Kids’ clothes. I should have guessed. Judging from the number of outfits she was buying, little Jenny might well have been triplets.
I kept a safe distance as Barnhorst pushed her clothing-laden cart down the book aisle. From behind a rack of leather jackets, I watched as she parked Jenny near the best sellers, turned her attention for a while to the latest Nora Roberts, and read the final page of it. She put it down, picked up and also rejected two other best-selling novels, then wandered along the aisle, past the Bibles, past the cookbooks, past the dictionaries, to the section where the children’s books were displayed.
While Barnhorst appeared to be examining a pop-up book for minute flaws, I took a big chance. I popped out from behind the jackets, wandered up to the cart as nonchalantly as I could with a heart that was practically hammering out of my chest, and looked into the child’s eyes. “Hey there, Timmy,” I whispered.
A smile spread over Jenny’s face with a wattage so bright it could have lit up the entire city of Annapolis. Her arms and legs quivered with excitement.
I poked her gently in her plump little belly with my index finger. “Who does Grandma love?”
After what happened next, it would take more than a ridiculous pink lace bonnet to fool me. Out of Jenny’s mouth rolled Timmy’s distinctive bubbling, burbling, gurgling chuckle.
I had nearly forgotten about Joanna Barnhorst when I caught sight of her chugging back up the aisle, a stack of children’s books in hand. With the lecture I’d received from Dennis that morning still fresh in my mind, I quickly abandoned my plan to snatch Timmy from the cart, ducked my head and slipped around the corner into the office supplies aisle, where Barnhorst passed me several minutes later. I followed at a discreet distance-examining computer paper, marker pens, paper shredders, and athletic socks-as Barnhorst swung wide, made a U-turn, and headed for an end-of-aisle pyramid of matching luggage. A few minutes later she trundled back down the aisle toward me dragging two suitcases-one large and one small-and heaved them into the cart.
I slipped away, muttering under my breath. I hope you don’t think you’re going anywhere with those suitcases, bitch, because I’m going to get you. Sooner or later, I’m going to get you.
I followed Barnhorst back to her apartment and waited, seething, until she was safely inside, before calling for reinforcements. My options were limited.
Paul was in charge of running the carpools that day.
Ruth had a shop to run, and as much as I loved my sister, even she would be the first to admit she was a bit of a flake.
My friend Nadine Gray, a.k.a. the retired mystery novelist L. K. Bromley, would have leapt at the chance in a New York minute, but, alas, Naddie was on an extended trip to her sister in Seattle, a visit unexpectedly extended by the sister’s emergency appendectomy.
My father was so far away managing an engineering project for a contractor in Saudi Arabia that we’d voted as a family not even to tell him about Timmy, unless we had to.
That left me with Connie.
“Hey,” I said, when she answered the telephone. “Are you free right now?”
“I don’t like the sound of this.”
“You’ve lived with Dennis so long that you’re beginning to sound like him,” I teased.
“I’m eating lunch,” she said, ignoring the jibe. “Where else would I be at one o’clock in the afternoon?”
I moaned. “Don’t mention food. I’m starving, but I can’t let this woman out of my sight!”
“What woman?”
I explained about what I’d found out about Joanna Barnhorst, her daughter “Jenny,” and about the suitcases. “Seriously, Con, I’m in a real bind. I want to print out the pictures and take them to the spa to see if anyone remembers seeing Barnhorst there on the day Timmy disappeared.” I paused for breath. “And I also have to pee.”
“In that case,” Connie said, “I’ll be right over.”
“Thanks, babe. I’ll relieve you by dinnertime. I promise.”
It would take Connie approximately twenty minutes to reach me from the family farm in south county, so I spent the time watching Joanna’s apartment as sharp-eyed as an eagle on a rock.
And I swear I didn’t blink.
Not even once.
CHAPTER 18
With Connie safely in charge of the Barnhorst watch, I rushed home, hooked my camera up to my computer, and uploaded the photos, examining them one by one as they flashed by in a sinister slide show across my monitor screen.
I selected a full-frontal shot of the child I was sure was Timmy, cropped out the background, blew it up to five-by-seven, and printed it out.
For Barnhorst, I printed both a full face shot and a profile. I toyed with the idea of printing them out on the same piece of paper, like a wanted poster. Even if the Barnhorst woman hadn’t stolen Timmy, which I seriously doubted at this point, anyone who’d overdress a child like that or drive around with her in such a flimsy car seat deserved to be on a wanted poster.
After the printer spit out the last copy of Joanna’s picture into the paper tray, I tucked the photos into a manila envelope, then telephoned Emily. My youngest sister, Georgina, answered the phone instead.
“Any news, Georgina?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well, I think I have news for you.” I confessed to Georgina what I had been up to that morning.
When I finished, my sister said, “Paul is going to kill you when he finds out about it, you know. And I don’t think the cops are going to be too pleased that you’re stepping all over their toes.”
“Frankly, Georgina, I don’t care if the Maryland State Police, the Anne Arundel County Police Department, and the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation tack my picture up on their bulletin boards and hurl darts at it. Not if it brings Timmy home.
“I was hoping to bring the photographs over for Emily to look at,” I continued. “Is she up to it, do you think?”
“Oh, she’s up to it, all right, Hannah, but she’s not here. Emily’s gone off with her new best friend, that Erika Rose.”
I could picture Georgina’s lip curling with distaste.
“They printed up a pile of handbills warning the residents of West Annapolis about Roger Haberman, the pedophile living in their midst. They used one of Roger’s self-portraits, too. They downloaded it from the PredatorBeware website.” Georgina paused. “At least you can see his face in this one.”
On my end of the telephone, I cringed just thinking about it.
“They’re putting up posters?” I could understand why Emily would want to do this, but so soon after our effort to put posters all over town asking for the public’s help in finding Timmy, this new effort left a bad taste in my mouth.
“You bet. She went off with a fistful of them, a roll of cellophane tape, a box of tacks, and a hammer. I suspect they’re plastering West Annapolis. Erika’s been whipping her acolytes into a frenzy because the Habermans live just two blocks from West Annapolis Elementary School, you know.”
I did know. The school dominated the small residential neighborhood, taking up an entire city block.
“I tried to talk Emily out of it,” Georgina continued. “Dennis was here earlier, and he tried to talk some sense into her, too.”
I could just picture it. Dennis pacing, wearing a path in Emily’s carpet, lecturing his niece and thinking: it’s hopeless. Like mother, like daughter.
“Dennis warned Emily that Roger could charge her with harassment,” Georgina continued, “but it was no good. Emily’s one hundred percent convinced that Roger Haberman had a role in Timmy’s disappearance, and she’s not going to let it drop.”
“Emily can’t help it. It’s genetic,” I said, thinking about what I, her mother, had been up to that morning.
Georgina snorted. “So I’ve noticed.”