The Only Witness

by Pamela Beason

  "I left Tika right there," the girl said, stabbing a finger at a playpen that still sat on the wide planks of the covered front porch. A lonely pink stuffed pony watched them from one corner of the netting.

  Unlike timid weepy Carissa, Serena was dry-eyed and she was pissed. "Tika was sleeping, and I went inside to answer the phone, and when I came out, the playpen was empty. I think it was a set-up."

  "Why?" He flipped back a page in his notebook. "Who was on the phone?"

  "It was a wrong number. Grandma's number is unlisted, so we hardly ever get those."

  That information had not been in the police report. Maybe Serena had good reason to be suspicious. "Do you have any ideas about who might have taken her?"

  Serena glanced across the street. "At first I thought it might be Adrian's mother."

  Adrian was Tika's father, according to the file Finn carried in his briefcase, and he lived across the street. "Why would you think that?"

  Serena put her hands on her hips. "She hates me. Always has, always will."

  "The woman believes that Serena got pregnant just to trap Adrian," Mrs. Brown said. "As if her precious boy had nothing to do with the baby. He'd always been planning on going to college here, not back east, as he'll tell you himself."

  "How about your parents, Serena?" Finn asked.

  Her wary brown eyes met his. "What about 'em?"

  Mrs. Brown stepped forward. She wore a stern expression that promised she would rap knuckles with rulers if listeners failed to pay attention. "Serena's father died in Afghanistan three years ago. My daughter, Serena's mother, committed suicide six months later."

  Now Finn understood why there was no information other than their names in the police report. This family seemed to be cursed.

  A young man on a bicycle stopped across the street and laid the bicycle on the lawn. Adjusting the book bag he wore on his shoulder, he trotted across the pavement between the parked cars, and then galloped up the steps, pushing his light brown hair out of his eyes.

  "What's up?" He threw an arm around Serena's shoulders and eyed Finn distrustfully. "You're a cop, aren't you?"

  Before Finn could reply, the kid stepped forward and thrust out a hand. "Adrian Lomas, Serena's fiancé. And Tika's father. And you are?"

  Finn introduced himself and explained he was looking for similarities in child disappearance cases in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

  "That's more action than we're getting out of the local cops," Adrian said angrily. "Not to mention the press. Between you and me, I think it's because Serena's black."

  Finn had no response to that.

  "We're going on America's Most Wanted next week," he continued. "If the locals aren't going to help, we're going national. Won't the Portland cops look like racist hicks when someone reports they found our daughter?"

  Finn held up his hands. "I'm just here to get your story. I'd especially like to hear about the school program, because the other girls belonged to that, too."

  "What school program?" Serena said.

  "Sister-Mothers Trust?" he enunciated carefully. It was no wonder Brittany had come up with Sluts on Toast. That, or the more natural 'smut,' was much easier to pronounce than the official name.

  She made a face. "That's a high school thing they made me go to. I graduated last May. Now I go to the university."

  "But you still communicate with other teen mothers via the YoMama website?"

  "Sometimes," she said, her face softening into sadness. "They let you stay on until you're twenty. I don't know any other moms close to my age. Not many people can understand what it's like."

  "Except for other young moms like Brittany Morgan and Carissa Adams," Finn said.

  "Yeah, if anyone can understand what I'm going through, it's Brittany. I don't know Carissa, though." She shook her head, thought for a second, then said, "Oh wait, CariSad?"

  He nodded. "That's her user name."

  Serena rubbed a finger across her full lips. "I remember something happened to her baby, but that was a while ago."

  Finn shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Last June. Her baby William disappeared during the summer."

  "And you think there might be a connection with Tika?" Adrian asked.

  Finn turned to face him. "It could be coincidence, but the SMT program and the YoMama website are connections."

  "The website? Whoa." Adrian's eyes gleamed. "I'm studying computer science, with an emphasis on security."

  Finn studied his young face for a minute, then told him, "Hack away. We need all the help we can get." He shot a look at Mrs. Brown and Serena. "You didn't hear me say that."

  "Hear you say what?" Mrs. Brown asked.

  Serena fidgeted with one of her long earrings while staring at Adrian.

  "What?" the boy finally said.

  She looked embarrassed. "We share a lot of girl talk on YoMama."

  "You mean bitching about the baby daddies," Adrian guessed.

  "Well, yeah," she said. "I guess you could call it that."

  He touched her forearm. "I'll cope."

  The two of them seemed like a more mature couple than he and Wendy had ever been. Finn turned to Serena. "Speaking of the daddies, do you know Charlie Wakefield?"

  "Ivy's daddy, according to Brittany. College student at Eastern Washington U," Serena responded. "I've seen his photo, too. But I've never met him."

  "Did Brittany ever say she was scared of him?"

  "Nope," Serena said. "He sounded like a no-count to me, but she adored him as far as I could tell."

  "Would he know you?" Finn asked.

  "Not unless Brittany shared our emails," she said.

  Damn. He just couldn’t make Charlie fit into the school scenarios. "I'd like to hear about how the Sister-Mothers Trust program worked at your high school. What you got out of it, how it was organized, and so forth. How you communicate on the YoMama site."

  Serena, eyes glistening now, stood for a moment with her fingers wrapped around the top rail of the playpen, gazing down at the plush pony inside. Adrian put his hand on top of hers.

  Mrs. Brown held open the front door. "Let's go in and chat. I don't know about those other babies, but plenty of people would want Tika."

  Finn sat down beside her on a leather couch. "Why's that?"

  Felicia Brown twisted, picked up a silver-framed photo from the side table. "Just look at her, Detective."

  He studied the picture. The baby girl had black curls, olive skin, shining doe-brown eyes, and deep dimples in both cheeks. Tika was stunning.

  William, for a two-week-old, had been a handsome boy. And Ivy was exceptionally pretty. Beautiful babies. "Did you ever enter Tika in a modeling contest?" he asked Serena, suddenly inspired.

  Her forehead wrinkled. "No way," she said, dashing his hopes at making that link. "I'd never do that to a child of mine."

  Still. Three moms from the Sister-Mothers Trust program, all using YoMama to communicate. Three missing babies. The key had to be there somewhere.

  On the bumpy plane ride through sunset-colored clouds back to Evansburg, Finn reviewed the three cases. The other two babies had gone missing from their homes, but the Morgan baby had vanished from a busy parking lot in broad daylight.

  How could a kidnapping happen in a public place without a single witness? It truly was mind-boggling. If it truly was a kidnapping. His mind kept circling back to that. According to her classmates and teacher, Brittany had left with Ivy at the regular time, 3:45 in the afternoon. Then Brittany and Ivy, freckle-faced Joy Saturno and baby Ruben, and Jennifer and baby Jason, had gone for fries and shakes at the local drive-in. They'd talked about how their babies would do in the Pretty Baby photo contest the next day. According to all of them, Joy had made snarky comments about Ivy not being ethnic enough, and about how the judges wouldn't pick Ivy because Charlie and Brittany weren't married. Brittany retorted that Joy was just afraid that Ivy would win. Then the girls split up, and Ivy's trail went cold.

 
The stories of all the Food Mart employees had stayed pretty much the same from five days ago. One cashier remembered seeing Brittany that day, and so did the teenage stock clerk and the kids in the parking lot, but nobody remembered seeing Ivy.

  Brittany could have ditched the baby carrier and backpack after she'd ditched the baby. Could she have been so upset over Joy's remarks that she'd murdered Ivy? Or accidentally killed her? She certainly acted remorseful. The newspaper image of her, arms extended for handcuffs, tears streaming down her face, could be her confession. Or not.

  The baby's disappearance could be Charlie Wakefield's doing, somehow. Or not. Dawes had found nobody to corroborate Charlie's story of working that evening. Finn stared out the window as they passed over the Cascades. On the eastern side of the mountains, the dense green carpet of evergreens below was brightened by slashes of burnished gold. Larches. He'd read about them in a magazine but hadn't yet seen them up close. He and Wendy had talked about making a special trip through the mountains in autumn to enjoy the show.

  As the plane taxied to a stop at the little airfield on the outskirts of town, Finn turned on his cell phone and heard the bleep of its message-waiting tone. The first message was from Miki. "The FBI called; they found Talking Hands Ranch. It wasn't the name of a business, but just a nickname for a place where the University of Washington did research. I say did because they sold that property almost a year ago. But anyway, we have a VIN and the registered owner's at the UW. I left the printouts on your desk. Hope this helps."

  Maybe it was a real clue at last? He checked his watch. The timing sucked. Nobody would answer a university phone after eight p.m. on a Saturday night.

  "Next message," the phone announced.

  "Someone might have witnessed what happened to that missing baby," a female voice said.

  His blood pulsing faster now, he pulled a pen and notepad from his shirt pocket. He startled at the touch of a hand on his arm. The plane had come to a stop and the woman seated beside him gestured for him to get up.

  "It was a young female who lives with me." The voice continued. "She's my ward, I guess you'd say."

  He unbuckled his seatbelt, grabbed his briefcase from beneath the seat in front of him and then slid into the aisle, the phone still pressed to his ear. He heard the caller take a breath.

  "She told me that a man with a snake bracelet took the baby to a green car."

  He felt a flare of excitement in his gut. Was this for real? How old was this kid—this young female ward?

  It was as if the caller had heard his thought. "My ward is twelve. But she has the IQ of a five-year-old."

  Great. A child witness who was mentally retarded? The line of passengers ahead of him finally moved. He walked toward the exit door and descended the stairs onto the dimly lit tarmac.

  "She was in the parking lot at the time it happened. I was in the store. I only just now realized what she was trying to tell me."

  A mentally retarded child. But finally, someone had seen something. He couldn't wait to talk to this kid.

  "I'm sorry, but you can't contact her. She's very fragile. That's all the information I have to give. I hope it helps in some way. Brittany Morgan doesn't deserve what's happening to her."

  Then the woman hung up. He stood on the tarmac for a minute, feeling the heat radiating up through the soles of his shoes, staring at the caller ID. Crap. It had come in through the department switchboard, who had forwarded it to his cell. But with luck, the switchboard would have it in their call log.

  Man. Snake bracelet. Green car. He'd go back to the Food Mart and re-interview the staff; maybe put out the message to the public on the TV station. But…clues from a retarded child? He had to interview that girl and her guardian before he went any further with this.

  The station operator was surprised to hear from him, but came up with the phone number and caller ID easily when he supplied the time of the call. He sighed at the result: At Ur Convenience, which he knew to be an odd combo of internet café, gasoline station, and farmers market on the outskirts of town.

  He punched in the number quickly. After three rings, a cigarette-rough voice answered. "At Ur Convenience."

  "This is Detective Matthew Finn of the Evansburg Police Department. Did you see a woman who used your public phone at seven fifteen this evening?"

  A voice in the background asked for change on pump two. "Hold on a minute." There was a clunk, the ching of a cash drawer opening and the thud of it shutting again, and then the raspy voice was back. "Sorry about that; I'm here all alone. Now, what were you saying?"

  Finn repeated himself. The guy said, "Nah, the phone's around the corner; can't see it from here. Did something bad go down out there? We got a camera, but it's focused on the pumps."

  "I'll need your tape of that time period. She might be on it."

  "Huh. It's one of those continuous loop things. I better go turn it off so it won't record over itself; I can't remember when it starts over."

  "Go turn it off now. I'll be by in a few minutes to pick up the tape."

  "We close at nine."

  Finn checked his watch. It was 8:45. "I need you to wait for me with that tape, please. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

  There was no response. Finn could feel the hesitation through the phone line. "I'm heading out now, sir. I'll see you in less than twenty minutes."

  He hung up and ran to his car, jammed the flasher on top and broke the speed limit on the way to At Ur Convenience. The store lights were off, but the manager was waiting outside in his car, smoking a cigarette. He knocked off the ashes, stood up, and handed Finn the tape. "Long day," he groaned.

  "I know what you mean," Finn said. He quickly took down the guy's contact info and then said, "Do you remember a woman in your store at seven-fifteen or so?"

  The guy thought for a few seconds, wiping a finger across his bristly moustache. "No, I'm sorry. I can barely remember my name right now. Is this a drug thing? Do I need to be worried?"

  Finn sighed. "No, nothing to do with drugs. But it might have something to do with the Ivy Morgan kidnapping."

  "Kidnapping? I thought that girl got arrested for killing that baby."

  "She was only charged for leaving the baby in the car."

  "I figure that's just because you don't have a body yet." The man stared at Finn's face as he took another draw on the cigarette.

  God, poor Brittany. What that kid must be going through. But he was as guilty as everyone else; before the tip, he'd been considering the same possibility. Finn sighed and said, "This evening a woman called in a tip from this phone."

  "Yeah? Well, I hope she's on that tape, then." He jabbed a finger at the videotape that Finn held. "I should have them take out that damn thing. I mean, who uses public phones anymore, anyway? I'm surprised it even still works."

  Finn let the manager leave and walked around the corner. The phone looked lonely, incarcerated in a Plexiglas box under a dim security light. The guy was right; not many people used public phones anymore.

  But perhaps that thought offered a glimmer of hope. He called the dispatcher and got forwarded to Guy Rodrigo, who had the misfortune to be certified in evidence collection and on call.

  "You've got to be kidding," Rodrigo said when he heard the scene description. "A public phone?"

  "I'm not," Finn assured him. "I'll tape off the area so nobody will use it before you get here, but then I've got to head off to watch this security tape. This might be the break we've been waiting for. The clock's still ticking for that baby."

  Chapter 13

  Six days after Ivy disappears

  "Isn't she beautiful?" Brittany asked Charlie. In her arms, Ivy gurgled and smiled, wriggling in the yellow dress Brittany had made for her. "Don't you want to hold her?"

  "Of course." Charlie held out his arms, and Brittany felt her heart melt. She was so, so, so happy. She handed him their sweet daughter. She turned to pick up the baby carrier. When she looked back, Charlie and Ivy were gone. I
n front of her stood only a cornfield, the stalks so tall and thick she couldn't see anything but green.

  "Charlie!" she screamed. "Charlie!"

  "What?" said his voice behind her.

  She whirled. His arms were empty. Her stomach lurched. "Where's Ivy?"

  "All fixed." He dusted his hands together. "Now I can go back to college and you can be a cheerleader."

  She could hear Ivy crying somewhere in the cornfield. But the stalks were so thick, she couldn't get in. Her baby's wails grew louder. She gripped cornstalks in her hands, but they wouldn't budge.

  "Don't worry about it." Charlie put his hands on her shoulders. "There's nothing you can do, Brittany. Brittany!"

  She woke up suddenly, her father's hands gripping her arms. He hovered over her bed. "Ivy!" she sobbed. "Charlie!"

  "It was a bad dream, Brittany." Her father pulled her up into his arms. Her mother stood behind him in her nightgown.

  She could hear Ivy's wails coming from the closet. "Ivy's crying. Don't you hear Ivy crying?"

  Her parents switched positions, and her mother took her into her arms. "Ivy's not crying, Brittany. Ivy's not here."

  Brittany sobbed into her mother's neck. "It's all my fault."

  "It's the kidnapper's fault." Her mother stroked the bangs back from Brittany's damp forehead. "I'm sure the kidnapper was someone who really, really wanted a beautiful baby. And they're taking such good care of Ivy… She's asleep right now, just like you should be."

  Then her father was there, holding out a glass of water and a pill.

  "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Noah." Her mom twisted to look at him. "She already had one tonight. She has to go to school tomorrow. We don't want her to be comatose."

  Well, she wanted to be comatose. Brittany grabbed the pill from her father's palm and choked it down before her mother could win the debate. Her father turned off the light and left the room, but her mother stayed, sitting beside her pillow. Brittany closed her eyes and tried to breathe like she was asleep.