His fat cheeks reddened and he looked at her for a long time without saying anything. “Because I didn’t buy the stuffed bear and I wasn’t in the park on Saturday.”
“But you knew who did. Don’t you think that information should have been reported to the police?”
His jaw tensed. “Maybe,” he said, his voice low and edged with anger. “But not to some wise-ass kid who shows up at my door, questioning my judgment. I’d like you to leave now.”
“Please, mister.” She told him about the ransom call, the trip to Rogue Valley Mall with the money, and the way they’d come home to find their house ransacked, and only Emily’s stuffed animals missing. “Whoever took my sister isn’t planning to give her back. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left her alone in her stroller. You can help me make it right.”
“My customer was a professional-looking, middle-aged woman. Not some low-life kidnapper.”
Brandy told him how Emily loved the giant Pooh, what she’d said in the restroom. “We believe the woman in that costume was the last person to see Emily before she disappeared.”
“What if she didn’t see anything?”
“Then at least I will have tried,” Brandy said. “I will have followed up on my hunch.”
“If my customer finds out I gave you her name and address, she won’t trust me to work for her again. This woman already has a daughter. That’s why she was going to the fair.”
“If she has a daughter, she’ll understand what my family is going through.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it and looked at his shoes.
“I’m not a bad person,” Brandy said. “And I’m usually not a wise-ass. I’m just an eighteen-year-old kid who did something really stupid because I thought Lithia Park playground was safe. But it wasn’t and if Emily isn’t found soon, there’s a good chance she won’t ever be.” She told him about the 48-hour statistics.
“I have a lot of sympathy for you and your family.”
“Sympathy won’t find my sister. If I call Detective Radhauser, he’ll come, his lights and sirens blaring. Think how frightened your mother will be. He’ll bring a warrant, if that’s what you insist upon, and he might even arrest you for not coming forward.” What was it called, that thing she’d heard on Law & Order? “For obstruction of justice.”
His dark eyes flashed. They were piercing, searching her, and she could see the rage. “Are you threatening me?”
“No. But we’re wasting valuable time. What’s worse? You losing a possible customer or me losing my baby sister forever?”
His gaze darted to the mannequin. “Who would take care of Momma if they arrested me?” he whispered more to himself than to Brandy.
She tried one more time. “After Emily disappeared, hundreds of people helped us look. There was all this noise and energy.” Her voice cracked and she could tell it was coming. She wouldn’t cry. She tried to stop it in her throat and hold it like a fist. “Inside all that noise was the awful silence of Emily being gone.”
When the sob escaped, Brandy placed her hand over her mouth and tried to hold back the tears. It was useless. Her dad was wrong. She did know what it felt like to carry someone inside you.
He stared at the floor, then back up at her, his face softening. “Hang on.” He crossed the room and pulled open a file drawer.
Finally, Brandy had a name, Althea Wineheart, an address on the outskirts of Talent and directions on how to get there.
As she backed out of the parking lot, a thought arose with the sudden force of a revelation. She knew exactly what she had to do. If her hunch led to Emily’s kidnapper, Brandy had to come prepared to perform a role of her own.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Radhauser tossed the paperclip he’d been fiddling with into the desk drawer and stood. His stomach growled from lack of food and all the coffee he’d been pouring into it. It was the place a child abduction case always got him—in the gut. He opened the window and stood with his hands on the frame, sucking in breaths and feeling the cool air on his face. What was keeping Vital Records from calling him back?
Vernon, now assigned to desk duty on this case, had found no gray Volvo registered to either a Sophia or a Rose Michaelson, or anything even close. The calls they’d made led to nothing. No one admitted buying the big stuffed Pooh bear from Pivorotto’s Toy Store.
He’d had one of the clerks go through the phone book and call everyone listed in Grants Pass, Medford, and Ashland who did alterations, but found no one who’d admit they turned a stuffed animal into a costume.
Though he’d studied each one with a magnifying glass, the photos Stefan Wysocki had taken in the park that day revealed nothing that could help. The hotline had proved pretty useless. One psycho phoned in around midnight to tell them she’d spotted Emily at the Imperial Palace in Beijing—worshipping at the belly of the Buddha.
DNA on the hair would take a while, but the initial microscopic exam looked as if it could belong to Emily. He kept thinking about what Brandy had said. How her hair had caught in the escalator’s teeth. Was that why the kidnapper cut Emily’s hair and sent it to her family? Was it a message of some kind only Brandy and her father would understand?
He shook his head and his thoughts moved on to Brandy’s request. He stared at the phone as if he could will Vital Records to call back.
If Sophia Rose Michaelson had been arrested for arson, her face should be in the system. He called California State Police, and within minutes they faxed him a photograph.
He put the two photos side by side—the wedding photo from 1978 and her arrest photo from 1985 where her face was puffy, her hair oily and tangled. Only seven years between the two, but though he tried, Radhauser couldn’t make a strong connection.
One dead end after another.
He thought about the last forty-four hours, pictured them spread out behind him like a trail. He saw every wasted second, every false lead that had sent him nowhere. Every cup of coffee he’d stopped to buy. The fast food he’d crammed down on the run. All of it measured against time—minutes and hours—until it would be too late to ever find Emily.
He pushed his forehead against the window.
The phone rang. It was California Vital Records.
When Radhauser hung up, he knew one thing for certain. He needed to talk to Daniel Michaelson. Now.
* * *
In the interrogation room, Radhauser took off his jacket and draped it over the chair, watching Daniel Michaelson as he did. “If you want me to find your daughter alive, you need to cut the shit and tell me the truth about your former wife.”
Michaelson stared at Radhauser in silence, clearly disturbed by what he’d heard.
Radhauser remained convinced that something shameful lay hidden behind Michaelson’s silence. He saw its guilty shape swimming in the man’s blue eyes. Radhauser needed to bring Daniel’s guilt to the surface. He didn’t know any other way to do it than to hammer him with the details he’d accumulated.
Before he had a chance to begin, Daniel spoke. “Rose died in a mental hospital near Palo Alto, California. A place called Bayview. It closed about a year ago.”
“How did you learn about her death?”
Daniel told him he’d gotten a letter from an executor of Rose’s trust, informing him of her death and asking what he wanted done with the remains.
“When did you get this so-called letter?”
“Look,” Michaelson said. “I can understand why you’re suspicious. I told Brandy some lies to protect her from the truth about her mother’s mental illness. After we moved to Oregon, I drove down to Palo Alto a couple times a year to visit Rose. But then, one day in November 1988, I received the letter.” He told Radhauser he’d made arrangements with the Ashland cemetery so Brandy would have a place to visit.
Radhauser had already verified this with the cemetery. “Do you have this trustee’s name?”
“It was a woman. I may still have the letter.” Michaelson leaned forward and tol
d Radhauser how Rose had begged him to move away, to divorce her and tell Brandy she was dead. “Believe me, it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. But under the circumstances, I thought it was the right thing.”
Michaelson’s face clearly held a deep and painful loss—the kind of loss Radhauser understood. He thought about the time he’d left a lariat Lucas had coveted on the boy’s grave. As if he could make up for what he hadn’t done. As if he could make up for letting him go.
He refocused on the case. “Well, Mr. Michaelson, I’ve got a news flash for you. I’ve talked with Vital Records in California. There is no death certificate on file for Sophia Rose Michaelson.”
Daniel went white, then shook his head firmly. “That can’t be possible. I…I would have known if she was still alive.” He looked away, but not before Radhauser saw how much Daniel Michaelson both longed for and feared that possibility.
“Get that letter,” Radhauser said. “I need to call that trustee and see if she can help me get to the bottom of this.”
* * *
Brandy parked Kathleen’s Taurus in front of a white bungalow with peeling paint and a parade of wooden characters wearing costumes across the small yard. She wanted to rent a Tigger costume. Emily believed Tigger could find anything. Mr. Pivorotto had told Brandy the woman who bought the Pooh also purchased the book, Tigger, Finder of Lost Things. If Brandy was right and Althea Wineheart bought into the fantasy, this plan had a good chance of working.
Inside, a shabby, middle-aged man with a long neck and small squinty eyes that made him look like a pervert stood behind a wooden counter in what had once been the living room. He ate a jelly doughnut and drank coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Tiny pieces of granulated sugar clung to the dark hairs on the back of his hand. When his doughnut leaked onto his fingers, he licked them, making a deep gurgling sound in his throat.
An eleven-by-fourteen-inch poster of Emily was taped to his display case. Everywhere she went she saw them now, as if Emily’s smile had somehow multiplied and blossomed overnight. Everyone had been so cooperative about hanging the posters. So many people wanted to find her.
Brandy shuddered, unable to tear her gaze away from Emily’s face. How could anyone harm a little girl who looked like that? Even as she tried to convince herself otherwise, she knew the truth. Every year, the evening news told hundreds of stories about monsters who hurt innocent toddlers like Emily. Brandy looked into her sister’s laughing blue eyes until her throat ached—until she could finally look away.
The shop walls were lined with the kind of clothing racks found in Goodwill stores. Everywhere, costumes hung from wire hangers. Above each rack, a long, unpainted shelf held a large assortment of heads—skeletons and space creatures, apes and hippos, Barney and Garfield.
The man wiped his sugary hands on his khaki pants and gazed at her cheek. “You looking for perfection—a Marilyn Monroe or maybe something more modern, say a Cindy Crawford.”
“Not today,” she said, wanting to get what she needed and get out. “I want to rent a tiger.”
“Hmmmm.” His gaze swept over her body to her jean-clad legs, then up again, landing on her breasts. “Ferocious or playful?”
“Bouncy. Like Tigger in the Winnie the Pooh stories.”
“You got some costume party over at the high school?”
She nodded.
He kept staring at her, with his squinty eyes that made it seem like he was trying to see beneath her clothes. He made no effort to fill her request.
“Well,” she finally said. “Will you rent it to me or not?”
He found the costume. “One size fits all adults,” he said. He lifted the Tigger head from the shelf and placed it inside a cardboard box with a packet of powder. “Dust with a little of this and it’ll go on easier.”
She paid with the MasterCard her dad had provided for emergencies, leaned against the counter, dotted with sugar and donut crumbs, and signed her name.
He examined the credit card before his gaze shifted to the poster. “Ain’t you the sister of that little kid gone missing from the park?”
In an unseen place within her, she felt an entire world spread out. A place no other person could ever reach. The home of her feelings for Emily. She closed her eyes so she could say it. “Yes. Emily Michaelson is my little sister.”
His gaze found the poster again, then returned to Brandy. “It’s a shame, pretty little girl like that. I hate to even think…” He paused and shook his head. “Cops came by here. Wanted to know if I rented out the Pooh.”
“Did you?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“The police believe someone wearing a Pooh costume was responsible.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told the cops. I ain’t rented that costume for more than a year. Thomas the Train, Barney, and Casper are my best rentals for kiddy parties this season.”
In the silence that followed, Brandy felt the heat of the man’s stare. “I know how you must feel,” he said.
Brandy lowered her head. “Do you?” Again, she sensed his beady eyes on her, his uneasiness.
“Hope we don’t have some whacko kid killer out there.”
Brandy cringed.
“Seems a bit strange, don’t it? You bouncing around in a Tigger suit with your little sister missing. You ain’t playing some kind of sick joke on your parents, are you?”
Afraid of what she might say, Brandy tucked the credit card into the back of her wallet, gathered up the costume and stepped outside. Halfway down the walk, she turned back. As the shop door reopened, the poster fluttered in the wind, rippling Emily’s features.
Behind the counter, the man clutched the telephone receiver against his ear.
She knew she should take her new information to Radhauser. But she also knew he’d never agree to her plan. Time was running out. “Ask for Detective Radhauser,” Brandy said. “Tell him I’m following up on a lead. A really big one.”
* * *
Radhauser studied the letter Daniel Michaelson had delivered. It certainly looked official—and Daniel had every reason to believe his ex-wife was dead. Radhauser wouldn’t take any chances. Needing to confirm, he picked up the phone and placed a call to Lockhart, Dewey and Bliss—the attorneys appointed trustees for the fund Victor and Sylvia Delorenzo had set up for their daughter, Sophia Rose.
He identified himself and asked to speak to Althea Wineheart.
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said. “No one by that name works here.”
“Could you check the records, see if she worked for you in 1988?”
“Hold on.” She put down the receiver.
A few moments later, she returned. “No, sir. We have no record of anyone named Althea Wineheart ever working at Lockhart, Dewey and Bliss.”
He asked if the firm managed the trust fund for Sophia Rose Michaelson or Sophia Rose Delorenzo.
“The daughter of the Italian wine makers,” she said. “Don’t we wish?”
Radhauser thanked her for her time and hung up. Everything he thought he knew about this case flew out the window. What the hell was going on here?
He closed the Emily Michaelson file, waited a moment, then opened it again—determined to read it through. He’d go over everything for the hundredth time. He must have missed something.
And so he read the 911 operator’s record of Brandy’s call, the interviews he’d conducted in the park. The calls that had come in on the hotline. His interviews with Ms. Frazer at the preschool, Mrs. Wyatt, Stefan Wysocki, Kent and his mother, Glenard Dewar, and Christine’s parents. The toyshop owner. The lie detector results for Christine and Daniel Michaelson. Nothing made sense. Nothing connected.
Something snapped in his head, like a puzzle piece he’d been unable to click into place. He’d learned to accept things when they came to him in this abrupt and chilling manner, because experience had taught him it was almost always right.
He picked up his phone and called Officer Corb
in. “Check with the DMV, Census, and IRS. See if you can find an address for an Althea Wineheart. And while you’re at it, check Sophia Rose Michaelson. Or Sophia Rose Delorenzo.”
“That Wineheart name sounds familiar,” Corbin said. “I think she was on my list of Volvo station wagon owners.”
Radhauser opened the folder and checked the two lists Vernon had compiled to make the calling go faster. “Althea Wineheart has an Oregon driver’s license and an address just outside Talent.” He grabbed his Stetson. “Come on, Corbin, we’re taking a ride.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Brandy gripped the steering wheel of Kathleen’s car, following the directions she’d gotten from the costume maker—confident every saved minute brought her closer to Emily. She drove seventy miles per hour, fishtailing around sharp curves on the narrow country roads. After two miles, she turned onto an even more isolated stretch of gravel with front yards littered in weeds, old appliances, and junk cars up on blocks. Brandy hit the brake, slowed to fifty. What if Em managed to get away from the kidnapper? What if she’s been trapped in one of those stinky old refrigerators? Brandy’s chest tightened. It was hard to breathe. The Tigger costume made her hot.
She rolled down the window and sucked in a breath of air that smelled like pinecones—like the woods in Lithia Park after a rainstorm. She pressed down on the accelerator. Tiny pieces of gravel pinged off the underside of the car. The wind made the cedars and pines sway. She crossed a wooden bridge, its planks rattling under the tires.
The gravel road ended, and the car bounced on rutted tire tracks with tufts of grass growing in between. She gripped the wheel tighter. Her mouth went dry. What is going on here? Where are the houses? Over the next rise, the trail ended. She skidded to a dusty stop. And there it was, right in front of her. A gray Volvo station wagon with a child’s car seat in the back.
Her eyes opened wide. This was it. The car Mr. Pivorotto described. The woman who drove it bought the stuffed bear, had it made into a costume, and kidnapped Emily. Brandy uttered a silent prayer of thanks. The mantra she used with her baby sister rose inside her. Who loves you, Em?
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