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  “A subject her cousin Caleb was studying,” she said. “Caleb, who had severed ties with the family.”

  Irene never took long to see where he was heading with something. And she reached the next point immediately.

  “Oh, shit. If she got into the group to keep tabs on Caleb, and then David died and Ben took over handling David’s dogs… Oh, no… Damn her!”

  “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Like hell. The conclusions are jumping at us.”

  “No. That’s not true. Irene, we’ve seen them together. Do you think she faked her affection for him? Over all that time?”

  There was another small silence. She was, he knew, trying to get a handle on her temper. Almost reluctantly, she said, “No. No, I — I can’t.”

  “Me neither. I just hope she told Ben about the family connection.”

  “How does a guy in your line of work come up with that kind of optimism?”

  “That wasn’t really optimism. I just don’t want to be the one to tell him.”

  She fell silent again, and he heard the sound of someone talking in the background. Irene said, “Let me call you right back. You’re on the cell?”

  A FEW minutes later, his phone rang.

  He answered and heard her say, “Sorry, newsroom crowded up again. Listen, I spent the morning at the dentist.”

  “You did? I didn’t know you were having—”

  “No, I mean, about the teeth Sheila supposedly found.” She told him about the number on Sheila Dolson’s message pad and the Fletcher dentists.

  “Okay, now I remember you mentioned this to Caleb at dinner.”

  “Right. So I went over to this dental office today. When I got there, I ended up talking to a receptionist. Young guy. I told him that I had heard that one of the dentists, Dr. Arnold Fletcher, helped search groups train dogs for finding missing children by letting them use teeth that would otherwise just go to waste.”

  “Hmm. Did you read his name tag?”

  “Yes. Not Fletcher, but so what? Our good friend Anna Stover — would that have told you she was a Fletcher?”

  “Good point.”

  “This guy’s name was Bobby Smith, but he’s in the family, all right. Pod people. Seriously. What Caleb’s dad said about the effing clan? Not far off. Anyway, at first Bobby is telling me that I must be mistaken, but everything in his body language tells me he knows something. So I say, ‘Oh no, Sheila Dolson said she couldn’t have done such wonderful work without help from this office,’ and I’d love to start by interviewing him about that. Thank God I used that wording.”

  “Why?”

  “Because instead of reacting the way I thought he would — you know, sort of excited that something complimentary about the place might be in the paper, and that I’d be helping him get his own first few minutes of fame — he got really flustered and upset, then asked me to wait outside for a few minutes.”

  “Did he lock the door and close up for the day?”

  “I half-worried about that. But he came back out, sweating and wringing his hands, and said, ‘My cousin promised she’d never tell where she got those teeth!’ And babbles for a minute about how Uncle Arnold, the dentist, will fire him if he finds out. None of this was what I expected to hear, and learning that Sheila was one of the Fletchers left me speechless. Raised more questions than it answered. So I just waited. He said, ‘I took the teeth from a box of old ones that Dr. Arnold keeps in his office. He never does anything with them. I didn’t think he’d miss a few. I felt sorry for her. I wanted to help her out. But she swore that if anyone asked, she’d say that she was the one who took them.’”

  “Hmm,” Frank said. “Did he say ‘my cousin’ or ‘Sheila’ when he told you about it?”

  “My cousin.”

  “I wonder if he thought you meant Anna?”

  She considered that for a moment, then said, “No, I only mentioned Sheila to him. Besides, Anna wouldn’t have used the ‘feel sorry for me’ approach to get the teeth. That was Sheila’s M.O.”

  “True. Mind if I tell Reed what you’ve told me?”

  “I’d hate to get poor Bobby at the dentist’s office in trouble. And — Mark might be able to trade some information for his story. I’ll urge him to call Reed with it.”

  “And if he won’t make the call?”

  “He will,” she said with conviction.

  Knowing Mark Baker, he had to agree. “You left the pad of paper in Sheila’s kitchen?”

  “I haven’t started stealing things from crime scenes,” she said indignantly.

  He suppressed a laugh. If he told her to calm down now, she’d completely blow her top. “Sorry,” he managed. “I didn’t mean to imply that.”

  “You are trying not to laugh,” she said, which made him lose it. But she laughed with him.

  “All right,” she said, “I see what you mean. Reed and Vince would get there on their own. Eventually.”

  “You and Mark could save them some time,” he agreed.

  She was quiet for a long time. “I’m starting to wonder about this family. I started out believing Sheila Dolson didn’t know a hell of a lot of people in Las Piernas. Now I think I was as wrong as I could be about that.”

  “It’s something we’ll be looking at,” Frank said.

  “I didn’t take all of Altair’s equipment with me the other night — they only let me walk away with the dog and his collar and leash. It might be worthwhile searching those SAR equipment bags and Sheila’s other belongings. If they find a little collection of teeth, it will be easier to prove that Sheila planted the ones she found out at the Sheffield Estate.”

  “I’ll mention it to them,” Frank said. “What are you doing the rest of the day?”

  “Taking Ethan to see Dr. Robinson at one. Then after that, I’m meeting a photographer at Blake Ives’s house. I’m starting on that follow-up story about families with missing children.” She sighed.

  “Not an easy assignment.”

  “The best ones never are. Besides, I volunteered for it.”

  “Let me know how things go with Ethan. And say hi to Doug Robinson for me.” She promised she would, then added, “Let me know how things go with Ben.”

  Which made him realize that he had volunteered, too.

  “Maybe it’s none of our business,” he said, knowing even as he did that he was looking for a way out.

  Silence.

  “I guess Ben has a right to know,” he said. “I wouldn’t want him to hear it from someone else.”

  “You want me to tell him?”

  He did, but for all the wrong reasons. “No, I’ll talk to him.”

  “Thanks,” she said, clearly relieved.

  They made dinner plans and hung up.

  “I must be slipping,” he said to himself, and drove off, wondering how the hell he was going to break this news to Ben.

  CHAPTER 29

  Wednesday, April 26

  3:40 P.M.

  LAS PIERNAS

  “WHAT else do you want?” the photographer asked me. He had just taken photos of a stuffed animal — a lion that’d had most of his mane, whiskers, and one eye loved off of him. It was one of many stuffed animals he had photographed, some in groups, some alone. But mostly he’d taken pictures of the lion, whose name was Squeegee, for reasons known only to a former three-year-old who wasn’t around to be asked about it.

  The photographer was being extraordinarily patient this afternoon. He had young children, a daughter and a son, and although his own marriage was in good shape, I think Blake Ives’s story horrified him.

  While he had been on toy safari, I had taken possession of three CDs of photographs from Blake Ives. Ives had big blue eyes and dark gold hair; the many framed photos of his daughter on his walls showed that she had inherited those traits from him. “I did what you said,” he told me as he handed over the digital versions of the photos. “There are ones of all of us — me, Bonnie, and Carla. Mostly Carla, though. Bon
nie said I took too many pictures of Carla.”

  The words were spoken calmly, all the bite well beneath them. The temperamental man who had called me a few days ago was nowhere in evidence. Far from raging, he seemed painfully in control of himself. All three of us were unnaturally subdued, given the reason for meeting — to photograph the Museum of Carla.

  The phenomenon wasn’t a new one to me. Over the years, I’ve covered any number of missing-persons stories, and so I had seen these little museums before. Shrines, some would say. Some parents of missing kids had them, others didn’t. A few couldn’t stand reminders, and boxed them up within weeks, as an act of anger or grief or surrender, or all three. Others came to the first anniversary of loss and put everything into the attic or gave it away on that day, as if the motions of closure would bring it about. They undoubtedly knew closure was not to be so easily acquired, although perhaps these actions brought some form of relief.

  Still other parents preserved the child’s room, thinking of it as a magnet that would draw their loved one back. A child’s bedroom furnishings and toys became something tangible to hold on to when the child himself or herself had unthinkably slipped from their grasp. For some, these rooms were a physical demonstration of remembrance, a defiant refusal to let go. A sign of enduring hope. Sometimes I find myself wondering if there is anything more cruel than enduring hope.

  Ives was a curator. Carla’s room was just as it had been the last time she was home. Cleaned and dusted. Favorite toys on the bed, the lion among them.

  He moved to a closet and opened it. “I gave away most of her clothes,” he said, “except for her favorite pj’s. I know she won’t fit in them now, but…”

  He went over the story he had told me on the phone, this time in greater detail. In the years after she left the newspaper, Bonnie had apparently gone on something of a downhill slide. Ives had met her about halfway down the slope — when she was already picking up speed, hurtling toward hitting bottom. That came when she grew restless with caring for an infant, and ran off with Reggie Faroe, a man with a criminal record and a drug problem. Blake and Bonnie Ives were divorced by the time Carla was two. The courts, considering Bonnie’s history and reports on Faroe, agreed with Blake that he should have full custody. Bonnie moved around a lot but stayed in touch and visited her daughter. As Carla went from infant to toddler, Bonnie’s desire to be a mother seemed to be renewed. “She was cleaning up her act — or so I thought,” Ives said. “She claimed Faroe was no longer in the picture, but I didn’t trust her. I never let Carla spend the night with her. Bonnie seemed content to spend hours with her here. Hinted about maybe getting back together.” He paused. “I’d love to say I didn’t fall for that, and if I had been by myself, I probably wouldn’t have listened to it. But I kept seeing how good she was with Carla, and thinking about Carla growing up without a mother. And Bonnie seemed more stable than she had been in years. So I was tempted.”

  He walked around the room, picked up Squeegee, and held him.

  “She came over one afternoon and asked if the three of us could have lunch together in a restaurant. While we were there, I went to use the gents and came back to an empty table. By the time I figured out that she wasn’t just in the ladies’ room with Carla, she was gone. I think someone, probably Faroe, must have been waiting outside to pick them up and drive off with them, because I was the one who drove us to the restaurant. A private detective found out that Faroe was living in Nevada around then, but he disappeared not long after Carla was taken, so I think he’s taken them to another country, probably Mexico.”

  He looked down at Squeegee, said, “This guy was her favorite,” and gently repositioned the lion on the bed. “She used to get scared when there was a thunderstorm. Lots of kids do, I know, but… Anyway, I’d sing that song from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.’ She loved that song. Whenever it rains, like it did the other day? I think about that, and then I wonder if she’s scared.”

  He stood up and exhaled hard, like someone who had been sucker-punched in the gut.

  The pain, the loss — easy to see. Likewise, his fears for his daughter’s safety. What took a little longer to observe was that he had been brought to a halt on a journey that was designed to go on to another end, the one parent and child were meant to share. It took a little longer to see how incomplete this had left him.

  He gestured toward a stack of brightly wrapped packages that filled one corner of the closet. “Birthdays,” he said. “Christmas.”

  The photographer wanted Ives to pose with them. Blake hesitated, then did. “She’ll be too old for most of them now,” he said, and pinched the bridge of his nose, hard. The tears didn’t fall, but he looked like hell while he held them back.

  The photographer was too well trained to miss the moment. Our bosses would love it. Neither of us took joy in that, despite whatever rep those in our professions may have. I don’t expect anyone who wasn’t there to understand this, but shying away from Blake Ives’s misery would have, essentially, dishonored it.

  I looked around the room. “A map of the United States? Books? Flashcards? Wasn’t she a little young?”

  “She walked before she was nine months old. She started talking before she was a year old. She could name all the states and point them out on the map by the time she was two. She knew how to read simple sentences before her third birthday and was working her way through Dr. Seuss. She could add and subtract.” He paused. “I’m sure that just sounds like bragging, but we had her tested. I should say, I gave in and let her be tested. I regret it now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wanted to know, so that we could make informed choices about her education. But once your child is identified as a gifted preschooler… let’s just say there are people who won’t let that kid just be a kid.”

  “Bonnie one of them?”

  “I don’t know.” He sighed. “Bonnie loves Carla. I know she does. It’s the only thing that keeps me from going completely crazy. But sometimes — Yes, I think she pushed her academically and didn’t balance it with play and all the other things that a child needs. From Bonnie’s point of view, I was holding Carla back.”

  “What preschool was she in?”

  “Barrington Hills.”

  The photographer whistled.

  I looked over at him.

  “Not cheap, but kids get into the best prep schools if they go there or Sheffield Gardens. Or to Fletcher Day School, of course.”

  “That’s part of Fletcher Academy?” I asked.

  “Not really, even though the family owns both. A lot of kids at the day school do go on to the academy.”

  “And the academy is the best private school in Las Piernas,” I said. I turned back to Ives. “So you paid high preschool tuition?”

  “I would have paid twice that,” he said, “even if it meant taking a second job. I wanted her to be a kid, but it’s not that simple — I also wasn’t going to deny her any options for her future. The kids who go to Barrington end up in prep schools that lead to Ivy League schools. I wanted her to have the best opportunities.”

  I just barely kept my jaw from dropping. “She wasn’t even five years old yet. She hadn’t started kindergarten.”

  “The competition is unbelievable.”

  “Is it even possible to know how smart a child that young is? Or if he or she will like school?”

  “Sure — I mean, not always, of course. But in cases like Carla’s, you could tell even without the tests.”

  “Who tested her?” I asked, hoping to get the name of someone who wasn’t going to be quite so biased.

  “I made copies of her school papers for you. Hang on.”

  Ives left the room. I turned to the photographer, ready to make a crack about parents who push too hard. The look on his face was wistful, not cynical, though, and he sighed dreamily. “Barrington Hills,” he said. “God, I hope I can get my kids in there.”

  “How ol
d are they?” I choked out.

  “My daughter is six months old. My son is two.”

  IVES brought back a thick stack of paperwork, including reports from a private eye he had briefly hired, information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and his notes from a meeting with a psychic he had paid. “I was desperate,” he said when I came across that one. I saw flyers with his daughter’s picture on them and copies of pages from a notebook he kept on his conversations with police, the notes getting briefer as time went on, the last series at three-month intervals, with the dates, the names of various LPPD detectives who happened to have the misfortune to be working in the low-status realm of missing persons, and the word nothing written next to their names.

  “When will the story run?” he asked.

  “Up to my editor,” I answered absently as I looked through his notes. “Next week maybe, but no guarantees. A breaking story could change everything. And I can’t guarantee how much of what I write will get in.” I glanced up and saw that his shoulders were slumping. I had disappointed him — or dealt another blow. I thought back over what I had just said and wanted to kick myself. “I can call you and let you know once my editor makes his decisions.”

  “Yes, thanks.” He straightened his back. “I’ve waited this long, I guess another few days won’t matter.”

  I tried to distract him by going over his notebook with him.

  As we left, he teared up again. “Thanks for all you’re doing to help out,” he said.

  I made a polite reply, but wondered if six months from now I’d be a name on a ledger, next to which he would write, Nothing.

  CHAPTER 30

  Wednesday, April 26

  6:30 P.M.

  LAS PIERNAS

  WE had just put dinner on the table when the dogs started barking. The doorbell rang a moment later. Sometimes I wonder why we bother keeping it hooked up. No one has managed to ring it before the dogs have warned us of their presence. I suppose it keeps us from opening the door every time someone walks another dog on the sidewalk in front of the house, though.