by Jordan Dane
Payton shrugged and heaved a sigh.
Let Joe handle this part, jackass! You’re in no condition to play nice.
A handful of folks in town still treated him like a celebrity, leaving him with the empty ache of knowing he never measured up. Bernice Fleming was one of those people who probably thought she meant well, but the way she expressed her sympathy, it seemed she straddled the fence between good intentions and the idle curiosity of a rumor monger gathering intel and a good head of steam. He had no time to sift through the merits of her intentions. Truth told, he preferred outright hostility, something he could deal with, like a beefy lineman hungry to humiliate a cocky young quarterback on a one-way ego trip.
“I suppose a second time doesn’t make it any easier,” Bernice went on. “How’s Susannah holding up?”
“Well, how would you—” He stopped and reigned in his attitude, then took a deep breath before he continued. “She’s doing the best she knows how.”
What the hell? Like a mother would ever get used to her daughter running away?
He knew she was fishing for the real dirt behind Nikki’s disappearance and pushing his buttons to get it, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. No one else needed to know the nightmare of his sister’s pain.
Even living in Alaska, where a guy’s idiosyncrasies were considered normal and his past was respected as private, most folks in Talkeetna went out of their way to speak their minds about him. And he’d brought the same attitude down on his sister by default. For some reason, both their lives were fair sport. And contrary to the norm, many folks had an opinion.
He’d gotten used to it, but Susannah had been an innocent bystander. She deserved better.
His own downward spiral had sucked his sister in—guilt by association—but he received the worst of it by far. To his face or behind his back, it didn’t matter. Most people openly looked upon him as a major disappointment—quite a fall from the celebrity they’d heaped on him not too long ago. Now, he was nothing more than a drunk, a brawler, and a failure. He could see it in their eyes—and his own when he looked in a mirror.
People saw what they wanted to see. He guessed he was no different.
But if Joe hadn’t come along today, he wasn’t sure how much help he’d be to Susannah. He’d worn out his welcome with the local law.
“You need to speak to Trooper Fitzgerald?” Bernice stuck to protocol with the formal title. Her question had been directed to Joe, but she kept her eyes on Payton.
“Yes, we do.” Joe nodded.
The woman glanced over her shoulder, then stood, her chair squeaking with the effort. From behind the plexiglass window, she stepped toward them and rested her elbows on the worn Formica countertop that separated the secured offices from the waiting area.
“He’s on the phone. No telling how long he’ll be.” She forced a smile. “I got some coffee brewing, fresh. Can I get you boys a cup while you wait?”
“Not for me.” Joe shook his head. “Thanks, Bernice.”
Payton did the same, mumbling a distracted reply under his breath.
“You almost missed him. He’s heading to Anchorage, but I’ll slip him a note to let him know you’re waiting. Just have a seat.”
After Bernice ducked behind a closed door, Payton glanced back toward the visitor chairs. With the adrenaline pumping through his veins, he couldn’t imagine sitting while the trooper got off the phone. His impatience had taken a firm grip.
Pacing the small room, he found his eyes unable to settle on any one thing. Flashes of Nikki’s face plagued him, along with erratic sound bites from their last conversations. He’d been so rapt in his own misery, he hadn’t spent much time with Susannah or Nikki; something else to fuel the fires of guilt.
“God, I hate this.”
Payton wasn’t sure he’d spoken aloud, but when he spotted Joe from the corner of his eye, he noticed his friend standing and watching him. Cool and rock steady as still water, Joe’s dark eyes never gave away his thoughts. Most days, Payton envied the man’s self-control. Yet there were other times he thought holding a mirror to Joe’s nose might tell him if the man actually breathed like normal people.
“Trooper Fitzgerald will see you now.” Bernice opened the door to let them come in.
By the time he and Joe walked down the hall to Fitzgerald’s office, the trooper was standing by his desk, ready to leave. He had plans to make their visit short and anything but sweet.
“Look, I gave you the courtesy of staying put until you got here, but I can’t let you come to Anchorage. This is police business, Joe. And last I looked, you weren’t on the payroll.”
Fitzgerald looked intimidating enough in the authoritative duty gear troopers wore, and he had a way of staring that cut lesser men to the bone. His practiced glare came with the job, but being tall and athletic with broad shoulders, Dan Fitzgerald had slid into his late forties with plenty of good miles left. The only signs of his age were thinning dark hair and creases around his pale blue eyes. His seasoned face gave the trooper character and allowed him to readily flip a switch between harsh and merciful at his choosing.
But Joe came from the same cut of cloth. He squared off with Fitzgerald in his own simple way.
“Don’t tell me you’d sit back and twiddle your thumbs if this happened to one of your girls, ’cause I know better.”
Payton hung back and didn’t attempt to break the tension. Eventually, the trooper caved. He showed it in his eyes first, then lowered his chin and relaxed his shoulders.
“Look, don’t make me out to be the bad guy here, Joe. I’ll call you the minute I know something. Besides, Anchorage could be a wild goose chase.”
“It’s the only lead we got, and you know it.” Joe kept his voice steady and his eyes fixed on Fitzgerald. “I ain’t asking for much. If I got a marker left with you, I need it now, Fitz. Payton and I can observe from the next room. The teacher won’t even know we’re there. And who knows? We might even shed light on what she’s tellin’ you, knowing Nikki the way we do.”
The trooper stared at Joe, letting silence do his talking until Payton broke the stalemate.
“Look, Dan, you know how it is. We gotta do something. Nikki is out there…with strangers. Susannah is afraid some outsider off the Internet has taken her only kid. She’s sick with worry.”
He stepped forward, but kept his voice low and in control.
“Please…I promise. You won’t even know I’m there. And Joe is a trained investigator. Doesn’t it make sense to have another good man on this case? It would give Susannah peace of mind, something she hasn’t had much of lately.”
The trooper tightened his jaw and glared through ice blue eyes until his stern expression softened. He let out a sigh and tapped a finger to Payton’s chest.
“I’m gonna hold you to that promise, Archer. You’re gonna follow orders. No questions asked. You hear me?” After Payton nodded, the trooper shook his head and brushed by him, muttering, “Let’s get this traveling circus on the road.”
Anchorage
The late afternoon sun struggled to make an appearance, but lost its battle to a stubborn band of clouds and a steady mist. A dull gray cast its pallor on Payton’s already sullen mood. On the drive in from Talkeetna, dark thoughts about Nikki’s whereabouts crept through his mind on a continuous loop. And the gloomy day exacerbated the feeling that he might have already lost her for good. These days, he didn’t feel like a lucky man. His old cocky self was long gone, replaced by someone he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. And worse, he craved a drink so bad he actually smelled his favorite single malt scotch. The power of suggestion triggered a need he thought he had under control—until today.
When they got to Anchorage, Fitzgerald drove to the Alaska State Troopers’ headquarters on Tudor Road. Once in the building, Fitzgerald vouched for him and Joe Tanu, saying they’d merely observe the interview with the teacher. The assigned Anchorage trooper, Clive Stalworth, narrowed his eyes and exchanged
a questioning look with his Talkeetna counterpart, but didn’t object since the missing person report had been initiated by Fitzgerald.
Stalworth informed them that the schoolteacher, Claire Hanson, had already been picked up and waited for them in Interview Room 5. The Anchorage trooper led them through a corridor to an adjoining room where he and Joe could observe through a two-way mirror. The only light came from next door, the room where the teacher sat alone.
Once he stepped into the room, Payton fixed his eyes on her, unable to look away.
Claire Hanson appeared to be a woman in her forties and was dressed in a floral skirt, white blouse, and navy blue cardigan. She wore glasses and looked unassuming with her straight dark hair pulled back in barrettes. Payton stared at her face, unsure what he had expected. Secretly, he hoped to find a subtle menace behind her eyes. It would have been easier to picture someone the troopers could badger for the truth and incarcerate if they found her guilty.
Yet even though the woman in the interview room didn’t appear to be malicious, something about her gave him a bad feeling that festered in the back of his mind.
“I’ll be conducting the initial interview, but Fitzgerald will remain here with you in case you have questions during the proceedings.” Trooper Stalworth stood by the doorway. “Can I get you any coffee before we get started?”
“No, thank you,” Joe replied, and waved a hand.
Payton shook his head, only half listening. After the trooper closed the door, he kept his eyes on the woman next door until he felt someone by his side. Fitzgerald must have been reading his mind.
“I know this schoolteacher doesn’t exactly fit the mold of a hardened criminal, but don’t worry. If she knows anything or is hidin’ somethin’, Stalworth’ll find it. And if she broke the law, it won’t matter if she’s Mother fuckin’ Teresa.”
“You always were a politically correct kind of guy, Fitz.” Joe Tanu smirked, but his expression grew more solemn as he turned toward his old friend. “We wanna thank you for doing this…regardless how it turns out.”
The last part of what Joe said struck Payton—a hard dose of reality, one he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.
In the adjoining room, Stalworth had entered and greeted the woman sitting at the table. Their words were mute until Joe turned up the volume on the speaker system. Payton listened as the trooper started the interview by identifying Claire Hanson for the session recording and confirming details of her background. With each question, the schoolteacher grew more anxious.
“I still don’t understand why you’ve brought me here. What’s this about?” she asked.
Stalworth obliged her with an answer.
“We have witnesses who’ve placed you in Talkeetna early this morning, around one, picking up a young girl named Nikki Archer. We’d like to know where she is.”
The sudden change in direction took the woman by surprise, and it showed. Claire Hanson tried to recover, but it was too late. Her body language had given her away. Stalworth had stretched the truth about the number of witnesses. And he had lied about Claire being spotted. Payton knew that in the interview process, cops sometimes embellished the facts to get results. By law, they could do this. And judging by the look on Claire Hanson’s face, the trooper’s subterfuge had gotten her attention.
“Nikki Archer?” Even though the schoolteacher stalled with a question, Payton suspected the woman knew more than she wanted to admit.
“Don’t bother to deny it. We have witnesses who will put you at River Park with the missing girl. If you cooperate and help us to find her, a judge might go easier on you.”
Panic spread across Claire Hanson’s face. “Missing girl? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That’s not how the District Attorney will see it.” The trooper glared, not giving an inch. “He tends to frown at kidnapping.”
The word kidnapping shocked her.
“Oh, my God, this can’t be happening.” She wrapped her arms across her waist and rocked in short erratic movements. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“Not if you haven’t done anything wrong, but you gotta help me out here.” Stalworth softened his tone. Switching from bad cop to good, the trooper leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. A look of sympathy replaced his stern authoritative expression.
“Look, Nikki’s mother is worried sick. We just want to get to the bottom of this and bring the girl home safely. Maybe you can help us.”
“I swear, that’s all I was doing, trying to help.” Claire Hanson began to cry. Red blotches spread across her cheeks and she swiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Oh God, I didn’t mean to…I thought I was helping.”
“Who were you trying to help, ma’am? You don’t look like the kind of woman who’d take the word of a kid without first checking with a parent.”
Payton stepped closer to the observation window, hands in his pockets. Claire Hanson hadn’t denied taking Nikki, but he still couldn’t imagine why.
“He told me about this girl, an abused kid. He never told me her name, to protect her identity, he said. But she needed help to get out of a bad situation.”
“Who is this guy you talked to?” Stalworth handed the woman a tissue from a box on a nearby shelf. “You better tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
Claire Hanson told the trooper about meeting Mark Russo in a chatroom, a support group for grieving parents. Claire had searched for solace of any kind after the death of her only daughter, Tami, in a car accident at the hands of a drunk driver. At first she only knew Mark as a member of the group. But after she’d gotten the courage to confide the depths of her grief, Mark singled her out for one-on-one chats. He’d also lost a daughter to violence, and his wife eventually divorced him when he grew so depressed that he wasn’t able to deal with his emotions. He finally found his road to recovery through a program that allowed him to reach out to others. A “no questions asked” hotline for troubled teens. Mark shared his story of healing, making her feel special that he had chosen her to confide his very personal journey.
Hearing Claire’s story gave Payton a thread of hope. As the teacher continued to tell her side, he turned to Trooper Fitzgerald and spoke in a hushed tone.
“Maybe Nikki misrepresented her situation, exaggerated her side in order to get someone to help her leave the state. She might’ve connected with Mark Russo through that teen hotline.”
Payton knew he was grasping at straws. Nikki wasn’t the type of kid who would do such a thing—to use a stranger to get what she wanted. But believing his niece was in control gave him hope that Mark Russo was legit.
“Look, I know what you’re thinking, but don’t delude yourself. I think you have to be prepared that Russo might not be his real name.” Fitzgerald prepped him for the worst. “Online predators have gotten sophisticated in how they hunt on the Internet. They’re master manipulators and find other people to do their dirty work. Makes it harder to prove their guilt in a court of law.”
Fitzgerald stared at the woman in the next room. “It’ll be up to the D.A. to decide if he’s gonna press charges against this schoolteacher, but my gut tells me Claire Hanson is a victim too.”
“What are you talking about?” Payton asked.
“We’ll check into Mark Russo, but I got a feeling we’re gonna be looking for a ghost. An online predator creates a persona and a back story that no one questions until it’s too late. And this guy can change his name and move on. Even if we track the real person down, he or she may live in a foreign country, making it nearly impossible to trace. The Internet breaks down international barriers, which can be a good thing. But in the wrong hands, it can erect walls for criminals to hide behind. If a predator is smart, the Internet is a perfect hunting ground.”
In the next room, Payton heard Claire Hanson say, “Mark had me buy a one-way ticket to Chicago for some poor girl he’d been trying to help. She lived in Alaska, he said. I didn’t say yes right away, but he eventually convinced me I wa
s her only hope. I made the reservations under my daughter’s name and used her ID, paying for it with my own money. Her flight left a little after five this morning.”
The woman glanced at her watch and shut her eyes tight, taking a deep breath before she went on.
“The girl said the man had told her what to do once the plane landed. I assumed she meant Mark, but thinking back, I guess she never mentioned a name.” The teacher wiped her eyes and sobbed, dabbing at her cheeks with the tissue Stalworth had given her. “I tried to get her to talk to me during the ride from Talkeenta, but she refused. She looked so lost, it broke my heart. And she looked so much like my…my little girl.”
“Oh my God, Chicago?” Payton looked over his shoulder at Joe. “We gotta stop that plane. When does it touch down? It’s gonna take time to get the Chicago PD involved. We gotta call now.”
Fitzgerald checked his watch, but the look in his eyes confirmed what Payton already feared. It was probably too late.
“I’ll call the airline…just in case. But don’t get your hopes up.” The trooper left the room, leaving Payton alone with his desperation.
Joe Tanu stepped closer and gripped the back of Payton’s neck. In the darkened room, his friend spoke quietly, trying to reassure him.
“We’re gonna find her.”
Payton kept his eyes on Claire Hanson, staring through the two-way mirror as he spoke.
“Nikki flew to Chicago, Joe, one of the largest cities in the U.S. and a major hub for the airlines. Hell, if the plane’s already landed, she could catch another flight anywhere.” He shook his head. “This all happened too damned fast. I don’t even know what to tell Susannah.”
“Tell her Chicago is beautiful this time of year. And that we’re not leaving Nikki in the hands of some overworked cop in downtown Chicago. No, sir.”
Payton caught the glimmer in Joe’s eyes, a hint of the cop he used to be. For his friend’s sake, he forced himself to smile.
