No way out

Chapter Forty-three

Peggy Martin didn’t answer her door or her phone. Her car wasn’t on the street or in the garage. There was no mail in her mailbox, and there were no newspapers piled on her driveway. She was out but not gone. Across the street, Ellen Koch watched us from her front window, drawing the curtain when I started toward her house.

“You wanted to talk to her,” I said to Kate. “Find out why she showed such contempt for Peggy. Might as well be now.”

We rang the bell, and she opened her door a crack, the chain keeping us out.

“May we come in?” Kate asked.

“What for?”

“We’d like to talk with you about Peggy. You’ve been such a great help to her through all of this.”

“I’m worried about her kids. Anyone would be.”

“But not everyone would do what you’ve done. There are people who don’t think Peggy is a good mother. They blame her for what happened and use that as an excuse not to help. You’re not like that.”

Ellen studied us for a moment, removing the chain and opening the door. “It’s not those poor kids’ fault. They didn’t choose their mother.”

She led us into the kitchen, warmed her coffee and offered us a cup. “All I’ve got is decaf.”

“Perfect,” Kate said. “The caffeine makes me too jumpy.”

Kate was in her element, reading Ellen, making a connection, turning it into an invitation. She’d done it with Jimmy Martin and Nick Staley, both times sucker punching them. I made myself part of the scenery, wondering whether she’d do the same to Ellen.

“Me too,” Ellen said. “Keeps me up at night.”

“My son is almost as old as Adam. He’s what keeps me up at night.”

Ellen stirred her coffee, eyes on the rising steam. “I know what you mean.”

“There’s a lot of talk about Peggy, about her being unfaithful. I imagine you must have heard that.”

“People talk.”

“The police think her husband may have been so mad at her for cheating on him that he did something to their kids to punish her. What do you think?”

She looked up. “Jimmy Martin has a temper on him, that’s for sure. And, he’s a hateful man. Never said a kind word about anybody that wasn’t White, and that’s a hard way to be around here with all the Blacks and Mexicans and the other immigrants. Seems like he was mad most of the time, and he and Peggy fought like there was no tomorrow.”

“So, you wouldn’t be surprised if he did something to his kids.”

“Oh, no. I’d be shocked if he laid a hand on them. He has a lot of ugly in him, but every time I saw him with his kids, he was nothing but a good father. One look at them kids and he was a different man.”

“Then why do you think he won’t help the police find his children?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking away. “Maybe he knows they’re okay and he doesn’t want to let Peggy have them.”

Kate reached across the table, covering Ellen’s hand with hers. “If you believed Evan and Cara were safe, you wouldn’t have raised the money to hire Lucy Trent or organized the volunteer searches, and you wouldn’t have been at the lake yesterday.”

Ellen raised her head, her eyes moist. “You never know for sure about someone. You try to find the good in them.”

“Did you see Jimmy the day the kids disappeared?”

“No. Like I told the police, I didn’t see anybody or anything.”

“It’s possible Jimmy had nothing to do with the kids’ disappearance. It’s possible that someone else who had access to the house and who the kids knew well enough to let inside may have taken them. Can you think of anyone like that?”

“No,” she said, her gaze aimed at the floor. “Nobody I knew of.”

“Peggy admitted she was having an affair but wouldn’t tell us with whom. We need to talk to her boyfriend. The kids could have let him in, and he could have taken them. Do you know who she was seeing?”

Ellen sagged, shaking her head. Kate squeezed her hand.

“I think you do know. I can see it your face. There’s nothing more important than saving Evan and Cara. Please help us.”

Ellen withdrew her hand, clutching her arms around her chest.

“It wasn’t his fault. He’s a good boy, and she’s old enough to know better, but she kept after him.”

“Who?”

Her chest heaved. “Adam.”

“Peggy was having an affair with your son?”

Ellen turned away, crying. “She’s nothing but a damn whore! Threw herself at my son. I found out a couple of months ago and made him break it off.”

“Did he stop seeing her?”

She shook her head. “He says so, but I don’t know.”

“Where’s Adam?”

“He left a while ago. He didn’t say where he was going.”

My cell phone rang. It was Lucy. There was a door in the kitchen leading to a small, bricked patio. I waited until I was outside to answer.

“Did you pick up the files?”

“Yes. Simon and I have been going through them all morning.”

“Anything?”

“Timmy Montgomery and the Martin kids went to the same school and the same church.”

“We knew that. What else?”

“There’s a list in the Montgomery file of all the Sunday school teachers at the church and the older kids who helped out in the classroom. One name jumped out; a teenager who was assigned to Timmy’s class.”

“Who?”

“Adam Koch.”

“You and Simon were going to try to catch up to him and his mother last night. Any luck?”

“No. The house was dark. We rang the bell, but no one answered so we waited outside for a couple of hours before Simon made me go home. And, get this. I called the church to find out if Adam worked in either of the Martin kids’ classrooms, and he didn’t. Turns out that the church gave him the boot a year after Timmy Montgomery disappeared. It seems that a parent complained he’d gotten too friendly with a little girl.”

“Did the police question him about the Montgomery boy?”

“Yes, but it was a perfunctory interview, covering the bases. They talked to all the Sunday school teachers and staff, asking them if they’d seen any strangers hanging around the church or the neighborhood, stuff like that. He was never considered a suspect.”

“What about the parent’s complaint?”

“There’s nothing in the file about it.”

“Makes sense. The complaint was a year after Timmy’s disappearance. No reason for anyone at the church to make a connection and call the police.”

“You’re right. Only reason I found out was that the church secretary likes to gossip. When I asked her about Adam, she couldn’t wait to tell me.”

“Did you get the name of the parent who complained?”

“Yeah. I’m going to see her later this afternoon. Where are you?”

“On Ellen Koch’s patio. Kate is inside talking with her. She told us that Adam was having an affair with Peggy. He left the house this morning, and she doesn’t know where he went. Peggy isn’t home either. I’m going to have a look around. If he killed the Montgomery boy, he may have kept souvenirs.”

“Timmy’s file says he was wearing blue shorts, a Harry Potter T-shirt and flip-flops when he was last seen. Any of those would qualify.”