by Donna Doyle
“I’m worried about my friend,” he said, talking to Kyle but speaking loudly enough so that Chief Stark could hear him in his office. “He’s visiting from Texas and he didn’t come back last night.”
“Maybe he’s still in jail from that bar fight,” Chief Stark’s voice replied.
“I bailed him out and brought him back,” Troy answered. “He told a few people he wasn’t planning to go anywhere.”
“Obviously, he changed his mind. You know, I ran his prints . . . that friend of yours, he’s seen some trouble in his time. Assault, public drunkenness . . .” Chief Stark’s tone was almost conversational. “He’s the kind of trouble we don’t need in Settler Springs.”
“He’s not staying here. He’s visiting. He lives in Texas.”
“Funny, the way the break-ins increased after he arrived.”
“He wasn’t in town when the In ’n’ Out was robbed,” Kyle spoke up.
“Or when the Lofgrens’ house was broken into,” Troy added.
“But he’s here now, and we’ve had what two, three break-ins since.”
“Three?” Troy questioned.
“First Church was broken into last night,” Kyle told him. “They didn’t know until this morning; that’s when Reverend Meachem called.”
“Well, that wasn’t Sean,” Troy said angrily. “He was in jail.”
Chief Stark chuckled. “There’s an alibi; he couldn’t have done the robbery because he was in jail.” Still chuckling, he went back into his office.
Kyle shook his head. “I’ll call you if I hear anything,” he said. But both he and Troy knew that if there was anything to hear, it would be Chief Stark who would hear it.
“Kennedy! Come to work a little earlier than your shift,” Chief Stark called from the door. “The new service revolvers that I ordered are in. You’ll be issued yours today.”
“What was wrong with the old ones?”
“They were old. Settler Springs policemen deserve the best.”
Troy preferred his Baretta. “I don’t need a new gun.” he said, still speaking to the open door. “The Baretta is fine for me.”
“You can keep the Baretta in your squad car,” Chief Stark said from his desk.
“This afternoon, you’ll start carrying a Glock.”
He already had extra weapons in the squad car. What the force needed was more officers. They needed Leo back. With difficulty, Troy kept himself from slamming the door on his way out of the office.
Are you free for lunch?
Kelly’s text came back immediately. I can be. The Café?
He’d rather go somewhere out of town, but he knew that she had to stay close in order to return to the library on time. As busy as she was with the upcoming weekend program, he was surprised that she was able to get away at all.
Meet you there at 11:30.
When Kelly arrived at The Café, Tia Krymanski was standing at the booth where Troy was seated.
“Nothing yet,” Troy was answering Tia.
“That doesn’t sound like him,” Tia said worriedly. “He’s been visiting everyone. Someone would know, someone in the family would know if he was there.”
“Who?” Kelly asked.
“Sean’s missing,” Troy answered.
Her brown eyes were enormous. “Missing?”
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” Tia said, going back to the kitchen.
It seemed like too long since he’d seen Kelly. He filled her in on the bar fight when Sean had been arrested.
“Arrested? But you said he was doing well.”
“Something doesn’t smell right.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one called the police, but somehow Chief Stark showed up at the bar and arrested Sean. Called him by name.”
Kelly gave her order to the waitress, who was a new hire, then immediately turned her attention back to Troy. “How would he know Sean’s name?”
“I don’t know. He knew I was taking off the day I picked Sean up at the airport but that’s all he knew, and that was his first day back. He was back in the spotlight and he wasn’t paying a lot of attention to me or Kyle. Still isn’t, but that’s irrelevant. He’s made a couple of comments about Sean having a record—he did, but that was from a while ago—so I know he’s looked him up. Chief Stark doesn’t do grunt work.”
“But what possible reason could he have to want to get your friend into trouble? Or is he doing it to get back at you?”
Troy didn’t like thinking of himself as a victim of the police chief’s animus. He didn’t see himself as a victim, period. But he’d been tossing ideas around in his head all night and into the morning and he couldn’t think of anything except that
Chief Stark blamed Troy for proving, with Kelly’s help, that Scotty Stark and not Lucas Krymanski had murdered the girl in Daffodil Alley on Halloween night.
“Troy . . . this isn’t good. Mrs. Stark has been practically levitating lately, she’s in such a good mood. Rep. Eldredge is going to present the Starks with some kind of public service citation at the Memorial Day program.”
“Public service? For what? For being a first-class pain in the—”
The new waitress brought their lunches; fries and a burger for Troy; soup and salad for Kelly.
“You need a vegetable,” Kelly observed. “Your arteries are going to go on strike.”
Troy lifted the bun from his burger. “Lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion,” he said.
“Four vegetables.”
She just smiled and dipped her spoon into her
soup.
“So, what does Reverend Dal say about the break-in?” Troy asked, changing the subject.
“What break-in?” Kelly asked, puzzled.
“I was at the office this morning. Kyle said First Church was broken into last night.”
He was surprised that Kelly didn’t know about it. Not only was she a member of the church’s governing council, but she was very active in the church community and it seemed strange that she wouldn’t have heard.
Kelly took out her phone. Her shoulders slumped. “There’s a missed call from Rev. Dal,” she said. “I didn’t see it . . . the first time I looked at my phone was when I saw your text. I’ve been so busy . . .” Kelly’s voice trailed off. “That’s no excuse,” she said, scolding herself. “I need to—”
“Hey,” Troy said gently, reaching over to place his hand on top of hers. “The program will be over soon and then you can try to relax a little. You aren’t involved in the re-enactor thing on the Fourth of July, are you?”
“Only as a spectator.”
“Good,” was his fervent response.
15
Mason Goes Missing
Troy Kennedy was alone in the office and he was using the privacy to contact law enforcement agencies in the area regarding Sean’s disappearance. He had a few contacts in the police community, officers who weren’t connected to Chief Stark and would respond to a request for information or help without getting involved in the divisive issues that had infiltrated the Settler Springs Police Department. He felt a little better, as he hung up the phone, that at least he was doing something to find Sean.
When the door opened and Millie Page and Mia Shaw walked in, Troy’s smile of greeting quickly faded. Both women wore serious expressions; Mia looked frantic.
“Mason is missing,” Mia told him.
Troy stood up. “How long? When did you see him last?”
“I picked them up at school like I always do,” Millie said. “I was getting supper ready. Mia was coming over after work; Mason was out riding his bike. Lucia was helping me set the table. Mia came and supper was ready. Mason knows to check the bank clock, he always does, he knows to come home. That was two hours ago, and he hasn’t come home.”
A sob escaped from Mia. Millie put her arm around her daughter. She was just as worried as Mia, Troy could tell, but she wasn’t going to give way to her fears.
“Leo’s still at c
amp?” Troy asked.
“It’s time he came home,” Millie said bluntly. “It’s no good staying up there and pouting. He’s needed here.”
Privately, Troy agreed with her, although he understood Leo’s continued resentment against the treatment afforded him by the council, which had suspended him after his ex-son-in-law’s television interview. The news had died down, so to the council’s view, the suspension had successfully warded off bad publicity. But the trial would be getting underway eventually, and then it would all return.
“You’ve called his friends, their families? He’s not at any of those places?”
Millie shook her head. “I called everyone. They said that Mason saw that it was time to go home when he passed the bank clock. That’s where he was going when they saw him. But he isn’t home.”
“Is anyone there now?”
“My neighbor, Regina Taylor. She said she’d stay while we came here, in case
Mason came. But she hasn’t called us.”
“You told your mom about the guy at camp?”
“She finally told me tonight,” Millie said. “And I called Leo and told him. That’s when I told him he needs to get his butt back home. He didn’t want to believe it; you know how he thinks the camp is a little paradise. There are no paradises on earth, not when children are missing.”
“I know, you told me to tell Mom,” Mia said. “I should have.”
“Yes, you should have,” Millie said. “But now you have. Troy, we have to find him.”
“We will,” Troy promised. “I’ll drive around and see if I notice anything. It’s not dark yet.”
He closed the door behind him and got in his car. The new Glock that had been issued would take some getting used to; he’d need to go out to the shooting range and practice over the weekend. In the meantime, he still had his Baretta, locked in the compartment. He didn’t expect to need it, but he wanted it handy.
The Baretta wasn’t there.
Troy knew he’d locked the squad car when he got out of the vehicle upon arriving for work. He always locked the car; it was second nature. No policeman would leave the door to the car unlocked. It was the habit of his professional lifetime.
A missing service revolver was trouble. But so was a missing child. As he drove, Troy called the state police to report that his Baretta was missing. The officer who took the message understood the gravity of the matter. Still, he asked, “Did you leave the car unlocked?”
“I locked the car and I locked the compartment. There’s no sign of a break-in. Whoever took it out had a key.”
Silence.
“You’re sure—”
“I’m sure.”
Trooper Davies sighed. “Okay, Troy. I’ll put the word out. But you know—”
“I know I locked the door and the compartment and whoever took the gun had a key to both.”
Troy didn’t know where Trooper Davies’ loyalties stood in terms of Chief Stark and he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to get accused of carelessness with his weapon. He’d served in the military and he knew the importance of keeping issued weapons safe.
“I’m looking for a missing child, I have to go.”
“Sounds like your lucky day,” Trooper Davies said. But he sounded sympathetic.
Troy called Kelly, who was done working for the day, and told her that Mason Shaw was missing.
“I’ll go out and look for him,” she said immediately.
Despite the gravity of the circumstances, Troy felt a smile easing the tension in his jaw. That was Kelly. She didn’t stand on the sidelines and it didn’t matter how busy she was when there was a need. Not only that, but, as the public librarian, she knew just about all of the kids in town, whether from story times in the library or from her visits to the schools to encourage reading.
“I’m doing that now,” he said.
“But you’re in the police car, right? I’ll walk.”
“Be careful,” he said, and surprised himself with the words. This was Settler Springs, a town that Kelly knew well.
“Any word from Sean?””
“Nothing. I’ve sent the word out that he’s missing. He’ll be really ticked off when he finds out,” Troy said, trying to sound optimistic that Sean would reappear soon, and all the measures to find him would be proven to be unnecessary.
“Yeah, he will,” Kelly agreed. “I want to meet him before he goes back to Texas.”
“I’d like that.”
Kelly didn’t waste any time. It was a cool evening, so she put on a light jacket and left the house to search for Mason. A missing child in Settler Springs was an unusual occurrence; while other towns and of course big cities were tragically familiar with abductions, her town was not. But as she walked, she wondered if the disappearance of the boy had any connection to any of the other peculiar events going on: the unusual number of unfamiliar veterans in town for the Memorial Day celebration; the disappearance of Troy’s friend, and of course, the break-ins.
She had called Rev. Dal after lunch to ask about the break-in at the church, apologizing for not having seen the missed call from him that morning. The minister was understanding. “You’re busy with the program,” he said. “I called all the members of the council to let them know.” He had told her that not much had been taken; there was money in an envelope from the strawberry festival fundraiser, but that was only a couple hundred dollars. No computers were taken, which had surprised him. Rev. Dal thought, and Kelly concurred, that the break-ins were by addicts searching for money to buy drugs. Rev. Dal wanted to hold a special council meeting to discuss the drug problem in the community, a move that Kelly supported. She knew, because Troy had told her, that Chief Stark professed that there wasn’t a drug problem in the town. But he had his own reasons for wanting the public to believe that—
Kelly’s eyes, adjusting to the deepening shadows as night began to fall, peered ahead by the playground. She saw a bicycle. Quickly, she crossed the street and went over to it.
“Troy? There’s a bicycle by the playground in Weisner Park,” she told him. “It’s a two-wheeler, but it looks like it would belong to a younger child.”
“I’ll be right over.”
He was there in minutes. The playground was empty, as expected at this time of night. The streetlight provided enough illumination for him to see the bicycle leaning against the playground fence. Kelly was standing beside it like a guard.
A quick call to Millie confirmed that Mason’s bicycle was blue, with the emblem of the University of Pittsburgh Panthers football team on the seat.
“He would never just leave his bike,” Millie said. “He knows not to ride alone, he always rides with friends, and he takes care of his bike. It means a lot to him. Mia bought it for him.”
But today, he had left his friends and he had ridden alone. He had also abandoned his bike.
“Leo’s back,” Millie said. “He’ll be staying.”
“Good. We need him.”
“He’s out now, looking for Mason.”
“That’s good to hear, Millie—” Troy stopped. Kelly had left his side and run across the street. In the shadows of the trees, Troy noticed a little boy. “Millie—I think we found him,” he said, watching as Kelly approached the child, who fell into step with her as if there were nothing to fear.
“Mason?”
“We’ll bring him over.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Kelly Armello. She went out looking for him.”
“Bring him home.”
16
Identifying the Body
The reunion was a happy one. Mason had been relieved to see Kelly because he was a little bit afraid of the dark. Once in the car, he chattered away, unaware that he was being interrogated.
“I was by the bank clock, like Grandma tells me to do when I need to know the time and I saw that it was almost time for supper. So that’s where I was going,” he explained, excited at sitting in the front seat of the police car again, a pl
ace he’d sat numerous times with his grandfather at the wheel. “Then Daddy’s friend saw me, and he said that Daddy gave him a present to give to me.”
“Daddy’s friend?” Troy inquired, his voice deliberately low key. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know his name. I met him up at Grandpa’s camp. He said Daddy misses me and Lucia and is planning to visit us as soon as he can.”
The children didn’t know that their father was in prison. How the news had been kept from them in a small town, where gossip didn’t always bypass children’s ears, Troy wasn’t sure.
“What was the present?” Kelly asked.
Mason put his hand in his pocket. “It’s just a key,” he said. “I don’t know why Daddy would give me a key for a present.”
“What does the key open?”
“Mommy’s apartment,” Mason answered. “He said that Daddy wanted to make sure I have a key so that I can go there to see him when he comes to visit.”
The boy didn’t understand that the key wasn’t a present for him. It was a message from Travis to his ex-wife, warning her that she wasn’t safe. But how could he have gotten a key to her apartment?
Troy parked the car and he and Kelly walked Mason to the Page home, where Mason’s grandparents and mother were standing on the porch.
“Mason!” Mia called. “We were worried about you.”
“Daddy’s friend said it was okay,” Mason responded, surprised at the strange blend of a scolding and a hug. “He said you knew.”
“How many times have we told you not to go with strangers?” Millie asked him.
“But he wasn’t a stranger,” Mason said. “He was up at Grandpa’s camp when we cooked hot dogs at the bonfire.”
“What’s his name?”
“Eddie. He said I could call him Uncle Eddie, but I didn’t call him that,” Mason said.
“Eddie Kavlick,” Mia whispered. “But what’s he doing here in Settler Springs?”