“I got a text from Ferguson. He has meetings set up with the remaining day care teacher and the cook today.”
“Make sure he asks about their relationship with Kara Wiese. Do they like her, trust her, et cetera?”
Rena nodded and picked up her phone. Once she was done, she put her phone away. “If Emma knew who took her, maybe it wasn’t her parents or her grandmother but a family friend. Or maybe the parents of one of her little friends, somebody she trusts.”
“All possibilities.” He didn’t sound discouraged.
She understood. There was still hope. “I’m going to need to eat some lunch pretty soon.” She picked up her phone. Punched a few keys. “There’s a little diner two blocks from here.”
“Good enough,” A.L. said.
The BLT was better than he expected and the French fries were so hot he burned his tongue. Rena had ordered some kind of salad and a cup of soup. They were getting some interest from the locals who were sitting at the counter. Strangers in a small town got noticed. It was the nice thing about small towns. The bad part was you had to drive twenty miles to buy toilet paper and paper towels.
And schools in small towns had taken a hit. Many small districts had consolidated into larger, trying to stay afloat.
Thankfully, not in Baywood. They appeared to have a solid balance sheet and had maintained a reputation for excellence. And when Traci had taken her ACT, albeit for the second time, her score had shown that. She could go most anywhere her little heart desired. And he was determined to figure out a way to pay for it. But the last time he’d talked to her about it, she’d been indecisive. Maybe UW in Madison. Maybe Marquette in Milwaukee. Maybe University of San Diego. He’d shaken his head at that. He wanted her to spread her wings but she needed to do that in the Midwest. And since he’d be writing a big check, his vote counted.
“Don’t screw around too long,” he’d warned her.
Were the Whitmans ever going to get to have the same conversation with Emma? Were they going to get to see her roll her eyes and toss her hair but then be the lucky recipients of a kiss on the cheek before she flounced out of the room?
He pushed his half-eaten sandwich to the side, no longer hungry.
Or was the sunlight going to be ripped out of their lives forever?
Seven
He parked in a visitor spot to the left of the front door of the Dover Police Department. Once inside, it was just minutes before he and Rena were settled in a small room with a table and four chairs. Sometimes they split a file to get through it more quickly. This time, they sat side by side, looking at each piece of information together. Before they could flip the first page, A.L.’s cell phone pinged. He looked at the text, then at Rena.
“Doug Franklin got ahold of the Antlers. They can see us at four at their house.” A.L. checked his watch. “We’ve got two hours to get through this.”
“Do we have an address?” Rena asked.
“Yep,” A.L. said, flipping the first page. For the next ninety-plus minutes, they relived the journey taken by Doug Franklin and others. It was sobering. Could easily see the increasing frustration by officers as the days wore on. Case notes were shorter, almost terse.
Cops were human. They got pissed off, too. Couldn’t show it but sometimes it bled through on the pages.
“I’m getting the impression that Doug Franklin really didn’t like Rosemary Bracken,” Rena said thoughtfully. “Can’t say that I blame him.”
“He’s got a missing kid and she can’t even be bothered to answer the door when he knows that she’s inside the damn house. He’s more restrained than me,” A.L. admitted.
“You’d have broken down the damn door.”
“Maybe,” A.L. admitted. “Multiple discussions with Trapper Frogg. He seems like a bit of an ass.”
“Yeah. Smart answer for everything.” Rena pointed to a line. “Here’s where Doug asks him about his son. Oh my. Coyote. His son is named Coyote.”
“Franklin did say it was odd. But Christ, with a last name of Frogg, don’t you think the parents could have gone with Mike or Jim? The kid was going to have to endure enough.”
“Appears that he was nineteen, living at home, working a part-time job at a burger joint. Not much else here.”
They flipped through the remaining pages and finally he closed the file. “I got the day care director’s name. Brenda Owen. We’re going to need to see if she’s still around.”
Rena picked up her phone. In a couple clicks, she showed A.L. an address. “I’ll bet this is her. We’ve got time to drive by her house. See if she’s home.”
“Let’s do it.” A.L. sighed. “I didn’t see any obvious misses.”
“Me, either,” Rena said. She sat back in her chair and stretched her neck. Then leaned forward, her forearms on the table. “Do you think it’s possible that someone was so successful in their first attempt to grab a child that ten years later, they come back and replicate the crime?”
“I don’t know. But we’re going to ask for some assistance from the state. I want to see every abduction or attempted abduction involving a day care center in the entire country for the last twenty years.”
“Probably a good idea,” Rena said. “Like Doug Franklin said. A missing kid. You do everything and then one more thing.”
“In that vein, let’s get going. We’ll try Brenda Owen’s house. That should be fairly fast. And then head over to the Antlers’. It would be good to get back to Baywood then, because I think we ought to talk to Elaine Broadstreet again tonight.”
* * *
Brenda Owen lived less than ten minutes away from the police station. On the way, they passed through the heart of Dover, which wasn’t much. The downtown was a three-block-long Main Street. A.L. counted five bars.
But Brenda’s house, which was two blocks off Main, was on a sweet little tree-lined street with lots of story-and-a-half Cape Cods. They found her address and knocked. A woman, early sixties, answered the door.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” Rena said. “Are you Brenda Owen?”
“Yes.”
“The Brenda Owen who was a director of a childcare center here in Dover about ten years ago?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Morgan and this is Detective McKittridge.” They held out badges. “Can we have a minute of your time?”
The woman looked over their shoulder, as if to verify that they’d arrived in a cop car. She was going to be disappointed. A.L.’s SUV didn’t look special. Although Rena knew from personal experience that it ran pretty damn smoothly at over a hundred miles per hour.