Idyll Fears

by Stephanie Gayle

  “She can come too,” I said. “Officer Yankowitz is at the station. He’s in charge of the K-9 unit. He can teach Anna some dog tricks with Gretel.”

  “My boy,” Jane said, wiping her eyes. “Is it him?” She had real tears on her cheeks, but she’d studied acting. She ought to know how to cry on command.

  “It won’t take long,” Waters said, as if this was an objection they might raise.

  “We’ll get our coats.” Peter hesitated, as if unsure what coats were.

  Waters had to say, “Let’s go then” to prompt him to fetch their coats.

  Jane’s coat didn’t zip around her newly popped-out belly. Her husband’s hand was on her back as she walked. “Anna!” she cried. “Anna!” For all the world, she sounded on the verge of a breakdown.

  Anna came around the corner, her cheeks red as apples, her breath coming in pants, like her dog’s. “Where are we going?” she asked. Gretel danced around her feet.

  “We need to talk to the police. Come along,” her mother said, extending her arm.

  Anna raced past, toward the car. She opened the rear door, and Gretel jumped up and in. Anna seated herself beside the dog. Peter guided Jane, holding her elbow, as if she were frail.

  Waters tilted her head, a signal. She got into her SUV and pulled in front of the Forrands. I took backup, behind them, in case they ran for it. Gretel rode with her face pressed to the rear window, delighted. Anna stroked her fur. Anna, the focus of her parents’ attention for the first time in a long time. How would her life change today? The Forrands followed Waters, signaling every turn they took.

  When we got to the station, Yankowitz was ready. He gave Gretel a treat, which she gobbled in two bites. “Want to teach her to sit and roll over?” he asked Anna.

  “Really?” She looked at Gretel with doubt.

  “Really. Come on. We’ll use Mrs. Dunsmore’s office.” He winked, as if he was being naughty. She giggled and followed, no backward look to her parents.

  When she was out of sight, Jane asked, “Where are the pictures?”

  “Let’s go to the interview room. No chance of Anna seeing them in there,” Agent Waters said. She ushered Jane in front of her. I stepped forward, bisecting Peter from his wife.

  “Peter, I need you to look at photos as well,” I said.

  “Yes, with my wife.”

  “Alone,” I said. “If you’re together, the chances of misidentification increase; but if you both independently say ‘no’ or ‘yes,’ we’ll feel that much more confident.”

  He frowned. “But—”

  “Look, I have no desire to subject your wife to the morgue if we don’t have to. It’s not clear the body is Cody’s. Understand?”

  He gnawed his lip. He didn’t understand, but I was standing too close, crowding him. It made him uncomfortable. He stepped away and said, “Okay. Where?”

  I took him to my office, away from the interview room where Waters was showing Jane pictures of a seven-year-old boy’s corpse. The pictures had come from a cold case that Waters had grabbed. The dead child resembled Cody. Same build, brown hair. Blue eyes, but that wasn’t evident from the photos. The boy rested on his side, eyes closed, hair dirty with bits of twigs and leaves. Abandoned in the woods, like Hansel.

  I sat in my chair, and he sat opposite, scanning the desk for the promised photographs. I didn’t have any. Peter wasn’t getting the same questions as Jane.

  “Peter, when did you decide to get Gretel for Anna?” I asked.

  “What? Where are the photos?”

  “Answer the question, please.”

  “The dog? Um, New Year’s Day. Jane said it would help Anna, to have a pet, what with Cody being gone.”

  “Yes, but what if he came back? Could you really handle a dog?”

  “I didn’t think it was a great idea, but Jane said when Cody came, we could re-examine the situation. If it didn’t work, her sister could take Gretel. Jessica loves dogs.”

  “Right. So you found a dog two days before the new year?”

  He heard my skepticism. “Jane knew a breeder who had puppies. A buyer had fallen through and he had one puppy available.”

  “How convenient,” I said.

  “Look, what’s this got to do with Cody? I want to know. I want to see him.”

  “So do we,” I said. “Your wife put down a deposit on your puppy on December 18th. She’d contacted the seller about the dog in August.”

  “That’s not right,” he said.

  “The seller remembers, and he has a check receipt, from your account, dated December 18th. We’ve seen it.”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with Cody.”

  “Do you know someone named Mark Farraday?” I asked.

  He nodded. “He used to do lawn work for us when he was a teenager.”

  “Mark Farraday’s prints were on the stolen car used to abduct Cody.”

  “Did he take him? Mark Farraday?”

  “No. He stole the car. Because your wife paid him to.”

  “What? Stop it.” He stood. “Why are you saying these things? Jane didn’t have anything to do with Cody’s kidnapping. She’s his mother!”

  “Sit down, Mr. Forrand.” I used my perp tone. He sat. “This is Mark Farraday’s confession.” I pushed the paper to him. “In it, he states that your wife promised him four hundred dollars to deliver a stolen car to a parking lot in West Hartford.”

  “Four hundred dollars? We don’t have—”

  “Yeah. She didn’t pay the full amount. Instead, she paid one fifty and, uh, ‘bartered’ for the rest.” I let that sink in. “Did you think the baby was yours? With your vasectomy? Did she tell you it was?”

  His face got red, and he clutched the edge of the desk. So hard his knuckles turned white. His jaw clenched. He looked one blink away from a seizure. “I knew the baby wasn’t mine. She said she made a mistake.” The words came out hollow. He glanced down at the paper. Blinked. He read a few lines. His fingers released their grip on the desk. “She loves Cody,” he whispered. “She’s moved heaven and earth to find him.”

  “I can’t help noticing that she looks very happy these days.”

  He shook his head. “It’s the baby, the hormones. She’s not . . .” He stopped. Read more of Mark Farraday’s statement. His face lost color.

  “The thing is, Peter, your wife has been visiting Sharon Donner since early this fall. I think they planned this months ago.”

  “Why?” He closed his eyes. As if he could shut it out. “No, that’s crazy. Jane loves Cody. She wouldn’t help with his abduction.” He stood up. “We’re leaving. You’re crazy. She wouldn’t—”

  I interrupted. “From what I saw, you two had a nice life back in Chaplin. Great house, two kids, active life. Until Cody’s frequent injuries and hospital visits got the neighbors talking, huh? Your life was never the same after him, was it? You lost your job. Had to downsize.”

  He deflated. “It’s not his fault. He didn’t choose to have a rare genetic disease.”

  “He didn’t. And right now I’m worried about his safety. I have reason to suspect Aaron Donner’s death may have been aided by his mother.”

  “She killed him?” He leaned back, stunned.

  “The FBI is investigating his death. If she harmed Aaron, what might she do to Cody?”

  “Where is she?” he wailed. “Where has she got him?”

  “That’s what we’d like to ask your wife.” The thought knocked him sideways for a second. His wife, who’d bartered away her body, had also traded their son, for freedom. She might know where he was. Had known all this time. “Agent Waters is interviewing her now, but if Jane won’t tell her, we’d like you to ask her.” I stood. “Stay here. I need to check on something.”

  I walked to the interview room. Heard the murmur of voices within. I knocked on the door. Waters exited a minute later. Her pursed lips told me things hadn’t gone well. She closed the door and said, “Nothing. When I asked about her meetings with S
haron Donner, she told me she’d visited to keep her company, that she was worried about her after Aaron’s death.”

  “Did you mention Farraday?”

  “No. The minute his name comes up, she’ll shout for a lawyer. I can’t have that.”

  “What about the pictures? How’d she react?”

  “She held them up close, real close. Then came the waterworks.”

  “She positively identified him?” We’d taken bets. I’d thought she would; Waters didn’t. Waters thought she wanted to milk the missing-son story. I thought a dead son was safer. People stop looking for dead kids.

  “You were right. She seemed relieved. How did it go with her husband?”

  “Good. Pretty sure he’s sold on it.”

  “But will she tell him where Cody is?” she asked. “She’s got ice water in her veins, that one. Once she’d worked her way through half a box of tissues, she asked when they can have the body. She started talking funeral details two seconds later. Sounded like she was planning a fucking wedding.” Waters didn’t curse a lot. She hated Jane Forrand. Maybe it was a woman thing, or a mother thing. Ever since we’d figured out Jane’s involvement, Waters had wanted her head on a spike.

  “I’m going to go back in there. Ask a few softballs. Let her think we’re getting ready to take her to the morgue. You prep Peter, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Peter was pacing the floor of my office. He stopped when I came in. “Can I see Jane now?” he asked.

  I said, “We need to know where Cody is. We’ve only got one shot at this. If she asks for a lawyer, we’re lost. We have zero leads on where Sharon Donner took him. We need that information. If you step into that room and start screaming, she’ll never give it to us. You need to be calm.”

  “Calm! You’ve just told me she helped plan my son’s kidnapping. That she’s known where he is for months.”

  I waited him out and said, “You’re Cody’s best chance to make it home.”

  “How am I supposed to get her to tell me?” he asked.

  “Why not say that you saw the Farraday confession when I left the room? That you pieced together her involvement.” I watched him process this. “And then you have to do something that might be hard.”

  He looked up at me. “What?”

  “Say that you’ll help her. Offer her your support. Say you’ll back up whatever she says. Say you need to know where Cody is. Do not let her tell you it’s safer if you don’t know. Insist.”

  He rubbed his hair. “I don’t know if I can. She gave our son to a murderer!”

  “Shhh. Anna’s in the building.” I wasn’t worried that Anna would overhear. I was concerned her mother might.

  “We’d like to record the conversation.” I got out the mini tape recorder. Our interview room wasn’t wired for sound. When Peter talked to Jane, we wouldn’t be able to hear a word. Waters had campaigned to bring them to the FBI building, but I’d thought it would spook Jane too much.

  Peter took the mini recorder from me. “Do you think he’s alive?” he asked.

  If I told the truth, he might decide an intact family meant more than his dead son. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’d like to find him, and bring him home, either way.”

  He exhaled a shaky breath and scrubbed his face with his palms. “Me too.” He hit the record button on the mini tape player. Then he slipped it into his coat pocket. We walked to the interview room. I knocked on the door and waited. Waters opened it. Jane Forrand sat, hands in her lap, forward of her pregnant belly. Her cheeks were tear-stained.

  “Waters, can I, uh, grab you for a minute?”

  Peter stepped inside and stood beside his wife.

  Jane asked, “Where’s Anna?”

  “Learning how to make Gretel roll over.” I couldn’t have Anna here. Jane would never admit to being involved with Cody’s kidnapping if Anna were present.

  Waters exited the room. Peter looked toward his wife. The door closed.

  Waters’s eyes had dark shadows. Neither of us had slept much. We ran on coffee, adrenaline, and hope. “It’s in his hands now,” she said. She walked toward the coffeepot. Stared at the half-full glass container. “What do you think his chances are?”

  “I’m not sure if he’s up to it,” I said. “Even if he is, why should she tell him? She might lawyer up. Refuse to talk.”

  “He’s her husband,” she said.

  “The same husband she cheated on. Same husband whose kid she gave to a possible child killer.”

  “True, but I don’t know, I think she needs him. She wants the happy family. Husband, two kids, nice home. She had it before, and she can have it again, but not without him. She can’t slot Farraday into his place.”

  We looked toward the interview-room door. Not that we wanted to see anyone step out. It was too soon. If either of them left now, we’d failed.

  Waters followed me to my office. We sat and placed bets, more bets, on where Cody was. Waters thought he was in state. I thought not. His face was plastered on posters. It had been on TV. There was the billboard. I couldn’t imagine he would go unreported if he were here. I was thinking Canada. Wasn’t hard to get there. All you needed was a driver’s license and a reason. “Holiday trip” would do.

  “I hate waiting,” Waters said. She checked her watch.

  “We’re ready to go if he gets the info, right?” If Peter extracted a location from his wife, I wanted us to hit the ground running.

  “They’re waiting on my call.” She pulled her mobile phone out and squinted at the display. “Come on, come on,” she muttered.

  “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” I said.

  “What does that—oh,” she said. “I get it. You telling me to be patient?” I laced my hands behind my neck and stared at the ceiling. “I’m saying you can’t hurry it, so why dwell on it?”

  “You’re the most laid-back city cop I’ve ever met,” she said.

  “It’s the small-town living. It’s changed me.”

  “Really?”

  The ceiling was made up of square panels dotted every half-inch. There were thirty-six holes in each panel. I’d counted them, several times. “No,” I said. “I know I can’t change the outcome. We’re going to have to wait.”

  “Ah, a fatalist,” she said, as if it explained everything. Fatalist? That’s the problem with the feds. Too much schooling.

  “Close your eyes and take a nap,” I said.

  She scoffed at my suggestion. I counted the holes in the ceiling tiles. The half tiles in the far right corner had only eighteen holes. Huh. Never noticed that before. I looked at Waters. She peered at her phone. I returned my gaze to the ceiling.

  “Waiting is the bread and butter of police work.” Rick used to say that, to rookies when they’d complain about why couldn’t we search the suspect’s home now, or why did we have to wait on the lab for the results?

  I must have drifted off. Because when I heard the knock, I had to open my eyes and close my mouth. Billy stood in the doorway. “Mr. Forrand wants to see you,” he said.

  Waters jumped to her feet. “Where’s Mrs. Forrand?”

  “With Anna.”

  “Send him in.” I checked my shirt for drool. Hoped to hell I hadn’t snored.

  Peter Forrand came in, his face a decade older. He reached into his pocket and held out the recorder. “Thimble Islands,” he said. Waters took the recorder from him. “Jane said he’s on the Thimble Islands. She begged me not to tell you. Said he’d be happier on his own, without two siblings. She—” Tears fell. He shook his head, unable to continue.

  “Did she confess? To planning the grabs?” Waters asked. He nodded. She smiled, a tight, small smile. “We’ll send a team for him now.” She squeezed Peter’s elbow.

  “Can I come?” he asked.

  “Stay with Anna,” she said. “We’re going to arrest Jane. Anna will need you.”

  “Can you, can you not do it in front of Anna?” He rubbed his mouth. “I don’t want
her to see that.”

  “Billy!” I called. He ran into the room moments later. “Get Mrs. Forrand. Make sure her daughter stays with Yankowitz,” I said.

  A minute later, Jane appeared, clutching her coat to her stomach. “Can we go now? Anna hasn’t had lunch, and I’m not feeling well. We can do the identification later, can’t we?” Her plea seemed grotesque. Her willingness to claim a dead boy as her own.

  Waters said, “Jane Forrand, you’re under arrest for the abduction of Cody Forrand.” She put the cuffs on Jane, in front of her protruding belly.

  Jane twisted her hands. “What are you doing? Peter! Tell them! Tell them what a mistake they’re making!”

  Peter closed his eyes against the image of his pregnant wife in handcuffs.

  “Peter! Call a lawyer. Jacob What’s-His-Name. The guy you played basketball with.” Jane was breathing hard. “Peter, are you listening?”

  Peter opened his eyes. “Call him yourself,” he said. He walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I drove behind a caravan of FBI vehicles, my hands tight on the wheel. The car rocked slightly, due to forceful winds and our speed. Yankowitz sat in the passenger seat. We were listening to a copy of the tape recording, finally learning what happened between Peter and Jane Forrand in that interview room. Behind us sat Skylar. We had a coat belonging to Cody for scent, plus a cadaver dog belonging to the FBI. Hope for the best; plan for the worst.

  The tape was near the beginning, a few moments after Peter had entered the room with Jane. “I said the boy in the photos was Cody,” Peter said, his voice low.

  “Yes,” Jane said. “I, I think so too.”

  “I saw Farraday’s statement,” Peter said, his voice unsteady. Wow. He’d jumped right to it.

  “What statement?” Jane’s composure slipped. She hadn’t known we’d found Farraday.

  “About the car, and about you and him.” He sighed. “I don’t care why you lied about who you slept with. I know we’ve been . . . It’s been so hard with the kids and everything. Janey, I have to know.”

  “Know what?” She was feeling her way, uncertain.

  “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what to say.”