“When I go back to my office, let me see if I can do some detective work on Mrs. Clark for you. Maybe we missed something when we did our background checks on her.”
“That’d be helpful.” Gordon’s expression belies his words. He doesn’t sound like he expects me to find anything, and I realize that he spends all day every day examining records and following leads and most of them probably end up as dead ends. He picks up the photos again.
“What about these guys. Do you have any idea who they could be? We think perhaps the girls know them.”
“What makes you think that?”
“They don’t look unhappy. I mean, of course it’s hard to tell since they’re obviously pickled, but still, they don’t look scared. So we’re thinking they must already know these guys.”
“But they’re only fifteen. Where would they know men from—assuming these are men and not boys?”
“Definitely adults,” he says, looking down at the pictures, and I don’t ask why. I really don’t want the details.
“These two kids are fairly sheltered. They go to school, come home, go to tennis, do homework, not a whole lot else. Mrs. Clark is pretty good at keeping them on a tight leash and out of trouble.”
“What about the tennis club?”
“I don’t think so. They just play with kids their own age, and Mrs. Clark chaperones them to and from there.”
Gordon sighs. I really want to help him, and most of all I want to help get the girls out of whatever situation they’re in. We both look at the pictures again. Surely, there has to be some clue there? Gordon says the girls don’t look scared, but from what I can see, the place looks like a bordello. How does he know they’re not being forced to smile, forced to get loaded. It’s been almost a week—how many men have been there since those pictures were taken?
All of a sudden, I have an idea. “Do you think they could be friends of Mrs. Clark?” I say at the same time that he says the identical thing to me. Great minds think alike. Whenever I say that to Wynn she comes back at me with, “Fools never differ.” He repeats the question back to me.
“She led a pretty quiet life when Mr. Clark was alive, but who knows what she’s got into since then. Maybe something flipped.” I’ve had my suspicions about his death all along. I never heard of anyone dying from rabies and even though I know now that it happens occasionally, I also know that if he’d got a rabies vaccine in time, he wouldn’t have died. Why wouldn’t she have made him get to a hospital sooner and when she did get him there, why didn’t she tell someone about the bats? She only mentioned it after he was unconscious and on the ventilator and by then it was too late to do anything about it. I thought they had a pretty good relationship, but it seemed like she got over him pretty quickly. Maybe things weren’t all they appeared to be. Foster families are pretty good at covering up stuff they don’t want us to know.
“Will you bring her in for questioning?” I ask.
“I definitely want to talk to her again. Last time it was pretty brief. What I’d like to do is go out there with you. Less threatening than if I bring her in here. And if you’re with me, she’s less likely to think about wanting an attorney.” Gordon puts the pictures back in the envelope. “Will your workplace give you the time to do that?”
“Sure,” I respond. “We need to do whatever it takes. Sam’s looking after a couple of my cases for me. We can go first thing tomorrow.” I can’t wait to hear what Mrs. Clark has to say. I think back to last week’s home evaluation with the weird and evil Mrs. Green. Perhaps I’m not such a good judge of character after all. What kinds of secrets does Mrs. Clark hold?
Chapter Twenty
Barker, June 21
The next morning when I enter Gordon’s office, I can tell something good has happened. His desk is clean and Gordon himself looks ten years younger.
“The girls are out,” he tells me getting up from his desk. For the first time in all the years I’ve known him, he gives me a hug. Then he picks up the car keys.
“Are we still going to Mrs. Clark?”
“You betcha. Now more than ever I want to talk to her.”
As Gordon and I drive to Mrs. Clark’s house, I ask him to tell me everything he knows about the girls.
“I don’t know that much yet. I was only allowed to speak with them briefly, after they’d been checked in at the hospital.”
“Are they okay?”
“The hospital was just precautionary. They’ll keep them overnight then probably release them tomorrow morning.”
“How did they escape?”
“Another anonymous note. This time it was put in a janitor’s mailbox. It suggested he look into a weird smell in a condo on the eleventh floor. I still have to interview him, but I don’t expect he’s gonna be able to tell us much. The officers who responded to his call said he didn’t seem to know anything about the owner or the renter. He’s just on-call for problems with plumbing and the like.”
“And the girls, how did they seem?”
“Like you might expect typical fifteen-year-olds to act—as if they’d known all along they’d be okay. But I’m pretty sure it was all bravado. Underneath I could see they were pretty shook up. Especially the one with the long, dark hair.”
“Michaela.”
“Yeah. They both asked if you were responsible for finding them. Guess they’re pretty tight with you.”
“I’m the only person they’ve had consistently in their lives for the past ten years. I can’t wait to see them and talk to them.”
“You’ll have to let me interview them first. And that won’t happen until tomorrow when they’re released from the hospital. As soon as I’m done, I’ll pass them on to you.”
“But you’ve done an initial interview?”
“Yeah. I wanted to get some basic information to see if it would move us forward with our investigation. But tomorrow I’ll be talking to them at length.”
“Could I be there?”
“No. I promise I’ll pass them on as soon as I’m done.”
“Did you find out anything useful today?”
“Yeah. Mrs. Clark told you that the girls were picked up by someone from your office, who you later figured out was your student. The girls corroborated that—Kallie even remembered her name. But here’s the strange thing. She took them to the bus station. It was someone else who drove them to the condo.”
“Do they know who he was?”
“It wasn’t a ‘he,’ it was a female. Drove an older model White KIA Soul. Guess Kallie’s enough of a car expert to know how it differs from the newer models.”
“Oh, even I know that model car. Wynn drives a White KIA Soul, and hers is an older model too.”
“Wynn? Your partner Wynn?” He swivels his head around to look at me and his eyebrows are raised almost to the roof of the car.
I laugh. “I don’t mean—of course, I don’t mean she had anything to do with it! I’m just saying, I know that exact car.” Gordon says nothing. “Come on! You don’t seriously think—“
“Of course not,” he says and quickly changes the subject, “is this where we turn off for Mrs. Clark?”
****
Mrs. Clark has baked brownies and offers them to us, but after the fiasco with Mrs. Green, I decide I’m off taking dessert from clients. Gordon has no such inhibition and happily takes a large corner piece, which he breaks into chunks as he takes a sip of the coffee Mrs. Clark has offered us. Unabashed, he dunks a piece of brownie into his coffee and asks, “What exactly did Parminder Chatterjee tell you when she called to say she was removing the girls?”
We are in the dining alcove and Mrs. Clark is sitting on the edge of an upright chair at the table across from Gordon. She pulls her skirt down over her knees, nervously, like a prim schoolgirl. “As I told Barker here, she didn’t tell me anything.”
“And you didn’t think that was odd? You didn’t try to argue with her, or ask to speak with a supervisor.”
“I did think it was
odd. But I’ve been at enough meetings of foster parents to hear about things like this happening all the time.”
“But why should something like this happen to you? You knew there was no chance of the girls being reunited with family.” I can’t stop myself from blurting out the question. There is something surprising about the ease with which Mrs. Clark handed over the girls, considering how close she was to them.
Gordon drums his fingers on the table. “Uh—I’ll ask the questions, Barker, if that’s okay with you.” I realize I overstepped my bounds, but my blood is pumping too fast. I decide to get up and walk into the living room.
The sectional sofa is neither new nor worn out. It is brown corduroy, practical, the ideal furniture for kids who might spill things on it. Across from the sofa is a faux fireplace and above it a mantelpiece with a row of photographs on it. They all feature Mrs. Clark’s deceased husband. There’s a picture of him with a rifle slung over his shoulder, and I turn away from one in which he’s holding up what is obviously a trophy pair of antlers. Mrs. Clark isn’t in those pictures, though it’s hard to know whether she was the photographer or if it was someone else. In the center is the picture she used for the obituary and presumably, this is the one she had at the memorial service. By then the press had found out how he died and were all over her, so she kept the service very private and didn’t want anyone from the county attending. The photograph shows Mr. Clark in a dress suit with no hint of a smile, and above it are listed his date of birth and the date he died. There’s only one picture of the two of them together. It’s obviously from several years ago and looks like a family celebration of some kind, with balloons in the background. He was taller than her and has his arm around her protectively. I’ve never met anyone from her family and don’t know who came to the memorial. When I looked at her application last night, there was a checkmark next to the box that asked about children. Apparently, she has two grown-up kids. I wonder why there are no pictures of them?
I wander back into the dining room, having calmed down a lot. Mrs. Clark is telling Gordon about her husband’s death, although I’m sure he read about it in the newspaper.
“Kallie and Michaela were such a comfort to me at that time. They were unbelievably mature in how they handled everything,” she tells him. I sit back down. Gordon looks down at his notebook then pulls something out from between one of the pages of the book.
“You must have had friends who supported you through that terrible time. Do you mind if I ask who your close friends are?”
She pauses. “I’m embarrassed to say, I don’t really have many friends. I guess I’m a bit of a loner.”
“What about dating? I know it hasn’t been that long, but have you started to see other men yet?”
“Oh no. Seth was it for me. I’m not going to get involved with anyone at my age.”
Gordon smiles sympathetically. “You’re not that old.”
“It’s not about my age. I just couldn’t go through all those awful dating routines.”
Gordon pulls out the paper he’s had in his hand for a few minutes and I see that it’s one of the photographs that was mailed to Kallie’s mom.
“Do you know this guy?” he asks.
This is the whole purpose of our visit and he’s worked up to it with subtlety.
Mrs. Clark puts on a pair of reading glasses she has on a beaded lanyard around her neck, and peers at the photo. She shakes her head. “I don’t think so, but it’s not very clear. Do you have any others?” Gordon pulls out another one and I can see that he’s had it cropped so that neither of the girls is in view. She looks again. “No, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen him. Why? Is he connected to the girls’ disappearance?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” says Gordon, and I think that surely just by saying that, he is telling her that this man is indeed connected. “Do you think the girls might have had the opportunity to meet with men while they were living under your roof? Did they ever sneak out in the evenings? Or say they were going somewhere and later you found out they hadn’t?”
Again, Mrs. Clark shakes her head. “No. They’re both fairly introverted. I think they preferred playing games on their phones to going out and meeting new people. They’re only fifteen. I don’t know if they’re even interested in dating yet, although perhaps that’s just me being old-fashioned.” Gordon puts the photographs away and scribbles in his notebook again.
Mrs. Clark plays nervously with her hair, twisting it around her finger back and forth.
“Those earrings are lovely,” I tell her, and she moves her hand over to her ear, feeling the earring as a way to remind herself which ones she wore that morning. I’ve done the same myself, many a time when people compliment me on my jewelry. “Did you make them yourself?”
“I did. Remember you said I needed to do something outside of my routine? You suggested a jewelry-making class and I found one in North County. You were right; it was great, although unfortunately we only had a couple of sessions.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. The others just dropped out. It was a shame because the teacher, Wynn Larimer, was a lovely woman.”
“Wynn Larimer?” Gordon looks up from his notebook and turns to me. “Isn’t she your—” I flare my eyes wide and give a little shake of my head to stop him. I keep my private life private, and she doesn’t need to know anything about it. He corrects himself quickly. “I thought perhaps she’d been your teacher as well,” he says quickly
“Do I look like someone who would make jewelry?” I say and we all laugh. Even though I wear some of the stuff Wynn makes, I’m not big into adorning myself.
“So, what made her such a nice woman, this teacher of yours?” Gordon asks.
“She was very easy to talk to. She and I had a long chat after the first class. We even discussed the whole foster care system. She had pretty strong views about it, as I remember.”
Gordon perks up again. “Like what?” he asks.
“She seemed to be pretty pissed off at the birth moms. Thought we foster parents were letting them off the hook.”
“Hey Barker,” he turns to me. “Any chance you could, uh, step outside for some fresh air?” I raise my eyebrows, knowing that the temperature is almost 90 degrees and the last thing I want is fresh air, but I know when I’m not wanted. I have my suspicions that he wants to ask some more questions about Wynn, although perhaps it’s something else he heard that he wants to follow up on. Whatever it is, Gordon’s smart. He’ll figure it out.
Chapter Twenty-one
Wynn, June 22
“Tell us why you did it,” the Mean Cop says, leaning forward on his elbows, his shirtsleeves rolled up above them.
I sigh. “I don’t even know what ‘it’ is. Why don’t you tell me why you brought me here?”
I look around, although there’s nothing to see. The room is a windowless box, with just enough space for a table and three chairs. The walls are a dull beige with nothing on them at all. Mean Cop is sitting opposite me, a digital recorder in front of him on the table. Young Cop is sitting on my side of the table slightly behind me. The whole place is so completely depersonalized that I’ve decided from now on I will think of them only by initials: MC is Mean cop and YC is Young Cop. I will pay no attention to their appearance and make them faceless and nameless.
“You know why you’re here,” MC says, and I am reminded suddenly of an incident with an ex-girlfriend years ago, long before Barker. One day she came storming home and started madly throwing her clothes haphazardly into a suitcase.
“I am so outta here!” she yelled. “What did you think? I wouldn’t find out?” I saw her take a blouse that I knew was mine, but I didn’t dare say anything.
“Find out what?” I put my hand on her arm to try to stop her from packing so she would tell me what was going on, but she spun around and almost hit me in the face as she jerked her arm away.
“Don’t touch me!” She kept yelling and swearing while I ke
pt begging her to tell me what I’d done.
“You know perfectly well what you did,” she spat out as she jammed her suitcase shut. The next day she sent her best friend over to pick up the rest of her stuff, and I never heard from her again. To this day, I don’t know what I did, if in fact I did anything at all. Now MC is doing the same thing.
“I believe it’s my right to know why you brought me in for questioning.” Hopefully my voice sounds more confident than I feel.
“Do the names Michaela Caladesi and Kallie Fergus mean anything to you?”
“Of course. They’re Barker’s clients, the ones who are missing. Have they been found?” Now I’m the one leaning forward. “Oh, do tell me they’ve been found.”
He shakes his head, as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“They’ve been found all right. Though why you would want that is beyond me.”
It sounds as if he thinks I’m involved in their disappearance, and that’s just bizarre. I sit and wait for him to ask his next question. He says nothing.
From behind me, I hear YC clear her throat. “Let’s back up a little shall we? First of all, how did you sleep?”
The way we’re seated I have to face either MC, or YC, but not both. I’ve heard that expression good-cop/bad-cop so many times, but I never knew how true it was. YC was the one who gave me a cup of lukewarm coffee (did they think if it was hot I’d throw it in someone’s face and burn them?) and held my arm as I lowered my stiff body into the chair I now occupy. I turn to face her.
“My body was aching all over, but I have to admit that I had a better night’s sleep than I’ve had in months. Recently I’ve been plagued by nightmares, and last night I didn’t have any.”
“Perhaps you’re relieved? Maybe there was a part of you that wanted to be found out and arrested. It must be a relief to know you don’t have to carry the secret anymore.” Her face shows caring but her words are painting me just as guilty as MC.
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