“We booked Miller on the drugs and stolen property,” Goran says. “He sang like a canary about the Emerald Club. Fishner sent me back to the Emerald, and it’s a huge waste of my time, but whatever. Lamont—the manager—couldn’t tell me dick about the possible connections between Miller and that place. Good news for your Ricky, though. One of the dancers alibied him for time of the abduction, too. Says he was there that whole afternoon.”
So it looks as though Harris is well clear. Miller dropped the body and insists he did it alone. Christopher was with Harris for the time of the actual murder. The afternoon Kevin disappeared, Ricky was in the club and has an alibi, Christopher was at work, and Miller claims he was out of town. “Uh-huh,” I whisper.
“Lamont offered more videotape,” Goran says.
“Call you back?” I ask.
“Sure. Okay.” He hangs up.
When I emerge from Kevin’s room, Graham says, “Forgive me, Detective Boyle, but I have to go take my medicine. I’m sorry. Is that okay?” He certainly seems more contrite today than he did in Fishner’s office.
“Sure, of course,” I reply. “Do you mind if I take a look in the backyard?”
“No, that’s no problem at all. Go ahead downstairs.” He gestures at the staircase then goes the opposite way down the hall.
Elaine waits until he turns in to another room then asks, “Would you like a cup of coffee? I can make some coffee.” She nervously looks over her shoulder.
I know she wants to talk, but I also know this is my one chance to get a look around their house. Even though Crime Scene was here yesterday, sometimes it helps to get an idea of what an abductor saw. “Sure, that would be fine. I’m just going to look around in the backyard, then I’ll come inside.”
I leave her reaching for the coffee filters and head out the kitchen door. I move in a spiral out from the deck to the far reaches of the property then back again. As I’m about to step onto the deck stairs, I spot the edge of something white peeking out from under the wood. I bend over to take a closer look.
It’s a business card. But the odd thing is that I recognize the name. It belongs to my old partner, Dwayne Arya. I rode in a patrol car with him for a couple of years, at the beginning of my career, playing Colby to his Morrison. Arya isn’t even CDP anymore. He moved to California and became a private investigator after his parents died and he got a big inheritance. As far as I know, he hasn’t been in Cleveland since then, so it’s not as if he or anyone else would need to pass out his card in this neighborhood.
I take two photos with my phone then use my pen to flip over the card. A number is written on the back. It looks familiar, and I think it may be his old cell phone number. Underneath the number, in block print, are the words “Nothing beautiful without struggle.” I try to imagine him writing such a thing. Not likely. His writing was never that neat, anyway.
I’m losing track of time again, so I try to think this through. Crime Scene was here yesterday, the day the Christopher shit happened. Sunday. It rained part of last night, but the card isn’t wet. So someone was here between the time it stopped raining last night and right now, and that someone was carrying Arya’s card.
I take several more photographs and pull an evidence bag from my inside jacket pocket. Using my pen, I slide the card into the bag and seal it. I look at the number on the bag again. Curiosity overwhelms me. I call the number. A young-sounding woman answers on the second ring.
“May I speak to Dwayne Arya, please?”
“I’m sorry. You have the wrong number.”
“How long have you had this number?” I ask.
“Uh… who is this?”
“My name is Liz. I’m looking for someone. It’s important. How long have you had this number?” I hate repeating myself, but whatever.
“I’ve had it for, like, four years.”
“Thanks.” I hang up and call Goran. “What time was Crime Scene done at the grandparents’ house?”
“Just a sec.” I hear him clicking on his computer. “Report says five p.m.”
“Sean Miller was with us at five and in the box with you by the time the rain started.”
“Um… yeah. Where are you?” he asks. I can almost hear the wheels spinning in his head. “And what are you talking about?”
“I’m in the Whittles’ yard. Before you say anything, Elaine called me. I’m going to tell Fishner, so settle down.”
“Holy hell, Liz! Do you want to get suspended?”
“No, and I won’t. This is important. Thanks and bye.” I hang up.
Elaine comes outside as I’m approaching the steps. I smile at her and start up the stairs. Graham must still be upstairs, and I wonder if he’s okay.
“Mind if I take you up on that cup of coffee?”
She nods. “Of course,” she says, almost in a whisper.
We sit at the kitchen island, and she pours two cups of coffee. She slides one over in front of me, and I thank her.
I show her the card. “Do you recognize this?”
She peers at it then shrugs. “One of your team must have dropped it yesterday, right?”
“Do you have motion lights or anything outside?”
She shakes her head. “They all come on automatically when it gets dark.”
“Did you see anyone outside late last night, maybe even earlier this morning?”
“No. Do you think someone was out there?”
“I’m not sure yet. Do you use your alarm system regularly?”
She nods. “Yes. We use it every night.”
“Make sure you set it, okay?” I run my hand through my hair and stare at her.
She nods again then takes a deep breath that sounds rattly and vaguely unhealthy. “Graham is upstairs,” she whispers. “There’s something we didn’t tell you. That I need to tell you. That’s why I called today. I can’t keep it inside anymore.”
I take out my notebook. “What do you want to tell me?”
“Someone else was involved. With Kevin.” She looks back and forth as though she’s worried that Graham might come downstairs any minute now.
“What do you mean? Who was involved?” I ask, masking my irritation that she’s only now telling me this.
“Kevin was outside playing with Graham in the backyard. He had an angina attack—it’s much worse than he lets on—and he went inside to get his medicine.”
“Then what happened?”
“When he got back, Kevin was gone. He called me—I was at the grocery store—he called me and was more upset than I think I’ve ever heard him. When I got home… I’ve never seen him like that,” she whispers. “I had no idea what to do. We should have called the police. But we called Allie. We thought she could help.”
“Who is Allie?” Who the hell calls someone named Allie instead of the police?
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Elaine whispers.
“I know,” I murmur. “I’m so very sorry.” Sometimes, I’m just good-cop, but right now I’m really sorry. They’re as stupid as my brother, and I can’t help wondering how things might be different if they had called the police right away.
She swipes at her tears with a napkin. “Everything we’ve done has been wrong. Everything.”
I nod. “It’s okay.” I carefully cover her arthritic hand with my own. “You didn’t know. You did your best.”
“Thank you for being kind.” She sniffs and rubs her free hand across her face. “We hired Allie when Peter and Teresa asked us to keep Kevin more often. We told you the truth about everything else. All we left out was Allie. I don’t want her to get in trouble. She’s such a nice girl. She’s like a daughter to us in some ways. She’s trying to get her life together. I just feel so terrible for not telling you sooner, for not telling Peter and Teresa.”
I look up from my notebook and see Graham Whittle
in the doorway, looking stricken.
He steps into the room. “Elaine, why are you telling her all of this?”
Elaine jumps a little then juts out her chin. “Because they need to know the truth so they can find who killed Kevin.” She turns back to me. “I wonder if introducing Kevin to so many outsiders made him more likely to go off with a stranger.” She shakes her head.
“Sir,” I say, “it’s okay. I just need to know everything.” I use a soothing tone, hoping he doesn’t get as petulant as he was in Fishner’s office the other day. “Just have a seat and tell me everything.”
He blinks then sits down next to his wife. She reaches over and takes his hand.
I nod at her. “Mr. Whittle, the more you can tell me, the likelier it is that we can find who did this.”
“We hired her about a year ago,” he says. He seems even smaller now. “It got to be too much.” He puts his hand on his chest. “My heart.” He shakes his head.
“Teresa asked us who she was,” Elaine says, “a couple of months after Kevin started drawing her picture.”
And you lied to her. I really want to ask why, but I know this will go better if I just let them talk.
Graham’s shoulders droop. “I didn’t want my son to think we couldn’t handle the boy. That’s why we didn’t tell him. Or you. We didn’t want them to know. All of this is my fault.” He sags even lower in his chair. “I told Elaine not to say anything because it’s my fault. We couldn’t care for Kevin properly because of my heart.”
“Medical problems happen,” I reply. I don’t really know what else to say.
He turns to Elaine. “I’m sorry I told you not to say anything. Maybe we could have figured this out days ago.” He covers his heart again with his hand, and I hope he’s not going to die right here and now. “We should have gone to the police sooner.”
Elaine takes his hand from his chest and holds it in both of hers. She starts to cry again, and he puts his arms around her.
When she pulls herself together after a couple of minutes, I ask, “How many days a week did she watch Kevin?” And why in the world would you think your nanny could help, instead of the police?
“Three,” Graham says.
“And just to clarify, this went on for how long?”
“A little over a year.”
“Friday, the day Kevin was kidnapped, was that one of her regular days? Was she here?”
“No. We called her after we couldn’t find him. We thought maybe she could help.” He won’t make eye contact with me, and the way he glances around the room makes me think he’s still not telling me something. “She’s a nice girl. She took Kevin’s disappearing hard.”
“When was the last time you heard from her?” I ask.
“She stayed over the night he went missing,” Elaine says. “She was supposed to go to her other job, but she was determined to find Kevin. She went out and looked all through the neighborhood.” She focuses on a point past my shoulder, as if she’s trying to find the words, then her bleary eyes meet mine. “She was sure she’d find him. She was worried, like we were, that he’d get hurt.”
Holy hell. Okay, so you hire a nanny without telling the kid’s parents. Then he goes missing, and instead of calling the police or telling anyone anything… I try not to sigh or make a face.
“Allie would never do anything to hurt Kevin,” Graham says. “She’s a class act.”
Allie. The name is familiar. I focus on that for a minute. Allie who didn’t make it to her other job that night. A switch flips somewhere in my mind. Jen Kline. Winky’s. She was covering for someone named Allie.
“What’s Allie’s last name?” I ask.
“Cox,” he replies. “Allie Cox.”
“What’s her other job?” I ask.
“She’s a server somewhere in the Flats,” Graham replies.
That’s it. That’s her. “A.C.” was on the schedule. My heartbeat speeds up, but I breathe through it. Allie Cox as Miller’s accomplice. It’s possible. “Can you give me her address and phone number?”
Elaine nods and pulls a piece of paper from her pocket. She obviously knew I would ask for that information once she spilled about the nanny. The address is in Cleveland Heights and not far from my house.
I sit with them for a few more minutes and ask more questions about Allie, such as her age, height, weight, and any relevant details. “Thank you for coming clean with me,” I say, standing. “Please call me if you think of anything else I might need to know.”
“We will,” Graham replies. “Bye.”
I jog to my car. When I get behind the wheel, I call Goran. He doesn’t answer, so I leave him a voicemail. “Ask Miller if he knows someone named Allie Cox. Figure out if there’s a connection.”
I leave the neighborhood and pull into a gas station, where I briefly debate paying Allie Cox a visit. I think better of it, though, when I imagine the kind of trouble I would be in if I did. Sitting in the parking lot, I use my phone to search online for Allie Cox. I finally locate a Facebook account that seems to fit. The profile picture is of a young woman in front of a field of wildflowers. She’s looking off to the side, so all I can tell is that she has long blondish hair. I look through her friends list and find Jen Kline’s name. Allie’s page shows lots of pictures. She and the other Winky’s bartender, Elizabeth, are in some from a party.
I go back to Allie’s friends list. There’s an older woman with the same last name, and I’m guessing it’s her mom. When I go to the woman’s page, I see lots of RIP and condolences posts. If it is Allie’s mom, she died a few months ago.
I try to call Goran again, but he still doesn’t answer. I hope he’s not angry with me for practically hanging up on him earlier.
I call Roberts. “Get me info on Allie Cox,” I say. “I have to run over to the lab.”
“What? I’m halfway back to—”
“Roberts, I’m serious. Database search. Please and thank you and bye.”
“Bye.”
I point the Passat east on Woodland and hit the gas.
Of course Elaine and Graham Whittle didn’t want to tell their son that they outsourced Kevin’s care. But there could be more to it than that, some reason why they sat on the information so long.
My phone buzzes in my pocket as I’m leaving the lab, where I handed Arya’s card off to Jo Micalec.
“I looked her up,” Roberts says. “No criminal record. The only hit I got was the BMV. Blonde, brown eyes, five two, one ten. I just texted you her picture.”
“What else did you get on her?”
“Not a lot. She got a degree from CSU in early childhood education and has a teaching license but no job. No traffic tickets. Nada. Totally clean.”
I unlock the car and climb inside. “She been here her whole life?”
“From the looks of it, yeah. Born in Cleveland. Went to Shaker Heights for high school. Parents divorced when she was eleven. Mom died late last year, breast cancer. Dad’s still alive, still lives in Shaker.”
“Any connection to Miller other than the restaurant?”
“Nope, at least not on paper.”
“Vehicle?”
“Oh seven Focus, black.”
“Could be the car Anthony saw,” I mutter. Miller could have lied about using his sister’s car, covering for his accomplice. “Thanks, Roberts. Get Cleveland Heights to sit on her. I don’t want her disappearing. I’ll try to get over there today.” I’ll have to ask Fishner first.
“Ten-four.”
When I get back to the squad room, Fishner is in her office. Becker is with her, which means I’ll only have to go through this once. As I approach the door, Fishner waves for me to enter.
I fill them in, trying to convey the urgency of the situation with Allie Cox. “I’m sorry that I went to the grandparents’ house without asking, but the
y needed to talk. She called me, and I thought it was—”
Fishner points at me. “I want you on Cox. I want you to bond with her.” She nods as if confirming something in her mind. “If we get her to finger Miller, we can wrap this up. It’s time. This has gone on too long. We need to close this.”
I try to keep my mouth from falling open. Just hours ago, she was putting me on desk duty, but now I get access to a prime suspect or witness or both. “Okay. I’ll get on that now.” I turn to leave before she can change her mind.
“Boyle.”
I freeze. Damn! “Yes?”
“We are going to talk to Allie Cox.” She stands. “You drive.”
I narrowly manage to avoid rolling my eyes or saying anything about not needing a babysitter. “Just give me two minutes.”
“I’ll meet you at the elevator.”
Chapter Seventeen
Something occurs to me as I walk to my desk. Anthony mentioned that he saw a woman in a baseball cap coming out the back door of Winky’s the night Kevin was killed. Allie was supposed to be out sick that night, but she could have still been there. She would have access to the back entrance, stockroom, and staff areas. Kevin could have been held in one of those places before someone killed him in Miller’s garage.
I glance over at Goran’s desk and see his cell phone sitting next to his lamp. I go over and pick it up. The screen shows several missed calls, all from me. Good. He’s not ignoring me because he’s mad that I practically hung up on him earlier. “Roberts,” I whisper, “where’s Goran?”
“In the box with Miller.” He shoves half a bagel into his mouth and chews.
“Again?”
He nods.
Fishner wants to keep an eye on me, even with her prime suspect in interrogation. She must be confident that Miller is our perp. “Boss lady and I are going to talk to Cox. Tell Goran, okay?”
“Ten-four,” he says around a mouthful of bagel.
Fishner and I spend an awkward fifty seconds in the elevator—I counted—and an even more awkward fifteen minutes in the car. It’s as if neither of us know how to behave when she’s out in the field, which doesn’t happen much anymore. I slide the car into a parking space in front of Allie Cox’s apartment building.
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