by Karen Dionne
They started walking up the drive. It curved through thick woods and down a hill. Evergreens mixed with hardwoods, the kind of forest Sarah liked best. Snow weighed down the branches. The woods were silent except for their crunching footsteps. A shower of snow fell from the branches of a pine tree as their approach put an owl to flight. No doubt other creatures were watching. The woods outside the city were home to a variety of wildlife, and not just chipmunks and coyotes. Bears occasionally wandered up the rail lines along the south shoreline, and a few years ago, a cougar was captured and radio-collared in Discovery Park.
The drive emerged from the trees into a large white expanse Sarah assumed was the front yard. The house looked like a castle, built into the side of a hill and constructed of the same white limestone and red brick as the mailbox. A curved depression in the snow cover defined the front walkway. No footsteps led to the door, but Tiffany could have entered the house through the attached garage. It looked like the tire tracks they’d been following ended at one of the garage doors. Sarah counted four bays and a service door. This was practically a mansion. Tiffany had clearly been good at picking her marks. At least until Lance. But that had been Neil’s idea, hadn’t it?
“Ready?” Goddard asked.
“Let’s do this.”
They crossed the lawn and mounted the wide, wooden veranda. Sarah rang the bell. Waited. No sound came from inside the house. Goddard looked at her and shrugged. Time for a change of tactics. He pounded loudly on the door with his fist.
“Police!” he shouted. “Tiffany! We know you’re inside. Open up!”
Silence. It was so quiet that Sarah could hear the soft shhing sound as the snow fell. From the woods, a crow called.
“Police! Tiffany! Open the door!” she called as Goddard pounded on the door again.
More silence.
“Wait here. I’ll go around the back.” Goddard drew his service piece and moved off.
The porch was broad, with a swing on one side and two Adirondack-style rocking chairs on the other. Like the veranda of a southern plantation. Sarah moved down its length, checking the house and peering in the windows she passed. A living room and a dining room on the right side of the door. On the left, a den. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on the three walls that she could see. A desk the size of a small continent in the middle of the room that might have been made of cherry or walnut wood. Everything, from the house to the furnishings, spoke of conspicuous wealth.
She checked her watch. Goddard should have been back by now. She pounded on the door and called again. Still no answer.
She walked down the steps and followed their tracks back up the long driveway to the car. Knocked the snow off her boots and got inside and turned the key. She dialed the heater to “high” and blew on her hands to warm them and shook the snow from her hair, then keyed the radio.
“This is Detective Linden. I’m at 32 Parkview. I need an updated ETA on backup.”
“Closest unit is less than ten minutes out,” the dispatcher replied. “Might be a little longer, depending on the roads.”
“Copy.” Sarah clicked off the transmit button.
Ten minutes. If Tiffany was inside with the boy, anything could happen during that time. Like Goddard, she didn’t really think that Tiffany would hurt Hugo. But if there was one thing she’d learned over the course of their investigation, it was that she really didn’t know Tiffany Crane at all.
She turned off the car and got out. Fingered the gun in her holster, flipped her hood over her head and retraced her path to the house, then diverted toward the garage and followed Goddard’s footsteps around to the back.
“I was just coming to find you,” he said as she turned the corner. “All’s quiet. I don’t think she’s here.”
“I just checked with dispatch. They’re talking another ten minutes before we get backup. Did you check the garage?”
“Not yet.”
Sarah signaled for him to follow and went around to the front of the house. She drew her gun and approached the garage’s service door, then craned her neck as she looked through its window for a better angle.
“I think I see the Toyota. Can’t be sure from here. But there’s a red car parked in the same bay where the tracks end.”
“Let’s try another window.” Goddard led her around the side of the garage. The window was above their heads where the ground sloped away. Goddard laced his fingers and Sarah stepped in.
“I see it!” she exclaimed after he’d boosted her up. “Tiffany’s Toyota. And the floor beneath the car is wet. It’s been on the road this morning.”
“Great. Get down and let’s get moving. We’ll go in from the back. That front door could hold off an army.”
She followed him around the end of the garage. The back yard sloped away from the house to an iced-over pond and a patch of woods. Sarah recognized the location where the photograph of Lance and Tiffany had been taken. She had called it right.
Goddard climbed a flight of steps to the back deck. Sarah checked the windows. A coffee cup on an end table. Newspaper sections scattered over a footstool.
“Wait a minute. I heard something.” She cocked her head and held up her hand. The tinkle of a wind chime. Sleet against the glass.
“I don’t—”
Sarah shook her head and shushed him again with her hand.
Then the sound came again. Goddard nodded to show he heard it too. Somewhere inside the house, a child was crying.
“Police!” he shouted. He banged his fist on the door. “Tiffany! We know you’re in there! Open the door!”
No response. Sarah tried the knob. The door was locked.
“I got this,” Goddard said. He motioned her to the side and raised his foot. Kicked, and kicked again.
The door flew open, and they were in.
40
They were in a wide hallway. Two doorways opened off the hallway on either side. Goddard signaled to Linden to take the left, while he moved to the right, his gun drawn.
A dayroom, or possibly a TV room. Easy chairs arranged in a semicircle facing a cabinet that likely housed a sound system or a television. The cabinet looked custom-made.
“Clear,” he called to Linden.
“Clear,” she called back from across the hall.
“Okay. Spread out.” He raised his voice. “Tiffany! This is Detective John Goddard! We don’t want anyone to get hurt. We need to talk!”
No response. The house was so huge, Goddard’s shouts practically echoed. His stomach churned. This was exactly the sort of situation in which people did get hurt. He wished he and Linden had waited for backup. The house was too big for two people to search by themselves. But it was too late to turn back now.
The dayroom opened into a breakfast room set with small tables. It looked like a restaurant or a café. He cleared the room, then moved on to another expensively furnished room, and then another. As Goddard cleared each room in turn, he realized that not only did the house look like a palace from the outside, it was laid out like one, too. The rooms around the perimeter were connected to each other in a continuous chain. In the middle were the more utilitarian rooms, coat closets, and bathrooms.
The layout of the house unnerved him. There were just too many rooms. As they entered and cleared each room in turn, all Tiffany had to do to keep ahead of them was to keep moving. And she knew the house, while he and Linden did not. In theory, Linden coming from the other direction would eventually corner Tiffany and they could grab and cuff her, but the reality wasn’t that simple. He and Linden could search the perimeter all day and never catch up to her.
He thought again about the layout. If he was Tiffany, where would he hide with the boy? Not the perimeter rooms; they were too open and exposed. If Tiffany was here with Hugo, they were in the middle of the house. Goddard was sure of it. He wished he had a way to let Linden know. Another reason they should have waited for backup.
“Tiffany!” he called again. “This is Detective Goddard! I
need you to show yourself!”
Silence. The main entrance was directly in front of him. Should he continue clearing the perimeter rooms, or move to the ones in the middle? He made his decision and turned down a central hallway. He moved confidently, but cautiously, stopping every few feet to listen.
“Hugo,” he called out gently, trying another tactic. Calm and reassuring. Like a father to his son. “I know you’re scared. This is Detective Goddard. I’m here to help you. Where are you?”
Still nothing. He checked his watch. Backup should have been here by now. He continued down the hallway. The next door opened into a billiard room. He stepped inside with his gun drawn.
“Hugo? Are you in here?” He checked behind the leather chairs, beneath the pool table, anywhere a small boy could be hiding.
“Tiffany? Can you hear me? Show yourself. You know this is pointless. There are half a dozen patrol cars outside. You’re surrounded. Give yourself up before someone gets hurt.” He stopped, listened, moved on.
The hallway dead-ended at a library. Under other circumstances, Goddard might have whistled at the size and scale of the room, the sheer quantity of books lining the walls, the size of the antique library table, the artwork.
“There you are,” Linden said from behind him. He started. “I’ve been looking all over for you. This place is enormous.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a thing. I checked all the side rooms up to the front hallway, and then I cleared the upstairs. I don’t get it. I was sure I heard a child crying.”
“I did, too. I’ll call it in again. Meanwhile, we should verify that really is Tiffany’s car.” Now that they were inside the house, it would be a simple matter to access the garage through the connecting door.
“Hold on.” Linden put a finger to her lips. A child’s cry, just at the edge of hearing, coming from behind a wall of bookcases. But there was a gap in the shelves, an area of blank paneling. No, not blank, a door, so well incorporated into the surrounding wood that it was hardly visible. She motioned to Goddard and took a step closer. Goddard did the same. Their footsteps were muffled by the heavy carpet. He held his breath and strained to listen, cupped a hand around his ear.
From behind the door, the faint crying sound came again.
41
A closet. Hugo was in a closet. Sarah flashed back to another little boy… hiding in a closet… peeking out through the crack beneath the door. Terrified. Traumatized. Alone. Seeing things no child should ever see. And the blood. His mother’s blood. So much blood—
“Linden.” Goddard’s whisper brought her back. His gun was pointed at the closet door. He signaled her to step to the side. She shook her head. There was no way he was taking the lead on this one. Not this time. Not when there was a little boy inside.
She moved in front of him. Took a ready stance and drew her weapon. Held it steady with both hands in front of her and pointed it at the door.
“Tiffany,” she said, keeping her voice firm yet neutral. Not scolding her. Not condemning her or judging her. Just telling her what she needed to do. “We know you and Hugo are in there. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. I’m going to open the door now so you can come out.”
“No!” Tiffany’s voice was shrill, panicked. Claire said they’d gotten high together last night. She probably still was. “I have a gun! I’ll shoot! I’ll shoot Hugo! I’ll shoot myself!”
“Don’t shoot,” Sarah told her evenly. “Nobody has to get hurt. We just want to talk.”
She studied the closet. The door was so cleverly disguised, only the small wrought iron door knob gave it away. She caught Goddard’s eye and tipped her head toward the knob. Signaling to him that she was going to open the door no matter what Tiffany wanted.
He shook his head fiercely. Backup, he mouthed and jerked his head in the direction of the front door. Telling her to wait.
She shook her head just as emphatically. Trust me, she mouthed back.
He pressed his lips together and shook his head again.
She turned back to face the closet, her gun aimed at the center of Tiffany’s body mass, assuming the woman was standing. Above Hugo’s head. Unless Tiffany was holding him in her arms, or crouching down with him in front of her, or otherwise using him as a shield. There was no way to know.
“Tiffany,” she said again. “This isn’t helping. You can’t stay in there forever. Hugo’s going to get hungry. And thirsty. And he’s going to need to use the bathroom. I’m going to open the door now.”
“Who else is with you? Who’s out there?”
“Nobody. Just my partner and me.”
“Prove it.”
How could you prove a negative? Sarah looked helplessly at Goddard and shrugged.
“This is Detective Goddard,” he said. “Detective Linden is telling you the truth. It’s just us out here.”
“Daddy?” a child’s voice said at the sound of Goddard’s voice. “Daddy?”
Sarah’s heart broke. “Tiffany—don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Please.”
“Sarah” Goddard hissed from his position behind her. She turned around. He touched his ear and nodded toward the front of the house. Listen, he mouthed.
She cocked her head. Sirens. Faint and in the distance, but growing louder by the second. The backup team would arrive at any minute, swarm the house, break down the door if they had to, enter the room… Tiffany would hear them, she might panic… shoot at them… shoot the boy… shoot herself… They had to resolve the situation now.
“Tiffany,” she pleaded one last time. “I know you don’t want to do this. I know you just want to take care of Hugo. To keep him safe. That’s why you took him. I know you love him.” Guessing at the motivation. Hoping she was right. “We’ll make sure nothing happens to him, but we can’t help until you open the door. Let him go. Then we can talk.”
She waited. The sirens grew louder. She gripped her weapon tighter. Tiffany had to be able to hear them, even through the heavy paneling. She had to know they were coming. That the end was near. That if she didn’t do as she was told, the confrontation could end badly. For her, for Hugo, for everybody.
“Okay,” Tiffany said at last. She sounded resigned. Angry. “Okay, okay, okay, okay. I’ll let Hugo go. Just don’t shoot me.”
“I won’t shoot. I promise. Open the door.”
The closet door opened a crack. Sarah moved out of Tiffany’s line of sight and kept her gun aimed at her target. Behind her, she could feel the air in the room shift as Goddard did the same.
The door opened wider, and then suddenly, Hugo burst out. Sarah couldn’t tell if he was running of his own volition or if Tiffany had pushed him out. Quickly, she holstered her weapon and dropped down on one knee. She opened her arms wide, ready to scoop him, desperate to make him safe.
But Hugo angled to the right and ran past her. Sarah whirled around in time to see Goddard shove his gun into its holster and snatch the boy up. Of course Hugo had run toward Goddard. Sarah should have anticipated that. The most important person in Hugo’s life had been his father.
She whipped out her weapon again and resumed her stance as the closet door opened wider. Behind her, she could hear Goddard moving across the room with the boy. Carrying him out of the line of fire. She heard the library door open and close. She heard Goddard’s footsteps returning.
“Hugo’s in the hallway,” Goddard told Tiffany as he resumed his position behind Sarah. “But he’s all by himself. Put the gun down so we can all go there with him.”
“I said all right! Stop yelling at me!” The door opened fully and Tiffany appeared in the doorway, holding a small-caliber pistol under her chin. The murder weapon? Possibly.
Sarah ignored the clear panic in Tiffany’s eyes and smiled.
“That’s great. You’re doing great, Tiffany. Now put the gun down. See? I’m putting down mine.”
She bent her knees keeping her eyes locked on Tiffany’s and laid her weapon on the carpet. Straightening, she held o
ut her empty hands and smiled again. “Now it’s your turn.” Tiffany shook her head. Her hand trembled.
“Okay,” Sarah said. “That’s all right. It’s okay if you want to keep the gun for now. Nobody wants you to get hurt. We just want to talk to you.”
Tiffany didn’t move.
“I get that you’re afraid,” Sarah went on, keeping up the patter. “But it’s okay. No one is going to hurt you.”
“It’s too late,” Tiffany said. “I killed him.” The gun pressed harder beneath her chin.
Him? Was she talking about the Marsee brothers? Had she killed just one of them? Rutz had said that Campbell killed the brothers and forced Tiffany to watch. Was she confessing to the truth, or was it another lie? Sarah decided to go with Rutz’s version.
“Tiffany, we know that’s not true. We know Campbell killed Lance and Guy. Dr. Rutz told us. He said you told him that Campbell made you watch.”
“I loved him!” Tiffany cried. “I loved him! How could he do that to me!”
“Making you watch was a terrible thing to do. But shooting yourself would be terrible, too. What will happen to Hugo if you hurt yourself? He needs you. Put the gun down. You don’t want to do this. We can help you.”
“No one can help me.” Her voice grew small. Crying. Shrinking in on herself. She looked and sounded like a little girl.
There was a loud banging from behind Sarah and Goddard, muffled by the thick wood paneling—the backup team breaking down the front door. Tiffany started, pressing the gun harder into the flesh of her chin. Running footsteps in the hallway. “Is everything all right in there?” someone called. “Linden! Goddard! Talk to us!”
“We’re fine!” they answered in unison. “Stay out! Stay back!”
“Tiffany,” Sarah said as decisively as she knew how. Putting all of the “I’m the mother and you have to do what I tell you” into her voice that she was capable of. “They’re here. We have to go now. It’s time. Put the gun down.”