There was enough to tie the disappearances of Evan and Cara Martin together with the disappearance of Timmy Montgomery to ask whether it was possible. All three kids were of the same age and lived in the same part of town. Although they vanished two years apart, there was reason to look for other connections.
Did the families know one another? Even if they didn’t, did they have friends in common? Did their kids go to the same schools? How else might they have crossed paths?
Those questions focused on the possibility that the kids were taken by someone who knew them, but that theory didn’t suffer much scrutiny. If Jimmy Martin killed his kids to punish his wife for her real or imagined sins, it was unlikely he’d have had any reason to kidnap and kill Timmy Montgomery two years earlier. The same would no doubt be true of any member of the Montgomery family.
If there was a connection, it was more likely that the kidnapper/killer preyed on small children, indifferent to whether his victims came from happy or unhappy homes, caring only whether he could have them. And that meant he probably lived in Northeast, probably hadn’t started with Timmy and wouldn’t stop with Evan and Cara. It was an incendiary conclusion that would terrify families from one end of Northeast to the other.
Adrienne Nardelli had ducked my question about a connection, and that was enough to scare me. Regardless of why she had avoided answering me, it was clear she wasn’t going to share anything she had, at least not until I had something to offer her in return. Her lack of cooperation made my job harder but not impossible. I left a message for Simon Alexander describing what I needed and left another for the one friend I still had at the FBI, Ammara Iverson, asking for a favor, hoping I hadn’t gone to the well once too often.
The bones dug out of the woods above North Terrace Lake would distract Nardelli, not because one victim was more important than the other but because the job demanded that she work the cases at the same time. A housewife had disappeared from her Northeast home a few months ago, her husband refusing to cooperate with the police in their investigation. Without a body or other evidence of a crime, the husband had gone on with his life, raising their kids. Maybe the bones were hers, or maybe they were those of a prostitute who’d gone with a john into the woods for her last trick. Regardless, missing kids and bleached bones would divide and subdivide Nardelli’s time and attention.
I was no better off than Nardelli. I’d spent last night at Truman Medical Center worrying and wondering about Roni Chase, her relationship to Frank Crenshaw, and the possibility that her boyfriend Brett Staley had killed Frank, with or without Roni’s help.
The murdered and missing don’t take a number, waiting their turn, hoping people like Adrienne Nardelli and me can work them into our schedule. No matter how long they have been silenced, they scream for our attention, refusing to take no for an answer, and I never stop hearing their voices. Lucy may have shut out everything except the voices of the Martin kids, but Nardelli and I couldn’t. We’d keep doing the same thing: press on. Because that was the only thing we knew how to do.
When I pulled up in front of Roni Chase’s house, I double-checked the address, wondering how a bookkeeper afforded a mansion, even one that had to be at least a hundred years old. The three-story asymmetrical design was topped with eyelid dormers on the third floor, set beneath a steeply pitched roof offset by a two-story turret on the northeast corner that was capped by a witch’s-hat roof. An ornate wooden rail framed the porch extending across the front of the house.
It wasn’t quite as impressive close up. The exterior paint was faded and chipped in places, wood rot evident around the windows, the floorboards of the porch creaking and sagging. The house needed a lot of work.
Roni answered when I rang the bell and led me inside through a set of double doors into a small foyer, through another set of carved wooden doors and into a wide space with a high vaulted ceiling, a white flagged floor, and stained-glass windows on the stairway landing leading to the second floor. I raised my head at the ceiling, rotating my gaze. Yellow watermarks and spidery cracks in the plaster were more evidence that the house would soon turn into a money pit if it hadn’t already.
“They call this the receiving area,” Roni said.
“Who does? The tour guides?”
She laughed. “The people who put this place on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s a Queen Anne–style house. A rich lumberman built it in 1886 for his new wife who was living in Europe, but she died before she ever set foot in it.”
“How’d she die?”
“Do you ever stop playing the cop?”
“No.”
She shook her head. “It must be weird to live like that, to wonder if every bad thing that happens is a crime.”
“I never thought it was weird.”
“How do you think of it?”
“Me? I wonder what happens when things go wrong, especially when people think no one is watching. Sometimes it’s a crime, and sometimes it’s just life.”
“That’s pretty depressing. I’d rather wonder what happens when things go right, like falling in love.”
“Well, Brett Staley will be ready when you do. Can’t get more romantic than wanting to buy your funeral dress?”
She gave me a wistful, uncertain smile. “It’s his way of saying he wants to spend the rest of our lives together, but I’m not sure. We grew up together. I was five years old the first time he told me he loved me.”
“But you’re not in love with him?”
“More comfortable than in love.”
“Don’t settle for comfortable. You can get that with an easy chair or a dog from the pound.”
“I know what you mean, but he’s all I’ve got.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who’s afraid she can’t do any better than the boy she grew up with. You’re smart enough to run your own business, pretty enough to turn heads, and ballsy enough to carry a gun and use it. That’s a powerful combination.”
She blushed, dipping her chin. “I guess we don’t always see ourselves the way others see us.”
“And a philosopher to boot. So what went wrong with the wife who never saw the house her husband built for her?”
“The ship she took to America sank. The husband lived in the house for a couple of years, but he was too heartbroken to stay. He set up a charity named after his wife, Rachel, and turned the house into a home for unwed mothers and orphan girls called Rachel’s House for Women.”
“How did you end up with it?”
“It’s Grandma Lilly’s, not mine. She was one of the girls who lived here. Her mother left her some money, and Grandma hung on to it and used it to get an education. She got into selling houses and did well enough to buy this place twenty years ago when the charity went broke. My mom and I lived in a duplex off of Lexington, but we moved in here after she had her stroke so Grandma could help me take care of her.”
“This place is big, but it doesn’t look big enough for very many unwed mothers and orphans.”
“There was a dormitory attached to the back, but Grandma had it torn down.”
“You haven’t said anything about your grandfather.”
“I never knew him. Grandma won’t talk about him. She got pregnant with my mom while she was a teenager living here, but she never got married. Whenever I asked her why, she said that she’d give up a lot for a man, but the one thing she wouldn’t give up was her name.”
“Did you mention that she could have gotten married and kept her last name?”
She laughed. “Yes, and when I did she said the moon is pink.”
“The moon is pink? Why?”
“It’s what she always said if she thought I wasn’t listening or didn’t understand what she meant, like she just as well have said the moon is pink for all the good it did.”
“That’s what you told Frank Crenshaw after you shot him.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I picked up a few things from my Grandma.”
“How about your mother? How did she feel about not knowing anything about her father?”
Roni took a breath. “She said everyone is entitled to their own mysteries and that was Grandma’s.”
“Did she ever try to solve it?”
“No. She said she didn’t want anything to do with a man who wasn’t good enough for Grandma. My mom never got married either, except she waited until she was a lot older to have me.”
“What about your father? Is he in the picture?”
She shrugged. “Almost the same story as Grandma. Mom says they dated for a week between Christmas and New Year’s. He took off before Mom knew she was pregnant. She didn’t know how to reach him, so he never knew about me. Mom said it was just as well because he wasn’t the kind to stick around.”
“You ever try to find him?”
“No. Half of my friends’ parents were divorced, so it was no big deal living in a one-parent home. One of my friends was adopted and made a big deal about finding her birth parents. When she did, they didn’t want anything to do with her. That’s when she realized her real parents were the ones who raised her. I know that there’s a piece of me that’s missing, but I don’t see how a stranger who doesn’t know I exist can fill it in. Grandma likes to say you can’t fix your past but you can make your future.”
“So where does the funeral dress figure into the family tradition.”
She chuckled. “You’ll be glad to know it starts with a criminal, my great-grandmother Vivian Chase.”
“That’s okay. Everyone has at least one relative that climbed out of the wrong side of the gene pool.”
“She was a robber back in the 1940s, banks, drugstores, anyplace with cash. She left Grandma at Rachel’s House when Grandma was eight years old because she knew she couldn’t raise her and rob banks too. But, whenever she could, she came to see Grandma, and she always gave some of the money she stole to Miss Moore, the lady who ran the home, to make sure they took good care of Grandma. One night after she dropped off some money, her partner showed up. They got into a gunfight right out on the curb and shot and killed each other. Miss Moore used some of the money to pay for my great-grandma’s funeral and for the dress. Grandma named my mother after her. And this,” she said, fingering the gold chain and cameo around her neck, “belonged to my great-grandmother.”
“That’s a nice keepsake.”
“She left it to my grandma, who gave it to my mother, and she gave it me. It keeps us connected.”
“You must have told that story to Brett Staley a hundred times when you were growing up.”
“Didn’t have to. His grandfather Bobby Staley drove my great-grandma Vivien to the hospital the night she died and dropped the dress off at the funeral home the next day. He and I grew up hearing the same stories.”
“And you ended up with the house.”
She did a slow turn, one arm extended, fingers tracing a pattern on the wall. “Sometimes I think we’re trapped in this house.”
“It’s just bricks and mortar. You can always sell it.”
She shook her head. “Grandma says it would never sell, not in this economy and not with all the things that need to be fixed that we can’t afford to fix.”
“Can’t you borrow against the house to pay for the repairs and pay the loan back when you sell it?”
“Not now. Grandma borrowed against it to pay my mom’s medical bills. There’s not much equity left, if any, the way home values have dropped.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to ride it out until the economy gets back on track.”
She shivered, wrapping her arms across her chest. “I hope we can. Sometimes this place feels like ivy wrapped around my ankles, creeping up my legs, and one day it’s going to strangle me if someone doesn’t take me away from here.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be rescued.”
She tilted her head to one side and loosened her arms, a sad smile capturing her ambivalence. “I don’t, but if that’s the only way out, I wouldn’t turn it down.”
“Why not just leave?”
“And go where? Do what? I’ve got to take care of my mom, and sooner or later, I’m going to have to take care of my grandma, and they will never leave. I’m stuck, so I’ve got to find a way to make it work, one way or the other.”
The doorbell rang. I looked at my watch. Quincy Carter wasn’t due for another fifteen minutes.
Roni left me in the receiving area, returning with an older man, his eyes beaming, grinning like a pauper who’d been invited to see the prince. He was tall, his hair sand and silver, his features fine and handsome. He was missing the top third of his right ear, his only visible defect. Roni made the introduction.
“Terry Walker, say hello to Jack Davis.”
“Lilly didn’t say anything about other guests,” Terry said.
“That’s because she didn’t invite me,” I said, extending my hand.
“I invited Jack,” Roni said. “Grandma and Mom are in the morning room. You can go on back.”
He brightened again, his smile stretching his face. “Nice to meet you,” he said, giving my hand a quick, firm shake, turning to Roni. “I’ll find my way.”
I waited until Terry Walker had disappeared into the house. “Who’s he?”
“An old friend of my grandmother’s. They knew each other when they were kids. He moved away. He’s in town on some kind of business. They haven’t seen each other in years.”
“Quincy Carter is on his way here to question you in a murder case, and your grandmother is having a reunion?”
“It’s not a reunion, and I didn’t tell her about Detective Carter until I got home a few minutes ago. I didn’t want her to worry. Besides, it’s a big house. Anyway, you might as well meet the rest of my family.”
I followed her through the living room with its intricate woodwork and fireplace flanked by matching sculptures of cherubs, into the kitchen where Queen Anne had given way to Frigidaire and Corian countertops and into the morning room. White wallpaper with a green leaf pattern gave it an outdoor feel. Sunlight poured in through large double-hung windows on the west side. A mirror hung over a fireplace, the reflection making the room seem larger than it was.
A woman in a wheelchair, her head held in place by cushions on either side of her face, sat in the center of the room. She opened her mouth wide when she saw us, a sound coming out I didn’t understand, though Roni did, bending to give her a kiss.
“Hi, Mama. I love you.”
Her mother answered. This time her gurgle was easier to decipher. “Love you too.”
“I don’t blame you,” Roni said, both of them giggling.
Terry Walker stood next to Lilly Chase at the windows, one hand on her shoulder, Lilly’s gaze fixed on the mid-distance; then she turned toward us, watching Roni and her mother.
Lilly was red-haired with an oval face, her green eyes not dulled by age. She must have been a beautiful woman when she was young, and she was still attractive, her back straight and her carriage square and confident.
Roni’s mother stirred in her wheelchair, raising her left hand, tapping the armrest, smiling a crooked smile. Lilly knelt besides her, squeezing her hand as they exchanged looks and murmurs.
“Martha needs to lie down. I’ll take her,” Lilly said.
“I’ll help you,” Roni said, following her mother and grandmother.
Terry circled the morning room, admiring the view from the windows, running his hand along the backs of the furniture, taking inventory.
“Good to be home?”
He looked at me, eyebrows raised, cocking his head to one side.
“Roni told me,” I said, answering his unspoken question. “She said you lived here as a kid but moved away. What’s it like after being away so long?”
“It’s more strange than good. Nothing’s what it was when I left, including Lilly and me.”
“What made you decide to come back after all these years?”
He shrugged. “I’ve spent my whole life on the road, always looking for the next stop and never thinking about where I’ve been. Now I’m of an age where there’s a hell of a lot less in front of me than behind me. Got me thinking that maybe it was time to circle back, see if any of my old crew was still kicking around. I lived down the street from Lilly. I came to have a look at the old neighborhood and saw her sitting on the porch. Hadn’t seen her in fifty years, but I never forgot that red hair of hers. Some things just burn into your memory.”
“You planning on staying this time?”
“Not likely. Wasn’t enough to keep me here when I was a kid, and I doubt there’s enough now. I imagine I’ll say my hellos and good-byes and be on my way.”
“What about family?”
“Had a brother, but Lilly told me he’s dead. Got shot robbing a liquor store thirty years ago, which isn’t much of a surprise since he was born bad.”
“In the DNA, huh?”
“Hard to say if it’s the blood or the time and place.”
“Probably some of both. I get the sense that you’ve been in a few scrapes.”
He fingered his clipped ear, smiling. “A time or two. How about you? What’s your small-world story?”
“Me? Roni is taking a look at some financial records for me.”
We traded smiles, the twinkle in his eyes reminding me again that the first liar didn’t stand a chance, but I had no reason to share a murder investigation with Northeast’s prodigal son.
“That’s so?”
“It is.”
The doorbell rang, and I heard footsteps clattering down the stairs. “More company?”
“Not for Lilly. It’s for Roni and me, a police detective who’s working on the same case I asked Roni to help me on.”
“Those financial records.”
“Yeah.”
“Well then, have at it. I’ll show myself out.”