Before She Disappeared

CHAPTER 6

The Boston public school system is a mystery to me. I grew up in a small community. One elementary school, one middle school, one regional high school. You stood at a corner, the bus came and took you where you needed to go with the rest of the neighborhood kids. Boston, on the other hand . . .

Public schools, charter schools, international schools. Forget local geography, such as Mattapan. From what I read, a high schooler could attend any public school in the city of Boston, using some crazy application process that probably made engaged parents want to shoot themselves and disengaged parents . . . well, that much more disengaged.

Given such madness, high schoolers didn’t rely on the traditional yellow school bus. Instead, they had student passes for the city’s mass transit system—the T. Reading about it gave me a headache. That headache returns now as I contemplate the map of Boston’s MBTA system.

The articles on Angelique’s disappearance listed her high school as Boston Academy, a program that prided itself on helping minority students prepare for futures in healthcare, medicine, et cetera. If Angelique wanted to be a doctor, her school choice made perfect sense. From what I can tell, Boston Academy is a mere twenty minutes—and many confusing rail-bus-subway stops—away. Just to make it more interesting, I’ve managed to catch Boston in the middle of a massive update to the MBTA, guaranteed to cause delays, shutdowns, and random moments of sheer chaos.

I follow one of my printed-out maps to a local station, where I dutifully sit next to the tracks, watching garbage blow this way and that. I make out some graffiti farther down the way, not to mention random stickers adhered to benches and signs, now faded with age. A tattered poster is fastened near the T sign. MISSING, it reads in large print. Below, barely visible after eleven months of weather: Angelique’s official headshot. I feel a moment of fresh sadness. Not just because this girl is missing, but because from here on out, she will be defined by this one image. Was she happy the day this photo was snapped? Thinking about school, dreaming about boys, or plotting her next adventure with her friends?

Or, if her disappearance really was a planned event of her own making, was she already working at the details even as this photo was taken? Hoping no one would look too close? Fearing someone might notice?

I try to study the smudged photo for answers, but of course it offers none.

A rumble along the tracks, then my train arrives. Except it doesn’t look like a train to me. More like a vintage trolley. Orange, single car, cute. I’m supposed to take the trolley a couple of stops, then transfer to a bus. I once worked a case in a state park where the entire search area was accessible only via horseback; how hard could this be?

I screw up getting off at my first stop—ironically enough, because I’m studying the stupid map. I get off at the next and double back on foot, feeling frazzled and rushed as I don’t have much time if I want to catch Angelique’s school friends during their lunch break. My other option is to wait for them after school, but I have to be back at work then. I don’t think Stoney will tolerate an employee showing up late for her very first day, even if she did survive her feline roommate the night before.

I make my second attempt to locate the right bus, only to find myself now headed in the wrong direction. Third stop, when I’m definitely starting to freak out and trying hard not to show it, an older African American woman with carefully coiffed gray curls and perfect red lipstick reaches up from her seat and gently tugs at the hem of my jacket.

“Would you like some help, dear?”

“Yes, please!”

I plop down in the seat beside her, handing over my now wrinkled printout. She eyes it carefully, then hands it back.

“I’ve never been any good with maps.” She taps her temple with a manicured nail. “But I have it all right here. Tell me where you’re going, child, and I’ll get you there.”

Her name is Leena. She’s a retired receptionist, off to visit her sister for the day. She reminds me of a grande dame. Not just impeccably groomed, but with the kind of self-possession that comes from hard-fought battles and harder-won forgiveness. We speak for three minutes, long enough for me to decide I want to be her when I grow up.

Armed with her directions, I set off again. It takes me only a moment to realize Leena’s right. If I hold in my head where I want to go, my feet take me in the right direction. One glance at the map, however, and all bets are off. Maybe because the transit map bears no resemblance to surface streets. It offers an oversimplified series of blue, green, red, and yellow spines that are far too neat for the reality of an overgrown historic city bristling with random byways.

I still make two wrong turns, but at last I find myself standing in front of Boston Academy in South Dorchester. The school sits atop a grassy knoll, one of the few touches of green I can see. If Mattapan is densely populated, high on crime, and low on the socioeconomic totem pole, South Dorchester appears to be its kissing cousin.

The academy boasts an imposing three-story façade with broad windows and huge glass doors that lead straight to twin metal detectors. Behind the carved granite entrance, the body of the building unfolds in a series of tall brick wings. Each exterior window is the same size, and they are equally spaced, row after row after row.

The grounds provide a perimeter of patchy green grass interspersed with clumps of woody shrubs. Some rhododendrons, hydrangea, and what looks to be forsythia. None of it is terribly well tended, but still a nice respite from brick and concrete. I hear a bell tone from deep inside the belly of the school, signaling something. Students don’t come pouring out, so I continue my inspection.

I’m curious about a number of things. First, it looked to me like Angelique’s daily school commute brought her within two blocks of the academy. From there, it’s a fairly straight walk from her bus stop to the institute’s front doors—which I’m certain, given the presence of the metal detectors, all students are required to use. One egress in and out. All schools, but particularly inner-city schools, are big on control.

I follow what I hope were her footsteps, passing a corner grocer, a liquor store, a nail salon, and a barbershop. I also note a sign for a chiropractor and a chain pharmacy at the opposite corner, doing bustling business.

Angelique had to cross the street to reach the front steps of her school. If she did that at the corner intersection, then her final stretch would be a hundred feet of grassy school grounds, tucked behind a low wrought-iron fence. Plenty of small bushes line the perimeter, but being right next to the street they are littered with disposable coffee cups, plastic water bottles, even nips of booze. I spot Fireball whiskey, three kinds of vodka, then Jim Beam, an oldie but a goodie. From the students or the neighbors? I’m not sure I want to know the answer to that.

Guerline had said Angelique’s backpack was recovered from underneath a bush near school grounds. Meaning, if I were a student and wanted to hide something . . .

I look across the street at the row of businesses facing the school. An entire block of them. Meaning dozens of watching eyes, potential witnesses, and security cameras. Whatever happened that Friday eleven months ago, it definitely didn’t happen here. This whole stretch is far too visible.

I continue around the block, down the side of the brick building. I have out my small spiral-bound notebook, jotting down a quick note of this, that. Mostly I’m counting security cameras, marking egresses, and mapping the bushes that fall in between. From time to time I stray onto school grounds, stepping over the low wrought-iron border to check out groupings of low shrubs. No trees, I notice. Nothing to interfere with the line of sight. Smart.

“Frankie Elkin?”

I glance up to find a big guy in a charcoal-gray suit staring at me from the sidewalk. He’s tall, probably six two, broad shouldered, and with the build of a midforties male who was once super fit and is still fit enough. His erect bearing and buzzed black hair marks him as former military, while his complexion . . . maybe African American or Latin or some blend in between? I can’t tell. Good-looking guy. Or would be if he weren’t regarding me with exasperation. Now, he casually smooths back his jacket to expose the gold shield clipped to his waist.

“Detective Dan Lotham.” I want to prove I can make educated guesses as well.

“Do you have permission to be on school grounds?”

“Um . . . My dog ate my homework?”

He gives me another look. I obediently exit the grounds onto the sidewalk. I already feel like a kid who got caught breaking curfew.

I don’t expect Detective Lotham to like me. A civilian inserting herself into an official police investigation? I’m lucky if he doesn’t start with handcuffs and proceed to criminal trespassing charges from there.

It surprises me then, how much I find myself studying his face. There’s something about his eyes, the way he regards me, so coolly and patiently. He reminds me of last stands and a bastion against the storm.

I halt four feet back. For a moment, I’m tempted to close the gap. The instinct catches me off guard and I flush a little. It’s my own fault. It’s been a long time now since I’ve allowed myself human contact. And just because I choose to be alone doesn’t mean I never feel lonely.

“Her backpack was here.” My statement comes out tentative. I swallow, continue in a more assertive tone. “Fourth bush in. You can still see a slight hollow worn into the ground, plus some of the lower branches of the azalea are broken.”

Clearly, my comment surprises him. The exact location of Angelique’s recovered pack wasn’t in the papers, proving I’m capable of learning some things all by myself. I continue quickly, without giving him a chance to demand I walk away, or lecture me on letting the professionals do their jobs:

“The front of the school is covered by at least six cameras between the academy’s security system and businesses across the street. The other sides are slightly less monitored, but traffic cams still capture each corner, plus again, more establishments across the way. As perimeters go, the academy is well supervised.

“Until we get to here.” I gesture to the area where we are standing. “No businesses across the street. No traffic cams midblock, no school surveillance.”

He doesn’t interrupt, just narrows his eyes at me. Meaning I probably do have it right, further pissing him off.

“There’s a side door halfway down this stretch of the school, an emergency egress, which I’m guessing is locked externally as a matter of protocol. It forces the students to enter through the front doors, where they’re subject to metal detectors and spot searches. Meaning there’s either not a single weapon or ounce of drugs in this one high school, or . . .” I shrug.

Detective Lotham rolls his eyes. There’s no institution in the world that’s contraband free and we both know it. Administrations implement controls and almost nearly as fast, the inmates figure out how to circumvent the system.

I warm to my subject: “Looks to me like the students stash their guns, knives, narcotics under the bushes here, probably first thing in the morning, then wait for a break between classes. Then it’s easy enough to prop open the side egress, scurry out, and recover the illicit goods with none the wiser. Meaning plenty of students know about this spot. Including Angelique.”

“There’s a second bolt-hole twenty yards down,” Detective Lotham drawls, probably just to prove I don’t know it all.

I shrug. Here, twenty yards from here—it doesn’t matter. Angelique’s backpack was left in a strategic location known by the students, not the administration. Meaning someone knew what they were doing. Meaning that someone might very well have been Angelique, stashing her personal belongings where she figured they’d be safe. Before she . . . ?

That’s the part I don’t know yet. The part nobody knows yet.

I ignore Detective Lotham and his relentless glower, turning in a small circle to sort out the rest in my mind. “Angelique had changed her clothes,” I murmur. “The clothes she wore to school were in her pack, along with her cell phone. Meaning once she’d exited the front doors of the school, she came around the side of the building here to stash her school bag. Except, she had to change clothes somewhere in between . . .”

I look across the street, then up ahead to the corner, where there’s a larger concentration of small businesses. I’m still trying to picture it in my head. “If Angelique had entered a store to change, she would’ve been caught on camera, and that would’ve been her last known location. Instead, the school is ground zero. So she must’ve walked around the block, school clothes on, backpack in hand, and then . . .”

My voice trails off. I glance at the detective. I think I know what happened. He doesn’t confirm it in so many words, but his gaze flickers to the side door.

“She went back inside the school,” I fill in. “Someone had propped open that egress. She rounded the building, ducked in this side entrance, changed, then exited back out. How long was she back in the school?”

Detective Lotham doesn’t answer, then I realize he can’t. This is the blind spot, of course. No way to see, to know exactly what had happened here.

But I’m starting to connect some dots. Not just what Angelique probably did, but what a cop might think of it.

Fifteen-year-old girl fails to return home. Several hours later, aunt reaches out to the community liaison officer. He comes over, asks a few questions. A teenager late for dinner . . . difficult to sound the alarm.

But protocol would’ve dictated a call to the local field office, reporting the situation. At which point a detective would’ve been called out. Maybe even Detective Lotham. He would’ve taken a statement from Guerline and Emmanuel. Maybe Guerline had already activated her niece’s Find My Phone app, maybe the police pinged it. But that would bring the cops here, to a last known location with no sign of violence but plenty of evidence of local usage. A well-known student bolt-hole.

Brief canvass of businesses, maybe even an initial review of available security footage, enough to show that Angelique had exited the front door of the school, then walked in the opposite direction of her bus stop on her own volition. With no sign of violence but plenty of evidence of planning, which was bound to skew police perspective of her disappearance.

And on a Friday night to boot. Not just a night notorious for parties and teen mischief, but the end of a detective’s normally scheduled workweek. A situation where a teen has only been missing for a matter of hours and probably of her own will would hardly win OT approval.

So the detective went home, leaving a few uniforms to continue canvassing neighbors, review security videos. Saturday. Sunday. Till Monday morning, when the detective returned to his job to learn the teenage girl remained missing and the trail was now forty-eight hours cold.

Then it became serious. Pity for the BPD. Pity for Angelique and her family.

“You’re going to tell me to leave,” I say shortly. “To mind my own business.”

“Yep.”

“It won’t work.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I have permission from the family. I also have the right to ask questions.”

“Sounds like you have this all planned out.”

“Not my first outing.”

“So I’ve also heard.”

“Did you call the names I gave Officer O’Shaughnessy?”

“I decided to check you out for myself. Then hear what others had to say.”

“Good attitude for a detective.”

“Not my first outing either.”

“So?”

Detective Lotham shrugs his massive shoulders. “Sounds to me like you’re about five minutes from cracking this case and finding a teenage girl the rest of us have clearly been too stupid to locate. Please continue.”

I smile faintly. “Your original working theory was that Angelique had gone off on her own volition Friday night, to somewhere unknown by her aunt.” I pause. “And most likely her brother. Because while Emmanuel clearly knows something, he also loves his sister and would’ve told you by now if he knew where she’d gone on Friday.”

“And you got all this from meeting the family for what . . . five minutes?”

“More like twenty.”

Detective Lotham regards me for a moment, his flat expression unchanged. “Go home.”

“This is my home. I rented a room above Stoney’s.”

“It’s wrong to give the family false hope.”

“How do you know it’s false?”

“Because you’re out of your league. Because you only thought to check security feeds, when this area is surveilled by way more than cameras. This isn’t the-middle-of-nowhere USA. It’s fucking Boston, and we know what we’re doing.”

“So where’s Angelique?”

“Go home,” he repeats.

“Do you have LPR data?” A fresh thought occurs to me as I consider his surveillance comment. LPR is a license-plate reading system. Usually installed on police cruisers, parking enforcement vehicles, maybe even city buses. The technology continuously captures license plates as the vehicles drive around, creating snapshots of every single car parked at a given time in a given place. More surveillance data, as the detective said. I’ve heard of such things but never worked in an area sizable enough or sophisticated enough to have one.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss an active investigation,” Detective Lotham informs me stiffly.

Meaning yes, Boston uses an LPR system. Which would’ve given investigators every car, van, truck, taxi, Uber driver, and city vehicle that had been in the area. Enabling detectives to identify the owners, run background, and tag criminal histories in the days and weeks following Angelique’s disappearance. So much data. Way more than the-middle-of-nowhere USA, as the detective put it. And yet, eleven months later, not enough to help. I rock back on my heels, contemplating.

“All the cameras, surveillance,” I consider out loud. “You should’ve been able to retrace Angelique’s exact steps by now. Even if she exited the school in this blind spot, the minute she walked right or left, she would’ve appeared on camera. Whether she was on foot, in the passenger side of a car, tucked in the back of an Uber—something.”

Detective Lotham says nothing.

“She could’ve caught a bus or walked to the T stop,” I continue musing out loud. “But you would’ve tracked that, too. Her path to the station, then standing around, backpack free, wearing her new clothes. Of course once she boarded and swiped her student pass, that would create yet another trail of breadcrumbs to follow.”

“Assuming she swiped her card.” Lotham appears bored with the conversation. “It’s possible she used cash for a single-use ticket. Then again, we got cameras on buses, subways, and trains as well. And a whole MBTA police force well versed in studying such visuals. Boston is clever that way.”

He’s being sarcastic, but I take the assessment seriously. “In other words, Angelique didn’t take mass transit because you would’ve spotted her. Likewise, she couldn’t have walked away and she couldn’t have driven away. Which leaves . . .”

I frown. Consider. Frown again.

“The sidewalk didn’t just swallow her up,” I say at last, frustrated.

“At this time, we’ve ruled out the sidewalk as a suspect,” Detective Lotham intones. Wise-ass.

“Then you missed something.” I announce firmly, never one to avoid a fight. “Technology is great, but it’s not foolproof. Maybe fucking Boston, the world’s cleverest city, has grown too dependent on its toys. I don’t know. But a fifteen-year-old girl didn’t just disappear off the face of the earth. There’s an answer to this puzzle. There always is.” I pause, then nod vigorously. “I’m glad I came. Whether you know it or not, you need me.”

“Excuse me—”

“According to you, you have plenty of resources and experience, not to mention a shitload of technology at your disposal.”

He glowers at me again.

“And eleven months later, how has that worked for you?”

“Listen—”

“I don’t understand half the crap you do as a big-city cop; I’ve only ever read about LPR, let alone the other bells and whistles the BPD brings to the party. But it doesn’t matter. Your best practices have failed you.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“An outsider. But that’s what it takes to find most of our missing children in the end.”

“Stay away from my investigation,” Detective Lotham warns.

“No.”

“Screw with the family, mess up our case—”

“What case?”

“Fuck you!” He closes the gap between us, his arms out, posture aggressive whether he means it or not. He’s bigger than me. Stronger, angrier. But it doesn’t scare me. As a matter of fact, I like that about him. He should be pissed off. He should be protective of the family. It proves he cares. Though it worries me, too. Because police incompetence would’ve been an easy answer to this puzzle. And so far, Detective Lotham doesn’t strike me as either burned out or lazy.

So what happened to a smart, shy teenager? She’d once stood right about where I am standing now. And then?

“I’ll be in touch,” I inform Detective Lotham.

His dark eyes nearly bulge out of his head with outrage. I smile. I’ll be the first to admit that these kind of high-conflict moments aren’t always fun for other people. And yet, they’ve always been fun for me.

“You don’t have to talk to me,” I say now, stepping back. “But you also can’t stop me. So the real question is, do you want me running around on my own, or do you want to assert some control by offering a level of cooperation? That choice is yours. Either way, I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do. And that’s find Angelique Badeau.”

“You’re nuts.”

“A little bit of crazy never hurt.”

“Asking the wrong questions can.”

He has a point there. Another bell, ringing from inside the technical institute. This one is followed by more noise. The stir of hundreds of kids, squeaking back chairs, popping open doors, stomping down halls. Lunch break. Which brings me back to my original task, and yet another reason to ditch official police presence.

I signal my departure with a wave, then head back toward the street corner. Detective Lotham stays where he is, watching me go.

I disappear into the student traffic as it expels from the academy’s front doors and pours down the steps. I count to five. When I look back, the detective is no longer in sight. Just as I’d hoped.

I allow myself a single smile. Then I go back to work.