And Then There Was One

by Patricia Gussin

  Franklin’s face gave nothing away, but his wife’s glare was pure hostility. Turning, she slapped him, hard on the face. “What the fuck have you been doing with that bitch?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I thought so. You are seeing her! Do you have anything to do with those missing kids? Are you in this with her, you piece of shit? Because if you are, I’ll see you burn in hell.”

  “Come with us, Mr. Franklin.” The agents flanked him, separating him from his wife and three boys who stood gawking in the background.

  Keith Franklin responded without a word.

  Streeter acquiesced to Katie’s request that the agents in the conference room give them a few moments. As they filed out, Katie asked, “Could someone keep Jackie while we talk?”

  “Ellen,” Streeter called, “come back. Can you locate Mr. Monroe and bring him in here? Then could you keep an eye on Jackie?”

  A few moments later, Scott walked into the conference room with Jackie. He already looked like all the life had drained out of him. And now, she had to deepen his anxiety. What she was going to tell him would not be the problem, it was just that he’d be hearing it for the first time, and she and Scott had vowed never to harbor secrets between them.

  “You okay, Mom?” Jackie asked. “Do you want one?” She held up a melting Eskimo Pie. “Dad said not to get you one. That it would just melt, but I wanted to.”

  “No, sweetie.” Katie knew she should smile, but only a grimace appeared.

  “Katie, what’s wrong?” Scott asked. “Something about Cutty?”

  “No,” Streeter answered for her. “He hasn’t left Tampa. We’re still looking for his ex-companion, Adam Kaninsky.”

  “I still can’t understand why you just don’t arrest him,” Scott’s voice boomed louder than usual, then lowered as Jackie left with Agent Camry. “Guy like that, you have to put the pressure on. If he knows where my daughters are —”

  “Scott,” Katie said, “I —”

  “Those are my daughters out there, man. Some sick fuck has my little girls and what are you all doing, strutting around, talking into your walkie-talkies, typing on your computers. You need to arrest that bastard.”

  “Scott,” Katie interrupted again. “I need to tell you and Agent Streeter about something — someone —”

  “Mr. Monroe, let’s hear what your wife has on her mind.”

  Streeter leaned back into his chair and waited. He had a new line of questioning for Dr. Monroe, too, but he’d hear her out first.

  Katie began, “Scott, what I have to say — it could be important. It’s about an old boyfriend, Keith Franklin.”

  Scott’s eyebrows rose, he twisted in his chair, but he said nothing.

  “Before I met you, I dated a guy, Keith Franklin. The one in some of the family photos at Mom’s. I dated him in high school and all through college. He was good to me, but he turned out to be a drug dealer. He tried to involve me in hiding drugs, and I testified against him at his trial.”

  “Good lord, Katie, how terrible for you.” Scott looked puzzled, but agitated, too. “What does that have to do with Sammie and Alex?”

  “I received an e-mail from him. A couple of weeks ago.”

  Streeter reached into a folder and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Yes,” he said, “I was about to ask you about that. We found it on your hard drive, deleted, but we found it. He pushed it across the table, centering it between Scott and Katie. Katie squeezed her eyes shut as Scott read silently.

  Katie,

  I think about you every minute of every day even though it’s been twenty-four years. I made such a stupid mistake and I lost you, the only good thing that ever happened to me. My mother sees your mother and keeps track of where you live and what you’re doing. I know that you are still married to that white baseball player and I’m sorry that I sent you that one note. I have nothing against the man, except that he has you and I don’t. I know that you have three daughters and I want you to know that I have three sons. Katie, I’ve changed. I need to be with you. I’ll leave my wife. I’ll take care of your daughters. All I think about is you. Please say that you’ll have me back. I love you and I can’t forget you and what might have been.

  Yours forever,

  Keith

  As they read silently, Scott’s face turned a bleached shade of white. Streeter noticed that he squirmed just a fraction of an inch away from Katie, and he kept his eyes focused straight ahead.

  No one spoke for a moment. Streeter finally said, “Katie, start at the beginning. Tell us everything you know about this man. And why he is appearing in your life again.”

  Katie spoke in a husky monotone. She began with her senior prom where she’d first met Keith Franklin. She’d gone to St. Mary-of-the-Woods, an all girls academy run by nuns and catering to the rich. She, following in the footsteps of her three sisters, had a scholarship. She was one of three black girls in the class, and since it was a boarding school she’d had little opportunity to meet nice black guys. She’d been so excited when her mother’s friend suggested her son as a prom date. Keith was two years older than Katie and a student at Detroit Community College. He was fun, attractive, with lots of friends.

  They’d started dating exclusively almost immediately after the prom. Shortly thereafter, Keith quit school and got a job with FedEx at the Detroit airport loading and unloading planes. She and Keith were a couple through all four years of her college and into her third year of medical school. Had she been in love with him? She honestly didn’t know. She’d never dated anyone else. She’d had no frame of reference.

  About the time she started med school, Keith started to give her expensive gifts: a Rolex watch, dangling diamond earrings, even a car, not a new one, but a Mustang convertible. He shopped for her at designer shops, always pulling out plenty of cash. But he never made demands of her, understanding when she had to study, taking her to lavish parties only when she was free. They’d never talked of marriage, which suited her just fine as she was preoccupied with medical school.

  Her problem with Keith started abruptly. Keith had been brutally beaten and dumped along the road not far from the airport where he worked. A Good Samaritan had picked him up and taken him to a pay phone. She was the one he called to come get him. It was the night before her pediatric exam, but she went. He asked her to take him to a buddy’s house and to say nothing if anyone asked about him, especially the police. She begged him to let her take him to a hospital, but he refused. She took him to the address on the west side of Detroit, a place where she’d never drive on her own. She’d wanted to tend to his wounds, but he sent her away immediately. He shoved a shopping bag into her arms and told her to take it to her house and hide it in the back section of her closet behind a panel he knew was there.

  When she got home, she inspected the bag, found it full of white powder she suspected to be cocaine. Behind the panel, she found three other such bags.

  “My God, Katie,” Scott’s eyes had widened and his mouth gaped. “A dealer.”

  “I didn’t know, Scott,” she said. “I was home alone that night. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Go on,” Streeter urged.

  Katie explained that her mom had been out of town visiting Katie’s oldest sister, Stacy. She called, got Stacy, and told her the whole story. Stacy left her mother at her house, took the next plane to Detroit, and together, they decided to call the police. It was the toughest decision she’d ever had to make, betraying Keith.

  She’d testified at Keith’s trial, her mom and Stacy by her side. But Keith’s mother had been devastated, and Katie had never been able to erase the look Keith gave her as they read the verdict, a look, not of hatred, but deep disappointment.

  Katie had been twenty-four, and she hadn’t seen Keith in the intervening twenty-four years. He was sentenced to fifteen years for dealing drugs. His mother stayed in touch with Lucy, but Katie had never seen her since that day in court.

  “Did Franklin keep in touch?�
�� Streeter asked.

  Katie explained that at first Keith wrote her from jail, begged her to visit him, said he’d forgiven her. In letters she’d tried to explain why she could not. How vehemently she was against drug use. He promised to turn his life around. That she’d always be the woman for him, and he the man for her. How the thought of her was what got him though each day. She stopped writing back. Shortly thereafter she met Scott and never looked back.

  “How did Franklin react to your marriage to Scott?” Streeter asked.

  “He sent one ugly letter. I destroyed it, but he used obscene language that was racist in nature.”

  “Katie, why —” Scott started to speak, then dropped his head into his hands. “I never knew —”

  Katie lifted his head in her hands. Facing him she said, “You’ve always known that I had a long-term boyfriend and that we’d gone our separate ways. I was just too ashamed to tell you the whole story.”

  “Secrets — our pledge — Katie, I just don’t know.”

  “Baby, after meeting you, it was like my life with Keith had never existed.”

  “And now, he’s back. He wants you so bad that he’d take our little girls. My daughters, Katie, does he have my daughters?”

  “I don’t know — I don’t think so.” Katie said. “And Scott, they’re our daughters.”

  “We have him in custody now,” Streeter said. “He served nine of those fifteen years. And, we know that he attended Monica’s concert Saturday night. Stalking you, Dr. Monroe? Maybe. He went alone, didn’t bring his wife.”

  Katie couldn’t help but feel a sliver of relief. If Keith had taken Sammie and Alex in an attempt to get her back, he would keep them safe, wouldn’t he? So many atrocities had been circling through her head that she almost wished that Keith had abducted them.

  “Katie, I just don’t know.” Scott lowered his head. “I’m so confused, I just don’t know.”

  “Let’s take a break,” Streeter said. “Go find Jackie. Get something to eat. Meantime, I’ll check out what we’re learning from Franklin.”

  Streeter left the conference room. Katie and Scott made no move to leave.

  Fifteen minutes later Streeter returned with Camry, Jackie between them. He hoped that Katie and Scott had used that time alone to mend any rift in their relationship that Katie’s story might have triggered. It wasn’t so much about what had happened between Katie and Franklin, Streeter knew, but that Katie had never shared that episode in her life with Scott. He and Marianne had gone through something similar. His pregnant wife had gone ballistic when she found out that he’d shared a room at a posh Chicago hotel with an old girlfriend during a surveillance assignment. Not wanting to upset Marianne, he hadn’t told her. Then she read about it in a newspaper story. He blamed her overreaction on hormones, but he worried that she could never really trust him after that. With the intensity of emotions enveloping the Monroes, who could know whether Scott would harbor a grudge?

  “Mom?” Jackie headed toward Katie, who was slumped head down on the conference table. “Are you okay?”

  Katie raised her head, brushed strands of hair from her face and held her arms out to Jackie. “I’m okay, sweetie. “What about you?” “Agent Camry got me some paper and more crayons,” she said. “And we had a Sprite and cheese crackers. The yellow ones that come in a package.”

  “Thanks.” Katie wiped tears from her eyes before lifting Jackie onto her lap.

  “Shouldn’t there be a ransom?” Scott’s abrupt query took Streeter by surprise. “Is this normal, I mean, no ransom?”

  “So far, nothing,” Streeter said. “We’re monitoring your phone at home, your two offices, your parents’ homes.”

  “Whoever took them must know that Katie and I could get the money. Everybody knows that Monica is my sister, and that she’s a multimillionaire. She could have a billion, for all I know. She’d part with all of it to get Sammie and Alex back.”

  “She wants to put out a reward, but we’ve asked her to hold back for now,” Streeter said.

  “This is about me,” Katie said, squeezing Jackie so tight that the little girl started to squirm. “Even after talking about Keith, I think it’s Maxwell Cutty. He’d do anything to stay out of jail. With me sidelined —”

  “Then arrest him,” Scott said, pounding a fist on the table, glaring at Streeter. “If there’s even the slightest chance that he knows where my daughters are, this is bullshit.”

  “Scott’s right.” Katie shifted Jackie so she could focus her glare on Streeter. “What are you doing to find them! We’re not living one more day without them! Find them! Sammie and Alex are out there. Find them!”

  “We’re doing everything we can.” Helpless words, he knew, but as he said them, Streeter observed the Monroe parents closely. He wished that he could totally dismiss them as complicit. He wished that Jackie had not had to endure such emotional torture. He wished mostly that he could find Alex and Sammie.

  During Katie’s outburst, Jackie had squeezed out of her mother’s grasp and gone to stand by Scott, tugging at his shirt. “Daddy, can’t we find them? Ever?”

  Scott drew Jackie into his arms. “We will find your sisters. I promise.”

  “You two need a break,” Streeter said. And he needed a break from them. “You can go back to Mrs. Jones’s or stay here in another room.”

  Katie stood, smoothing her dress, calmer now. “What about an appeal? Didn’t you suggest another one? This time with Jackie? Agent Streeter, we have to do something.”

  Streeter rubbed his eyes. Too many balls in the air. He’d almost forgotten. “We have the television studio scheduled for two o’clock. So why don’t you go out for some lunch?”

  “We can eat here,” Katie said, getting up, reaching for Jackie.

  “Jackie might like the food outside better,” Streeter tried. They had to give the kid some slack here.

  “The cafeteria in the basement is okay.” Katie took Jackie by the hand and Scott followed. As the Monroes left the conference room, Streeter’s agents filed back in. “Give me everything you’ve got on Cutty,” he demanded. “Tell me all about what he did in that Tampa bank and where he’s been so far today? Cutty’s our first priority. Then tell me what we know about Keith Franklin.”

  Why was Ellen Camry’s face an ashen shade of gray as she approached? “We have a new suspect,” she announced. “Come with me.”

  Norman Watkins sat ramrod straight in the metal chair, trying for an innocent look of calm acceptance. Seven days out of the joint. A hefty man, no longer the skinny shit he’d been ten years ago. His wife joked that he looked like a professor with horn-rimmed glasses and hair trimmed to just below the ears. He’d picked up decent slacks and a sports jacket with patches on the elbows at the Goodwill Store. Except for the worn sneakers, he felt like he looked the part of a decent middle-class citizen. And it wasn’t just the upscale threads. He had changed in so many ways. Clean, born-again, determined never to go back inside, no matter what. But right now, the most important thing was to keep his cool.

  “I told you before, officer,” he was saying as the woman officer walked in with the boss officer named Streeter. “I got the call in the middle of the night.” Respectful like, the way he’d counseled his former prison mates. “My sister called. Told me my mother had a massive stroke. Like she didn’t expect her to make it. You can check that all out, man. Henry Ford Hospital.”

  “We’re checking.” Camry, the woman officer working on him wore a sour, mean-spirited sneer when she spoke, but so far nobody had shoved him around. Must not want to mess up their pricey suits. The government paid those assholes way too much. Wary, expecting a sudden assault, Norman concentrated on his breathing.

  Norman explained everything to the head agent, Streeter, who now sat fidgeting with his shoulder holster, as he’d listened, almost politely, to Norman’s sincere-sounding answers as to his whereabouts yesterday. But Norman knew this was just good-cop bad-cop. Ten years in the pen, you hear lo
ts of stories.

  “Tell me again when the call came through,” Streeter said.

  “One in the morning.”

  “That’d be Saturday morning. What were you doing?”

  “Sleeping with my wife, just like I told you before.” Norman poured out thanks to God that Connie had stuck with him. All through those ten years. And she’d raised Tina just fine. Never put the bitterness in her about how her old man beat the shit out of her when she was just a baby. Now was his time to make it up to Tina.

  “So?” The bitch agent sat back like she was bored. Shit, Norman had told this story six times already. He’d have to be extra careful not to screw it up.

  “Me and her talked it out. We agreed that we’d drive to Michigan. Connie’s got a sister livin’ in Detroit. Ain’t seen her since we moved to Florida twelve years ago. Did I tell you we was both from Michigan? The wife was born in Livonia. Me, in Hamtramck even though I don’t got a Polish name.” Feed ’em the bullshit, Norman thought, then he stopped himself. Now that he had religion, did that mean he’d have to give it to them straight? Here’s where the rubber hit the road. Inside, he’d preached trust in the Lord.

  “Your wife’s sister, that’s the address where we picked you up?” Agent Camry asked, diddling with the tape recorder.

  “Yeah, the girls were out shoppin’. Then we was gonna head for home. Did you know that my wife is the assistant manager of health and beauty aids at the Winn Dixie? She’s already used a vacation day and we was gonna drive all night. Just like we did comin’ in. That way we don’t have to pay for no motel.”

  Agent Camry put down the tape recorder to inspect her fingernails. “Your probation?”

  “It’s not like I could call my parole officer in the middle of the night.” Norman sat up, deciding to look this cold-faced bitch right in the eye. “Officer, I knew it was a violation. But I hadn’t seen my mother in twelve years and she was dyin’.” “Fuckin’ dyin’” almost came out, but Norman caught it. Stick with the new image he hastily reminded himself. “So I took a chance. I’d seen my P.O. earlier that day so I didn’t think he’d be lookin’ for me ’til the middle of the week. I wasn’t gonna be stayin’, just long enough to just check. You know, say good-bye if she was dyin’. Let my wife catch up with her sister. My little girl ain’t never even seen her aunt. Now that ain’t right.”