Every Waking Hour

by Joanna Schaffhausen

  “We’re sightseeing today,” he replied, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with one hand. He didn’t mention it would be in Philadelphia.

  “That doesn’t explain why I saw our daughter at a crime scene.”

  “It wasn’t a crime scene. It was a family home with a dozen law enforcement officers crawling all over it. Statistically, Tula was probably safer than she’s ever been in her life.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit.”

  “She was fine, Sarit. She had some cookies and played with a dog while I had a conversation.”

  “You’re working, then?”

  “It was just a quick conversation,” he replied.

  “Oh my God, you are. You just can’t stop, can you? Not even when you’re on vacation. Not even when you’re supposed to be caring for your daughter.”

  “I am caring for her.” Reed glanced at the bed where Tula slept, limbs akimbo amid the chaos of sheets and blankets. “Just because my version doesn’t precisely match yours doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Tula is safe and happy and you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that she has two parents. You don’t outrank me, Sarit.”

  “That’s not what the custody arrangement says.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “More like a promise. To our child, Reed, that I will always put her first, whatever it takes.”

  “Daddy?” Tula stirred, her hair stuck to one side of her face as she blinked at him in the half-light.

  “I’ve got to go,” he told Sarit. “Tula’s awake and I have to send her out to panhandle for our breakfast.” He hung up before she could register her outrage.

  “What’s ‘panhandle’?” Tula asked, bouncing from her bed to his.

  “It means we’re having breakfast on a train. Let’s get ready.”

  They took the Acela speed rail train from Boston to Philadelphia. Tula had never ridden anything more than a kiddie train before, and she was entranced by the East Coast scenery rushing past. “Wait till I tell Ashley the train has a bathroom, too,” she said to Reed as she stuffed part of a blueberry muffin into her face. “And a restaurant!” Reed smiled at her enthusiasm.

  He gave Tula the tablet computer to use for drawing while he called up the Boston branch of the FBI to let them know he was crashing their case. Fortunately, the local guy assigned was someone he knew, Jeff Zuckerman. “You know we’d love your help,” Jeff said when Reed reached him. “This one is seven kinds of weird so far.”

  “It doesn’t follow any of the usual patterns,” Reed agreed. Out of all the kinds of kidnapping, Chloe’s abduction seemed to most closely parallel those with political motivations. The point wasn’t to get money or to sexually abuse the victim but to force attention to a particular cause. However, the kidnappers were willing to harm the abductees to make a point or exact revenge against whatever entity they felt had wronged them. In this case, that seemed to be Teresa Lockhart. “I’m en route to Philadelphia at the moment. I plan to talk to Ethan Stone, Teresa’s first husband. I’d like to go by the Stone house as well.”

  “You think the cases are related? We’re talking two different geographic areas, one abduction versus a double homicide. I know the mother is a common element here, but she seems to be the only one.”

  “Yet she’s the focus, or so it seems. I’m not saying the cases are definitely connected, but there are a few aspects that do concern me. First, did you notice the date? We are coming up on the fifteenth anniversary of the Stone incident in just a few weeks. Second, Trevor was twelve, the same age as Chloe. There are certain offenders who are attracted to a particular age group rather than one sex or the other. Finally, Ethan Stone was in the Boston area the past few days attending an economics conference at MIT.”

  Reed glanced at Tula, careful to keep the lurid details out of her earshot. She had headphones on, listening to music as she used her finger to draw rainbows on the tablet, but he never knew what she might pick up, as Sarit was going to discover regarding her supersecret move to Houston. “There is a case I know of,” he said to Zuckerman, “in which a heavily pregnant woman was murdered in her home—stabbed by someone furious with her, it would seem. But she was well liked by everyone the investigators questioned. She had been divorced for more than ten years from her ex-husband and her new marriage reportedly was in good shape.”

  “Yeah, and?” Zuckerman said with a hint of impatience.

  “The ex-husband was eventually arrested for the attack. He and the victim had shared a child together, a boy who died in a car accident five years earlier. The victim was behind the wheel at the time. Her new pregnancy five years after the fact triggered something in the ex-husband. He felt like she was replacing their son with a new baby.”

  “So you think … what? Stone went nutso because Chloe Lockhart reached the same age as his kid when he was murdered?”

  “I’m just saying I want to talk to him.”

  “Okay, I agree he’s a loose end that needs to be tied up. Let me know what you find out.”

  The train rolled into the 30th Street Station shortly before noon, and Kimmy met them in the vast lobby with its travertine façade. Tula tilted her head all the way back to exclaim over the high coffered ceiling, which was painted red and gold. “Like a castle!” she enthused.

  Kimmy, in her designer sunglasses, aquamarine sundress, and matching heels, looked like she could be an extra in any one of the movies that had filmed in the stylish station. “Thanks so much for doing this,” Reed said as he embraced his sister. “I owe you one.”

  “You owe me about three million by now,” she retorted without rancor. “I’ll forgive you because you come with this amazing girl right here. Hey there, sunshine. Are you up for some lunch?”

  “She ate on the train.”

  “I’m starving,” Tula replied with real feeling, and Kimmy laughed as she took her hand.

  “Me, too. Say bye to Daddy and let’s hit the market.”

  “I’ll text you to meet up,” Reed called, and Kimmy waved without a backward glance. He purchased a caprese sandwich for himself and wolfed it down while waiting for his ride share to show up. The driver was an affable white-whiskered man about sixty-five years old, round at the middle and with a lead foot on the gas. He recognized the Chestnut Hill address that Reed had entered when he summoned the car. “You’re not the first person I drove out there. But the new owners, they don’t let people on the property,” he cautioned as he lurched them through city traffic. “There’s a fence and security cameras up now. Too many lookie-loos coming by every time the story was on TV again.”

  “Does it get a lot of coverage?”

  “Not so much these days. A few years ago, these guys did a podcast about it. Went on for weeks and got tons of attention. That’s when we started seeing lots of folks showing up, wanting to see the house where that boy died. Pretty damn ghoulish if you ask me.” He gave Reed a reproachful look in the rearview mirror.

  “It is,” Reed agreed. He had run across the podcast in his internet searches. The hosts’ theory was that Trevor and Carol had been murdered by a man who was later found to have killed four people over a ten-year period, one of whom was a girl just a few years older than Trevor Stone. He had briefly been part of a landscaping crew that worked on a house several doors down from the Stones’ place.

  As they reached the Chestnut Hill region of the city, Reed recognized it as similar to the neighborhood where he grew up in Virginia. Formidable brick estate houses, dating back to the late 1800s, sat well back from the street and a good distance apart from one another considering they were still within city limits. A canopy of thick trees as least as old as the houses lined the road on either side. The front lawns were meticulously maintained with carpets of lush grass and blooming summer flowers. One of the multistory brick mansions strongly resembled the house from the movie Home Alone, except it had a spiked iron fence in front. The driver pulled to a stop in front of it. “Here you are,” he said. “Enjoy.” Reed noticed he
didn’t even glance at the place as he let Reed out and sped away.

  Reed took a stroll down the street and back. He noticed the quiet more than anything. Not a single car passed him. Not one other person appeared from anywhere. It was the middle of a workday, yes, but the effect was rather like an expensive ghost town. Only the eerie sensation of distant eyes on him as he walked gave any indication there might be someone watching. As he walked back to the old Stone house, he considered how an unusual car or pedestrian would be instantly out of place on this desolate street. Well off the main roads of the city, it was a destination unto itself. No one without a good reason to be here would ever cross its path.

  He approached the intercom system at the locked gate and pressed the button. When no one replied, he hit it again. Eventually, an irritated male voice came through the transom: “Yes?”

  “Hello,” Reed said as he pulled out his FBI credentials and showed them to the camera. “My name is Reed Markham, and I’m an agent with the FBI. I’m in the middle of an active investigation and I wondered if I could talk to you for a few moments.”

  “Investigating what?”

  Oh, come now, Reed thought. You must know. A hundred amateurs have already shown up at your door. “The murders of Trevor Stone and Carol Frick.”

  “We’ve got no part in that.”

  “I understand, sir. I just wanted to take a quick look around the property.”

  “This is not just my home; it’s where I work. I’m at work now.”

  “I completely understand, and I am sorry for this intrusion. But I am also at work, and there are lives on the line here. If that isn’t sufficient motivation for you, perhaps you can try this for size: if I can solve these murders, folks will quit coming around bothering you all the time.”

  “Solve them,” the man replied with surprise. “After all these years?”

  Reed felt the weight of his skepticism, but he answered with a quick nod. “I certainly aim to try,” he said to the lens of the camera. A moment later, the gate clicked open. Reed was met at the front door by a tall African-American man. He wore a button-down shirt and tie but khaki shorts and sandals. “Amos Duncan,” he said, shaking Reed’s hand. “Please forgive my appearance. I had to videoconference into a meeting this morning.”

  “Please forgive my dropping by like this. I’m only in town for today.”

  “You have a hot new lead or something?”

  “Or something,” Reed replied grimly. “You may have heard on the news that Teresa Lockhart’s daughter has been kidnapped.”

  “I did see a headline like that. Poor woman.” He scratched the back of his head. “But, uh, do you really think it’s the same guy who did it?”

  “We’re investigating all angles,” Reed said, looking around him at the spacious entryway. The upstairs crossway from one end of the house to the other must be the place where Carol was overthrown. That would put her dead roughly where Reed stood on the checkerboard marble floor.

  Mr. Duncan could read his thinking. “Yeah, that’s where she fell, or so I hear. My wife and I didn’t live in Philly at the time, but people have been happy to fill us in on all the details, whether we want to hear them or not.”

  “Did you know the history when you bought the place?”

  “Of course. That’s how we got it for a steal.” He shrugged. “Tamara and I don’t believe in ghosts, and our kids are grown and gone. Her sister down in Florida won’t come visit, though. Says the place has bad juju, especially since they never caught the guy who did it. I’ve got to tell you, I figured at this point you never would.”

  “Never is a long time.” Reed’s mother’s case went unsolved for more than forty years before he’d cracked it last spring. “Would you mind showing me to the room that was Trevor Stone’s?”

  “We use it as a guest room now. It’s this way.” He extended his hand to invite Reed to climb the steps. Reed ran his hand along the smooth, sturdy railing. He followed his host to the left; he noted that the positioning of the room was not unlike Chloe’s in the Lockhart home. He paused at the spot where Carol Frick would have been thrown over and peered down below. The drop was probably about twenty-five feet. He patted the banister, which came up past his hip. “They say she died protecting the kid,” Mr. Duncan said, reading his thoughts. “Tragic.”

  Reed tried to envision it. Had Carol pursued the intruder up the stairs as they tried to get to Trevor’s room? Or did she encounter them on their way out, the deed already done? This of course presupposed that Trevor was the intended victim. The podcast that pushed the gardener as the perpetrator also believed that Carol was the target. Trevor was killed ostensibly because he would have recognized the man from the neighborhood. But Carol wasn’t supposed to be there that day, Reed told himself. Possibly someone saw her come inside.

  He followed Mr. Duncan deeper into the house while his mind worked to try to make the pieces fit. Trevor murdered and Chloe abducted. If there was a connection, who would want to target these children? “Here it is,” Mr. Duncan said, swinging open a wooden door to reveal a sunny bedroom painted cheery yellow with white trim. A patchwork quilt decorated the queen-sized bed, and a vase full of daisies sat on the nightstand. Reed touched one and found it to be a realistic fake. The air smelled pleasant but stale, as though the door hadn’t been opened in some time. He looked out the window into the big backyard. “Did you add the fence back there as well?” he asked.

  “No, the privacy fence came with the home.”

  The fence and the bushes would give cover for anyone coming or going from the home from the south side. He knew from the police reports that the back door was unlocked at the time of the homicides, a usual habit for the Stones. “Could I please see the back door?” he asked.

  Mr. Duncan obligingly showed him through a sprawling kitchen to the mudroom at the back of the house. “We keep it locked,” he said pointedly. “I don’t think that maniac is going to come back here, but why take chances?”

  “Have you had any trouble at all? You or the neighbors?”

  “Outside of the kooks with a murder fetish trying to climb my fence, it’s pretty quiet down this way. It’s the reason we bought the place.”

  “No burglaries? Break-ins? Nothing unusual at all?”

  “No.” He paused. “Well, unless you count the gun.”

  Reed’s eyebrows shot up. “The gun,” he repeated.

  “Come out this way,” Mr. Duncan said as he opened the door. He led Reed across a stone patio and down a garden path to a wooden shed near the back of the property. “There was a shed here when we moved in, but it was in poor condition. We had it torn down and replaced. During the work, the crew found a gun that had been buried in a coffee can under the ground.”

  “I don’t suppose you know what kind of gun it was.”

  “I suppose I do,” he replied with satisfaction. “It was a Beretta 92.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I called up Ethan Stone and asked him if he wanted it back. He said it didn’t belong to him. I said what do you want me to do with it then, and he said to turn it over to the police. So, that’s what I did.” He shrugged. “They didn’t seem too interested. Trevor and that housekeeper, neither one of them got shot, you know? The sergeant who took it from me said people find guns in weird places all the time. I didn’t think anything more of it.” He peered at Reed intently. “Why? Do you think it’s important?”

  “I don’t know right now what’s important. That’s why I’m here, to collect as much information as I can.”

  “Well,” Mr. Duncan said with a deep breath. “I wish you luck, but these walls here don’t talk.” He turned and shaded his eyes, looking up at the hulking brick mansion. “Imagine the stories she’d have to tell if she could.”

  15

  Reed took another car to Penn’s Department of Economics. He quirked a half smile when he saw the building—tall, concrete gray with small windows, rather like a prison—compared to the modern
glass political science home base right next door. He’d booked a two o’clock appointment with Ethan Stone, but he stopped in the main office to check in and determine where Stone was located. The office manager, a pleasant-faced woman with tight gray curls, was duly impressed by a visit from the FBI. Her nameplate read: NANCY POTTS. “Professor Stone isn’t in any trouble?” she asked with a tiny frown from behind the counter.

  “No, ma’am, not that I’m aware of, in any case.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “I didn’t think so. He’s the nicest man. Brings me flowers on Secretary’s Day and pralines for my birthday.” She leaned toward Reed confidentially. “They aren’t all like that, you know. Some people think I’m just like those file cabinets over there—yank open and rustle around for what you need, then slam ’em shut again without so much as a by-your-leave.”

  Reed smiled at her old-fashioned idiom, which reminded him of his mother. “Have you known Ethan Stone a long time, then?”

  “I was here before he was. Let’s see, he came on about twenty-two years ago now. Gosh, the time really does fly.” She took out a Baggie filled with baby carrots and began crunching her way through them. “Would you like some?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I don’t blame you,” she said, eyeing the bag with disgust.

  “You knew Professor Stone before his son was killed, then,” Reed said.

  “Oh, dear, yes. That poor sweet boy. We were all just brokenhearted when we heard about it. What a completely terrifying thing to happen, having someone come into your home and murder your child. Professor Stone hasn’t been the same since, really.”

  “What do you mean, he’s not the same?”

  “Oh, you know. He’s quieter. There’s a sadness to him. Sometimes I walk past his office and catch him looking at the picture of Trevor that he keeps on his bookshelf in there. It’s not fair how bad things happen to good people. Professor Stone, he’s had more than his share of bad luck.”