No way out

Chapter Thirty-five

Nothing happens in a vacuum. We go through life, content in the belief that our little corner of the world is a gated community, that outside our limited circle of family and friends no one much cares or notices what we do. Politicians and celebrities are criticized for living in a bubble, a closed atmosphere impervious to reality. But the truth is we all live in our own bubbles, ignoring the ripples we create until we bump, trip, or stumble into someone else’s world, the bubbles burst, and the ripples well up, becoming shock waves.

“Nick Staley owns a little grocery store on St. John,” I said.

“You live in Brookside,” Simon said. “Since when do you buy bread on St. John?”

“I don’t. Staley has a son named Brett who works at the grocery. He’s also in love with Roni Chase.”

“Six degrees of separation,” Simon said. “Which one was in a movie with Kevin Bacon?”

Lucy scooted to the edge of her chair. “Jack, you can talk to Roni, find out if her boyfriend knows anything, maybe get her to make an introduction to Nick. That way you can come at him without him being on guard. He might open up or at least let something slip.”

“So now it’s a good thing I’m helping Roni?”

She sat back, arms crossed. “If it’ll help find those kids.”

“It’s worth a try,” Kate said. “If you show up at his grocery store and ask him if he’s sleeping with Peggy and, oh by the way, did he kidnap her kids, he might clam up in spite of your considerable charm.”

“Bonner,” I asked, “have you talked to Nick Staley?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?” Lucy asked. “You said you’d already thought of the boyfriend angle.”

“I left him a couple of messages, but he didn’t call back. I tried catching him at the store, but missed him. The kid I talked to must have been his son.”

“Mid-twenties, blond, chinstrap beard, pierced eyebrow. Spends a lot of time in the gym and wants you to know it,” I said.

“All that and an attitude to match. Asked me for ID, wouldn’t tell me when or if Nick would be back or how I could get ahold of him. When I told him I represented Jimmy Martin, he acted like he’d never heard of him, which didn’t register with me until now. If his father and Jimmy were buddies, you’d think he’d have been more helpful.”

I thought of Roni, how her family’s history connected her to the Staley and Crenshaw families. She was third-generation Northeast. It made sense that her roots were entwined with so many others who lived there, loyalty and suspicion of outsiders strengthening the ties. She’d been reluctant to talk about Frank Crenshaw even after he killed Marie and took a shot at her, asking me if I was a cop and questioning why I was trying to help her.

“If Roni won’t talk about the gun that was used to kill Frank Crenshaw because she’s covering for Brett Staley, there’s not much chance she’ll help me run a scam on her boyfriend’s father. I’d rather Kate and I talk to Nick and leave Roni out of it. Besides, there’s another possibility.”

“What?” Bonner asked.

“You tell him, Kate.”

“Today at the lake, there was another mother, Jeannie Montgomery. She’s been looking for her son, Timmy, for two years. He and the Martin kids lived in the same neighborhood. We have to consider the possibility that their disappearances are connected.”

Bonner straightened, taking a sharp breath. “You’re talking a serial killer that goes after little kids?”

“That’s one theory,” I said. “I asked Adrienne Nardelli if she had any evidence of that, and she ducked the question. That was reason enough to get it on my radar.”

“Great, that makes us worse off than we were,” Bonner said. “We go from a boyfriend suspect with real potential to looking for a creep who snatches kid without leaving a trace. How am I supposed to sell that to a jury?”

I looked at Simon. I’d left him a message asking him to dig up what he could on the Montgomery case. “You make any progress?”

“Let’s start with the big picture,” Simon answered. “According to the Justice Department, in one year they studied, roughly eight hundred thousand kids under the age of eighteen went missing, which worked out to about twenty-one hundred a day or one child every forty seconds. Family members snatched a couple hundred thousand of them and a non-family member but known to the family took another sixty thousand. Classic kidnappings by strangers accounted only for a hundred and fifteen cases.”

“The numbers don’t add up,” Bonner said. “There are over a half million kids left out.”

“That’s because they’re still missing. No one knows what happened to those kids. Even if you extrapolate the statistics to include them, a serial kidnapper killer is way down on the probability scale.”

“What about other kids from the area that have gone missing?” I asked.

“I’m working on that, but the odds are still against a serial killer.”

“Someone once told me,” I said, “not to confuse the improbable with the impossible.”

“And my statistics professor taught me to trust the numbers especially when you are short on time and resources.”

“Tell that to the people who get washed away every spring by the annual hundred-year flood. Bring it down to these two cases. Did you find anything to connect them?”

“The kids went to the same school, and the families belong to the same church.”

“Which means they could have come in contact with some of the same people. Anything else?”

“The public record on the Montgomery case is thin, a few stories after Timmy went missing, the usual stuff, appeals to the public for help, follow-up stories that are a rehash. What I need is a look at the files the police put together.”

“I don’t think Adrienne Nardelli is going to take us into her inner circle, but I’ve got a call in to Ammara Iverson at the FBI. She might be willing to help.”

Bonner stood. “So it looks like we’ve got a plan. Jack and I will talk to Roni in the morning. Jack will have a go at Nick Staley and, maybe, the feds will throw him a bone. It’s getting late, and I’m getting old. I’m going to go home and go to bed.”

Lucy grabbed her purse. “You coming?” she said to Simon.

“Where?”

“To see if Peggy Martin’s helpful neighbors, Ellen Koch and Adam, are home yet. They can’t stay out all night.”

“It’s almost ten. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?” he asked, regretting the words as soon as they left his lips, Lucy slicing and dicing him with a raised eyebrow and a tight, down-turned mouth, not saying a word. “Forget I said that. I’m right behind you.”

“Well,” Kate said after they left, “I guess it’s down to you and me.”

I was standing in the middle of the room. She rose from the sofa, closing the distance to half an arm’s length, putting herself in easy reach.

“It’s down to you. I’m overdue at home.”

“Let me drive you.”

I shook my head. “Joy left me three voice messages and three texts while I was asleep. I called her back so she knows I’m here, which is bad enough, but having you drop me off is no way to end my day.”

“What about tomorrow? If I’m going with you to see Nick Staley, how will you manage that?”

“I thought you had to get back to San Diego.”

She smiled. “I moved some things around and bought a few days. I hope I made the right decision.”

I got lost in her eyes. “I’ll take the bus to the courthouse and meet you there.”

“Funny, isn’t it? There’s nothing going on between you and me, but the three of us are acting like there is. I lured you to my hotel room. You’re itchy just being here because Joy is jealous, and we’re scheming how we’re going to be together without her knowing about it. The past has a long half life, and we’re living it-again.”

“I’ll tell Joy everything, and you didn’t lure me.”

“Then why not let me drive you home and pick you up in the morning?”

I didn’t answer, not certain what I really would say to Joy, if anything, knowing that she’d react the same to the truth, a lie, or silence.

She studied me, nodding. “It doesn’t matter, does it? I lured you, and I’m not certain why. You hurt me, and I’ve been angry with you for a long time. I tried to stay with the anger all day, but I couldn’t.”

“Well, at least the day wasn’t a total loss. You got me in your bed.”

She smirked, smacking me on the arm. “Smart-ass! All the good it did me. You didn’t even budge when I took your cell phone out of your pocket.”

“Better that I didn’t.”

She dipped her chin, then raised her head, sweeping her hair to one side. “Yeah. I know. It is what it is.”

“Joy is a good…”

She interrupted, putting her palm on my chest. “Person. I know, and so are you and so am I. Good people make life harder. You can’t hate them forever, and you can’t forget why you loved them. You won’t have any trouble getting a cab. They’re always lined up across the street at the Intercontinental Hotel.”

“One question before I go?”

She crossed her arms against her chest. “Of course. I forgot that you’re always on the job.”

“You had Bonner under the microscope tonight. Is he lying about what he knows?”

She shrugged. “What can I say? He’s a lawyer. They all lie.”