And Then There Was One

by Patricia Gussin

  — Friday Morning News, June 19

  Streeter arose Friday morning after a decent night’s sleep, the first in five nights. Not taking time to fix himself breakfast, he headed to his office. He lived in one of those renovated buildings along the Detroit river, an apartment that his daughters called “luxury.” While it had all the modern amenities, there were only two bedrooms. He slept in the guest bedroom, leaving the large master suite for his daughters. That way they’d have a big closet and plenty of room for three twin beds. As he prepared to leave that morning, he picked up the eight-by-ten photo of his own daughters. Where are you, Alex? Where are you Sammie?

  Streeter knew so much about the missing Monroe triplets that it was hard to believe that he’d never met two of them. Only Jackie. How tragic what was happening to that little girl. Survivor guilt? She was safe, but her sisters were — what would be going on inside Jackie’s mind? He stared at Kloe, his eldest. Thin, like Jackie, about her height, dark eyes, dark hair but shorter. Kloe was so tan that her skin color almost matched Jackie’s. What would Kloe feel if anything happened to her two sisters? How could anyone ever know what was going on in a kid’s mind? If someone could, wouldn’t it be Dr. Katie Monroe? He put down the photo, counting the hours since the abduction: one hundred twelve.

  Camry, her short brown hair gleaming, her plum linen pantsuit meticulously pressed, was waiting for Streeter in his office. With a twinkle in her eye, she announced, “Guess who showed up this morning?”

  Streeter’s first reaction was anger. Could they have found Sammie and Alex and not called him? Impossible.

  “Adam Kaninsky arrived fifteen minutes ago,” Camry said. “We held him for you. But I’ve got bad news, too. Norman Watkins died last night.”

  “Shit.” Streeter sunk back against the wall and set down his briefcase. “Did he ever say anything?”

  “No,” Camry said. “Not a word. And his wife is raising hell with the press. Wrongful death shit.”

  “Cutty dead. Watkins dead. Let’s hope that Kaninsky has something for us. Let’s go.” Then Streeter hesitated.

  “You okay, Tony?”

  “Be better if I had some coffee.”

  “I’ve got that and something else you’ll like. Follow me.”

  She led him into her office on their way to the Kaninsky interview. She pushed the button on her single-cup coffee maker and reached into a plastic container. “Orange walnut muffins. My neighbor made them early this morning. She felt sorry for me, knows how tough the Monroe case is on us.”

  Streeter inhaled the fresh-baked aroma and picked one. “Only good thing about all this is I’ve lost a few pounds.”

  Adam Kaninsky took the chair opposite Streeter and Camry. Streeter had seen his photo, but in person Kaninsky looked like a model for J. Crew in a cranberry golf shirt and slacks on the tight side. The guy was trim but plenty buff. Blond hair right out of a salon, blue eyes with expensive dark glasses perched casually on his head. What did this twenty-year-old kid know about the Monroe girls and why had he shown up voluntarily?

  Streeter planned to cut to the chase, but was preempted.

  “Look,” Kaninsky said. “I’ve been out of the country. I didn’t even know you were looking for me until I got here this morning. I decided to come talk to you. Okay? Not the other way around.”

  “Okay,” Streeter said, forcing back a blink, not expecting this proactive stance.

  “I’m going to come right out and say what’s on my mind.” Kaninsky did not flinch. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I have nothing to hide.”

  “Okay,” Streeter wondered whether he ought to read this kid his rights.

  “We’re taping this. That a problem?”

  “No problem.” Streeter judged Kaninsky to be on the up-and-up, but could he trust his instincts? So far they hadn’t contributed shit in this case.

  “Okay, Adam,” Streeter said. “You’ve got our attention.”

  Kaninsky began, “You know that I am gay. At least I think I am. I’ve been having sex with men for money since I was ten.”

  Camry actually gasped.

  “Starting with my older brother. I was only a kid.”

  “How old?” Camry asked.

  Ellen Camry’s background was psychology, but Streeter didn’t want to waste time exploring Kaninsky’s psyche. He shot her a “don’t interrupt” look, and she blushed ever so slightly.

  “Three, four, I don’t know. Brad, he was ten years older. Maybe someone was doing him, too. I don’t know. All I know was that he started on me right after my dad left us. There was me, my mom, and Brad. Of course, Brad threatened me not to tell — all the usual stuff.”

  “Let’s get to the point. What do you know about the missing Monroe girls?” Streeter’s pulse quickened. Kaninsky could be the key to their whereabouts. Why else would he show up here?

  “Nothing, man. Just that I heard the news when I was in Nevis. That’s where I was. That’s where Maxwell sent me.”

  Question marks appeared on the agents’ faces.

  “I’ll explain,” Adam said. “When I was maybe nine, my brother hurt me pretty bad. I wore light-colored pants to school the next day and my teacher saw the blood stain. She took me to the principal. You know the drill. Child protective services. Physical exam. Psychological therapy. That’s where I met Dr. Katie. I got to know her and came to trust her. She made me understand that it wasn’t my fault. Convinced my mom to get help for my brother. Bastard finally ended up in jail. He couldn’t stop. Nobody should get away with doing that to kids.”

  “Tell us about Maxwell Cutty and Dr. Monroe and her children,” Streeter repeated.

  “First, I just want to say that I think that Maxwell murdered his wife, Olivia.”

  Streeter was losing patience. The dead bastard would never be prosecuted for that, no matter how horrendous that charge. Tell me where Cutty hid the Monroe children.

  “Look,” Streeter said. “That accusation is serious, but it’s a matter for the Tampa Police to investigate. What we have to focus on now is finding Alex and Sammie Monroe. Do you know where they are? Because if you do —”

  “No, Agent Streeter, I do not. All I know is that I made a terrible mistake. I told Maxwell what I told Dr. Katie — about him, how he was abusing Adam and Jake. I told him that she could never tell because I was her patient, but he went crazy on me. He sent me to Nevis, and told me to stay there. He wanted me out of the country just in case she, you know, didn’t keep what I said confidential.”

  “Did he threaten her or her children?”

  “Her, yes. That he was going to ‘get even’” He flicked his index fingers into apostrophes. “Her kids? He said like — how would she like someone screwing around with her kids?”

  “Did he say anything more specific?” Camry leaned in closer to catch every word.

  “No. But I’ll bet he used the same guy that he used to whack Olivia.” Here Kaninsky looked around. “Am I out of bounds here?”

  “Meaning?” Streeter leaned closer.

  “Look, I had nothing to do with this, but when Olivia, quote, fell overboard, unquote, Maxwell opened a bottle of expensive champagne. I mean, of course, he’d be glad to get rid of her. Truth is she’d turned into a bitch. Constant bickering. Over money. Over the boys. Typical stuff for divorce, I figured.”

  Again, Streeter wondered whether he should advise the kid of his rights. He might be walking straight into a trap — an accomplice to murder? But Adam was not a minor, and he had showed up voluntarily. Streeter let him proceed.

  “We ended up drinking two bottles. We were both pretty sloshed, and Maxwell was one of those loud drunks. On the way to bed he was slobbering all over me. “Vincent came though,” he said. “Vincent drowned the bitch. Now it’s just you and me, Adam.”

  “This Vincent, any last name?” Streeter flipped through notes. Had he heard that name before?

  “In the morning I asked Maxwell who Vincent was. He looked at me strangely and said, ‘Vi
ncent who? What are you talking about? Just shut your mouth.’ He never mentioned him again. That was a couple of months ago.”

  “So what’s your take on this Vincent?” Camry asked while Streeter poured though the file.

  “Just that if what he said about Olivia and Vincent was true. I’m not saying it is. But what if — well, maybe this Vincent is the one who has the Monroe kids. Like if he can make a drowning happen, maybe he could make the children disappear.”

  “When did you figure this theory out?” Streeter asked, wondering whether Kaninsky’s hypothesis made any sense. Tampa agents had followed Cutty to a club in Ybor City in Tampa. They now knew that he met with a guy known as Manny. According to informants, Manny Gonzalos ran an exclusive, pricey hit business. Highly respected, efficient, and completely invisible. No amount of digging had unearthed his real identity, but the Tampa agents speculated that the professional killer lived in Clearwater, and they had staked out the address. But now Manny had disappeared without a trace. If Manny was Vincent, then Vincent was gone.

  “When I was in Nevis, I heard on the news that Dr. Katie’s kids were missing. That’s what made me think. Maybe he used that guy — Vincent.”

  Agent Camry asked, “You ever hear him mention Vincent again since that night?”

  “No, never. I forgot all about it until I heard about her missing children. That’s why I left Nevis and came straight here to talk to you. I used my own money to buy my airline ticket. I respect Dr. Katie, and if there’s anything I can do to help find her children —”

  “Why did Maxwell send you to Nevis?” Streeter asked, trying to reconcile what Adam was saying with the scant information in the file. Why hadn’t the Tampa office made a bigger deal out of Manny? They’d missed the connection between Cutty’s former wife’s death and this Manny — or Vincent, a suspected hit man.

  “Maxwell was going to meet me there. He said his lawyer would get the case — you know — about what he did to his kids — dropped and that we’d unwind in the Caribbean. Maxwell had it all set up. A private plane to San Juan, then a yacht from there to Nevis. No customs. No nothing.”

  “You didn’t think that odd, Adam?” Camry asked.

  “Like I said, Maxwell did some bad stuff. I just did what he said.”

  “So when you got there, he was a no-show, and you used your own money to come here?”

  “Yeah, but I flew back, Nevis to San Juan to Kennedy to Detroit. I wanted to help Dr. Katie. That’s why I’m here.”

  Streeter asked him to go over in detail the timing. The clock in his mind was calculating. Could Cutty have gotten those kids out of Detroit to Nevis? If so, when and from where? He picked up the phone. “Find out the jurisdiction in Nevis,” he said. “We need to get a search going on the island.”

  “He told you to go to a certain address in Nevis?” Camry asked.

  “Yes.” Adam pulled a scrap of paper out of his breast pocket. “But I never went there.”

  “What?” Streeter’s head jerked up.

  Adam handed over the paper. “I never went there because I got scared. I mean, with what he did to Olivia. Like he had her whacked. No way she drowned. Must have been pushed, man. Like I said, this guy Vincent. Maxwell wanted Olivia’s money and he wanted that house. He loved that house, wanted to live in that house with me.” Adam shivered and shifted in his seat. “That was before I ‘betrayed’ him. I got to thinking. What if Maxwell intended to off me? The Nevis thing could be a setup.” Adam shrugged his shoulders, but the grimace on his face was anything but casual. “I found a bed and breakfast over by the airport and used my own money. Then I came back when I heard about the little girls. I wanted to tell you all this. I’ve got a soft spot for kids. As far as Maxwell and I are concerned, we’re finished. I came to tell you what I know, then I’m going somewhere far away.”

  “Do you know where Maxwell Cutty is?” Streeter asked.

  “Right now?”

  Streeter nodded, observing carefully as Adam lifted his shoulders in a “who cares” gesture. Either the kid was a primo actor or he suffered from media deprivation. Hadn’t the shooting in Tampa reached the island of Nevis?

  “Home, soaking in the hot tub, I suspect.”

  “He’s dead, Adam.” Streeter delivered the blow, and saw that it hit hard.

  “Maxwell?” Kaninsky’s reaction came out as a wail. Maybe the kid did have some feelings for his former sugar daddy. Then he straightened up in his chair. “You’re kidding me?”

  When Camry asked whether they should detain Kaninsky, Streeter shook his head. “Do a polygraph. If he passes, let him go, but keep him local and under surveillance. Focus on Nevis and how Cutty could have moved the girls there. Do an extensive search of the island — house-to-house — if we can get local law enforcement to go along.”

  As Camry led Kaninsky away, Streeter felt a surge of depression. The kid had guts coming in, but he offered little that would lead them to Alex and Sammie. Except a hit man known as Vincent. Could Vincent be Manny? If so, the Monroe children were in the hands of a professional hit man.

  At eight Friday morning, Katie and Scott waited for Susan Reynolds to make rounds. They’d slept off and on, and as far as they could tell, Jackie had not stirred all night. The child seemed to be sleeping peacefully, her chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm. Every once in a while, Katie would lean over Jackie just to feel the egress of air. Now she and Scott were talking to her gently, about what they thought would interest her, had she been awake. If anything would entice Jackie, it would be Yankee baseball, but Katie knew that Scott had not been updated on the stats since he’d arrived in Detroit Sunday evening.

  “I can’t wait for us all to be home,” Scott was saying. Katie thought she detected the tiniest motion at the corners of Jackie’s mouth. Home, she thought, would they ever be able to go home? How could they ever leave Sammie and Alex in Michigan here and go home to Florida?

  As Scott kept up an upbeat monologue, Katie reflected on how she and Scott were handling the immensity of their constant dread. They each seemed to cycle in and out of paralysis. In and out of hope. In and out of despair. In and out of sanity. They were trying to stay focused on Jackie, but images of Alex and Sammie kept careening around in her head and she suspected in Scott’s, too. She realized that all she could hope for, right now, was that either she or Scott would be in a coping part of the cycle of despair — hope — despair at any one time. If their despair cycles coincided, who would be there for Jackie? Would they lose Jackie, too?

  Katie’s thoughts and Scott’s monologue were interrupted by a blend of female voices as the door opened, and Lucy, Susan Reynolds, and Katie’s sister Stacy walked in. In an instant Katie was on her feet, rushing into Stacy’s open arms. After the sisters’ tearful reunion, Stacy hugged Scott, and Katie greeted Susan and her mother. When Stacy went to Jackie and stroked her forehead, Katie thought she saw a glimmer of response as Stacy told Jackie how she’d just come back from an awesome hike in New Zealand. How much she’d love to take her there with her sisters, of course.

  A light tap on the door interrupted Katie as she was about to ask Susan about Jackie.

  “May I interrupt?” Agent Camry appeared, and was promptly introduced to Stacy, the eldest of the Jones sisters.

  Scott rose to pull back a chair for Camry to join them.

  “Thanks, Mr. Monroe, but could I have a word with you and Dr. Monroe?”

  “You go ahead,” Stacy said. “Jackie will be fine with us.”

  Once they had relocated to the patient room they’d been using as a conference center, Camry requested coffee from the security detail. As they took their first sip, she informed them that Norman Watkins had died without regaining consciousness. Not waiting for them to ask questions, she told them about Adam Kaninsky’s surprise visit that morning.

  “Adam?” Katie’s heart jumped. “Does he know —”

  “He claims he doesn’t know where your daughters are or even if Cutty arranged thei
r abduction. But he does believe that Cutty had his wife killed. And that he used a professional killer, known as Vincent. Does he look familiar to you?” Camry showed them the police artist’s sketch of a Hispanic-looking male based on the Tampa FBI investigation of the man they knew as Manny in Ybor City.

  Both Katie and Scott shook their heads, their shoulders slumping in unison. They denied knowing this man.

  Then Scott asked, “The ransom? Anything?”

  “Not yet. And nothing credible yet on the reward. But the sketch of the woman who we think took them is in all the morning papers and on all the networks.”

  Katie and Scott asked a few more questions, but they realized that Camry would let them know if there was anything new. And there wasn’t. Camry promised to update them immediately if something happened. Finally, she told them how sorry she was about Jackie. Was there anything that she could do?

  “Could you bring us the morning paper?” Scott asked.

  Camry left the room, returned with a stack of newspapers, set them down in front of Scott and Katie, and excused herself.

  Katie and Scott sat across from each other, coffee in hand, silently reading the Detroit Free Press and Tampa Tribune version of what was going on in their lives. The tragedy of the abduction, the odds of finding the children alive after five days, speculation as to the hospitalization of the third triplet, the incompetence of the FBI. When Katie and Scott had scanned enough, they folded up the newspapers, and, hand in hand, left to join Jackie.

  As they reached the door to Jackie’s room, Agent Camry rushed up to them. She handed Katie a formal-style, engraved envelope. “This arrived from the White House. It’s for Jackie.”

  Katie fingered the White House seal, afraid that any message from the president had to be bad news. She gave it to Scott to open. Inside was a note, written on the first lady’s stationery. The letters were well formed and precise and there were two signatures at the end. In a voice that wavered, Scott read it aloud.

  Dear Jackie,

  We are praying everyday that your sisters Sammie and Alex are safe and that they come back home to you and your mom and dad very soon. We hope that they are not too scared. And we hope that you are doing okay while you wait. We know how special having a sister is. And we want you to know that our parents and everybody in our classes at school are praying for your sisters.