Sam, on the other hand, didn’t seem in the least affected by the woman’s arrogant demeanor, but then, he was a lot longer out of school than Abby was. And besides, she thought, if his posture was any more rigid, he might have to worry about rigor mortis.
“I’ve assembled everyone you asked to speak with,” Lois Sheridan was saying. “Except for Miss Wilder. She left school yesterday before you called, and I haven’t been able to reach her by telephone this morning. It is Saturday, after all,” she said disapprovingly. “People have things to do. But I did leave a message, so perhaps she’ll arrive before you finish.”
Abby nodded. “We appreciate your cooperation.”
“Yes, well, I don’t really see the necessity of all this. We’ve all been interviewed by the police. I’ve even spoken with the FBI.” Her gaze swept over Sam, but she seemed to sense that here was a man not easily subjugated by her commanding personality. She turned her attention to Abby who, for the life of her, couldn’t help squirming a bit in her seat.
“Mrs. Sheridan—” Sam began, but she cut him off.
“I prefer Ms.”
“We’d like to ask you some questions about Sara Beth Brodie.”
The woman’s brows arched slightly. “Well, then I’m afraid I really don’t have anything to add to what I’ve already told the authorities. Sara Beth wasn’t taken from school premises. Fairhaven can’t be held responsible for her disappearance.”
“We’re not here to assess blame,” Abby said, slightly taken aback by the woman’s attitude. “We’re here to try and find some answers.”
“I understand that, but the more you people keep coming back here, the more the parents of my students are going to question their children’s safety at Fairhaven. I’ve already had three students pulled from the roster, and a plethora of telephone calls and visits from other concerned parents. Fairhaven’s reputation is at stake here.”
“Surely you’re not putting the school’s reputation above the welfare of two missing children,” Abby said.
Lois Sheridan stared at her with ill-concealed disdain. “Of course not. But I’m concerned about the welfare of all the children, not just the two who are missing. If that sounds heartless to you, then I’m sorry.”
She didn’t sound in the least sorry to Abby. She glanced at Sam, but other than a slight scowl, he displayed no reaction whatsoever to the woman’s attitude.
“Would you consider Sara Beth a good student?” he asked.
Lois Sheridan smiled, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes. “As I’ve told the other investigators, Sara Beth did not apply herself. Even at her young age, she displayed an alarming disregard for authority. Once she discovered she could attract attention by acting up in class, she became very disruptive, often impossible to deal with. To tell you the truth, I’ve regretted more than once my decision to accept her application. Unfortunately, she just isn’t Fairhaven material.”
And what about Emily and Sadie? Abby thought.
“Then why didn’t you ask her parents to remove her from the school?” Sam asked.
She paused, straightening papers on her desk that were already in a neat pile. “I’m nothing if not a realist. Fairhaven relies heavily on private contributions for our funding, above and beyond the tuition payments. And Sara Beth’s father made a very generous donation.”
The child had been kept on at Fairhaven because of her father’s money, but it was painfully obvious that Lois Sheridan despised the crass realities of economics. In a perfect world, her student body would be made up of perfect little Stepford children, and the ones like Sara Beth Brodie would be banished back to the public school system, where they belonged.
And what about Emily Campbell? Like Abby’s sister, Tess was a single mother who struggled even to meet the steep tuition requirements at Fairhaven. Donations to the school would be out of the question. What if a child from a well-to-do family wanted in after someone like Emily and Sadie or even Sara Beth had been accepted? Lois Sheridan couldn’t banish them legally to make room for the more desirable student. So what would she do?
She would resent them, Abby thought.
But had she resented Sara Beth and Emily enough to get rid of them? Was maintaining the high standards she’d set for Fairhaven that important to her?
It might be, if she had nothing else in her life. If the school had become synonymous with her own identity. Her own personality.
A personality that could tolerate not one single imperfection.
ABBY AND SAM spoke with Lois Sheridan at length about Sara Beth and Emily Campbell, and although the woman remained coolly detached from the children’s plight, sometimes downright cold, she didn’t say anything that could be considered remotely incriminating.
Neither did any of the teachers or support staff they interviewed. With the exception of Lois Sheridan, Fairhaven’s personnel were all extremely distressed over the disappearances, and offered their unflagging cooperation.
After an hour or so, they’d talked to almost everyone and hadn’t come up with any new information. Abby was exhausted by the monotony of the questions, but Sam seemed to gather strength with each new interview. He was a natural, but Abby supposed that came from his expertise in profiling. He knew how to read people. He knew when to press and when to pull back. When to flatter and when to intimidate. Abby found herself hanging back and letting him take over the questioning, a decision that would have been foreign to her a day ago.
Sam knew how to work her, too. He’d wormed his way into the investigation by playing on her conscience, her concern for the missing children, but he’d gotten under her skin in a personal way, too. Abby realized as the day wore on that not only was her respect and admiration for him growing, so were her feelings.
She studied him covertly as one of the last interviewees walked into the teachers’ conference room Lois Sheridan had allowed them to use. Willa Banks, the school nurse, was a short, plump, motherly type who looked to be nearing retirement age, although her step was still quite spry.
Her green pants outfit was adorned with a large, yellow smiley-face button that was undoubtedly worn to calm apprehension in the children who came to see her. With her flat, ugly shoes and unpainted, careworn face, she appeared the antithesis of Lois Sheridan.
She seemed a little anxious when she first entered the room. “I hope this won’t take much longer.” She paused as if realizing how her words might have sounded. “I’ll do everything I can, of course. I’m worried sick about those children. It’s just that I have people visiting, and I need to get back to them.”
“We’ll try to make this fast then.” Sam smiled to put the woman at ease.
“You do think you’ll find them, don’t you? I know it’s been days, but I refuse to believe that any harm has come to them. How could anyone hurt such innocent children?”
Abby knew exactly what Sam was thinking. Children were hurt everyday, but he merely nodded sympathetically at the nurse. “We’re doing everything we can to find them and bring them home safely. That’s why we keep coming back, asking more questions. We can’t afford to leave any stone unturned.”
Willa Banks nodded almost eagerly. “I understand. How can I help?”
“What can you tell us about the girls? Did you have much contact with them?”
She seemed to consider the question for a moment. “Not really. Neither one of them was prone to accidents as some of the children seem to be. But my office faces the playground, and if I’m not busy, I like to watch the children at recess. I know almost all of them by name. They’re so sweet and innocent at this age. Emily is a quiet child. Timid and a bit of a loner. She could swing by herself for hours and be content, but Sara Beth is more rambunctious. She spends most of her time on the jungle gym, climbing like a little monkey.” The women hesitated. “Is that the sort of thing you want to know?”
“We want to know whatever you can tell us about either child,” Sam said.
For several minutes, he guided her thr
ough a series of questions, then thanked her for her cooperation. At the door, she turned, her expression worried. “I wonder if I could ask you a question?”
“Certainly,” Sam said.
“Have you spoken with Miss Wilder?”
“Not today, no.”
Willa sighed. “I’m very worried about her. She’s such a young thing to have something like this happen. She was the one in charge of the playground the day Emily disappeared. She felt so guilty, especially considering—” She broke off, pursing her lips together as if she were afraid to say anything more.
“Considering what, Nurse Banks?” By giving her the professional courtesy of addressing her by title, Sam was showing respect for her position, putting them on an equal footing so that she would feel more comfortable opening up to him.
It seemed to work. She closed the door and came back into the room. “I don’t like breaking a confidence, but this has been bothering me a great deal ever since Emily disappeared.” She glanced at Abby, then lowered her voice, as if her words were for Sam alone. “She came to me right after school started, very distraught. She was new in town, new on the job, and I don’t think she had anyone else to talk to. I’ve always been good with people. A nurse has to be.”
Sam nodded.
“It was clear to me that something was eating that poor girl up inside. It took awhile, but I finally got her to open up to me.” She fingered the smiley-face pin unconsciously. “When she was seventeen years old, she worked as a counselor at a summer camp. She fell madly in love with a boy there, another counselor, and she told me that was the happiest time of her life. But at the end of the summer when she went home, she found out she was pregnant. Her family talked her into putting the baby up for adoption, but it tormented her. She said she dreamed about the baby, a little girl, almost every night, and that sometimes she could hear the child calling out to her, crying for her. Vickie gave birth five years ago. You see what I’m getting at, don’t you? Her child, the one she gave up, is the same age as Emily and Sara Beth.”
“IF YOU’RE LOOKING for Vickie, she’s not home,” a woman called up to Sam and Abby. Abby had seen her when they’d first approached the apartment complex, but the woman had been careful not to make eye contact. She’d waited until they’d knocked on Vickie’s door before speaking up.
Abby stared over the railing into the courtyard. “Any idea where she might have gone?”
The woman shrugged.
“When did she leave?”
“Hauled ass before sunup. Parking lot’s right outside my bedroom window.” The woman aimed the nozzle of a garden hose toward the bed of wilting petunias.
Sam and Abby retraced their steps down the stairs and walked into the courtyard. The woman turned off the hose and came over to meet them. “She’s not in any kind of trouble, is she?”
“No, not that we know of. We’re talking to everyone at Fairhaven Academy about the recent disappearances.”
The woman shook her head. “Those poor little girls. Who would do such a thing?”
Abby said noncommittally, “We’re doing everything we can to find them and bring them back home safe and sound, Ms.—”
“Flo Crowder. Florence actually, but everyone calls me Flo. My husband’s Ernie Crowder. Used to work for the railroad, but he’s retired now. Supposed to be helping me manage this place, but he doesn’t do anything but sit in his recliner all day and watch the stories.”
Sam nodded sympathetically, hiding his impatience. “Mrs. Crowder, did you see anyone with Vickie Wilder when she left?”
“No, she was alone. But she had a suitcase. I figured she might be going to visit her mama for the weekend.”
“Where does her mother live?”
“Memphis, I think.”
“Do you have an address?”
“No, can’t say as I do.” The woman’s expression grew sober. “Look, Vickie’s a nice girl, okay? I understand that you’ve got to talk to anybody and everybody you can about those kidnappings, but she’s taking this real hard. And I don’t think her sister helped matters any.”
“Her sister?”
Flo nodded. “She came to stay with Vickie a few days before all this happened, but then she just up and left. Like she didn’t want to stay and support Vickie when she was having a hard time.”
“What’s this sister’s name?”
“I don’t know. I never really met her, just saw her once in a while. She didn’t work, and she kept to herself during the day. A real standoffish type. Wouldn’t even speak to me if she met me on the stairs. Nothing like Vickie. They don’t look alike, either. I wouldn’t have guessed they were sisters if Vickie hadn’t told me.”
“Has Vickie talked to you about the disappearances?” Abby asked.
“Some. She was the teacher in charge of the playground when that first little girl went missing. What was her name? Emily something-or-other?”
“Campbell.”
“Yeah, Campbell, that’s it. Vickie said that kid was just the sweetest little thing you ever did see. Never caused a bit of trouble in school. But I got the impression the other one was her favorite.”
“Sara Beth Brodie?”
Mrs. Crowder nodded. She reached into the pocket of her house dress and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You mind? I can’t smoke in the house on account of Ernie’s allergies. Never used to bother him,” she grumbled under her breath. Abby got the distinct impression that Ernie’s retirement was not sitting too well with his wife. She shook out a cigarette almost viciously and lit up. Dragging hard, she closed her eyes, seeming for a moment to be caught up in nicotine ecstasy.
“Where was I?” she asked, exhaling a long stream of smoke.
“You said you thought Sara Beth was Vickie’s favorite.”
“Oh, yeah. I mean, she was cut up enough when the first little girl disappeared, feeling responsible and all, but when she heard about Sara Beth—” She paused to take another drag. “Sara Beth was a little hellion in school, Vickie said, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t just as sweet as her other kids. That’s how Vickie talked about them. She called them ‘her kids.’ Anyway, she thought Sara Beth’s home life might not be so good. That’s why the kid acted up at school. If I heard her say it once, I heard her say it a dozen times, ‘Miss Flo’—that’s what she calls me—’some days I wish I could just bring all those kids home with me. Especially the troubled ones. Especially the ones who need a little extra love.”’
Abby glanced at Sam. His mouth tightened slightly. “We appreciate your help, Mrs. Crowder.”
“I’m glad to do what I can.” She tossed her cigarette into the wet flower bed, then started to leave.
“One other thing,” Sam said. “This sister—what kind of car does she drive?”
Flo turned to stare at him. “I didn’t think she had a car at first. She didn’t keep one here. Always used Vickie’s when she needed to go someplace. I figured that’s why she stayed cooped up in the apartment all day, but then I saw her one day in a different car, a few blocks over from here. I was walking home from the grocery story, and she pretended like she didn’t see me so she wouldn’t have to offer me a ride. But I’m pretty sure it was her.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“I couldn’t tell you the make or the model, but I think it was white. Or maybe a real pale yellow. It had a lot of dust on it, like maybe she’d been driving out in the country.”
“Do you remember what day this was?”
She screwed up her face, trying to remember. “You know, I do. It was the same day that second little girl disappeared. I remember, because I’d stopped by the bank before going to the grocery store, and I saw Karen Brodie. Later that night, when I heard about the kidnapping on the news, it came back to me that I’d seen Karen earlier that day, and that she hadn’t known then what was about to happen to her little girl.”
THE FORENSICS TECHNICIANS were thorough. They went through every room of Vickie Wilder’s apartment, studying
the contents of the cabinets, opening closets, examining pictures. They left nothing unchecked, no book unopened, no drawer unsearched. They took the slipcovers off the furniture and looked under the cushions. They even pulled up the carpet and checked behind baseboards, but they found nothing to connect Vickie Wilder to the missing children.
“Nothing,” Abby told Sam later when he’d met her back at the sheriff’s station. “Not one piece of physical evidence we can use.” Discouraged, she pushed her hair back from her face. “How about you? Did you have any better luck with the Memphis field office?”
“Two things they found out strike me as interesting. One, Vickie’s sister and her husband live in Australia. They haven’t been back to the States in three years. Secondly, while Vickie was in college at Memphis State, her roommate was arrested on a second-degree murder charge.”
Abby’s mouth dropped open. “Murder!”
“Her name was Greta Henley, and apparently her boyfriend turned up dead after an altercation at her and Vickie’s apartment. He was stabbed, and Henley claimed it was self defense.”
“Was Vickie involved?”
“She was never arrested, but she was under suspicion for a while. There were some inconsistencies in her statement. But get this, Abby. Greta Henley jumped bail. She disappeared, and the Memphis PD have never been able to track her down.”
“You think it’s possible she could be the woman Vickie claimed was her sister?”
“It makes sense,” Sam said. “If Vickie wanted one or both of those children, she’d need an accomplice. Someone who not only made the grab, but stayed with Sara Beth and/or Emily while Vickie remained behind playing the part of the distraught teacher.”
Abby shook her head. “She seemed so genuinely upset. If she was lying, I bought the act hook, line and sinker.”
IT WAS THE FIRST concrete lead they’d had in days, and the atmosphere inside the command center bristled with excitement as Abby briefed the other police personnel, including Special Agent Carter, about what she and Sam had learned. Even Carter seemed impressed and cautiously optimistic that the case was finally about to break.
The Innocent Page 13
