“Okay,” she said tentatively.
“It’s going to be all right. I’ve seen things turn out a lot... not as well as this.”
Abby pursed her lips. “I’m just renting. Should we move?”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
“I think around the corner would be far enough. It’s for Brittany. Not because of the guy who did this.”
She nodded and stood. Brittany draped over her shoulder like a big doll.
“The press will want to talk to you,” I said. “You can control their access, to a point. Don’t let them talk to Brittany. And don’t tell them Brittany saw him. Whatever you say, don’t say that.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
“I know a reporter over at CNB who would handle this story professionally, and with respect for your privacy and your feelings. She knows what information to give out and what not to. She likes our unit and what we do. She’d spread the word, and it might help this not happen to someone else.”
“Is there more danger to us, if I talk?”
“That’s extremely unlikely. But there’s more danger to everyone else, if you don’t.”
She stood in front of me and managed to offer me her hand. I shook it with both of mine.
“I’ll talk to CNB on my own terms.”
“I’ll make that clear.”
I wrote my home phone on a card and slipped it into her purse.
“Call me tonight,” I said. “I want to know how you’re both doing, and I want to know what time you can meet with our artist tomorrow. I can’t tell you how important a good sketch can turn out to be. She’ll be real good to your girl.”
“I will. Thank you, Mr. Naughton.”
I held open the door for her and watched Brittany’s sleeping face slide past me. I thought of Ardith and the way she’d bring Matthew to our bed in the morning when he was just an infant, and how small his head looked against her. Odd how some things hurt so much to remember, but you won’t part with them for anything in the world.
I called Donna on my way back to the station. I left a Skip message and she called me back just as I was pulling into the Sheriff Department employees’ lot. I told her the girl was all right. Abducted, terrified and numb, but basically all right. I told her she had a scoop on the story — all she had to do was be good to a young mother and love me forever and without condition. I could tell she was at her desk.
“Be easier if I could see you once in a while” she whispered.
“This evening, after work.”
“I’ll be talking to Abby Elder then, if you’re kind enough to give me her number.”
I did.
“Call her soon. You can be done with it by the time I leave here.”
“After Tonello’s, then?” she asked.
“Let’s skip that part.”
“Skipped, Skip. See you soon.”
“I look forward.”
“So do I, dear man. By the way, your best friend Jordan Ishmael called. He said there was about to be some big news coming out of the department. He said he’d be happy to keep me informed.”
“What in hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I was wondering if you might tell me. He tries to emit mystery, but comes off a glum bureaucrat.”
I wondered if he was trying to create a buzz over his Sheriff Department page on the Web, or something else related to his relentless, slow-motion pursuit of the department’s highest position. Maybe he was going to strip off his shirt, oil up his muscles and demonstrate his silent kill moves for the CNB cameras. Maybe he had secret video footage of my banged-up file cabinet.
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” I said.
“I hope to see them looking my way, in about three hours.”
Those next three hours at the station were interesting. First of all, I had a fax from Mike Strickley at the Bureau:
Terry— Something remote came up, but I’m passing it along anyway. We’re putting together a national index for sex crimes against juveniles, per President Clinton. We hope to have it up and running late this year. It’s going to put some more teeth in Megan’s law. Right now, we’re collecting everything we can get our hands on. I’d discussed The Horridus with one of our people who’s working on the index. Yesterday, she came across this, from Wichita Falls, Texas. Seems they had a guy two years ago, he was driving around in a van and offering free clothes to girls on their way home from school. The clothes weren’t new. He’d let them use the van to change out of their old ones. Two changed, one just took her booty home with her. White male, late twenties to early thirties, medium build, beard and glasses. Three complaints from citizens and that was the end of it. Wichita Falls cops never found a suspect. They hit the child molesters’ registry and came up with nothing. One month later a six-year-old disappeared between school and home. She’s still missing — maybe a connection with the van man, maybe not. Those were the only incidents. Nothing since then and no leads — several subjects questioned and released. But the van, the clothes, the ages of the girls fit your man. If he’s abducting now to make them wear what he likes, it’s a classic escalation. Maybe he split and landed in your backyard. Maybe he wanted more girls to choose from. Maybe he got scared. Maybe he scared himself. Use it if you can. The guy to talk to in Wichita Falls is Captain Sam Welborn. Good guy. Good luck.
The air in the station that afternoon was strange, though it had nothing to do with my compatriots in CAY. Louis stayed in the field to interview the listing agents about the sellers of homes with second units. We were down to eight now — the two Louis had investigated that morning came up clean. One was black and the other was too old. Frances was at home, allegedly, still sick. I called twice to see how she was doing, but got only her message and no return call. Johnny was down in the lab, hovering over Joe Reilly while he processed the evidence from the Brittany Elder abduction.
The strange thing was the brass — undersheriffs Woolton and Vega, Captain Burns and Lieutenant Ishmael — and even Jim Wade himself. They seemed to linger around the station, looking at me. Wade from behind the glass of his office. Ishmael during strolls past my work station. Woolton and Vega from a coffee machine that lies at a diagonal from my desk, to and from which there is a clear sight line. Burns peeked at me once over the top of my divider and said he was looking for Frances, but everybody knew she wasn’t in. How couldn’t he?
It was Friday afternoon, and like a lot of other workplaces on Friday afternoon, the department usually went through a communal exhale. Nobody was exhaling. No talk of weekend plans, none of the usual goofy pleasantries that mark the end of the workweek for most of us. Instead there was a rigid silence in the air, and a feeling of anticipation. It was especially odd, also, because Wade’s swanky annual equestrian show and benefit for County Youth Services — called simply the Orange Classic — was set for Sunday. This weekend, the last in April, was always a high time for Jim and the whole Sheriff Department. In fact, I wondered what he was doing still in his office, looking gray and grim as a shark, with all the work he had to do to get his ranch ready for the fling.
I stuck my head in his door.
“What gives?”
He looked at me and shook his head, but said nothing. So I beat it. Kick some furniture and people start to think you’re dangerous. I wasn’t worried. I had more important things to do than worry about why the Sheriff Department heavies were all treating me like I had toilet paper stuck to my shoe.
Fridays I usually leave work an hour early and visit Matt. He’s up in Newport Beach, on a bluff that overlooks the Pacific. It’s between the department and Laguna, right on my way home.