His gaze drifted back to the game, but it’d lost his attention. “No.”
“Anyone dangerous you’d like to blame for it?”
I expected him to say “no” again, but he surprised me with a “yes.”
“Brett Gunnison.” He smiled wryly when I sucked in a breath. “Yeah, that one.”
Bobbi had worked for deputy DA Gunnison when she was a prosecutor. Every time he appeared on television—which he did a lot—she’d go into one of her rants. “All hair and no brain,” she’d say. My brother Frank’s comments were more pungent.
“What did Tyler have to do with him? Why would Gunnison go after a kid?”
“I’ve suspected for some time that the deputy DA was involved in a ring that trafficks children.”
I straightened. My FBI agent brother Charlie worked a number of human trafficking cases, mostly in the southwest. Women used as sex slaves in the Inland County. Kids sold to predators over the Internet. I gritted my teeth.
He misread my expression. “I’d turn him in if I had the proof. Tyler isn’t the only kid that went missing around him. The man has too much power …”
“You told Tyler about him?”
“No.” Weller was emphatic. “No way would I set a kid with a hero complex after Gunnison. Ty figured it out himself.”
I used my teacher stare on him till he shifted uncomfortably. “He remembered when the baby brother of one his lacrosse team players went missing. Gunnison’s son was on the team that year. When that Egrets baby disappeared here, Gunnison’s nephew played on the other team.”
“Tustin Tigers. Twenty months ago.” The day of my accident. The pieces were falling together in a way that made my blood run cold.
Weller took it as a question. “Could have been. I don’t remember. The time is about right. Gunnison wasn’t there either time.”
His gaze drifted over my shoulder and he nodded. “She still comes to every game, you know.”
I turned and almost fell off my seat. The delusion who held the baby picture in my bedroom settled on a bleacher twenty feet from us.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Conversation with a ghost
“It was her baby that went missing?” The words came out stupidly, and my vision blurred at the edges.
Weller didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. “Grandson. The baby’s older brother used to play with the Egrets. I don’t know why she still comes here.”
He knew. I knew. If the baby disappeared here, maybe he’d reappear here. The place you’d feel closest to your loved one is where you last saw him. I wondered where those who’d loved Tyler went. His bedroom? His school? A lacrosse game?
“Introduce me,” I demanded.
“Lord love me.” He shook his head. “I know Ivy taught you how to say please.”
I gave him the teacher’s stare.
“You don’t need me. Medy Soto would talk to asphalt about that baby.”
I think I remembered to say thanks for the water and the information. Like a bloodhound, my mind moved faster than my feet, scrambling to connect the children who had gone missing. Gunnison, a new suspect. I traced Tyler’s paths as he worked to bring a predator to justice.
As I closed the distance to where the graying woman perched alone, I glanced back. Weller had already forgotten me. He caught Ivy’s attention and waved with enthusiasm. A cold water bottle waited for her.
“Medy Soto?”
The sixty-ish Filipino woman switched her fixed stare at the block of restrooms to me. Close up, she looked older than the blurry hallucination that haunted my bedroom. That frozen image holding the photo was a jagged moment of entreaty, a two-dimensional figure of grief. The live woman’s hair had gone chrome gray, and her chest moved as she breathed in and out.
“No raffle ticket.” Her gaze traveled back to the green-painted restrooms.
Steph and another woman swept through the bleachers with a roll of red tickets. My lip curled. Must be time to squeeze the audience for the good of team sports everywhere.
“I’m not selling raffle tickets, Mrs. Soto. I wanted to ask about your grandson.”
“He still missing.” Her attention remained fixed to the right, but her slight form shifted closer to me.
Even though I could look this up later, I asked, “May I ask what happened?”
As Weller had intimated, she didn’t need much encouragement. The story poured from her.
“Old women like me need go restroom much. Baby Micah fussing so my son go with me with baby in his carrier. I washing my hands when I hear Lester yell. Baby carrier empty. He put carrier down at restroom door when older boy took hot dog from little boy. Boy crying so Lester go help him. Baby gone in blink of an eye.”
She rattled off the words like she’d said them often. I’m sure she had. Said them to police, family, friends, strangers. Gone over them in the dead of night and quiet of days. The last sentence didn’t sound like her. Since she’d missed the actual kidnapping, I wondered if she’d heard the phrase from her son.
When the lines deepened around her eyes, I registered how the loss still affected her. Grief hollowed her face for an instant till her jaw clenched with resolve.
“The police know who did it?” I asked.
“If they do, they not tell us.” This time I could not tell if she was bitter or resigned.
“They say kidnappers use distraction to take babies,” she continued. “The little boy know nothing. They could not find older boy. He may be part of it.”
Again this sounded like Mrs. Soto repeating something she heard. Still, that was interesting about the older boy.
“They get a description? Of the older boy?”
“My son say he were short, yeller-haired, and fat. He wore ugly black game shirt and big shoes wit’ no laces.”
Terrific description. The son was observant. Definitely not describing Tyler Hinshaw. “Game shirt?”
Her gaze drifted back to the restroom. “You know, World of Warcraft or sometin’. I don’ pay attention to such.”
Of course not.
I itched to call Bobbi to get more particulars of the case and tell her about Brett Gunnison’s connection. I felt the urgency to get online and do some research into missing baby cases. I should call my FBI brother too. He’d know even more.
But something held me to the bleachers for another moment. A brief acknowledgement and connection to her mourning. And something else.
I wanted to ask why she haunted my bedroom. I wanted to ask when she would stop. Not wanting to sound like a crazy person, I remained silent.
Moments later, I plopped down next to Ivy and Weller. I interrupted a conversation about a vaudeville lecture at a local museum by asking them to point out the highest point of the park. I figured they needed the break. Their conversation seemed lively, but vaudeville? Really?
Ivy narrowed her gaze at me, which had more impact than my teacher’s look. Weller pointed to the top of the bleachers behind them.
Since the baseball field was in a kids’ park, it was only fifteen feet high. Still, it helped. I needed the height and time to breathe. Since the appearance of egrets and Mrs. Soto in my bedroom, my world felt crowded and flat.
From here I had a good view of the restrooms. The circular walkway wound around the building with connecting sidewalks that fed into the walkway from the bleachers, the parking lot, and a residential street. Taking baby Micah down the sidewalk to the residential street made the most sense to me. Someone could have been waiting in a car there. Too many people would have spotted an escape to the parking lot and the bleachers since those sidewalks passed the snack counter.
Enough speculation. I needed to see the police report.
Thankfully the game was drawing to a close. Some missed hits. Kids pulling up clumps of grass.
I asked Ivy about lunch. I whispered it in her ear as I wanted to talk about my accident. Alone. She ruined it by asking Weller to join us.
“There’s a terrific vegetarian restaur
ant nearby. I’ve been meaning to take Pam there for ages.”
Since he seemed to be a hot dog fan, I didn’t think he’d be interested. When he said that’d be delightful, I put my foot down.
“I need to talk to you about something, Ivy.” I gave her my best desperate-begging look, but she didn’t seem to be buying it. “It’s important and can’t wait.”
“I’m sure it can wait. Take a moment, dear. Consider the big picture.”
“Consider the big picture” was her favorite motto through most of my adolescence. If I had an inkling what that meant before my accident, it’d certainly been lost since.
I sulked. Then I studied the big picture. After downing a quart of diet coke, I figured that a man of Weller’s age would need a restroom break soon. Unfortunately, he seemed to have the prostrate of a young man. I resumed the sulk.
And what was with Weller going to a plant-based café? He must be besotted to agree. Which started another train of thought. I wasn’t sure that I liked Ivy and Mitch Weller as a couple. Maybe that was a little selfish of me. Okay, maybe a lot. Also childish. But, hello? I had brain damage, delusions, and driving restrictions. I required a stable environment as I healed. Maybe Ivy had put her life on hold these past twenty months, but I’d lost my life. What was fair about that?
Breathe. Lean into the soft, cool wind. Consider the big picture.
Big picture? I looked at Haney surrounded with family? He was hugging his little league nephew, still amped up after the game. He had a good job, nice home, and close friends. What did he need with the demands of a relationship? Especially with a thorn named Stephanie.
Then poor Medy Soto. Who needed the heartbreak of losing a child? Best not to have one in the first place. Right?
Big picture? Mitch Weller would not likely stick around. Ivy was a pastor. Having a 24/7 job cut into a relationship. Most men demanded more attention than her congregation (and me) could spare.
Big picture? I pulled out my phone. I could set some things in motion now. I’d give them an hour of a nice lunch. Okay, 45 minutes should do it. I could do that. Then, really, it did have to be all about me.
I lasted through the car ride with them chatting in the front seat. Apparently, Mitch took the bus to the park so we had to transport him to the restaurant, too. I sat in the back with his scruffy ice cooler.
I lasted through the reading of a twelve page menu where every meal contained kale or tempeh. I didn’t know what that latter item was, and I wasn’t going to order it.
I lasted through Weller talking about his wife’s long illness and death six years ago. Ivy had met the woman. She took his hand and told us a story about seeing Mrs. Weller at a nursing facility, bringing flowers from her garden for the patients who never received visitors.
Turned out that I couldn’t last 25 minutes. “Ivy, do you know about Medy Soto whose grandson was kidnapped?”
Ivy looked beyond irritated which dried me up for a second. Surprisingly, Weller laughed. I liked him for that. Not enough to return to talking about his dead wife. Thankfully, he was fine with changing the subject. Good for him. The man knew when to buck up and move on.
“I talked to Medy Soto at the game today,” I began carefully. “Her grandson was kidnapped twenty months ago when the Egrets played the Tustin Tigers. Twenty months ago.” Since I don’t normally tell strangers about the accident or about the extent of my injuries, I had to talk around it.
An alert gleam in her eyes replaced the irritation.
“Does her name sound familiar to you?” I asked.
“It might.” Her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure why.”
“Any connection to other events happening then?” I meant my accident and she knew it. She knew more about it than I did. For the ridiculous reason that my psychiatrist wanted me to remember on my own.
“Not that I know.” Her hands whitened around her purse.
This time, Weller’s hand covered one of hers. “Would you like me to disappear for a minute? Looks like you two need to talk.”
They were touching each other too much. Since Weller took my side here, I let it go.
She smiled apologetically. “Give us five minutes, Mitch. Be back when the food is served.”
The café sported few customers this Saturday, and he could choose from several tables. He sat close enough to see us, but far enough not to hear us.
Still I leaned closer to Ivy. “Remember two months ago when I had a hallucination about that little kid who disappeared from his babysitter’s house? And it turned out that I’d picked it up from the news reports on the television when I was in a coma?”
She stared at me. “You had a hallucination two months ago?”
Too late, I remembered that I wasn’t telling her about my delusions as she’d tell my neurologist and psychiatrist. Then I’d lose my driver’s license, and they’d medicate me to the point of uselessness.
“Did I say hallucination?” I gave her a winsome smile. “Drat this brain damage, making me say bizarre things. I mean I kept getting this thought over and over again in my head.”
Ivy continued to stare at me, but I didn’t blink. Finally she said, “Jackson Galon. I remember.”
“While I was interviewing Weller about another missing kid case, he told me about a baby kidnapped from the Egrets' park. I met the grandmother and she seemed familiar. But I kept seeing her like in a newspaper photo. Did you read from the newspaper while I was unconscious?”
She still had an edge of suspicion in her voice. “Seeing her like in a hallucination?”
I managed a pained sigh of exasperation. “Not a hallucination. Food’s gonna be here in a minute. Just tell me.”
Her glance flicked to Weller sitting near the window, the afternoon sun lighting him like a statue of a kindly saint. He seemed absorbed in a magazine he’d plucked from a rack near him. The Vegan Forager.
“I read newspapers, books, letters from friends, whatever I’d received in the mail that day. There could have been a story about a missing baby … Wait. Was the woman holding a photograph?”
The back of my neck tingled. “Yes.”
“It wasn’t in the newspaper. A flyer that the family made. The picture of the grandmother who’d spoken at a rally. She showed a photo of the baby. One of the nurses at your hospital gave it to me.”
Her stare turned glassy, and I knew she was sitting beside my bed again, twenty months earlier. “I prayed for the baby and his family while I sat with you. I’d keep the flyer in the bedside cabinet and pull it out when I ran out of things to read.”
Our waitress arrived with the food, Weller behind her. “You all finished?”
I nodded. Ivy patted his chair with a smile.
When he sat down, he and I glanced at Ivy to make sure she wasn’t looking and then shared a look of dismay. The sweet potatoes stuffed with cashew creamed kale looked like cat puke in an old shoe.
“Doesn’t this look lovely?” Ivy exclaimed.
Weller gave me the tiniest warning look. “It sure does, Ive. Don’t you think so, Pam?”
“Yum.”
Because he would eat something that looked like cat puke in an old shoe to please my aunt, I added, “Twenty months ago I was in an accident and then in a coma for months. Because of the brain damage, I can no longer teach. However I am an excellent investigator. I think I can find out what happened to Tyler Hinshaw.”
I don’t know if it’s something they teach in law school, but Weller didn’t blink an eye. “I’d bet on any kid of Ive’s doing whatever she sets her mind to do. Pass me the Himalayan salt, please.”
CHAPTER NINE
Escape to Olympus
After Ivy dropped me off at my condo, I wove between the egrets in the living room and grabbed a bottle of cold brew coffee from the fridge. I dodged another egret to get to the dining room table and my laptop. I downloaded everything I found about Micah Soto’s kidnapping and Brett Gunnison. Lots on the latter. I tried a search on kids abducted at lacrosse
games. Couldn’t find anything. I’d have to ask Bobbi.
Which reminded me. I picked up my cell phone and steeled myself. I made the call.
I waited through a long lecture on breaking and entering. Yep, Bobbi was still steamed that I broke into the imaging center and hacked into her computer. Why couldn’t folks “consider the big picture” of such activities? I interrupted her quoting from the penal code.
“You know anything about a baby getting kidnapped from a lacrosse game? Maybe a few years ago. Maybe in Brea.”
She huffed. “I’m done doing research for you, girl. You find someone else to do your dirty work.”
“Not dirty work, Bobbi, and you know it. I said, I’m sorry. I’m doing this for the kids and their families.”
She huffed again, but with less heat. I waited.
When I hadn’t heard an angry exhalation in ten seconds, I said, “I’m also looking into the abduction of Micah Soto from a Pee Wee baseball game about twenty months ago in Placentia. The cases may be related.”
“I know about the Soto baby. I don’t remember anything about related cases.”
“The person who told me about it said Brett Gunnison had a connection to both games.”
Even through the cell, I felt her interest quicken. “Gunnison?”
“I know you have a history.” I didn’t mean in the romantic sense, but she wasn’t listening to me anyway.
“What do you need?”
Cool. I hadn’t expected her to cave that quick. I’d planned to use the Ivy card since she liked my aunt better than me, but I’d save that for the next time I needed a favor.
“A kidnapping at a lacrosse game in Orange County. Between two and five years ago. Gunnison’s son was present.”
“Got it.”
“Thanks for the info on Tyler Hinshaw. He’s connected with it too.”
“How? Connected with what?”
“Don’t exactly know. Kid was smart and a hero-in-training. He could have gotten too close and was killed because of it.” I hesitated. “If he died, it didn’t happen twenty months ago. Someone saw him last Spring.”
“Who saw him?”
Egrets, I've Had a Few (Deluded Detective Book 2) Page 6
