“We’re still checking out his story. By the way, he informed us you’d come by and introduced yourself to him.”
“Yes, I stopped by briefly. I guess I forgot to mention that.”
“I suppose so.” He paused a couple of seconds. “Well, thanks for the update about Lizzie’s research. Dr. Richards also told us about Lizzie’s article, and tomorrow we plan to speak with one of the law professors she interviewed for the article. His name is Dr. Wes Dawson. Have you met him yet?”
“Yes, I met him this afternoon. Nice guy. He didn’t have a clue where Lizzie could be, though.”
“Well, thanks for the information. Have a nice evening.”
When I hung up, Whitney gestured at me and said, “I think I may have deciphered Lizzie’s doodles.”
* * * *
Before I had a chance to question her, Whitney asked me to pull up a map of Missouri on my cell phone and let her take a look at it. She said she wanted to see the central part of the state.
After she looked at the map for a few seconds, she handed me back my phone and said, “Thanks. That confirms what I thought.”
I leaned back on the sofa. “You’ve definitely got my attention.”
She laughed. “I didn’t think about this until I heard you talking to the detective.” She paused and looked over at me. “I’m assuming that was the detective assigned to look into Lizzie’s disappearance?”
“Yes, that was Detective Ross. He was calling to give me an update about the case. As you may have heard, someone thought they’d seen Lizzie’s car in Centralia on Monday, and he was calling to let me know they were able to make a positive ID of her vehicle by means of the security cameras located on one of the downtown banks.”
“Am I also right in assuming the two of you have agreed to share information with each other?”
“More or less.” I grinned at her. “A little less on my part.”
She smiled and nodded. “When you told Detective Ross about the article Lizzie was writing for The Columbian about Judge Cameron Woodard, I suddenly realized she may have been talking to the judge when she was doodling on her legal pad.”
“Ah . . . okay . . . that’s interesting. Why would you think that?”
“Look,” she said, pointing to Lizzie’s doodles, “see how she’s traced over this pile of logs several times? That woodpile could be a doodle about his last name, Woodard. Now, notice how she’s drawn the camera right next to the woodpile. Again, she’s traced over it several times. However, instead of an actual camera, this could be a doodle about his first name, Cameron.”
I stared down at the paper for several seconds.
“Uh-huh. I see that. You could be right.”
“And this piece of clothing here? That could be a judge’s robe.”
I felt my heartrate go up a few beats. “That also makes sense. Lizzie traced over these three drawings several times; something I could see her doing if she were talking to the judge for an extended period of time.”
“Notice how she only traced over the laptop a couple of times.”
“I happen to know when Lizzie interviews someone she takes notes on a laptop, so maybe the phone call was about setting up an interview with the judge, and that’s why she doodled the laptop.”
She nodded. “She was probably talking to him about setting up an interview for the article she was writing.”
I thought about telling Whitney the full story of why Lizzie wanted to interview the judge, but I quickly discarded that notion. Although I was pretty sure the information concerning the judge’s gambling addiction was accurate, I hadn’t heard the judge’s side of the story yet, and until I did, I wasn’t comfortable sharing those details with anyone outside of Senator Allen’s office.
Whitney pointed at the doodle she’d identified as a building. “Is it possible she drew this object up here at the very top of the sheet because it represents where she was going to meet the judge?”
“I’m not sure but—”
“What I’m trying to say is that maybe she doodled this building several inches away from the other doodles because she was making arrangements to meet the judge in Centralia, which, as I just confirmed on your phone, is north of Columbia.”
“Judge Woodard lives in Jefferson City, so I’d be surprised if Lizzie were making arrangements to meet him in Centralia. That’s an hour away from Jefferson City.”
She bit down on her lower lip and said, “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense, does it?”
She handed me back the paper. “Maybe I’m wrong about what that particular doodle means.”
When I took it from her, I held on to her hand for a few seconds.
“You may be wrong about that drawing, Whitney, but I believe you’re right about everything else on here. You’ve been a tremendous help to me tonight, and I really appreciate it.”
She smiled. “I hope so. Most of all, I hope it helps you find Lizzie.”
“So do I. Even if it doesn’t, I can’t thank you enough for your help.”
“Thank me? You’ve treated me to a beautiful dinner, not to mention a very interesting evening.” She shook her head. “I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
“It was my pleasure.”
She let go of my hand.
“I guess I better ask you to take me back to my van now. I have a photo shoot with the parents of a newborn tomorrow, and they want me to be at their house by seven o’clock. That’s a.m. not p.m.”
“I’m sure a photo shoot like that requires a good night’s sleep.”
Whitney laughed as she slipped her shoes back on. “You’ve got that right, but believe it or not, working with the baby is the easy part. It’s working with the parents that’s hard. I’ve never had a baby tell me how to arrange the lighting.”
When she reached over to pick up her black wrap from the coffee table, I handed it to her and said, “Before I head back to Washington, I’d love to see your portfolio; your paintings too, if you don’t mind sharing them.”
She stared at me for a few seconds as if she were trying to gauge my sincerity. “Okay, just give me a call.”
As I helped her adjust the wrap around her shoulders, my hands briefly touched the back of her neck. “I’ll look forward to it.”
She turned around and gave me a smile.
“Thank you, Mylas. I’ll look forward to it as well.”
Chapter 18
When I got back to my room after dropping Whitney off in the restaurant’s parking lot, I immediately called Nina. She seemed a little miffed I hadn’t called her earlier.
“What’s up with you? It’s been almost an hour since the senator finished his press conference.”
“I’m aware of that, but after the press conference, I had a phone call from one of the detectives working Lizzie’s case, and after that, I spent a few minutes trying to decipher a bunch of doodles I found on a sheet of paper in Lizzie’s apartment.”
“You never said a word to me about finding anything of interest in her apartment.”
“No, but I meant to, and I’ve just sent you a picture of what I found. You should be getting something on your phone in a second or two.”
“What did the detectives have to say?”
“A patrolman thought he’d spotted Lizzie’s car in Centralia, and after viewing footage on a bank’s security cameras, the detective said they were able to make a positive ID of her Lexus. Evidently, Lizzie was in Centralia on Monday afternoon.”
“That’s not far from Columbia, is it?”
“It’s thirty minutes north of here; small town; less than four thousand people. I’ll be heading up there tomorrow.”
“I just got the picture you sent. What am I looking at here?”
“I’ll tell you about it later. You said you found something on Lizzie’s computer you wanted to discuss with me.”
“That’s right. Put on your seatbelt, partner; this could be a bumpy ride.”
“I’m all buckled in.”
> “First of all, Lizzie uses a cloud-based storage system for all her files, so her desktop computer is synced up with her laptop. What I’m saying is, the files on her desktop are the same files I’d find on her laptop if I had access to it.”
“Okay, that’s good to know.”
“Secondly, as far as I can tell, Lizzie hasn’t written the article for The Columbian about Judge Woodard yet. However, she has a whole research file on him, along with all the notes she’s taken while talking to various people about him.”
“So you found the notes she made when she met with Dr. Dawson at the Law Library?”
“That’s right, and she also documented what her hacker friend told her about the judge’s finances.”
“Did you find any surprises in her notes? Was Dawson being straight with me about the conversations he’s had with her?”
“Yes, he was. I’ll send you her notes so you can see for yourself, and no, I didn’t find any surprises in there. The only surprise I found was a file folder labeled ‘Interview with Judge Woodard.’ ”
“Don’t tell me she actually interviewed the judge.”
“According to her notes, she did. I also found a document she identified as ‘Preparation for my Meeting with Judge Woodard.’ You’ll find that one especially interesting.”
“Summarize it for me.”
“First, she wrote down a list of questions she was planning to ask the judge. There was nothing unusual about them; they were the basic things a journalist might ask a former professor about his tenure at a university. She also wrote out three statements, which I assume she was going to read to the judge and ask for his comments.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Because she wrote them under the heading of ‘Ask Judge Woodard to Comment on these Statements.’ ”
“Okay, good call. What were the statements?”
“Only one of them was about his gambling.”
“Read that one to me.”
Nina asked me to wait a second while she found the file, and then she read me the statement Lizzie had planned to bring up with the judge. “I have a source who says you like to gamble a little too much. Would you care to comment on that?”
“Well, at least she wasn’t planning to accuse him of having a gambling addiction,” I said.
“I’m pretty sure she’s smarter than that. Shall I give you the highlights of the notes she made after she interviewed the judge?”
“Yes, but first tell me when Lizzie interviewed him.”
“Her preparation notes are dated Tuesday, October 2, and her post-interview notes were written on Thursday, October 4, so she must have done the interview with the judge on Wednesday, October 3, exactly a week ago today.”
“That means when she saw Dawson at the Law Library on Saturday night, she had already interviewed Judge Woodard. Dawson said she was going ahead with her plans to write the article, and the only questions she had for him were about federal appellate court judges and their responsibilities.”
“Lizzie’s post-interview notes with the judge support that. He gave her some good quotes and background material for the article.”
“What kind of comment did the judge make about his gambling?”
“A predictable one. Here, I’ll read it to you. ‘Oh, sure, I don’t mind commenting on that. I gamble occasionally, but the minute I start losing money, I walk away.’ ”
“And his response satisfied her?”
“There’s no way of knowing if it did or not. She didn’t write down anything of a personal nature in her notes, so it’s hard to know what was going on in her head.”
“That’s a shame. I’d really like to know what she was thinking.”
“The only help I can give you is something I found in her preparation notes. It’s a couple of sentences written next to Judge Woodard’s contact information.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“She wrote, ‘Keep your introduction simple. Don’t say anything about being related to anyone on the Judiciary Committee.’ ”
“That’s interesting. Evidently, when she made the appointment to interview Judge Woodard, she didn’t tell him she was Senator Allen’s daughter.”
“That was also my interpretation, but I have to believe she used her real name when she set up the appointment.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I don’t think the judge would have agreed to be interviewed by her before making sure Lizzie Allen was actually a reporter for The Columbian.”
“Since her last name isn’t that unusual, she probably thought he wouldn’t connect her to the senator. Otherwise, if she’d told him she was Senator Allen’s daughter, I doubt if he would have agreed to the interview.”
“No, not with his nomination pending before the Judiciary Committee. Was there anything on her computer about where she interviewed him?”
“Not a thing. However, you’ll be happy to know when I checked the Missouri Supreme Court calendar for October 3, I learned the judges were scheduled to hear oral arguments from nine to noon that day.”
“Then she must have driven to Jefferson City.”
“I think we can safely assume Lizzie’s interview with Judge Woodard took place in his chambers at the Supreme Court Building in Jefferson City the afternoon of Wednesday, October 3.”
“So Lizzie interviewed Judge Woodard in Jefferson City on Wednesday, questioned Dr. Dawson about appellate court judges on Saturday, spent the day with Gus on Sunday, and then drove to Centralia on Monday.”
I waited a second, hoping Nina would have one of her Aha! moments and chime in with some new revelation.
She didn’t say a word.
Finally, after several seconds of silence, I asked, “Anything jump out at you in that timeline? See any patterns there?”
“The only pattern I see is that Lizzie was being secretive about her activities. Gus didn’t know about Dr. Dawson or Judge Woodard. The judge didn’t know Lizzie’s real identity, and Dr. Dawson had no idea Lizzie had interviewed Judge Woodard on Wednesday.” She paused a second. “Secrecy. That’s the most obvious thing that comes to mind.”
“What if I told you before Lizzie disappeared on Monday morning she had either talked to someone about Judge Woodard, or she had actually talked to Judge Woodard himself.”
“Well, then, besides the secrecy issue, the commonality in Lizzie’s activities this past week appears to be the judge.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m surprised the police were able to get access to Lizzie’s phone records so quickly. What time did this call take place on Monday?”
“I’m not absolutely certain it took place.”
“Then why did you—”
“That’s how I’m interpreting what Lizzie doodled on that piece of paper I found in her trash can.”
“You’re kidding. You’re basing this supposed phone call on a doodle? What happened to relying on fact-based research?”
“Hold on, Nina. Pull up that picture I sent you of her drawings. You might change your mind after I explain what I see there.”
Nina let out an exaggerated sigh.
A few seconds later, she said, “Okay, I’m looking at it now.”
“Keep in mind Savannah told me this is what Lizzie does when she’s having a conversation with someone.”
“Got it.”
I remained quiet while she took a moment to study the drawings.
“I see nothing here but a bunch of scribbles.”
* * * *
It took some convincing, but Nina finally agreed it was possible the drawings of a camera and a woodpile might be symbolic of Cameron Woodard, especially when coupled with the figure of a robe.
However, the open laptop looked more like an open book to her. Even so, I wasn’t about to argue with her about it.
“What about this square thing at the top of the page that looks like some kind of building?” she asked. “What do you think that means?”
“Are you saying you think
it looks like a building?”
“It’s clearly a building. It’s got some columns in front, a wooden door, and lots of windows.”
I took a closer look at the drawing. Although I couldn’t see how she was able to see a wooden door there, the fact that both Nina and Whitney thought the drawing looked like a building with columns gave me an idea.
“When I’m in Centralia tomorrow, I’ll see if I can spot any buildings with columns. Since it’s a small town, it shouldn’t be all that hard.”
“The most logical place to start would be the courthouse. Those small towns usually have a town square with a courthouse in the middle of it. Maybe she was meeting someone there.”
“If so, I doubt if it was Judge Woodard. I can’t imagine what he’d be doing at the courthouse in Centralia.”
“On the other hand, maybe she was just passing through Centralia on her way to somewhere else. What’s the next big city?”
“There aren’t any big cities near there, and she’d have to backtrack over to the I-70 freeway before she headed to St. Louis. The main attraction around Centralia is Finger Lakes State Park. That’s about all there is within a thirty-mile radius of Centralia.”
“Doesn’t Senator Allen have a lake house at Finger Lakes?”
“Not anymore. He said he sold it last year.”
“Scratch that idea then. I’m sorry, Mylas, I’m all out of suggestions, and unless you want me to continue looking through Lizzie’s computer files, I think I’ll call it a night and go home.”
“I was about to suggest that. I really appreciate all the work you’ve done today, Nina. I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget Charlie Hayes is coming by the office tomorrow.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Do you still want me to have him go through Judge Woodard’s casebook?”
“I sure do. If Lizzie doesn’t turn up soon, then I’ll be paying Judge Woodard a visit. If that happens, I’ll have Charlie fly in here and go with me to see the judge because I won’t go see him without backup.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting Judge Woodard might have something to do with Lizzie’s disappearance, are you?”
One Day Gone Page 17