“Yeah. The city is working to get this one torn down.”
“We need to search that building,” A.L. said.
“Already done,” Louisa said. “I showed my boss this information before I came to you and he greased the wheels. They found some homeless. They did not find these two guys or a five-year-old girl.”
“You said that you had them jumping on the bus at another point. Can we see that?” A.L. asked.
“Yeah. This is Wednesday night. About 20:00 hours.”
“The night of Emma’s disappearance,” A.L. said.
“They’re at a bus stop on Poke Street, about eight blocks east of Clayton and Wake.” She pushed some buttons and the images on the screen flickered. “Here we go.”
Sure enough. Getting on the bus was Coyote Frogg and his friend, both looking as ill-kempt as ever. They took a seat but instead of sleeping, they were in an animated conversation. But not a happy one. Coyote looked especially pissed off.
“I wish I could tell what he was saying,” Rena said.
“Yeah. No audio and he’s not at a good angle to read his lips,” Louisa said.
Rena leaned forward. “What’s with their clothes?”
“Fuck,” A.L. said.
Both men were wearing exactly the same thing. Bib overalls over a long-sleeved red T-shirt with the word Wisconsin in white running down both sleeves. “Those look brand-new.”
“Brand-new clothes? Matching?” she said. “I don’t like it.”
“Why?” Louisa asked.
“Unless these two are secretly twins, and we’re pretty confident they’re not, it’s weird to dress alike. They weren’t dressed alike in the Monday video and their clothes weren’t new. So it seems as if these may have very recently been purchased from somewhere where there wasn’t much choice. Who does that? Purchases a whole outfit at one time?”
“Somebody who has to get rid of their clothes quickly,” A.L. said, his voice heavy. “Like somebody who had a kid’s DNA on them.”
No one said anything for a long minute.
Finally, A.L. motioned with his hand. “Let’s keep going. Where do they go?”
“Same place. But this time we got lucky. Well, sort of lucky.” The video continued, filming them getting off the bus and walking up the street.
“Definitely new clothes,” Rena said, pointing. Just barely visible was a tag hanging from the back of Coyote’s friend’s bibs.
Less than a half a block later, they approached a white Jeep, the kind the sides came off of, and got into the back seat. The car drove away.
The video stopped.
“That’s the vehicle that Gi-Gi and Barrett Thompson described. Do we pick it up later? Do we know where it went?” A.L. asked.
Louisa nodded. “We got a nice shot of the plates.” She opened the notebook that she carried and handed them a piece of paper. “Belongs to Pierce Dowl, who lives in Madison. We already passed his address along to our friends there and officers have checked his house. Vehicle is there. No sign of anybody in the house or that anybody has been there for several days. No milk in the fridge. No dirty dishes in the sink.” She stopped. “No odd men with matching clothes.”
“Where does this leave us?” Rena asked.
“I don’t know,” Louisa said. “I’ve looked at video of this same route for Thursday, Friday and today. They never ride that bus again.”
They were gone. Just like Emma. “Thank you, Louisa,” A.L. said. “This has been very helpful. Do you know if somebody is watching this house, seeing if Pierce Dowl returns?”
“They are. Normally, I guess it would be hard to get the resources to do that. But they know what we’re working on here. Everybody is willing to help.”
Rena waited until Louisa was packed up and out of the room before saying, “We don’t need help. We need a miracle.”
“We keep working the case,” A.L. said. “And it’s time to make this official.” He typed on his computer keyboard for several minutes. “Coyote Frogg and his unnamed associate are now identified as Persons of Interest in the disappearance of Emma Whitman. We know that Coyote Frogg was in Baywood on both Monday and Wednesday of this past week. He’s living nearby. We need to get everybody looking and run him to ground.”
“There may not be much more we can do tonight,” Rena said.
“Two more things.” A.L. picked up his smart phone and started pressing keys. “Here it is,” he said. He held his phone out to Rena.
It was a web page for the city of Baywood.
“Look in the middle—there’s a section about the Activities Committee.” She looked and sure enough, it listed the cochairs of the group as Steven Hanzel and Kara Wiese.
“Kara was telling the truth,” she said.
“Looks like it,” A.L. agreed. “No affair, just innocent fun and community service.” He turned to his computer and started typing. Finally looked up. “That was the second thing. I just sent a message that will get distributed to every one of our officers, county and state, about the bib overalls and the red Wisconsin T-shirts. Somebody will know where those are sold.”
“Red Wisconsin T-shirts are sold everywhere,” Rena said.
“Yeah, but not with bib overalls, and we’re specifically looking for a place with limited choices. I put all that in the message.”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. “Let’s call it a night,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” It didn’t matter that it was Sunday. Nobody was taking any days off now.
* * *
A.L. drove home and parked in the lot outside his apartment. By habit, he scanned the area first, then opened his door. It was a clear night and the temperature was a comfortable fifty-six. He glanced at his phone, to check one final search update for the night.
Volunteers led by the FBI had searched the Harborview and Olive Grove subdivisions tonight. Both were on the eastern outskirts of Baywood. Every day they widened their circle, ticking off more and more of Baywood. Every day it became less and less likely that a five-year-old could have covered the distance without anybody seeing her. They’d ended the evening with thirty-two volunteers.
He opened the door of his apartment building and walked down the hall. Stopped when he was four feet from his door. There was a square box, maybe twelve inches wide, on the floor. There was an envelope taped to the top. He took one more step.
Smiled. It was Tess’s writing.