“Damn it, Blanchard!” the captain yelled, his face flushed red. “Can you explain to me why the FBI was in my office first thing this morning blaming this department for that woman disappearing?”
Zach put on his best blank look. “I have no idea what they’re talking about, sir.”
The captain stared at him, but he never averted his eyes. Finally, the captain sat back down and threw up his hands. “I’ve got the mayor’s son calling me every hour on the hour about his daughter. I had to call the police to get the media off my front lawn. One of those reporters snapped a shot of me through my bathroom window. I was taking a pee, for Christ’s sake. Can you just see the headline? MAYOR’S GRANDCHILD STILL MISSING WHILE POLICE CAPTAIN HOLDS HIS CRANK.”
“Captain, I promise you I didn’t warn the Bordeaux woman off. I had nothing to do with her leaving.” Technically, it was all true, so Zach managed to deliver it with a straight face.
“That better be the case.” The captain tapped a pen on the desk and stared out the window for a moment. Zach waited, then wondered if he’d been dismissed. He was just about to rise when the captain looked back at Zach. “That wasn’t the only reason I called you in here,” the captain said.
Zach remained seated, but sat up straight. Something in the captain’s tone was off. “Sir?”
“I have a problem, Blanchard. I know you have zero propensity for bullshit and even less tolerance for political positioning, so I want to ask your opinion on this.”
Zach stared at him. “You want my opinion? Uh, yeah, I mean, if I can help with anything, certainly I’ll try.”
“You said that Bordeaux woman is who gave you the tip on the other missing girls, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then the FBI comes storming in here to claim her, which tells me she’s probably an informant who saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”
“That would be a logical guess, sir,” Zach hedged.
The captain pulled a folder from his desk drawer and slid it across the desk to Zach. “Then can you tell me why it took that Bordeaux woman to bring those other cases to our attention when the mayor took part in a kidnapping seminar two years ago that discussed those very abductions?”
Zach stared at the captain, certain he’d heard incorrectly. “You’re kidding me. Then why isn’t the FBI taking over the case? If they released the facts for a workshop, why wasn’t a public plea ever made?”
“Because after the girls were returned unharmed, the cases went cold. No point in spending a lot of time on healthy girls when they get new cases every day. If I had to guess, the last thing the FBI wants the public to know is that they did little to nothing about this in the past, and now it’s happened again.” The captain pointed to the file and Zach opened it.
The first page was an itinerary with a list of workshop attendees. The mayor’s name was third on the list. Zach flipped through the rest of the pages. Surely, there had to be a mistake. Maybe he’d been invited and hadn’t been able to attend.
But the paperwork said differently.
Notes from the meeting clearly outlined the mayor’s opinions on the subject of child abduction and the steps law enforcement should take when it occurs. There was even a picture of some of the attendees at the back of the file, and the mayor’s smiling face was front and center. Zach slowly closed the file, his mind whirling with a million different thoughts, but not one of them any he felt like telling the captain.
There was no way the mayor had forgotten the information presented. It was too unique, too outlandish for one to forget. And there was the glaring fact that Melissa had been taken out of a home with a high-tech security system. A security system that someone obviously had known how to disarm. That either meant a pro or someone on the inside. But what in the world did the captain expect him to say?
“I’m sorry, sir,” Zach said finally. “I can’t even begin to imagine…”
“Yeah, you can. And so can I. The problem is that neither one of us can come up with a good, moral reason for a man who has information pertinent to the kidnapping of his own grandchild to keep it quiet. That’s why I’m asking you what you think, before I make a move that’s career suicide.”
Zach blew out a breath, the captain’s position overloading his mind with dire consequences—for all of them. “It could be he’s hiding something else and doesn’t want us poking into his private life, particularly that seminar.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“I don’t think it’s the best bet,” Zach said.
“So what is?”
“Next year’s an election year, and according to the polls, the mayor’s popularity is waning. Something like this could create a huge sympathy vote.”
“Motherfucking shit.”
Zach nodded. “That pretty much sums it up.”
“So, what do I do with this?”
Zach shook his head. “Either he knows something about the kidnapping, or he’s keeping his mouth shut to hide something else. And I gotta say, captain, that if it’s option two and this isn’t some political maneuver, then you’re not going to like whatever it is that’s so important he’s willing to risk his grandchild.”
Zach studied the captain as he pulled at his tie. His face was an interesting mix of wanting to throttle someone and the precursor to a heart attack. “We’re not going to get anything out of him,” the captain said.
“No, sir.”
“Then who might we get something out of? Someone’s got to have suspicions.”
“You want to know who would roll on the mayor?”
“Yeah. Blood isn’t always thicker than water, and he’s got a shitload of relatives working for him. Which one do you think will talk?”
Zach considered the long list of relatives that he was aware of. “I think my bet would be on the little girl’s mother.”
The captain sat stock-still, and Zach could tell he was rolling that idea over and over in his mind, playing out every possible outcome—good and bad—of pumping the mayor’s daughter-in-law for family secrets. Finally, he gave Zach a single nod. “Do it.”
Zach rose from his chair and headed to the door. Before he opened the door, the captain’s voice sounded behind him. “And not a word to anyone.”
That kinda went without saying.