Girl in the Water

by Dana Marton

  “So seven people with immediate access,” Ian said.

  The detective nodded. “Although, somebody could have gone up without being seen. It’s just a short flight of stairs.”

  “I assume you questioned everyone, the people upstairs and downstairs.”

  “We conducted extensive interviews. Nobody saw anything suspicious.”

  “What’s your best guess?” Ian asked.

  Santos pressed his lips together, clicking his pen a few times before responding with reluctance. “Trafficking for illegal adoption. A blue-eyed, blonde-haired baby girl in the private adoption circuit is worth her weight in gold, I’m sorry to say. With a forged birth certificate and adoption release, the fees start at twenty thousand dollars. That’s big money here.”

  “It’s big money anywhere.” Anger choked Daniela at the thought of a defenseless little girl in the hands of conscienceless men.

  When she’d been young, she’d thought this was simply how things were done. The strong made choices for the weak—the natural order of things. Everybody accepted it, the same way they accepted the start of the rainy season, the floods, and the fact that some snakes and bugs were poisonous.

  But since then, she’d seen a different world. She’d seen freedom and justice, neither perfect in the US either, but better than here. She could no longer accept the “this is how things are” explanation. She had no intention of accepting it.

  The detective leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his large belly, over his rumpled jacket and stained tie. “I don’t think the visiting volunteers were involved. I checked them thoroughly. They alibied out each other. And this was not a crime of opportunity. This is something set up in advance. You have to have connections for this sort of thing.”

  Daniela said, “You must know the people in town who are usually involved in activities like this. You must have looked into them.”

  He nodded. “We have suspicions about one gang in particular when it comes to trafficking babies. But we have no specific lead that points to them in this case. I had the gang watched for as long as I could justify it in the budget. They only have about a dozen members, but to watch that many…” He made a helpless gesture with his hands. “We simply don’t have the manpower.”

  “What have you done so far?” Ian asked. “Just so we don’t duplicate.”

  “We brought in as many gang members as we could catch for questioning, nine altogether. Believe me, we’re working this case as hard as we can. A kidnapped American child is not good news to any city. All we need is for tourists to stop coming. The economy is in a crisis already.” Resignation echoed in Santos’s tone. “The police just went through budget cuts. Now we have fewer people to solve more crimes, because, of course, the worse the economy, the higher the crime rate. I’m sure things are done better in the United States.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Ian said. “Some things are the same everywhere.”

  They talked another full hour before Daniela and Ian headed out, with a lot of new details but nothing that came remotely close to being a solid lead.

  Instead of taking the bus again, they walked to get a feel for the city. To her, the place looked a lot like Santana only bigger and more crowded. Gritty. Poverty stared her in the face, while violence waited just under the surface like sharp-toothed fish in the Rio Negro’s black water.

  “Do you think a complete stranger could just walk into the hostel?” she asked. “Risky, isn’t it?”

  “Stealing babies is a risky business by definition, I’d think.” Ian sounded lost in thought.

  “But if everyone involved in the kidnapping were outsiders, why do it at See-Love-Aid? If the gang took the baby, they would have known about her because they saw her out in the city with her parents. So why not make plans to grab her out in the city, then disappear in the crowd? The streets are their turf. They know every inch. See-Love-Aid would be uncharted territory.”

  “True. Why give up home court advantage?” Ian turned to her. “Good point.”

  “I learned everything I know from you.”

  A genuine smile spread slowly over his rugged features. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Want some ice cream?”

  He smiled very little, mostly when he knew she was looking, cheering up for her sake. You deserve better than having to live with a morose old bastard, he’d once said.

  He’d improved over the years, whether he knew it or not. They both had.

  He scanned the shops. “I think I saw a sorveteria when we got off the bus. Or is that sorbet?”

  Anything cold sounded like heaven in the near triple-digit heat, and Daniela almost jumped at the offer before she had a chance to think on it. She was on the tips of her toes, grinning, but then lowered her heels back onto the ground as she reconsidered.

  He flashed her a Now what? look. “It’s not a trick question.”

  “Ice cream is something you buy for kids. Buy me a drink.”

  He seemed to be swallowing a sigh. “I don’t think you’re a kid. I swear.”

  Happiness spread through her, but she still couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Have you ever bought ice cream for Nicole?”

  “No. And I don’t see Nicole anymore. Haven’t in a while. But people have ice cream on a date all the time. Grown men buy ice cream for grown women. I swear.”

  “Is this a date?” she asked carefully.

  All the good humor slid off his face. “No.”

  She wouldn’t allow herself to become discouraged. At least she was working alongside him. At least they were together.

  Four years ago, in Finch’s house on the river, she’d spent two months with Ian, all day, every day. Then he’d taken her to the US and, shortly after, he went to work for CPRU. She spent her days in GED classes, then at the college. For the last couple of years, it seemed as if they barely saw each other.

  But now… They were true partners. They were sharing a room. She wasn’t going to complain.

  “Ice cream sounds good.”

  “What are you grinning about now?” he said in a dry tone.

  “I’m happy.”

  “That means you must be plotting my demise one way or the other.” But he grinned back.

  A dirty little boy sat on the curb in front of the ice-cream shop with a cracked plastic cup in his hand. Ian dropped a few reais into the cup.

  Daniela glanced around and caught an older boy watching, a few feet behind Ian, leaning on a phone pole.

  “You know this is just so his buddy can see which pocket you took your wallet out of, right?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Ian stepped into the ice-cream shop.

  He bought four large cones, giving two to the boy on the curb as they passed him again. “One for your brother,” he said in his broken Portuguese. “It’s a hot day.”

  The kid searched his face, looking for the catch. Was he a cop? What did he want? Was he trying to buy some kind of services?

  Then, as they walked on, and Daniela looked back, the kid was shoving both ice creams into his mouth as fast as he could, melted goo running down his dirty chin.

  “I’m sure if they had another way to make enough to eat, they’d do that,” Ian said.

  Probably a thousand out of a thousand people seeing those kids would have seen garbage. If the small boy came too close, some would kick him away. Daniela had seen that happen and worse.

  Ian wasn’t like most people. He had dark places he tried to hide from her, didn’t let sunshine reach. But all his places, dark or light, were good and honorable.

  After the ice cream, they decided to grab a bite to eat and ended up at a tourist dive, a bad choice, in hindsight. The place had a large tank in the middle filled with piranhas, which the tourists could feed with chicken wings for a few reais.

  Ian ignored them. Daniela was appalled. She couldn’t believe this was going to be their first unofficial date.

  They couldn’t even talk, since they couldn’t h
ear each other over the tourists’ horrified and delighted screams and squeals. They ate their fish stew, then got out of there.

  Ian’s cell phone rang.

  “Yes,” he said after he picked up, then, “That sounds great. I can be there tomorrow afternoon.” He listened with his forehead in a frown. “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Who was that?” she asked when he hung up.

  “I have to fly back to Rio tomorrow. I plan on being back before the end of the day, the following morning at the latest.”

  “For what?”

  Instead of responding, he said, “Stick around See-Love-Aid. Plenty of people to interview there. That should more than take up your day. I don’t want you out, wandering the city.”

  Her earlier optimism plummeted. She might be thinking they were equal partners, but clearly, he wasn’t thinking the same.

  “Why are you going to Rio?”

  “A little side business.”

  She waited for him to say more, to explain. He didn’t.

  Why was it a secret? Either he thought she couldn’t handle it, or he didn’t trust her.

  The fish stew sat in her stomach like a handful of river mud, her good mood washed away by a flash flood of darker emotions.

  So Ian expected her to cower in the safety of See-Love-Aid tomorrow, did he? Doing what? Reorganizing the paperwork?

  No. She was an investigator just like him.

  She was going to investigate. She could go to places and talk to people that he couldn’t.

  * * *

  Ian

  Looked like fish were nibbling on the bread Ian had thrown on the water at Lavras Sugar and Ethanol. They’d called him for an interview. He wished he could fly back to Rio right away, but he wanted another look at See-Love-Aid, wanted to talk to as many people as possible. That way, while he was in Rio, all that could percolate in the back of his head.

  So he called in flight reservations for the following morning.

  When they got back to See-Love-Aid, Mrs. Frieseke was more than helpful, once again. She gathered the permanent staff together in the empty downstairs dining room.

  Other than Mrs. Frieseke, three women sat around the largest table, and two men. Mrs. Frieseke made the introductions.

  Ian had read the original police interviews. He was going to ask most of the same questions. A full month had passed since the child’s disappearance, so he expected to get slightly different answers.

  The staff would have talked about the case a lot in the intervening month. This was a major tragedy in their midst. With time, their recollections would grow more and more similar to each other as certain aspects were reinforced, others forgotten. Investigating a crime with a month’s delay was not ideal. But even if they’d forgotten some of the details, maybe someone had remembered something new. That was Ian’s best hope here.

  He didn’t even want to think about Finch’s case, the four-year delay there. He should have gotten to it sooner. Some friend he’d turned out to be. If he’d been alone, he would have taken a few months off from work long before now. But with Daniela in college, he’d needed every paycheck. And, with her spending every break with him, they’d needed a two-bedroom apartment.

  He was a damn fool, unable to let her go. No wonder she’d gotten some strange ideas. When they returned to DC, he was going to make serious changes.

  He’d been half listening to the conversation Daniela initiated around the table, but now, his mind made up about her future and feeling better for it, he turned his full attention to the six people who sat around with somber faces.

  “First, maybe you could just tell us where you were when baby Lila went missing,” Daniela said, looking at each person in turn, smiling at each, sincere gratitude on her face that they were here.

  Mrs. Frieseke began. “I was at the hospital with one of the girls who broke her arm while they were playing basketball outside.”

  “Did all the girls come in after the accident?” Daniela asked.

  “No, they stayed to finish the game. Pierre was watching them.”

  Pierre Avy, a Frenchman in his early twenties—with the kind of too symmetrical, unlined puppy face Hollywood was so fond of—nodded, making love to Daniela with his eyes, showing way too many teeth. Ian wondered if the guy would still be that confident with a couple of those teeth knocked out.

  “When it’s not raining here,” Pierre said in an irritating French accent, “it drizzles. So anytime we have a dry court, we take advantage of it. Mornings are great for games, before the worst of the heat hits.”

  According to the police report, Mrs. Frieseke’s presence at the hospital had been confirmed. The ER had a sign-in sheet. And the girl she took also backed up the site manager’s alibi. All the other girls were either playing basketball or watching the game. According to them, as was well-documented in the police report, Pierre Avy hadn’t left the court the entire time.

  For now, tentatively, Ian was prepared to cross Mrs. Frieseke and Monsieur Avy off the suspect list.

  Daniela turned her attention to a pregnant woman who’d introduced herself as Carol Peterson. She was blonde and tall, very Midwestern, from Wisconsin, according to the report Ian had.

  “I had post office duty,” Carol said. “I volunteer to go into the city, since I like the walk. Helps to work the kinks out of my back. I want to do as much as I can now before the baby is born. And I like going out in the relative cool of the morning. The post office is nearby.”

  “Will you be staying here for the baby’s birth?” Daniela asked.

  “Of course.” Carol patted her belly. She carried a smile around the table. “These people are my family.”

  According to the report Ian had, she’d begun working at See-Love-Aid with her husband two years ago. Seven months ago, her husband had died of a snakebite he’d suffered on a fishing trip upriver. Neither of them had family back home. Carol stayed.

  She looked drawn, exhausted, still grieving, but putting on a brave face.

  Back when Linda had been pregnant, this had been Ian’s worst fear. If he had been killed in the army, Linda would have been left alone to raise the babies. Never had he imagined that it could be the other way around, his family gone and he still here.

  “It’s important to have people you care about around you,” he told Carol. And because she reminded him of Linda too much for comfort, he focused on the two middle-aged women who sat next to her—thin noses, thin lips, short brownish hair. Hannah and Heather. Sisters.

  “We were having breakfast in our room,” Hannah said.

  And Heather added, stricken, “We had the door open to a crack to listen in case the baby cried. She never made a sound.”

  The second male staff member was the only person who hadn’t talked yet. Early thirties, nearly white-blond, tall, Scandinavian looking, from Cleveland, Ohio. His name was Henry Stubner.

  “I was fixing the dripping faucet in the men’s room. My room is right next to it, and the dripping kept me up at night.” Henry barely glanced at Ian. His full attention was on Daniela, who was smiling at him.

  “Sounds like you’re very handy to have around,” she said.

  He flashed a grin that was decidedly not modest. “I do what I can. I’m here to help.”

  He kept holding Daniela’s gaze.

  Ian cleared his throat. “What does everybody think of the parents?”

  For crimes of murder and disappearance, investigators always looked at the family first.

  Several people began to speak at once.

  “They’re heartbroken, and so are we.” Mrs. Frieseke was the loudest, or maybe she was heard over the din because her voice carried the most authority. “I never could have imagined anything like this happening here. In our dormitory. We haven’t even needed security beyond Henry and Pierre.”

  Her mouth drew tight. She probably blamed herself, at least partially. She confirmed that by saying, “If I had thought to put at least one security guard into the budget…” She shoo
k her head. “But we have Pierre and Henry. They’re strong young men. I never thought…”

  Carol put her arm around her and hugged her, as much as she could with her giant belly.

  Both Henry and Pierre drew themselves straighter in their chairs, everything about them resolute, from their hardening gazes to the angle of their chins, as if saying, it might have happened once, but we’re alert now; nothing like this is ever going to happen again.

  As the only two men on staff, they probably felt responsible too, probably fancied themselves the protectors of the others. Ian wasn’t impressed. They’d done a shitass job at protection.

  Of course, the repurposed warehouse held no riches and was always full of people, so it probably didn’t draw thieves. And as far as taking one of the girls for trafficking went, the city was full of girls just like them, living on the streets. Nobody would notice if they went missing. So the traffickers didn’t need to court trouble by coming here and tangling with an international aid organization.

  Ian sat back and let Daniela conduct the interview since she was good at it. She seemed to know instinctively just what tone to use when asking a question, how to respond, whether with admiration or understanding or commiserating. She excelled at handling people.

  And he hated to think where she might have learned that, back at Rosa’s, where reading a client right would have meant the difference between life and death.

  For the past few years, Ian had barely thought of Daniela’s past. Her past had nothing to do with her present, would have nothing to do with her bright future. But since they’d been back in Brazil, the past kept pushing into his thoughts. And what he hated even more was that Daniela probably experienced the same.

  He watched her ask her questions to the people around the table. They all responded. Nobody seemed to be holding anything back. But as good as Daniela was, the group interview didn’t net any new, actionable information.

  After they finished, Mrs. Frieseke took them to see the older girls and talk to them. Work was in progress in the three separate workrooms, and they visited each in turn.