The Piper

THIRTY-EIGHT




In a very tiny space in the back of Olivia’s mind she was aware of the news crews gathering in little clusters outside her house. Of the television station that had set up a yellow canopy supported with white poles right on the curb. She could hear how the cars on the street outside slowed as they passed in front of her home. She was aware of the neighbors gathering in the corners of her yard.

Inside the house every light was on, and there were temporary but powerful spotlights rigged up outside. The driveway and the streets were crammed with cop cars, blue lights flashing, yellow police tape. She was grateful for the activity, what little of it she could absorb. She would have liked to be involved somehow, to help, it was her baby girl, but she was held captive by the noise in her head, the effort it took just to breathe, as if she were in the grip of a silent tornado while everyone around her was still.

She was familiar with the clinical symptoms of shock, so she understood why she shivered and felt like ice, in spite of the blanket that the uniformed police officer who responded to her call had wrapped around her shoulders. Officer Rodriguez had radioed in for detectives and backup within ten minutes of listening to her panicked explanation.

She’d drunk up all the water they’d brought her, though Rodriguez had needed to help her with the glass, and she was still thirsty, but could somehow not find the words to ask for more. She felt a constant buzzing at the base of her skull, and she knew it would be unwise to try and stand.

Teddy’s name seemed to pulse with every beat of her heart, and it took all of her concentration to sit on the couch, to go from one terrible thought to the next. Olivia knew what was coming. She had lived through this before. She did not want this pain, not again. She would live it now as a mother, which meant that this time it would be so much worse.

Her own mother had kept a journal, after Emily and Hunter disappeared. Olivia had read the tear streaked pages years ago, curious about the way her mother’s handwriting had changed over the days, months, then years. Olivia had tried her hardest to forget that chronicle of the no man’s land where her family had dwelled, had done a pretty good job, actually, because now, all she knew for sure was that she was now in a place so dark, so arid and comfortless, that it would take everything she had to survive. And for Teddy’s sake, she had to survive.

When Olivia was a little girl, she had been ashamed. Her family was different, her parents had to struggle just to make it through the day. They were isolated from the rest of the world, exiled to a public place of pain where people watched their every move, hungry, some of them, to feed voraciously upon a tragedy that could be held at arm’s length, some just curious, and others, lots of others, clueless but well meaning and concerned.

Her mother and father spent years learning how to recreate a normal place for Chris and Olivia to grow up in, to compartmentalize their time, juggling the search for a missing child with the need for a family to build a new life, the basic realities of eating, sleeping, breathing in and out. Holidays had to be reconstructed, new traditions set, all the while meals needed to be cooked, there was laundry to fold, a mortgage to pay. Her father had cried like a baby when he had to go back to work.

All of it with the shadow of Emily, always there, but not there.

They stopped celebrating Christmas at home, going instead to a beach in South Carolina. Olivia and Chris were given a sum of money each year to buy a gift for Emily, ribbons and tissue paper to wrap it up, and Olivia wondered now – where did all those presents go? What had happened to Emily’s clothes, her record collection, the pink frosty lipstick in her top dresser drawer? She could not remember. She drew a total blank.

The first goal is not to get lost. The sentence her mother had written came like a whisper in the back of her mind. No pills from doctors or friends trying to help. Stay away from alcohol. Keep your head clear and don’t fall away. Wait for the moments when you feel numb – they will come. Welcome them. Your mind will know when you need relief.

Someone shouted outside, and Olivia turned suddenly, looking out the window with an electric current of hope. Someone had found her. They’d found Teddy. An unmarked car was pulling up in front of the house. A fair haired young woman and a pear shaped man got out of the car. Olivia craned her neck, waiting for them to lead Teddy out, biting the knuckles of her fist, feeling tears of relief running down her face.

The pear shaped man walked with quick jerky steps, and stopped to talk to one of the uniformed officers, a look of intense exasperation on his face. He waved the young woman off toward the back of the house and headed up the walk. Olivia opened her mouth, then realized that Teddy was not in the unmarked car. Her daughter had not been found. She sank back down on the cushion of the couch, and put her head in her hands. She was shaking and shaking hard. What made her think Teddy was there? Why had she been so sure?

It was clear, as soon as the pear shaped man entered the house, that the rank and file police officers were wary of him, the tension rose the minute he walked into the living room. He headed straight to Officer Rodriguez, but he was watching Olivia. She knew he was watching. She was not close enough to hear what he said.

He was interrupted by the ring of a phone, pulled it out of his pocket and listened, and Olivia stood up, hanging onto the arm of the couch. His comments were no more telling than yes, no, okay. He jammed the phone back into his suit coat pocket and came across the room.

‘Mrs James? Teddy’s mother?’

Olivia blinked. Swallowed. ‘Yes.’

He gave her a hand which she shook. His grip was tight and hard. ‘Sit back down, please, Mrs James. I’m Detective Donnie Withers, and I’m in charge of Teddy’s case. I realize you’re upset right now, ma’am—’

‘That call you just got. Have you heard anything? Have you found her?’

‘No, ma’am. Look, I’d like to ask you some questions. And I need to go over this timeline with you, okay?’

Olivia let the blanket fall off her shoulders. She felt she should know what this man meant by timeline, she needed to say this would be okay, but her mind refused to work.

‘Mrs James?’ Withers raised his voice as if Olivia were deaf. ‘Mrs James, I need your help here. You want me to find your daughter, right?’

Olivia managed a nod. Sat back down on the couch.

‘Look, I’m going to be blunt. If this is a stranger abduction, not a runaway, not a custody fight, then I’ve got about a three hour window to find your little girl. That ticking you hear is your daughter’s clock running out. I don’t find her in three hours, then, statistically speaking, Teddy is dead.’

Olivia felt a surge of vomit rise in her throat. She ducked her head and took slow breaths.

‘And I’ve got to tell you that nothing about this whole scenario makes much sense.’ Withers shifted his weight to his left foot. ‘Now, if you think your daughter got upset maybe, and ran away, that changes the entire course of the investigation, and I expect you to be up front with me about that right now. Or. If there’s some kind of funny business going on between you and your ex, I expect you to tell me that too.’ He moved closer as he spoke, towering over her while she trembled on the couch. ‘I’ve got one thing I’m worried about, and that’s your little girl. If you lie to me, ma’am, that constitutes obstruction of justice and I will make sure the DA’s office comes after you with everything they’ve got. Which means jail time if you f*ck with me on this.’

Olivia wanted to stand up again, she was not quite sure why, but her knees were weak enough that she didn’t think she could stay on her feet. She knew that there used to be an Olivia who could deal with a man like this, who might even punch a man who implied such terrible things. She thought of the detectives all those years ago who had looked long and hard for Emily, the one who had shyly asked if the family would like a black lab puppy when his own dog had whelped. None of them had talked to her parents this way. She should not put up with being treated this way. But she was afraid to make this Detective Donnie Withers mad. If she made him angry, would he look for her little girl? If he suspected her, how could he do what he needed to do? She was at the mercy of this pear shaped man. She needed to think, but her mind refused to clear.

She was aware suddenly of Officer Rodriguez edging closer, till he stood beside her, and she knew that he was angry at Withers, and that he at least did not suspect her of these terrible things.

‘Sir,’ Rodriguez said. ‘Protocol allows for a female officer to be called.’

Detective Withers went white around the edges of his mouth. ‘I’ve got a female officer, she’s out back. Go ask Tellers to come in, why don’t you.’

‘Yes sir,’ Rodriguez said.

Withers settled on the edge of the chair across from Olivia, scooting it close. ‘Mrs James, do you think there is any chance your daughter just ran away from home?’

Olivia felt it suddenly. A weird ripple of . . . nothing. The numbness, as promised. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Teddy was strapped into her seatbelt, the dog was in the Jeep. I’d just seen her out of the window and waved. There would be no conceivable reason for her to run away.’

‘No trouble at school?’

‘None.’

‘But you did just move here?’

‘That’s right. But Teddy was happy in school, Detective Withers. My daughter did not run away.’

‘I find it odd that someone would abduct her and take the dog.’

‘So do I. On the other hand, it might be the only way she would go. If she was tricked somehow.’

‘You mean lured away?’ he said, nodding. ‘That’s the only thing that makes any sense. Is she a naïve kind of child? Young for her age?’

‘No, she’s smart for her age, and she and I have been over all the stranger danger stuff. On the other hand, she is just a little girl.’

‘Maybe this was someone she knew.’

‘We don’t know many people, Detective, we haven’t been here long.’

The front door opened and a man in forensic overalls walked in, letting in a rush of air that ruffled Teddy’s school papers, scattered across the fireplace mantel where Teddy always left them instead of taking them upstairs, as instructed, to the little desk in her room. It bothered Olivia, the way some of the papers were hanging over the edge.

Withers put his hands on his knees. ‘At least that narrows the field. We’ve liaised with the LAPD, and they’ve already sent officers out to notify your ex husband, Hugh James, of the situation with your little girl. They confirmed just a few minutes ago that Mr James was at his office working. He asked us to notify you that he is on his way here. He’s catching the first plane out.’

‘Hugh had nothing to do with this.’ Olivia felt the compulsion to straighten up the papers. A ridiculous compulsion, she knew that, but she also knew that the very act of straightening them up would somehow make her feel better. The urge was ridiculously strong, but she had to fight it. Standing up, straightening those papers, that would seem like odd behavior, like a mother who did not care that her little girl was gone. She had to be careful. People would be watching her. Withers would watch her. She was on the tightrope now.

‘Evidently your ex says the same about you.’ Withers opened up a notebook. ‘Let’s go back over the timeline here. You say you saw Teddy, in the car, before you went down to the basement to get your clothes.’

‘Yes.’

One of the papers drifted down to the floor, math problems, marked over and erased with three problems circled in red.

‘How could you see her in the dark?’ Withers bent over and put the paper on the coffee table.

Olivia stared at Teddy’s math paper. ‘The headlights of the Jeep were on and so were the lights inside the car. I figured Teddy was reading. She had a new Nancy Drew book. The book was still in the car, by the way. Which means she left it behind. That’s not good. She takes her books with her everywhere she goes.’

‘I agree, it’s worrying. Why wasn’t Teddy in the house with you? One of the officers tells me you were packing up suitcases. Where were you going, Mrs James? On a school night at that.’

‘We were going to spend a few nights in a hotel.’

‘Why was that, ma’am?’

Olivia reached across the coffee table and moved the math paper so it was centered, and not hanging off to the side.

‘Mrs James? Did you hear me? Why were you and Teddy going to a hotel?’

‘Detective, I’m sure you know my best friend died here yesterday afternoon.’

Withers nodded, shoulders tense. ‘Wainwright, Amelia. Why was she here?’

‘She just came . . . to visit.’

‘What happened?’

‘I came home from work, and I found her . . . she’d been taking a bubble bath and she drowned in the tub.’

Withers sat forward. ‘As of now there’s not an official cause of death, pending autopsy results, Mrs James. And you must know it’s hard to believe that a healthy, grown woman would drown in the tub. And I have to say that what’s happened with your daughter here puts that death in an even stranger light. The two incidents have to be connected. Do you have any thoughts on that?’

‘No. None of this makes any sense.’ Olivia was aware that tears ran down her cheeks, which was odd. She felt nothing.

‘Ma’am, I get you’re upset. Do you need me to stop this interview?’

Olivia looked back up at Teddy’s papers on the mantel.

Withers flipped a page in his notebook. ‘Tell me why you were packing those bags. Did you feel threatened by something?’

Olivia fought the urge to laugh. She bit her lip. Stupid, stupid, it was nerves, that was all. Withers would think she was insane.

‘Mrs James? Were you running away?’

Olivia looked down at the floor. ‘Teddy and I were both pretty shook up by Amelia’s death. We – Teddy was afraid to be in the house after Amelia died here, and I decided that it might be a good idea for both of us just to spend a couple of nights in a hotel.’

‘Was your daughter here when this death occurred?’

Olivia shook her head. ‘No. Teddy was with my sister-in-law. Charlotte picks her up after school and Teddy stays at her house till I get off from work.’

‘Do you have a number for her, ma’am, so we can confirm?’

‘Yes. Of course.’ Olivia tried to think. Her mind blanked. ‘I can’t . . . think of it now.’

Withers seemed not to be surprised. ‘Do you have it written down somewhere? Maybe on a list of emergency numbers somewhere?’

‘Yes,’ Olivia said. ‘On the refrigerator.’ She stood up, but he waved her back to her seat.

He leaned forward. ‘Officer Rodriguez says that before Teddy disappeared you were in the basement and you heard thumping noises. Is that right?’

Olivia nodded.

‘Any chance the noise was coming from the outside? What section of the basement did it come from? North side or west?’

Olivia had to think. ‘It wasn’t the driveway side. It was out the back. I thought the noises came from inside the house.’

‘Always hard to tell, that kind of thing.’ He looked back down at his notebook. ‘So then you started up the stairs and all the lights went out. All over the house.’

‘Yes.’

‘All of them. You’re sure of that.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it like somebody flipped the breakers?’

‘I . . . it could have been that.’

‘They went out all together, not one by one.’

‘Yes.’

‘Ma’am, where is the breaker box for this house?’

‘Outside. By the back door.’

‘Interesting. Because they’re usually in the basement of old houses like this.’

‘This one’s outside.’

‘Which means anyone could access the breakers from outside the house. Now you say that when you found your daughter gone, you went back in the house to look for her, thinking she might have gone inside. Because you left the front door unlocked. And all the lights worked then.’

‘Right.’

Donnie Withers seemed to consider that for a moment. ‘But you didn’t flip the breakers? You didn’t go into the box?’

‘No.’

‘Tell me again when the dog started barking.’

‘Right when the lights went out.’

‘So it happened at the same time. Lights out, and dog.’

‘That’s right.’

‘It would make sense for the kidnapper to cut the lights and then go for your daughter, and set the dog off.’

‘Yes. That would make sense.’

He shut his notebook. ‘Okay, Mrs James. I understand you’ve given us permission to search anywhere in the house.’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m going to leave an officer posted outside and I’m going to ask you to leave for the night.’

‘But . . . no. What if Teddy comes home somehow? What if she needs me and I’m not there? What if there’s a ransom demand?’

‘Ma’am. You’ve already told our officers that you’ve got roughly sixteen hundred dollars sum total in your accounts. If Teddy was abducted, it wasn’t for money.’

Olivia put her face in her hands. The numbness was ebbing, and the waves of worry were coming, coming fast.

‘Now here’s the thing, ma’am. In the last twenty-four hours this house has been the scene of a death and an abduction. And in my experience, grown women don’t drown in bathtubs, and little girls don’t disappear with their dogs. I want a forensic team here. I’ll let you know when you can come back home. Officer Teller can drive you to the hotel, or anywhere else you want to go. I’m afraid we’re impounding your car.’

Olivia covered her hands with her mouth, because it was welling up inside again, this horrific compulsion to laugh. Did Withers really think she would be worried about the f*cking car? That she was in any condition to drive?

It was her last coherent thought for the night.