The Taking of Carly Bradford

by Richards, Ramona

  Tyler felt his chest tighten. “It’s suspicious and the timing is right. But no one is at his house, and his car is gone. Until the school tracks down that address, I can’t prove he’s not. I gave his name to Rick, and he’ll see what he can find out from his end. Wayne is searching our databases here.”

  “Anybody else on Jack’s list?”

  Tyler checked his notes. “A Dr. Titlebaum, down in Boston. Apparently, they’ve feuded over patenting some surgical innovation. Jack wandered off into a lot of technical lingo that I’ll have to get in writing if we want to pursue that angle.”

  Fletcher started to speak, but Peg opened the door and looked pointedly at her son. “Sorry to interrupt, but you have at least two interviews in Portsmouth this afternoon, and you’re about to run late.”

  Tyler stood and reached for his hat. “You’re right, of course. Did you print off those directions for me?”

  She waved a piece of paper at him, and he took them, speaking to Fletcher as he headed out the door. “I’ll keep trying on Riley. There’s something there we need to pin down.”

  “Like why a teacher takes off in the middle of the school year to spend three months fishing?”

  Tyler pointed at Fletcher as he headed out the front door of the station. “Exactly! We’re getting close. I can feel it!”

  TWELVE

  With her vibrant red hair pulled back into a neatly controlled pony tail and her scrubs freshly ironed, Bethany Davidson looked as if she had just come on duty, even though she set a tray full of lunch food in front of her as she joined Dee in the hard plastic booth. Dee glanced at the sandwich and fries and idly wondered if all hospital cafeterias smelled faintly of short-order grease and soured milk.

  “Hope you don’t mind.” Bethany popped a fry into her mouth. “This is my longest break in a twelve-hour shift.”

  Dee shook her head. “Not at all. I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.”

  “About the Bradfords, right?”

  Dee opened her notebook and set the digital recorder on the table. “I’m just doing a bit of follow-up.”

  Bethany eyed the recorder momentarily, then went back to the business of cutting her sandwiches in quarters. She then used her knife to neaten the edges. “Are you a cop?”

  “A writer.”

  The nurse paused and put her knife down. “You’re writing a book about this?”

  Dee shrugged. “Maybe. Right now, I’m just doing a column encouraging people to help if they can.” A book? The thought hadn’t occurred to Dee before, and she tucked the raw seed of an idea away for consideration later.

  “Are you going to paint the Bradfords as some kind of saints like all the other reporters?”

  “I plan to tell the truth. You don’t think they’re anything special?”

  Bethany took a bite of the sandwich that was so small it didn’t even muss her lipstick, and Dee noticed that every single fingernail had the same short clip and smooth curve. Bethany chewed a moment before answering. “He’s a surgeon. He’s lucky he has any personality at all. Surgeons are notorious for their lack of bedside manner. They tend to prefer their patients unconscious.”

  “How long have you worked on an operating room team?”

  Another fry disappeared. “Almost 20 years with various doctors.” She paused, shrugged reluctantly, then took another nibble of the sandwich. “Jack Bradford is normally no better or worse than most. He’s good, not great, like some of the reports make him out to be.” She spread her fingers and made an arc through the air. “The great Dr. Bradford’s tragic loss. The press makes it sound as if the girl were already in the ground.” Dee struggled to hide her appalled reaction to the thoughtless statement as Bethany picked up her milk carton, shook it once, then opened it. She slipped a straw through the top and took a sip.

  She set the milk down, then fell silent, looking down at her tray, then up at Dee. “I don’t like him,” she said flatly, “because he let my niece die on the table. He didn’t even try to save her. He had no sympathy for us. I have none for him.”

  Dee felt as if all the air had been sucked from her lungs, and she fought for a breath. Even though Nancy and Maggie both had warned her about the complaint, to hear it so bluntly took her aback. “Are you serious?”

  Bethany nodded once, then resumed eating. “That made me a suspect until the cops realized I was in the O.R. almost all day when his girl vanished.” She waved the knife through the air. “Jack Bradford’s beloved child went ‘poof,’ and they didn’t like it that they couldn’t pin me for it.”

  “What happened to your niece?”

  “She developed appendicitis on a church retreat at a state park. She was one of the youth leaders, and had led the teens on a strenuous hike. So she just thought the pain was the aftermath of too many wild berries and too much rappelling. She went back to her apartment and took a couple of strong painkillers and went to sleep. By the time her roommate found her, she was comatose. They did emergency surgery, but her appendix had ruptured and the infection had filled her abdominal cavity. They were trying to clean her out when she went into cardiac arrest. The other surgeon wanted to take extreme lifesaving measures, but the great Dr. Bradford just gave up on her. Said the poison was too systemic to save her.” Bethany dropped her hands in her lap and stared for a moment at her food. “She died on the table.”

  Tears blurred Dee’s vision and she blinked them away. “I’m sorry. Was she your sister’s child?”

  Bethany nodded. “But I kept her a lot, so she was almost like my own.”

  “How did y’all make it through?”

  Bethany looked up again and straightened her shoulders with a deep breath. “My sister moved to Colorado to be close to family there, and I joined a grief support group here. And I’ve requested that I not be assigned to any of Dr. Bradford’s surgical teams. Sometimes that’s not possible and if I have to work with him, I try to be professional, but to say I have no love for Dr. Bradford is mild.”

  Dee’s eyebrows bunched. “Why didn’t you consider a malpractice suit?”

  “Have you ever tried to sue a doctor?” When Dee shook her head, Bethany smiled wryly. “For a suit to be successful, you have to get other doctors to agree to the malpractice. That’s not going to happen, especially with the great Jack Bradford. My sister and I filed a complaint with the AMA, but medicine in this area is a small community. No one supported us, and whatever investigation the AMA did went nowhere. Even after my sister moved, she was afraid the complaint would be held against me.”

  “No wonder the police wanted to talk to you.”

  At that, Bethany actually smiled and reached again for her sandwich. “Actually, I didn’t blame them. I certainly had the greatest motive for revenge.”

  “Why do you think Carly lodged a complaint against you in the E.R.?”

  Bethany’s eyebrows shot up. “You heard about that?” She paused, then shrugged. “The cops should hire you. I honestly don’t know what got into that child’s head. I was in Colorado at the time.” She nibbled, then swallowed. “But I’m a reasonable woman, Ms. Kelley, not a monster. I’d be the last person to take out revenge on a child. If I wanted to hurt Dr. Bradford, I’d go after him.” She sipped her milk. “Instead, when I get the angriest at him, I call my sponsor in the grief group and talk it through.” She set her sandwich down without taking a bite. “No matter what the cops think, that’s how reasonable people cope.”

  Bethany ate one more fry, then put her napkin over the food. “If Doctor Bradford goes missing, however, I might be responsible.”

  Dee looked down at her notebook, not wanting to respond.

  Bethany made a barely perceptible movement that might have been a shake of her head. “Sorry. Bad joke.” She sniffed. “You see, Ms. Kelley, I have nothing to hide in this, and the more I can do to prove that, the more I can prove that Jack Bradford isn’t the saint people think he is, and the better off we’ll all be.” She stood. “Now, if you don’t mind, I nee
d to get back to my patients.”

  Dee stood. “Not at all. Thanks again for speaking with me.” She watched Bethany walk away, then sat again, shut off the recorder, and scribbled a few notes about the conversation. As she did, she realized that Bethany Davidson had not been entirely convincing about her innocence. Her details seemed as neat and tidy as the way she ate, and for some reason, that bothered Dee. “As if,” she muttered to herself, “she’s been spending a little too much time constructing an alibi.” Then again, maybe she’s just a smart woman who knew the cops would see her as having the best motive.

  Dee glanced at her watch, then grinned. Time for lunch with Tyler, then more questions.

  As she eased out of the booth, Dee realized she was actually looking forward to the rest of the afternoon. Digging into her glove compartment, she pulled out the name of a Greek restaurant that Tyler’s detective, Wayne Vouros, had given her and Tyler, promising them it was the best Greek food outside his mother’s kitchen. She checked the address for Café Nostimo, realized it was only a couple of miles away, an easy find, even for her.

  Tyler waited for her, sitting on a bench near the front door, his arms crossed, his expression impatient. “That took longer than we thought.”

  Dee ignored him, and launched right into her questions as he opened the door for her. “Did you check the alibis of Bethany and her sister? Something is just a little too neat there, too convenient.”

  “We thought so, too. We checked them both for the day Carly disappeared as well as the day Bethany supposedly screamed at Carly in the E.R.”

  Dee paused, inhaling the welcoming scents of Greek cuisine. “This smells amazing. What do you mean ‘supposedly’?”

  Tyler headed for the counter to place the order. “What do you want to eat? ‘Supposedly’ because there was no proof that the encounter happened.” He pointed at the menu. “Wayne insists their moussaka is to die for.”

  “I think I’ll stick with a gyro plate. Why would an eight-year-old lie about such a thing?”

  Tyler shrugged. “You never made up stuff when you were eight?”

  “All the time, but I’m a writer. That’s what we do.”

  Tyler held up a finger, asking her to pause as he placed their order, then led her to a table by the windows. As they settled, he continued. “Carly is a precocious child. Willful and stubborn and very smart. Yet she’s still a kid. My guess is that she overheard something, either at home or in the hospital that day, that made her think that Bethany was an ‘enemy’ of her dad’s.” He paused, glancing out the window. “Kids don’t always understand the subtleties of adult relationships.”

  Dee nodded, her mind flashing back to Joshua’s absolute confusion and fear following one of her fights with Mickey. He didn’t understand that parents could fight and stay together. There was so much he never got to learn—

  “Where’d you go?”

  Dee snapped back to the present. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Joshua?”

  She sighed. “I just…I just want Carly to be able to grow up. I don’t want Jack and Nancy to go through what I have.”

  Tyler started to respond, but their food arrived, and they waited until the server had left. “They won’t. We’ll see to that.”

  He bowed his head for grace, and Dee watched him, a thread of pure admiration and affection for him coursing through her. Fletcher had been right; this man had a passion and drive that ran deep, even as he tried to remain calm and professional. As Fletcher had said, “Too many people mistake calmness for a lack of passion.”

  Wayne was right about the food, and they lingered over the meal, savoring the last morsels and reviewing her notes from the conversation with Bethany.

  Tyler pointed at the notebook as he took another bite of moussaka. “So basically she didn’t tell you anything we didn’t already know.” He paused, swallowing.

  “Apparently not.”

  He shook his head. “So time to talk to the pet store folks and Zach Riley.” He filled her in on what he’d discovered so far about the missing teacher.

  “Okay, that’s just weird. Why would a teacher leave two months before the end of the school year to fish in Canada?”

  He nodded. “Indeed.” He stood up. “We’re going to have to find out. But first let’s see what kind of pet store Carly likes.”

  They rode together to the pet store, a friendly looking place that faced into the western sun. The rays streamed bright and golden through the windows, and Tyler’s face almost glowed in the light as he grinned down at the cat doing figure eights around his ankles. “Patty is going to hate you,” he said to him.

  “Hope you’re not allergic.” Dee squatted down and held a hand out to the wiry Siamese. The cat investigated the offering, sniffed, then butted his head against her fingers. She rewarded him with a scratch under the chin, which made him purr.

  The young woman next to them, whose name, Gina, was stitched on the royal blue apron she wore over her jeans and oxford cloth shirt, reached down and gathered the Siamese in her arms. “Singer here is the store cat.”

  Tyler shook his head. “Definitely not allergic, although Patty might be.” At Gina’s concerned look, he explained. “Patty is my dog. She’ll spend a week being annoyed by the cat smell on me.” He laughed at the thought of the frantic dog showing her jealousy over this fraternization with another animal. “It’ll give her something to do.”

  Gina stroked Singer between his ears, then set him down, her face turning somber. “We all miss Carly. Her mother would bring her in at least once a week. We groom dogs in the back, and she’d bring Sasha in for her bath. After a few months, we started letting Carly play with the animals in the adoption room. It gave them some exercise and gave her something to do while Sasha finished.”

  Dee stood, and Tyler watched as her eyes seemed to take in every detail, her gaze flitting from Gina and the cat to the cages and stacks of food and supplies. DeWitt’s Pet Friends had the mom-and-pop feel of the pet stores of Tyler’s childhood, with its crowded wooden shelves, dark concrete floor, and the very dark and intimate fish room. Inside there, the spotless tanks shone from within, displaying gorgeous fish from around the world. DeWitt’s had escaped the coming of the big chain pet stores by maintaining personal relationships with their hometown clients, including many of the doctors at the nearby vet hospitals. The adoption room felt more like a living room than a store, despite the wall of cages filled with lonely-eyed puppies, kittens and the occasional ferret.

  “Did Carly make friends with the employees?” Dee asked.

  Gina raised her chin and eyed them a bit suspiciously. “Our employees are mostly kids working their way through school. You don’t think one of us is involved?”

  Tyler met her gaze evenly. “Not directly, but I’d like to talk to them about their interaction with Carly. Did Nancy ever leave her here alone? Did they ever notice any of the customers paying special attention to her?”

  Gina dropped her chin a bit, her defensiveness giving way to her concern about Carly. “Sometimes, her mom would leave her while she ran an errand or two up and down the street. We didn’t mind. Carly is a good kid.”

  Dee let a puppy in one of the cages explore her hand with his tongue. “Did she ever act afraid of anything? Ever say anything to you about what was going on in her life?”

  By now, Gina started to relax. “Carly’s a bright kid, quite mischievous. Her mother seems to think she’s always this sweet girlie child, but Carly could be a whip sometimes. She’d make us laugh talking about school, cutting up and showing off with something she’d read. She once told me she planned to start raising butterflies. One of the teachers at her school was going to help her with that.”

  Tyler stayed calm. “Did she ever mention anything more about that teacher? A name?”

  Gina thought for a moment. “Mr. Riley. Zach Riley.” She grinned. “Carly never said much about him, just that he wanted to help her with her butterflies.”

  “Did you ever
see her talk to anyone else, any customer for a long period of time?”

  Gina’s eyes narrowed. “A couple of times she’d talk to other kids about the animals. She mostly ignored the adults as being too boring.” She paused. “Kristy’s in the back, she might have seen something. Most of my gang is off today, but I can give you names and phone numbers, if you wish.”

  “That would be great.”

  They followed Gina into the back office. His instincts told him this would be another dead end, unless something turned up about Zach Riley. But shortly after Gina introduced them to a bright-eyed teenager, Dee’s eyes widened, and Tyler fought to remain calm.

  Sure, she knew Mr. Riley, Kristy said. She then expanded on Carly’s relationship with her butterfly-enthused teacher with a detail that chilled Tyler to the bone. Four months earlier, Zach Riley had been in the store several times with Carly alone, in the middle of the day, with neither Jack nor Nancy Bradford anywhere in sight.

  THIRTEEN

  By the time they got back to the café where Dee’s car was parked, Tyler had called the school system again about Riley’s whereabouts, then tracked down a judge to see about a search warrant for Riley’s house. Neither call had favorable results, and the last one left him beating the steering wheel with his palm.

  “Judge Compton says the sighting’s not enough probable cause for a warrant,” he said, in answer to Dee’s look of concern. “We don’t know for sure if Riley didn’t have permission from her parents. He’s a good teacher with no complaints against him. No one wants to start a witch hunt.”

  He hit the steering wheel again and Dee jumped, aware that this side of Tyler’s passion caught her off guard, as his frustration sizzled with every word.

  “Compton knows me! We grew up together. She knows I don’t do witch hunts!”

  “No, but everyone knows how driven you are to find Carly.”

  He glanced at her quickly. Then again. He let out a long breath, a bit of his usual calmness returning. “Yes. They do at that.” His fingers tightened on the wheel, and he remained lost in his own thoughts until he turned into the café parking lot. As he pulled in next to the little compact, he turned to her.