“It’s been a couple of days since the girl has talked to the FBI,” Max said casually. “Lots of times it takes that long for a witness to calm down and start remembering critical details. Look at Susan Darden, how she was able to dredge up a few impressions of that doll lady. It all helps, you know. Solving a kidnapping, a homicide, is like putting together a big fat jigsaw puzzle.”
“Okay,” Afton said. “But you don’t want to be late for Richard Darden. You’re supposed to talk to him at one.”
Max squinted at his watch. “We got time. Darden can sit and spin for all I care.”
* * *
ASHLEY Copeland was in a horrible mood.
“Who are you guys?” she spat at them. “And why is there a fat cop sitting outside my room?” She was ninety-six pounds of quivering rage packed into a teenage girl’s body.
Afton and Max quickly introduced themselves, and then Max said, “There was a small incident here last night. We didn’t want you to feel like you were in danger.”
“That’s the same excuse my mother gave me about being moved to a new room,” Ashley said. She tossed her head, and her blond hair swished back and forth. “I want to know what kind of incident? And should I be scared?”
Afton chose to ignore her questions. “How are you feeling?”
Ashley had a small white splint on her nose and was sitting up in bed in her private room. She was covered in a paisley down quilt that was probably more Martha Stewart than standard hospital issue. Surrounding her was a clutter of gossip magazines—OK! Magazine, Life & Style, and People—as well as candy bar wrappers, Coke cans, an iPad, an iPhone, and a pink Hello Kitty notebook.
“That’s such a stupid question,” Ashley said. “Look at me. I’ve got three cracked ribs and I was supposed to have surgery today on my nose. Now it’s been postponed.” She touched a hand to the splint she was wearing. “Everything hurts like hell and I look like the biggest freaking dork that ever walked the planet.”
“It’s not that bad,” Max said.
“You think I’d post a selfie looking like this?” Ashley asked. “Boy, are you ever stupid.”
Max threw Afton a helpless look. This wasn’t going as planned. Then again, Max had two boys. He’d never dealt with the vanity, insecurities, fluctuating hormones, self-centeredness, and angst of a teenage girl.
Afton knew she had to steer the conversation onto a more manageable plane. “Other than your ribs and your nose, how are you feeling?”
Ashley touched a hand to her neck where pink welts showed above the neckline of her flannel T-shirt. “My neck still hurts. Where that asshole lassoed me.”
Afton smiled. She could relate. “But you’re obviously feeling feisty.”
“I guess,” Ashley said. “I asked my mom if I could have my boobs done at the same time they fix my nose. You know, while I was under anesthesia. But she said no.” She picked up a magazine, riffled through it hastily, and then hurled it across the room, where it smacked against the wall. “It’s not fair.”
“No,” Max said. “None of this is.”
Ashley stared at them. “My mom says you didn’t find the baby yet.”
“Not yet,” Afton said.
“I bet you won’t find her,” Ashley said. “Those were really mean people who broke in and took her. They’re probably going to do something to her.”
“That’s why we need your help,” Afton said. “Because we’re running out of time.”
Ashley’s brows puckered together. “What do you want from me? I’m a victim here, too.”
“You certainly are,” Afton said. “So we thought if we could just talk to you, ask a few questions, you might be able to nudge us in the right direction.”
“But I don’t know anything,” Ashley whined.
“You were there,” Afton said in what she hoped was a soothing voice. “Maybe you could kind of fill us in on what you remember.”
Ashley let loose a heavy sigh. Afton and Max waited. Hoped.
Finally she said, “The pizza guy.”
“Yes,” Afton said. “The one who came knocking at the door that night.” And probably tried to attack you again. Only he ended up attacking me.
“That guy was bat-shit crazy,” Ashley said. “He came crashing in and smashed my face with his fist. I fell down and started bleeding really bad. It hurt like hell. I’ve never been in so much pain in my entire life!”
Afton nodded.
Tears filled Ashley’s eyes. “I could hardly breathe, but he still climbed on top of me and tied me up. Stuck a gag in my mouth.” She lowered her voice. “I think he wanted to, you know, have sex with me, ’cause he started to pull down my pants. But thank God he didn’t.”
“Did he say anything to you?” Max asked.
“Not really,” Ashley said. “At least I don’t remember anything.” She frowned. “Not actual words anyway.”
“But there was something,” Afton prompted.
“Kind of,” Ashley said. “The whole time he was tying me up, he was making this weird low-level sound. Like he was humming or something.”
“You mean like a song?” Max asked.
Ashley shook her head. “No, no. More like an angry . . . insect. It was weird. Scary.”
“Do you think you could identify him if we showed you a picture?” Afton asked.
Ashley shook her head. “No.”
“You did an Identi-Kit, right?”
“That stupid computer drawing thing? Yeah, I did it. But I couldn’t remember much about the guy. He was, like, this generic dude.”
“But you were face-to-face with him,” Afton said. “So you must have gotten a fleeting impression. What do you remember most?”
“Maybe his eyes,” Ashley said. “They were blue, but they looked kind of vacant. Like . . . blue marbles. Just rattling around inside his head.”
“Anything else?” Afton asked.
“I think he had a tat.”
“A tattoo?” Max asked. “Where was it?”
“Like, on his neck.”
“Could you make out what it was?”
Ashley shook her head and her hair swished back and forth like a golden curtain. “Not really.”
“Part of it maybe?” Afton asked.
“I’d be guessing, but maybe an angel’s wing? Or a cloud?”
“What about the other person who came in behind him?” Afton said. “Can you recall anything about her?”
“Not really,” Ashley said. “I was pretty out of it by then.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us about that night?” Max asked.
“Yeah,” Ashley said. “Mr. Darden was a creeper.”
“How so?” Afton asked.
“You know, like a lech,” Ashley said. “Like he wanted to do me.”
There was a sudden hubbub outside in the hallway, voices raised in excitement and a scramble of footsteps. Afton got up to see what was going on. She came back into Ashley’s room a moment later and looked pointedly at Max. “Channel 7 just showed up.”
“Oh my God!” Ashley said. “Are those the TV people? Do they want to talk to me?”
“I suppose,” Max said. He didn’t sound happy.
“I can’t go on TV looking like this,” Ashley squealed. “It’s impossible. Wait a minute.” She reached over and grabbed a hand mirror off her nightstand. Then she held it up in front of her face and carefully peeled back the bandages that held her nose splint in place. She pulled off the splint in one smooth move.
“Do you think you should be doing that?” Afton asked.
“Whatever,” Ashley said, frantically combing her hair and arranging her coverlet. “Okay. Now they can come in.”
Portia Bourgoyne and her camera crew brushed past Afton and Max as they came into the room.
“Try not to screw t
his up, too,” Max said. He was in a snarly mood.
Portia blew him off royally. “Are you kidding? This kidnapping story is the best thing that ever happened to me. You think I want to work in a mid-market, jerkwater town doing fluff pieces on food shelf volunteers and polar bear plunges? This is my ticket to a network job where I can do hard news.”
“Like Ebola and suicide bombers?” Afton asked. “Good luck with that.”
“If you think this kid’s gonna make you a network star,” Max said, “you’re sorely mistaken. She can barely remember her own name.”
Portia just smirked. “Don’t worry about me, sweetie. I’ve got more than one trick up my sleeve.”
19
JUST as they popped out of the parking ramp, ready to head back to the department, Don Jasper, the Chicago FBI agent, called. And he sounded frantic.
“I’m over here in Woodbury,” Jasper said, his voice high-pitched and strangled amid all the static. “At Synthotech. I need you to run something down for me.”
“What’s that?” Max asked.
“Our field office just received an anonymous tip. Somebody saw a man toss a bundle into a Dumpster down behind Rush Street Pizza at Twenty-fifth and Lyndale. You know where that is?”
“Yeah. A bundle, you say?”
“The caller thought it looked like a baby.” Jasper’s voice was so loud and insistent that Afton could hear his words blaring from Max’s cell phone. “They’re sending a black-and-white to the scene but if you could . . .”
“We’re on our way,” Max said. He cranked his steering wheel hard, executing a skidding U-turn right in the middle of Marquette Avenue. Cars honked, a bus jammed on its brakes and swerved, and Afton hung on for dear life. It was like being in the middle of a NASCAR race. Or if somebody really had dumped the Darden baby, it might just be a life-and-death race.
* * *
HOLY shit!” Afton cried. Skidding into the pizza restaurant’s back parking lot, Max almost plowed headlong into a black-and-white cruiser as it also converged on the scene, its light bar pulsing red and blue.
“Easy, easy,” Max said as he twirled the steering wheel hard and slid, nose first, into an enormous pile of plowed snow. They were still moving, in fact, as Afton flung open the passenger side door and jumped out.
She was focused on only one thing—the dark green Dumpster that was shoved up against the back of the building. It was stuffed to capacity with bags of trash, and big hunks of wet, floppy cardboard spilling over the sides. The words DARREL’S SANITATION were stenciled on the front.
Max caught up to Afton and then the two uniformed officers caught up to him.
The officer, whose name tag read PINSKY, had a hangdog face and a worried expression. “The information we got said a child might have been stuffed inside?” he asked, his breath pluming out in the cold air. “A baby? Is this the . . .”
“We hope it’s not the Darden kid,” Max said. He put a hand on the Dumpster and glanced around. “Somebody want to give me a boost?”
But Afton had already stuck her toe on a protruding handle and, with an agile leap, landed on top of the one metal flap that was closed. A dull clang resonated in the cold air.
“Be careful up there,” the second cop cautioned her. He was younger and looked more athletic.
“Studer, get up there and help her,” Pinsky ordered.
But Afton was single-mindedly focused on her mission. “I got this,” she said as she bent forward and yanked open the second metal flap. The pungent odor of stale beer, rotten tomatoes, mouse droppings, and dirty socks assaulted them. Your basic sickly-sweet aroma.
Studer made a face. “Jeez.”
“See anything?” Max asked.
Afton stared down at mounds of black plastic garbage bags, hunks of frozen pizza, assorted beer bottles and cans, and stacks of ripped cardboard. “Not yet.” Her heart was filled with dread but she steeled herself. This was too important to wimp out now. “I’m gonna have to . . . uh.” She grabbed a fat garbage sack and tossed it out onto the snow. It landed with a heavy splat. Cardboard, beer cans, and bottles followed in quick procession as the smell got progressively worse. “I still don’t see any . . . Oh shit.”
“What?” Max asked. He was standing on tiptoe now, trying to peer into the Dumpster.
Afton bit down on her lower lip. Right under her right boot, stuck below a pizza box, was a dirty white blanket. Please no.
“There’s something here,” she said.
“Careful,” Pinsky cautioned.
Afton reached down and gathered up the bundle. As she straightened up, her foot slipped on something slimy and one leg started to slip down into the unsteady pile of trash. She hurriedly passed the bundle to Max and caught herself on the lip of the Dumpster.
“Let’s get you out of there,” Studer said. He reached up to give her a helping hand.
But Afton was focused on one thing. “Is it the baby? Is it Elizabeth Ann?” she asked as she scrambled down the side. “Should we call an ambulance?”
Max carefully unwrapped the dirty blanket.
“Holy crap,” Studer said, his face going slack.
They all stared wordlessly at a huge pair of blue eyes that had sunken into a cracked plastic face.
Pinsky was the first to find the words. “Holy shit, it’s a broken doll. I really thought it was gonna be that dead kid.”
Studer’s mouth worked soundlessly for a few moments and then he croaked out, “But it almost looks like it’s alive.”
“That’s because it’s a reborn doll,” Afton said.
Studer frowned. “A what?”
Afton and Max stared at each other.
“Cameras,” Afton said.
Studer stowed the doll in the backseat of his squad car while Afton, Max, and Pinsky took turns ducking into the pizza place, a pet grooming business, the Pressed for Time One Hour Dry Cleaner, and the Cut & Curl. In talking to the managers in all the businesses, they found only one shop that had a camera positioned outside. The dry cleaner.
The manager, actually the owner, was a harried-looking man who introduced himself as Joey Debow. He was skinny, had dark slicked-back hair, and looked to be in his early fifties.
When they gave him a quick rundown, and told him what they’d just discovered in the Dumpster behind the pizza place, Debow said, “This is about that missing baby, isn’t it? You thought it might be that kid.”
“We did,” Afton said. “But now we’d like to figure out who dumped the doll. Because it’s . . . well, strange.”
Debow nodded and ushered them past racks of plastic-bagged clothes into his back office so they could all view his surveillance tapes.
Which really weren’t tapes at all.
“It’s just a motion-activated camera,” Debow explained. “Duane, my sixteen-year-old, was the one who set it up for me. It just records for a couple hours, pauses, then records again over the old stuff.” He sneezed hard, said, “This damn sinus drip, excuse me,” then pressed a button on a small monitor. “I don’t know if this will help or not, but you’re more than welcome to look.”
“Can you take it back to about a half hour ago?” Max asked.
Debow fiddled with some more buttons and a picture came up immediately. They watched patiently for ten minutes as a couple dozen people streamed by, and cars and buses zipped past on the street. Finally, lo and behold, there was a man dressed in an old brown coat with a ratty fur collar, a coat like immigrants sometimes wore when they came trooping through Ellis Island back in the thirties. The man was walking down Lyndale Avenue and clutching a bundle.
“Holy crap,” Pinsky said. “That’s gotta be your guy.”
“It could be,” Max said.
“The question is, why is he doing that?” Afton asked. She wondered if it was supposed to be some kind of ruse or decoy. Or, God forbid, a p
ractice run?
Max looked at Debow. “Can we have this tape?”
“It’s a CD. Go ahead and take it,” Debow said, trying not to sneeze again. “Hope you find that poor baby.”
* * *
WHEN they returned to the parking lot, Studer had already looped black-and-yellow crime scene tape around the Dumpster and between two light standards to cordon off the premises. “Already called in the crime scene guys,” he told them.
Now they all stood around blowing out plumes of steam, stomping their feet to stay warm, and fending off a half dozen looky-loos who seemed to enjoy the leisurely pace of not having a day job.
“You realize,” Afton said, “this place is, like, twelve blocks as the crow flies from Kenwood.”
“Yeah,” Max said, “but look around. It’s a whole ’nother universe.”
And he was right. This stretch of Lyndale Avenue was populated by Vietnamese green grocers, loan offices, Mexican restaurants, and thrift shops. Whereas Kenwood was old-world stone mansions clustered around picturesque Lake of the Isles, this area was strictly working class. Mom-and-pop businesses were interspersed with fading apartment buildings, duplexes, and small bungalows. It was, as a sociologist might say, still in the process of gentrification.
Max thanked the two officers, who said they’d wait there with the doll for the crime scene techs to arrive.
“Now what?” Afton asked.
“Climb in,” Max said. “I got an idea.” He turned down Lyndale then suddenly sliced right onto Twenty-fourth Street.
“We’re taking a detour?” Afton asked.
“I want to take an extra five minutes.” Max nosed along slowly, then turned down a narrow alley that was basically two churned-up ruts in six inches of packed snow.
“What are you looking for? Who are you looking for?”
Max pursed his lips. “Aw, just this guy I know. He’s a kind of . . . contact, I guess you’d call him.”
“A snitch?” Afton said.
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