Caught (2010)

by Harlan Coben

  News vans were being corralled into a roped-off area like she'd seen cowboys do with cattle in the movies. Patricia spotted that shrill-voiced, frosted-hair woman from that cable station. One of the reporters sneaked past the barricade and called out Patricia's name. He gave her a toothy smile and showed her a microphone, as if it were candy he was using to lure her into his car. Tremont walked over to the reporter and told him to get the f-something behind the barricade.

  A crew from another news van started setting up a camera. Patricia recognized the beautiful reporter with them. Her son, Charlie Tynes, went to their high school. Charlie's dad had been killed by a drunk driver when he was young. Her mom had told her that story. Whenever they'd see Mrs. Tynes at a game or the supermarket or whatever, Patricia and Haley and Mom would all go a little quiet, as if in respect or maybe fear, wondering, Patricia guessed, what her life would be like if a drunk driver did something like that to her dad.

  More police arrived. Her dad greeted them, forcing up a smile, shaking hands like he was running for office. Patricia was more like her father--go with the flow. But her father had changed. They all had, she guessed, but something inside of her dad had shattered, and she wasn't sure whether, even if Haley came home, it would ever be right again. He still looked the same, smiled the same, tried to laugh and act goofy and do those little things that made him, well, him, but it was as if he were empty, like everything inside of him had been scooped out or like some movie in which the aliens replace people with soulless clones.

  There were police dogs, Great Danes, and Patricia walked over to them.

  "Is it okay if I pet them?" she asked.

  "Sure," the officer said after a brief hesitation.

  Patricia scratched one behind the ears. His tongue flopped out in appreciation.

  People talk about how much parents shape you, but Haley was the most dominant person in her life. When girls in second grade started picking on Patricia, Haley beat up one as a warning to the others. When some guys catcalled at them by Madison Square Garden--Haley had taken her little sister to see Taylor Swift--Haley had slid in front of her and told them to shut the hell up. At Disney World, their parents had let Haley and Patricia go out alone one night. They ended up meeting some older boys and getting drunk in the All-Star Sports Resort. The good girl could get away with stuff like that. Not that she wasn't good--Haley was-but she was still a teenager. That night, after having her first beer, Patricia had made out with a guy named Parker, but Haley made sure that Parker went no further.

  "We'll start deep in the woods," she overheard Investigator Tremont say to the officer handling the dogs.

  "Why deep?"

  "If she's alive, if the bastard has built some kind of shelter to hide her, it has to be pretty far off the path or someone would have noticed already. But if she's near the trail . . ."

  His voice trailed off as he realized, Patricia was sure, that she was in earshot. She looked off into the woods and petted the dog and pretended that she didn't hear. For the past three months, Patricia had blocked everything out. Haley was strong. She would survive. It was as though her big sister had just gone on some weird adventure and would be home soon.

  But now, looking out in the woods and petting this dog, she pictured the unfathomable: Haley, alone, scared, hurt, crying. Patricia squeezed her eyes shut. Frank Tremont walked toward her. He stood in front of her, cleared his throat, waited for her to open her eyes. After a few moments she did. She waited for his words of comfort. But he didn't offer any. He just stood there, shuffling his feet, indecisive.

  So Patricia closed her eyes again and kept petting that dog.

  Caught

  Chapter 21

  WENDY STOOD IN FRONT of the crime scene tape and spoke into the microphone with the NTC News logo near the mouthpiece. "And so we wait for some word," she said, trying to add gravitas to her voice without that TV-news melodrama. "From Ringwood State Park in northern New Jersey, this is Wendy Tynes, NTC News."

  She lowered the microphone. Sam, her cameraman, said, "We should probably do that again."

  "Why?"

  "Your ponytail is loose."

  "It's fine."

  "Come on, tighten the band. It'll take two minutes. Vic will want another take."

  "Screw Vic."

  Sam rolled his eyes. "You're kidding, right?"

  She said nothing.

  "Hey, you're the one who gets all pissed when we air a take with a makeup smudge," he went on. "All of a sudden you got religion? Come on, let's do one more take."

  Wendy handed him the microphone and walked away. Sam was right, of course. She was a television news reporter. Anyone who thinks looks don't matter in this industry is somewhere between naive and brain-dead. Of course looks matter--and Wendy had primped for the camera and done repeated takes in equally grim situations.

  In short, add "hypocrite" to her growing list of failures.

  "Where you going?" Sam asked.

  "I have my cell. Call me if something happens."

  She headed to her car. She had planned on calling Phil Turnball, but then she remembered that his wife, Sherry, had said that Phil spent every morning alone with the classifieds at the Suburban Diner on Route 17. It was only about twenty minutes from here.

  The classic New Jersey diners of yore had these wonderful shiny aluminum walls. The newer ones--"newer" meaning circa 1968--had a faux stone facade that made Wendy long for, well, aluminum. The interiors had, however, changed very little. There were still small jukeboxes at every table; a counter with spin stools; doughnuts under Batphone-style glass covers; signed, sun-faded autographed photos of local celebrities you never heard of; a surly guy with hairy ears behind the cash register; and a waitress who called you "hon" and you loved her for it.

  The jukebox played the eighties hit "True" by Spandau Ballet, a curious six AM song selection. Phil Turnball sat in a corner booth. He wore a gray pinstripe suit with a yellow tie they used to call a "power tie." He was not reading the paper. He stared down at his coffee as though it hid an answer.

  Wendy approached and waited for him to look up. He didn't.

  Still looking down: "How did you know I was here?" Phil asked.

  "Your wife mentioned you hang out here."

  He smiled but there was no joy in it. "Did she now?"

  Wendy said nothing.

  "Tell me, how did that conversation go exactly--oh, pathetic Phil goes to this diner every morning and feels sorry for himself?"

  "Not at all," Wendy said.

  "Right."

  This was not a subject worth mining. "Do you mind if I sit down?"

  "I have nothing to say to you."

  The newspaper was open to the story on Haley's iPhone being found in Dan Mercer's motel room. "You read about Dan?"

  "Yep. You still here to defend him? Or was that a crock from the beginning?"

  "I'm not following."

  "Did you know about Dan abducting this girl before yesterday? Did you figure I wouldn't talk if you told me your real agenda, so you pretended you were going to restore his reputation?"

  Wendy slid in across the table from him. "I never said I wanted to restore his reputation. I said I wanted to find out the truth."

  "Very noble," he said.

  "Why are you being so hostile?"

  "I saw you talking to Sherry last night."

  "Yeah, so?"

  Phil Turnball took the coffee with both hands, one finger in the handle, the other for balance. "You wanted her to persuade me to cooperate."

  "And again I say: Yeah, so?"

  He took a sip, gently put the coffee back down. "I didn't know what to think. I mean, some of what you said about Dan being set up made sense. But now"--he pointed with his chin toward the article on Haley's iPhone--"what's the point?"

  "Maybe you can help find a missing girl."

  He shook his head and closed his eyes.

  "What?"

  The waitress, what Wendy's father used to call a "floozy"--
a big, badly bottled blonde with a pencil tucked behind her ear--said, "Get you anything?"

  Damn, Wendy thought. She didn't call her "hon."

  "Nothing, thanks," Wendy said.

  She sauntered away. Phil still had his eyes closed.

  "Phil?"

  "Off the record?" he said.

  "Okay."

  "I don't know how to put this without making it sound like something it's not."

  Wendy waited, tried to give him space.

  "Look, Dan and this sex stuff . . ."

  His voice drifted off. Wendy was about to go after him. Sex stuff? Trying to meet up with an underage girl and maybe kidnapping another--that isn't something to dismiss as "sex stuff." But now was hardly the time for a morality play. So again she said nothing and waited.

  "Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Dan was a pedophile. It wasn't like that."

  He stopped again and this time Wendy wasn't sure that he'd start up again without some prompting. "So what was it like?" she asked.

  Phil started, stopped, shook his head. "Let's say that Dan didn't mind getting them when they were young, if you know what I mean."

  Wendy's heart dropped.

  "When you say getting them when they were young . . . ?"

  "There were times--now keep in mind this was more than twenty years ago, okay?--but there were times when Dan preferred the company of younger girls. Not like a pedophile or anything. Nothing sick. But he liked going to high school parties. He'd invite young girls to campus events, that kind of thing."

  Wendy's mouth felt dry. "How young?"

  "I don't know. It's not like I asked for ID."

  "How young, Phil?"

  "Like I said, I don't know." He squirmed. "Keep in mind we were freshmen in college. All of eighteen, nineteen years old ourselves. So maybe these girls were in high school. Not a big deal, right? I think Dan was maybe eighteen. So the girls were like two, maybe three or four years younger."

  "Four? That would make a girl fourteen."

  "I don't know. I'm just saying. And you know how it is too. Some fourteen-year-old girls look a lot older. The way they dress and stuff. It's like they want to appeal to older guys."

  "Don't go there, Phil."

  "You're right." He rubbed his face with both hands. "God, I have daughters that age. I'm not defending him. I'm trying to explain. Dan wasn't a pervert or a rapist, but still, okay, the idea that he could hit on a younger girl? That I could maybe get. But that he would kidnap one, that he'd grab and harm a young girl . . . ? That, no, I can't see at all."

  He stopped talking and leaned back. Wendy sat very still. She thought back to what she knew about Haley McWaid's disappearance: No break-in. No violence. No calls. No texts. No e-mails. No signs of abduction. Not even an unmade bed.

  Maybe they had this all wrong.

  A theory started forming in her head. It was incomplete, based on a lot of innuendo and assumptions, but she needed to follow up. Next step: Go back to the woods and find Sheriff Walker. "I have to go."

  He looked up at her. "Do you think that Dan hurt that girl?"

  "I don't have a clue anymore. I really don't."

  Caught

  Chapter 22

  WENDY CALLED WALKER from the car. The call got routed three different ways before

  Walker picked up.

  "Where are you?" she asked.

  "In the woods."

  Silence.

  "Anything yet?"

  "No."

  "You got five minutes for me?"

  "I'm on my way back to the manor now. There's a guy named Frank Tremont. He's in charge of the Haley McWaid case."

  The name rang a bell. She had covered a few cases he'd handled in the past. The guy was a lifer, fairly smart, overly cynical. "I know him."

  "Cool. We can meet you there."

  She hung up. She drove back to Ringwood, parked with the other reporters, and approached the cop guarding the crime scene entrance. Sam grabbed the camera and started to follow. Wendy stopped him with a head shake. Sam pulled up, puzzled. Wendy gave the cop her name and was waved through. The other reporters didn't like that. They hurried over and started demanding access. Wendy never turned around.

  When she got to the tent, another officer said, "Sheriff Walker and Investigator Tremont said you should wait here."

  She nodded and sat on a foldout canvas chair, the same kind parents used on the sidelines at soccer games. There were dozens of law enforcement cars--some marked, some not-parked every which way. There were uniformed cops, cops in street clothes, and several officers sporting nifty FBI windbreakers. Many were on laptops. In the distance, Wendy could hear the clacking whir of a helicopter.

  Standing by herself on the edge of the woods was a young girl Wendy recognized as Patricia McWaid, Haley's younger sister. Wendy debated whether this was the right time or not-but the debate didn't last long. Opportunity knocking and all that. She started toward the girl, telling herself that this was not about nailing a big story but about finding out what really happened to Haley and Dan.

  A new theory had wormed its way into her brain. Patricia McWaid might have information that could prove or disprove it.

  "Hi," Wendy said to the young girl.

  The girl gave a little startled jump. She turned and faced Wendy. "Hello."

  "My name is Wendy Tynes."

  "I know," Patricia said. "You live in town. You're on TV."

  "That's right."

  "You also did a story on the man who had Haley's phone."

  "Yes."

  "Do you think he hurt her?"

  Wendy was surprised by the girl's directness. "I don't know."

  "Pretend you had to guess--do you think he hurt her?"

  Wendy thought about it. "I don't think he hurt her, no."

  "Why not?"

  "Just a thought. I have no reason for believing that. Like I said, I really don't know."

  Patricia nodded. "Fair enough."

  Wendy debated how to approach this. Start with something small like, "Were you and your sister close?" Normally that was the way to go with any interview. Open with some softball questions. Get them relaxed, develop a rapport, get them in the rhythm. But even without the time constraint--Tremont and Walker could pop up any second--that felt like the wrong track. This girl had been direct with her. She might as well try the same.

  "Did your sister ever mention Dan Mercer?"

  "The police asked me that."

  "And?"

  "No. Haley never mentioned him."

  "Did Haley have a boyfriend?"

  "The police asked me that too," Patricia said. "First day she vanished. Investigator Tremont must have asked me that a million times since. Like I was hiding something."

  "Were you?"

  "No."

  "So did she have a boyfriend?"

  "I think so, yeah. But I don't know. It was like a secret or something. Haley could be private with stuff like that."

  Wendy felt her pulse pick up a bit. "Private how?"

  "She'd sneak out and meet up with him sometimes."

  "How did you know about it?"

  "She told me. To, you know, cover if our parents asked."

  "How often did she do this?"

  "Maybe two, three times."

  "Did she ask you to cover for her the night she vanished?"

  "No. The last time was like a week before that."

  Wendy considered this. "And you told the police all this?"

  "Sure. Day one."

  "Did they ever find the boyfriend?"

  "I think so. I mean, they said they found him."

  "Can you tell me who it was?"

  "Kirby Sennett. A guy in our school."

  "Do you think it was Kirby?"

  "You mean, was he her boyfriend?"

  "Yes."

  Patricia shrugged. "I guess so, yeah."

  "You don't sound certain."

  "Like I said, she never told me. I was just supposed to cover for her."

&
nbsp; The helicopter flew overhead. Patricia cupped a hand over her eyes and looked up. She swallowed deep and hard. "It still doesn't feel real. Like she's just away on a trip and one morning she'll be back home."

  "Patricia?"

  She lowered her gaze.

  "Do you think Haley ran away?"

  "No."

  Just like that.

  "You seem pretty certain."

  "Why would she run away? Sure, maybe she liked to sneak a drink every once in a while, stuff like that. But Haley was happy, you know? She liked school. She liked lacrosse. She liked her friends. And she loved us. Why would she run away?"

  Wendy considered that.

  "Ms. Tynes?" Patricia said.

  "Yes?"

  "What are you thinking?"

  She didn't want to lie to this girl. She also didn't want to tell her. Looking off, Wendy hesitated just long enough.

  "What's going on here?" They both turned. County Investigator Frank Tremont stood with Sheriff Walker. He did not look happy. He cut a glance at Walker. Walker nodded and said, "Patricia, why don't you come with me?"

  Walker and Patricia headed toward the police tent, leaving Tremont alone with Wendy. He frowned at her. "Man, I hope this wasn't a ploy to talk to the family."

  "It's not."

  "So what have you got?"

  "Dan Mercer liked younger girls."

  Tremont gave her flat eyes. "Wow, that's helpful."

  "Something about the whole Dan Mercer case has rubbed me wrong from day one," she went on. "No reason to go into details right now, but I've just never been able to buy him as a purely evil predator. I just spoke to an old classmate of his from Princeton. He can't believe Dan would abduct anyone."

  "Wow, that's also helpful."

  "But he did confirm that Dan liked younger girls. I'm not saying the guy wasn't a scum bucket. Sounds like he was. But my point is, he seemed to do it on a more consensual, less, I don't know, violent basis."

  Tremont did not look impressed. "So?"

  "So Patricia says Haley had a secret boyfriend."

  "Not so secret. It's a local punk-wannabe named Kirby Sennett."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure about what?" Tremont paused. "Wait, what are you saying?"

  "According to Patricia, Haley sneaked out a few times--the last time a week before she vanished. She said that Haley asked her to cover for her."