Lost Innocents (20 page)

“It’s just an idea, sir,” said Len, pleased at the chief’s receptiveness to his suggestion.

“Go out and call Pete in here, and Rocky Belmont,” said the chief.

Len snapped to attention, all but saluted, and went briskly around the station, informing Detective Millard and Officer Belmont that the chief wished to see them. Pete and Rocky exchanged a glance and followed Len Wickes back to Chief Cameron’s office.

As they walked in, Frank Cameron lifted the report in his hand and waved it at them. He didn’t even offer them a seat. “Gentlemen,” he said, “the coroner’s report. No evidence of sexual assault on Rebecca Starnes.”

Pete and Rocky both murmured their surprise.

“Now,” said Frank, “as Officer Wickes here was quick to point out, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a failed assault.” Len beamed.

“We all know these perverts are most enraged when they fail. However, this victim seemed to have been dispatched without a lot of extra violence. No mutilation. It wasn’t as if she was stabbed forty times or something. No, while we have to consider every possibility, we also have to deal with the facts that we have. And the facts we have indicate that it wasn’t a sex crime. So if it wasn’t a sex crime, then it must have been about the baby. But there’s been no ransom demand. Thus, it might mean that someone wanted the baby for themselves. Who wants babies for themselves?”

“Women,” Pete said emphatically.

Frank Cameron nodded. “So we could be looking for a woman, couldn’t we?”

Len Wickes raised one finger and wagged it, seeking the chief’s attention. Frank Cameron nodded in his direction.

“But you can’t rule out the possibility of the black market, sir,” said Len. “There’s a huge demand for little white babies out there, sir. You don’t need to ask for ransom to profit from a kidnapping these days. All you need to do is find a willing buyer.”

“He’s right about that,” Rocky Belmont agreed.

Frank Cameron looked skeptically at the young officer. This was the early bird who caught the worm. This was the kind of guy who lived for his work. Right now he was raw and inexperienced, but you couldn’t fault his eagerness. Frank remembered when he was eager like that, and every case was an exciting challenge. Maybe someday Len Wickes would inherit this job from him. The thought didn’t bother Frank. Actually, today it seemed as if it would almost be a relief.

“It’s a possibility to be considered,” admitted Frank. “It could be a total stranger to the area. It could be a group of guys with masks and a getaway car and a pipeline to unscrupulous lawyers with wealthy clients. Let’s be honest. We need to tap into national agencies, the FBI files, for that kind of information. Have we come up with any correlations so far?”

Pete shook his head. “We’re plugged in to the computers for all the national agencies. But up till now our information has been too vague—we haven’t had any specific characteristics of the crime to feed them. This autopsy report will help. Now we can narrow down the database and key it in to similar cases—murdered caretaker, abducted child. It’s a lot more specific now.”

“That’s good,” said Frank. He didn’t know too much about computers, but he was properly respectful of the results they could produce. Meanwhile he felt more comfortable in the realm of old-fashioned police work. “Let’s work the local angle. How about this idea of the woman. Now what kind of woman takes a baby? We’ve got a woman who probably can’t get pregnant or her baby died and she’s not really operating on all her burners, if you get my drift. Maybe she’s tried to adopt and hasn’t had any luck. Whatever. Pete, I want you to get on the adoption agencies. Rocky, check up on recent deaths of babies in the area.”

“I’ve already got calls out for that information,” said Pete.

“Good,” said the chief. “Do I need to tell you guys that we are dealing with a very touchy subject here? We need to get this information, but let’s try not to step on any toes while we’re at it.”

The detectives nodded.

Len felt his heart sinking as his ideas seemed relegated to obscurity. “What do you want me to do, sir?”

At that moment Delilah Jones knocked on the open door. “Chief,” she said, “it’s time for a press briefing.”

Frank exhaled noisily. “Shit. I hate this. I’ve got nothing to tell them, and I have to pretend we’re making progress.”

“Sir?” asked Len Wickes.

“Man the phones, Wickes. Until further notice. Pete, Rocky, come with me.”

Len looked stricken. “Answer the phones?” he asked. He could hardly believe his ears. There was a kidnapping and a murder investigation going on.

“You heard me,” Frank snapped, striding past him toward the door. He nearly knocked over Delilah Jones as he passed by her. She glanced at Len and shrugged.

Len prowled around the station house. Every cop in town was out gathering information, and he was stuck answering the phone. As if to mock his misery, the phone rang on Pete Millard’s desk. Len walked over and picked it up.

“Detective Millard’s desk,” he said.

“Hello,” said a sweet voice on the other end. “This is Caitlin Markus from the Rainbow Adoption Agency. I have some information Detective Millard asked for, and I wanted to send it directly to his computer.”

“No problem,” said Len Wickes, sitting at Pete Millard’s desk and switching on the detective’s computer. “Fire away.” As Len waited for the information about couples seeking adoptions to come up on Pete Millard’s screen, he picked up a printout that was lying on the desktop. There was a list from the county bureau of records of children who had died in Taylorsville for the last twenty-five years, as well as their dates of birth. As he perused the list, he had an idea. He looked down the list of death dates for the month of November and then for the day. It was worth a glance. Why not? There were two matches on the list. He cross-checked them with this adoption agency’s records. One of them was on the list but had successfully completed the adoption. The other had not been seeking an adoption. He made a note of both names. Now, what about the other agencies? he thought. This could be a very time-consuming task. He’d better start collecting lists. A phone rang on Rocco Belmont’s desk. He looked around the room and caught the eye of Delilah Jones. “Can you get that, Delilah?” he asked. “I’m busy looking something up here.”

Delilah gave him a skeptical look. She wasn’t about to let any of these guys treat her like a gal Friday. She had made the grade through exactly the same kind of training they had. But she understood that Len was trying to act important, to save face after being stuck on the phones. She felt a little sorry for him. He was an eager beaver, but there was something endearing about him. It was as if he were a little kid who wanted so badly to be allowed to play with the big guys. She walked over to the phone and picked it up.

Len went back to the printout. As he was studying the list, his eye was caught by the birthdates. He decided to cross-reference those, too. Why not? he thought. It didn’t hurt to be thorough. He poised his fingers over the computer keyboard and licked his lips nervously. What if I make the big break in this case? he thought. Laurie will be so proud of me. Thoughts of his wife’s admiration were distracting. He forced his fantasies to the back of his mind as his fingers began to play over the keyboard.

W
hen Doug didn’t come down for dinner, Maddy made excuses for him. He was busy preparing for his first day back at school, she said. The Lewis family seemed completely uninterested, absorbed as they were in their reunion. He did not reappear at Amy’s bedtime, so she put the child to sleep with promises that Daddy would kiss her good night when he was done with his work. Finally she couldn’t stand it any longer. Maddy mother had once confided that she and her father never went to bed angry. Maddy had always admired her parents’ marriage, and she’d tried to adhere to that rule with Doug, although she didn’t always succeed.

She hated arguments that went on on. They were bad for the marriage and it was bad for Amy to be caught in the middle of them. Kids could tell when their parents were arguing. They didn’t have to know what it was about. They could just sense the conflict in the atmosphere. Better to clear the air and get it over with. Maddy put her dish towel on the counter, then walked through the house and up the staircase with a heavy tread.

Why do I always have to be the one to have to make up? she thought. She sighed and told herself it was because it was was harder for Doug. He had come from a loveless home. His father was henpecked by his domineering, distant wife, and Doug was always caught in the middle of it. Doug would look to his father for support, but it was no use. He was too meek to come to his son’s defense. Maddy had met Doug shortly before his father died. They had virtually no contact with Frances Blake. She had her own life to live, as she told them on the rare occasions when they phoned her. Maddy reminded herself of all this as she climbed the stairs, so that she would be able to confront him without too much rancor. That never helped anything. But she felt a weariness as she approached the door to his office. There were patterns in every relationship. In theirs, she always was the one who apologized first. It would be nice if once, just once, he would make the overture to reconciliation, but in every marriage, she reminded herself, there were things you just had to live with.

Maddy tapped on the door to Doug’s office. When there was no response, she turned the doorknob and opened it. It was dark in the office; only a little desk lamp illuminated the space. Doug sat at his desk, holding a photograph. His face seemed to have crumpled, and there were tears on his cheeks.

Maddy’s anger evaporated at the sight of him. “Honey,” she said, “what’s the matter?” She walked over to the desk and saw that the picture he was holding was a photograph of himself in his Philadelphia Phillies uniform, before his knee injury put him out of the game. When they met, he had been on the rebound from that disappointment. Sometimes Maddy thought he still was. She looked over his shoulder at the picture. He looked timeless in his uniform, and ageless. On his face was the joyous smile of victory, of untroubled exultation.

Doug turned the framed photo over, face down, on his desk and tried to wipe his tears away surreptitiously. “What do you want?” he said.

Maddy put a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he jerked away from her. “I was concerned when you didn’t come down to dinner. Why are you so upset?” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s everything. I’m dreading going back to school tomorrow.”

Maddy pulled up the little hassock from the wing chair in the corner and sat beside him, so that she was looking up at him. “You don’t have to pretend to be cheerful for my sake. I know it’s been rough for you.”

He gazed at her for a few moments with an unreadable expression on his face. “You’re so loyal,” he said. The words sounded cold and almost critical, though she was sure he meant them to be kind.

“I’m your wife. We’re partners. Of course I’m loyal to you,” she said. “I know it’s going to be tough walking back into the classroom after all this. You just have to remember that the court said you were innocent, and it’s Heather that’s in the wrong.” She remembered Heather’s visit to the house. “I hope she doesn’t start hounding you at school tomorrow.”

“I’ll take care of Heather,” he said grimly.

“I think you’d better just steer clear of her,” Maddy suggested.

“I can handle it,” he said through clenched teeth. “I don’t want your advice.”

Maddy clammed up, wounded by his reaction.

He made a halfhearted effort to explain himself. “It’s not just that.”

“Well, what, then?” she snapped. “Is it this business about having the Lewises here?”

“I don’t care,” said Doug. “They can stay here. One more night is not going to matter one way or the other.”

“Then what?” Maddy cried. She reached up and put her hand on his. He did not take his hand away, but he did not respond, either. His hand felt as cold as a piece of stone. “Is it because I’ve been hounding you, about the insurance and all?…”

“No, Maddy, no,” he said wearily.

“Look, I know what a nightmare you’ve been through, and maybe I haven’t always been as supportive as I should have been….”

Doug snatched his hand away from her and picked up the photo again. “You were perfect, all right? You did everything right. This isn’t about you.” He gazed at the photo with longing in his eyes. “I look at the boy in this picture and wonder what happened to him. What became of the boy who had the world at his feet, for whom everything was easy? This boy who was happy and successful and everybody admired him. Girls fell all over him, and men asked for his autograph. Why did it have to all go up in smoke? Why did I have to lose everything?”

Maddy stood up from the hassock unsteadily and took a step away from the desk, reeling from the insult to their marriage and their life together. She tried to tell herself that that was not what he meant. People got depressed sometimes and said things they didn’t mean. But it stung. It really stung her, and he didn’t even seem to notice. “I’m sorry we don’t make you happy,” she said bitterly.

“Oh, it’s not that you don’t make me happy,” he said absently, staring at the photograph. “But I mean, look at the boy in this picture. He has everything he could ever want. What could ever compare to that?”

Maddy felt as if she wanted to be sick. “Thanks a lot,” she said.

Doug looked up at her in surprise and then frowned. “Oh, don’t take it so personally, Maddy.”

“Don’t take it personally? How am I supposed to take it? Amy and I do everything we can to make you happy. Obviously that doesn’t amount to much in your eyes.”

“If you came up here to pick a fight with me, I really don’t need it,” he said.

“No, you’re too busy thinking about yourself,” she sputtered. “God, I’m sick of your whining.”

He turned in a flash and grabbed her wrist, his eyes fierce. She was so startled by his action that for a moment it took her breath away. He had never raised a hand to her in anger before. She stared right back at him, determined not to cry out from the searing pain where his hand gripped her arm.