“I was there once,” Patsy said, correcting her husband. “Maybe seven or eight years ago. For a bridal shower for my younger sister. Her college roommate was hosting.”
“What’s your sister’s name?” A.L. said, pulling out his notebook.
“Toni Krider. She lives in Denver now.”
“And the person who hosted?” A.L. said.
“Uh...” Patsy stopped. “I guess I don’t remember her name. She was a bridesmaid, dark hair, very pretty. I think they were roommates in college.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “So much of those first few years after are really a blur.” She paused. “Like you’re living but not really living.”
Going through the fucking motions of life. “I understand,” A.L. said.
“I could ask my sister,” Patsy said.
Rena handed her a business card. It was a long shot but any information was better than no information. “That would be great. Either my office or my cell is fine,” she said.
“I wish we could be more helpful,” Patsy said. Sincerity rang in her tone. “I hate to think of another family going through...well, going through what we went through.”
Hell, A.L. thought. They’d been to hell and back. A.L. closed his small notebook and put it in his pocket.
Rena stood up. “We’re just grateful for your time. We’ll be going—”
“Do the Whitmans have other children?” Greg asked, interrupting Rena.
“No, sir. They don’t,” A.L. answered.
“I can’t imagine,” Patsy said, looking at her husband.
“It was the only thing that saved us,” he said, blinking his eyes fast. “We had to keep going because we had two other children who needed us. We did the best we could but I suspect our sons would tell you that there were some rough years. The grief just...consumes a person. It’s hard to imagine ever finding joy again.”
“You do,” his wife said, her hand on his arm. “Eventually. But...” Her voice trailed off. She stood up and started walking for the door. She evidently didn’t intend to finish her sentence.
She didn’t need to. A.L. knew. Eventually. But not really.
* * *
Rena let out a loud breath once they were in their vehicle. “That was excruciating. Even now, ten years later, their pain is palpable.”
“It was pretty goddamn bad,” A.L. agreed. His throat felt closed up and he had a monster of a headache behind one eye. Corrine Antler would be fifteen, just a few years shy of Traci. If that had been him and Jacqui instead? Hell. He might have just put a bullet through his brain. “We keep asking questions,” he said. “Until we figure out what happened.”
The hundred-mile drive back to Baywood took ninety-eight minutes. A.L. and Rena took the elevator to their office. It was after six but all four of the other detectives on the Baywood Police Department were still working, most of them tapping on computer keyboards. Documentation was a part of the job.
A.L. pulled out a chair. Rena had detoured for a cup of coffee. By the time she got to the desk with a cup for both of them, he was flipping through his notebook. Looking for something. Anything that could lead them in the right direction. “Leah said that she left the house before 7:00. That Emma wasn’t yet up.”
“Yeah,” Rena said, looking at her own notes. “She had a meeting in Madison.”
“What meeting?” A.L. asked, thinking that he’d missed something in his own notes.
“I don’t have it,” Rena said.
“We didn’t ask,” A.L. said.
“Didn’t seem like the most important question at the time. Is it now?”
A.L. picked up his keys. Tossed them from one hand to the other. “Gives us a reason to talk to her again.”
“You think that’s important?”
“I don’t know,” A.L. said.
Rena put down her coffee cup. “Everything and one more thing. Let’s go.”
But before they got to the door, Ferguson waved at them to hold up. “FYI, you two. Faster got some heat from James Adeva at the press conference this morning. I don’t think he’s happy.”
Adeva was a crime reporter for the Baywood Bulletin. Pushy, detail-oriented, with the memory of an elephant, he was pretty good at his job. He caught inconsistencies and turned them into headlines. Chief Faster, who could sometimes play fast, no pun intended, and loose with the facts probably had nightmares about him. “Anything specific in his craw?”
“Nope. Just general astonishment that a child could be missing for more than a day and the police don’t appear to have anything.”
“Fine. What do we know from the remaining teacher and the cook?” A.L. asked.
“I spoke first to the teacher, Tanya Knight. She’s thirty-four and has been at the day care for three years. Loves her job. The kids, her coworkers, her boss. Loves them all.”
“I’ll bet you’re glad you didn’t have to do that interview,” Rena said, looking at A.L.
“I’m not philosophically opposed to happy people,” he said.
“Yeah. But they make you nervous,” Ferguson said, smiling at Rena.
“Did you ask her specifically about Kara Wiese?” A.L. asked.
“Yeah. Kara is a team player, always willing to help. Good with the kids.”
“Okay. What else?”
“She knows Emma Whitman because Emma was in her room last year. She’s sick about the situation because she just—”
“Loves Emma Whitman,” A.L. said, finishing the sentence.
“Yeah. Anyway, she was at work on Wednesday. She co-teaches with Olivia Blow but since she was ill, Alice Quest was in the room. Tanya said she starts at 7:30 but generally gets there by 7:00 because her husband drops her off on his way to work. On Wednesday, when she got there, that’s when she found out that Olivia was absent because Alice was already in the room.”
Rena flipped through her notebook. “That meshes with Alice’s recollection. Alice said that she was in a classroom beginning at 6:30 that morning and only took a few short breaks out of the classroom the entire day.”
“You search her house?”
“Yeah. I asked, she gave permission. She’s a terrible housekeeper. Has cats. There was almost enough cat hair in the small bedroom to hide a five-year-old.”
“I like her better now,” A.L. said. His own cat could shed about three pounds of hair a week.