“Can you tell us about your day on Wednesday?” Rena asked.
“Well, we got a call from Troy sometime after 6:00 that evening,” Perry said.
“Let’s start from the beginning of the day,” Rena said, trying to redirect them.
“Well, I have dialysis three mornings a week,” Perry said. “Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That starts at 9:00 but I’m always there by 8:30. Takes about four hours. So I’m there until about 1:00.”
“Where does this occur?” Rena asked.
“There’s a dialysis center about four blocks from our house. Broadhurst Pavilion.”
Pavilion. What a nice word for a place where they stuck needles into you and cleaned out your kidneys. “Thank you, Perry,” Rena said. “After 1:00, what did you do?”
“I always come home and take a nap. Then I watch a little television. That’s what I was doing when Troy called.”
“And your day, LuAnn?” Rena asked.
“I got up about 7:00 and walked the dog. Then I showered and drove to work. Our store opens at 9:00. I was there until 2:00. Then I drove home. Oh, wait. I think I stopped at the store on my way home. Yes, that’s right. I needed ketchup for the meat loaf I was making.” She paused. “I guess that was a waste. Neither one of us ate a bite of dinner that night. I threw the meat loaf away.”
“So you were at home when Troy called?” A.L. asked.
“Yes. Watching television with Perry. It was just so unbelievable. It still is. And we feel so helpless here,” LuAnn said. “We just sit here and wait for the phone to ring.”
“I’m sure that’s difficult,” Rena said.
“We’ve been told that’s about all we can do,” Perry said. There was a hint of hurt in Perry’s tone.
“I’m sure that Leah and Troy are comforted by your support,” Rena said.
“We love that little Emma. She’s the sweetest thing. And the idea that she may be lost or hurt or...” Her voice caught in a sob.
“It’s okay, honey,” Perry said softly, clearly speaking to his wife. “I’ll do this.”
It hit Rena that Perry and LuAnn were supporting each other the way she and A.L. had expected that Troy and Leah would.
“Truth is, Detectives, we’re not as close to our son and daughter-in-law as others are to their children,” Perry said.
Leah had said that they were lovely people. “Why is that?” Rena asked.
“It would be convenient if we could blame our daughter-in-law. But that wouldn’t be true,” Perry said, finishing the thought. “We maybe said some things that we shouldn’t have said to Troy when he was considering buying Garage on Division.”
“We just weren’t confident that it was a good decision,” LuAnn said, evidently having composed herself enough to speak. “But there was no talking him out of it.”
“Why didn’t you think it was a good decision?” A.L. asked.
“I thought he was paying too much for the business. I wanted to see the financial statements but he told me that he’d looked at them and was satisfied,” Perry said. “I didn’t want to see him take on that much debt.”
“Did he ask you to help him with the purchase?” A.L. asked.
“No. I think he knew that we’d be uncomfortable with that. He worked all that out with Steven,” Perry said.
“Steven?” Rena asked.
“Steven Hanzel. He’s a banker in Baywood. But we’ve known him since we moved into this house. He lived across the street. Troy and Steven were best friends. Actually, both our boys were friendly with Steven,” Perry added.
“We always thought that’s why Troy moved to Baywood, because Steven was already there,” LuAnn said.
Rena looked at A.L. “What do you think of Steven?”
Neither one of the Whitmans responded. Finally, LuAnn said, “Well, Steven has never suffered from a lack of self-confidence.”
“He was a cocky shit,” Perry said. “But he got better with age. Got a college degree. We didn’t know his wife but we’ve met his little girl at one of Emma’s birthday parties. I think he’s got a little boy, too. Hard on kids when the marriage doesn’t work out.”
Hard on parents when their adult children pushed them away. “You mentioned your other son?”
“Yes, Travis. He’s two years older than Troy. He doesn’t live too far from us here in Milwaukee. We called him on Wednesday night, once we’d talked to Troy. He came over right away. That helped.”
Neither A.L. nor Rena volunteered that Travis had known first. “Are Troy and Travis close?” A.L. asked.
“Well, they fought like caged tigers when they were kids,” Perry said. “But I think that they get along pretty well now.”
“This is a difficult question for me to ask,” Rena said. “But do either of you have any reason to believe that either Troy or Leah could have something to do with Emma’s disappearance?”
The question hung in the air.
“Both Leah and Troy love that little girl with all their hearts,” Perry said. He didn’t sound angry that the question had been asked.
“But we also don’t think that she wandered away from the learning center. We talk to Emma on the phone at least once a week. She loves going there. Talks about her teachers all the time,” LuAnn said. “She’s a very responsible little girl. Knows right from wrong.”
“Somebody took her,” Perry said. “Somebody took our sweet baby away from us.”
* * *
“They’re hurting on so many levels,” Rena said, once she’d ended the call.
“Yeah, that was bad. I’m going to pull off here,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of a highway rest stop. “I want to check my notes.”
“I might use the little girls’ room while we’re here,” Rena said. She held up her sixteen-ounce coffee cup in further explanation.
“You rent coffee, you don’t own it,” A.L. said, sounding preoccupied.
When she got back into the vehicle, he was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “During that first conversation with Troy and Leah, Troy called his parents before the Amber Alert was sent. I asked him about his relationship with his parents. I have in my notes that he verified it was a good relationship.”
“Maybe he just didn’t want to get into the weeds. Not what was important to him at the time,” Rena said.