False Positive

by Andrew Grant

  The bedroom floor was wooden. The boards were broader than the ones downstairs, and the gaps between them were wider, too. A night-light shaped like a frog jutted out of a power socket low down on the wall at the midpoint of the window, and centered beneath that was a gaudy rug. A matching runner lay stretched out at the side of each bed.

  Dillon’s bed was the nearer one to the door. So, if someone had crept in during the night and taken Ethan, they’d have had to walk past Dillon. Twice. First to reach Ethan. Then to get back out, by now potentially carrying a struggling child. Was it feasible to do that without waking a sleeping four-year-old?

  Devereaux tiptoed across the room, listening for creaks or groans from the floorboards. They didn’t so much as whisper, so he tried again, walking normally. Again, there was no sound.

  Devereaux moved back to Ethan’s bed and crouched down to take a closer look at an alien-themed plastic cup that was lying on its side on the runner. The fabric around it was dry, but a roughly oval patch large enough to account for a few ounces of spilled water felt crunchy to the touch, as if recently soaked.

  Devereaux dialed the number for the police department lab and while he waited for the answer to the question he’d asked, he wedged the phone against his shoulder and leaned down to pick up Ethan’s toy rabbit. It was lying on top of the comforter, with its head on the pillow. Devereaux figured it was Bert. Twin brother of Brian. The toy Ethan had taken the other time he’d run away, but not last night.

  The rabbit was heavier than Devereaux had expected, so he turned it over in his hands and tried to distract himself from the infuriating holding-music by looking for an explanation for its weight. He squeezed its floppy ears. Poked its stubby legs. Probed its shaggy, fake fur. Then jerked his hand back. A drop of blood oozed from the tip of his finger. He wiped it away and looked more closely at the toy. Something shiny was concealed in the long seam that ran across its belly. He tugged at the seam and found a row of safety pins. There were twelve. But four of them weren’t lined up neatly, like the rest. They were crooked, as if they’d been replaced in a hurry. And one wasn’t fastened at all.

  Devereaux pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Unfastened the crooked pins. Looked inside the toy. Then returned his attention to the phone when the crime scene tech finally came back on the line.

  Chapter Twelve

  Saturday. Morning.

  Ethan missing for nine and a quarter hours

  Mary Lynne and Joseph were sitting opposite each other in the living room when Devereaux came back downstairs. Loflin was standing a few feet behind the couch Joseph had taken. She was watching as he tried to use an Apple MacBook to search for a register of local sex offenders. Mary Lynne kept glancing anxiously at the door. There was no sign of Dillon.

  After a moment a toilet flushed toward the back of the house. Light footsteps drew closer, and the boy appeared in the doorway. He was carrying a twelve-inch-high plastic T-Rex. Mary Lynne stood and went to scoop up her son but he ducked, scampered to the farthest couch from the door, scrambled up onto it, and settled into the shelter of its deeply padded arm. All his attention was focused on his dinosaur.

  Mary Lynne turned toward Devereaux and her eye was drawn to the toy he was carrying.

  “Ethan’s other rabbit?” She looked puzzled. “What are you doing with that?”

  “It had been left on Ethan’s bed.” Devereaux opened the seam so she could see inside the toy. There was a multi-colored rubber ball. Seven large pebbles, worn smooth and shiny. Two pinecones. Four clothespins. A handful of quarters. And four scratched, battered Civil War soldiers. All Rebels. “Ethan’s treasure. This is where he kept it.”

  “It doesn’t look like treasure to me.” Mary Lynne wrinkled her nose as if she was expecting the contents to smell bad. “It’s junk! Where would he have gotten it from?”

  “Could he have brought it with him, when he first came here?”

  “No.” Mary Lynne shook her head. “He brought nothing at all. The poor little mite. Even the clothes he was wearing were donated by the hospital where he went after he was taken away from the last family that had him.”

  “I’m wondering why he left these things behind.” Devereaux pointed to the concealed opening in the rabbit’s stomach. “He went to some trouble to keep them safe.”

  “What does it matter?” Joseph closed the computer and dropped it on the rug. He stood, moved closer to Devereaux, and scowled. “Ethan’s still missing. And instead of looking for him, you’re standing here asking dumb-ass questions about a bunch of old garbage. Who cares what he took? Or what he left? You should be out there, trying to find him.”

  “We are trying to find him.” Devereaux glanced at Dillon, who was still absorbed by his T-Rex. “But to do that, we need to figure out whether Ethan left of his own accord, or if he was taken. Whether he was acting on his own, or if someone else was there, holding a…Persuading him.”

  “We don’t know.” Mary Lynne turned to Joseph. “How could we? We weren’t in his room all night.”

  “No, you weren’t. But one person was…” Devereaux nodded toward the couch.

  “Absolutely not!” Joseph lowered his voice to an angry hiss. “You’re not interrogating my son. He’s traumatized enough as it is. Look at him!”

  “I just need to ask him one question. How can that hurt? I bet it would make him feel better, trying to help his brother.”

  “I said no.”

  “Maybe if we brought in a counselor?” Loflin kept her distance, feeling the tension growing among the other three.

  “No shrink’s getting his hooks into my son.” Joseph crossed his arms. “This is bull. You should be doing something!”

  “OK.” Devereaux held up his free hand. “You’re frustrated. I understand. So let’s try something else. Let’s try to figure out how long Ethan was here. If we can do that, we might pin down how far he could have gone. Mrs. Crane, can you tell me this—did Ethan take a cup of water to bed at night?”

  “Yes.” Desperate creases lined Mary Lynne’s face. “His alien cup. I always bring it to him when I kiss him goodnight.”

  “You put it on the toy box, next to Ethan’s bed?”

  “Right.” Mary Lynne nodded.

  “It was like that when you left him last night?”

  “Of course. It’s probably still there.”

  “No.” Devereaux shook his head. “It’s not. It was knocked over, sometime during the night. It ended up on the floor. On the runner. Almost level with Ethan’s pillow. Now, Mr. Crane, you checked on the boys for the last time at, what, half-past midnight?”

  “Right.” Joseph looked away. “I already told you that.”

  “Was the cup still on the toy box at that time?”

  Joseph muttered something incomprehensible.

  “What was that?” Devereaux stepped closer. “Mr. Crane?”

  “I didn’t notice, OK? It was dark.”

  “There’s a night-light in the room. It would have shone right where the cup was lying, if it had already fallen off.”

  “Look, I was tired. I didn’t examine every inch of the freaking floor.”

  “What about earlier?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Ethan who knocked the cup over. Or whoever took him. Maybe one of the crime scene guys did it.”

  “No. The cup was on the floor when the crime scene guys arrived. They took photographs before they began. So, Mr. Crane. Think. About each of the times you checked.”

  “I’m trying.” Joseph shook his head. “But I don’t remember. Not specifically.”

  “Honey?” Mary Lynne tugged at Joseph’s sleeve. “How can you not remember? You must have stood right by the bed when you checked on Ethan. If there was water spilled on the floor, your feet would have gotten wet.”

  “I don’t know.” Joseph shrugged. “I just didn’t notice, I guess. Maybe I wasn’t close enough.”

  “I don’t understand.” Mary Lynne massaged her temples with her fingertips. “If you weren�
�t close enough to step in the water, or see the cup lying by the bed, how could you be close enough to see if Ethan was in the bed?”

  “That’s crazy.” Joseph avoided meeting his wife’s eye. “You don’t have to go all the way in to see if he’s there. I didn’t, this morning.”

  “It was light this morning. And I’d already found out our son was missing!” A note of hysteria had crept into Mary Lynne’s voice. “But last night—Joe? What are you saying? You didn’t go all the way in? Did you check on our boys, or not?”

  “Of course I checked!”

  “But did you go in? Did you go all the way to their beds?”

  Joseph didn’t answer.

  “Did you go in? Joe!”

  “Yes, I went in. The first time. To Dillon’s bed, anyway. You know how lightly Ethan sleeps. It was all right for you—you were still at the party, having fun. You just had to listen out for your phone. But what was I supposed to do? I was the one who had to keep coming home and missing everything. If Ethan had woken up, it would’ve been an hour before he was back down again. Maybe longer. So I looked in from the doorway. It’s what I always do.”

  A loud crack rang out around the room. Joseph staggered back, surprised at his wife’s strength, his cheek stinging from the sudden blow.

  “You didn’t check on our boys.” Mary Lynne’s eyes had glazed over. “You lied to me. You let Ethan get taken. And you let me take the blame. I thought it was all on me, because I didn’t lock that stupid door…”

  Cooper Devereaux. Extract from BPD. Academy Appraisal, 1993.

  Three instructors went on record on separate occasions to express the opinion that Cooper Devereaux was an unfit candidate for the Academy. In particular, they cited his failure to adapt to the collegial nature of the institution, and his poor response to discipline and authority.

  All three instructors later withdrew their testimony.

  Why? What pressure was brought to bear? Were they threatened? Paid off?

  And by whom? What kind of friends does Devereaux have?

  None of the instructors are still around to answer these questions.

  A coincidence, Jan…?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saturday. Late Morning.

  Ethan missing for nine and three-quarter hours

  “We should call the lieutenant.” Loflin blipped her siren to scatter the swarm of reporters. The horde had tripled in size while the detectives were inside the house, and was now breaching the midway point of the Cranes’ driveway. “Tell her to intensify the search.”

  Loflin paused, her attention taken by a sound from above the car. The chop chop chop of a helicopter, losing height.

  Loflin guessed it belonged to a TV station. One of the reporters must have called in their arrival, and the crew couldn’t resist swooping down in the hope of filling local screens with pictures of a cute little boy being reunited with his family. Or better still—from their perspective, at least—a pair of hysterical, heartbroken parents being led away to identify a small, limp body.

  “I’m not so sure.” Devereaux retrieved an eyeliner pencil from the foot well and jammed it into a cup holder in the center console, adding it to half a dozen others.

  “Oh, come on.” Loflin slipped the car into gear. “Ethan’s clearly run away. He’s done it before. He took the same kind of stuff as the last time. Add to that the fact his parents are mean. And what you get is the need for more feet on the street, looking for him.”

  “I’m not convinced.” Devereaux leaned back against the Charger’s mesh headrest and closed his eyes. He was trying to picture Ethan huddled in his bed in the semi-darkness, hurriedly fastening his rabbit’s safety pins. Securing his most precious possessions. And then abandoning them. “Ethan didn’t take the same stuff as last time. He left his special things behind. If he ran away, why would he do that?”

  “Are those things really that special? Maybe he left them because he didn’t want them anymore. I didn’t hoard that kind of junk when I was a kid. No one I knew did.”

  “You weren’t an orphan. I guess your friends weren’t, either.”

  “So what?” Loflin kept her foot on the brake. “Ethan was how old when the Cranes took him in? Three? That’s very young. And now he’s been with that family more than half his life. Would he even remember living anywhere else?”

  “He was young, you’re right. But before the Cranes, he had his real home. Then his parents died. He was sent to one foster home. Then another. And the second one was so bad he ended up in the hospital. He didn’t even have any clothes of his own. Let alone any stuff. So yes. He’ll remember. Even if it’s on some subconscious level. And it’s bound to affect how he behaves.”

  “Maybe, I guess.” Loflin started to fiddle with her hair, tucking it behind her ears, and for the first time Devereaux saw that her right earlobe was missing. “I don’t have much experience with kids.”

  “You get hurt?” Devereaux raised his hand to his own ear. “Gunshot? Knife wound? Bite?”

  “Nothing like that.” Loflin straightened her hair, pressing it tight against the side of her face. “Nothing so dramatic. It’s just an inherited thing. I hate it, actually. Got teased mercilessly when I was kid.”

  “See what I mean?” Devereaux gathered up a wad of Dunkin’ Donuts napkins and slid them into the door pocket. “Things stay with you. Take their toll.”

  “I guess.” Loflin shifted back into Park. “Maybe we can’t be sure the boy ran away. Maybe something else happened to him. So what do you suggest?”

  “Start with the victim. Assuming there is one. Ethan. We need to find out what he’s really like. Not the sanitized version the Cranes are feeding us. We need to talk to his teachers, as soon as the uniforms have tracked them down. And his previous foster parents. Meantime, let’s head next door. Talk to the neighbors. The Ketterbaughs. The ones who had the party last night.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Loflin shifted into Drive and started to edge the car forward. “Could maybe shine a light on Joseph and Mary Lynne, too. Who goes out drinking and leaves little kids home alone?”

  —

  As Loflin weaved her way around to the next driveway, Devereaux did place a call to Lieutenant Hale. Not because he’d changed his mind about bolstering the search. But because he figured she needed to know what they’d learned. The team had been working on the assumption that the earliest Ethan could have disappeared was around one am. Now they knew he could have gone missing up to six hours before that. Up to a quarter of the critical first twenty-four hours could have already expired.

  The odds of finding the little boy alive had suddenly gotten a whole lot slimmer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Saturday. Late Morning.

  Ethan missing for ten sixteen hours

  The Ketterbaugh house looked more traditional than the Cranes’ on the outside, but inside it had been completely remodeled. The ground floor had been turned into an open-plan space, except for a small powder room tucked under the staircase. The kitchen was still in back—all stainless steel and blond wood and granite—and it flowed into a dining space that was dominated by a giant, circular wooden table beneath an extravagant crystal chandelier. Next was a living area, with a Noguchi coffee table surrounded by Eames leather-and-chrome couches, and the bay window next to the front door had been set up as a kind of reading nook. There was art on the walls—large, colorful canvases in the style of Miró and Rothko—and a five-foot-tall bronze sculpture of an embracing couple stood at the foot of the staircase.

  Helen Ketterbaugh was curled up in the corner of her favorite couch, skimming the morning paper on her iPad, when Devereaux knocked on the door. She was wearing a bright, clingy, floral sundress that made clear that, despite her forty-five years, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her body.

  “I’ll get it, honey.” Ian Ketterbaugh, her husband, was halfway down the stairs. He was a year older, but the tight white tennis outfit he had on confirmed he was in equally good shap
e.

  —

  Ian joined his wife on the couch and invited the detectives to sit opposite them.

  “First things first.” Helen gestured toward the kitchen. “Does anyone need a drink? Iced tea? Water?”

  “Thanks, but no.” Devereaux shifted his position slightly on the shiny leather cushion. “We just need to ask you folks a few questions, and then we’ll get out of your hair.”

  “We’re happy to help, Detective.” Ian leaned down to adjust his shoelace. “But I’m not sure what we can do. We already told the other officers everything about last night.”

  “I know. And that was very helpful.” Devereaux nodded. “But what we need to do now is put a little more meat on the bones. See, if—and I’m not saying this is what happened, it’s just one theory we need to rule in or out—if someone else was involved in young Ethan going missing, we need to understand what the Cranes look like from the outside. How they are as a family. Their routines. How they behave. What could have made them stand out as victims. See what I mean?”

  “I guess.” Ian leaned back and crossed his legs. “So go ahead. We’ll give it our best shot. We feel just awful about what’s happened to that poor little boy. Right, honey?”

  Helen nodded.

  “How long have you known the Cranes?” Devereaux kept his voice warm and friendly.

  “Since the hurricane. We were living in Vestavia Hills at the time, and our house got hit pretty hard. Joe was one of the volunteers.”