He kept his hands at his sides. “Look. I’m really sorry about your sister, but I’m terribly busy right now.”
“I’m helping out the police,” she lied. “Detective Radhauser asked me to conduct some of the interviews because I know my little sister better than anyone.”
“That’s interesting. Detective Radhauser was waiting at the door when I opened this morning.” He jerked the flyers from her hand and set them on the counter. “Now go investigate somewhere else. I’m up to my neck in bills right now.”
“Do you have a record of who purchased the big Pooh?” She told him how she and Emily had passed the store window yesterday afternoon. That Emily noticed the bear was gone. Brandy repeated what Emily had said in the restroom just minutes before she disappeared. “It’s my fault she’s missing. I should have watched her more closely.”
His face softened a little. “Just like I told the detective, it doesn’t matter, I’m afraid it was a cash sale.”
“It was a woman who bought it, right?” Brandy said, remembering the woman she’d seen in the park organizing the games for a child’s birthday party.
He said nothing.
“And she bought it for her little girl’s birthday. It was yesterday, right?” Brandy tried to bring the line of children at the pin-the-bowtie on the teddy bear game into focus. “Or maybe it was a little boy.”
“I can’t tell you that. You’re not a police officer and it’s private information.” Mr. Pivorotto swallowed.
Brandy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If I bought toys for my kid in your store, I’d like you a lot better if I thought you’d help someone in need. Please, Mr. Pivorotto. The police think my theory is farfetched. But I know how Emily reacts to things. I know what she’d say if she saw—” her words were little more than croaks, but she forced them out”—that giant Pooh bear she loves so much.”
He raised his right eyebrow and stared at her.
“I know you agree with the police,” she said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Your eyebrow did.”
“Look. The police are right. Your theory is farfetched. But I don’t have time for this right now. If that damn Walmart rolls back its prices one more time, the life will be sucked out of my store. I have to hold on to the few loyal customers I have. And some people expect privacy, especially when the police are involved.”
She took another deep breath. “Why would you lose a customer just because you tried to help?”
“There are certain ethics involved in running a business.”
She could read the righteous conviction on his face. It was a cheap trick, but actresses used it all the time. Brandy imagined the worst-case scenario—that Emily was dead. But it wasn’t necessary to pretend. Her tears were real. “I’m one of your loyal customers, and so are my parents. And I’m not trying to be difficult,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes. “But what’s more important? Your ethics or my little sister’s life?” A single tear rolled down her cheek.
He chuckled. “This is Ashland, missy. I get actresses in here every day.” He took a crisp white handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket and offered it to her. “Here—wipe your crocodile tears.”
She didn’t take it. “You think I’m just a stupid girl,” she said, steam building, more tears flowing. “But my high school has tons of kids who shoplift as an extracurricular activity. And I’ll tell you something else, mister toyshop mannequin, those kids are nicer than you are.” She paused, suck in a ragged breath. “Many of them are out looking for my sister right now. Wonder what they’ll do when I tell them you won’t help.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I took a class in motivational speaking.”
His face was so red he looked as if he might explode. “I should call the police and have you arrested for harassment.”
“Do whatever you have to, Mr. Pivorotto. I’m desperate. What would you do if it were your little sister?” She turned to leave.
He touched her shoulder.
She turned back to him.
He sighed and remained quiet for a moment. “I already told Detective Radhauser this, but the customer who bought the Pooh has come into the store before and always paid cash. I don’t know her name. But just last evening, she bought a Pooh storybook, Tigger, Finder of Lost Things. You know, the one where Tigger finds Pooh’s honey pot.”
“Emily loves that book,” Brandy said.
“She was a quiet, but well-dressed lady, looked like a professional of some kind, who said she was buying the bear for her daughter’s third birthday.”
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Maybe this was the lead they needed. “Did she mention her name? Or her little girl’s name?”
“No. But I carried the bear out to her car.”
“What kind of car?”
“What do you intend to do with this information?”
“I’ll give it to Detective Radhauser.”
“He already has it.”
“Okay, then, I’ll tell my friends how hard you tried to help. Whoever bought that bear may have been in the park restroom when my little sister went missing. Don’t you think your professional-looking customer would be proud if she was one who led us to Emily?”
His bushy eyebrows shot up. “You think she witnessed the kidnapping?”
“Yes,” Brandy said. “I do.”
He kept nodding as if reassuring himself it was okay to talk. “It was a dark gray Volvo station wagon with a child’s safety seat in the back. I’m not sure of the year. Pretty new, though.”
Brandy thought about Mrs. Wyatt and smiled, barely able to contain her happiness. Mrs. Wyatt said she saw a gray or blue-gray station wagon or minivan, and a man wearing a bear costume put a child into a car seat. But it could have been a woman. This had to mean something. “Did you notice anything about the license plate?”
He shrugged. “Why would I? Nothing suspicious about her.”
Maybe it was a coincidence. Gray cars were pretty common. “Please. Just think about it. You never know what else you might remember.” She glanced at the wall behind the cash register and spotted the camera attached to the bottom of the shelf where the train ran. “Is that a surveillance camera?”
“We were burglarized two years ago. Maybe some of your nicer-than-me high school friends.”
“So, you could have her on tape?”
“There’s a chance I do. But you’ll have to check with the police. Your detective friend confiscated it this morning.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Sunday morning headline announced the kidnapping above a half-page colored photograph of Emily Michaelson on her backyard swing. Detective Radhauser read the article, then folded the newspaper and placed it on the credenza behind his desk. His meeting with Christine’s friend, Tanya Buchanan, had led to another dead end. She’d been at the Ashland Hospital all day on Saturday. Hospital personnel confirmed her alibi. He needed a solid lead. He’d asked Vernon to stop whatever he was doing and compile a list of Volvo station wagon owners registered in Jackson and surrounding counties, and call every damn one of them.
Frustrated, he spread out the notes from the interviews he’d conducted so far, along with the phone tips that had been called into the hotline, organizing them into stacks. The ones obviously made by nutcases in one pile—reports of aliens, of Elvis or Santa Claus carrying a small child in the park, a professed psychic who’d had a dream about Emily. If it weren’t such a pathetic waste of time, it’d be laughable.
He’d picked up the telephone, about to return the first call, when Brandy raced into his office, red-faced and out of breath.
“I didn’t know there was a triathlon in Ashland.”
“What did it show? Did you get a good look? Have you put out a description?” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “The person who bought the bear.” She told him about her interview with Mr. Pivorotto. “She could know something that could help us find Emily.”
Not again. How many times did he have to tell her to stop interfering with his case? He hated to be so hard on the kid, given what she must be facing at home, but carrying out her own investigation could put her in danger. “Stop mucking around in my case.”
If she heard, she paid no attention. “A woman bought it for her kid’s third birthday. I told you what Emily said. I know her. And she saw that exact bear. The birthday kid was too small to carry a bear that big. That means his mother had to be in the bathroom. Even if she wasn’t the one who snatched Emily, she must have seen someone lift Emily from her stroller.”
He thought about the odd footprints he’d photographed in the restroom. No question this kid was smart. If one of his officers had delivered this information, he would probably compliment them on the work. He hated to do it, but he had to get Brandy to let up—if for nothing else, for her own protection. “Don’t you have a term paper to write or something?”
She lowered her gaze, told him how she and Emily had been eyeing the bear for months, how Brandy hoped to buy it for Em. “Don’t you get it? This matches Mrs. Wyatt’s story.”
He told her Detective Vernon was following up on the Volvo and that he’d let her parents know if they found anything. “I mean it, Brandy, if you don’t stay out of this, I’ll have you locked up for interfering with a police investigation.” Radhauser felt the heat climbing up the back of his neck.
She squared her shoulders and glared at him. “Everyone is threatening to arrest me. Don’t I have any rights? This is my sister, Detective Radhauser. I’m the one responsible for whatever is happening to her right now.” She stopped, sucked in another breath. “Use your imagination and try not to barf.”
He could hear the tears forming in her voice and tossed his handkerchief across the desk.
“Could I at least see the tape? Maybe I’ll recognize her from the park.”
Radhauser dropped the tape into the player. Static. He backed it up, played it again. The tape was blank.
When he looked at Brandy, he saw the desperation in her eyes. He felt like hugging her and telling her what a great sister she was to Emily. Instead, he tried to harden his features, put far more bravado in his words than he felt. “Now get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”
* * *
While door-to-door canvassing Ashland neighborhoods, Brandy had an idea. Although not listed in the phone book as a costume-maker, Kathleen often sewed for local theater groups. Maybe she knew others who did the same thing—people the police wouldn’t know about and couldn’t investigate.
Besides, she longed to talk with Kathleen. Someone who wouldn’t respond with that slow, sad shake of the head she’d come to expect. Another door closing as layer after layer of hope disappeared.
The sun centered itself in a cloudless sky as she climbed the concrete steps. A purple-leafed plum tree next to the landing formed a canopy against the sun. The rain had washed everything clean and the sawdust around the trees had turned apricot. All around her, the air smelled like spring and the pine mulch Kathleen always used in her flowerbeds.
She rang the bell and waited.
Kathleen opened the door. “Oh, honey. I’ve been worried to death.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls,” Brandy said. “The police want us to keep the phone lines open and I’ve been trying so hard to find Emily.”
Kathleen took Brandy’s hand and pulled her inside. “I know how difficult this must be for all of you. I’m so sorry, honey.” Kathleen cupped her hand gently around the back of Brandy’s head.
The tenderness undid Brandy, and she stumbled into Kathleen’s arms and all the tears she’d held back wet the soft flesh of Kathleen’s neck.
“It’s okay, honey,” Kathleen said. “Let it out.”
When the sobbing subsided, Brandy breathed in Kathleen’s scent, as clean and fresh as sheets left to dry in the sun—a scent that made Brandy want to stay close to Kathleen forever. Finally, Brandy drew away. “I have an idea,” she said, and told Kathleen about her interviews with Mrs. Wyatt and her suspicions about the giant Pooh bear in the toy store window. She asked Kathleen to make a list of independent costume makers.
“I’m happy to give you the ones I know, but it will take a little time to get the addresses.”
“We don’t have much time.”
“Are you taking care of yourself, honey? Have you had anything to eat?”
“Not since lunch with Emily yesterday.”
“I’m making you a sandwich.” Kathleen took Brandy’s hand and led her into the kitchen. The radio was tuned to a classical music station. All of a sudden, the music stopped. “We interrupt your usual broadcast for this breaking development in the Emily Michaelson kidnapping case. Medford police have found a child in a dumpster behind Fred Meyers, assumed to be two-and-a-half-year-old Emily. Ashland police and Emily’s parents are…”
Kathleen flipped off the radio.
“Why’d you do that?” Brandy raced over to the radio and turned it back on, but it was only music. “No,” Brandy said, her voice so strangled she could barely understand her own words. “It’s not her. It can’t be her.”
Kathleen made a low sound in her throat and began to say something, then changed her mind. She handed Brandy a tissue.
“I have to call home,” Brandy said.
Kathleen walked Brandy to the kitchen table and kept a firm hand on her shoulder while she dialed.
A strange voice answered. “Michaelson residence.”
Everything stopped. An instant of utter stillness, like the kind that happened in sleep. Brandy didn’t recognize the voice. A family member was supposed to answer in case the kidnapper called. “What’s wrong? Why are you answering our phone?”
“It’s Officer Corbin,” he said. “Your parents just left with Detective Radhauser. They’re following up on a lead. I didn’t want to leave the phone unattended.”
Brandy’s thoughts whirled and her legs started shaking again. “Has there been any news?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at Kathleen Sizemore’s house.”
“Good,” he said, asking her for the number. “Stay put until I call back.”
“No. This is my sister. I want to know now.”
“It’s been on the news,” he said, as if he needed to give himself permission to answer her question. “Police found a child in a—” He stopped, started again. “In Medford. Your father and Christine are headed over to make an identification.”
“I know about the dumpster. Is it Emily?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Have someone ask her. Emily can talk. She can tell you who she is.”
He said nothing. And in the terrible silence, fear swelled inside her, crept along her spine and spread out into her veins. “Oh my God. She’s dead, isn’t she?” Kathleen grabbed the phone. “Call us when you know something definitive.” She hung up and took Brandy by the elbow. “Let’s get some air,” she said, in the take-charge tone of a schoolteacher. She led Brandy out the back door into a yard enclosed with a hedge of mock orange, lush emerald leaves fragrant with tiny white stars. Kathleen stopped in front of a wooden bench at the edge of her rose garden and gently nudged Brandy onto the seat.
From a neighbor’s yard, the high tinkling sounds of children, of laughter, tumbled over Brandy, clung to the goose bumps on her arms. She turned her ear in the direction of the sound.
Kathleen knelt in front of the bench. Her eyes, round and large, searched Brandy’s face. “Why don’t we wait until we hear back from the police officer before we assume the worst?”
“They found a dead body, didn’t they?” Brandy’s voice sounded about an octave lower than usual. Dead, the word sunk in and repeated itself. Dead. Her little sister was dead. She couldn’t imagine what would happen to their lives without Emily. She tried to stand, but her legs shook too hard and she dropped back onto the bench.
Kathleen pl
aced her hand on Brandy’s knee and left it there. “They didn’t give out much information over the radio. I think we should wait and see.”
Emily in a dumpster with sticky coke cans and empty wine bottles.
Brandy clamped her eyes shut. She needed the darkness to block out even the remote possibility of something so horrible happening to Emily. But the sun’s light remained. And behind her closed eyelids, strands of red strung across the black. Emily had to be all right. She couldn’t be dead. With Brandy’s intense awareness of her little sister, she would have known, felt it in some deep place, if something violent had happened.
Brandy’s eyes shot open. “I have to keep looking.” She leapt to her feet. “Did you make that list of independent costume makers?”
“Honey, you just asked me. I’ll do it as soon as I can.”
“I need it to be fast.”
“Try to stay calm, sweetheart.”
“I am. But I can’t just sit here. I need to find my sister. She’s been missing for almost twenty-four hours.”
“The police officer said he’d call back. If you’re out looking, how will I get a message to you?”
Maybe Kathleen was right. Medford was only ten minutes away. How long could it take for them to see the child in the dumpster was not Emily? Brandy couldn’t sit still and she began to pace across the yard.
“I’ll make you a sandwich. Will you be all right until I get back?”
Kathleen climbed the back steps slowly, turned twice to check on Brandy, then disappeared into the house.
Brandy continued to pace. Beyond the hedge, in the limbs of a neighbor’s oak, the sun burned yellow. There was something so peaceful about Kathleen’s backyard, with its lush blooming plants and birdfeeders—so much life. A robin dug for a worm in the bed of cosmos and zinnias, then flew to its nest in the eaves.
She watched the momma bird, thinking about what Christine must be going through right now. Brandy remembered the time she’d found a robin in her bedroom. It must have flown in when Kathleen cleaned the windows. And when they shut the house up before going away for the weekend, it got trapped.
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