Chapter 6
We battle the outbound traffic stacking up on I-45, then cut over on the Sam Houston Tollway to Stuebner Airline, crossing FM-1960 into a wooded, suburban terra incognita. My mental map of Houston grows sketchy this side of the tollway, but Cavallo navigates like a veteran, one hand on the wheel, the other perpetually in motion, punctuating her words. I like the way she talks, putting her whole body into it, like a sentence isn’t really a sentence until it’s acted out.
In forty-five minutes she’s given me an overview of the entire case, and if I’d paid attention I’m sure it would have been edifying. But the way her watch slides down her wrist distracts me, and so does the movement of her leg as she accelerates and brakes. The shape of her ear, visible as she flicks her hair back. The vein in her throat that grows taut as she cuts off yet another inattentive soccer mom.
I let out a sigh.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
She eyeballs me a moment, then digs her phone out. After making a call, she tells me that instead of meeting Donna Mayhew at her home, we have to intercept her at church.
“Donna’s camped out at her office there,” she says. “It’s easier to stay out of the media spotlight that way than going home.”
“Why would she want to keep a low profile?” I ask, thinking the more attention her missing daughter’s case gets, the better.
“She doesn’t want to feed the frenzy. I’m not saying I agree with that decision, but the woman’s had some experience in the public eye, so I have to respect it.”
“What kind of experience?”
She looks at me with wide-eyed incredulity, like I’ve just admitted never having heard of the Rolling Stones or something. “Seriously? With her husband.” Her voice jumps an octave. “The whole thing when he died? You really have no idea?”
“None.”
So she tells me about Peter Mayhew, a local celebrity preacher from the early 1990s. After some kind of charismatic awakening, he abandoned his Baptist upbringing and founded a nondenominational church out in the Houston suburbs. It kept growing, along with his national status. In his early forties he married a woman half his age, fathered Hannah, and booked speaking engagements around the country.
“I heard him once,” Cavallo says, “at a conference for teens my parents sent me to. He was really good. Very inspirational.”
I’m not sure what to say to this, so I just nod.
Mayhew left for a South American tour, boarding a private plane chartered by his supporters. He never arrived. The plane’s wreckage was recovered in the Gulf, but no bodies were found. Suddenly the story starts sounding familiar.
“So she’s at this church?”
“She works there. In the women’s ministry.”
The familiar way she uses terms like that – women’s ministry – and her teenage memory of hearing Peter Mayhew’s inspirational message make me think that cross around her neck is more than decorative.
When she first mentioned the church, chalk white fluted columns came to mind, along with a needle-sharp steeple, stained glass and stone, like the one my mother dragged me to as a kid. Or maybe white clapboard. Cypress Community Church turns out to be nothing like that. We pull into the parking lot of what could pass for a junior college campus, a sea of blacktop with a ground-hugging brick and glass structure floating in the center. The electronic sign at the entrance alerts passing cars of next weekend’s sermon series and an upcoming concert. Scrolling across the bottom is a reminder: PRAY FOR HANNAH’S SAFE RETURN.
“This is a church?” Along with the question, a dismissive laugh escapes my lips.
Cavallo tenses, but ignores my remark.
As we roll up, a red van with the church’s name painted in white letters along the side pulls to a stop, the window sliding down. Behind the wheel, a heavyset man in sunglasses gives us his made-for-television smile. Cavallo asks about Donna Mayhew, and he directs her inside.
“Who was that guy?” I ask.
Cavallo shrugs. “Never seen him before. One of the staff, I guess. They have a lot of people working up here, and now a bunch of volunteers, too. The church is coordinating its own search, putting out flyers, going door to door. It’s pretty impressive.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes,” she says. “It is.”
Living in a city where the professional basketball team’s former venue is now a megachurch, it shouldn’t surprise me to find one of our many suburban congregations sprawling on such a massive scale. As we pass through one of a dozen glass double doors into the sub-zero entry, a vaulted shopping mall–style atrium hung with vibrantly colored banners, I’m slightly in awe. We pause at an unmanned information desk so Cavallo can conduct a quick orientation.
“The auditorium is through there,” she says, pointing to the far side of the entry, where a dozen more double doors – made of wood this time – crouch under the dim mood lights. To reach them, you’d have to hike across a vast open space lit from above by skylights. “Off to the right, they have the classrooms and family life center.” I nod appreciatively in the direction of a corridor wide enough to accommodate four lanes of traffic. “The offices are to the left, which is where we’re going.” A smaller hallway, barely big enough for a city bus, stretches off into the distance.
I start in that direction, but Cavallo puts a hand on my sleeve.
“Before we go any further,” she says, “I want you to promise to be on your best behavior.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That crack you made earlier. The attitude. Whatever it might look like to you, this is a house of worship. You need to respect that. Or at least pretend like you do.”
My enthusiasm for this woman is starting to wane, and I don’t much appreciate the lecture. “I made one little remark. Don’t you think you’re blowing it out of proportion?”
“Just try and be sensitive, okay? This is a very . . . emotional situation, and you don’t seem like you’re in tune with that. You’re a very detached sort of person.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.” I crack a futile smile. “And besides, you barely know me.”
“All I’m asking for is a little understanding.”
My hands fly up in surrender. “Fine, you do all the talking. I’ll work on my choirboy routine.”
Satisfied, she leads the way down the left-hand corridor, heels clacking on the floor. I’m so disillusioned with her, I almost pass up the opportunity to study her from behind.
Almost.
Informing the loved ones of a homicide victim is hard enough, but at least there’s a format to follow. People react in different ways, from unsettling stoicism to rage to something much worse, the kind of outright wailing despair that precludes all consolation. Still, the detective’s script remains constant. We offer our condolences, even a shoulder to cry on, but make no mistake. We’re here for information. We have a job to do.
In Cavallo’s role, the dynamic is utterly different, because her appearance offers something a homicide detective’s never does. Hope. It’s no wonder she pauses at Donna Mayhew’s door, working up the courage to knock.
“Come on in,” a voice says from inside.
We enter a vanilla-scented, lamp-lit room with sponge-painted walls and fancy oversized couches upholstered in microsuede. The chair behind the desk is empty. Instead, Donna Mayhew sits in an armchair near the door, a mug of tea steaming in her hands.
“This is Roland March,” Cavallo says. “He’s another one of our 69 detectives.”
Not a homicide detective, because that would get things off on exactly the wrong foot.
She rises to greet us, her hands still simmering from the warm mug. If a police artist aged Hannah Mayhew’s photo to show the most flattering outcome of an additional twenty years of life, the result would be standing before me. A compact, radiant woman, maybe five foot three, her beauty undimmed by her obvious stress, dressed in jeans and a frilly, netted top. Her thick blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, her face looking sober and scrubbed.
“Has something happened?” she asks.
Cavallo shakes her head. “Nothing like that.”
Mrs. Mayhew presses a hand to her chest, deflating with relief. “You scared me on the phone. I’ve been trying to stay strong.”
“I’m sorry.” Cavallo touches the woman’s elbow lightly. “Do you mind if we have a seat?”
“Not at all.”
She motions us onto a nearby couch, resuming her place. On the coffee table between us, next to her tea, a fat Bible lies open, its crinkled pages bright from highlighting. A block of pink. A section of yellow. Tiny handwritten notes creeping into the margins.
That book, it gives a physical form to the woman’s hopes. I can imagine her, stifling back the swirl of fear, forcing herself to focus on the words, reading and underlining anything significant, any stray phrase that can be interpreted as a message. I want to look away, but I can’t. Leaving the book open, it’s like she’s left herself sadly exposed. An image of my wife, Charlotte, flashes, one I long ago weighted and cast into the deepest waters of memory, only now it’s slipped the chain and come back.
“Tell me what’s happened?”
“I already have.”
“I don’t remember. Tell me again.”
“I can’t. I really can’t.”
Donna Mayhew notices me looking at her Bible. “I thought about canceling the study today, but to be honest I really needed it. Ironically, we’re in the book of Job. ‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ I’m trying to live that way, but you know, it isn’t easy.”
“No, it isn’t,” Cavallo says, giving her ring a nervous twist.
The two women share a look.
“You’re doing everything you can,” Mrs. Mayhew says.
Cavallo leans forward. “That’s why I’m here. There’s something I’d like to ask – ”
Before she can finish, there’s a knock at the half-open door. A man in his mid-twenties enters, stopping as soon as he catches sight of us. He mumbles an apology and turns to go, but Mrs. Mayhew calls him back.
“What is it, Carter?”
He looks like he’s stepped out of a clothing catalog for the terminally hip. A line of fuzz under his bottom lip, his hair lovingly spiked, wearing expensively demolished black jeans and a brown Starbucks T-shirt stretched tight across Bally Fitness pecs. Only on closer inspection, as he advances tentatively into the room, the coffee-shill mermaid turns out to be a thorn-crowned Christ, extending his pierced hands, bracketed by the motto sacrificed for ME.
A piece of paper hangs limply from his hand.
“Is that the new one?” Mrs. Mayhew asks, taking it from him.
She inspects the page, then passes it to Cavallo. The familiar photo of Hannah, a toll-free tip number, a reward offer for information leading to her return. I wave away my opportunity for a closer look, so Cavallo hands the flyer back to the man. Before he can go, Mrs. Mayhew stops him again.
“Where are my manners? Detective Cavallo, this is our youth pastor, Carter Robb. He and Hannah are really close. Carter, this is the detective leading the investigation.” She turns to me. “And I’m sorry but I’ve already forgotten your name.”
“Roland March.”
I stand, moving around the coffee table to shake the guy’s hand. As strong as he looks, he has a weak handshake. I can feel him trembling. He won’t make eye contact, either. The moment I let go of his hand, he backs out the door saying he has more copies to make.
I give Cavallo a quizzical look. “He seemed a little on edge.”
Mrs. Mayhew smiles wanly. “We all are, Detective. This is especially hard on Carter because of their friendship. Hannah has been a real ally of his in the youth group since he first came here.” The words are sympathetic, but there’s something stiff about the delivery, running through the lines, not putting much feeling behind them. “It’s hard on everyone, of course.” She leans Cavallo’s way. “Have you heard? They’re trying to get me to go on TV.”
“You should,” I say. “It can’t hurt.”
Cavallo gives me a vigorous sandpapering with her glare, but I ignore her. Whether she wants to be in the public eye or not, what mother faced with the prospect of never seeing her daughter again raises scruples like this? She should be desperate to cooperate. Anything that helps the cause, no matter how peripherally, is worth a shot. I’m not about to say all this, but hopefully the way I’m looming over them, hands on hips, gets the gist across.
“Do you have children, Detective?” she asks.
I glance down. “No.”
“My daughter, she grew up without her father. He died when she was still just a baby, so she only knows him through videotapes and other people’s stories.” Her eyes shine in the lamplight. “There was this thing she used to do. She’d come to me and say, ‘Mama, I remembered something about Daddy.’ And she’d tell some elaborate story about how she and her dad went to the park together, or ate their favorite ice cream, things like that. She’d remember the time he brought home a puppy. The most fanciful things – she has such an imagination – and then she’d say, ‘You remember that, don’t you, Mama?’ or ‘That really happened, didn’t it?’ Always wanting me to confirm the stories she made up, so they’d feel real.”
“And did you?”
“Sometimes. The thing is, I was always afraid of what she might hear. When her daddy died, people told all kinds of stories. He was kind of famous in certain circles; he’d touched a lot of lives. Since his body was never found, there were people who said he wasn’t really dead. Either he’d faked it to get out of some kind of financial trouble, or he’d gone undercover as part of his ministry.”
“Undercover.”
“Silly, I know. But there was a missionary to Bolivia, a really sweet man, a friend of Peter’s from way back, and he came home on furlough and told me people down there had reported seeing Peter. He would turn up at evangelistic rallies, they said, and lay hands on people, healing them.”
“Did you believe that?” I ask.
“My husband died. All the stories never changed that. But I lived in fear that Hannah would get hold of them somehow, and convince herself they were true.”
“And this is why you don’t want to do a press conference?”
“Not only this,” she says. “But yes. I’ll do anything to bring her back safely, Detective, but I won’t turn her life into entertainment for strangers. Hannah has a right to privacy, don’t you think? I don’t want to give them more things to talk about on the news. I just want her back.”
A woman after my own heart, I have to confess. Keep the media vultures on a starvation diet. But there’s always a chance the added publicity will make a difference. Someone will remember seeing something. A witness will come forward. It happens all the time. In the same circumstances, I’d have to hold my nose and cooperate with the news cycle. Give it what it wants in hope that what I want will follow. Not that the world works that way.
As she listens, Cavallo’s expression turns beatific with sympathy, only hardening when she accidently looks my way. There’s more than just a feminine bond at work, but I can’t quite put my finger on what’s going on.
“Donna,” she begins softly, “I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it?”
“I’d like to get a dna swab from you,” Cavallo explains in her most soothing bedside manner. “It’s not entirely routine” – a glance my way – “but in this case, it could help us with a particular line of inquiry.”
Mrs. Mayhew stares down at her open Bible. “This line of inquiry. Is it something I don’t want to know about?”
“I’ll tell you if you do.”
“But is it . . . ?”
“A very remote possibility,” Cavallo says. “Just something we’d like to check off the list.”
Donna Mayhew reaches forward, easing the book shut. “What do you need me to do?”
While Cavallo explains the process, producing the buccal swab kit from her bag, I wander back into the corridor to allow them some privacy. This woman still dreams of her daughter returning home safely, while I’m trying to establish the girl’s a homicide victim. I’d rather not witness what I’m putting her through.
Across the hall, another door stands open. Glancing inside, I find Carter Robb sorting through boxed reams of paper, shifting the stacks on his desk, his back to the door. Unlike Mrs. Mayhew, he occupies a tiny, spartan office, almost entirely devoid of decoration apart from the cheap particleboard bookcases lining the walls, the shelves bowing from the weight of ragged, stringy hardcovers and creased paperbacks. The books seem at odds with his carefully ungroomed appearance. I wouldn’t have figured him for a reader.
“Tell me something,” I say, hoping he’ll jump. He turns, holding his hands slightly out, like I’ve caught him in the act. “What exactly is a youth pastor?”
A slight smile. “Most days? A glorified baby-sitter.”
He seems to expect me to laugh, but I make a point of keeping a straight face. “You want to elaborate on that a little?”
“Well, what I do is, I oversee the youth group. The teens, I mean. We have a service for them on Sunday nights, and some activities during the week, mostly after school.”
“And Hannah’s part of that?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I mean, yes.”
To his credit, he looks me straight in the eye. Set deep in that uncomplicated face, its perfect symmetry exuding all-American innocence, his gaze seems incongruous, darkened by an unearned seriousness, the sort brought on by books and too many grave conversations. This man, who has never killed and probably never even had to fight, whose only suffering up to now has been the failure to live up fully to all his grandiose teenage ambitions, somehow manages to project an old man’s world-weariness, an acquaintance with pain that contradicts his unlined skin. The stress could do that, agonizing over the fate of his missing charge, but I get the feeling it’s a preexisting condition.
“You two are pretty close, her mother says. Is that right? I was wondering if she ever said anything to you about gangs.”
“About what?”
“La Tercera Crips,” I say, flashing my best approximation of the appropriate sign. “A dude named Octavio Morales maybe?”
His mouth gapes open, but he doesn’t answer. I might as well be speaking Greek. Or Sanskrit in his case, assuming they still teach Greek in seminary.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says finally. “Hannah never mentioned anything like that, not to me.”
“What did she talk about?”
Before he can answer, Cavallo’s voice booms in my ear. “March, what’s going on?” She dangles the bagged swab in the air, motioning for me to come along quietly, then gives the glorified baby-sitter a high-wattage smile. “Hi, Carter. We’ve got to get going. The flyers look great. You’re doing a wonderful job. Just keep it up, okay?”
Robb looks from me to her in mild confusion, nodding in a bemused if baffled way. Before I can fire off another question, she starts pulling me down the corridor, a forced smile on her lips.
“What was that all about?” she whispers.
“There’s something not right about that guy.”
“The way you were eyeballing him, I’m not surprised. You can’t run roughshod over these people. They’re doing everything they can to help.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t see that? The way he tensed up? I swear he was about to break into a sweat. And the mother, the way she talked about him, there was something she wasn’t saying.”
“Just keep walking,” she says.
Once we get outside, basking in the orange sunset, she finally slows her pace. Unlike me, she’s not impervious to the heat. She shucks off her jacket and pulls her blouse away from the small of her back. The way her heels snap out the cadence, I know she’s telling me off in her head.
“At least you got what you wanted,” she says.
Before I can answer, a couple of city cars roll up. In the passenger seat of the lead car, I recognize Wanda Mosser’s snowy dome. She hops out, spry as ever, fixing me with her pearl gray smile.
“What’s this man doing here?” she demands.
Cavallo rests a hand on her pistol’s jutting handle. “Causing trouble, boss.”
“I’m surprised he still knows how,” Wanda says, pulling me to one side. Then, lowering her voice: “What’s the deal, Roland? You looking for work or something?”
“Not me.” I explain about the dna swab and how Cavallo invited me along.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?”
I glance at Cavallo, who dabs at her damp forehead with the back of her hand. “Not really.”
“Ah.” Wanda smiles shrewdly. “You did notice the engagement ring, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“And the cross?”
I nod again.
“Roland,” she says, shaking her head. “I never figured you for something like this. Aren’t you happily married?”
Suddenly I do feel the heat. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s all right, Roland.” She gives me a knowing smile. “We’re all entitled to make fools of ourselves from time to time. But I have to tell you, you couldn’t have picked a less likely candidate. Cavallo’s straight as an arrow.” She leans closer. “And to be honest, a little uptight.”
I peel away. “Thanks for the warning.”
We rejoin Cavallo and the other detectives milling around the newly arrived vehicles.
“What up?” Cavallo asks. “You need me to stay?”
Wanda shakes her head. “You better get this one back to the office. I’m just here for a chat with the mother. If I can, I’m going to get her on TV.”
“Good luck.”
The drive back into town proves awkward. Maybe Cavallo overheard some of what Wanda said, or at least picked up on the body language. If I could think of anything to say, I would. But my old boss was right. I’ve made a big fool of myself. In addition to pursuing this long shot of a hunch, ditching a perfectly reasonable assignment from my lieutenant, I’ve been as transparent about this newfound attraction as a fifteen-year-old boy.
I can sense a load of bad karma coming my way. To balance the accounts, I call Mitch Geiger again. I leave another message.
The moment I put my phone away, it starts to ring. The caller id displays Lorenz’s name.
“You’re not going to answer that?” Cavallo asks.
“I better not. It could only mean trouble.”
She sniffs. “Then I’m sorry for dragging you out here.”
“What do you mean? I wanted to come. And listen, you can just give me the swab and I’ll take it from here. I have a contact at the ME’s office who can process it for me – ”
“This isn’t your case,” she says quietly. “It’s mine. I’ll handle it from here.”
I try arguing the point, but she’s solid, and not going to be worn down. Whatever she heard or inferred, whatever thought process my interaction with Wanda set off, Cavallo’s determined to have her way.
“I can get it done fast,” I say.
She laughs. “Believe me, nobody has more priority right now than we do.”
“So you’ll follow up quick? I need the result as soon as possible.”
She gives me a cloudy look, so cloudy I’m afraid to ask what’s going on behind it. My phone starts ringing again.
I switch the ringer off.