by Beverly Long
“I suppose. Anyway, we ended up taking the car to the Volkswagen dealer so I don’t really know anything about Garage on Division.”
“Interesting that the rumor was they might be closing. Troy said they were busy,” A.L. said. “Although being busy and making money in a small business aren’t the same thing. Anyway, what else do we know?”
“Tension between Elaine and her son-in-law.”
“Not that unusual,” A.L. said.
“Perhaps,” Rena said. “Hence the abundance of mother-in-law jokes.”
“Speaking of family, I think we need to verify that Kara Wiese’s husband is at work today,” A.L. said.
“Agree. And there are three teachers we haven’t talked with yet.”
“One of who was ill today. That’s why Alice Quest was working in a classroom.”
“Right. And there’s the cook who comes in for a few hours every day.”
He saw a black Suburban pull up and park. Two men got out. Both wore dark suits and white shirts. One had a blue tie and the other a red.
FBI. They might as well be carrying a placard. They stopped at the door, spoke to the officer, flashed some badges and then were through the doorway.
“Detective A.L. McKittridge,” he said, extending his hand.
“Special Agents Drew White and Monty Connell.” They flashed their IDs.
Drew White had the blue tie. Up close, he was at least ten years older than Monty Connell. A.L. guessed them fifty and forty, respectively. “My partner, Detective Rena Morgan,” he said.
Everybody shook hands. “We talked to your boss on the way here. I think we’re up to speed, assuming nothing new has happened in the last ten minutes,” White said.
“Nope,” A.L. said. Other than he’d become pretty convinced that somebody was lying.
“We’ve got our canine unit en route. They’re about fifteen minutes behind us.”
“We’ve got a sweater of Emma Whitman’s from her classroom,” Rena said.
White nodded. “Good.”
Connell was looking around. “These the only two doors in the building?”
“Yes.”
“Parents have both checked their phones? What about a home phone?” Connell asked.
A.L. wanted to tell him that this wasn’t his first rodeo but he resisted. The FBI had resources that they were going to need. Their heat-signature-seeking drones might be very helpful. “No home phone. They are continually monitoring their cell phones.”
“Anybody been to their home, just in case the little girl somehow got back there?” White asked.
“Mother left here about ten minutes ago to sit tight there. Should arrive any minute. We’ve got an officer with her who will search the property,” A.L. said. “Same thing will happen at the grandmother’s house and at the day care teacher’s house.” He saw a white van pull up. “That belong to you?”
White nodded. “Our canine unit.”
“Unfortunately, we’re losing the daylight,” Connell said. “We’ve got about two hundred flashlights with us but at a certain point, it can simply get too dangerous to have volunteers searching in the dark.”
“Volunteers are gathering on the east side of the building,” Rena said, looking at her phone. “Detective Ferguson is in charge of that effort. I can walk you out there and introduce you.”
“That’s fine,” said White. “Bring the kid’s sweater.”
Three
Volunteers were continuing to pour into the makeshift check-in station that Ferguson had set up. From the big window in the main room, A.L. and Rena watched their fellow detective bring some order to the group. Older people. Teens. Middle-aged. Most of them had likely been getting dinner ready or were already eating when the Amber Alert had hit their phones. By the looks of it, that hadn’t slowed them down any. He could practically imagine the wheels churning in their heads. Things like this didn’t happen in Baywood. And they were going to do what they could to make it right.
They’d had to beach their cars at either end of the street and walk in because barricades closed the street to everybody but local traffic. On any other day that many people would generate some noise. Now nobody was talking. Just quietly following directions and waiting patiently to be told what to do. Disbelief etched on their faces.
A.L. knocked softly on the office door. Alice was behind her desk. Just sitting. Her hands folded and resting on the lacquered wood. “In my wildest dreams,” she said.
She’d never imagined this. He took one chair in front of her desk and Rena took the other. “We have a few more questions,” he said.
“It’s really just a nightmare,” Alice said.
Crazy. Terrifying. Now a nightmare. The descriptors were mounting up. He badly wanted somebody to walk in the front door, saying words like miracle or maybe even dream come true. Yeah, that would be good. He’d even be happy if it was one of the FBI guys crowing that it was a dream come true to have Emma back safe and sound.
But until that happened, he was going to work the damn case. “I wanted to ask you about the teacher who was absent today.” In the ten minutes that he and Rena had strategized before knocking on Alice’s door, they’d agreed that talking to that teacher had to be a priority.
“Olivia Blow,” Alice said.
“She miss a lot of work?” Rena asked.
Alice shook her head. “None of my staff misses much work, which is a testament to their dedication. Kids come to day care with all kinds of bugs and teachers do catch some of them. But mostly they manage to power through it.”
“But Olivia didn’t power through today. What was wrong with her?” A.L. asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t actually get a chance to talk to her. She sent a text late last night, around midnight. Said she wouldn’t be in.”
“So she knew last night?” Rena said. “That she’d be sick this morning.”
“I do think that’s how it works sometimes,” Alice said.
She might be right, A.L. thought. But then again. “When’s the last time Olivia Blow missed a day of work?”
Alice turned her chair so that she could open the cabinet behind her desk. She pulled out a manila folder. Turned the cover back. Ran her finger down and across what appeared to be a spreadsheet. “Actually, this is the first day that she’s missed.”
“How long has she worked here?” Rena asked.
“For over two years,” Alice said.
“What’s her home address?” A.L. asked.
Now Alice tapped on the keyboard on her desk. Then she picked up a pen and scribbled something on a notepad. Tore off the sheet. “Here. But you won’t find her there.”
“Why not?” A.L. asked.
“Because she called me less than ten minutes ago. Said she was going to come join the search.”
“She’s suddenly feeling better?” A.L. asked.
Alice shrugged. “I didn’t grill her on her health.”
Alice already sounded tired. And discouraged. A.L. thought she should buck up. Things could get much worse before they got better. “Would you call her on her cell?” he asked. “Tell her to come inside the building.”
Alice picked up the cell phone on her desk. Scrolled through her contacts. “Hey, Olivia. Are you here at Lakeside?” Alice listened. “Could you do me a favor and come to the front door. I’ll meet you there and let you in. There are a couple officers who’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Alice listened and then put down her phone. “She’ll be right here. I really hate that my staff are going to get treated like common criminals.”
“We’re just asking questions,” Rena said, her voice kind. “We’re not making any assumptions.”
“I know,” Alice said. “But I really think you need to be looking elsewhere.”
They were. A.L. already had someone pulling th
e list of all known sexual predators in the area. Every one of them would receive a visit from an officer. Emma’s disappearance was basically all anybody would be working on.
It took Olivia Blow less than two minutes to knock on the front door. Alice and A.L. went to answer it. Olivia was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and tennis shoes. She had a small backpack over her left shoulder. She looked to be early thirties. Her hair was a short wavy medium brown and she had big dark brown eyes. Attractive. Looked healthy enough.
“I’m Detective McKittridge with the Baywood Police Department,” he said.
She stuck out her hand and he returned the shake. Rena had joined them in the hallway. “This is my partner, Detective Morgan,” A.L. said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course,” she said, not sounding too concerned.
“We can use Classroom 1,” he said. He didn’t intend to do this in front of Alice.
Rena led the way, Olivia went next, and he brought up the rear. Alice retreated to her office. Once the three of them were inside, both he and Rena pulled out their notebooks.
“May I call you Olivia?” A.L. asked.
“Of course.”
“You’ve been working at the day care full-time for more than two years. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you work before that?”
“I was in college. A late bloomer you might say. Didn’t go anywhere right after high school. But after ten years of waitressing, I’d had enough. I wanted to work with kids.”
“No children of your own?” Rena asked.
“No. Hopefully someday. I haven’t met Mr. Right yet. I’m just thirty-two so I have a few years.”
“Of course,” Rena said.
A.L. knew that Rena could tell Olivia a thing or two about waiting and babies. Rena hadn’t gotten married until she was thirty-six. They’d tried right away, but it was more than two years later and even though there’d been some gymnastics with an infertility specialist, still no pregnancy.
“Alice tells us you’ve had a great work record here,” A.L. said. “Never missed a day of work until today. But it appears as if you’re feeling better.”
“Better,” she said. “Not great. But I slept most of the day so that was helpful since I was up most of the night. When I heard the news about Emma I couldn’t not join the search efforts. We have to find that little girl.”
“Anybody else home at your house today?” A.L. asked.
She shook her head.
“Anybody else able to verify that you were at your home today?” A.L. phrased the question just a bit differently.
She stared at him. “Why would that be necessary?” Her voice had cooled. She was starting to get the picture.
Rena leaned forward. “Olivia, you have to admit that it is interesting that you’ve never missed a day. Suddenly, on the day that Emma Whitman goes missing, you’re sick.”
“It’s not that interesting. I actually got sick the day before. I ate my afternoon snack and within a half hour, I was sick. My stomach hurt.” She paused. “I had really bad diarrhea, if you must know. That continued well into the evening and wasn’t showing signs of improvement. That’s when I sent Alice the text. I wanted to give her as much notice as possible. When I woke up this morning, I knew I’d made the right decision. I was exhausted and no doubt dehydrated. Not to get too graphic.”
“We’d like to have an officer search your house and your vehicle. Would you agree to that?” Rena asked.
“Whatever. It won’t take long. I live in a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment and I drive a Prius.”
“Is this your address?” Rena asked, showing her what Alice had written down.
“Yes. Somebody can look at my car here. And then I can meet them at my apartment.”
A.L. stood up. “That’ll be fine. If you’ll wait outside the front door, I’ll have an officer take care of that.”
He and Rena walked Olivia to the door. She was pushing it open when she turned. “I get why you need to search my car and my house. I do. And I guess I’m glad that you’re being thorough. But just tell me one thing. Do you think that we’re going to find her? That she’s going to be okay?” Her voice broke.
“I don’t know,” A.L. said. It was the best he could do. “The weather is working in our favor. Not too cold at night.”
“That’s if she wandered off. Do you think that’s what happened?”
“Do you?” he countered.
She shrugged. “On the drive here, I went over it a hundred times in my head. Five-year-olds are pretty responsible and she would have known not to leave the day care.”
A.L. said nothing. He’d had the very same thoughts. He quite clearly remembered Traci at that age. She’d been able to follow directions and certainly knew about stranger-danger.
“There’s a lot of people out there,” Olivia said. “Searching. Maybe that gives the Whitmans some comfort. Knowing that people care.”
The people of Baywood were very caring. Midwest nice. None of that helped explain a missing five-year-old. “Thanks again,” he said.
She walked out and he made a few quick calls on his cell. When he was assured that there was an officer who could take care of searching both the car and the apartment, he went to find Rena. She was still sitting in the classroom.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything in her apartment or car. Because there’s nothing there. We’re barking up the wrong tree,” Rena added.
“So, she simply had the bad luck to have a case of the ill-timed shits.”
Rena closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Better her than us.”
“Indeed. Look, I’m going to request criminal background checks on all four teachers, Alice, the cook, Leah and Troy Whitman, and Elaine Broadstreet.”
“They’re the main players,” Rena said. “Who do you want to talk to next?”
“Let’s get contact information from Alice on all staff and all parents. Right now I’m interested in talking to the six parents who signed into Kara Wiese’s room between 6:30 and 7:30. I want to make sure that her story that she was in the room checks out.”
When they made their request, Alice said it would take her about fifteen minutes to pull the information. She said she’d have first and last names and cell numbers and home phones, if different. She might also have places of employment if they’d provided that. However, the integrity of her data depended on whether the parents had kept their information up to date.
While they were waiting, Rena’s cell phone buzzed. She glanced at it. “We have confirmation that Elaine Broadstreet’s vehicle was on Paradise, then Main, then Second Street just as she said. There’s no cameras on the corner of Second Street and Oak Avenue so we lost her there. But they pick her up again when she’s back on Second Street. Child who matches Emma’s description in a rear car seat on the way, and seat is empty when she’s back on Second Street.”
“Seems as if she might be telling the truth,” A.L. said.
“At least about getting her to the building.”
“Can I see the front office sign-in sheet again?”
Rena handed him the plastic evidence bag. “I estimated Alice’s arrival time as somewhere between 7:16 and 7:20. First signature on this form is 7:52 and second is 10:50.”
“And Alice says she signed the form but that was only after you prompted her with a question about it,” A.L. said.
“Yes. And said that of course she’d have written a time if there was a blank for the time but couldn’t remember what time she’d written.”
“We need to talk to these parents tonight,” A.L. said.
“Okay. That’s eight calls, then, that we need to make.”
Alice poked her head out of her office and handed them two sheets
of the information they’d requested. “I made a copy for each of you.”
“Thank you,” Rena said.
“Alice, I have a question about the sign-in sheet that is posted by the office,” A.L. said. He showed her the plastic bag. “It’s dated with today’s date. Who wrote that?”
“Kara. She always gets the sheet ready. Does it first thing when she comes in the door.”
“Has she always had that responsibility?”
“I guess. Besides me, she’s always the first one in. She started getting the sheet ready and I guess it sort of became part of her job. At night, whoever is the last one in the building, which is usually me, is responsible for removing the sheet and putting it in my in-box.”
“Okay, thank you.”
He walked back to Classroom 1 and Rena followed.
A.L. held up the sign-in sheet. “Kara did not tell me about getting this sheet ready. Said that the first thing she did was make coffee.”
“Again, like Elaine not mentioning she signed in, perhaps it’s so routine that it doesn’t bear mentioning.”
“Maybe. Let’s split up the parents of kids in Kara Wiese’s class. I’ll take the first three, you take numbers four through six,” he said. “Then we’ll regroup before we call the two parents from the office sign-in sheet.” They set up on opposite sides of the large space.
A.L. dialed his first number. It rang twice.
“Hello.”
It was a woman. A.L. checked the name on his sheet. “Sarah Hewin?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Detective McKittridge with the Baywood Police Department. I need to ask you a few questions about the Lakeside Learning Center.”
“Of course,” she said.
He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t ask why. The news would have spread quickly through the whole of Baywood, but lightning-fast through the parent group.
“Your child’s teachers are Kara Wiese and Claire Potter, correct?”
“Yes.”