David and Goliath.
After a series of gradually narrowing internet searches, she had a spreadsheet with the name and contact information for every publisher that might deal in religious coloring books. To each she sent a brief email explaining the situation and attached an image of the page with the foot in the sandal. It asked that they forward the message along to anyone who purchased such coloring books in bulk. Then she copied the message and sent it along to an ever-widening circle of government agencies, group homes, and churches. She played on their better angels, emphasizing the chance to save a child and imploring them to call if any of their staff recognized the page. It was a long shot, but better ideas were in short supply.
At the bottom of each message, she added her phone number.
* * *
Stranger and stranger—Patty Finch didn’t have a birth certificate.
Laura spent the morning and early afternoon on the phone with the state of North Carolina, then with all the surrounding states. Her skills came in handy as she managed to sweet-talk each government office into doing a quick search for her. Each state was adamant that no Patricia Finch had been born in the last hundred years. Other variations of the name were also a bust.
The only thing left to go on was the missing persons report. It listed an address, and at four in the afternoon Laura parked and knocked on the front door. After a few minutes she knocked again just before the door opened.
“So sorry to keep you waiting,” the woman said. She sported an elegant housecoat, almost like a kimono, and a shock of white hair as thick as the strand of pearls around her neck. In one hand she clutched an ivory-handled cane. Laura guessed she was at least eighty years old. “Not quite as spry as I used to be.”
“Please, no apologies necessary. I was hoping someone could tell me about some tenants who used to live here.”
“There are no tenants here, I’m afraid.”
“This would have been quite a while ago, back in 1987 and 1988. The Finches.”
The old woman nodded once. “Yes, of course. The little girl who disappeared.”
Laura was staggered by her luck. “You remember them?”
“Absolutely. I’ve lived in this house more than forty years. I was their landlord, I suppose.”
“May I come in?”
The woman stood aside and swung her cane out of the way.
* * *
The old woman, whose name turned out to be Vivian Koffman, got Laura settled in a chair in the parlor and then tottered off to the kitchen. Five minutes later she returned with tea on a sterling silver tray. She balanced one side of the tray on the top of her cane and scooted along quite efficiently. Before Laura could offer to help, everything was down on the coffee table and Vivian was pouring her a cup of Earl Grey.
“Milk or sugar?”
“No, thank you. You’re not from North Carolina,” Laura observed.
“No, my husband was. He was a military man, moved around a lot. We met in Chicago, and after we married he wanted to move back here. He passed a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Vivian waved a hand. “No need to be. Now, what’s your interest in the Finch girl?”
Laura decided to keep it simple. “I’m working on a story for the Gazette about missing children.”
“She’s still missing then?”
“As far as I know.”
Vivian sighed. “I’d always hoped she made it somewhere.”
“Somewhere?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere nice, I suppose. Alan was a wonderful husband, and a good father, but he was the one who insisted we move to Hillsborough. I’ve been here for a long time, and I’m too old to move now, but it was never my first choice. Are you a native? Does that offend you?”
“I moved away for a long time myself.”
“But you came back. Why?”
Laura paused. “I guess I had nowhere else to go.”
She nodded. “As good a reason as any. It was clear to me that little Patty Finch wanted nothing to do with this town. They were only here a matter of months before she started running away.”
“Why did they move here?”
Vivian sipped her tea, then said, “Mildred Finch told me they were in hiding.”
Laura sat up straight. “In hiding—what does that mean?”
“She told me they were on the run from her husband. You have to understand, this was 1987. It was a different time. If a woman’s husband liked to hit her, sometimes there wasn’t much she could do but learn to take a punch.”
“And Mildred Finch’s husband hit her?”
“She told me horrible stories about him. Just horrible. What I know for sure is that she spun a very compelling yarn.”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“I have to say, Vivian, it doesn’t sound like you were totally convinced.”
“An old house like this has thick walls. People assume privacy,” she said. “But in the late 1970s we updated the heating vents. After that, for a number of years until we got it fixed, every word spoken in every room could be heard sitting right where you are now.”
Laura leaned forward in her chair.
“Where I used to sit at night,” Vivian said.
“And what did you hear?”
“A very nasty woman saying very nasty things. A mother who seemed to enjoy cruelty for cruelty’s sake.”
“And you never told anyone?”
“I considered it. But as I said, it was a different time. Hitting your child wasn’t even really frowned upon, much less illegal. I was seriously considering shaming her in public, but Patty up and disappeared. Soon they were both gone.”
Laura said, “And you never spoke of it after that? The police must have asked you questions.”
She paused, withdrew a handkerchief from inside the folds of her housecoat, and daubed at her eyes.
“I came home one day and there was a police car parked right out there at the curb. If I’m being honest, my first thought was that Mildred had killed her. But no, she had escaped instead. I was happy for her, you see. I hoped she would get away and somehow make a fresh start.”
“So when the police asked you questions—”
“I didn’t tell them a damn thing,” Vivian said.
Laura tried to think where to go next. She asked, “Mildred moved out after that?”
“Couldn’t get out fast enough. Her daughter disappears, and she’s in the wind within a week. That should tell you all you need to know.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“I do not. I never spoke to her again.”
“How about where they came from? Where did they live with Mr. Finch?”
Vivian set her teacup down and steepled her fingers. “Let me see, it was from somewhere farther north, I remember that much. In Virginia. Chesapeake? No, that’s not right. Somewhere on the border.”
“I don’t know Virginia very well,” Laura said.
“That’s a shame. The old memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“You seem sharp as a tack.”
“Now isn’t that sweet of you to say!”
Laura stood. “Thank you for your time, Vivian. It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“And you as well, Laura. Tell me, there must be runaways more recent than 1988. How does Patty Finch fit into your story?”
“I can’t give you all the details, ma’am.”
Vivian smiled knowingly. “I think you’re trying to find her.”
Laura said nothing.
“Best of luck,” she said, and showed her to the door.
Laura got three steps down the walk before the old woman stopped her.
“Mecklenburg!” she said. “They came from Mecklenburg, Virginia. I’m sure of it.”
* * *
As it turned out, there was no city in Virginia called Mecklenburg.
But it was the name of a county. Another hour on the phone and she had something solid. Mecklen
burg County had a 1979 marriage license for a John Lotter and a Mildred Finch. It listed an address. With that in hand, she called the office dealing with the area’s property records and flirted with a lonely-sounding man until he agreed to find the information about that particular piece of land and read it to her over the phone. The property was a farm at the southern edge of the county, almost into North Carolina, and sprawled more than five hundred acres.
The current owner was listed as Monica Finch.
* * *
She drove north on I-85 for forty miles, then broke off onto US-15 for another thirty-five. A two-lane bridge carried across the half-mile span of the Roanoke River, and she crossed it as the last drops of sun evaporated off the river’s surface and watched as the water turned to ink. Ten more minutes and she made Boydton, the county seat. She checked into a motel, took a shower, and forced herself to sleep.
By dawn on Saturday she was winding down country roads, looking for the farm’s entrance. The weather was better here, a touch warmer with blue skies. Despite the excellent visibility, she almost missed the turn. A battered red mailbox listed to one side, nearly hidden in three-foot grass. It had FINCH hand-painted on the side in uneven white letters. Laura hit the brakes, and the Dart slid on the gravel, but she made the turn. The driveway was in worse condition than the road, rutted by erosion, and it took ten minutes to reach the end. The trees ended, and the property gave way to cleared fields with a house on a rise in the center. It looked like something out of Gone with the Wind, with a huge front porch under a sagging roof supported by white columns.
She parked and knocked.
No answer.
She knocked again and waited.
“Hello?”
Laura jumped. The voice came from behind her. She turned to face its owner and found a woman only a few years older than her.
“Monica Finch?”
“That’s right.”
She had vibrant red hair and freckles dotted her cheeks. Crow’s feet had just started at the edges of her eyes, but they gave her a friendly look, as if she smiled a lot.
From behind her leg, another voice said, “Mommy?”
A little girl stepped out but kept clutching her mother’s pant leg. She was Monica in miniature, freckles more prominent, red hair bound up in pigtails.
“Can I help you?” Monica asked.
“I’m a reporter working on a story—”
“Like for the paper?” the little girl interrupted.
The two of them were up on the porch now, and Laura bent down on one knee. “And who’s this?”
Her mother smiled. “This is Francine.”
Laura extended a hand and Francine shook it, a serious look on her face. “Pleased to meet you,” she said.
Laura grinned. “Likewise. Yes, I write the stories that go in the paper.”
“How do you know all those things?”
“Well, I don’t. But lots of different people know lots of different things, and my job is to ask them questions about it.”
Francine nodded, and her nose scrunched up as she processed this revelation about the nature of journalism.
“What a polite little girl,” she said to Monica.
“We try our best. Is this about the runoff into Smithfield Creek? We don’t actually farm the land anymore, so I’m not sure I have anything to say.”
“The runoff,” Laura repeated.
Monica said, “But I am against pollution.”
“Who isn’t?”
“Exactly.”
“But I’m not here about the runoff into Smithfield Creek.”
Monica frowned.
“I’m up here from Hillsborough, North Carolina.”
Monica stared at her for another second, recognition dawning on her face. She recoiled away across the porch. In what Laura suspected was an unconscious gesture, one arm grabbed Francine’s shoulder and pushed the little girl behind her leg again.
“Mommy?”
“Shh, quiet now, sweetheart.” To Laura: “I recognize you. You’re the woman who led the police to that serial killer.”
CHAPTER
33
“BUT WHY DO you want to talk to me?”
Laura watched the wheels turn in Monica’s head. Reporter infamous for her connection to serial killer wants an interview, which cannot possibly mean anything good. The woman took a sudden interest in her surroundings, looking behind her, then scanning the horizon.
“Why do you want to talk to me?” she repeated, a new urgency in her tone.
Laura raised both hands, palms out. “It’s nothing like that, nothing dangerous. I’m just doing back story. Can I come inside?”
The sun broke free of the tree line and bathed the porch in golden light. Monica squinted at her. “If it’s all the same to you, we can talk right here.”
Laura stood and waited. Any person who had raised a child with such excellent manners must have a strong sense of decorum themselves. She thought it would play to her advantage, so she said nothing.
It only took another second for Monica to break. “We can talk out here, but I’ll get us some coffee from the kitchen. Cream? Sugar?”
“Black.”
“Back in a sec. Have a seat,” she said, and pulled Francine along behind her as she vanished through the front door. Francine waved and then disappeared inside before Laura could wave back.
There was an Adirondack chair that proved comfortable, and Laura dug out her pad and pencil and balanced them on its flat arm.
Monica backed through the screen door with a cup of coffee in each hand and gave one to Laura. Behind her, the screen door poked open a few inches.
“You stay inside,” she said, and the visible sliver of Francine’s face receded from view.
Monica was well-mannered enough to let Laura get in a few sips of coffee before speaking. “This is all very strange.”
“I should have called ahead.”
Monica ignored that. “What could you possibly want to talk about? How do I fit into a story about a child killer? I really need you to tell me that right now.” She nodded back toward the door. “Should I be worried?”
Laura shook her head. “I didn’t know you had a daughter. If I had, I definitely would have called. Like I said, this is just back story.”
“What kind of back story?”
Laura had spent most of the drive thinking about this moment. For the last six months she had never hesitated to lie in service of the bigger truth. Here, though, things were different. Monica deserved to know. To this woman, sitting in front of her, Patty Finch was blood.
“Before I say anything at all,” Laura said, “I need you to understand a few things. My job is just like I explained it to Francine, visiting people and asking questions. Hopefully I end up with something close to the truth. Right now I’m in the middle of that process. I don’t know anything for sure.”
Monica set her coffee cup down on the low table between them. “Now you’re scaring me. Just give me a headline, something I can wrap my head around.”
Laura nodded. “Okay, fair enough. Another girl disappeared in Hillsborough, and I think there may be a connection to Mildred Finch and her daughter, Patty.”
She watched carefully for Monica’s reaction. Would it be fear? Or despair? Anxiety? She studied her face, attuned to any sign that this woman had knowledge that would help.
Monica cocked her head to one side, eyebrows raised. “Aunt Mildred?”
“She was your aunt, then?”
Laura hadn’t been sure about the exact familial relationship, only that an owner of this exact property named Finch could not possibly be a coincidence.
“Yes,” Monica said, “my mother’s sister.”
“Do you know where she is?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t seen her since I was a little girl. Younger than Francine.”
“And your mother? Would she know how to find her?”
“No, they were never close. When she left, she le
ft for good.”
Laura took a breath. This was the moment, the question she’d been waiting to ask, and it surprised her how difficult it was to get the words out. It was fear, she realized. She was afraid of this woman’s answer. She was scared of being right.
“What about her daughter, Patty?”
Monica made a face.
“Has anyone in the family had contact with her since 1988?”
“Why 1988?”
Laura pressed her. “Has anyone had contact with her?”
“No, my Aunt Mildred took Patty with her when she left, two years before that. I don’t think it was considered strange at the time. Nobody knew we’d never see them again.”
“Do you think it’s possible another family member might have talked to them? Tracked them down? Even gotten a postcard from them during the last twenty-nine years?”
Monica held up a hand. “I need to stop you right there. I’ve answered your questions, but I think I need you to answer a few of mine before we go any further.”
Laura drained the last of her coffee and set the cup down. “This will sound a little crazy.”
Monica crossed her arms over her chest.
“You know the man I—who killed those girls.”
“Eugene Hobbes.”
“Yes. He also killed three girls in 1988, the first evidence we have of him committing a crime. I think there’s a possibility he killed a fourth girl back then.”
Monica just stared at her, unmoving, unblinking.
“And I think it’s possible that fourth girl was your cousin, Patty.”
She summarized the rest, the coloring books, the crosses, the tenuous connections holding everything together. At the end Monica said, “I’m not sure that really proves anything.”
“Of course,” Laura agreed. “Like I said, I’m in the process of investigating. I may very well be wrong. Partly I hoped you would tell me so, that Patty is alive and well and living in New York or something.”
She shook her head. “No, we don’t know what happened to them. But—”
“Mommy?” The door poked open again.
Last Girl Gone Page 26