by Beverly Long
“Absolutely not,” she said. “They both love that little girl. With all their hearts.”
A.L. glanced at Rena. When she folded up her notebook, he stood. “I think we’re done,” he said.
Elaine stood, too. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I wasn’t completely forthcoming earlier. It’s just complicated. I try not to disappoint my daughter if I don’t have to.”
It was dumb to lie to the cops but A.L. somewhat understood the circumstances. She’d been attempting to avoid a confrontation with her daughter. He wasn’t always absolutely forthcoming with Traci. For example, she knew that he’d recently been to California on vacation but didn’t know that he’d gone with Tess.
“Did you tell Milo about the conviction?” Elaine asked.
A.L. shook his head. “Nope. Didn’t see the need. If he’d done a background check on you, he’d have found the information himself.”
“If I can keep it from my son-in-law, too, that would be best.”
“You don’t think Leah has told him?” Rena asked.
“We haven’t talked about it for years but the last time we did, she said that she hadn’t. She didn’t do that for me. Like I said, it was a hard time for her. She told me that she’d put it behind her. She told me that there was nothing to be gained from dusting off the drama and giving it air.”
“We’ll attempt to keep your confidences as much as we’re able,” A.L. promised, knowing better than to ever promise absolute confidentiality. Sometimes shit happened and every scab got scratched and ripped open.
“I appreciate that. But know this, Detectives. If it helps you find my granddaughter, I don’t care if it’s the lead story in the Bulletin.”
“Right. Good evening.” He and Rena walked back to their car.
When they got inside, Rena turned to him. “Well, I definitely didn’t see any cognitive failure. As my grandmother might have said, Elaine Broadstreet is full of piss and vinegar.”
“Agree.”
“I have to admit, I was a little surprised when you asked Elaine her opinion on the Whitmans’ marriage.”
“Yeah, I know. But there’s something about her that I like.”
“She’s a felon and she lied to us.”
“There is that.” A.L. flipped through his notes. “What do you think about this Steven Hanzel and the fund-raising site?”
“Not surprised,” she said. “They might need it.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you really think that Leah hasn’t told Troy about her mother’s small transgressions and subsequent time in jail?” Rena asked.
“I don’t know. And I’m not sure of a way to ask him without tipping our hand. I guess we could ask Leah if it comes to that,” A.L. said.
“Tough on a kid to suddenly get dumped into the foster system and have to change schools,” Rena said.
Rena’s phone dinged. She picked it up. Studied it. Made that weird face she always did when something wasn’t quite right.
“What?” A.L. asked.
“We got Kara Wiese’s phone records.”
“And?”
“There’s something odd. Well, maybe odd,” Rena qualified. “I had asked them to specifically look for outreach to banks or financial institutions, based on the fact that Claire Potter thought she might be trying to buy a house.”
“Good call. Follow the money.”
“Well, there were seven calls to Baywood Bank in a two-week period about two months ago. And then nothing after that.”
“Maybe the deal fell through,” A.L. said.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“But when Claire was talking about Kara stepping out to take a telephone call, it seemed as if that was recent. Not months ago.”
“It’s time to talk to Kara Wiese again,” Rena said.
“She’s the other major player here. If we believe Elaine Broadstreet, then we can’t believe her.”
“You believe Elaine? Even after we know she lied to us once.”
“I understood her motivation to lie about where she went before work,” A.L. said. “We should be able to easily verify her arrival at the casino. Nobody walks in those doors without being on camera. Same for leaving. We know she spent the rest of the day at work. So if we can account for her time, it seems unlikely to me that she’s a bad guy here.”
“Kara Wiese was at work all day yesterday. How can she be the bad guy?” Rena asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe there are no bad guys. Maybe Emma just took off.”
“Not if Elaine is right about signing her in on the clipboard,” Rena said.
“Devil is always in the details,” A.L. said.
“It’s been almost thirty-four hours,” Rena said. “A long time for a five-year-old to be wandering about undetected. She’d be hungry, cold, missing her mom and dad.”
A.L. didn’t answer. There were no answers. “I’ll ask Ferguson to help with verifying Elaine’s time at the casino. Now, let’s go see Kara Wiese.”
“Want me to call first?” Rena asked.
“Nope. We’ll take our chances that she’s home.”
She put her hand on the door handle. “You know, if we believe Elaine and we also believe Kara, and we don’t think Emma simply wandered off, somebody who was inside the day care took Emma.”
“A stranger? Are we back to crime of opportunity? Stranger walks into a day care, the office is unmanned because Alice is covering a classroom, and sees an opportunity to abscond with a child?”
“Would a stranger be detected?” Rena asked.
“Not necessarily. The teachers are all in classrooms. The cook has yet to arrive. Parents are coming and going but not everybody knows everybody else.”
“Or was it a parent, somebody who had a good reason to be there, a reason nobody would question. They drop off their own kid and then wait for the opportunity to take Emma. Or maybe any child would have done?”
“That scenario makes me want to lose my lunch,” A.L. admitted. “But it doesn’t seem too likely given that Elaine is so confident that she handed Emma off to Kara. If not Kara, it had to be somebody who looked an awful lot like Kara.” He paused. “You know my uncle Joe and my dad look an awful lot like one another. People still get them mixed up.”
“You think Kara Wiese’s sister was there?”
“Her sister, her mother. An aunt possibly. I think we need to figure out if any of those people exist and are in the area,” A.L. said.
“We could simply ask Kara,” Rena said.
“I don’t think so. Let’s do this on the QT. Alice included her Social Security number in the information she provided to us on each staff member. That should be enough.”
“I’ll get it in play,” Rena said.
* * *
On the way to talk to Kara, Rena’s phone rang. “Detective Morgan,” she answered.
“This is Michael Purifoy, returning your message.”
“Thank you for calling, Mr. Purifoy.” Rena dug into her bag and pulled out her copy of the sign-in sheet for Kara Wiese’s room. Then put the phone on Speaker so that A.L. could hear. “Mr. Purifoy, I want to talk to you about yesterday morning at Lakeside Learning Center. I’ve reviewed the sign-in sheet and you signed your son Jake in at 7:18. Is that correct?”
“That sounds right.”
“Do you recall, Mr. Purifoy, if there was a teacher in the room?”
“Kara was there.”
“You’re absolutely confident of that?” Rena asked.
“She’s a baseball fan and we talked about the Brewers’ chances to make the playoffs. Yeah, she was there.”
“Thank you, Mr. Purifoy. I appreciate you calling me back.”
“No problem, Detective. Goodbye.”
“Well, that’s that,” Rena said, putting her phone down on the console.
/> “Good to know before we got to Kara’s,” A.L. said.
“Again, you sound almost positive. It’s starting to scare me,” Rena said. “Like you’ve made a pledge to look for the silver lining.”
“I don’t make pledges.”
“We’re almost going past the learning center. Even though they are closed, I have a feeling that Alice is probably there. I’d like to talk to her about the phone call from Brenda Owen. That would have been a pretty startling call to get.”
“Okay.” Five minutes later, they pulled up in front of the day care. The police tape from the previous evening was gone. Earlier that day, he and Rena had gotten a text that they were moving the command center for the search team to the city park that was three blocks away. That would allow this neighborhood to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
They found the woman in her office. “How’s it going?” Rena asked.
“Any news?” Alice asked immediately.
Rena shook her head. “Nobody is giving up.”
“I heard there were still many, many people searching,” Alice said.
“Yeah.” Rena had heard hundreds. There were feet on the street, both human and canine, and there were drones in the sky. A hotline had been established and publicized. So far, there had been six calls about possible sightings. Each had been meticulously followed up on by other officers. Each had been disappointing. “We thought you might be here.”
“Yeah. Just felt right. Plus I’m fielding lots of calls from parents. I did send everyone a message that we would reopen tomorrow. I think that was good news. I... I guess I hope it was good news. Parents are scared.”
Rena wasn’t sure what to say. Of course the focus had to be on Emma and the whole Whitman family but there was no doubt that this put Alice and the Lakeside Learning Center in a bad spot. Bad enough that they might not recover if one considered Brenda Owen’s experience. Maybe parents were right now trying to find other childcare arrangements and enrollment would rapidly decline over the next couple weeks until the center ultimately closed.
It was a minute concern in comparison to a missing child but still, she understood Alice’s concern. But Alice wasn’t without blame. They’d be in a significantly better position if she’d had cameras around the place.
“We spoke to Brenda Owen today,” Rena said.
Alice’s head jerked. “You were in Dover?”
“Yes.”
“It was good of her to call,” Alice said.
“Did you know about Corrine Antler before Brenda called?” A.L. asked.
“Why would I have?” Alice said.
“Not familiar with Dover?” Rena asked.
Alice shook her head. “No,” she said. Her phone rang. She glanced at the number. “I’m sorry but I really should take this.”
“No problem,” A.L. said. “We were on our way somewhere else and just thought we’d stop by.”
* * *
Tess Lyons wandered around the mall food court, unable to make up her mind. Pizza? Thai? Steak sandwich? Tacos?
Finally, after two trips around the half circle of options, shredded chicken tacos and chips and guacamole were crowned the winners. She carried her tray in her right hand. With each step, her shopping bag that hung off the same arm, awkwardly bumped into her leg.
It really had been easier with two arms and two hands.
Soon, she thought as she slid her tray down onto a table and took a seat. She’d had her third appointment and her prosthetic arm was in development, as the lab liked to say. Her daughter, Marnee, had teased her about the process, saying that this was the first thing she’d come across that couldn’t be ordered on Amazon and delivered the next day. A.L. had volunteered to come to every appointment but she’d declined. It was just something she had to do. On her own.
It would be unique to her needs, her hopes for functionality, her desire for aesthetics. “It’s okay to want it to look good,” her prosthetist had said.
Looking good was relative, Tess knew.
She likely wasn’t as concerned about that now as she had been. Time had a way of helping one deal with things. It offered a chance to develop perspective. She could have died on the beach that day. But, instead, had been offered a chance to have a life.
Different.
But no worse.
A.L. had said it didn’t matter to him if she pursued a prosthetic. She believed him. Which mattered a great deal more than she would have admitted to anyone. He wasn’t a guy to wax poetic about a relationship but she knew, one look into his eyes told her, that he really did believe she was beautiful.
They’d had fun in California. Had slept late and eaten long lunches and had cocktails on the deck at sunset. He’d stood shoulder to shoulder with her as she stared out into the ocean and later had held her one hand tightly in his own as they’d strolled at the water’s edge, the surf gently lapping at their bare feet.
He’d looked really good with a tan. And the rest had seemed to do him good. Had smoothed out the lines around his eyes, lightened the dark circles that settled in when he worked too hard. He hadn’t shaved for a week and she’d teased him about the gray that showed in the short whiskers.
He’d seemed unconcerned. She liked that.
She bit into her first taco and chewed. Was halfway done with it when, at first, she thought that thinking about A.L. was making her see things. But then she took a second look and was confident that she was right. It was A.L.’s teenage daughter across the way. Even though she had only met Traci once, she was confident it was her. The girl’s hair was dark like A.L.’s and she wore it long, well past her shoulders. She had A.L.’s eyes and what Tess assumed was her mother’s nose.
Traci had just picked up a plate of Thai food and was scanning the food court, looking for a spot. Tess put down her taco and waved. Traci hesitated, then waved back. Tess figured that would be it. She was surprised when the young girl headed her way.
“Hi, Traci,” she said, when the girl was still five feet away.
“How’s it going, Tess?”
“Good. I need new shoes and I’m a sucker for a food court,” she said. She glanced at Traci’s plate. “That was a runner-up.”
“I’m going to get a piece of pizza if I’m still hungry after this,” Traci said.
Tess smiled. “My daughter, Marnee, is just four years older than you and her appetite pretty much rules her daily life. Are you here with friends?” she asked.
“Nope. Just me. Mom had a meeting tonight so she said I should grab something when I was out.” Traci continued to stand by the table, tray in hand.
“Would you...like to join me?” Tess asked.
“Sure,” she said, without hesitation. Traci pulled out her chair and sat. She unwrapped her plastic silverware and started eating.
“Senior year, right?” Tess asked. The one and only time she’d met Traci had been at A.L.’s apartment this summer. The two of them had cooked out burgers and he’d invited Traci to join them for dinner. He’d done a good job of prepping his daughter in advance as there had been no awkward questions that night about her amputated arm. No odd looks. Just some simple conversation about Traci’s waitressing job at Pancake Magic and the rock concert that she’d been to in Madison.
“You look really tan,” Traci said.
Tess smiled. “I got some good sun in California.”
Traci put down her fork. “When were you in California?”
Tess got a bad feeling. But she was in it with both feet now. “Just a few days ago.”
“You were with my dad?”
“Yes.” Tess pushed her tray aside, leaving half of her guacamole dip.
“I didn’t know that,” Traci said.
Which was weird, in that Tess knew A.L. and Traci had had dinner the night before the two of them had left for their trip. Why the hell hadn�
�t A.L. simply told her the truth?
Dark thoughts, which she perhaps might not have immediately jumped to before the loss of her lower left arm, popped into her head. Was A.L. ashamed of her? Did he not want others to know that he was attracted to her?
Was he simply an asshole?
No. She immediately dismissed that one. A.L. was sometimes short, borderline rude, many times preoccupied with work, but he was not put off by her arm or lack thereof. And he was not the kind of guy who frankly cared what anybody else thought.
Except perhaps his daughter.
“Does that bother you, Traci? That I was in California with your dad?” She wasn’t going to dance around it.
Traci shook her head. “No. But I was worried about him being out there by himself. That he’d slip on a rock and go over a cliff or something. I guess it pisses me off that he didn’t tell me the truth.”
“I think your dad would rather cut off his arm before upsetting you. I’m sure he had his reasons.”
Traci picked up her fork. Took two bites. “Do you like him?”
Maybe she should stick to a one word answer. YES. But that seemed inadequate. “You know your dad and I met in unusual circumstances.” She’d been the target of a serial killer who had come really close to successfully snuffing out her lights for good.
“And I’ve had some things to deal with,” Tess added, glancing at her arm that ended two inches below her elbow.
“Uh-huh,” Traci said.
Tess heard, Yeah, great. But you didn’t answer my question.
“It’s good,” Tess said. “Right now, it’s very good.”
“Right now?” Traci repeated. “You’re thinking this is short-term?”
“You really are your father’s daughter,” Tess said. She hoped it wasn’t a summer fling but those were conversations that hadn’t yet taken place. “It’s just early in the relationship,” she hedged.
“He hasn’t really dated much since he and Mom got divorced. When he did, I certainly never met any of them. I guess I was surprised this summer when he had the barbecue. He told me about your accident. I think he wanted to make sure that I didn’t stare. I guess that’s when I first thought that this might be something different.”
