Slumbered to Death

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  “I’m Adele Firestone,” the woman confirmed. “How come there’s this sudden interest in Alana when she’s been missing since May?”

  “There should always be interest in a missing child, don’t you think?” Sadie hedged. She was very good at hedging.

  “I suppose,” Adele said. “The police sure don’t seem to care.”

  “Do you have any idea where Alana might be?” Sadie asked. She knew from the police files that the mother suspected she was with her boyfriend.

  “I thought she was with her boyfriend, but she’s been gone a long time. Alana loved school. I can’t imagine her missing so many days like this. I never liked that boyfriend of hers. He’s eighteen, and that’s illegal. I threatened to have him arrested, and the next day she was gone. What’s a mother to do?”

  Abby opened her mouth, probably to respond to the question. She was one of those people who believed she had all the answers for parents, despite never having had children herself. Sadie rushed on before she could tell Adele all the ways she was failing as a parent. “That must be very hard. What did Alana take with her when she left?”

  Alana had left her purse, her cell phone, and all her personal information behind. Either she was smart enough not to want to be tracked or she hadn’t gone willingly. “Had there been any strange or unfamiliar men lurking in the area?” Sadie asked.

  “Around here there are always strange men lurking. I looked it up on the computer and found out there are five registered sex offenders living on our street. Five. And yet I’m the bad guy when I try to keep my kid home and out of trouble.” She shook her head in disgust.

  Though she had all the pertinent information from the police report, Sadie wrote down the boyfriend’s name—Jeremy Sheridan—along with his address. Mrs. Firestone was adamant in her hatred of the boy.

  “When is this going to be on TV?” she asked when the interview was over.

  “Ah, well, there’s always the chance that it won’t,” Sadie said. “Producers, and directors, and…” she trailed off and Abby picked up.

  “Men,” Abby fumed. “Men control everything.”

  Adele nodded her agreement as she walked them to the door. They thanked her for her time and made their escape before she could ask any more sticky questions about their job.

  “I did not like that woman,” Abby said. She buckled her seat belt with a click.

  “I’ll admit she seemed harsh,” Sadie said.

  “Harsh isn’t the right word. You know I believe firmly that children should be seen and not heard, but there was something off about that woman’s answers, something more than a concerned mother and a disobedient child. My guess is that if Alana ran away, it was because of her overbearing mother.”

  Sadie hadn’t detected anything sinister in the mother, but she had learned not to distrust Abby’s gut instincts about people. She was able to read people fairly well, but Abby was the master. “I need to talk to the investigating officer to get his take on things.” There had to be a reason the cops weren’t doing much follow up on the case. Was it because they thought Alana was a runaway?

  “What’s next on our agenda?”

  “Edmond Hankins. We’re going to talk to his wife and see if we can learn the circumstances surrounding his disappearance,” Sadie said.

  The second house wasn’t much better than the first. Though they were a few miles apart, the neighborhoods looked the same.

  “Do poor people often go missing like this?” Abby asked. “People of my acquaintance don’t simply disappear.”

  “I’m not sure disappearing can be linked to one’s social status,” Sadie said.

  “I suppose that’s true,” Abby agreed. “Though when the rich go missing, there’s usually ransom involved. I used to daydream that I was kidnapped by a handsome Robin Hood type.”

  “Sounds like you were a little girl yearning for adventure,” Sadie said.

  “What are you talking about? This was last week. Where’s Errol Flynn when I need him?”

  Sadie was laughing when they rang the bell, but her laughter quickly faded.

  “Who is it?” an unfriendly female voice called through the door.

  “I have some questions about Edmond Hankins,” Sadie said.

  The door flew open. An irate little woman stood on the other side. “Yeah? You look about like his type—blond and stupid. What have you and my husband been up to?” She hurled an epithet as she lunged across the threshold.

  Sadie sidestepped the arms that were reaching for her throat. “Pray, sister,” she said.

  Abby put her hands together and began murmuring reverently under her breath. The woman stopped short and stared at them, her arms dangling listlessly in midair. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sister Mary Sledge, and this is Mother Rose Theresa. We’re from the church of St. Patrick the Pontificator. Edmond hasn’t shown up for his weekly meetings in quite some time, and we’ve been worried.”

  “Meetings? What meetings?”

  “We can’t divulge. Confidentiality, you know. Let’s just say he was on step three of twelve when he disappeared,” Sadie said.

  The woman blinked a few times, shoving her bangs out of her eyes to get a better look. “Who are you again?”

  “Sister Sledge and Mother Theresa,” Sadie replied. “May we come in and talk to you a few minutes?”

  “I guess.” The woman, Mrs. Hankins presumably, begrudgingly moved aside to make way for them. Her living room was messier than the one they had just left, strewn with toys, clothes, and cereal. Two toddlers and a baby played on the floor near the largest pile of toys. The baby squealed out a delighted greeting to the newcomers and began to crawl toward them. Abby lifted her legs and curled her lip in horror. Sadie pasted on a smile and picked up the baby. She had no idea if she was holding it correctly, but she was fairly certain that nuns were supposed to like children.

  “Cute baby,” she remarked. Was it a boy or a girl? She had no idea. After what she deemed an appropriate time for admiration, she set it down and shook a toy in its face to distract it. “What can you tell us about Edmond?”

  “I could ask you the same thing. I didn’t know he was going to AA.”

  “Seeking help is never an easy thing,” Sadie said. “Do you believe he met with foul play, or do you believe he went missing of his own volition?”

  The woman’s shoulders went slack with defeat. “I don’t know what to think anymore. When he didn’t come home that first day, I was frantic. But now…Things weren’t going well after the baby. I stopped sleeping. She cried a lot. The noise and mess got on Ed’s nerves. He started disappearing at odd hours, acting all cagey-like, buying new clothes, taking secret calls. I was so tried, I turned a blind eye. Then he went missing. The police made me wait awhile before they’d take a formal report. When I was leaving the station, the kids were melting down. I heard one of the officers say, ‘I would leave, too, if I had to come home to that every night.’ And it was like it hit me all at once: nothing happened to Ed. He just left, probably for whatever other woman he had been sneaking around with. After the shock abated, I was so angry. But you said Ed was getting help. Maybe he wasn’t cheating. Maybe he wants to change. Maybe he’ll come back.”

  The knife of guilt twisted in Sadie’s middle. The last thing she wanted to do was provide false hope to this beleaguered woman.

  “Don’t distrust your instinct,” Abby said. “If you believe he was cheating, he probably was. It’s up to you whether or not you decide to forgive him, but don’t make him a saint when he wasn’t.”

  “He definitely wasn’t, but I love him.”

  Abby leaned forward and clasped her hand. “You deserve to be loved in return. You deserve better than a man who darts when times get tough. Focus on your kids and yourself. Maybe someday something better will come along, but don’t live and die waiting for it.”

  Mrs. Hankins brushed at her eyes and sniffed, nodding.

  There wasn’t much to say after that,
and they took their leave soon after, not wanting to inflict further distress. “Scoundrel,” Abby said when they were closeted in the car.

  “How can someone leave that way? As bad as things were between my parents, Gideon never would have shirked his responsibilities.”

  “Some men don’t deserve to be called such,” Abby said. “What bothers me more are the women lining up to be treated like dogs.”

  “Sometimes it happens so subtly that you don’t see it coming,” Sadie said.

  “I wasn’t talking about you, Sadie. You were a child, you got out as soon as you could, and you certainly won’t fall prey again now that you know what to look for.”

  “I don’t know, Abby. I think I’m still pretty stupid when it comes to men. My last boyfriend wasn’t abusive, but he was as shallow as a drip of water. I’m afraid I let the only good one get away.”

  “I assume you’re referring to Luke.”

  “He’s never going to forgive me, not really.”

  “Then that’s a pity, and it’s his loss. I love Luke, but he has to learn to let things go. And you, too. That was a long time ago. It’s time to stop beating yourself up over past mistakes. He can’t forgive you until you forgive yourself. If he wants to live with fear and unforgiveness, then that’s very sad for him. But you can’t let his issues become your issues. Luke isn’t the only good man in the world.”

  “It certainly feels that way sometimes.”

  “Enough dreariness. Where are we going next?”

  “We’re going to the workplace of Erin Jones.”

  “Why the workplace?”

  “Her boss is the one who reported her missing. She’s not from around here. None of the information he gave the police checked out.”

  Sadie parked in the lot of a small manufacturing company. She had passed the place hundreds of times and still had no idea what they produced.

  “We’re looking for Ted Whitehall,” she greeted the receptionist.

  The woman gave a perfunctory smile of welcome as she picked up the phone. “Ted, two women here to see you. I’m not answering that.” She slammed the receiver down and muttered something under her breath.

  Ted appeared from his office. “I’m Ted Whitehall. How may I be of service?”

  You can start by directing your eyes a foot north of where they are now, Sadie thought. She read him from the first moment she saw him. He oozed smarminess. Outwardly, he was an attractive man, better looking than average. His looks were negated by his creepiness and the gallon of cologne he had bathed in that morning. Sadie forced herself to shake his proffered hand, tugging it away when he held it a few beats too long. She resisted the urge to wipe her palm on her leg. She would definitely need another shower after this interview.

  “We came to ask a few questions about Erin Jones,” she said.

  “Don’t tell me two ladies as pretty as you are policemen,” he said with a hearty chuckle.

  Sadie and Abby didn’t reply. They stared him down until he squirmed and turned away. In Sadie’s experience, men like Ted were afraid of their own shadows. But if they sensed they could dominate, then they would. It was best to be firm and straightforward, giving him no opportunity to gain a foothold.

  “Let’s go into my office,” he suggested. He put his hand on the small of Sadie’s back. She moved pointedly out of reach. “Why do you want to know about Erin? Are you related? You look a bit like her.”

  “We’ve been hired to investigate her disappearance,” Sadie said. It was a stretch of the truth, but she had the feeling that there was more to Ted’s story than that of a concerned boss. When he visibly shrank back, she knew she had hit the mark.

  “What have you heard? I didn’t do anything to her. If I did something, why would I report her missing?”

  “Why, indeed?” Abby said. “You tell us.”

  “Erin made some baseless allegations, but we were working through them. We came to an understanding, and then she didn’t show up for work. I went by her house, and she wasn’t there. At first, I thought she had just quit, but to be safe I made a police report.”

  “You were harassing Erin, she went missing, and you were afraid you would be blamed for her disappearance,” Sadie summarized.

  “People misconstrue things. I thought Erin could take it, I thought she understood that we were joking and flirting a little. Then she got sensitive and turned into a feminazi on me. I backed off, okay. It’s not worth losing another job over. I mean this job. It’s not worth losing a job over, and I would never hurt her or anyone else. I love women.”

  He gave them a petulant, pleading expression, practically begging for their reassurance; they didn’t give it. Sadie had been the recipient of too much unwanted male attention to take his side. Instead she put herself in Erin’s shoes. Her boss had probably made her uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to disappear? Sadie had never quit a job because a man made her uneasy, but then she had learned how to handle the situation. She had never gone to the higher ups, preferring instead to gain the upper hand in her own way, but she felt for the women who had no choice but to complain or file suit. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place and then often labeled as troubled for complaining.

  On the other hand, Sadie didn’t think Ted had anything to do with Erin’s disappearance. All she had to go on right now was her gut, so she would check into him and sort out his story. “The police were unable to find any record of Erin in the system. No license, no family, nothing. How do you explain that?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t have anything to do with the hiring process. She was run through human resources just like everyone else. They require a background check and two forms of identification. You should talk to them.” In other words, get out.

  “We will,” Sadie said.

  “They’re at a conference today,” Ted said.

  “We’ll check back. Thank you for your time.”

  “The world at large is leaving a bad taste in my mouth today,” Abby said as they sat in the car, staring at the ugly brick building.

  “I’m starting to understand a little of why Gideon is so cynical and grumpy all the time. I feel like we’ve been lifting rocks all morning and now the bugs are starting to run,” Sadie agreed. Three missing people, three sad situations, three cases loaded with lies and deceit. “Even worse is that I have no idea if any of these cases is connected to ours. I guess the next step is to run all of these people by Ben and see if anyone is familiar. Right?” She turned to Abby for her input.

  “That sounds reasonable. Detecting is much harder than I thought it would be. I pictured us asking a few questions, poking around, and getting some answers. I forgot that everybody lies. If people didn’t lie, there would be no need for a judicial system.”

  “Yes, but if people didn’t lie, then we would be out of a job.”

  “We could still find things,” Abby said. “Like pills, things of that nature.”

  “Do you not want me to go forward with this case, Abby? I could give him back the money. We could find something else.”

  “Don’t be silly, Sadie. I’m old and I like to ruminate about life. Pay no attention to me when I become philosophical. We made a commitment to help this man, and we’re going to see it through. Plus I really like that boatload of money he’s paying us. I never realized before how much I enjoyed money until I lost all of it. What’s this man, this Ben like?”

  Sadie didn’t want to prejudice her with her opinion. She was counting on Abby’s intuitiveness to help her sort her own opinion of Ben. “You’re about to find out,” she said as she started the car to drive to Ben’s house.

  Chapter 8

  Ben’s house was almost as grand as Abby’s. Some people might say it was even better. Sadie wouldn’t because she knew that Abby’s stately family manor was a point of pride. Her family had built the town, their home was supposed to be the largest and the grandest. No matter that it had been during the Victorian craze and several other painted ladi
es had popped up all over town, Abby considered her home to be the best and most original of its kind.

  “That trim is not a historical color match,” Abby sniffed. “For his sake, I hope he doesn’t try to have it registered. The committee would never let him get away with such a faux pas.”

  To Sadie, the trim looked the same color as every other Victorian house in town. However, Abby was probably right. The historical committee was nitpicky and wielded a lot of power, especially since Abby was the president emeritus.

  Ben opened the door before they could knock. His gracious smile was a nice change from the surlier welcomes they had received that morning. “Hello, ladies. I’m so thankful you could make the trip, and on such a beautiful day, too. One never knows what we’ll get this time of year—sun, cold, wind or rain.”