by Mary Maxwell
Dina’s eyebrows shut up. “You’ve got to be joking,” she said. “Caroline’s mother destroyed evidence?”
McBride nodded. “She regretted it instantly,” he said. “But it was obviously too late. I thought someone had already made a copy for the file, but that somehow fell through the cracks.” He swept one hand down his face. “Last time anybody made that mistake while I was still on the squad.”
“So you said the Evie Hale ransom note matched the one Caroline’s father received?” I said.
“I’d bet my reputation on the same person writing both,” McBride answered. “That was my last unsolved case, so the facts are seared in my brain.” He reached for the photocopy of Evie’s ransom note. “See the way the letters slant to the left? And the crossbar on the t slants the opposite direction? And the slight hesitation when they wrote a b or d? If you look at it through a microscope, it’s easier to see the stutter of the pencil on the ascender of each letter.”
“I haven’t used a microscope yet,” Dina said after studying the note. “But I certainly will later today.”
“I don’t think you’ll disagree with my assessment,” McBride said.
“Speaking of that,” I replied, “how was Evie Hale during the interviews after her release?”
“Deer in the headlights,” McBride replied. “She was barely able to string together complete sentences because the family doctor had put her on some kind of sedative to help with the trauma.”
“You sound skeptical,” Dina said.
The retired detective grinned. “Because there was good reason to be doubtful.”
“So you didn’t believe her story?” I said.
McBride smiled. “Not one word. But our hands were tied. Her father was tight with Chief Reidel. She wasn’t physically harmed. And her father paid the ransom. What could I do? Demand that she stop lying? I tried to go back for a third interview, but her parents refused to allow it.”
“Why did you suspect she wasn’t being truthful?” I asked.
He smiled. “Because her story didn’t hold water,” he said. “It was full of holes.”
“Didn’t everyone else see them?” Dina said.
McBride held up one finger. He drank some of his Diet Coke. Then he ate half of a taco, blotted his lips and washed it down with another swig from the can.
“My apologies,” he said. “I missed breakfast, so my tank’s pretty darn close to empty.”
“Do you want to finish your tacos?” Dina smiled. “Katie and I can walk down to the vending machines and get something to drink.”
“I’m good,” McBride said. “Where were we?”
“The holes in Evie’s story,” I said. “You just told us that her version of the abduction didn’t hold water.”
He smiled. “It didn’t. But like I already said, Reidel didn’t want to look into it. She was safe. Her family was satisfied. And then Caroline went missing, so our focus shifted to finding her and bringing her home alive.”
“But that never happened,” Dina said.
McBride’s partial grin flattened. “Until now,” he said.
Dina glanced at me. Her expression was a mix of regret, tension and anticipation. I’d known her for so many years that I recognized the blend of emotions.
“Can we get back to Evie’s story?” she suggested. “I’ve read the case file, but I would really appreciate hearing your first-hand account if you don’t mind.”
McBride’s smile returned. “Let’s go with the basics,” he said. “The Hale family filed a missing person report the day after they found Evie’s bike on Mariposa Road. When she left home the day of her disappearance, Evie told the housekeeper that she was going to visit a friend who lived in the same part of town. Mr. and Mrs. Hale were out of town, but Evie and her brother didn’t want to go with their parents. Since Louella Flint had watched over the children on previous occasions while their folks were away, she’d agreed to stay at the Hale home that weekend.”
“The case file includes transcripts of your conversations with Dwayne Hale, Louella Flint and a boy named Justin Kennedy. Both boys told you they were he at the Hale home the night of both abductions?”
McBride nodded. “Allegedly.”
“You didn’t believe them?” I said.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “But the housekeeper corroborated their alibis. According to Louella Flint woman, Dwayne Hale and Justin Kennedy were in his bedroom the entire night watching movies and playing video games.”
“Dwayne didn’t notice that his sister didn’t come home by curfew?” I asked. “I saw that in the file, too. Both Hale children were due home by nine o’clock.”
“The housekeeper was aware, but she coddled Evie,” McBride said. “She felt that both parents were too hard on the girl, so she didn’t worry about the missed curfew.”
“But she called 911 the next morning,” I said.
“That’s right,” McBride said. “Louella Flint told us that she went to bed at ten-thirty. When she awoke the next morning at six, she went to check on Evie. The bed hadn’t been slept it, so she went to Dwayne’s room. He and Justin were both fast asleep. She shook them awake, but both boys said they hadn’t left the room all night. When Louella looked around the property for Evie, the only thing that was missing was the girl’s bike.”
“Where did find her bike?” Dina asked.
“It was behind the abandoned gas station on Mariposa Road where Justin Kennedy was found dead,” he said.
“Which was not far from where she told you she was riding her bike when she was released after her father paid the ransom,” Dina said.
“I’m sure it’s all in the case file,” McBride said. “In essence, Evie said she was riding her bike on Mariposa Road when a blue pickup pulled up alongside and the driver asked for directions. Before she knew what was happening, a man jumped out of the bushes and grabbed her. They covered her eyes with a blindfold and bound her wrists and ankles with duct tape.”
“What made you disbelieve her story?” I asked.
“Do you know that stretch of Mariposa Road?” he said.
“Not really,” I said.
“Well, there are no bushes within a hundred yards of that old gas station,” he said. “Not now, not back then. We found the pickup that she described a couple of days later. It matched everything that Evie told us in her initial statement, including one side panel that didn’t match the rest of the truck, the three bumper stickers on the back and a piece of tape that was covering a gash in the passenger seat. Under some conditions, that would be helpful to the investigation. The problem was, that particular truck had been in the scrap heap at Theo Martin’s junk yard. In fact, it had been there for a good six months. We learned later that it belonged to another one of Evie’s classmates at CCHS. He’d totaled it when he hit a patch of ice during the previous winter.”
“Did you talk with him about the two kidnapping cases?”
McBride nodded. “We did, but he wasn’t involved. He spent that summer in Maine with his grandparents. Rock solid alibi and sworn statements from a half dozen folks in the marina where he worked from June to August. Both kidnappings were in July, so he was definitely not involved.”
“Neither was his truck,” I said. “Which makes you wonder why Evie claimed it was used in her abduction.”
“There are a whole lot of things that make you wonder about Evie Hale,” said McBride. “But my hands were tied back then. She was returned after her father paid the ransom. The family cooperated until they didn’t. And Chief Reidel decided it wasn’t worth pursuing since Sean Hale was one of the biggest movers and shakers in town.”
“That put you in a difficult spot,” Dina said.
McBride shrugged. “A man can only do so much,” he said. “It frustrated the hell out of me, but I decided to let it go.”
“So even after Caroline disappeared, Reidel wouldn’t let you interview Evie again?”
“No,” McBride said. “He wanted to keep all of our fo
cus on Caroline’s case, especially after we found the pickup truck. There was no denying that Evie had survived something truly traumatic, so we ascribed the confusion about the vehicle to whatever she went through. And we also didn’t want to add to her trauma. It was a delicate situation.”
“Well, maybe with this new evidence,” I said, “some of your old questions about Evie’s kidnapping will finally be answered.”
“That would be a good thing,” McBride said, “especially if it helps bring closure to Caroline’s family.”
CHAPTER 23
“When did you last see Evie Hale?” I asked.
Vince Stafford smiled. It felt like I was watching a television commercial for a teeth whitening kit. We were sitting at a table in Java & Juice that afternoon. Vince had finally returned my call earlier in the day.
“It’s been years since I had an actual conversation with Evie,” he said. “I see her around town, of course, and I’m always polite enough to wave. But her father said and did some horrific things to me the summer that Evie was kidnapped. I made a pledge then and there to never again have anything to do with the Hale family.”
“What sort of bad things?”
“Not bad,” Vince said. “Horrific.”
“Can you give me an example?” I asked.
His eyes tightened into a cold stare. “Do you mean something specific?”
“That’s the idea.” I smiled. “Just one example.”
“Sean Hale accused me of molesting his daughter,” Vince said. “Is that specific enough for you?”
It was obvious that I’d crossed an invisible line with the handsome man dressed in tennis gear. In less than a minute, with a couple of short questions, Stafford’s demeanor had changed from affable to angry and defiant. Since I’d never heard about the dispute between Vince and Evie’s father, it felt like an ambush. And when I attempted to apologize and offer an explanation, Vince dismissed it with a croaky laugh.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I’m the one who should be saying I’m sorry. It’s just that all of this talk about things that happened ten years ago is bringing up some difficult memories for me.”
“And a few other people,” I said.
He offered a contemplative nod, glancing away as if he was trying to decide who I might mean.
“It was a nightmare,” he continued. “I’ve never stopped wondering about the weekend that Evie was abducted. It was the last time that I talked to her. It was also the last time that I saw Dwayne before his father sent him to boarding school. Something bad happened to that family back then. I suspect it started long before Evie was kidnapped and then released in exchange for a pile of her daddy’s money.”
“What do you think happened?” I asked. “Are we talking about an argument between Dwayne and his father?”
Vince sipped his coffee. Then he said, “How about between Dwayne and the world? That kid was under siege in those days. He was furious all the time; angry and abusive and filled with some kind of dark, ominous rage. At first, I thought it was standard teenage angst. But a week or so before Evie was abducted, I witnessed a couple of incidents that made me realize it wasn’t anything that easy to explain.”
“What do you mean?”
He glanced down at the curls of steam rising from his coffee. The muscles in his jaw tightened as his fingers coiled around the bottom of the paper cup.
“Do you know that cliché about the survival of the fittest?” he said finally.
I nodded. “What some folks refer to as natural selection?”
“Only the strongest people survive,” Vince added, “while the weak fail or die.”
“Alright, in that case,” I said, “who was strong and who was weak in the Hale family when you were around them?”
The question seemed obvious, considering the arc of our conversation, but Vince’s response suggested that his loyalty to his long ago clients remained steadfast.
“I can’t really judge that sort of thing,” he said. “I certainly followed the news coverage back then. I know that Evie was returned safely to her family and eventually inherited the company from her father, but Dwayne never returned to Crescent Creek after he left for North Ridge that summer.”
“I’m sorry, Vince,” I said. “What’s North Ridge?”
“Oh, I thought you knew,” he replied. “North Ridge Military Academy was where Mr. Hale sent Dwayne in the midst of the fallout from Evie’s kidnapping. It’s a couple of hours north from here. After that, I heard that he headed for Cheyenne.”
“And he’s been there ever since?” I asked.
Vince shrugged. “Couldn’t really say for certain,” he replied. “I was replaced by another instructor about two weeks later. I think Evie’s parents wanted to start over after the kidnapping. They fired the household staff, brought in a tennis pro from Florida and forced her to cut off all ties with anyone she was friendly with before the incident.”
“Did they suspect it was an inside job?” I asked.
He smiled. “I don’t think they suspected it was,” he said. “I think they knew it was. I never saw the ransom notes, but I heard a few things around the house.”
“Did you say notes?” I asked.
He nodded.
“So Evie’s parents received more than one?”
“A friend of Dwayne’s told me that three notes were delivered to the family,” Vince answered. “One to the house and two to Mr. Hale’s office.”
“Were the police aware of that?” I asked.
“I don’t have any idea,” he said. “Can’t you check with your friends at the CCPD?”
I smiled. “I can,” I said. “And I will. I was just curious if you knew more about that.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint your curiosity,” he said. “But I don’t have any idea. When the news media only reported one ransom note, I figured it had something to do with keeping details about the case confidential. It’s a way to keep the bad guys on their toes, right?”
“One of them,” I said. “Can you tell me which of Evie’s friends told you that the family received multiple ransom notes?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It was the night after Evie was released. A bunch of people were at the house to lend their support.”
“So you don’t know his name?” I asked.
“I don’t,” Vince said. “He told me that he was going to school in Wisconsin that fall.”
“Can you describe him?”
He laughed. “Are you serious? After all these years, you want me to describe someone that I talked to for a couple of minutes?”
“If you can, yes.”
He drank more coffee. “It was a long time ago.”
“I understand,” I said. “But if you can remember anything at all, it might be helpful. Was he tall or short? Heavy or thin? Did he wear glasses? Have any visible tattoos?”
“What was that?” Vince said.
“Visible tattoos.” I smiled. “Or maybe a distinctive—”
“I thought it was a tattoo at first,” Vince said. “But I realized while we talked that it was a birthmark. That’s the one thing that I do remember about the guy.”
“A birthmark?”
He took one hand from the coffee cup and pointed at the top of his left wrist.
“It was right here,” he said. “I think they’re called port-wine stains. His was probably the size of a quarter or so, with…uh, well, I’d call them tendrils that went up his arm a few inches toward the elbow.”
I listened to Vince describe the distinctive mark on the other man’s arm. Between the reference to college in Wisconsin and the port-wine stain, I had a hunch that we were talking about Justin Kennedy.
“Is that helpful?” he said when he finished.
I nodded. “I believe so. Thanks again for taking the time to share all of that.”
“Anything else?” he said.
“There is one more question,” I replied. “Do you know someone called Justin Kennedy?”
I repeated the name.
“Never heard of the guy,” Stafford said.
CHAPTER 24
I was strolling down the sidewalk the next afternoon on my way to the bank when Lindy Herriman tapped on the front window of her shop, The Hitchin’ Post Candy & Variety. She held up a giant lollipop and waved me inside.
“These just came in!” she said as I stepped through the door. “French toast and bacon flavors together!”
“Have you tried it yet?” I asked.
She made a face. “You know that I’m vegetarian, Katie. I just thought you’d get a kick out of it since you sell the real deal at your place.”
“Is that combination popular with your customers?”
“It’s a special order,” she said. “Earl Dodd at the motel. He’s trying to give up salty snacks.”
I laughed. “So he’s switching to sugary ones?”
“I guess,” Lindy said. “It’s not my place to judge.”
“Not to mention that you sell the stuff,” I said, glancing around the small space crammed with bins and shelves and tables filled with candy in every size, shape and flavor.
“A girl’s gotta make a living,” she said. “I’m too old to learn anything new.”
“Forty is far from being too old,” I replied.
She smiled. “Try forty-one. My birthday was last week.”
I gave her a big hug. “Happy belated, sister! I’m sorry that I missed it.”
“Thanks,” she said. “But there was nothing to miss. Me and Dave went to dinner. He gave me a dozen roses. We were in bed by nine.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “It’s your special day, so you should do whatever the heck you want.”
“Or whatever the heck you can afford,” she said. “Dave’s sales territory shrinks a little bit more every time we blink.”