by Kate Flora
Besides, despite Cousin Dennis, I thought this was all pretty useless. I decided to give it a few more questions and then cut Basham loose. “Was there ever anything Heidi said that suggested she had concerns about either of these young men?”
He shook his head.
“What about a crush?”
“On Dee or Dum? You have to be kidding.”
“No, I’m not kidding. A lonely, impressionable young girl, and a couple of attractive young men primed to be attentive to the family to their boss?”
“Heidi’s not the crush type. If anything, she’s too serious. And she wasn’t interested in boys.”
“Mr. Basham. These were not boys.”
I didn’t think he got it, but I made one last effort. “Mr. Basham. Ted. Dr. Purcell, the psychologist you will meet later today, is suggesting that what Heidi may be suffering from is what you might call ‘emotional amnesia,’ the result of some traumatic or terrifying experience which has caused her to repress all memory of the event. I know my questions may seem vague or random, but what I’m looking for is anyone who might have caused such trauma in your daughter’s life.”
He looked at me curiously and said, “Emotional amnesia?”
“As opposed to the kind produced by a blow, an injury, or an accident.”
“Emotional amnesia. I like that.”
I looked longingly at the umbrella stand. That sturdy walking stick would make an excellent weapon. Sometimes I worry that my exposure to so much violence is making me a more violent person. Curbing the impulse, I stood. “I’ll take you back to Dr. Wilson now, and we can see if there’s any news about Heidi.”
His relief was all over his face. He ruffled the shaggy hair in what was clearly a practiced move. A boyish ‘forgive me, I’m just a lad who is very new at this’ gesture. “You’re disappointed in me,” he said.
That was an understatement.
Fourteen
Gareth had two men with him, detectives, I assumed, and a scared-looking boy. Probably one of Heidi’s friends who worked with her in the greenhouse.
As we entered, the two cops turned to stare, first at Basham, then at me, maybe wondering if I was Heidi’s mother.
The boy, his eyes fixed firmly on his clenched hands, was saying, “I don’t know where she’d go, honest, Dr. Wilson. She’s not from around here. She doesn’t know anyone except us other students. I just hope she’s okay.”
Clearly they hadn’t found her hiding under a bed or in a closet while I was off attempting to interview Ted Basham.
Gareth introduced us to the two cops, Sgt. Miller and Detective Flynn, and to the boy, Jaden Santoro, and explained to them who we were. We shook a round of hands and I took a chair.
Basham remained standing. “Thought I’d head back to your place, Gareth,” he said. “Take some weight off this leg for a while. You can call me if you need me. You know your own number, of course, and…” A flourish as he produced business cards and handed them around. ”…here’s my cell.”
Basham was manager for a pretty famous band. That explained the artsy look and the travel. Perhaps the bi-coastal addresses. And maybe the touch of narcissism, a minor infection from hanging around people who were always in the spotlight and professionally self-involved?
Miller told Basham to keep himself available, they’d want to speak with him later. Basham, flashing his charming smile, agreed. They made an appointment to speak in the early afternoon, then Basham crutched noisily away.
I wondered that they let him go so easily, but that was their business. I slid Basham into a file called ‘later’ and focused on the people in the room. I didn’t know what ground they’d already covered, so I figured I’d better sit on my hands and let them direct the conversation. Not my usual style, even with cops running the show.
“Thea,” Gareth said, “to catch you up. As you know, security has searched the campus. Now we’ve got local police out retracing their steps. So far, they’ve found no sign of Heidi, so we’re talking to people who know her. We’ve just started talking to Jaden. He’s a friend of Heidi’s who works with her in the greenhouse.”
“Jaden,” Sgt. Miller said, “can you think of anyone we should speak to who might have some idea where Heidi might go?”
The boy shook his head. He was a slight boy, with dark eyes and thick, mussed hair, and he looked scared to death. I sat on my hands for about twenty seconds, then, because I thought Miller was leaving important ground uncovered, I intervened with a question before the detective could dismiss the boy and move on to other friends.
“Have you spoken with Heidi since yesterday morning?” I asked.
The knotted hands tightened. The boy stared at me and I could see how badly he didn’t want to answer. “I know you’re worried about being disloyal to a friend, but under the circumstances, Heidi may not be making the best decisions right now. We need to find her so we can take care of her. So—did you talk with her?”
He nodded.
“When?”
“Last night.”
This was going to be like pulling teeth. I was surprised that neither of the cops had intervened yet, but it seemed they were willing to let me ask some questions. “What time last night, Jaden?”
“Nine.”
“Did she call you?”
A shrug, a clench of his hands, and then, “Yes.”
“On a cell phone?”
He shrugged, a nebulous gesture that I took for a “Yes.”
“What did you talk about?”
The boy looked at Gareth. “It was a private conversation, Dr. Wilson. Do I have to talk about it?”
“I hope you will, Jaden,” he said. “I suppose Heidi asked you not to tell anyone?”
The boy nodded.
“We’re not trying to get her in trouble. We’re trying to keep her out of trouble, and make sure she’s safe. You can help us with that.”
Jaden folded his arms. “This isn’t going to help. I don’t have any idea where she is,” he said.
He was the only one who believed he was telling the truth.
“But you did know that she was planning to leave the infirmary?” Gareth said.
Again, the boy didn’t answer, but we all knew that that was an affirmative.
“Do you know why she left?” I asked.
“She was afraid.” He gave the answer up reluctantly, like even that much information was a betrayal of Heidi’s trust.
Now Miller jumped in. “Who was she afraid of?”
“Not a who. At least, she didn’t mention any who. A what. What people would think of her. Do think of her. She…you’ve got to understand…” The boy was strangling the sleeve of a gray hoodie tied around his waist. “Heidi loves it here. She says that she hasn’t been happy in years. Her parents used to fight all the time when her dad was home, and then her dad would be gone and she’d be stuck there with her mother, who doesn’t like her. Then they got divorced and her mother married this awful man that Heidi hates. Coming to Simmons has really changed her life, and now they—”
He looked at Gareth. “I mean you. The school. You’re going to throw her out for being pregnant when she didn’t even know she was.”
He abused the gray sleeve a little more and studied his shoes. None of this was easy for him. It was true that students at Simmons were more used to speaking their minds and expressing opinions openly than at many schools, but Gareth was the headmaster, a major authority figure, and there were two intimidating cops in the room. Plus, at Jaden’s age, peers were most important. Peers and friends. He’d promised a friend he wouldn’t talk. Now we were pressuring him to break that promise.
“I know what some people are saying. That it’s not possible that she didn’t know,” Jaden said. “But I believe her.” He looked around at us and shook his head. “Heidi isn’t a liar. That’s not who she is. She loves that we’re honest with each other here. She says it’s the first time in her life when the people around her are honest. She says that there was no
one in California that she could trust, except her best friend Stephanie, who also went to boarding school, and her music teacher, and she only saw him an hour a week. Everyone lied to her and tried to use her for their own purposes. Her mom especially. But also her dad, even though he tries to get it right. She calls her dad Peter Pan. And her stepdad is just a creep.”
He hunched his shoulders, like he knew he wasn’t supposed to call a grown-up a creep, especially to other grown-ups. “That’s what she calls him. General Creep. She says he—”
Just as suddenly as his words had started pouring out, they stopped. He’d come to a confidence he wasn’t comfortable betraying.
“Look. I don’t know where she is. Honest. She wouldn’t tell me because she figured that you might want to talk to me, and she knew I wouldn’t lie.”
We could circle back to what he did know, and learn more about Heidi’s relationship with her stepfather. For now, there was other information to be gathered.
I was thinking like a cop again.
“She called you because she needed your help with the door, didn’t she?” I said, putting a guess into words. “Because she could trust you and you knew how to deal with that alarm.”
He nodded. “There are lots of things I’m not good at, like sports and stuff, but electronics?” He couldn’t resist a small grin. “Plants and electronics are my thing. That door was a cinch.” God. He was so young. It was just unfair for these kids to be caught up in something like this.
Miller was giving me a strange look. These should have been his questions. But he had the grace—or the good sense—not to interrupt. In my experience, that could be a rare quality in a cop.
“No one saw you visit Heidi.”
“Because I didn’t. I visited Paul. He’s a friend, too, and he needed some of his books so he wouldn’t get behind.”
Damn. The question we hadn’t asked and now needed to follow up on—who had been to visit the other students in the infirmary. “But you don’t know where Heidi went? Where she is?”
He twisted the sleeve and shook his head vigorously.
“Did she say anything that might have been a clue? You know that we…” I swept a hand to indicate Gareth and the cops, “are really worried about her safety. She doesn’t have a coat, and you know what it’s like out there. She’s just had a baby, and she should be watched over. And resting. There could be complications. You just said that she doesn’t know anyone around here. So where could she go?”
“I don’t know. Really. I don’t know. She said she’d be safe, but I don’t know what she meant.”
He looked ready to cry, so I moved on, checking with Miller before I asked my next question. “Who might know, Jaden? Who should we talk to?”
He gave three names. Her roommate Bella, Ronnie, another boy who worked in the greenhouse, and a girl named Tiverton.
Then I sprang my zinger. “Heidi was afraid of her stepfather, wasn’t she?”
He nodded.
“Did she tell you why?”
There was a long silence that neither Miller nor Flynn interrupted.
Finally, he said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this. It took her six months to tell me about it and we’re really good friends. We tell each other everything. I guess we’re kind of like family to each other. She doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, and neither do I. And you know, working together in the greenhouse, it’s really peaceful. Comfortable. Comforting, I guess. A safe place where we’re both happy. Away from our crazy families. Where it’s easy for us to talk.”
The sleeve died a death by strangulation, the ripping sound audible in the quiet room. “The General. He’s always accidentally walking in on her.” The boy’s hands made quote marks in the air. “In the bathroom. In her bedroom. When she’s dressing. When she’s in the shower. And her mother doesn’t believe that it happens, which makes Heidi feel helpless. But what if…you know…what if he did something to her? Something she can’t bring herself to talk about even to me?”
There were tears in his eyes.
I was still struggling to form a picture of Heidi, but this added something interesting—that she’d been able to create a pretty deep friendship and inspire loyalty in this boy. And added The General back on my suspect list. Heidi had been very specific that she didn’t want him here. Emphatic she didn’t want him to visit. Did he pose a threat to Heidi’s safety? And had he really gone back to California? That was something the cops could check.
He took a breath, ducked his head, and said, quickly, “I don’t know how this might help you, but when she heard he was coming here with her mother, she said she had to get away.”
Fifteen
Gareth walked Jaden out, leaving me alone with Miller and Flynn. As soon as they were out the door, Miller pounced. “So, who are you really? A P.I., right?”
This was not good. Cops are generally suspicious of P.I.s. “Consultant,” I said. “Really. I’m here to help the school deal with this. My specialty is campus crises. Sorry if I was too pushy. It’s just that I’ve spent a lot of time with students at other schools in situations where their information is critical. In cases where something bad happens and the school has to deal with all the implications of that.”
I gave it a beat, then said, “I guess you guys have, too.”
“Right,” Miller said. He had a slightly rumpled look and a comfortable face. He seemed like someone you could talk to. Like the best interviewers, his manner invited confidences. Bad guys often gave those confidences, to their sorrow. But I was not a bad guy. Or bad gal. And I hoped they, and I, could work together on this.
Flynn stayed in the background, which surprised me. But maybe they were a team. Miller the front man and Flynn the observer. Or maybe Flynn brought different skills to the table. Muscle, for example. He was built like a weight-lifter, with a jacket that must have come from the kind of specialty tailor that fitted a chest and arms of that size. There wasn’t anything off the rack that would work unless he bought a 48 and had it tailored down to fit his waist. He looked kinda like my guy, only on steroids.
Then Miller surprised me again. “So what do you think? The girl was assaulted by her stepfather and couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone?”
Or tried to tell her mother and was totally shut down. It was definitely a possibility. I was already thinking DNA—whether there might be something at the inn that still had Norris’s DNA on it. It was worth checking out. A quick answer to our question, and an idea I’d share with these officers.
But I wasn’t ready for quick answers yet. “Her father had a list of potential suspects as well. Not including Norris. He was pretty quick to name names, but more reluctant about details.” I gave them the names. “You should ask him about them.”
Flynn wrote them down.
I thought that while all of this was important, what was of greater importance was finding Heidi. If Jaden was right, and she didn’t know anyone except people here on campus, where had she gone? Had she called someone for help? Could we get access to her phone records? Might there be a friend here whose family might take her in? There were day students as well as boarders here, so one of them might have offered shelter. Was it possible her friend Stephanie was in or near Boston and Heidi had gone to her?
When Gareth returned, he had a young uniformed officer with him. The man conferred briefly with Miller and Flynn and left again.
I felt the passage of time, and concern for Heidi’s absence, like a physical weight. Despite the time that had passed, there was still no sign of Mrs. Norris. Maybe she had gotten on a plane with her husband after all. It would be the ultimate statement about her lack of concern for her daughter. Or, perhaps, an acknowledgment of choosing her husband over her daughter regardless of what he might have done. Or because she knew what he had done.
I was angry on Heidi’s behalf, and stepped on that anger because it was unproductive.
Miller consulted his notes and asked if Gareth could arrange for them to see Heid
i’s roommate, Bella, and then Heidi’s other friend from the greenhouses, Ronnie, and the girl named Tiverton. While Gareth was phoning to set that up, I asked Miller if he minded if I stayed for the interview.
“You’ve got to stay,” he said. “You’re our secret weapon.”
Responding to my quizzical look, he said, “What’s more threatening? A pretty young woman or a worn-out old cop? Or Brian here, looking like if they don’t give it up, he’ll beat it out of ’em?”
Flynn smiled at that, and suddenly looked far less threatening.
“I guess we all have our strengths,” I said.
While we waited for Heidi’s roommate to arrive, I excused myself and stepped out to check my messages. Unsurprisingly, no one from my family had called, so I called the hospital and asked for the nursing desk on his floor. Someone answered and assured me he was on track to be released later in the morning. Relieved, I called Andre.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“I’ve barely been to sleep.”
“What’s happening?”
“It’s a great big mess. Our girl slipped away in the night and now there’s no sign of her anywhere. The mother and stepfather headed off the airport very early this morning, planning to fly back to California. We’ve tried to catch mom and get her back to help us deal with her missing daughter. She said she was coming but hasn’t appeared.”
I sighed and he made a comforting sound. “We’re just starting to talk to people who might be able to help us find Heidi. And of course the police are involved. Right here. Right now.”
I heard him take a breath as he started to process what I’d said and run possible scenarios. “Sure she didn’t go with her mother?”
“Not sure of anything, but she doesn’t get along with her mother and, according to a friend she confided in, is genuinely scared of her stepfather. But the mom’s still AWOL, so we don’t know.”