere that was connected by some kind of vent to the woods she was originally found in. We thought she might have crawled into the vent to hide and ended up coming out in the woods.”
Joyce pointed at the metal detector.
“I suppose you were going to use that thing to find it?” she asked with a smirk.
Harriet put her hands in her jeans’ back pockets.
“Well, we saw this at the Missing and Exploited Children Center and thought any vent pipe Molly crawled out of in the forest twenty years ago would be grown over with brush by now.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Joyce said thoughtfully. “If it’s been abandoned, yes, but if it’s
still being used to vent something, it might be obvious. Do you know where to start looking?”
Harriet smiled.
“Sort of.”
“Tell you what. Let’s go back to camp so I can put my groceries away, and while we’re there, we can see if Max is around. If he is, we can ask him to show us where he found Molly. You can look around, and with any luck, you can find your vent without firing that thing up.”
Lauren just looked at Harriet, who shrugged.
“Sounds good to us. If we don’t find it that way, we can always use the metal detector.” Harriet stopped. “Wait a minute. Max found Molly when she was killed. We’re looking for the spot where she was found when she was five.”
Joyce smiled at her.
“And that’s why we need Max.”
Lauren picked up the detector.
“You mean Max found her the first time, too?”
“Indeed, he did,” Joyce said, and headed for her camp.
Joyce roused Max from his afternoon nap, and they all waited while he went to the restroom then ate a granola bar from a plastic storage box that was chained to a tree in his sleeping area.
“Sure, I remember where I found that little girl,” he told them. “I hope you’re ready for a hike.” He brushed past the women and headed deeper into the forest.
The trail led them diagonally across the park. Harriet was glad they weren’t doing this in the winter as they jumped over a trickle of water that was probably knee-deep when the rains came. After the stream, they climbed steadily. She and Lauren passed the detector back and forth as their arms tired.
“Now that I see how much of a slope there is in this corner of the park, our vent scenario seems a little more plausible,” she said to Lauren’s back.
Lauren turned her head slightly but kept walking.
“Unfortunately, it also makes our detector less useful. If the vent is sticking out of the hillside, we may find the opening, but the depth of the dirt on the slope will prevent us from being able to tell which direction it goes in.”
Harriet laughed.
“Makes me glad we lugged it all this way.”
“Not much longer,” Max called back to them.
Harriet blew out her breath and noticed he wasn’t out of breath at all; she vowed to up her weekly running mileage.
“Okay,” he said a few minutes later. They had reached the end of the trail and stood in a clearing facing a steep rocky bluff. To the left, the slope wasn’t as steep or as rocky. It was, however, overgrown with blackberry bushes.
“She was in this clearing. I had just moved into the park—it wasn’t as nice back then. None of the trails were developed like they are now. I figured I should know where the boundaries were and where people were able to enter the park. We didn’t have lock-boxes back in those days, so security was always an issue, and anyway, I wanted to be sure I was in the most secure location before I set up a permanent camp.”
Harriet and Lauren looked around.
“The alleged vent wouldn’t have come out of rock, probably,” Lauren said and turned to the left. Harriet had already begun poking into the blackberries with a stick she’d picked up along the trail.
Max waded into the blackberry thicket.
“If someone was digging a vent line, they wouldn’t go very deep in this rocky soil. It’ll probably be up near the top of the slope.”
Harriet followed the path Max had tramped into the berry bushes and came up beside him, stomping berry canes down the way he was. Together, they worked their way slowly up to the top.
Max stopped as they neared the summit.
“You two can come up and help now,” he called to Joyce and Lauren. “Pick up a stick if you can find one.”
With four of them working, it only took another ten minutes before Joyce’s stick clanged against metal.
“I think I’ve found something.”
They stomped over to where she stood and watched as she probed with her stick then reached to pull stubborn vines from what she’d found. Harriet bent down to look into the small, smooth opening.
“If Molly was in that pipe, I can see why having her shoulders squeezed was what she remembered.”
Lauren looked over Harriet’s shoulder.
“We should ask DeAnn if Molly had dislocated shoulders when they found her.”
Joyce bent over and looked.
“Children are quite small at that age, and they tend to be very flexible. I can imagine a small child fitting in there, especially if she were motivated by fear.”
Harriet stepped back.
“Unfortunately, this could come from anywhere.”
“Not really,” Lauren said. “We know it didn’t come from the park. And we know it didn’t come in from that rocky bluff. At least, it’s not likely.”
“That still leaves a lot of possibilities,” Harriet countered.
Lauren started back down the slope.
“We need to look at a map.”
“We need to get back to the church and see if Aunt Beth and the others need help with the quilt.” Harriet started for the trail.
Joyce sighed.
“You know, there is another possibility.”
Harriet and Lauren stopped mid-step.
“Something besides Molly crawled out of this pipe?”
“Yes…well, no, not the crawling out part. What if someone thought they’d killed Molly and stuffed her in the end of this pipe? When she woke up, she crawled back out, and Max found her.”
“Huh,” Lauren said thoughtfully.”Did the psychic say she crawled a long distance?”
Harriet shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I’d have to listen to the tape again to be sure, but I think she only said Molly felt pressure on her shoulders. Nothing about crawling.”
Joyce turned back to the path.
“It’s something to think about, anyway.”
Joyce led the way into the common area where the homeless camp residents took their meals together. She reached into a cooler that was tucked under one of the benches and pulled out four bottles of water.
“Will you let me know if you learn anything?” she asked.
Harriet took a long drink of water and recapped her bottle.
“Sure. If we learn anything. This seems like it’s yet another dead end.
“I thought about what you said while we were walking back, and it does make more sense that someone could have stuffed Molly into that pipe. If the serial killer took Molly and Amber, he may have drugged them, and then, when he got them in his car, he may have thought Molly was already dead, so he ‘buried’ her in the pipe because it was relatively quick and easy compared to digging a hole. He then did whatever he wanted to do to Amber and later killed her and disposed of her somewhere else.”
Joyce crossed her arms and rocked back on her heels.
“I’m trying to convince myself that Molly’s killer doesn’t care about a group of homeless people, but it is a worry.”
“Can we do anything?” Harriet asked.
“No, it’s not the first time a body has been found in these woods and likely won’t be the last. It comes with the territory.”
Lauren stepped closer to Joyce.
“I’m sure Pastor Mike could open the church gym the way he does when the weather is bad if you all wanted to sleep inside where it’s safe. I could ask, if you want.”
“Thank you, but I think we’ll stay put. You know Lottie won’t go inside for any reason, and if she won’t go, Max won’t go, and others will follow. We have our own precautions we take when things like this happen.”
“Hopefully, things like this don’t happen too often,” Harriet said.
“More often than you think,” Joyce said and looked from her to Lauren. “Not crazy murderers, but people who don’t like homeless people in the park bother us sometimes, and people looking for their lost loved ones don’t tend to respect our privacy.”
“That’s awful,” Harriet said.
“I could bring you a battery-operated wireless security system for your space,” Lauren offered.
“We have our own system. It’s not fancy, but our tin cans and fishing line work fine. And we’ll not let anyone sleep by themselves. Don’t worry, we’ll be quite safe.”
“If you say so,” Harriet said.
Joyce patted her on the back.
“I do say so. You worry about finishing your quilt and let the good detective catch the murderer.”
“Now you sound like my aunt.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Joyce said with a chuckle.
“Thanks for helping us look,” Lauren said and started toward the parking lot.
Chapter 26
Harriet clicked the unlock button on her key fob. She glanced at the clock on the dash as she got in.
“Yikes, that took longer than I thought it would.”
Lauren slid into the passenger seat.
“It always does. You aren’t thinking of skipping our rice bowls, are you?”
“Not a chance.”
“You sure took your time,” Aunt Beth scolded as they came down the stairs into the church basement. The quilters were gathered around one of the large cafeteria tables, putting the final stitches into the quilt binding.
“I hope you learned something while you were shirking your quilting duties,” Mavis said.
Harriet sat down at the table.
“As a matter of fact, we learned two interesting things.”
“Interesting, if irrelevant,” Lauren interjected.
Harriet glared at her before continuing.
“First, we observed an interesting interaction between Sandra Price and the ladies at the Carey Bates Missing and Exploited Children Center. Apparently, they were going to name a building after Amber, and Sandra is not pleased.”
“As I said, not really relevant,” Lauren repeated.
“It does raise the question of, if Molly was running roughshod over Sandra Price, who else might she have been offending.”
Disappearing Nine Patch (A Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mystery Book 9) Page 21
