Eye for an Eye (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  “Not a thing. Certainly no bears.”

  “Okay,” I said again. Then I gave him my cell number and my office number and told him to call me if anything came up. “If Day shows up, let me know.”

  He pointed out that they didn’t do surveillance. But then he said that if he found himself out that way, and if he noticed anything, he’d let me know.

  I had the strong impression that he, or one of his colleagues, would find themselves out that way, and soon. The mention of missing kids and bears had sealed the deal.

  So I thanked him and headed back to the office. I wasn’t worried about bears, but I was worried about wasting resources on a wild goose chase. My gut told me this wasn’t nothing. But better safe than sorry. Especially when it would be my ass on the line, explaining it to the boss.

  Which I did, right away. I liked my boss, as bosses went. He was a smart guy with good instincts and a reasonable management style.

  He listened without interrupting. Then he asked, “So what do you want to do about it?”

  “I want to treat them as missing persons.”

  He considered for a long moment. “Describe the campsite again.”

  “I can do better than that, sir,” I said. “I took pictures.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Show me.”

  So I did. I pointed out the food on the plates, and the hotdogs in the grill. I pointed out the plate on the ground, where someone had left it. Maybe since dinner the night before, or even lunch. I didn’t bother to point out the vehicle and the bikes. Those spoke for themselves.

  “And you’ve tried calling him?”

  “Multiple times. Left a message too.”

  “Okay. Then I concur. Treat it as a missing persons case. Start with Tesch. Find out where he’s at. As far as we can tell, he’s got the most motive, right?”

  I nodded. “Yes sir. And, I’d like to contact the kids’ mother. She’s on vacation somewhere. I think Lori said Disney World, or Land. The Florida one.”

  “Disney World,” he said.

  “Right. I’d like to talk to her. Just to check the story.”

  “Rule out familial abduction,” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  He nodded. “Good idea. You think it’s a possibility here?”

  “Anything’s a possibility, I guess.”

  “But you think it’s likely?”

  I thought long and hard. I thought about the interactions between Day and the girl and the boy. The boy had been sullen the first time I met him, but the resentment didn’t seem aimed at his uncle. The girl seemed happy. “I don’t,” I said. “But I want to rule it out either way.”

  He nodded again. “Okay. Then you better get started.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Deputy Austin Wagner, 12:10 PM

  The boss assigned me Jansen, one of the newer hires. I sent him to the park, to do what I’d done earlier, but right – take pictures, look for evidence, canvass the place, and tell me the instant someone or something showed up.

  Meanwhile, I focused on the office work. Because that, I thought, was where we were going to get our real lead. Unless this was some kind of colossal overreaction on my part, we wouldn’t pick up Day’s trail in the park.

  I had the mother, Megan Welch’s, number on file. Day had given me that, and the kids had confirmed it to Lori. I called and reached a voicemail box.

  “Hi, this is Megan Welch, please leave a message.”

  Which all checked out. The right name, and the right kind of voice, on the right phone line.

  Then again, anyone with a woman’s voice could record a message claiming to be Megan Welch. Anyone could buy a burner phone, and set up the voicemail box. Maybe Day had an accomplice, a woman who was in on the scheme – a girlfriend, or a mother, or something like that.

  I didn’t think so, but anything was possible. You didn’t spend time in law enforcement without learning not to discount the unlikely.

  So I left a message. “Mrs. Welch, this is Deputy Austin Wagner, with the Sheboygan County sheriff’s department, in Wisconsin. If you could please return my call at your earliest possible convenience, I would appreciate it.” I left my number and hung up.

  Cryptic, maybe. But there was no good way to tell a parent hey, your kids may have vanished, and I want to make sure their caretaker didn’t kidnap them. No good way at all. So better cryptic than leaving that in a message.

  Then, I started in on three separate lines of inquiry, all of them branching off the main problem like the tines of a trident. The way I figured it, there were three possible roads to Owen Day.

  First, through the mother, Megan Welch.

  Then, through the likely perpetrator, Mike Tesch.

  And finally via Owen himself, and his cellphone.

  So I pinged Lori and briefed her on the situation. “Can you do some digging on the mother? Look for alternative contact info, other family, whatever you can find. I think they mentioned the dad was dead but verify it if you can.”

  Then, I brought up Wisconsin’s law enforcement databases, and put in Tesch’s name, and the names of all of his friends – all the ones we’d arrested, and the ones the rangers had evicted. I did an or search, meaning I wanted results on any or all of them, anything from driving infractions to arrests anywhere else in the state.

  I put in Ashley’s name too, just in case. It wouldn’t be the first time an abusive husband strongarmed a wife into complicity in crimes. It wouldn’t be the last.

  I got a hit almost immediately. Aaron Tesch had been pulled over for doing ninety in a seventy zone, a day ago. It had happened around two in the afternoon yesterday, about sixty miles from Sheboygan.

  I pulled up the ticket details. The trooper who had issued the citation noted nothing unusual, beyond the obvious anyway. He’d pulled the guy over at three past the hour, flying past other cars on the expressway. The entire interaction had taken just under ten minutes.

  Which meant – what, exactly?

  Could Tesch have got sixty miles out of Sheboygan by two in the afternoon, if he’d kidnapped or interfered with Day and the kids?

  Yes, probably. It would mean the hotdogs had been intended for lunch, not dinner. But that would give him half an hour to an hour to handle Day before he had to be on the road again.

  Half an hour…to do what? Killing him would be the simplest solution, for maximum revenge and minimal difficulty. A hell of an overreaction to the situation, of course. But guys who slapped their wives around in front of their kids weren’t exactly known for being reasonable or levelheaded.

  That could explain the speeding, too, if he’d been racing away from a crime scene. Better to get out of state sooner than later. That’s the way he’d figure it, anyway.

  So I copied out the trooper’s name and found his contact information. I rang him, and left the same kind of message I’d left Megan Welch, with a few more specifics this time. I told him I was looking into someone he stopped yesterday in relation to a possible three-person disappearance. Then I asked him to return my call at his earliest convenience, and left my number, just like I had with the mother.

  Then I started work on the third tine of the trident: the cellphone. I knew Day used a cellphone, and I knew which telephone company owned the local towers. I knew, because I had an in with that company.

  Her name was Jade Waters. My girlfriend, Jade Waters. Or, ex-girlfriend now, maybe. I didn’t know. Were we taking a break, a time-out? Or were we done?

  I didn’t know.

  But I needed to know if Owen Day’s phone had pinged off of any cell towers in the area. And I knew the fastest way to get that information wouldn’t be to call the main number, and play phone tag with a supervisor, who would play phone tag with another supervisor, who would eventually bubble my request up to the right department.

  It was to call Jade Waters and ask her directly.

  I hesitated, my finger hovering over the buttons.

  Owen Day, and Maisie and Daniel Welch were
missing. I’d have laid money on it. I needed that information.

  But Jade had told me not to contact her.

  I went back and forth with it in my head for thirty-odd seconds. Then, I started to dial. Jade had told me not to call her. That was true. But I wasn’t calling her. I was calling the phone company, and the specialist I needed.

  She was a professional. I was a professional. A guy and two kids’ lives might be on the line. Whatever our personal shit, it didn’t come into this.

  “Wagner?” someone asked behind me. Lori was hovering behind my desk, a printout in her hands.

  I damned near jumped out of my skin at the sound of her voice. Maybe I was a little too tightly wound at the prospect of talking to Jade. Maybe that particular call could wait. I set the handset back in the cradle. “Jesus, Lori. You can’t be sneaking up on people like that. Some of us are only functioning on half an hour of sleep here.”

  She shook her head at me. “Just apologize, man.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever you did, apologize to her. So she comes back, and you start sleeping again.”

  I pretended not to know what she meant. But I was pretty sure I flushed to my ears. “Apologize? To who?”

  She rolled her eyes and set the printout on my desk. “That information you needed? I got it. That’s the mother’s number, alright.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah. You called her yet?”

  “Yeah. I left a message. Nothing yet.”

  “She’s got both parents and a brother. Might want to try them.”

  “The numbers–”

  “All on the paper.”

  “Thanks, Lori.”

  She waved me off and headed back to her own desk. I picked up the paper and read through it. She had accumulated a brief chronological history: dates of birth and marriage, the dates of birth of both kids, and so on.

  She had a note that Megan’s husband, Andrew Welch, had died a year prior, part of a serial killing spree that had claimed a number of victims at the time.

  She also noted it wasn’t the first tragedy in the family history. Andrew was Owen Day’s half-brother: same mother, different fathers. All dead – Owen’s father, by his own hand, ergo the second marriage to Andrew’s father. Both Mr. and Mrs. Welch died a few years later in a car accident, leaving both boys orphaned.

  Not a happy history. Lots of trauma and probably PTSD there. Maybe the kind of thing that might play a role in a beloved uncle snapping or going crazy, especially when you factor in that he’d just seen another body. Maybe Callaghan’s corpse lying in the road had brought up decades worth of suppressed trauma.

  Maybe it had triggered some kind of fight or flight feeling, like he had to do whatever it took to keep the kids safe. It had happened before. So-called mercy killings and familial kidnappings were sometimes borne of a twisted desire to protect loved ones.

  Not that I thought that applied here. Not after meeting Day. He didn’t seem like the type.

  But, then again, plenty of murder-suicide killers hadn’t either. Plenty of kidnappers who disappeared with people seemed normal. Plenty of kooks who ran off to cabins in the woods, or to underground bunkers or to parts unknown, completely off the grid, had seemed just fine.

  People always said that, didn’t they? He was the nicest guy. He’d give you the shirt off his back. I never would have guessed it.

  People always said that. Maybe I’d be one of them. I never would have guessed it.

  I called the first number on the list, an out of state landline. It rang three times, and then a woman’s voice answered. She sounded older, like maybe she was in her fifties or sixties somewhere. At first, I thought I’d reached an actual person.

  But it was just the answering machine. “Hello, you’ve reached the Rathe’s. We can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.”

  I tried the next number on the list: a cellphone, belonging to the brother, one Jason Rathe. It rang four times, and another woman’s voice answered. This time, it wasn’t voicemail. She sounded way too stoned for that.

  “Hello? Jason’s phone, Mandy speaking.”

  “Ma’am? This is Deputy Austin Wagner, with the Sheboygan Sheriff’s Department. Is Jason available?”

  I heard silence for a beat. Then the phone went dead.

  I frowned. Maybe we had a bad connection. Or maybe she’d hung up on me. I had no idea why. Even if the guy had local warrants, the Sheboygan sheriff’s department wasn’t interested. Probably a bad line, I decided.

  I hit redial. The phone rang once, then twice, and again. A man answered before the fourth ring. He sounded stoned too. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Rathe?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Are you Jason Rathe?”

  “I think you might have the wrong number.”

  “This is Deputy Austin Wagner, with the Sheboygan Sheriff’s Department.” Then, just to be safe, I added, “In Wisconsin.”

  “Wisconsin?” he said, slowly, like he was trying to comprehend. “That’s where Owen went, isn’t it?”

  The last question, I assumed, was for Mandy. I said, “Actually, it’s Mr. Day I’m calling about.”

  “Owen?” A new clarity entered his voice. “What’s wrong? Is he okay? Are the kids okay?”

  He was quick on the uptake, anyway. There wouldn’t be many reasons why a deputy from out of state would be calling about your former brother-in-law. None of them would be good. “We have reason to suspect he’s missing.”

  “Missing? What do you mean, missing?”

  “He’s not at his campsite, and we can’t reach him by phone.”

  “The kids?”

  “They’re gone too.”

  “Well, maybe they went somewhere.”

  “Their vehicle is at their campsite. So are their bicycles.”

  “Shit,” he said. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know yet. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “Well, why are you calling me? I mean, I’ll help if I can. But I’m not even in the state.”

  “We were trying to reach Mrs. Welch, actually. But she didn’t answer her phone.”

  “She’s at Disney World,” he said, a hint of irritation in his tone. “Goddammit, I told her this was a mistake.”

  My ears perked up. “What was?”

  “Leaving Maisie and Daniel.”

  “With Mr. Day, you mean?”

  He paused, like the question confused him. “With Owen? No. Leaving them at all.”

  “Why did she?” I asked.

  He scoffed. “Well, I guess that depends who you ask.”

  “I’m asking you,” I said, evenly, like I wanted to know, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he said nothing.

  He hesitated for a long moment. “You have no idea where they are?”

  “None at all. I was at their site. There’s clear evidence of habitation. Hotdogs on the grill, chips on the plate. But no one there.”

  “Shit,” he said again.

  “Why did she leave them?” I prompted.

  “Because she’s in love, detective.”

  “Deputy.”

  He ignored me. “And apparently, Dan and Mais are in the way now. In the way of happily ever after, or whatever bullshit. Although, maybe not anymore. I guess she’ll be happy with that. Goddammit.”

  I didn’t get much more out of him than that. He was angry with his sister – livid. He had plenty to say about her parenting, or lack thereof. He had plenty to say about the new love of her life, a Michael someone or other.

  None of it was good.

  But when it came to Owen Day, the tables turned. Owen was a good guy, he said. “He can get a stick up his ass sometimes, but don’t let that fool you.”

  As long as Owen was alive, he said, the kids would be alright. “He’d take a bullet for them. I know that.”

  But as to anything more, he could offer nothing. He didn’t know Michael’s number. Megan didn’t hav
e an alternative. If she had a room number, he didn’t know it. “You can try mom. She might know. They talk more than we do.”

  “Can you call her?” I asked. “Your sister, I mean. She might pick up a number she recognizes sooner than one she doesn’t.”

  He laughed, as if I was joking. Then, he sobered up. “Oh. Yeah, I mean, I can try. But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting is all.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I said. “Avoid details, please. I’ll tell her what we found. Just give her my number.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Detective?”

  “Deputy.”

  “Find Owen. Find the kids.”

  “We’re going to try our best, Mr. Rathe.”

  “Okay.”

  I gave him my cell number, and my desk number, which forwarded to my cell when I didn’t pick up. Then, I clicked off.

  Then, I decided I’d text Megan Welch. I sent her the same kind of thing I’d left as a voice message: direct, but unspecific.

  Not my first choice for communication in the circumstance, and not any kind of guarantee. If she’d turned her notifications off, or left her cellphone in the hotel room, or turned on the do not disturb mode, she wouldn’t see it any sooner than when she got my voicemail.

  But it didn’t hurt to try.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We went back and forth on what to bring to the attic, and when to bring it. I figured we’d be better off preparing early so Cody and I could get in position, ready to act the instant we heard steps on the stairs.

  Paige didn’t want to get ready any earlier than necessary. “I don’t want to be up in a dusty attic for hours.”

  The kids didn’t want to be with Paige. They wanted to help, and, failing that, they wanted to stick with me.

  Cody didn’t know what he wanted. When I suggested getting ready, he agreed. When Paige said it was too early, he agreed.

  In the end, baby Avery made the call, because he started to fuss and cry.

  “We’ve got to get him back to our room,” Cody said. “So they don’t wonder why he’s making noise in other parts of the house.”