“What are you talking about?” Crow couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. “Who did she steal from?”
Chris started to speak, then stopped. Her expression grew guarded. “Forget I said anything. I gotta learn to keep my mouth shut. My pastor tells me if I can’t say something nice, I shouldn’t say anything at all.”
Though normally Crow would have agreed with her minister, in this instance he wished she’d have waited a little longer to decide to follow the man’s advice.
Crow thought quickly and shifted gears. “Let me ask you another question. This one doesn’t have anything to do with being nice or not. Do you have any idea why Sara’s mother put her in foster care?”
“I don’t really know.” Chris lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. “One day she was in school. The next day she was gone.”
“Didn’t you ask her mother where she was?”
“I couldn’t,” Chris said. “She was in the hospital. Her boyfriend had gone crazy, beat her half to death.” Chris shook her head. “Sara and I always knew he was bad news. The guy was a real perv. And a mean one, to boot.”
Crow’s jaw tightened. He’d seen more than his share of such men in his years on the force. “And you haven’t seen Sara or her mom since?”
“I haven’t seen Sara,” Chris said. “But her mother works as a waitress in a little diner over on Pine. I run into her occasionally.”
Crow took down the name and address of the restaurant, though he wasn’t sure why. He’d solved the case. Sara was safe. Chris had never meant to harm her.
But talking with Chris had raised questions. Questions that weren’t part of the investigation but ones he was nonetheless determined to answer.
His gaze lowered to the address in his hand. He was suddenly in the mood for food and conversation. This might be a good time to try one of the restaurants on Pine.
Crow waited until one-thirty to head over to Pine Street. By the time he walked through the door, there were only two tables of customers lingering over coffee and dessert.
Small and quaint, the place held less than fifty when full. Crow quickly scanned the interior, noting a dark-haired man back in the kitchen area and a woman who looked to be in her forties wiping off a table.
He stared for a moment wondering if this could be Sara’s mother. She was a bit young but her coloring matched.
“Ma’am.” He cleared his throat.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She quickly crossed the room and grabbed a menu. “I didn’t see you. Table for one?”
Crow nodded and followed her to a booth by the window.
“Can I get you something to drink while you look at the menu?”
“Actually—” Crow hesitated and glanced at the woman’s name tag “—Ilene, I was wondering if I could talk to you a minute? It’s about your daughter, Sara.”
Her blue eyes widened. In that moment she looked so much like Sara, he knew he’d been right to take a chance. This had to be her mother.
“I have a few questions—”
“First I have a few questions of my own.” Ilene eyed him with a calculating expression. “Who are you? And what do you want from me?”
In answer he pulled out his picture ID and badge and laid them on the table in front of her. “I’m a police officer. And, like I said, I just want to ask you a few questions. It shouldn’t take long.”
Her face paled and she glanced at the cash register. The dark-haired guy from the kitchen was ringing up the last of the customers.
“John, I think I’ll take my break now,” she said.
“No problem.” His curious gaze shifted from her to Crow. “I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
Ilene slid into the booth opposite Crow.
Now that he had her attention, Crow couldn’t seem to find the words. How do you ask a woman how she could go for ten years without speaking to her own daughter? Even he talked to his own mother at least once a week.
“You said this was about Sara.” Ilene’s voice cracked and worry furrowed her brow. “Is she in trouble?”
“She’s fine,” he said. “But she’s recently received some threatening notes and that investigation led me to you.”
“You think I sent them?” Her hand rose to her throat.
“No,” Crow said immediately. His conscience told him he should tell her he’d already found the perpetrator but he still had questions that needed answers. “In researching Sara’s past, some things are unclear and they may be relevant to the investigation. I understand Sara lived with you and your boyfriend until she was fifteen.”
Ilene’s gaze dropped to the table. She nodded. “Gary had moved in with us when Sara was thirteen or so. Why I stayed with that man for so long I couldn’t say. Sara was right from the beginning. He was no good.”
“Where is he now?” Crow said in a tone designed to keep the conversation flowing.
“In prison, last I knew.”
“Why did Sara go into foster care?” Crow asked.
Ilene hesitated so long he wondered if she’d heard the question. When she finally spoke, she kept her voice to a whisper even though they were alone in the dining area. “Promise me this will be kept confidential.”
Crow nodded. “You have my word.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise.” Ilene met Crow’s gaze head-on and he could see some of her daughter’s determination in her eyes. “Gary Burke was a hard-drinking man with a hair-trigger temper. But he could be good, even sweet. For a long time I was in love with him. Sara…well, Sara hated him.”
Sympathy welled up in Crow, thinking of a young girl growing up in such a home. How different his childhood had been. He’d grown up with two parents who loved each other. And him. He’d taken it all for granted. “What happened?”
“Things had been getting worse between me and Gary. There was a guy I worked with. His name was Mike,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “He treated me like a queen. One day I decided I’d had it with Gary. We’d gone out drinking the night before and he’d been hitting on all these women. The next morning I told him to get out. That I’d found someone else who appreciated me.”
She paused and Crow impatiently waited for her to continue.
“Gary beat me up. He’d done it before but this time he almost killed me.” Though tears glistened in her eyes her voice was as matter of fact as if she was reciting the day’s menu selections. “I spent five days in ICU, two weeks in the hospital. When I got out, I moved in with Mike. But he didn’t like kids, and I was in no shape to take care of Sara. I could barely get around. I—”
“You put her in foster care.”
“She’d been there since I went into the hospital. She was doing okay. That’s what the social worker told me.”
“You left her there.” Crow didn’t even try to hide the condemnation in his voice.
“Don’t you think I regret it?” she said. “But by the time Mike and I split, Sara had been in the same home for over a year. I decided she was better off with them than with me.”