Upside Down

49

The lock on Kimberly and Faith Ann's back door was a deadbolt, so it took Winter, not exactly a Houdini, over a minute to pick it and enter the utility room, which was open into the den. He found nothing there but saw where the computer had been, an empty space next to the printer and scanner. As he moved up the hall, Winter was appalled by the senseless mess the cops had made in the master bedroom, that small private bath. What could have been the point of the destructive behavior of the searchers? Faith Ann's bedroom was upside down. There had been both aquarium and Audubon Zoo posters on the bedroom wall, now torn up and scattered over the floor. A shattered boom box, ripped-up stuffed animals, glass shards…

It struck him that the men must have done this so they could say that Faith Ann had done the vandalism herself, the girl running amok while still in a fit of rage after murdering her own mother. It made sense to stack up as many pieces of evidence against her as possible. Framing someone was like painting a canvas-only talented artists knew precisely when to put the brush aside, before one more stroke diminished the painting. Tinnerino and his partner were certainly not artists.

In the hallway bathroom he surveyed the chaos and spotted the dog clippers. There was something else-something very interesting. On the floor beside the counter, on one of the white towels, were several long hairs. He pulled one of them off to inspect it. Smart kid. He folded the hairs into a towel and placed it in the cabinet under the sink. He inspected the plastic gap on the clippers and judged the length of her hair. He wondered if the other searchers had made the same discovery and prayed they hadn't. If he was right, the pictures of Faith Ann would not accurately reflect the child who was now running from them. It was a small thing, but it was an edge-it meant she was thinking like a survivor.

He took a quick look around the kitchen, dining and living rooms but found nothing useful. Winter went back out, locking the deadbolt behind him. Locking it took forty seconds. He wanted to see why the woman had gone under there.

Upon turning the corner, he spotted the movable wood lattice panel because it hadn't fully closed. Winter went the length of the house and found the concrete porch with its square opening. It was pitch-black inside, so he took out a disposable cigarette lighter he always carried in his pocket, thanks to not having one a year before when he had needed a source of light. He flicked it to life and, holding it inside, spotted the yellow poncho. Bracing himself, he slid inside the cool damp enclosure.

In the flickering light he saw there was something under the plastic. His heart fell, thinking Faith Ann's curled-up body might be concealed beneath it. He lifted the edge of the poncho and discovered a pillow. He studied the plastic shell that had contained a Walkman, looked at the shears and the pair of batteries remaining in the packaging. He thought about the empty cassette recorder in Kimberly Porter's office Manseur had mentioned to him. There was a tape… and Faith Ann has it.

He put the pillow to his face, caught the distinctive odor of stale perspiration, and thought he detected moisture. She had been there since Nicky saw her the night before, and he was sure she had cut her hair and flushed the toilet during the night and taken the pillow then. The woman who'd been under there hadn't found Faith Ann, because Clara Hughes would have noticed her being taken away. He didn't think Faith Ann would come back here. It saddened him to imagine the frightened child lying in the dark space listening to the tape recording of her mother's murder. Reliving it, because if Manseur was right she had witnessed it. He felt a heightened sense of urgency in finding her.

He was behind the other searchers-hundreds of cops and perhaps the killer, or killers. Perhaps one of those cops was also the killer. He was afraid that if the cops got to her before he did, she wouldn't be alive long enough for him to save her. Shaking something loose by the selective use of a heavy hand was his only hope to get ahead of the others, cutting down the timeline. He would talk to Jerry Bennett. If the cops learned that he was on their tails, maybe they'd make a mistake, and just maybe they'd think twice before harming Faith Ann. He didn't know what else he could do.

Only once before in his professional career had he been looking for someone in order to save her-Sean. He had succeeded, and against insurmountable odds. And the odds of success had certainly been a lot slimmer then. I will find Faith Ann, he vowed. And God help the bastard that harms one hair on her head.