Under Cover of Darkness

by James Grippando

  “Nice place,” she said as Gus took her coat.

  “It’s cozy.”

  Right. My Subaru is “cozy.”

  He asked, “Can I get you something? Coffee?”

  “That would be perfect.”

  He directed her toward the kitchen, but they were practically ambushed halfway down the hall as Morgan emerged from her bedroom.

  Gus said, “This is my daughter, Morgan.”

  Andie leaned forward to extend her hand. “I’m Andie.”

  “Andie? That’s a boy’s name.”

  “No more than Morgan,” she said, smiling thinly.

  That seemed to break the ice, as if they had a kinship. “I lost a tooth,” she said as she pointed at the gap.

  “Oh, my. Does it hurt?”

  “A little. Enough to keep me out of school today.”

  “I see,” said Andie, smiling with her eyes.

  “Are you going to find my mommy?”

  Andie and Gus exchanged glances. She sensed the FBI was as yet an unsettled matter between father and daughter. “I’m here to help your dad.”

  A phone rang. Morgan pulled a cordless receiver from her Barbie shoulder bag and answered, “Hi, Hannah.”

  “Sounds like somebody found a friend to play hooky with her,” Andie said with a wink.

  Morgan blushed, guilty as charged. She waved a quick good-bye and started down the hall, then stopped and glanced back. “You can come see my room sometime, Andie. If you want.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Morgan seemed to smile as she ducked into her room.

  Gus watched, bewildered. “How the heck did you do that?”

  “It’s a girl thing.”

  “Works better than the lousy dad thing, I guess.”

  “Come on. Any dad who gets his little girl a pink phone can’t be all bad.”

  She followed Gus into a kitchen that rivaled those dream spreads in magazines. Solid cherrywood cabinets. Lots of granite and stainless steel. An island the size of Hawaii. Andie pulled up a stool at the counter. Gus remained standing, too nervous to sit. A beam of welcome sunlight streamed down through the skylight, almost drawing a line between them.

  “You haven’t told Morgan the FBI’s looking for her mother, have you?” It was a question, but her tone was judgmental.

  “Not specifically. I was afraid the mere mention of something like the FBI would only make it more scary to her.”

  “You need to be honest. Kids are more intuitive than you think.”

  “Especially this one. If she’s this self-aware at six, I’m dreading sixteen.”

  “A little extra maturity isn’t at all unusual in an only child.”

  Gus poured two coffees, then came to the opposite side of the counter. “Morgan certainly has some adult-sized proclivities,” he said, thinking of the little wooden horse that had disappeared from his office.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Have you given any more thought to what I told you about Beth?”

  “For the past hour that’s all I’ve thought about.”

  “And?”

  “The eating disorder, shoplifting. I’d say they’re related manifestations of the same problem. Lack of self-esteem, purpose, identity. Sounds like a troubled woman crying out for help.”

  “I’ve heard of eating disorders. Even self-mutilation. But shoplifting?”

  Andie sipped her coffee, then glanced at the surroundings. “She lived in a world where no material need went unfilled. Stealing a basic necessity like clothing was the ultimate way for her to break from what she was. Has she ever done anything like that before?”

  “Stealing?”

  “No. Has she ever shown any resentment for the kind of life you’ve given her?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You have any idea why she would be so unhappy with what she was?”

  “That’s a more complicated question.”

  “Let me try to simplify it. Your wife did accuse you of spouse abuse some years ago.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Abuse has a way of making a woman do strange things. Especially if it occurs over many years. I’ve seen more than one abused wife snap and do some pretty strange things.”

  “Beth was not an abused wife.”

  She softened her tone, not looking for a confrontation. “Can we talk a little about that? You said the same thing the night we met at the medical examiner’s office. I’d like to believe you. But why did she file that report?”

  “Like I said. It’s complicated.”

  She wondered if “complicated” meant Martha Goldstein. “I think it’s important for me to know, don’t you?”

  He wasn’t eager to reopen those wounds, but it was undeniably relevant. “After Morgan was born, Beth had terrible postpartum depression. Didn’t come out of the bedroom for days at a time, didn’t want anything to do with Morgan.”

  “That’s more common than you would think.”

  He stirred a little sugar into his coffee. “That’s what I’m told, but that didn’t make it any easier. We needed double-shift nannies to take care of the baby, because Beth wasn’t even taking care of herself. I tried to get her to see a psychiatrist, but she wouldn’t go. It got to be a daily routine. I’d come home, she’d still be in bed where I left her. We started having arguments. Just the exchange of words, nothing else. She would cry and yell at me, saying I ignored her, I neglected her. It seemed like we were having the same argument, night after night. Except, after a while, she started using the word abuse. Things hadn’t changed. If I was doing anything wrong, I was still busy at work—ignoring her, as she said. But suddenly she was calling it abuse.”

  “So you’re saying that’s the full extent of the abuse?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “That’s not what you’d infer from the police report she filed. She claimed you physically hit her.”

  “That was pure embellishment.”

  “Why would she make that up?”

  “Why would she steal a size twelve dress from a department store?”

  “Is that what you’re hoping? That people will hear she was shoplifting and finally believe she made up the abuse allegations?”

  Gus looked stunned, then angered. “I have no intention of making this public. I’m telling you this only because I hope it will help you find out what happened to Beth. I called you in confidence.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that you’re a very prominent attorney in this town. Kind of hard to believe you don’t care what other people think.”

  “I did care. It bothered me a great deal the way people reacted back then. My friends, her friends. My own law firm. I almost lost my job over it. Somehow, a mere accusation was enough to convict me, even after Beth retracted it.”

  “It’s hard for outsiders to know what to believe in those situations.”

  “Then why do they always want to believe the worst?”

  “It’s juicy, I guess. A high-powered lawyer who abused his wife. Or a desperate wife who makes the whole thing up to keep him from leaving her for another woman.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You talked to Martha Goldstein, didn’t you?”

  “I really can’t talk about that.”

  “That’s her angle. She plants ideas in your head so she can honestly tell my partners and my clients that I’m under police investigation. It’s all a ploy. She’s using you.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “I know it’s Martha. She somehow fancied herself the other woman. Rumors like that only made it harder for Beth and me to patch things up and move forward. It is hard, even if you love each other. And I did love Beth.”

  “But not enough to change.”

  He stared into his coffee cup. “We just seemed to drift further apart.”

  “Over the Martha rumors?”

  “No. The real dif
ficulty was me. I never fully believed she made up the charges to get my attention or keep me from leaving her. When she filed that report, it was as if part of her were wishing I had crossed the line. I’m not saying she wanted to be abused. But I do think she wished the issues had been more black and white. It sounds crazy, but the real problem was that we had something really good a long time ago. I suppose she needed something really bad to make her finally give up on that. You know what I mean?”

  His question hit close to her own personal disaster, her own recent pain at the altar. “I suppose decisions are easier when somebody does something horrendous. Like me and my ex-fiancé. Bam. I was out of there. No hesitation.”

  “What happened?”

  “Not important. It was so unlike your situation with Beth.”

  “But you do understand?”

  “I understand what you’re saying. But if you really loved her, I can’t say I understand how you let it get to that point.”

  He fell silent, absorbing the blow. “Neither can I.”

  “Daddy!” Morgan was sprinting up the hall. Gus turned and braced himself. She nearly ran him over.

  “Daddy, you missed it, you missed it!” She spoke in short, panicky breaths, her voice shaking.

  “Missed what?”

  “I can’t believe you missed it!”

  Tears filled her eyes. Gus lifted her up and sat her on the counter. “Missed what?”

  “Just—just now!”

  “Morgan, calm down. What’s wrong?”

  “While you were talking, you just missed it!”

  “Missed what?”

  She shouted with all her breath, “Mommy called!”

  He froze for an instant, then raced down the hall.

  Twenty-eight

  In seconds Gus was in his daughter’s bedroom. Andie and Morgan were right behind. He snatched up the phone from the pink rug beside the bed, where Morgan had dropped it. The dial tone hummed in his ear.

  “Does Morgan’s line have caller-ID?” asked Andie. She was standing in the doorway.

  “No.”

  “Hit star sixty-nine, then.”

  Gus had used the memory-call service before. It automatically dialed the number of the last incoming phone call. He punched the buttons and waited.

  A young girl answered. “Hello.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Hannah.”

  Confused, Gus covered the mouthpiece and asked his daughter, “Did your friend Hannah call you this morning?”

  Morgan nodded slowly.

  Gus returned to the phone. “I’m sorry, Hannah. This is Morgan Wheatley’s father. We dialed a wrong number.” He hung up and gave Morgan a stern look. “I thought you said your mother called.”

  “She did!”

  He appealed to Andie, not sure what to do. Andie sat on the edge of the bed, at eye level with the six-year old. “Are you sure it was your mom who called?”

  “Yes. It was her. It had to be her.”

  “This is very important. If she called, your daddy and I want to talk to her.”

  “She called. I know it was her!”

  Gus took her hand gently. “What did she say, sweetie?”

  “She didn’t say anything.”

  The adults shared a moment of skepticism. “You never heard her voice?” asked Gus.

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know it was Mommy who called?”

  “The numbers.”

  “I don’t understand. What numbers?”

  “Nine–five–three–four–eight–eight–nine.”

  Andie asked, “Is that Beth’s cell phone number?”

  “No. Sweetheart, what are you talking about?”

  Morgan picked up the phone and put it to her father’s ear. “Listen.” She punched out the numbers. It made a tune.

  Gus looked at Andie. “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

  Morgan said, “That’s what I’m telling you. Mommy showed me how to do that, long time ago. She called me and hit the numbers. Just now. And then she hung up.”

  Gus felt a chill. “Did you ever tell Hannah about those numbers? Did she know how to play that tune, too?”

  “No way. That was me and Mommy’s secret.”

  He looked quizzically at Andie. “Why did I get Hannah when I dialed memory call?”

  “People can buy devices to beat any of those phone-company services—memory call, caller-ID. We see it all the time with creeps who make obscene calls.”

  “So, it could have been made from a telephone that was outfitted with one of those electronic gizmos?”

  “That would explain how you got Hannah when you dialed star sixty-nine. You would have pulled up the second-to-last call rather than the last call.”

  “Then it’s possible it was Beth.”

  “It was Mommy. I know it was!” Morgan was so frustrated, she was about to hit him.

  Gus was silent, but he sensed Andie had the same exact thought. She sprang from the bed. “I’ll get one of our technical agents to see if he can track the call.”

  He tossed her the phone.

  “Let’s not use Morgan’s anymore. I don’t want to screw anything up.”

  “The kitchen,” said Gus, leading the way. He spoke as they hurried down the hall. “If it was Beth who called, why didn’t she talk?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  They stopped at the kitchen counter. Fear was in his eyes. “You don’t think this was some kind of prank?”

  “That’s what I hope my techies can tell me.”

  “But if it wasn’t a prank—why the numbers?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe your daughter can help us with that.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s more a matter of thinking it through logically. A woman disappears for nearly a week. She’s finally able to get to a phone. She’s able to dial the numbers. But she doesn’t speak. There are only a couple possibilities. Either she doesn’t want to speak, or…”

  “She can’t.”

  The words chilled him. “Can’t speak? Meaning what?”

  Their eyes met and held. It was as if she were telling him there were any number of possibilities. None of them pretty. “Let’s get the technical agents on the trail, all right? Then we can brainstorm.”

  Gus nodded, then swallowed the lump in his throat. “Okay,” he said quietly as she dialed the number.

  Andie was on the phone with technical agents when Carla rang the doorbell. In all the confusion Gus had almost forgotten he’d called his sister before Andie’s arrival. He’d wanted her there to watch Morgan, just in case the FBI visit ended up taking all morning or required him to leave the house. Good thing he’d called—though he certainly hadn’t anticipated this.

  The house seemed chaotic, considering it was just the four of them. Andie was in the kitchen, actually speaking on two phones at once, her cellular and the Wheatleys’. Morgan was continually bopping between her room and Gus’s home office, the two free lines. She was sure that staring at the phone would make it ring again, but she couldn’t decide which one to watch. Gus trailed after her, letting her burn off the excitement. He gave Carla all the details as they traced the erratic steps of a six-year-old across the house.

  Carla asked, “You sure Morgan isn’t making this up?” They were standing outside Morgan’s bedroom, the door open, keeping an eye on her inside.

  “After those shoplifting allegations panned out, I don’t have much room to doubt her word anymore.”

  Morgan hurried past them, then down the hall. Back to Gus’s office. Gus and Carla followed at a safe distance behind so that Morgan couldn’t overhear.

  “Doesn’t it scare you that she didn’t speak?”

  “Of course it does,” said Gus.

  “I mean, she would have said something. If she could have.”

  “That’s sort of where Agent Henning and I came out.”

  “So…why couldn’t she?”

  They stopped near Gus’s office, just off th
e kitchen. He glanced across the room at Andie on the phone, then looked down, unable to look Carla in the eye. “I have this image in my head.”

  “Image?”

  “I keep seeing Beth on the floor, her hands and feet tied. Crawling to a phone. She knocks it off the hook. Her mouth is gagged, she can’t talk. So she pecks out this tune on the key pad.”

  “That’s brilliant,” she said, impressed.

  He shot a look. “It’s horrifying.”

  A yelp of excitement drew their attention to the kitchen. Andie hung up the phone and hissed out a loud “Yesssssss,” like a tennis pro who’d just served an ace. She shouted, “We pegged the call!”

  Gus hurried into the kitchen. “Where?”

  “It came from Oregon. A pay phone just across the state line.”

  “A pay phone?” So much for his image of Beth crawling on the floor.

  “Yeah. They’re on their way to check it out.” She pulled on her overcoat and grabbed her car keys. “I’m headed there myself.”

  “I’m going with you,” said Gus.

  “You can’t. What if another call comes?”

  He agonized for a moment but realized she was right. “What if another one does come? What do I do?”

  “We’ve set up a trap and trace on all three house lines now. If a remotely suspicious call comes on any one of them, keep it going as long as you can.”

  Gus led her to the foyer and opened the front door. “Call me the minute you hear anything.”

  “I will. But, Gus, please. Try not to drive yourself crazy with worry.”

  He watched from the top step as she turned and hurried to her car. Too late, he thought as her car sped away. I’m way beyond worried.

  Twenty-nine

  Andie drove alone to the northernmost nub of western Oregon. In these parts, the irregular path of the Columbia River defined the state line, which accounted for the little pocket of Oregon that protruded into southwestern Washington. Her exact destination was near the city of Rainier, forty miles north of Portland on the Oregon side of the river.