The cheerful ordinariness of the message stopped Liz cold. She had sipped tea with this woman, even held Ellen’s traumatized child in her arms. But in her quest to grab the front page, she’d offered only cold comfort. Now, miles from their home, she did the best she could to embrace Ellen’s shattered family more warmly.
“I’ll find you, Ellen,” she said after the beep. “I’ll bring you home.”
As she pulled on her coat, she saw a copy of the front page that had been prepared earlier. “A PINCH OF BLOOD,” its headline read. It would never run, since the story had been bumped off Page One by the fire fatality. On an inside page there’d be smaller type and less hype.
And because it would never run, the rejected page was fair game. Liz snatched it up and made a swift exit into a driving snowstorm.
The Banner’s parking lot was normally a litter-strewn expanse of concrete, old-model cars, and newspaper delivery trucks. But now the fast-falling snow softened every angle, transferring this urban eyesore into a winter wonderland. If there had not been a missing mom or fire fatality, Banner headline writers might have been playing with words like “GUARANTEED WHITE,” since this snow would surely stay on the ground until Christmas. Unless Ellen Johansson showed up in the six days remaining before the holiday, the little girl who started out the season finding the area’s best Santa would not find her Christmas to be merry and bright.
Shivering, Liz approached the snow-covered Tracer, unlocked it, and took out her combination windshield scraper and brush. As she pushed snow off the spoiler designed to improve the aerodynamics of her car, she shook her head at the silliness of it. The accessory only made the vehicle look like a clunker that aimed—and failed—at looking sporty.
“Not unlike this reporter,” she thought. “I’d like to be the Banner’s hottest writer, but . . .”
Still, the car made up for its uncool appearance with compact size and reliability. In a city where parking spaces were at a premium, Liz could park the car on a dime. Now, it started up immediately when she turned it on. On the snowbound city streets, it performed just as well as the much more expensive, four-wheel-drive vehicles that shared the roads with her. But, in this snow, would it make it up the hills in Brighton? And when she arrived at the Green Briar, would Kinnaird be there after all? Would the good doctor be so keen on Irish music that he’d brave a blizzard for a chance to play his banjo?
The weather dictated Liz’s next decisions. Traffic was too slow to allow time for a quick stop at home before her Green Briar meeting. So she steered the Tracer to Brighton. The Beatles belted out “You’re Going To Lose That Girl” on her radio as Liz passed Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital. It made a welcome change from the Christmas carols jamming the airwaves. Until Liz thought about the song’s title, that is. Feeling sure Veronica’s mother would not voluntarily abandon her daughter, Liz looked up at the hundreds of illuminated windows and large electrified cross that glowed through the falling snow on the massive hospital complex set high on a hilltop.
Below, traffic was snarled in the complicated intersections of Brighton Center. A Christmas tree lit with multicolored bulbs shared a small traffic island with an antique clock topping a pole like a lollipop. Liz passed the Green Briar, traveling about a half-mile farther west to the base of Summit Street. Finding the road ran one way in the wrong direction, she drove around in the intensifying storm until she found a road that wound around the hill to what she thought was the other end of the one-way street. But it was the wrong road after all, Liz realized, as she pulled out of a skid in time to read “Tip Top Street” on a snowy street sign. Liz recognized the street name but, distracted by the storm, couldn’t recall why. It turned out the well-named street went up one side and down the other of a hill cluttered with quirky houses. With many of the houses lit up in Christmas lights, the effect was like an illustration in a child’s picture book. Descending the hill, and ascending another, Liz at last found Summit Street.
The street was neither plowed nor sanded, so Liz drove at a steady pace to a house on the hillside where, thanks to a porch light, she could make out Laura’s house number. Reasoning that if a snowplow came by, it would be preferable to dig out the tail of her car than the full length of it, she pulled into the tiny driveway.
The doorbell of the hillside house was labeled with three names: Winters, Smythe, and Jacobson. It was just a one-in-three chance that Veronica’s aftercare provider was at home. But Liz was in luck. Although another young woman answered the door, she invited Liz inside and called for Laura. The bungalow was fragrant with the smell of Indian food. To a reporter who had dined on nothing but granola bars all day, it smelled heavenly.
“Have some,” Laura said, leading Liz into a kitchen fitted with a breakfast nook. “We’ve got plenty,” she added, taking down an extra dish.
Laura introduced Liz to her two twenty-something roommates, Sue Smythe, a student nurse at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, and Becca Jacobson, who had answered the door. An aspiring actress, Becca said she was supporting herself by walking dogs. Clearly excited to be talking with a reporter, the young women needed no nudging to talk about the Johansson case.
“It’s totally shocking,” said Sue, spooning raita and chutney onto her plate. “Laura says Veronica is a mess.”
“I gather you helped out with Veronica today,” Liz said to Laura.
“Not for long. Her grandmother was coming in from Wellesley. I just kept Veronica occupied while her father took phone calls. Veronica would have been much better off following her normal routine and attending aftercare, but Mr. Johansson didn’t want to let her out of his sight. I guess I can understand that.”
“Was he screening his phone calls?”
“Yeah, that’s what the police told him to do. He had to keep the volume up on the answering machine so he could hear who was calling in. We kept hearing Mrs. Johansson’s voice on the answering machine message. Over and over again. It was eerie, I can tell you, and I know it upset Veronica. I was glad when Mrs. Swenson arrived.”
“Is that the grandmother? Do you know where she lives?”
“Yes. And no. Mrs. Swenson is the grandmother but I don’t have her address.”
“What about at work?” Becca offered. “I bet you have it on Veronica’s emergency card.”
“It’s possible. I could look tomorrow.”
“What was it like at the Johansson house?” Liz asked.
“Weird. Mr. Johansson was totally tense. I could see he was really upset about it, but he did bring in the Christmas tree and set it up when Veronica asked him to. She said she wanted to decorate it and surprise her mommy when she comes back. I could see he was having trouble staying cheerful, so I offered to put the lights on the tree. I didn’t get very far before Mrs. Swenson arrived.”
“Tell her about the weird calls,” Becca urged.
“Some woman called sounding like she thought she was some kind of hero. ‘I’ll find you, Ellen,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring you home.’ Go figure!”
Liz used her napkin to hide a sheepish expression.
“Tell her about the other call,” Becca put in.
“Some guy with an accent called saying she forgot to pick up some book. Mrs. Johansson’s a librarian, you know. Imagine a library patron calling someone’s home at a time like this! And some foreign woman called in saying, “Ellen, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault, but I will make it up to you.”
“I’m surprised the husband wasn’t instructed to keep callers on the phone so the calls could be traced,” Liz said.