Lie in Plain Sight

by Maggie Barbieri

  Thank God for Donna Fitzpatrick and her daily drop-in. Maeve wondered if the disappearance of a high school student might put Donna’s icing quandary into some perspective. Probably not. “Twelve twenty-five. Approximately.”

  “And she was going straight home?”

  “As far as I know.” Maeve dropped her head to the counter. “How bad is this, Chris?”

  His face gave nothing away. In the front of the store, Trish was talking to another officer and trying to figure out potential places that Taylor might go instead of home. Maeve’s initial thought was that the girl had lied, that she hadn’t had a migraine, that she had gone to meet someone, somewhere, and didn’t want anyone to know. Trish’s immediate assumption was that she was abducted. Given that their suspicions were on opposite ends of the spectrum, Maeve kept her thoughts to herself.

  But Chris wanted to know what she thought. “Ran away? Met someone she wasn’t supposed to?” Maeve asked.

  Chris closed his notebook and stood, not giving any indication of whether he agreed with Maeve. “I’m going to talk to Trish again,” he said, leaving the kitchen.

  Maeve stared at the order board across from where she was sitting, just a piece of corkboard nailed to the wall. She had done the wrong thing, letting Judy send Taylor home. She should have waited for Trish to return. She shouldn’t have made that decision for the girl or her mother. Guilt for some things—but not others—took hold of her sometimes and wouldn’t let go, shaking her to the core. This was one of those things. She could feel it already.

  Uniformed cops had already been all over the village and had even gone to the train station to see if anyone had seen a girl buy a ticket, board a train. There wasn’t a lot they could do at this point, her disappearance being barely a few hours old, but something had caught the local police’s attention, and they seemed determined to bring this girl home, even if she had just cut school to do a side trip to Old Navy.

  While she was waiting for Chris to come back in, Cal burst through the back door with his toddler. The jogging stroller that Devon sat in had probably cost more than the engagement ring Cal had given Maeve a long time ago in another life. “What’s going on?” he asked, breathless.

  “Did you run here?” Maeve asked.

  “Yes. I was out for a jog and saw police cars coming in this direction. When I got closer, I saw that they were here.” He put the brake on the stroller and tore a hunk of bread off a loaf that Maeve had planned to sell, handing it to the toddler, who took a hearty bite, smiling at Maeve through the crumbs. Cal broke off another piece and shoved it in his own mouth. “What happened?”

  “A girl has gone missing,” Maeve said.

  “A girl? What girl?”

  “I just hired someone new, Trish Dvorack. Her daughter is missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Yes. Missing.” Maeve could see Trish’s tear-streaked face, hear the terror in her voice. She still wasn’t sure why everyone was behaving as they were—as if something truly terrifying and awful had happened—but she was grateful that the police, as inept as they sometimes seemed to be in this village, were being so attentive. “She went home sick from school but never arrived. They are looking for her now.”

  “Did they check the malls? The train station?” Cal asked. “And how long has she been missing?”

  “Couple of hours. I’m sure they are doing all of that,” Maeve said.

  He peered over her shoulder, trying to get a glimpse into the front of the store. “Dudley Do-Right in there?”

  “If you mean Chris Larsson,” Maeve said, “then yes.”

  “God help us,” Cal said. “This case, whatever it is, will never be solved.”

  “Keep your voice down, Cal.” She got up and looked through the glass of the kitchen door. She needed him gone before Chris came back to the kitchen and Cal threw off some vibe that raised her boyfriend’s hackles. A jealous ex-husband. That was a new one. “They keep asking me the same questions over and over again.”

  “Why is everyone so upset about a girl who has been missing for a couple of hours?” he asked.

  Good question, and one she didn’t have an answer to.

  “Why don’t you go back home? I’ll keep you posted.” Maeve handed him the loaf of bread that he had desecrated.

  “No,” he said. “I’ll stay. You need company.”

  What he meant, as he always did, was that he was staying because he thought she needed him. And that wasn’t true. He forgot that she had been on her own a long time and didn’t need him to protect her, to help her navigate the muddy waters of a messy life. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye so that there would be no mistaking her intentions, or the message she wanted to give him. “Leave. Now. You don’t need to be here. No one needs a retired corporate lawyer to deal with this right now.”

  He leaned in so close that their noses were touching. “When will I see you again?”

  “You won’t,” she said. “No more, Cal. We’re done.”

  He smiled, and she pulled away just before he landed a kiss on her dry lips. “No. We’re not.” He pulled away and angled the stroller toward the back door.

  “People are talking, Cal,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  “What people?”

  “People in this town. Someone saw something or heard something and…” A thought dawned on her, fully formed and a little sickening. “Are you sleeping with other women?” she asked. There was no way that anyone could have known what had happened between the two of them. That was the only answer. She wasn’t the only one.

  He didn’t answer directly. “Keep me posted on this one. If she really is missing, this may be beyond your boyfriend’s investigational capabilities. Really. They should call County. The FBI. People who actually know how to solve cases.”

  Before she could respond, he was gone, getting the last word as he often did.

  Kurt Messer, a customer, held the door for Cal as he exited with the stroller. The older man nodded at Cal and smiled at the baby as they walked past. “I know I say this a lot, Maeve,” he said, watching Cal push the baby across the parking lot, “but they grow so fast. I hope your ex-husband appreciates that now that he has a little one again.”

  “I’m not sure, Kurt,” Maeve said. “You’d think he would have learned after how fast Rebecca and Heather grew up, but he may need reminding.”

  Kurt pointed toward the front of the store. “I hope it’s okay I came in the back. Seems like there’s something going on? Should I leave?”

  “The cupcake order, right?” Maeve asked. Fortunately, it was wrapped and on top of the butcher-block counter; she wouldn’t have to go into the front of the store and disturb what was going on there to find it. “Here it is.”

  Kurt took the wrapped package from her and admired it. “Gorgeous, Maeve. Thank you.”

  “Having a party?”

  “Mark’s birthday,” he said. Kurt’s son worked for the DPW—the village’s Department of Public Works, where Kurt had recently taken the reins—and came into the store for lunch sometimes. “He’s twenty-two.”

  “That’s lovely, Kurt. I hope you enjoy them,” she said.

  “What do I owe you?” he asked.

  “They’re on the house.” Before the older man could protest, Maeve put up her hand. “I can’t tell you how helpful Mark has been to me over the last six months. That March snowstorm nearly pushed me over the edge, but he came and shoveled out the back parking lot for me without my asking.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Kurt said.

  “Tell him to enjoy his birthday,” Maeve said.

  “Will you have a table at Founders Day, Maeve?” Kurt asked.

  “I will,” she said. “The mayor hasn’t stopped hounding me since the village council decided to celebrate the hundred and fiftieth anniversary. I hope the weather holds.”

  “Well, October is usually a good month, so the weather should be good. One can only hope. I’ll be doing a
little party for my team the day before, but I’ll call you closer to the event so I can place my order,” Kurt said.

  “That sounds great, Kurt,” Maeve said, but she was distracted by the events of the afternoon.

  Kurt lingered for a moment. “May I ask what’s happening in there?”

  Maeve hesitated, not sure how much to tell, but the man’s kind face, coupled with his obvious concern, loosened her lips. “Trish Dvorak’s daughter never came home from school today. Trish is worried that something may have happened to her.” By the look on Kurt’s face, she could tell he was acquainted with Trish.

  Kurt looked at his watch. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. What could have happened?” Realization dawned on his face slowly. “Runaway?”

  “They don’t know,” Maeve said, “but keep her in your prayers. I’m really hoping that by dinnertime this is all over and she’s being punished for giving her mother such a scare.”

  He stood for a moment, his face clouding over with concern and something else. Sadness? Maeve couldn’t tell.

  “These are the tough ones.”

  “The tough ones?”

  “The tough cases,” Kurt said. “I’m retired from the police department myself. City. These kinds of cases always got me in the heart.”

  “Missing persons?”

  “Missing girls. Missing children.” He looked down at the cupcakes. “I remember every single one.” He looked up again, let out a breath to cleanse himself of the memories. “I will keep her in my prayers, Maeve, just like you said.” Kurt pointed toward the back parking lot. “I’ll send the crew over with some gravel. You’ve got a major pothole out there.”

  “I know,” she said. “Don’t remind me. It nearly swallowed the Prius last week.”

  “That’s not good,” he said.

  “It’s nice to have friends in high places,” she said..

  “Or low, depending on where we work,” the older man said, smiling back. “I’ll make sure it’s taken care of, Maeve.”

  She watched him go, calling after him again to wish Mark a happy birthday, and then stood in the quiet, empty kitchen, staring out the window over the sink, hoping against hope that she would see Taylor coming along the sidewalk to the store, looking for her mother, for five dollars maybe, for a ride to the mall.

  But there was nothing except the sight of cars driving back and forth along the road that ran adjacent to the river; a tree beyond that; someone else, not Cal, pushing a baby in a stroller.

  The people who had been in the front of the store—the chief, Chris, two uniforms, and Trish—exited through the kitchen, Trish’s expression inscrutable as she pushed through the back door and into the parking lot. Maeve wasn’t listening to Chris as he told her that he’d be back, he’d see her later, he hoped she was okay. She was thinking about that look on her new employee’s face. It wasn’t as mysterious or inscrutable as Maeve had thought at first. It was very clear, in fact. In it was the one sentiment that Maeve had feared would take hold.

  It said: It’s all your fault.

  CHAPTER 5

  That night, after the store closed, Heather, with a disconsolate shrug of her shoulders, acknowledged that she knew Taylor was missing but didn’t know what the big deal was. “Maybe she went to visit her boyfriend.”

  “Does she have a boyfriend?” Maeve asked, slicing some chicken from a roaster for Heather’s dinner.

  Another shrug. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, do you know her at all? You’re in the same class. What is she like?” Maeve asked, putting the knife down and stirring some gravy on the stove. “Potatoes?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Roast chicken was one of Heather’s favorite dinners, and Maeve had hoped that by cooking a bird along with gravy, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, she could ease the vise that seemed to be around Heather’s heart and mind where her mother was concerned.

  “So, what is she like?” Maeve asked again.

  “Plays soccer. Hates her mother. Works at Walmart. What else do you want to know? She’s just like everyone else.”

  Maeve winced, the statement hitting her in her emotional gut. She had once read a book in which the advice from the “expert” had been “Don’t take your daughter’s barbs personally. Her brain is underdeveloped, and she says things to purposely hurt you.” That had been the worst $24.95 Maeve had ever spent. She already knew a lot of what was in that book, but short of becoming a robot there was no way she could listen to the things Heather said to her and not take them personally. Almost every single word she used was meant to wound in one way or another, whether in a passive-aggressive way or just a plain old aggressive way. “She hates her mother?” Maeve asked as innocuously as she could.

  “Everyone hates their mothers right now,” she said. “Don’t you remember hating…”

  But Heather had the good sense to stop herself short. Maeve’s mother had died long before Maeve had had the opportunity to hate her. In Maeve’s mind and in death, Claire Conlon was an angel now and had been even before she had been killed in a hit-and-run by a neighbor, a crime for which he had escaped unscathed.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Heather said, closing down that aspect of the conversation. “Taylor plays soccer. She was on the team for one year with Rebecca, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t remember seeing Trish at a lot of games, but back then, her mind had been on other things. Her divorce. The store. Her father and his deteriorating mind and body. Murder. There hadn’t been a lot of room for other things, friendly pursuits. Other friends besides Jo.

  “Maybe Rebecca remembers something.”

  Maeve put Heather’s meal in front of her, her daughter bending her head, her hair falling forward, as she took in the scent of the chicken and the gravy. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’re welcome.” Maeve wanted to lean over and kiss the top of Heather’s head, smell the scent that she knew like the back of her hand—sweet, honeylike—but she resisted. Heather had thawed, if only slightly, and Maeve didn’t want to do anything that would form that wall of ice again.

  Heather pushed some potatoes around on her plate. “She’s still missing?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Her mother must be worried.”

  “That’s probably an understatement.” Maeve hadn’t meant for it to sound as harsh as it came out. “Yes. She is. More than I can imagine.” And I’ve worried about you a lot. More than you can ever imagine.

  “She’s got to be around here somewhere,” Heather said. “Why is everyone losing their shit over this?”

  Maeve didn’t know. But as soon as she got Chris Larsson alone, she would ask him that very question.

  She fingered the brochure for the Mississippi trip, which she had left on the counter, hoping Heather would look at it and have some kind of epiphany. Yes! Mississippi! That’s what I need to do! But the brochure was right where Maeve had left it, and if Heather had seen it, she hadn’t let on. Maeve picked it up. “Heather, I don’t know if you saw this…”

  “I did. Don’t bring it up.”

  “Well, I just thought…”

  “That what? That I should go build toilets or schools or houses for people in Mississippi? There are people right here, Mom, who need our help.”

  Like mother, like daughter. It was the same thought Maeve had had.

  “So why don’t you help them?” Maeve asked, crumbling the brochure in her hand.

  “Who?”

  “The people here who need help.”

  Behind Maeve, there was a knock at the door, ending the conversation. The sight of Chris Larsson’s face, illuminated by the porch lamp, did nothing to lighten her mood. She plastered a fake smile on her face and walked down the hallway, leaving Heather to finish eating and put the dishes in the dishwasher. The girl’s mood darkened considerably when she saw her mother’s cop boyfriend at the front door, a bottle of wine in one hand and a pizza box balanced on the other. Heather took one look at him and made a beeline for the b
asement, professing to have laundry to do. There was only one problem with that excuse: Heather had never done her own laundry, claiming that the new washing machine Maeve had bought the year before was too “complicated” to use. Maeve had to admit that her daughter had a point; it had taken her no fewer than five loads of laundry to figure out exactly how to start the machine on the first try, the front of it blinking furiously as Maeve punched every button on the keypad. She had finally gotten the hang of it, but not without a lot of cursing and swearing at whoever thought that a washing machine needed a computer.

  Maeve opened the front door and let him in. “This is a surprise.”

  “What a day,” he said, walking into the kitchen and placing the pizza on the counter. “I need to shake off everything that’s happened.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Maeve said, taking two mismatched wine glasses from the cabinet over the sink. One was a red wine glass, the other a white wine glass from a collection that seemed to be dwindling quickly. “Do you want chicken? Or do you want pizza?” Maeve noticed that it was from her favorite place a town over, and although her chicken and gravy was one of his favorites as well, they both opted for the pizza so they could eat outside without making too much of a mess.

  They each made a plate and took it outside. Cal had installed a porch swing after they had gotten divorced—some kind of home renovation peace offering, she supposed—and Maeve had put new cushions on it at the beginning of the summer. They had weathered the heat and the rain nicely. She settled into the side of the swing she considered hers and stabilized herself until Chris lowered his much bigger body onto the other side. She gave him a long kiss to let him know just how much she had missed him over the last few days.

  “I missed you, too,” he said. “I thought we were going to get some time together, but with this girl going missing…”

  “Yeah, that,” Maeve said. “Why was everyone so concerned about her so soon after she didn’t show up at home? If that had been Heather, I would have given it a couple of hours, and if nothing bad had happened, she would have shown up eventually. Kids need to eat, after all,” Maeve said, attempting a joke that fell flat. “But really. It was an all points bulletin immediately. What’s going on?”