by N. M. Brown
‘Okay, Mrs Bucowiz, you said on the telephone that you wanted to add something to you and your daughter’s witness statements, is that correct?’
‘Yes, I guess,’ she said, sounding less than certain.
‘So, I have it already recorded that your daughter had been playing with Tina Blanchette in an area of Fallbrook known locally as the creek, when they were approached by an unfamiliar adult male. Suzy left the scene to collect a toy from her home. She was gone for approximately ten minutes and, upon returning, she discovered that both Tina and the unknown male were gone. What is it you wanted to add?’
‘Well, when I was asking Suzy about the man who she saw down at the creek I asked her if she’d ever seen him before.’
‘Had you, Suzy?’ Dane asked, turning his attention to Suzy who was absently eating her snack.
‘Yeah,’ she nodded, ‘I think so.’
‘And so I asked her all about it. Like how the guy spoke to Tina. Suzy said he was nice and friendly. But when she said he was wearing a baseball cap that got me thinking.’
‘About what?’ Dane frowned.
‘About Tina’s dad.’
‘Go on,’ Dane said.
‘Well, we’ve only stayed in our current house for just under three years, before that we were up in Lakehead. So at the time David was around we only knew Angela’s family in passing really. But even then, David was hardly ever home – he’s one of those real outdoors guys who always seemed to be carrying a backpack to or from his jeep. Anyway, I just realised that I’d never seen him without a baseball cap on.’
‘Well, a lot of guys wear them,’ Dane said.
‘Yeah, but when he left a couple of years ago Angela came round one night for the kids to play and for her to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine. With no husband on the scene, it just seemed like she could never get a night off. Anyway, once she was comfy, Angela told me that Dave had begged her to let him take Tina up to Alaska with him. That he kept calling regularly asking about it, but she kept hanging up on him. She said he was pretty much obsessed with wanting to see Tina again.’
‘I see.’ Officer Dane nodded sagely.
‘I just… you know… thought, well, if this guy who wears a baseball hat, and who looks familiar shows up to abduct Tina, then maybe he could be her dad, right?’
‘That would make sense,’ Dane said. He then turned his attention to the child.
‘Suzy, if I were to go next door and get a photograph of a man would you take a look at it for me?’
‘Sure,’ she nodded as she chewed on a raisin.
‘Great.’ Dane snapped his fingers. ‘Excuse me for a moment, Mrs Bucowiz – I’ll be right back.’
Officer Dane left the interview room, and, almost immediately, Suzy turned to her mom.
‘When can we go?’ she asked.
‘After this,’ Jackie said, ‘it won’t take much longer.’
Dane returned a moment later with a black and white print out of David Blanchette’s driving license. He placed this on the desk in front of Suzy. The photograph on the copy was small and faint.
‘Suzy,’ Dane said, slowly, ‘could this have been the man who spoke to you at the creek?’
‘Think about it,’ Jackie said, softly, ‘try to remember.’
Suzy leaned over the paper, looked at the image for a moment and then, eager to go to McDonalds – where she might get a Happy Meal containing a brightly coloured toy – nodded.
‘Sure,’ she said, ‘that looks like the man.’
Chapter Thirty-One
When Leighton left Mind Space centre, he ironically felt more stressed than he had before going in. James often told him that talking in therapy could raise some uncomfortable thoughts and feelings but in the end it would help. Leighton wasn’t convinced.
Crossing the deserted parking lot, he realised that he needed to have a conversation with somebody back at the station.
As he drove across town, Leighton’s thoughts kept drifting back to the small figure running across the road in front of his car. It seemed like a loop of movie reel playing round his head. For a moment he considered the possibility that James was correct – that the small figure was actually a construct of his stressed-out mind. After all, the kid had looked the same size, gender and build as Annie. But then again, the news report had confirmed that there actually was a real missing kid who matched the description. That couldn’t be down to Leighton’s emotional state.
Having parked at the rear of Oceanside Police Station, Leighton hurried through the glass doors and made his way to the administration section where he stopped outside a plain wooden door. He knocked and waited.
‘Come in,’ a female voice from the other side called.
Leighton opened the door and entered. He found Captain Levvy filing papers at her desk. She had set out four trays and a wastepaper basket was placed nearby.
‘Officer Jones, can I help you?’ she asked without stopping what she was doing.
‘I’ve just come from my compulsory therapy session.’
‘Ah, and how’s that all working out for you?’ Levvy asked with a tone of disinterest.
‘The therapist asked me about the kid I saw on Old Mill Way on Monday.’
‘What about it?’ Levvy kept adjusting the papers.
‘Captain, how did my therapist know about our conversation?’
‘He gets updates.’
‘But I only spoke to you last night. That means that the conversation about the kid would not have been on any update that had faxed across yesterday. The only way it would have been passed on would have been if you called in the morning without any agreed update protocol.’
‘Okay.’ Levvy shrugged, ‘I told him – this morning on the telephone.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I thought it might be linked to your stress.’
‘Captain, I simply made a report of a sighting of a missing kid,’ Leighton ran a hand through his hair, ‘how the hell is that linked to stress?’
‘Well you sound pretty stressed talking about it just now.’
‘Has anyone looked into my sighting?’ Leighton asked.
‘Officer, you are an employee with some psychological issues, which have resulted in you abandoning your duties in this station. You gave a vague report that was unsubstantiated, of a child you saw eleven miles from where Tina was last seen. Miles – let me emphasise – not yards. I’m not sure what you expect anyone to do with that kind of information.’
‘Has anyone looked into my sighting?’ Leighton repeated.
Levvy sighed. ‘The information you gave us was passed on to Officers Dane and Lorenzo, and if you attempt to second guess me again I’ll have you up on a professional misconduct charge. Now, I imagine we both have work to do. Close the door on your way out.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tina peered, wide-eyed, through the gaps in the wooden barn wall. Her small heart was pounding in her chest, as she twisted her fingers together and stared straight ahead. In the isolation of such a desolate place, Tina felt the full extent of the danger represented by this scrawny man. The fact that he had returned to her hiding place was the most worrying thing for the small girl. Up until that point, Tina had convinced herself that the stranger would probably forget all about her, and yet he had returned almost immediately. Fighting the urge to vomit – and lose what little food was in her stomach – Tina realised she needed to keep her eyes locked on the threat.
Leaning forward, she craned her trembling neck and placed her face against the wood. The spaces between the knotted planks were narrow but still wide enough to allow a glimpse of the courtyard. Outside, about thirty feet away where the flat ground merged with the rustling tall grasses, the stranger was kneeling on the ground next to a large backpack. He appeared to be whistling cheerfully and was busy arranging something on the ground. Tina shuffled on her knees and shifted to get a clearer look. From her new location she discovered that the stranger was leaning forward and laying o
ut a checked cloth on the dusty ground. Once it was flat he placed a rock in each of the four corners to weigh them down. He then turned round, grabbed the backpack and unclipped the top buckles.
After reaching inside the pack, the stranger pulled out various items: an orange tube of Pringles, a box of Twinkies, a packet of Oreos and two cans of Coke. Then, once the items had been freed he seemed to be considering each item in turn, picking them up and carefully arranging them like a shop display on the cloth.
At first, in the fog of her emotional confusion, Tina thought he was simply planning to have a picnic for himself. It was easy to imagine him sitting down on the blanket, perhaps with a napkin tied round his neck – shovelling food into his mouth to show Tina what she was missing. Then she realised with a dawning sense of horror that the food and drink was solely for her – to get her to come out from wherever she was hiding – like cheese in a mousetrap.
At one point, the stranger produced a tall glass from within the pack. He then picked up a Coke can and sparked it open with a loud hiss. She watched as the foaming soda ran over the stranger’s hand like lava. He held it up to his mouth, and drank.
‘Yummy!’ he called out in a poor performance, ‘that cola sure tastes sweet and cold.’
He then tilted the glass, half filled it with cola, then placed it back down on the cloth.
‘I’ll just leave some here in case anyone is thirsty!’ he yelled.
Tina was vaguely aware of the saliva running down her small chin as she gazed in wonder.
Once he had finished arranging the various items on the checked cloth, the stranger stood up and dusted off his clothes. The way he looked down at the picnic suggested he was pleased with his work. He then shouldered his pack and walked towards the derelict office building, at which point he vanished from sight.
For a moment, Tina was worried that the stranger would come into the barn, but thankfully he didn’t, and she figured that he must have gone somewhere else to watch and wait.
Even though she knew it was a trap, Tina had to force herself to look away from the pile of delights spread on the ground outside. She tried to remind herself of the story of Hansel and Gretel, and how sweets left out can lead to you being cooked and eaten. Yet the attraction was powerful. Sometimes she would glance at the picnic and especially the glass – she could imagine the countless bubbles floating to the surface.
In order to avoid the temptation of the picnic, she lay down and buried her face into the corner where the platform met the wooden wall. She closed her eyes and imagined she was home in her bedroom and that all of this was just a bad dream. In her mind, she could see her bedroom ceiling where the six glow-in-the-dark stars were stuck around the light – where her mom had stuck them when she was just a baby. She could imagine the feel of her favourite pink quilt, and she could recall the feeling of safety she got from being in her bedroom. Unwilling to leave such a pleasant place and return to reality, Tina slipped into a light sleep in which the boundary between reality and fantasy softened and blurred.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Angela Blanchette was standing in the doorway of her home when the police arrived. She hadn’t slept or eaten in days. Instead she had set up a striped folding chair in her open doorway where she sat day and night – holding on to her daughter’s pink blanket while praying for a miracle. The only concession she made at night was to close the screen door, but she was still there behind it, patiently waiting on her child to come back home.
When the car stopped, she recognised the two officers as the two who had visited her previously – Dane and Lorenzo.
She hurried down the path and met the two officers as they got out of the black vehicle.
‘Have you found something?’ she called over to them.
‘No, sorry Mrs Blanchette.’ Dane said as he and Lorenzo approached her. ‘But if it’s okay we’d actually like to speak to you about your husband?’
Angela was blindsided by the question. Didn’t they realise David had been in Alaska for two years and was barely mentioned by anyone – including Tina. ‘My husband, why?’
‘We have been unable to contact Tina’s father, we are considering the possibility that he is somehow involved in your daughter’s disappearance.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Angela rubbed absently at her left temple.
‘Mrs Blanchette, have you spoken to your husband in recent days at all?’
‘No, but I’ve not spoken to him in months. He’s in Alaska. I guess we don’t communicate at all.’
‘Yeah, we tried contacting him there, a local unit from Anchorage was dispatched to his home address without any luck.’
‘I wouldn’t say that would be all that unusual. He moved up there to be among the wilderness. He won’t be sitting in the cabin waiting for folk to come visit.’
‘Do you think your husband may be involved in Tina’s abduction?’ Lorenzo asked. ‘Is that a possibility?’
‘What?’ Angela laughed in humourless way. The idea was ridiculous. ‘No, of course not!’ The expression on her face should have been enough to tell the officers how stupid the idea was, but they pursued it further.
‘We’d like you to consider it.’ Dane said, firmly. ‘There are some pieces of corroborating evidence.’
‘Are you shitting me?’ Angela’s raw emotion exploded from within her. ‘Tina has been taken by some psycho and you’re trying to suggest my ex-husband who is skipping about the mountains of Alaska trying to find himself is somehow involved? What do you think – that he drove three and half thousand miles to pick up his daughter – when he won’t even pick up a damned telephone and speak to her? Yeah, good police work guys, real slick.’
‘Calm down, Mrs Blanchette.’ Dane said.
‘You fucking calm down! Don’t you think Suzy Bucowiz would have recognised my husband if he sat down to play dolls with her and Tina in the creek?’
The officers exchanged a nervous glance, and then the taller one spoke.
‘We asked her if she recognised the man during her initial interview, she said she wasn’t sure. However, when we showed her a photograph of your husband she confirmed that he might have been the person who had spoken with her and Tina at the creek.’
‘What? No, this is insane.’ Angela shook her head.
‘Think about it, Mrs Blanchette. If it was your ex-husband who had taken Tina, that would possibly explain why he wanted rid of Suzy, and why Tina went willingly with him.’
‘Get the hell out of here!’ Angela said in a voice cracking with emotion. ‘My daughter needs you to find her. She is not with my husband. God knows I wish he cared enough that he’d come back to see his daughter, but he doesn’t. I told you already, get the hell out of here!’
The two officers reluctantly retreated to their car and climbed inside. As they drove away from Angela Blanchette she deliberately turned her back on them.
After the cops had gone, Angela sat back in her folding chair and quietly wept. For five years David had been her partner, her lover and everything. She knew that their life together hadn’t been perfect, but nobody’s was. But his anxiety had grown in him like a disease until he could no longer settle in his own home. He spent an increasing amount of time in the woods and mountains, but even that was not enough. He craved greater and greater freedom, and now at the time she needed him most, her husband was most certainly free.
In the months following his departure, there had simply been no phone calls or letters. He had simply left. At the time, he had promised that he needed a few weeks of space and time. After which he would definitely call. But that had been a hollow promise. Angela had been left to face the pain and humiliation but also the fact that he didn’t seem to care about Tina. In order to conceal this, she had told friends that David often called asking to take Tina. She hated lying, but hated the reality more. That was why the claims of the cops were so ridiculous. David didn’t even want to speak to his daughter, never mind abduct her.
Chap
ter Thirty-Four
In the small parking lot that faced on to the marina at Oceanside Beach, Leighton sat alone on the hood of his car. He was gazing beyond the various moored sailboats at the tumbling waves of the restless Pacific. Any time he came to the beach to clear his head, Leighton found the endless motion of the water more hypnotic and soothing than a thousand hours of relaxation cassettes. This was his safe space away from the politics of the job and the chaos of life. If it would pay his bills, he would happily swap his badge and gun for an apron and idle away his days serving coffees to tourists and fishermen at the harbour.
After his encounter with Captain Levvy, he had spent four long hours observing traffic on Highway 76, where he and Teddy had engaged in number of routine traffic stops, looking for uninsured vehicles and unsafe vehicles. They had found neither, something Leighton viewed as success, Teddy a failure.
At the end of their watch both men had happily gone their separate ways. Teddy had gone to his evening class in Criminology and Justice at Mira Costa College over on Barnard Drive; Leighton should’ve simply went home, but he still felt the stress of the day sitting on him like a backpack full of rocks. Returning back home would offer little respite either.
Annie had been away for just one night and already Leighton found the idea of stepping inside his silent house a bleak prospect. He hated silence. It reminded him that he was alone. That was why he had a small radio in every room of his house, and why he loved being near Oceanside harbour so much. Here it was impossible to escape the deep sound of the clashing waves, the call of the seabirds to each other and a constant stream of people fishing, surfing or simply relaxing. To Leighton, just being near the place was simply life-affirming, and he wished he could stay there for ever.
Closing his eyes, Leighton breathed in the fresh ocean air. He knew it was time to leave the harbour, but he still wasn’t about to head home just yet. Something was calling him back to Old Mill Way. He doubted very much that Levvy had ever passed any information on to Dane and Lorenzo. That meant nobody was investigating the place he had suggested. Yet, if Leighton raised this issue with anybody it would only piss Levvy, Pierce and Winston off even more.
