“But what if Stacey met him at the bar where he did work? Maybe he spotted her there. And he . . . liked her. That’s how these things sometimes work, right? He took one look at her and she became his target.”
D.D. hesitated. Talking to grieving family members was her least favorite part of the job. It was tempting to answer all their questions. To soothe and to explain. But the truth was, her primary obligation wasn’t to Colin Summers or his wife. It was to Stacey. And working a case was as much about safeguarding key details as it was about discovering new ones. She couldn’t risk telling Mr. Summers everything they knew about Devon Goulding. There’d been too many other occasions where the grieving father had shared valuable information with his wife or best friend, who inevitably shared it with another person, then another, until the next thing the police knew, everything they couldn’t afford known about their ongoing investigation was now fodder for the evening news.
Most family members would tell you they’d do anything to help find their loved one. Unfortunately, for their sakes, what the investigating officer genuinely needed from them was restraint.
D.D. said: “Did Stacey ever frequent Tonic bar?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t a big drinker, or a big partier. But . . . she was social,” he conceded. “If her friends wanted to go, she’d follow along.”
D.D. nodded. That was consistent with what they’d established up to this point. Yesterday afternoon, Phil had personally visited Devon Goulding’s place of employment, Tonic, with a picture of Stacey Summers. Several bartenders recognized her from the news coverage of her case, but none could place her in the establishment. Of course, that didn’t rule out Devon Goulding having crossed paths with her at a different time or at a different bar. Boston offered up a robust scene for the college crowd. The choices were endless.
Not to mention, given Goulding’s abduction of Flora Dane, they couldn’t argue that blondes weren’t to his taste.
“Do you know Florence Dane?” she asked abruptly.
There was silence on the other end of the phone line. Silence that definitely went on several beats too long.
“Why do you ask?” Colin Summers spoke up at last.
“Has she been to your house? Has she met with you?”
“We met with her mother.”
“What?”
“When your child disappears . . . There’s a program. Through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Another parent, someone who’s been there, calls to offer support. Rosa Dane was appointed as our mentor. Within the first twenty-four hours, she called, then stayed on the phone with my wife while she cried.”
“Have you personally met with her?”
“She’s been to our house a couple of times. She’s been very helpful, Sergeant. After what she went through . . . she understands. She listens and she helps. Which is more than we can say for the rest of you.”
D.D. winced at the man’s bitterness, reminded herself again it was nothing personal. The family wanted answers. They wanted their daughter back. But to date the detectives could only provide more questions at best, and fresh suspicions at worst.
“And her daughter, Florence?” D.D. pressed again.
“I’m familiar with her case,” Colin Summers said, which was, in fact, no answer at all.
“She accompanied her mother on one of her visits,” D.D. stated.
“No.”
“Reached out via phone, e-mail, Facebook? You know her, don’t you, Mr. Summers? You’ve spoken to her personally about your daughter.”
“No.”
But D.D. didn’t believe him anymore. There was something more here. Something he still wasn’t willing to say. And then . . .
“Was she the one who killed him?” Colin Summers asked.
“Who?”
“Flora. Did she kill the bartender, the suspected kidnapper? Is that why you’re asking all these questions?”
D.D. didn’t say anything. So far, they’d managed to keep Florence Dane’s name out of the news. Mostly by virtue of not having pressed any formal charges against her, meaning there wasn’t any information for overeager reporters to discover.
“Why would you assume that, Mr. Summers?”
“You investigators have your sources of information. The families of victims have ours. And given how likely you are to share with us . . .”
“We are all on the same side, Mr. Summers. We’re all doing everything in our power to get your daughter back.”
“Then why isn’t she home?”
A click in her ear as Colin Summers hung up, clearly having gotten in the last word. D.D. held on to the phone receiver for a moment longer, feeling the weight of his rage. Indeed, three months later, why hadn’t they found Stacey Summers?
And what the hell did Flora Dane know about the college girl’s abduction that the rest of them apparently didn’t?
Eight thirty A.M. D.D. had mounds of reports to sort through and approve, from the night-duty detectives on down. The joys of management, the burden of restricted duty. As a field detective, she’d always groused about the need to dot every i and cross every t. And yet reports mattered. Paperwork created the building blocks of a prosecutable case, and there was no point in identifying perpetrators and making arrests if you couldn’t actually put the rat bastards away.
Paperwork mattered. Sitting here at this desk mattered.
Then again, so did asking the right questions.
What was it Dr. Keynes had said yesterday? Flora preferred an honest, straightforward approach.
D.D. got up, retrieved her messenger bag, grabbed her travel mug, and headed out the door.
*
FLORENCE DANE’S REGISTERED ADDRESS turned out to be a third-story walk-up in an older, slightly tired-looking row home. This time of morning on a Sunday, the house and street appeared quiet. D.D. walked through the unlocked outer door into the requisite inner vestibule lined with half a dozen metal mailboxes. Some were labeled with names; Flora’s wasn’t, instead providing only her initials, F.D. Another security-conscious decision from a woman who clearly took self-protection seriously.
The vestibule’s inner door was locked but, as often happened in frequently trafficked areas, hadn’t been pulled tightly shut. Flora definitely wouldn’t have approved of D.D.’s ability to nudge open the door and walk straight in.
She could buzz up. It would be the polite thing to do, but where was the fun in that? Instead, D.D. spied the stairs straight ahead and made the executive decision to hike up three floors to Florence’s apartment. Of course, she hadn’t counted on her breath growing quite so labored—maybe it was time to cut back the hours in PT and work in some cardio instead—nor was she expecting to arrive at Flora’s door and discover it cracked open.
D.D. hesitated, already feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck. At first blush, there was no need for alarm. The door looked perfectly fine, no scratches on the locks as if they were jimmied, no shredded doorjamb. And yet . . .
She rapped hard. The door yawned wide.
“Flora Dane? Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren here to see you.”
No response.
D.D. took the first step forward, reaching instinctively for her sidearm before remembering she still wasn’t authorized to carry.
“Flora? You home? Florence Dane?”
Nothing. Not the sound of footsteps or rushing water or creaking inner doorways. D.D. took another step inside, encountering a kitchen dead ahead, tiny family room to the left, and another open doorway that provided a glimpse of a bedroom beyond it.
Lights were off. Granted, daylight streamed through the large bank of bay windows. But the sky was overcast, meaning corners of the apartment were still cast in gloom, giving the place a neglected feel. More than that, however, the apartment felt empty. For whatever reason, the front door had been left open, but Florence was no longer here.