by Reid, Terri
“That wasn’t your choice,” Mary reminded him. “You would have been there if you could.”
“They don’t know that,” he said. “All they know is their dad left them.”
“Okay,” Mary said, pulling her keyboard in front of her and typing. “Then we’ll let them know the truth.”
Steve leaned forward. “How? How are you going to find them twenty years later?”
“I’m going to do a web search for them,” she said. “They probably have some kind of social media listing.”
“A web search? Social media? What are you talking about?” he asked.
Mary looked up from her computer screen. “Wow, that’s right. Twenty years has really made a difference in the world hasn’t it?”
The results came back for his oldest son’s name, and Mary clicked on a popular social networking site. “Why don’t I show you rather than try to explain it,” she said, turning her computer monitor so Steve could view it, too.
A page with photos of Steve’s son, Gregg, and his family showed on the screen. “That’s Greggie,” Steve said, pointing to the little boy in the photo who looked to be about six years old. “He hasn’t changed at all.”
Mary shook her head. “No,” she said, pointing to the man holding the child. “That’s Greggie, and that’s his son, Stevie.”
Steve looked up, tears filling his eyes. “He named his son Stevie?” he asked.
Mary nodded. “Yes, he did.”
“Thank you, Mary,” he said with a tearful smile. “Now all we have to do is find me.”
Mary nodded. “Yes,” she said. “And I’ll start working on that right away.”
He started to fade away. “Stevie,” he whispered. “I have a grandson named Stevie.”
Chapter Thirty
Mary knocked on the door of Bradley’s office and then peeked in. Bradley, his phone to his ear, smiled at her and motioned her forward. She softly closed the door behind her and sat in the chair on the other side of his desk.
“Yes, Chris, we’re pursuing some leads here,” Bradley said into the phone. “I’m willing to share whatever we discover, and if you could do the same that would be great.”
He paused for a moment to listen. “Okay, fine,” he replied. “And thanks for the information. I really appreciate it. Goodbye.”
He hung up the phone and turned to Mary. “That was Chris Thorne. He was in my unit in the service. He’s FBI now and has been working with the state’s Cyber Crime Division. I called him yesterday to tell him that we were following up on what could be a child trafficking situation, and he just called to tell me that one of the IP addresses they’ve been tracking for the web streams carried a different kind of data last night. It connected with a re-homing forum, and the user name “pastorswife” was affiliated with it. The user connected with someone looking to re-home a little girl. But the rest of the conversation was through private messages, so they couldn’t get more information.”
“Why don’t they just get a geographical link to the IP address?” she asked.
“Whoever is operating this porn site has got some technical abilities,” he said. “They’re using a proxy server, most likely a VPN or virtual private network, which encrypts their data and hides their identity. So, they don’t even know if the IP address is good. For all they know, “pastorswife” could be a well-meaning woman trying to help.”
Mary sighed in frustration. “Well, at least we have a lead on Liza,” she said.
“Well, yeah, about that,” Bradley said. “I did a background check on the family we got from the Larsons. They live up in Madison, and their record is clean except for a couple of parking tickets. But it doesn’t seem like they had Liza for very long. All of their kids are registered to a local school, but there was never a registration for someone Liza’s age.”
“So, we don’t need to drive up to Madison?” Mary asked.
Bradley shook his head. “No, I think a phone call will do it,” he replied picking up the phone. “I’ll put it on speaker, but I think it would be better if you handled the interview, especially if the mom answers.”
She nodded and pulled out a notepad and a pen.
Bradley tapped in the numbers and set the phone to speaker.
Within a few rings it was answered.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice responded on the other line.
“Hi, my name is Mary O’Reilly. May I speak with Melody Greyland?”
“This is Melody.”
“Hi, Melody. I’m a private investigator and I’m trying to locate Liza Parker,” she said.
“Oh, wow, have you been hired by her parents?” she asked. “Do they want her back?”
“Well, because of client confidentiality, I can’t really say,” Mary said apologetically. “But I can tell you it’s something like that.”
“That’s so cool,” Melody said. “I think kids should be with their natural parents. And Liza was such a cute kid.”
“So, you knew Liza?”
“Oh, sure. Yeah. She lived with us for a couple of weeks, but it didn’t really work out,” she said. “So, we were able to find another family to take her. No big deal.”
Mary saw the anger and frustration cross Bradley’s face.
“Do you happen to have the contact information for that family?” Mary asked, keeping her voice friendly and light.
“Sure do,” she said. “Bruce, my husband, said we needed to keep it with our important papers in case something went wrong and we needed to prove that they accepted guardianship. He was real worried that if she got sick or something, someone would come after us for payment.”
“Well, that was really smart of him,” Mary said.
“Yeah, he’s always thinking of stuff like that,” she agreed. “He wanted to be a lawyer. I actually have it scanned on our computer. Do you just want me to email you a copy?”
“That would be great,” Mary said, offering her email address.
“I’ll send it to you right away,” Melody said. “Do you need anything else?”
“Do you remember anything about the family she went to?” Mary asked. “It might make things easier when I talk to them.”
“Oh, yeah, they were great,” she said. “He was a pastor, really into helping kids and teaching them about God. They had just come back from a trip to some country where they helped run an orphanage. They missed the children so much they decided to adopt some children of their own. Isn’t that great?”
“Yes, that sure is great,” Mary repeated. “You don’t happen to remember their user name, do you?”
Melody laughed. “How could I forget it?” she asked. “It was “pastorswife.” Cute, huh?”
“Yeah, real cute,” Mary said. “Thanks again, Melody.”
“Hey, no problem,” she said. “Oh, if you see Liza, tell her Melody says hi.”
Mary nodded. “I will,” she said. “Goodbye.”
Bradley pressed a button and disconnected the phone. For a few moments neither of them said a word, just stared at the phone in the middle of the table. “She didn’t even give Liza a second thought,” Mary finally said. “It just didn’t work out. I can’t believe someone would say that.”
“I have a feeling background checks on the good pastor and his wife aren’t going to turn up anything,” Bradley said. “But at least we can report back that the user name “pastorswife” has been used before in a re-homing situation.”
“We can say more than that,” Mary said. “We can tell them they murdered Liza.”
Bradley shook his head. “Not unless we have a body and proof they did it,” Bradley said. “A body just tells us that she was buried in an unmarked grave. Anyone could have buried her. They could have buried her after she died of a disease. No one has reported her missing. There is no investigation. We have to be very careful with this one, Mary. We need to be sure we have solid proof.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Bradley hung up his phone, sat back in his chair and ran a hand
through his hair.
“It’s not good news, is it?” Mary asked.
For the past hour, Bradley had been on the phone with his friend Chris and various other law enforcement agencies along the Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin borders to see if they had any information that would help bring them closer to the location of the phony minister and wife.
He shook his head. “So far it’s a dead end,” he said. “Most people who give children away really don’t like to get the police involved. And it looks like this couple is smart, so they’ve covered their tracks.”
The phone rang before Mary could respond, and Bradley picked it up.
“Chief Alden,” he said and then waited while the caller identified himself. “Thanks for calling back. I’m working on a case, potential child trafficking, and I’ve got a couple of persons of interest who are posing as a minister and his wife. The MO seems to be that they pick up adopted kids whom the parents want to re-home and then traffic them. I’m looking for anything that might lead us to their location.”
He paused a moment, and his eyes widened with interest. “What? You’re kidding,” he said, excitement growing in his voice. “This is great. Yeah, if you could get me their information, I’ll give them a call. It sure sounds like a match. And if you wouldn’t mind forwarding their descriptions on to the FBI, I think they’d be interested, too.”
Grabbing a notepad and a pen, he quickly jotted down some information. “Hey, thanks a lot,” he replied. “Yeah, you have a good one, too.”
“What?” Mary asked as soon as he hung up the phone.
“It was the Clinton Police Department,” he said. “A guy called yesterday and said he and his wife met with a couple at a restaurant at the edge of town. They had been thinking about re-homing their adopted daughter but changed their mind. He said the minister got pretty irate and didn’t act like a minister, in his opinion. He said both of them creeped him out and seemed to look guilty, so he called.”
“Oh, wow, that’s great,” Mary said. “That’s got to be our guys.”
Bradley picked up the phone and dialed. “There’s only one way to find out.”
A few minutes later Bradley hung up his phone and sat back in his chair. “They got nothing,” he said. “No license plate, no identification, no address, no phone number. These creeps really know how to cover their tracks.”
Mike appeared in the office and looked from Mary to Bradley. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“We thought we had a lead on the people who killed Liza,” Mary explained, “but it was a dead end.”
“So, what do we know?” Mike asked.
“We know there’s a couple out there, posing as a minister and his wife who are adopting children,” Bradley said. “And they are active along the Mississippi River area.”
“We know that this couple adopted Liza and killed her,” Mary added. “That was the man of God who hurt her.”
“We know they are still trying to adopt children in the area,” Bradley added. “They had a failed attempt yesterday, and it looks like they were on the Internet last night trying to find another child.”
“We have a good description of the two of them that’s been forwarded to the FBI,” Bradley said. “And I’m sure they’ll be running them through their database, but these two are smart. I don’t think they’ll find anything.”
Mary shook her head. “So what do we do now?”
“Well, if it were me,” Mike said, “I’d ask Liza.”
“Ask Liza what?” Bradley asked.
“Where they buried her,” he said. “Or where she lived.”
Mary shook her head. “She was only five, she wouldn’t…”
She stopped and stared at Mike for a moment. “You’re brilliant,” she said. “Liza won’t remember, but Donna and Ryan will remember where they first met Liza. It can’t be too far from where she was buried. She wouldn’t have wandered that far on her own.”
Bradley nodded. “Yeah, she only came with Ryan when he asked Donna if Liza could come home with them,” he agreed. “That’s got to be our starting place.”
“Let’s just hope Ryan and Donna weren’t in Florida when it happened,” Mike said.
Mary pulled out her cell phone. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Bradley drove the cruiser through the town of Galena, past the downtown area and to the other side of town where he turned left on a small rural road that led almost directly west. They drove past farms and fields with corn stalks reaching over six feet high. Further down the road, the farms were interspersed with small woods as the road curved around a sharp bend.
“Okay, Donna said her dad’s farm was just at the end of this bend,” Mary said, “on the right-hand side.”
Slowing the cruiser, Bradley found the nearly hidden driveway and pulled up the long lane to the farmhouse. Before he could turn off the car, a man in his late fifties walked out the front door and watched them from the top step of the wide, wraparound porch.
Bradley got out of the car first and walked around the car, putting himself between the man and Mary. “Hi,” Bradley called, lifting his hand to shade it from the bright, midday sun. “Are you Donna’s dad?”
The man nodded and slowly came down the steps. “Yep, I am,” he said slowly. “You that psychic person from Freeport?”
Biting back a smile, Bradley shook his head. “No, that would be my lovely wife,” he said. “I’m the Chief of Police in Freeport.”
He shook his head. “So that’s why there’s a police car in my driveway,” he said. “I wondered about that.”
Mary slipped out of the car and joined Bradley. “Hello, Mr. McIntyre,” she said. “I’m Mary. I’ve met your daughter Donna and your grandson Ryan.”
Nodding, he studied her. “So Donna tells me,” he said. “She said you’re helping her out.”
“Yes, I hope to help her,” Mary said, “and the little girl Ryan met.”
“I seem to remember him mentioning her to me,” he said hesitantly. “How much are you charging her to do this?”
Knowing he was only trying to protect his family, Mary took a deep breath and pushed the anger away. “I’m not charging them anything,” she said. “I’m not a fraud or a con-woman; I just investigate things like this.”
Yeah, that’s what Donna said, too,” he replied, coming forward to shake her hand. “I just needed to make sure myself. So, what can I do to help?”
“Donna thought that Ryan met Liza here, when he was visiting,” Mary explained. “All we want to do is investigate the areas of your property where Ryan might have played.”
He brought his hand to his hips and gazed out over his property. “Well, he and I have purt near covered every inch of my 150 acres. But, as I recall, the day he found his invisible friend we were out near the river fishing.”
“Where’s the river from here?” Bradley asked.
Mr. McIntyre pointed through the woods. “It’s down that path about a mile or so,” he said. “You can use the ATV to get down there, and then you’ll have to walk the river path. We were up and down that river all day.”
Mary looked down the narrow path that seemed to disappear into the thick woods. “We just follow that path until we get to the river?” she asked.
A half-smile grew on the man’s face. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “And if you get wet, you’ve gone a bit too far.”
Bradley chuckled. “We appreciate the loan of your ATV,” he said, “and we’ll bring it back to you in good shape.”
“If you want, I can hook up the boat trailer to it,” the man offered. “Not much of a boat, just a rowboat, but it’s better than wading.”
“We’d appreciate it,” Bradley said. “You never know where something like this will lead.”
Chapter Thirty-three
“Where the in the world is this path leading?” Mary asked. She brushed another corn stalk out of her face as they rode down the narrow path.
&n
bsp; “It’s going to the river,” Bradley shouted over the roar of the ATV’s engine. The high-end, four-seater vehicle had superior suspension and drove over the bumpy cornfield like a dream.
Bradley slowly maneuvered the vehicle to the other side of the road to avoid hitting a small bump in the road.
Mary looked down at the speedometer from her vantage point in the passenger’s seat. “Bradley, you’re only going five miles an hour,” she exclaimed. “This baby can fly through this field. Open her up.”
He turned to her. “I’m not risking you or the baby for some crazy ride in a cornfield,” he said.
“Bradley, it was bumpier riding in the cruiser on the gravel road on the way up here,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Mary, we’re not in a race here,” he said.
“But we want to be back before dark,” she replied, and then she looked around. “Do you know where we are?”
He paused for a moment before answering. “Yes,” he finally said. “It’s a short cut. I know where I’m going.”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, that’s man code for you are totally lost,” she said. “We should turn around and get directions.”
Bradley shook his head. “Well, we haven’t hit water yet, so I think we’re on the right path.”
“I think you took a wrong turn at the V in the road,” Mary said, looking over her shoulder, “when you were watching out for bumps. We are driving in the middle of a corn field. Mr. McIntyre didn’t say anything about a corn field.”
“His whole farm is a cornfield,” Bradley argued, inadvertently pressing on the gas pedal as he turned to Mary. “Of course he didn’t say anything about it. That would be redundant.”
“You still should let me drive,” she said. “I have more experience.”
“You grew up in Chicago,” he responded. “How could you have more experience?”
“I never got lost in the forest preserves,” she replied. “I never got lost on the lakefront. I never got lost—”
“Mary, I’m not lost,” Bradley interrupted. “I know exactly where I—”