by David Bell
“Shit,” Griffin said. Her frustration manifested itself as a dull ache behind her left eyeball. “A kid. Just gone. And the sand is running out of the hourglass. You know, I can understand just about everything else these creeps do. The drugs, the murders over even minor beefs, the stealing. But can they just leave the kids out of it? Really?”
“I hear you,” he said. “I remember when my girls were that age. It makes me sick to look at that kid’s picture and think about where she might be. Or what might be being done to her.”
“Have we given up on the possibility she ran away?” Griffin asked. “She’d been fighting with her mom.”
“It’s possible of course,” he said. “But no one saw her anywhere. Not even in the park. It seems more likely Erica Frazier did something to her before they were at the park than that the kid ran away. Nine-year-olds run off, but it’s on the rare side. They might pack their teddy bear in a suitcase and walk up the street for an hour. Real runaways are usually teens.” They stopped at a light, and he adjusted his bulk in the driver’s seat. He reached down and picked up his phone. “A witness did come in and report that she saw Erica Frazier having lunch with an older woman about six months ago. They appeared to be having a heated argument.”
“Really?”
“Maybe they were just disagreeing over who was picking up the check.”
“No idea who the woman was, of course.”
“Nope. That would be too easy. And no real description except to say the woman was older and well-dressed. But the witness saw Erica on the news and remembered.” The light changed as Twitchell handed his phone to Griffin. The driver of the car behind them grew quickly impatient and honked twice. Twitchell shook his head. “This is the only time I miss driving a marked car.” He pointed to the phone screen and accelerated forward. “We’re going to talk to someone else. A woman who lived next door to the happy couple when they were married.”
“The Fraziers?”
“The Fraziers, part one. Reddick wants us to keep looking into Erica and to follow this marriage thread a little longer.”
“Erica hasn’t resurfaced?”
“Negative.”
“So her kid’s missing, but she decides to pick up her ex-husband and strike out on her own,” Griffin said.
“It’s weird,” he said, agreeing. “There’s a car sitting on her house in case she—or the kid or anybody else—comes back.”
“The phones? What about a ransom call?”
“No landline. And no calls of any kind yet. Anywhere. It’s getting late, but we can still go see this woman, the former neighbor. Apparently, she’s eager to talk to us.”
chapter
twenty-two
10:58 P.M.
Twitchell and Griffin drove more than an hour, back into Davenport County, and headed for the east side of Trudeau where Michael and Erica lived when they were first married. Back then, one decade earlier, it had been a transitional area, a place where immigrants settled at the beginning of the twentieth century, working in the tobacco-processing factories and warehouses before moving to the suburbs along with the jobs and the better schools.
“The Fraziers, part one—,” Twitchell said again, but his partner cut him off.
“Are we always going to refer to them this way?” she asked.
“I’m trying to be clear,” he said, his face serious. “Anyway, Michael and Erica must have been real pioneers, moving into this area before it had really made the turn to a respectable neighborhood. It’s a far cry from that minimansion he’s living in. Now this area is nothing but bars and shops for hipsters. Back then, you took your life in your hands coming here.”
“I know. I was in college then,” Griffin said, smiling as she needled her partner.
“Thanks for reminding me.” He found the address, a redbrick apartment building with four units, each of them fronted by a wrought-iron balcony. Lights glowed from three of the units, and young people walked up and down the sidewalks, in pairs and in groups, heading for the crop of brewpubs and farm-to-table restaurants that had sprung up over the past five years. “Look at this. I think you’re the only member of your generation who doesn’t have a beard or a tattoo.”
“I’m afraid of needles,” Griffin said. “And I can’t grow a beard. Yet.”
“By the way, what was all that about Michael Frazier’s sister?” he asked. “Something about a band?”
“You didn’t know? She was a member of Lantern Black, a band that did pretty well. She played guitar, wrote some of the songs. That’s how you make the big money, writing the songs. One of the songs was in a movie, I think. She was young, maybe twenty, when they started. They broke up a few years back, and I guess she hasn’t been doing much in the record industry since then.”
“Lantern what?”
“Lantern Black. They’re considered indie rock. Like Arcade Fire? Or the Decemberists?”
“Those are really bands? I’ve always been a Guns N’ Roses kind of guy myself.”
“How enlightened.”
They climbed the steps to the front of the building, and Twitchell searched for the right doorbell. He pushed one with the name Helen Winningham written in neat handwriting next to it. It took a moment before they were buzzed in. On the second-floor landing Helen greeted them. She was an elderly woman—Griffin guessed close to eighty—in a lavender housecoat and slippers. Her apartment smelled like oregano, and the TV in the corner played a vintage game show—Jokers Wild?—with the sound off, the host a neatly coiffed and perfectly tanned relic from another era.
“Can I offer either of you something?” she asked.
“We’re fine,” Twitchell said. “Mind if we sit?”
“Please.”
“Sorry it’s so late,” he said. “We’ve been doing a lot of running around. And we’re trying to learn anything we can about the case while it’s fresh in people’s minds.”
“I don’t mind the hour,” Helen said. “I go to bed when I want and wake up when I want. I sleep less than ever.”
Helen’s voice was scratchy and high, her frame so slender, a strong wind could have blown her over. But she appeared to be steady on her feet, and she sank into a recliner on the far side of the room with none of the halting, uncertain motions of an elderly person plagued by aches and pains.
Griffin looked around. She saw no family photos, no evidence of a husband, children, or grandchildren. Helen appeared to be a lifelong single person, an old maid as her grandfather would have put it. Griffin tried to convince herself that living out her days alone in a tiny apartment while young people loved, drank, and carried on outside wasn’t such a bad way to go. Maybe Helen had a John in her past, a guy she spent a brief amount of time with and then had to let him go. . . .
Stop it, she told herself. Twitchell was right. She was still young, still had lots of time.
“Why did you call us, Mrs. Winningham?” Twitchell asked.
“Miss Winningham. But just call me Helen. I called you because I saw Erica Frazier on the news.” She reached up and patted her short gray hair. Nothing appeared to be out of place. “And I remember her very well from when she lived here. Right next door to me.” She pointed at the wall. “I spent a lot of time with her, sort of like a surrogate mother. Well,” she smiled, “maybe a surrogate grandmother.”
“Was she married at the time?” Griffin asked.
“Of course. To Michael. I knew him too, but not as well.”
“So, what did you want to tell us?” Twitchell asked. “You know, I imagine, that Erica’s daughter is missing, and we’re all very concerned about that.”
Griffin saw a well-worn Bible on top of the coffee table, a place marked with a red tassel. Next to it sat a coffee mug, half-full and steaming.
“I know,” Helen said, raising her hand to her chest, her face appropriately horrified. “That’s why I
called. She used to confide in me. About her marital problems.”
“What kinds of problems?” Griffin asked.
“Well, he worked a lot. I remember that. I guess he worked for a new company, something to do with computers. I got the impression the family had some money, even though Angela and Michael were living down here with me. I think he needed to show he was his own man, you know, establish himself somewhere else before going to the family business. Lord knows the neighborhood didn’t look like this back then. They must have been proving some point moving in here. It wasn’t long before I could hear them fighting. Through the wall. My bedroom is next to what was their bedroom.”
“They argued?” Twitchell asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“More than argued? Was it ever violent?”
Helen looked shocked by the suggestion. “Oh, no. I don’t think so. Michael seemed like a gentleman.”
“So they fought, and you said Erica confided in you,” Twitchell said. “What did she tell you?”
“First we just made casual chitchat. Then I saw her one day out at the Dumpster, and I could tell she’d been crying. So I asked her what was wrong. I’m not the kind to let a woman cry alone, not if I can help it.” She looked satisfied with herself. “She felt the relationship was coming apart, even though they’d only been married a short time. And she wanted to hold on to it, to keep everything together. She could be a little theatrical, I guess, but young women sometimes are. Life sands those rough edges off over time.”
“So, what did she do to try to keep everything together?” Griffin asked. She’d been there herself, doing everything in her power to keep a relationship afloat and watching it all go away no matter what she attempted. “Did she tell you?”
Helen looked a little coy, her lips pressed into a tight line. “It’s the oldest trick in the book, I guess. She got pregnant, figuring that would keep the man around.”
Griffin looked over at Twitchell who looked back, his eyebrows raised and easy to see without the silly glasses. She turned back to Helen. “You knew about the pregnancy?”
“I did. It was right before they split up. I remember that well. And I very clearly remember the day I drove her to the hospital.”
“When she had the baby?” Griffin asked. “Felicity?”
“Not the baby. The miscarriage. Right before they split up, she had a miscarriage.”
chapter
twenty-three
“Are you sure about that?” Griffin asked.
Despite her age, Helen Winningham showed no signs of suffering from any loss of cognitive ability. Her words came smoothly; her thoughts never stumbled. She seemed to recall a lot of details about Erica Frazier, and Griffin’s bullshit detector, the one that rang frequently while questioning other witnesses and suspects, remained silent in Helen’s presence.
But she really wanted to be certain about this one.
“Of course I’m sure,” Helen said. “I took her to the doctor. She called me and said she needed help. I went over to her apartment, across the hall. I saw the blood. She was having a miscarriage.” Helen paused for a moment. “She told me she suspected she was pregnant but hadn’t been certain until she miscarried.”
“And what happened at the hospital?” Griffin asked.
“They took her back and examined her. They confirmed the miscarriage and sent her home. It’s not a big health crisis to have one, you know. Plenty of women do. My sister had three. I suppose it takes a mental toll.”
Griffin remained silent for a moment. She tried to formulate a response to Helen’s casual dismissal of the experience of having a miscarriage. “Yeah, it does,” she said. She felt Twitchell’s eyes on her, examining her. She ignored his look. “Did you call her husband and let him know what was going on?”
“She said he was out of town on an important trip and not to bother him,” Helen said. “She said she’d tell him once he was home. I made sure she was tucked in over there, and I left her alone. I assume she either called and told him or else told him when he came home.”
“What happened when she told him?” Twitchell asked. “Do you know?”
Helen was shaking her head. She had one leg crossed over the other, exposing a pale, blue-veined ankle, the skin almost translucent. “I don’t. About two months after that, I stopped seeing Michael around the place much. I thought maybe he’d gone on a business trip again, but he was never there. Never. And I didn’t hear from Erica at all. I knocked on the door a few times, but she didn’t answer, even though I suspected she was inside. I think he was gone. Then a few weeks after that, I came home one day, and Erica was carrying some boxes out to the car. She said she was moving out. She and Michael were separated.”
“How did she seem?” Griffin asked, her voice lower than she intended. “Was she pretty upset?”
“I could tell she was unhappy, but she was putting on a brave face. She was playing it close to the vest. To be honest, she seemed to want to just get out of here, like she couldn’t wait to leave all of this behind.”
“And that was the last time you saw her?” Twitchell asked.
“It was. I never heard from either one of them. She didn’t leave an address. Never sent me so much as a Christmas card.”
Griffin looked to Twitchell who was nodding his head. She imagined tiny gears and wheels turning inside his skull, the friction generating heat as he decided what to say next. “Is that all of it, Helen?” he asked. “We didn’t know about the miscarriage, so I’m glad you told us. But is that everything?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Helen asked.
“Why did you think we needed to hear this, Helen?” Griffin asked.
“I just thought the timing was curious, that’s all. She has this miscarriage shortly before they split up. And today I turn on the TV and see her, and she’s saying she has this child who is missing, and it was mentioned on one of the news channels that the father of the child is believed to be her ex-husband. They didn’t say his name, but I know who she was married to back then. I can do the math on that. If the kid’s that old, then Michael is the father, right?”
“It’s certainly possible,” Griffin said.
Helen uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. She looked at the two detectives with a laserlike stare, as though she wanted to blast them out of their seats with the force of her vision. “If they split up a couple of months after the miscarriage, that means she would have had to get pregnant within that time. Before Michael left her. Right?”
“I guess so,” Twitchell said.
“And isn’t that a tight window to do that in?”
“It is,” Griffin said. “But not impossible. Some women struggle to get pregnant immediately after a miscarriage. Some don’t. Some research shows it’s safest to get pregnant again within six months. They could have tried again right away, if they wanted to have children bad enough.” Griffin’s words felt heavy coming out of her mouth. “Like you said, some people think having a child will save the marriage. It’s something they try. Or talk about trying, anyway.” She felt Twitchell’s eyes on her once again, taking her in, evaluating her as she spoke. She looked over, and he looked away.
“But what about the other thing?” Helen asked.
“What other thing?” Twitchell asked. “I don’t follow.”
A sour look of disappointment crossed Helen’s face. “You don’t even know, do you? I bet nobody around here knows anymore. I’m the only one left who does.”
Despite the heat of the night and the still, close air in Helen’s apartment, Griffin felt a chill in her arms. She almost shivered. “What do you know, Helen?”
“About that missing baby,” she said, pointing in a vague direction. “That baby that disappeared just a few blocks away from here.”
“I don’t know of any missing baby, Miss Winningham,” Twitchell said. “Are you saying there’s
another missing child?”
Helen was shaking her head again, her lips pursed. “No. Not now. This one disappeared about ten years ago, right after Erica moved out of the neighborhood. And they never found her as far as I know. And she’d be about the same age as the missing girl you’re looking for, the one Erica says is her child.”
chapter
twenty-four
11:15 P.M.
Michael drove with Tolliver in the passenger seat. Erica rode in the back, the stun gun in her hand in case their passenger tried to escape. When Tolliver looked over and saw the weapon in Erica’s hand, he rolled his eyes. “Do you think I’m going to jump out of a moving car? I’m not James Bond.”
“Just being careful,” Erica said.
Michael activated the child-safety locks.
“You know,” Tolliver said, “when we get to the station, you’re both going to be in trouble. For barging into my home and using a weapon. For knocking me down and staining my clothes.”
“If you didn’t do anything wrong, then they’ll let you go,” Michael said. “But you ran. That makes you look bad.”
“You’re like the cops. You can twist anything. I have an alibi.”
Michael remembered that the police station was just fifteen minutes away, and as they drove, Michael felt a tightness in his chest, an adrenaline-fueled pressure. He looked back over the events of the past couple of hours, the way one ring of his doorbell changed his evening into something he couldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams. Or nightmares.
They came to a light, a crossroads. A left turn sent him back toward home, to Angela and the house and the upcoming vacation. Just being gone for such a short time, just being with Erica for a few hours, made home seem even farther away than it was. It would have been so easy to have stayed there, to shut the door on Erica’s face. It would still be easy to head that way and leave Erica and Tolliver to their own messes.