No One Saw

by Beverly Long

  “I was nervous to have your dad meet my daughter,” Tess confessed. “I didn’t want her to get too hopeful,” Tess added, wanting to be as honest as she could.

  Traci stared at her. “I don’t know what I hope for. For so long after the divorce, I hoped that Mom and Dad would get back together. But now, I really don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  Tess said nothing.

  “I don’t want him to be alone,” Traci said, proving that she was pretty mature. “I mean, I’m off to college next year.”

  “Right,” Tess said.

  Traci stared at her. “I should probably be going.” She gathered up her tray. “It was good to see you again, Tess. And my dad, well, he said he had a really good time in California.”

  Tess watched her walk away. Then picked up her phone and sent a quick text to A.L. Met Traci by chance at the mall. We ate together. She knows that I was in California with you.

  She pushed Send before she could rethink it. A.L. needed to know so that he didn’t get caught in a lie with his daughter. They could deal with why he’d kept it a secret at a later time. Definitely after the police had found the missing five-year-old.

  * * *

  A.L. got the text from Tess just when he and Rena were about to park in front of Kara’s house. “Fuck,” he said.

  Rena looked around quickly, as if expecting trouble. “What?” she asked.

  A.L. waved a hand. “Nothing.”

  “Tell me,” she said. “I need something to take my mind off the fact that we’re more than twelve hours into this day and not much closer to a happy ending.”

  “Tess ran into Traci at the mall,” he said.

  Rena waited. Finally she said, “And Traci told her that her butt looked fat in the dress she was trying on?”

  A.L. frowned at her. “Of course not.”

  “Then what is making you suddenly act as if your cat prefers me over you?”

  “That will never happen,” he said. Then he sighed. “I didn’t tell Traci that Tess was going to California with me. And now Tess knows that.”

  “And she’s going to wonder why?”

  “I imagine,” A.L. muttered.

  “So tell her why.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  “Not sure I understand,” Rena said.

  “Nothing to tell because I’m not sure why I didn’t tell Traci or Jacqui or anyone but you. I just didn’t.”

  “Because you don’t like people knowing your business,” Rena said.

  He hated that. “Maybe.”

  “But maybe not?” Rena said. She could always get to the heart of the issue. “Maybe there was another reason?”

  “I just said, I don’t know.”

  Rena reached for the door handle. “You should really try not to screw this up with Tess. I like her.”

  “Thank you for your counsel. Very helpful.” Tess wasn’t going to buy that he’d simply forgotten to mention it to Traci the night before they were leaving town.

  He took the moment to send a quick text back to Tess. Thanks. We’ll talk later.

  He pushed Send. There was no immediate response. He tried not to read too much into that.

  Nine

  Rena knocked on Kara’s door. When she opened it, Rena thought the woman looked tired, and her nose was sunburned. “Can we come in?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Kara said. She stepped back.

  Her house was a midsize ranch with a great room off the kitchen. Kara led them there. It smelled of lavender. Rena saw the lit candle on the fireplace mantel and figured that was the reason. “Is your husband home?” she asked.

  “Working,” Kara said. She looked at the clock. “Well, by now, close to done with work. But like I said before, he’ll stop for beers with his friends.”

  Kara Wiese was perhaps more understanding than Rena. If that was Gabe, she wouldn’t care if he had drinks with his friends occasionally, but every night after work? That seemed excessive. “Are we interrupting your dinner?”

  “Difficult to think about things like food. I just got home about an hour ago. We searched all day.”

  “I’ve shared the notes of our initial discussion with Detective Morgan, so she’s up to speed,” A.L. said. “Since that time, is there anything that you’ve thought of to add to that or perhaps modify in any way?”

  “No.”

  “I wanted to show you the sign-in sheet from near the office,” he said.

  Rena reached for her bag and pulled it out.

  “Is that your writing?” A.L. asked, pointing to the date.

  “Yes.”

  “And when did you write that?”

  “On Wednesday morning. When I got to work.”

  “When we talked earlier, you said that the first thing you did was make coffee,” A.L. reminded her.

  “I guess I did. I’m sorry. I forgot about this. It’s just something I do.”

  “Okay, thank you. Now I want to focus a bit more on reasons why you might leave your classroom,” A.L. said. “Can you walk me through those again?”

  “I leave the classroom to use the restroom.”

  “What about for lunch? Or to get lunch for the kids?”

  She shook her head. “We eat in the classroom. If we’ve brought something from home, we eat that. Otherwise, the cook delivers our lunch and the kids’ lunches at the same time.”

  They were working through lunch. Rena thought that was probably illegal, but that wasn’t her issue right now. “Any other reason that you’d leave your classroom during the day?”

  “I guess I’d also leave it if I got a text from the office indicating that I was needed there.”

  “A text?” Rena asked.

  “Yes, that’s how Alice communicates with us. She knows that we all keep our phones handy. I mean, really. Who doesn’t anymore?”

  It was the perfect segue to ask her about her phone usage. “Alice never calls your phone?” Rena asked.

  “No.”

  “But you must get other phone calls, right?” Rena asked. “Or need to make some. What happens then?”

  Kara shrugged. “I can’t speak for others but I guess I would look at the number of who was calling. If I knew it, then I might answer. If not, I’d let it roll over to voice mail.”

  That was reasonable. She did the same thing. But Kara had only answered half the question. “But what about outgoing calls?”

  “I... I don’t make that many outgoing calls. But if I did, like to my dentist or my doctor, I’d probably step out into the hallway quickly.”

  “Are you or have you recently been attempting to secure financing to buy a house?” A.L. asked.

  “What?”

  A.L. repeated the question.

  “Um...no. Why would you think that?”

  “One of your coworkers thought you might be working on securing financing.”

  She shrugged. When it didn’t appear that she was going to offer anything more, Rena said, “I’ve reviewed your phone records. A few months ago, there were numerous calls to the Baywood Bank. Can you explain who those calls were to and what the purpose was?”

  Kara smiled. “Oh, a few months ago. I’m sorry, I spaced out for a minute. I guess I’m more tired than I thought. We were considering refinancing a few months ago but got busy and dropped it.”

  Again, it made sense, thought Rena. She and Gabe had gotten a mortgage just two years ago. If refinancing was anything like financing, it could be a pain in the butt. You had to get tax returns and bank statements and your employer had to verify your employment.

  “Did you work with anyone in particular at the bank?” Rena asked.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t recall. I think I might have talked to a couple different people,” Kara added. “You know, I don’t think banks actually want you to
refinance. Otherwise they would make it easier.”

  “You are aware that Elaine Broadstreet has said that she handed Emma off to you,” A.L. said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve indicated that this could not have happened, that you were in your classroom until after 7:30, when Claire Potter arrived,” he continued.

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anyone at the day care, another teacher, a parent, a vendor, anybody that you can think of that she might have thought was you?”

  Kara appeared to be considering the information. “I’ve been teaching in the same room since I started. So there are parents of three-and four-year-olds that I don’t know. So, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can answer that question very well.”

  “No problem,” A.L. said easily.

  Kara glanced at her watch. “If there’s nothing else, I think I’d better try to catch some sleep. I’m afraid I got very little last night and with being out in the sun all day, I’m pretty much tapped out.”

  “That will do it,” A.L. said. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  “Do you think it’s too late to go see Leah?” Rena asked once they were back in their vehicle. “It’s a little past 8:30.”

  “I doubt she’s sleeping. And we told her that we’d check in every day.”

  “You’re right,” Rena said. “Let’s go.”

  When they knocked fifteen minutes later, Special Agent Monty Connell answered the door. “Detectives,” he said.

  “We need to talk to Leah,” A.L. said.

  “Anything we should know?” the agent asked.

  “Nope. Just following up on some missing info,” A.L. said.

  “Okay. Have a seat,” Monty said, motioning them towards the living room. “I’ll get her.”

  When Leah walked in alone three minutes later, he and Rena still stood in the middle of the living room. She did not greet them. Her light blue sweatpants dragged on the ground and her gray sweatshirt had a stain on the shoulder. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and was wearing no makeup with the exception of some smeared mascara under both eyes.

  A.L. figured it had probably taken just about everything she had to be clothed and upright. If he had to guess, she’d probably not eaten, either.

  “Is Troy home?” Rena asked once they were seated, him in the chair, Leah and Rena on opposite ends of the couch.

  Leah shook her head. “Searching. I wanted to go, to switch places with him. But he wouldn’t do it.”

  “Maybe he feels as if he needs to physically be doing something,” A.L. said.

  “He said...” She stopped. “He said if they find something, he doesn’t want me to have to see...it.”

  That had to have been a damn ugly conversation for them to have.

  “Hard to know, of course, whether that was the truth or not,” Leah added.

  And like before, A.L. was struck by the fact that the Whitmans did not seem to be drawing strength from one another. Hard time to be alone. “Have Troy’s parents arrived?”

  Leah shook her head. “They’ve called. Several times. Said they would come but that they didn’t want to be a bother.”

  If this had happened to him and Jacqui when Traci was five, nothing would have kept his dad or Jacqui’s parents from being there. But everybody coped differently. Neither he nor Rena said anything.

  “If you need to talk to Troy, my guess is that he’ll be home soon,” Leah said. “They won’t search too long after dark.”

  “Actually, we had a question for you. We were reviewing our notes from our initial conversation,” A.L. said. “You left the house early on Wednesday because you had a meeting in Madison. Who were you meeting?”

  Leah stared at him. “Why does that matter?”

  “Just making sure that we’ve got full information.” He was getting a bad feeling.

  “It’s very difficult for me to think about anything but Emma,” she said. “My head is swimming.”

  A.L. said nothing.

  After an awkward pause, Leah said, “I met a prospective client.”

  “What was his or her name?” Rena asked, pen in hand. “And contact number?”

  “I... I don’t have it,” Leah said.

  “But there would be someplace you could check,” Rena said, her tone still gentle. “An email setting up the meeting? With an assistant?”

  Leah turned her head and stared out the living room window. A.L. followed her gaze. The outside lights were on, making it easy to see the mums in nice-looking concrete planters. Reds. Yellows.

  A.L. and Rena exchanged a quick glance but neither spoke. Finally, Leah turned back to them. “There wasn’t any client or any meeting.”

  A.L. thought about the Whitmans’ relationship and figured Leah’s next sentence was going to be that she’d met a man. That she was having an affair.

  “What were you doing, Leah, that you needed to leave the house early?” Rena asked. Her tone was still polite but less gentle than before. It was time to cut the bullshit.

  “I drove to the Wildwind’s Casino. I...expected my mother to be there. She’s a gambler. She has a problem.”

  Neither A.L. nor Rena acknowledged that this was old news.

  “You were meeting your mother?” A.L. said. Elaine had said nothing about this.

  Leah pursed her lips. “No. I wanted to be there, in place, before my mother arrived.”

  In place. What the hell? “For what purpose?” A.L. asked, careful to keep his tone neutral.

  “Well, if you must know, I was videoing her. She has a favorite spot and I wanted...a good angle.”

  A.L. considered his next question. “What were you going to do with the video?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  She was lying. A.L. was pretty confident. “So you got up early to video your mother, without having any express purpose for the video?”

  “I don’t like how my mother spends her time and money,” Leah said. “I don’t expect you to understand. It’s hard for other people to...get it.”

  “Maybe not as hard for us as for others. We know about your mom’s criminal conviction,” Rena said. “We know that you spent some time in a foster home.”

  “I don’t like to talk about that. It was a long time ago,” Leah said.

  But not forgotten. Or forgiven? A.L. leaned forward. “So you left your house before 6:30. And you drove directly to the casino?”

  “Well, I stopped for coffee on the way. But, essentially, yes,” Leah said.

  They’d be able to verify her time of arrival. “Did you talk to your mother at the casino?” A.L. asked.

  “No. After she left, I waited another five minutes and I left. I drove straight to work. You can ask my boss about that.”

  We will, A.L. thought. But he was pretty confident that they were getting the truth this time. “Have you shared the video with anyone?” he asked.

  Again, Leah took her time in answering. “With my attorney. That same morning.”

  “I thought you said that you didn’t know what you were going to do with the video?” Rena asked.

  “I don’t. But I know that I went to a lot of trouble to get it and I wanted to make sure that there was a safe copy.”

  “You work at a law firm,” A.L. said. “Are you using an attorney from your own firm?”

  “No. I certainly don’t need anyone there knowing my business.” Leah stood up, her hands on her hips. “All of this happened before Emma. And if you don’t mind, I really don’t think it’s a good use of my time right now talking about it. My child is missing. Could we keep our focus on what’s really important?”

  Leah and Elaine were playing some kind of weird cat-and-mouse mother-daughter game. God knew that Traci could go round and round with Jacqui so
metimes. He tried never to get in the middle of their deal and he wasn’t too interested in getting sideways between Leah and Elaine, either. But there was one thing that needed to be hashed out. “You were in the room when your mom told us that she’d gone to work immediately after dropping off Emma. You knew that was a lie but you never said anything.”

  “My mother is a lot of things but one thing I know is that she loves Emma. She would never do anything to hurt her.”

  It was probably time to be blunt. “Your mom said that she handed Emma off to Kara Wiese. And then she signed in on the clipboard hanging by the office. Her signature isn’t on that paper,” he said. “So it looks as if she’s mistaken. Is it possible that she’s also mistaken about handing off Emma to Kara?”

  “No. She would never, never, not make sure that Emma was safe before leaving. I can’t explain the sign-in sheet. Maybe she didn’t do that. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I know it seems like a little detail but it’s actually a pretty big thing. If she didn’t sign it, then it’s possible that Emma wandered off. If she did, then that’s pretty much off the table because it means that somebody switched out that sheet before the next person signed in at almost nine o’clock.”

  “If she says that she did it, I believe her,” Leah said.

  Was that true or did Leah have another reason to know that Elaine wasn’t responsible for Emma’s disappearance? Because Leah was? Or maybe Troy? Maybe that was the cause of the permafrost between the two of them? It wouldn’t be the first time that one parent covered for another parent after something unfortunate had occurred. They did it because they felt as if they had to—but yet they hated the other person for putting them in that situation.

  “Leah, we’ve talked to her boss. He tells us that your mom is making mistakes that she’s never made before. Potentially costly mistakes. And you mentioned that she repeats herself. All this makes us less sure than you that everything happened the way she says it did.”

  Leah’s face was so rigid she almost looked frightening. Rena wasn’t sure she was breathing. “My mother is sharp as a tack,” Leah said. “She’s not making mistakes at work.”