FATE: I want to go out to Vince Rudolph again. Vince, what do you think about this case?
RUDOLPH: Don't forget, there are 50 sex offenders within 5 miles of this house. They're interviewing them, reinterviewing them. The authorities don't have tunnel vision. But I'm telling you, Jim, one and one is not adding up to two on this case.
FATE: What do you mean by that?
RUDOLPH: Time of day, between 7 and 8 o'clock, and you have his mom in the next room, watching TV. What happened when this baby saw a strange person? Why didn't the baby scream? I'll give you one possibility that I know the police are looking at. Mat if that baby wasn't in the crib to start with? So if I'm the lead investigator, I'm going to interview everybody. Father, mother, relatives, I want to know if there is any drug use, I want to know everything that's going on, on both sides. I understand this was a bitter, nasty divorce, but these people need to get on the same page. Father says the child is a light sleeper that would cry and scream. Mother says the baby's a heavy sleeper that wouldn't put up a fuss. You have to answer a lot of questions for me if I'm the investigator on this.
FATE: Explain, Brooke. I'm sure you have an answer. Brooke Gardner, Brandon's mom.
GARDNER: Jason doesn't even live with us anymore, so what does he know about how Brandon sleeps? I'm his mother. I know how Brandon would react.
FATE: What about those people who say that you are not being emotional enough about this, that you should be crying and in hysterics? That you are not acting the way a mother who has lost a child should?
GARDNER: Well, they aren't in my shoes, are they? If I spend time crying my eyes out, then I can't find Brandon.
FATE: Most people would be emotional about this--the abduction and possible murder of their child. Yet there is not a quiver in your voice.
GARDNER: I cry when I'm alone. I cry when I go to bed. I don't sleep.
RUDOLPH: People need to think back to that day. What did they see? Did they see a strange car outside? Did they see a parent taking the baby away? Did they see the baby get taken by someone, or did they see the baby in another location? Jim, thanks to the attention The Hand of Fate show is bringing to this case, it's going to be really hard for facts that don't line up--kind of like we're hearing in this case--to not be spotlighted. And when we can focus in on those things, they just might give us a clue to where this little guy is.
As Cassidy read Jim's words again, and the stark accusations behind them, she felt sick. Her own coverage of the story had been scarcely better, although a transcript wouldn't have been as damning. She had conveyed her doubt of Brooke's story with a raised eyebrow and a sarcastic emphasis on certain words. "Brooke Gardner says . . ." She hadn't been the young woman's chief accuser, but she had certainly joined in the chorus. There were times her job felt like that of a vulture, waiting for something to die so she could swoop in and pick over its bones. And maybe if it wasn't quite dead yet, she could help it along. As had been the case for Brooke, who had killed herself rather than face continued accusations that she had murdered her son.
Allison was the first to look up. "Did Jim ever say how he felt when he learned the truth?"
"Jim?" Cassidy shook her head. "Jim's philosophy was that the past was past. That you couldn't change the past, so you just had to move on." Cassidy thought of something they might not know. "Jim used to be a news reader. It was kind of an accident that he ended up as a radio talk show host. He used to say it was his fate. His little idea of a joke." She wished she could get used to the idea that he was dead.
"Do you believe in that?" Nicole asked. "That people have a certain fate, no matter what they do?"
"You mean, is everything predestined? Like Jim would have died yesterday no matter what he did? Sometimes I think that. Maybe." Then Cassidy thought of how hard she worked. What would be the point if no matter what she did, the same fate would befall her? "But I guess I hope it's not."
"Henry Miller said, 'We create our fate every day we live,"' Nicole said.
Both women looked at her in surprise.
"Hey," she said shrugging, trying to hide a smile. "I was an English major, remember?"
"I know another quote about fate." Allison finally looked like she had shaken off all the cares of the last few days. "Although I don't know who said it."
"What is it?" Cassidy asked.
"'Fate chooses our relatives, but we choose our friends.-- Raising her glass, Allison looked at each of them in turn. "To friends."
"Present--and absent," Cassidy said, as she tapped her glass against the others.
Chapter 23
KNWS Radio
Thursday, February 9