“Wanted to feel important?” Rena said, sliding in to the passenger side.
“My money is on the kid, that he saw them. And we got Mr. Gibacki putting them near the day care the night before Emma disappears. That’s enough that they stay on the radar screen.”
“We didn’t talk to everybody. There were a total of five doors that didn’t get answered,” Rena said.
“I made a note. I’ll follow up with the landlord tomorrow to see if the apartments are rented. We can come back.”
“It’s getting late,” Rena said. “Too late to be questioning more people.”
“You’re right.” A.L. stifled a yawn. Fucking weird day. He’d had breakfast this morning with Tess in an open-air restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It had been a real nice way to start the day. Now he was ending it on a low note. A missing five-year-old.
Adults were supposed to make sure that things like this didn’t happen to kids.
“Go home. Get some sleep,” he said.
“You’re not going home,” Rena accused.
He shrugged. “I may see where they’re at with the search.”
Rena sighed. “I’ll go with you.”
Five
A.L. felt as if somebody had rubbed sandpaper across his eyes. At midnight, all non-law-enforcement volunteers had been sent home. He and Rena had stayed on, ultimately covering miles before it had started to rain about three and the search had been suspended. A.L. had hit his bed around three thirty and his alarm had rung at six. A hot shower and a bucket of coffee later, he was now upright and going over his notes from the previous day. Rena was at her desk, on her phone. Her voice was low and she was turned in her chair, likely in an effort to have a little privacy in a shared office space where there was no real hope for that.
When she hung up, he watched her face. Her jaw was tight and her face flushed with color. He didn’t ask. If she wanted to tell him, she would.
“Coffee?” he asked, holding up his cup.
She shook her head. Looked at the watch on her wrist. “Search team has been out for fifteen minutes.”
Yeah, pretty much once there was adequate daylight. “Almost twenty-four hours,” he said. Way too damn long for a five-year-old to be unaccounted for.
Now Rena was staring at her computer screen. “Confirmation that houses and vehicles of Kara Wiese, Troy and Leah Whitman, and Elaine Broadstreet have been searched. Also, the supervisor of Sam Wiese, Kara’s husband, has verified that he was at work as expected.”
“And there was no five-year-old hidden in his employee locker?”
Rena rolled her eyes. “I guess not. Is that where your head is going? That Kara Wiese is the one who is lying?”
“As opposed to the grandmother? Hell, I don’t know,” A.L. said. “We need to talk with the other teachers.” Alice might have talked with all of them the day before but now they would have to wade deeper.
“I think we should start with Claire Potter,” Rena said. “She’s in the same room as Kara Wiese.” Rena looked at her watch. “It’s pretty early. Maybe we should wait a little while.”
“Not waiting. Who’s the other teacher?”
“Tanya Knight. And the cook, Benita Garza.”
“Okay. I saw Ferguson on my way in. Faster pulled him off the scene. The FBI said they could handle it. So he’s an available resource if we need him. I’d say we see if he can do those two interviews this morning. After we talk to Claire Potter, I want to go see Milo at Milo’s Motors.”
“To verify that Elaine Broadstreet was at work yesterday?” Rena asked.
“Yeah. I know Milo. Not well but he bowls with my dad and my uncle. He’s a good guy and I always got the impression that he ran a pretty good operation. I guess I want his read on whether Elaine could be wrong about something important. In the middle of the night, I remembered the comment Leah made about her mother repeating herself. I guess now I’m wondering if that’s an irritating habit that she’s had her whole life or maybe the woman’s age is catching up to her.”
“She didn’t repeat herself when I talked with her. She seemed pretty with it, considering she’d just heard that her granddaughter was missing. I didn’t get the impression that she’s senile.”
“I guess that’s what we need to ask Milo about.”
“Leah and her mom don’t seem all that close,” Rena said.
“Not everybody is the Morgans.” Rena’s husband’s family was downright clingy in his opinion.
A.L.’s computer dinged. He looked at it. Studied the screen. Motioned for Rena to come have a look. Once she was behind his chair, he pointed to the information that had gotten his attention. “I ordered criminal background checks on Alice Quest, the four teachers, the cook, Troy and Leah Whitman, and Elaine Broadstreet. They all came back clean except this one.”
“Elaine Broadstreet,” Rena read. “Felony possession of a controlled substance and child endangerment. Ninety days of jail and two years’ probation.” She kept reading. “It was almost twenty-five years ago,” she said. She picked up a pad of paper on A.L.’s desk and scribbled down the case file number. “I’ll get somebody to pull this.” She took two steps. Turned. “Does this surprise you?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Might explain the disconnect between Leah and her mom.”
“Yeah. That’s kind of sad. Seems like a time when they really need to be there for one another. It makes me crazy to think that...something like this can happen so fast. That a child could be...lost...just like that.”
“All kinds of dangers in the world,” he said, “but most of the time, we’re able to keep our kids safe. You’ll be able to do that.” Last she’d shared, they’d identified a carrier. Gabe’s sperm, Rena’s eggs. Fertilized in a petri dish and implanted in another woman’s body for a hefty fee.
“I’m not crazy about Shannon. She’s the one. That’s what I was talking to Gabe about earlier.”
“Then why did you pick her?” A.L. asked.
“Gabe knows her. She used to work at the same company but left a couple years ago to have her own kid.”
“But?” A.L. said.
“I don’t like her home life. She’s married to a loser. He’s done time in County for drug offenses. I’m not sure he has a regular job. Probably why she’s willing to do this. She needs the money.”
“But she’s not using?” A.L. said.