No One Saw

by Beverly Long

  “We’ve been happy. There’s a couple apartment buildings two blocks over that occasionally have a few lowlifes, but I know how to protect my place if it comes to that.”

  She decided to ignore that he probably was insinuating that he kept a gun on the premises.

  A cook, partially visible in the kitchen via the pass-through window, placed two baskets on the stainless-steel edge. The man turned and grabbed them. “Just last night,” he said, setting the steaming food in front of Rena, “I had two assholes that I needed to show to the door.”

  “Because?” Rena said.

  The man shook his head. “They were a couple of punks. Loud. I had some regulars in here and they were getting irritated.”

  “So these punks were strangers?” Rena asked. A.L. had returned and now stood silently next to her.

  “I hadn’t seen them before. Maybe they’re new to the apartments. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll see ’em again.”

  Strangers in the neighborhood the night before a five-year-old child went missing. “Mr. Gibacki, this is my partner Detective McKittridge. Can you tell us what these guys looked like?” she asked.

  The guy blew out a breath. “White. Skinny. Early to midthirties. Both of them had on pants that they practically had to hold up to keep them on.”

  “Hair?”

  “One brown. The other was a redhead. Had a thick head of hair. To his shoulders. I had a cousin who had that thick, coarse red hair and he hated it.”

  Rena resisted the urge to pat her own red hair but she could feel some heat creep into her face.

  Maybe the guy saw it. Maybe he realized that he’d stepped in it. “Now, you got nice red hair. Real pretty.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Not always. Her husband called her RB for short. Redhead Bedhead. “Scars? Tattoos?” she asked.

  The guy frowned at her. “They all got tattoos. Every single one of these idiots. Can’t be bothered to buy a bar of soap to clean up but they can afford some six-hundred-dollar ink. These two weren’t any different. The redhead had a whole arm full of it and the other had something but I’m not sure what. They really weren’t here all that long.”

  “I understand.” Rena picked up the baskets.

  “Didn’t happen to see what these two might have been driving?” A.L. asked.

  The man shook his head. “I watched them walk up the street until they got to the end of the block. They didn’t get into a car. I guess that’s why I thought maybe they were new to the apartments.”

  Rena smiled at the man. “Nice meeting you,” she said. “Food smells good.”

  Once she and A.L. were in the plastic booth, she looked at her partner. “What do you think?”

  “I think we eat and go find these apartment buildings. Knock on some doors.”

  Rena picked up her sandwich. Looked out the big window. “It’s pretty dark,” she said. “How long do you think they’ll search?”

  “I suspect most everyone will either self-elect to go or be sent home in a couple hours. They won’t want some tired civilian tripping over tree roots and breaking a neck. And then back at it at first light.”

  “Maybe we’ll figure out where she is before that?” Rena said.

  “Hope so. Eat up. We’ve got people to talk to.”

  “It’s after 9:00. People are going to bed.”

  “Then we’re going to wake some folks up.”

  * * *

  There were two three-story buildings. They started with the closest one. The ten-by-ten-inch window on the unlocked front door was filthy. Inside, the floor of the small lobby was covered with early fall leaves. The walls were a dirty gray and most of the graffiti was something that he wouldn’t have wanted his daughter to see. A.L. counted mailboxes. Twelve. That meant four apartments on each floor.

  There was no elevator. Just thirteen dirty steps per level. Twenty-six steps later, he knocked on Apartment 312. Waited. Knocked again. Hard enough to shake the door. Nobody answered. Maybe they worked evenings or maybe they were out for a late dinner. Or maybe they didn’t want to answer the door. But he didn’t think so. There was absolutely no noise to indicate somebody was inside. They moved on. At 310, a middle-aged woman cautiously opened the door, maybe a foot or so.

  “Detectives McKittridge and Morgan,” A.L. said. He and Rena both held their badges steady. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  The door opened wider. Behind the woman, sitting on a couch, was a teenage boy with earphones on. When he saw the badges, he took off the earphones and looked a little spooked as if he thought they might have come for his pot stash. Their couch was old and sagged in the middle. The tables were scratched but the kid’s drink was sitting on a coaster. There was a healthy-looking red mum in a pot on the windowsill.

  “May I have your names, ma’am?” Rena asked.

  “Gloria Anderson,” she said. “This is my son, Conner Anderson.”

  “Anybody else live in this apartment?”

  The woman shook her head. “I’m divorced. I...hope you’re not here about my ex,” she added, with a quick glance at her son.

  “No,” Rena said. “We’re investigating the disappearance of a five-year-old child from the Lakeside Learning Center, about two blocks over.”

  “We both got the alert on our phones,” she said.

  “Have you seen this child?” A.L. asked, holding out his cell phone.

  Gloria looked at the picture. Motioned for her son to get up off the couch and look. Both shook their heads.

  “Where were the two of you today?”

  “Working,” the woman said. “At Price Lumber. I’m a bookkeeper. Conner was in school.”

  “What school?” A.L. asked.

  The woman looked surprised at the question. It was good to get basic details from everybody. They might not run every story down but at least they had it in case it became important later.

  “Baywood High. He’s a sophomore. I dropped him off on my way to work, around 7:45. He’s a good boy, a good student.”

  “That’s great, ma’am,” A.L. said. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Four years.”

  He was more interested in newcomers. He passed his card to the woman. “If you see this child or think of anything that might be important, I’d appreciate a call.”

  “Of course.”

  “One last question,” A.L. said. “We’re interested in talking to two young men, both white, one with brown hair, the other with red hair and an arm sleeve of tattoos. Does that description ring a bell?”

  “No,” Gloria said.

  “Mom,” Conner said. “I saw those guys. A couple days ago. On the corner.”

  “Which corner?” A.L. asked.

  “The corner of Wake Street and Clayton Avenue. The bus stops there.”

  Clayton was the next street over. Wake was two blocks down. It was the closest bus stop to this area. And the really good news was that all the city buses were wired with video. “Do you recall what day and time that would have been?”

  “I think it was Monday and it was after school. So maybe 4:00, 4:30.”

  “Anybody with these two men?” Rena asked.

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I wasn’t really paying attention to them but the one guy has really red hair. He’s hard to miss.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” A.L. said. “If you happen to see these two men again, give me a call right away.”

  “I will. Did they take that little girl?” the kid asked.

  “We have no reason to believe that,” A.L. said. “But we’re talking to everybody who might have some information.”

  Both the mom and the kid nodded, but A.L. didn’t think that either of them believed what he was saying. They lived in a world where if the cops were looking for you, it wasn’t good.

  In the ten remaini
ng apartments in the first building, eight doors were answered. They heard nothing of interest from anybody and nobody had seen the two men. The most recent move-in date was a nineteen-year-old girl who’d left her parents’ house nine months earlier. They passed out cards and instructions to call if the two guys happened to show up.

  They walked outside and stood for a minute, breathing in the fresh air. A.L. took out his phone. “I’m going to have the video pulled from the city bus that runs this route. Everything from Monday through Wednesday.”

  “We should get the descriptions to the guys looking at the Perv List.”

  Otherwise known as the sexual offender registry. “Yeah,” A.L. said. “Good idea. I’ll take care of that.” He put his phone back into his pocket. “Let’s do this other building.”

  Ten of twelve doors were answered. One couple had moved in less than a month ago, but both had jobs that they’d been at on Wednesday. Nobody had seen the two men.

  “You think the kid was right?” Rena asked as they walked to their vehicle.

  “Good kid. Good student.”

  “That was according to his mom. What else is she going to say?”

  “Right now, I don’t have any reason not to believe him,” A.L. said. “What’s to be gained from him telling us that he’d seen the guys?”

  “Wanted to feel important?” Rena said, sliding in to the passenger side.

  “My money is on the kid, that he saw them. And we got Mr. Gibacki putting them near the day care the night before Emma disappears. That’s enough that they stay on the radar screen.”

  “We didn’t talk to everybody. There were a total of five doors that didn’t get answered,” Rena said.

  “I made a note. I’ll follow up with the landlord tomorrow to see if the apartments are rented. We can come back.”

  “It’s getting late,” Rena said. “Too late to be questioning more people.”

  “You’re right.” A.L. stifled a yawn. Fucking weird day. He’d had breakfast this morning with Tess in an open-air restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It had been a real nice way to start the day. Now he was ending it on a low note. A missing five-year-old.

  Adults were supposed to make sure that things like this didn’t happen to kids.

  “Go home. Get some sleep,” he said.

  “You’re not going home,” Rena accused.

  He shrugged. “I may see where they’re at with the search.”

  Rena sighed. “I’ll go with you.”

  Five

  A.L. felt as if somebody had rubbed sandpaper across his eyes. At midnight, all non-law-enforcement volunteers had been sent home. He and Rena had stayed on, ultimately covering miles before it had started to rain about three and the search had been suspended. A.L. had hit his bed around three thirty and his alarm had rung at six. A hot shower and a bucket of coffee later, he was now upright and going over his notes from the previous day. Rena was at her desk, on her phone. Her voice was low and she was turned in her chair, likely in an effort to have a little privacy in a shared office space where there was no real hope for that.

  When she hung up, he watched her face. Her jaw was tight and her face flushed with color. He didn’t ask. If she wanted to tell him, she would.

  “Coffee?” he asked, holding up his cup.

  She shook her head. Looked at the watch on her wrist. “Search team has been out for fifteen minutes.”

  Yeah, pretty much once there was adequate daylight. “Almost twenty-four hours,” he said. Way too damn long for a five-year-old to be unaccounted for.

  Now Rena was staring at her computer screen. “Confirmation that houses and vehicles of Kara Wiese, Troy and Leah Whitman, and Elaine Broadstreet have been searched. Also, the supervisor of Sam Wiese, Kara’s husband, has verified that he was at work as expected.”

  “And there was no five-year-old hidden in his employee locker?”

  Rena rolled her eyes. “I guess not. Is that where your head is going? That Kara Wiese is the one who is lying?”

  “As opposed to the grandmother? Hell, I don’t know,” A.L. said. “We need to talk with the other teachers.” Alice might have talked with all of them the day before but now they would have to wade deeper.

  “I think we should start with Claire Potter,” Rena said. “She’s in the same room as Kara Wiese.” Rena looked at her watch. “It’s pretty early. Maybe we should wait a little while.”

  “Not waiting. Who’s the other teacher?”

  “Tanya Knight. And the cook, Benita Garza.”

  “Okay. I saw Ferguson on my way in. Faster pulled him off the scene. The FBI said they could handle it. So he’s an available resource if we need him. I’d say we see if he can do those two interviews this morning. After we talk to Claire Potter, I want to go see Milo at Milo’s Motors.”

  “To verify that Elaine Broadstreet was at work yesterday?” Rena asked.

  “Yeah. I know Milo. Not well but he bowls with my dad and my uncle. He’s a good guy and I always got the impression that he ran a pretty good operation. I guess I want his read on whether Elaine could be wrong about something important. In the middle of the night, I remembered the comment Leah made about her mother repeating herself. I guess now I’m wondering if that’s an irritating habit that she’s had her whole life or maybe the woman’s age is catching up to her.”

  “She didn’t repeat herself when I talked with her. She seemed pretty with it, considering she’d just heard that her granddaughter was missing. I didn’t get the impression that she’s senile.”

  “I guess that’s what we need to ask Milo about.”

  “Leah and her mom don’t seem all that close,” Rena said.

  “Not everybody is the Morgans.” Rena’s husband’s family was downright clingy in his opinion.

  A.L.’s computer dinged. He looked at it. Studied the screen. Motioned for Rena to come have a look. Once she was behind his chair, he pointed to the information that had gotten his attention. “I ordered criminal background checks on Alice Quest, the four teachers, the cook, Troy and Leah Whitman, and Elaine Broadstreet. They all came back clean except this one.”

  “Elaine Broadstreet,” Rena read. “Felony possession of a controlled substance and child endangerment. Ninety days of jail and two years’ probation.” She kept reading. “It was almost twenty-five years ago,” she said. She picked up a pad of paper on A.L.’s desk and scribbled down the case file number. “I’ll get somebody to pull this.” She took two steps. Turned. “Does this surprise you?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “Might explain the disconnect between Leah and her mom.”

  “Yeah. That’s kind of sad. Seems like a time when they really need to be there for one another. It makes me crazy to think that...something like this can happen so fast. That a child could be...lost...just like that.”

  “All kinds of dangers in the world,” he said, “but most of the time, we’re able to keep our kids safe. You’ll be able to do that.” Last she’d shared, they’d identified a carrier. Gabe’s sperm, Rena’s eggs. Fertilized in a petri dish and implanted in another woman’s body for a hefty fee.

  “I’m not crazy about Shannon. She’s the one. That’s what I was talking to Gabe about earlier.”

  “Then why did you pick her?” A.L. asked.

  “Gabe knows her. She used to work at the same company but left a couple years ago to have her own kid.”

  “But?” A.L. said.

  “I don’t like her home life. She’s married to a loser. He’s done time in County for drug offenses. I’m not sure he has a regular job. Probably why she’s willing to do this. She needs the money.”

  “But she’s not using?” A.L. said.

  “Oh no. That’s all been verified. She’s clean. Healthy. Eager to do this.”

  “But you still don’t like it?”

  “No. But Gabe th
inks I’m being ridiculous. He knows her. He trusts her. And it makes him mad that all that isn’t enough for me.”

  “Stressful situation,” A.L. said. “You both probably need to cut each other some slack.”

  “We’re running out of time. This happens in less than three weeks.”

  “So that gives you a little time to get your head around it,” A.L. said.

  “I hope so. Because if I back out of this now, after everything we’ve gone through, I don’t think Gabe will forgive me.” She pushed her chair away from her desk. “Let’s go. We need to figure out where the hell Emma is.”

  * * *

  They found Claire Potter at her apartment. She was up and dressed in yoga pants and a T-shirt. She was an attractive black woman in her late thirties who straightened her shoulder-length hair and wore an excessive amount of bracelets that clinked together whenever she moved her arms. She was also almost six feet tall. All that told Rena that even though their names sounded a bit alike, it wasn’t likely that Elaine had gotten Claire and Kara mixed up.

  “Can you tell us about your day yesterday?” A.L. asked.

  They were sitting in Claire’s small living room. She’d offered them herbal tea but they’d both turned her down. She sat across from them, her long legs folded under her body, a cup in her hands. “It was a good day. Like most days. The kids are great. For the most part,” she said with a smile. “I’m worried about what the parents are doing for day care today. Of course, I understand that we couldn’t open. Hard to do that with police tape around the building.”

  “How long have you worked there?” A.L. asked.

  “Almost two years. That’s when I moved to Baywood. My son was starting high school and I wanted him to go to a better school.”

  “Are you married, Claire?” Rena asked.

  “Divorced. Six years.”

  “Then it’s just you and your son who live in this apartment.”

  “Me, my son and two very ugly turtles.”

  Rena smiled. “What’s your relationship with Kara Wiese?”

  “Good. She was already at the day care when I started but we’ve been teaching together since day one. She’s really good with the kids. I tower over her so I suspect we look ridiculous when we’re together but it’s always been a good match. I’m pretty sure that’s what she would say, too.”