Her Silent Cry

Twenty-Seven

Josie and Oaks stood in the Rosses’ backyard, the only place on the premises where they could speak without being overheard by Amy or Colin. Oaks looked as though he still hadn’t slept. A patchy gray beard had grown in along his jawline and chin. His arms were wrapped tightly over his chest as he regarded her. “You knew we interviewed the teacher, and you went to see her anyway. Are you second-guessing my team, Detective Quinn?”

“No,” Josie said. “On the contrary, I think your team is doing a fine job, and you’re covering way more ground than my team could ever hope to cover in such a short amount of time.”

“Then why did you go to the school?”

She couldn’t entirely explain it. It was her instinct driving her, and she wasn’t even sure where it was going to take her. “I just needed to talk to someone close to Lucy besides her parents,” Josie said. “Violet Young told me that Amy often seemed distracted.”

“You were looking for something you could use to try to get Mrs. Ross to open up to you,” Oaks said.

“Sort of,” Josie said. “The fact that the kidnapper knew about that teddy bear—the one with the recording feature—and got into the house to use it, unseen, is really bothering me.”

Oaks nodded. “It’s bothering me as well.”

“I can’t shake the thought that whoever took Lucy got close to her. Somehow.”

“Yesterday you were insistent that whoever was staying with the nanny was that person,” Oaks pointed out.

“Yes,” Josie said. “I still think that’s the most likely scenario, but I feel like we are missing something. How did the kidnapper get enough access to Lucy to convince her that she should leave her parents? Enough access to put this plan into place; a plan where she would retrieve a sweatshirt from inside the carousel, put it on to avoid being noticed, and run off to this person? Someone who got close to the nanny could have done it. Someone who routinely approached Lucy at the park whenever the nanny took her there and was on her phone. But school was the only place where Lucy was completely out of her mother’s sphere of influence.”

Oaks sighed. “I’ll have the staff checked out.”

“Thank you. And I think we should take a closer look at John Bausch.”

Oaks’s brow furrowed. Then he said, “He was one of the school presenters, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. Great memory,” Josie remarked. She knew the FBI was literally tracking down thousands of leads. Even the most mundane and unlikely of suspects were on their list. “He’s the bug expert who visited Lucy’s school a couple of months ago. I had my people send a warrant to the school for the photos the teacher took of him with the children the day he was there.”

“You know, I had a team go to the school. They got a list of all special visitors and presenters at the school going back six months. John Bausch was on that list. I’m quite certain he had an alibi for the day Lucy went missing. One of my agents contacted his office.” Oaks pulled out his phone. After several swipes and scrolls, he tapped his index finger against the screen. “Here it is. I’ve got a note here. My agents talked to his assistant, who is also his wife, and she faxed us a copy of his schedule for the week Lucy went missing. He was in Philadelphia for the weekend, and he was meeting with someone from the Academy of Natural Sciences around the time that Lucy disappeared. That was confirmed by a rep for the Academy. What do you propose we do?”

“Bring him in.”

“You want us to bring in a guy who lives an hour away who has a solid alibi?” Oaks asked.

“Listen, we know we’re not dealing with just one person here,” Josie said. “So maybe Bausch has an alibi, but I don’t know if that firmly rules him out. He may have had help—maybe from the mystery woman who was staying at Jaclyn Underwood’s apartment. Maybe she was his accomplice, and her job was to get close to Jaclyn so she would find out as many intimate details about the Rosses’ lives as possible—and get a copy of Jaclyn’s house key made.”

Oaks’s pinched expression told her he was struggling to find the strength in her reasoning. From her back jeans pocket, Josie pulled out the drawing from the school, unfolded it and handed it to Oaks. “Lucy drew this after Bausch came to her school. There’s another one up in her room. Same drawing.”

Oaks raised a brow. “You want me to bring this guy in based on a child’s drawing?”

“Do we have more pressing leads than this?” Josie pointed out.

“It’s a stretch to call this a lead, Detective Quinn. This man was at Lucy’s school once, two months ago. He has a confirmed alibi for the day that Lucy vanished. There were a half dozen guests at Denton West in the last six months: Bausch, two different children’s authors, the mayor of Denton, the fire marshal and a professional athlete from the Philadelphia Eagles. All of them were checked out. All of them had alibis for the day Lucy vanished. Would you propose we bring in all of those people?”

Josie put a hand on her hip and said, “Only if they chase butterflies.”

Oaks gave her a stunned look before bursting into laughter.

Josie waited for him to finish before she said, “You’d have to be blind not to notice Lucy’s obsession with butterflies.”

Oaks nodded. “Indeed, you’d have to be, and I see your point—if you were an adult trying to gain Lucy’s trust so you could prepare her for something, using her interest would be a great place to start, but it’s a little coincidental, don’t you think? A guy who handles butterflies for a living kidnaps a child who loves butterflies?”

“Not just butterflies,” Josie argued. “He’s primarily a beekeeper, from what Violet Young said. He brought lots of different insects with him.”

“Okay so aside from that you still want to bring in a guy who already checked out?”

“Let my team do it,” Josie said. “My colleague, Detective Gretchen Palmer—she can do it. I’ll have her track him down and bring him into our stationhouse. We’ll talk with him. If it’s nothing, it’s nothing. But if it’s something…”

Oaks sighed. “Then you’ll have my support. You know that.”

“Thank you,” Josie said. As Oaks walked back inside to check on Colin and Amy, Josie took out her phone and called Gretchen.