by Beverly Long
“There were holes in her processes but I think she genuinely cares about the kids and their parents,” A.L. said.
“Yeah. And if we don’t find Emma, her life is never going to be the same.”
“Fuck that,” A.L. said. “You were part of the conversation with Marcus Page. If we don’t find her, none of our lives are ever going to be the same.”
Eleven
Ten minutes after A.L. and Rena had arrived back in Baywood and gone their separate ways, A.L. had his hands full. With a crying woman.
Not any of the women regularly in his life. A woman that he’d never met until three minutes ago. But she was clearly having a bad day and he was maybe the worst person in the world to offer assistance.
“I’m sorry. I can’t stop crying. I have a five-year-old daughter and I just can’t imagine what the Whitmans are going through. Leah is such an important part of our family.”
In this case, the family was the Bailey Shepherd Law Firm. A.L. nodded at the receptionist. “I can come back.”
“No, no. If I can help in anyway, I want to. I do. Let me page her.”
Her was the human resources manager, who was apparently not in her office.
“Oh, God.” Julia Spear reached for more tissues. He knew her name because she had a big gold nameplate. “No, just wait,” she said.
She punched some keys on her desk phone and seconds later, it rang. “There’s a detective here to see you. It’s about Leah,” she whispered. Not quite softly enough that he didn’t hear it. She hung up. “Greta will be right here.”
“What’s Greta’s last name?”
“Greta Pistolle. I thinks that’s French.”
As long as she spoke English, he was going to be happy. He wandered a few feet away from the reception desk, afraid that if he stayed too close, his proximity might prompt more tears.
Greta Pistolle was midforties. She wore a dark business suit and a white blouse. He sensed a rather no-nonsense attitude as she approached, so he was a little surprised when she took a minute to stop at the desk and check on Julia. “Take a few minutes,” she told the woman gently.
Then she approached. “Detective McKittridge, I’m Greta Pistolle, the human resources manager here at Bailey Shepherd. Let’s go to my office.”
Once there, with her behind the desk and him sitting in front of it, she offered up a smile. “Julia is an excellent receptionist with a very kind heart. The type who sends cards to the rest of us when our pets are ill or hurt.”
Before Felix, he’d have laughed at that. Now, he realized it would be hard if the cat was in a bad way.
“Obviously, this issue with Leah and her family is far more serious so she’s having a little trouble coping,” Greta said. “Now, what can I help you with?”
“Can you verify how long Leah has been employed with Bailey Shepherd?” A.L. asked.
Greta turned her chair so that she faced her computer. A few clicks later, she said, “Two years this December.”
“I understand she’s a paralegal.”
“Senior paralegal. She was hired as a paralegal but got promoted about six months ago.”
Leah had not made the distinction. Maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal. “What can you tell me about her work?”
Greta shrugged. “Of course I don’t see it every day but given the recent promotion, I think you can safely assume she’s doing just fine. It’s unusual for a paralegal to get to be a senior paralegal so quickly. Normally, it’s at least three years. But I recall her supervising attorney saying he thought Leah was something special.”
“His name?” A.L. asked.
“Devin. Devin Raine. He’s not here today. He volunteered to search. We’d probably all be doing that but the business has to keep running.”
“Can you tell me about Leah’s work hours?” A.L. asked.
She shook her head. “You’d have to ask Devin. Our paralegals are salaried and their timekeeping is done on an exception basis. If we don’t see an exception noted in the time records, such as vacation or sick, we assume they were here.”
Probably an okay assumption except for when Leah was at the casino, secretly videotaping her mother.
“Can you give me Devin’s direct line?”
Again, she turned to her computer. “This is his cell. I suspect that’s where you’ll have the best chance of reaching him. How is Leah doing? I keep wanting to call but I don’t want to bother her.”
“That’s probably a good decision,” he said. “Thank you, Ms. Pistolle.” On the way out of the building, he spent a minute in the lobby, where they had photos of all the lawyers. Devin Raine was a good-looking guy. Dark blond hair. Blue eyes. Maybe early fifties with a tan fit for the most selective of golf courses.
As he walked out of the law firm, he was dialing the man. It rang four times and went to voice mail. Guy probably didn’t answer any numbers he didn’t recognize. A.L. left a message asking for a call back.
Then he drove to the Whitmans’ house. There was a news van parked on the street, across from the house. He did a slow drive-by. Didn’t look like there was anybody in it. He did a U-turn in the street and parked across from it. He found Leah in her kitchen. Sitting at the table. Staring at her hands. The agents still at the house were in the living room. “Just checking in, Leah, like I said I would.” There was no need to tell her that minutes ago he’d been having a conversation about her. Or that they had questions about the financial solvency of her husband’s business.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Last night I dreamed that I could hear Emma in her room. I woke up and ran down the hall. I...think I might be losing my mind.”
“You’re not. You’re under a huge amount of stress.”
“I stayed in her room. All night. Her sheets smell like her.” Leah’s voice cracked.
He could feel his own throat closing up. “Is Troy out searching?” A.L. asked.
“He was. They sent him home to sleep. But he’s not sleeping. He’s in the garage,” Leah said. “With Steven Hanzel,” she added. “I don’t like it when they smoke in the house.”
“I think I’ll take a walk out,” he said.
The Whitmans had a two-car garage, detached. It sat more than fifty feet back from the house, making it a long trek in the pouring rain with groceries. But today it was sunny, the temps hovering in the midseventies. A.L. made his way past a late-model four-door blue truck and found Troy and another man sitting on lawn chairs in the empty side of a two-car garage.
The truck blocked their view of the street and blocked reporters and curious others from having a look at them. Troy wasn’t smoking but the other man was. A pack of cigarettes lay on the cement floor, almost squarely between the two chairs.
Maybe Troy had needed a cigarette? Maybe that had driven him from the house? Or maybe he’d simply needed to get away from the horrible silent waiting. The hovering agents. The pain in his wife’s eyes. Maybe he’d wanted to sit with his friend for a minute and pretend that it was any other lazy afternoon?
Or maybe he was an asshole who didn’t understand that part of his job as husband and father was to step up in the tough times.
“Troy,” A.L. said in greeting.
He waved but he didn’t get up. He looked very tired.
“I’m Steven Hanzel,” the other man said, his voice too loud. He bounced up and extended his hand.
“Detective McKittridge,” A.L. said.
“I’m assuming there’s no news,” Troy said. “Otherwise, Leah would have beat you out here.”
“No news, sir.”
“It’s crazy,” Steven said. “Just crazy.” His cell phone buzzed and he picked it up. Looked at the screen for a couple seconds. Then the phone went back into his shirt pocket. “Good news is that we’ve picked up another twenty grand.”
; Troy nodded. “Fund-raising site. Steven got it going,” he said, apparently for A.L.’s benefit.
“I heard something about it,” A.L. said.
“Least I could do,” Steven said. “People want to help. Donations are coming in from all over the country. It’s amazing. Just...crazy.”
Crazy was evidently Steven Hanzel’s go-to word. And while A.L. wasn’t a guy normally hung up on political correctness, it seemed rather gauche to be talking about the money pouring in. But then again, Hanzel was a banker. His world was money. His repeated use of the word crazy made A.L. think of those first few minutes after he’d met Leah and Troy on Wednesday afternoon. Leah had said it was terrifying and Troy had seemed to correct her by saying it was crazy. Were Troy and his friend together so much that Troy was picking up his vocabulary?
“I was hoping to have a minute,” A.L. said, looking at Troy.
“Of course,” Troy said. He glanced at his friend. “I’ll see you later.”
“Oh yeah, yeah. That’s fine. You call me. Whenever, you know.” Hanzel talked as he walked backwards out of the garage.
A.L. waited until he had turned and gotten halfway back to the street before speaking. “I wanted to ask you about your business.”
“Why? What’s that got to do with anything?”
He sounded almost panicked.
“We can’t ignore the possibility that Emma’s disappearance is somehow related to an issue that somebody might have with you. Perhaps a disgruntled customer. An angry former employee.”
“I got three guys working in my shop. The same three guys who have been working there since I bought it. Hell, even before that.”
“Names?” A.L. pulled out his notebook.
“Davy Grace, Pete Seoul, Cory Prider. Listen, I’ve known these guys since I was in high school. Davy was in my same class. Pete and Cory are older but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m their boss but we’re also friends.”
“Never any issues?”
Troy threw up his right hand. “Hell, yes, there are issues. Sometimes they screw up. Sometimes they even do shitty work, which really pisses me off because they’re better than that and with so much competition, that will kill you.”
“How’s business?” A.L. asked.
“Fine. Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Not sorry you bought it?”
“No. Why would I be?”
“Just asking,” A.L. said. “Owning your own business is tough. If there’s nothing left at the end of the month, you don’t get paid, right?”
“We’re doing just fine,” he said.
A.L. decided to let it go for the time. “You been in touch with any of your employees?”
“Not today. They knew I wasn’t going to be in.”
A.L. would swing by the garage next. “Let’s talk about your customers. Any problems with anybody lately?”
“No. I mean, maybe.”
“Which is it?” A.L. asked.
“Davy did some work on a vehicle earlier this week and he forgot to clamp a hose or if he did clamp it, it popped off. Anyway, long story short, customer drove the vehicle out of our shop, got halfway home with her seven-year-old and five-year-old and the engine overheated. She had a cell phone and called her husband. But before he could get there, another vehicle stopped. A couple redneck assholes. Didn’t touch her but I guess they scared her pretty bad. Anyway, husband arrives, assholes leave, and wife calls us to tell us we’ll be hearing from their attorney.”
“Did you?”
“Not yet. I offered six free oil changes. Wife told me where I could shove them.”
“Did you fix her car a second time?”
“Nope. They had it towed to Morton’s Garage.”
“What’s the customer’s name?”
“I do not want you going to see her. Maybe she’s over being pissed. This could just stoke the fire and she decides to call the fucking lawyer. I can’t be sued. I can’t...” He ran his hands over his short hair. “Listen, she’s got kids of her own. She isn’t going to do something to one of mine.”
“Unfortunately,” A.L. said, “we don’t know if that’s true. Maybe she feels that you endangered her kids and now she wants to return the favor. What’s her name?”
“Gi-Gi. Gi-Gi Thompson. Her husband’s name is Barrett.”
A.L. wrote it down. “Anybody else that might have a beef with you?”
Troy pressed his lips together. Looked at the back of his house. Then shook his head. “I can’t think of anybody.”
“Get along with your neighbors?” A.L. asked.
“I had words this summer with a guy whose dog was shitting in my yard but other than that, it’s good.”
“What was his name?” A.L. asked.
“There’s no need to go talk to him. I dealt with it. It’s over.”
“It’s better if we decide who we need to talk to,” A.L. said. “What was his name?”
“I don’t even know his name. But he lives across the street, a couple doors that way. His house has the ugly blue siding.”
“Thank you. If you think of anything else, please let us know.”
“Yeah, sure.” He started to reach for the pack of cigarettes but pulled his hands back and stuffed each hand under a thigh.
He’d been fast but not fast enough. His hands were trembling.
Troy Whitman seemed about to break.
* * *
A.L. found the neighbor with the blue siding sitting in a lawn chair in his garage. Figured it was a thing in the neighborhood. He was not smoking but he did have two empty bottles of cheap beer next to his chair. He was retirement age with thinning gray hair and wore an old Rolling Stones T-shirt and blue jeans.
“Hello,” A.L. said. “I’m Detective McKittridge with the Baywood Police Department.” He held out his badge, gave the guy plenty of time to look at it. “What’s your name?”
“Why? Am I under arrest?” the man asked, his tone serious. Then he smiled. “Just screwing with you. Roger Martin.”
“Thank you, Mr. Martin. I wanted to ask you about your relationship with Troy Whitman.”
“We don’t have a relationship. He lives down the street. That’s it.”
“He said that the two of you recently had words after he complained about your dog taking a dump in his yard.”
The man smiled again. “I’ve been walking my dog past his house for two years, ever since we moved in here. Didn’t realize who he was until my wife took her car to his garage about two months ago. Thank God I got a quote before I had him do the work. A thousand bucks. Double, literally double, what the guy six blocks down the street charged me. I told Lois that Troy Whitman was a crook. That’s when I decided to let my dog shit in his yard. After all, he’s shitting on his customers.”
Troy hadn’t said anything about a disagreement over a quote. “Did you and Troy discuss the quote?”
“No. Maybe Lois called them up and told them we were taking it somewhere else. I don’t know and I didn’t care. I hate it when people think they can rip senior citizens off.”
A.L. did not think this man had a five-year-old hidden in his house. “Are you aware that Mr. Whitman’s daughter is missing?”
“You couldn’t be alive in Baywood and not know that. Goddamn shame. Nobody deserves for that to happen. I may not like his business practices but I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
“Where were you, Mr. Martin, on Wednesday morning?”
The man gave A.L. a look that told A.L. that he was now the equivalent of dog shit. “Lois and I volunteer at the homeless shelter on Portuana Street every Wednesday. We were there by 8:00 and didn’t leave for several hours.”
“Okay. Thank you,” A.L. said. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”
“I got a lot of time,” Roger Martin said. “I sit here a good p
ortion of the day. And sometimes, at night, when my back is bothering me, I come out here, too.” He paused. “You know, I can see the Whitmans’ driveway from right here.”
A.L. moved to a spot behind Roger Martin’s chair. He did have a good view of the house and the start of the driveway. Couldn’t see as far back as the garage, however. There was a reason the man was making a point of the view. “Ever see anything interesting?” A.L. asked.
The man shrugged. “Lots of coming and going from the Whitman house. Real late at night sometimes. Maybe he’s fixing cars 24/7. I just don’t know. Guess I don’t have anything more to say about that.”
Roger Martin really didn’t seem to care for Troy Whitman.
“Goodbye, sir,” A.L. said.
“Back at ya. Hope you find that little girl. I really do.”
* * *
Rena focused on the kids who had been signed in between 7:10 and 7:25. There were five. She cross-referenced the kids with the parent list and called the first number.
“Hello,” a woman said.
“Is this Angie Tate?”
“Yes.”
“This is Detective Morgan from the Baywood Police Department. Would you have a few minutes that I could ask you a couple questions in relation to the Lakeside Learning Center?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You have a daughter in the three-and early four-year-old room, right?”
“Right. Jenna.”
“On Wednesday, you signed her into her room at 7:14. Does that ring a bell?”
“Yes.”
“Great. When you arrived, do you recall seeing anyone in the lobby area, either near the office area or even in the larger play space?”
“There were people coming and going, about the same as usual. It’s sort of a common drop-off time. People trying to get to work by 8:00, I guess.”
“Did you see anybody who looked out of place or odd, like they didn’t belong there?”
“If I’d have seen anything like that, I’d have already said something to somebody.”
“Of course,” Rena said. “But I just have to ask the question. How about teachers or staff employed by the center? Were any of them in the lobby?”