“So they’ve changed tactics. We already know they’re versatile. Someone could have forced him off the road, then kidnapped him and taken his car.”
“That’s risky, but there probably wouldn’t have been much traffic. This is about the time it happened, and we passed only two cars.”
They returned to the cabin and Kate called Lisa, then asked her who at New Leaf had said that Tony left.
“I just called the guard at the main gate. All staff are clocked in and out there.”
“Could he have been mistaken?” Kate asked. “If a lot of people were leaving…”
“No, Tony left late—remember? The guard said he saw him. When Tony didn’t show up at the restaurant, I called again, and he said he was sure it was Tony.”
“Is there any other way in and out?”
“Not that I know of. Do you think the guard lied?”
“That will be for the police to decide. You’ll be calling them tomorrow?”
“Yes, and I’m not going to wait until tomorrow night, either.”
“Lisa, it might be best if you don’t mention my involvement in this.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not really sure,” Kate admitted. “It’s just that I don’t know anything that could help them at this point—and if I learn something, I’ll be sure to contact them. Look, Lisa, maybe you can help us. Tony told me that there was a couple of staff who’d been talking recently about their concerns. Do you happen to know who they are?”
Lisa choked back a sob. “N-no. He said something about it, but I don’t think he mentioned any names.”
“Were the two of you friendly with anyone at New Leaf?”
“Not really. We hung out with my friends mostly.”
“What do you intend to tell the police?”
“I…I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t want to get Tony into trouble at his job.”
“I can understand that. But they’ll be asking you a lot of questions, so you’d better be prepared.” Then she gave Lisa her number at the cabin and in Washington and promised to keep in touch.
After she had hung up, she turned to Sam, who’d been listening to her end of the conversation, and told him the rest of it.
“You know, it’s possible that the guard just recognized Tony’s car and assumed he was the driver,” Sam said when she had finished.
“I’m sure the police will question him about that.”
“If they take it seriously. My guess is that they’ll just go through the motions—especially if Ted Snyder raises the question of prewedding jitters or says anything else that casts doubt on Tony.”
“Do you think I should go to the police and make a statement?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It’s a tough call. It could make them take it more seriously, but it will also mean that you can forget about gaining any more cooperation from New Leaf.”
Kate paced around the room, thinking. “We can probably assume that Ted Snyder knows by now that we’ve been at the farmhouse. I’d like to see him again, and find out just how nervous we’re making him.” She thought for a moment. “I could call in the morning and ask to talk to the psychologist about Charles Scofield. That would fit in with my ‘story.’“
“Have the newspaper articles mentioned that he’s a New Leaf graduate?”
“Good point. I’d forgotten that I got his name by snooping. I’ll call the reporter at the Sun and find out.”
The reporter wasn’t in, but Kate did reach her friend who’d introduced them, and she found the article about Charles’s disappearance from the hospital. New Leaf was mentioned. Kate asked if there were any new developments, and there weren’t.
Next, she called Charles’s mother, who said that she’d heard nothing from her son. She was clearly distraught, and Kate wanted to tell her that she thought she knew where Charles was and that he was being well cared for. But she couldn’t be certain she was right, so she merely commiserated with the woman and promised to keep in touch.
“I’m wondering if we should tell the police about the farmhouse,” Kate said as soon as she’d hung up.
“We don’t have tangible proof of anything, Kate—and they couldn’t get a search warrant without probable cause.”
Kate sank into a chair with a sigh. “You’re right, but it really bothers me to have two people suffering like this—Lisa and Charles’s mother.”
“Avoid emotional entanglements in stories,” Sam said, quoting something that was drummed into all investigative reporters.
“I’m already emotionally involved. Sam, this has got to be settled soon.”
“I agree—and don’t forget our other story.”
“Newbury and Armistead are the last thing on my mind right now.”
“But they shouldn’t be. I’m going to check the machine to see if we’ve heard from Crawford’s mother yet. If she picked up her messages at work, she might have gotten back to me.”
“I’ll do it,” Kate said, punching out the numbers on the cordless, then listening in surprise as Sam’s voice came on instead of hers, informing callers that they’d reached the residence of Kate Stevens and Sam Winters. She narrowed her eyes at Sam, but said nothing as she listened to the messages.
There was nothing of importance until the last message, which was from Renee Crawford, who gave her home number and said they could reach her there.
Kate wrote down the number, then hung up and glared at Sam. “You might at least have told me that you changed the message.”
“Don’t get on my case about that now. Since we’re working together, it just seemed simpler.”
“You could have gotten a machine for your phone downstairs,” she grumbled, unwilling to let it go even though she knew her objections were foolish.
“Well, at least I didn’t say Kate and Sam Winters,” he returned. “As soon as we know when you can get an appointment at New Leaf, I’ll call her and set up an appointment. Do you want a drink?” he asked, going to the small bar in one corner of the living room.
“No thanks. My head is spinning as it is.”
Sam drew her into his arms. “I have the perfect cure for that.”
But he didn’t. He just made her head spin in a different direction as she quickly exchanged one confused story for another.
Later, though, as she lay beside him in bed, Kate thought that there was at least one thing in her life right now that was certain: she loved Sam and he loved her. She clung to that as she snuggled up to him and dropped off to sleep.
“THANK YOU FOR SEEING ME on such short notice, Dr. Sanders,” Kate said as she shook hands with the attractive woman, one of several psychologists at New Leaf and the one who’d worked with Charles Scofield. The moment Kate saw her, she recalled that at the time of her first visit to New Leaf, she’d seen the woman with Ted Snyder and had been left with a strong impression that something was going on between them.
Kate explained that she’d seen the report of Charles’s disappearance and had then learned of his outbreak of violence. “My story—if there’s going to be one—is centered on the success rate here at New Leaf. So I’m wondering if you can tell me what you think happened with Charles.”
The woman shrugged. “Who knows? The human mind is never easy to understand. Psychology is not an exact science . Charles did well here, but we always had some doubts about him. Despite our best efforts, he just didn’t open up to us as much as the others did. My guess is that there was a preexisting psychosis.”
“His mother doubts that. There’s no history of mental illness in his family and Charles had never shown any tendency toward violence.”
“That doesn’t rule out anything, Ms. Stevens. The psychosis could have been hidden until something happened to trigger it.”
Kate noted that with every word, the psychologist seemed to grow more defensive, although she was making an effort to hide it. She decided to change gears—a common tactic used by both police and reporters.
“What do yo
u do if you bring a boy here and then find out that he’s more than you can deal with in this setting?”
For one brief moment, something that looked very much like naked fear gleamed in the woman’s eyes. “Well, that doesn’t happen often,” she said. “But when it does, we transfer them to a more suitable facility.”
“And where would that be?” Kate persisted.
The psychologist tried to shrug casually, but didn’t quite carry it off. “That depends. Most of the kids here are on Medicaid and we send them wherever we can find a place that will accept them. It isn’t easy, because Medicaid pays so little for psychiatric care.”
“I see,” said Kate, standing up to end the interview and smiling inwardly at the woman’s ill-concealed relief. “Well, thank you for your time.” She started toward the door, then paused as though something had just occurred to her. “There’s just one other thing. I interviewed one of your counselors—Tony DiSalvo—and I wanted to see him again. He’d given me his home number and I called it last night. His fiancée says that he’s disappeared. She’s filing a report with the police today. Are you aware of that?”
Beneath her summer tan, the woman’s face went pale and her eyes shifted away from Kate’s. “No, I hadn’t known. We have a lot of counselors here. I knew Tony, of course, but…”
“Well, thank you again.” Kate left the office quickly, once again fixating on a single word. The psychologist had used the past tense. That lump of ice was in her stomach once again.
She walked back to the main desk in the administrative building, then asked the receptionist if Ted Snyder could give her a few minutes. As she waited for the receptionist to contact him, she moved into a position where she could see down the hallway. Ted’s office was on a side corridor, and when she glanced there, Kate saw the psychologist rush that way. A moment later, the receptionist told her that Ted could see her in a few minutes.
Kate stood at the window and watched a large group of kids marching in formation across the quadrangle in front of the building. She stared at the kids and thought about the boys at the farmhouse. These kids were fit and healthy-looking, but she wondered if any of them could end up like the pitiful boys at the farmhouse.
The receptionist interrupted her thoughts to tell her that Ted Snyder could see her now, and Kate turned just in time to see the psychologist disappear into her own office near the end of the hall. How she wished that she could have been privy to that conversation!
Snyder greeted her warmly, with that perfect mixture of heartiness and professionalism she’d seen and disliked in him before. She thanked him for his time and he asked how her story was going.
“Unfortunately, I’m still not certain that there will be a story,” Kate told him. “I wanted to speak to Tony DiSalvo again, but his fiancee told me that he’s disappeared.”
Snyder adopted a properly concerned expression and nodded. Kate wanted to smack him, but she sat there quietly, awaiting his response.
“I hadn’t realized that you’d been talking with Tony. I don’t know who suggested him, but he probably wasn’t a wise choice.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Well, Tony has recently been something of a problem. His skills are good, but really not quite up to our standards . And now that he’s left without notifying us, I’m afraid in all likelihood we’ll have to terminate him.”
Kate’s brain fixated on that word “terminate.” She thought sickeningly that it could cover a multitude of things.
“‘We demand a high level of stability in the personal lives of our counseling staff here, Kate,” Snyder said. “And I’m afraid that Tony had some problems. He was supposed to be married soon, but it seems that he was having an affair with another counselor. My guess is that it just got to be too much for him and he took off.”
“I see,” Kate said, her gaze briefly fixed on the wedding band on Snyder’s finger. Of course, perhaps he exempted himself from the rules because he was the director. “Well, perhaps that’s what his fiancee was referring to when she told me that she blames New Leaf for his disappearance.”
Ted Snyder wasn’t quite so smooth as he thought he was. Kate met his gaze and saw something that she thoroughly enjoyed: fear.
“She’s reporting it to the police today, so hopefully they’ll be able to find him. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted on the progress of my story.”
As Kate left his office, she suddenly had an idea she hadn’t thought of before. She paused at his secretary’s desk and told her that Ted had promised her a copy of their annual report, which hadn’t been ready at the time of her last visit.
“Oh, yes, it came in yesterday. Let me get you a copy.”
The woman handed her a glossy, expensive-looking report with the New Leaf insignia on it. Kate thanked her and left. Then, when she reached the gate, she decided to sow some more trouble. She rolled down the window as the guard approached—a young man with an open, friendly face and an air of guilelessness.
She signed herself out on the clipboard he handed her. “I understand that one of your counselors has disappeared—Tony DiSalvo.”
The guard gave her a shocked look. “Tony? I didn’t know about that. I thought he was just on vacation.”
Kate explained that Tony’s fiancée had called the night of his disappearance to check when he left. “Is it possible that the guard on duty that night could have been mistaken? Staff don’t actually sign in and out, do they?” She’d noticed that the clipboard was for visitors only.
“No. We just record the times, since we know all of them.”
“Could it have been someone else who left in Tony’s car that night?”
“Uh, well, I guess it could have been. I wasn’t here.”
Kate thanked him and drove out through the gate, wondering if he’d report his conversation with her to anyone. But the police would be asking the same questions. A few miles later, she grinned wickedly when she passed a police car. Today was not going to be a good day at New Leaf—or so she hoped.
But then she hadn’t had that good a day so far herself. She’d certainly succeeded in making some people very uncomfortable, but she hadn’t come away with definite proof of anything. Her hopes of finding the maintenance man or his truck hadn’t panned out, so she still had no evidence of a connection between New Leaf and the farmhouse.
The sad truth was that they didn’t have much at all except for an increasingly large number of suspicions. She was maxed out with unproved theories, seemingly unrelated facts and flotsam and jetsam. Her head ached from the effort to contain it all. She thought she might even give her next raise for one “Aha!”
When she reached the cabin, she found Sam sitting on the screened porch with a can of beer. The fact that he was imbibing before noon told her that he shared her frustration. She walked up onto the porch and glanced from him to the beer can.
“Well, at least I didn’t pour it over my cornflakes,” he growled.
“Maybe we should just stay here and get blitzed for the next couple of days and wait to see what happens,” she said, sinking into a chair with a sigh.
“That’s not a half-bad idea. I seem to recall that I did pretty well on finals a few times after weekend debaucheries.”
“Debaucheries?” She stared at him. “Did you buy one of those self-improvement vocabulary courses?”
He grinned. “When I’m around you long enough, I start talking in words of more than two syllables. You’re a good influence on me.”
“Well, I guess you can tell by my enthusiasm that I didn’t find out anything,” she said with a grimace.
He nodded. “I hope you managed to stir up some trouble in your own inimitable fashion.”
“Of course, and it was probably just a prelude to the real trouble. I passed a police car headed toward New Leaf.”
She told him what had transpired, then remembered the report she’d left in the car. After retrieving it, she went back to the porch and began to thumb through it.
“Ahh. Just what I’d hoped for. There’s a list of contributors and a list of board members. Maybe this will provide some fodder for The Ferret.”
“He could use some. He sure hasn’t gotten anywhere yet, and he’s about as frustrated as we are. Do you recognize any of the names?”
She shook her head. “Did you call Mrs. Crawford?”
“She’s expecting us at three. I suppose we’d better be on our way back to the Emerald City. We ought to have just enough time to drop off the report and remind Damon that you’re still on the payroll before we go see her.”
WHEN THEY WALKED into the Post’s newsroom, Damon’s reaction told her that she should have called in sick. Two of the city reporters were out with a summer flu and they were already short staffed because of vacations. Kate barely had time to say hello before Damon was pushing her out the door to cover the mayor’s latest effort at crime control. So Sam went off to meet the mother of the dead intern without her, after delivering the New Leaf annual report to The Ferret.
Kate grudgingly joined a cynical group of reporters at City Hall, where the mayor blamed Congress, a lack of money, the loss of family values and just about everything but the water supply for the continuing crime wave.
Back at the Post, she wrote that story, then assisted one of the summer interns who was trying to piece together a story from the notes of a flu-stricken co-worker. Then, thanks to the chaotic conditions in the newsroom, she was able to escape without facing Damon’s questions. At Sam’s request, she took a cab home, then asked the driver to wait until she was safely in the house.
As she waved off the cabdriver, Kate thought about how easily she’d accepted his “request.” Of course, she’d fully intended to take a cab rather than the Metro, but not so very long ago, she would have done just that to spite him.
What had changed? she wondered as she filled Reject’s dish and listened to his lengthy tale of mice that got away. He was quite capable of talking in entire chapters when the mood struck him, and at the moment, he was unhappy about their absence last night.
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