“A number of possibilities. Unfortunately, things aren’t always neatly wrapped up, especially when so much time has passed.”
“Okay.” Wanda took a breath in and let it out. “May I ask why you’re here? I told the police everything I know when it happened.”
“The disappearance occurred ten years ago, Mrs. Velasquez. Police officers come and go. Memories fade. Detective McAdams and I are new to this case and we want to look at it with fresh eyes. Which means starting at the beginning.”
“I don’t know what I can tell you.” A pause. “I suppose I should be happy that someone is doing something after all these years.”
“Now that we have Zeke’s remains, we can reevaluate,” Decker said. “I’d like to talk about that weekend. Did you know that Maxwell was going camping?”
“I knew he was going away for the weekend. He called and told me, but he didn’t tell me where. I had no idea he was going camping.”
“Was he a big camper?”
“I don’t think he’d ever gone camping in his life. No one was as shocked as I was to find out that the boys were lost in the woods. We looked for them for days. I didn’t sleep for months afterward, years actually.”
“Where did you think he might be going if he didn’t say he was camping?”
“Boston maybe. It was close by. He said they were still making plans. Camping was so unlike him. Max was a studious boy. The other two—Zeke and Bennett—they must have talked him into it.”
“Why would they do that?” McAdams asked.
“I don’t know, Detective.”
Decker said, “Did Max have something specific to offer them on the trip?”
“Like what?”
“Did he offer to buy the food or bring the equipment?”
“What equipment? He wouldn’t have equipment. He’d never been camping!” She had turned angry. “All I know is Maxwell wouldn’t have done this without some prodding. I didn’t know Zeke at all. But I knew Bennett. He was a troublemaker.”
No one spoke for a moment. Decker then said, “How so?”
“He was always talking Maxwell into doing things he didn’t want to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like camping, for instance.”
McAdams said, “Why would he talk Max into a camping excursion?”
“He just would.”
“Okay, let me rephrase the questions,” Decker said. “What benefit would Bennett get out of having Maxwell along on a camping trip?”
“Bennett took advantage of Max every opportunity he could. I told Maxwell to stop hanging out with him.”
“How did he take advantage of him?”
“For one thing, he was always borrowing money from him. I told Maxwell that it had to stop. I wasn’t supporting Bennett through college. I was supporting him!”
“Did it stop?”
“They weren’t around long enough for me to know.” Wanda’s lip trembled. “I suppose it is possible that Max paid for the camping equipment—for Bennett. Another so-called loan!”
“I understand that Max and Bennett knew each other prior to college. That they went to high school together.”
“They were in the same high school but weren’t friends. We did socialize with the McCraes a few times. Henry and Barney worked in the same hospital. Barney was a hospital administrator. They moved out of New York as well, you know.”
“Saint Louis,” McAdams said.
“Yes.”
“Are you still in contact with them?”
“No.” She looked down. “The way I saw it, the boys never seemed to hit it off. Bennett was outgoing. Maxwell was reserved. They knew each other, but there wasn’t much of a connection.”
“Do you think it’s possible that Bennett did something harmful to Max?”
“I don’t know!” She threw up her hands. “All I’m saying is that if something bad happened, Bennett was at the forefront.”
Decker digested her words.
If something bad happened.
Something bad definitely did happen.
She seemed to realize what she was saying. “I mean, I know that Maxwell is probably gone.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I guess Bennett is a convenient scapegoat. He’s probably gone too.” Wet trails were falling down her cheeks. “Maxwell didn’t have a lot of friends. He was different. What you’d call today on the spectrum. But he was a good, solid boy.” She wiped her eyes with her index finger. “He just wanted to fit in . . . to be liked.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Decker said.
“Not at all.” Wanda stood up. “Excuse me.”
She left the room, and they could hear her weeping. There was nothing to do but wait her out. She came back about five minutes later and sat back in her wing chair and dabbed her eyes. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Decker assured her.
“I’ve tried to move on.” Her voice clogged up. She pointed to a picture of the young woman with two little girls. “They’re my reasons for everything, I guess.”
“Is your daughter older or younger than Maxwell?”
“Older by three years. Arianna was the golden child. Good student, good athlete, good social skills. When Maxwell came along, we were both thrilled to have our boy and our girl. It was pretty clear early on that he was a different kind of child.”
“Can I ask what he was like as a child?” Decker asked.
Wanda looked upward. “He had a great attention span. He could stick with a task for hours. But it also made him temperamental. If we needed to go somewhere and he was engaged in something, it was hard for him to stop and to change directions. He was a slowpoke. Getting him ready for school was a chore. Getting him to bed was a chore. He seemed unable to refocus on what needed to be done. In school he had similar issues. You know how it is. When math is done, you put away the book and take out the English folder. He had a hard time going from subject to subject. We put him in a private school where he could move at his own pace, but even a freer school has some schedule. The thing that saved him was that he was very bright.”
“Duxbury is a very competitive school. He must have been very intelligent,” McAdams said.
“He had a very high IQ.”
“Then college must have been better suited to his needs.”
“In some ways, yes. His professors really appreciated his intelligence. But socially, he didn’t seem to do much better.” She was quiet for a moment. “I hated that Bennett took advantage of him. But—if I’m totally honest with myself—at least he was including Maxwell in some capacity, even if it was for his own benefit. Which is why when Maxwell said he was going away for the weekend with Bennett and Zeke, I was actually glad that he was doing something social.”
Decker said, “Did you know Zeke Anderson well?”
“No. I met the Andersons when we went to Duxbury to search for the boys.” Her face darkened. “It was a hellish, horrendous, nightmarish week. Of course, the three of us—the three sets of parents—never stopped looking even after the police gave up.”