“Would you ask your . . . would you ask Mrs. Malone to talk to me?”
“Well, I’ll try. But she can be awful stubborn.”
Pete held out a dime. “Give her a call. Maybe she can come over now.”
Frank hesitated.
“If we run something with the both of you, it might make a difference. You never know.”
Frank was back from the phone in a couple of minutes. “She’s not home.”
“Okay. Let’s do this without her for now. Why don’t we begin by talking about the days leading up to the . . . to the children’s disappearance. Say the twelfth and thirteenth—what did you do on those days?”
Frank sighed. “I went through all of this already. With the cops.”
“I know, Mr. Malone. But this is background for our readers. It could help.”
“Okay. Well, on the Monday and Tuesday I was off work. Monday, I took the kids to the park. That was the twelfth.”
“Did anything unusual happen while you were there?”
“Well, Frankie fell off the jungle gym, cut his knee. That what you mean?”
“Did you talk to anyone while you were there? Did you see anyone acting strange? Anyone hanging around the kids?”
“No. Nothing like that. I saw Nina Lombardo there with her kids. She lives next door to Ruth. We said hello. And I spoke to the guy with the ice-cream cart. I bought popsicles for Frankie and Cin.”
“And then you took the kids back to Mrs. Malone’s apartment?”
“Well, first we went to my place. I just moved in, wanted the kids to see it. I gave them some milk, let them watch cartoons while I cleaned up. Then I took them over to Ruth’s about six, six-thirty.”
“How did she seem?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, was she in a good mood? Did you talk at all?”
“Not really.”
He swallowed another mouthful of soda. Crunched on the ice. Looked around the diner, then out of the window.
Pete leaned forward.
“I bet she was mad because the kids got dirty playing in the park, right? I was always coming home with mud on my shoes and my clothes. It used to drive my mom crazy.”
Frank gave a sad little smile.
“Ruth hated for the kids to get dirty. I told her, they’re just kids, but it made her real mad.”
He sighed. “She told Frankie to start running a bath. Said she’d have to wash Cin’s hair and clean up Frankie’s knee. She sounded pissed. Like it was more chores.”
“Does she often get mad?”
“You mean, at the kids?”
“Yeah—did she yell at them? Hit them?”
“Sure, when they were outta line. She’s got one of those tempers that flares up, then it’s over real quick.”
Frank frowned. “But I don’t think she’d . . . she wouldn’t hurt them, Mr. Wonicke. I’m sure she wouldn’t.”
But his voice held a note of doubt. The waitress brought their food and as Frank smiled up at her, Pete watched him, thinking about what he’d said. He couldn’t know for sure what Ruth would do.
“And after you left your kids at your wife’s place, then what?”
“I drove around for a while. Thought about the kids. About the custody case. I drove to a bar but then I turned back. Went home instead.”
“Why didn’t you go in?”
“I dunno. I was tired, I guess. Sometimes the kids would tire me out. I drove home, drank a couple of beers, watched the Mets on TV. I fell asleep around eleven.”
“What about the next day? The thirteenth. What did you do?”
“I played golf in the morning. I had a tee time at seven, so I got up around six, showered, headed out. It was pretty quiet, I remember. Not much traffic.”
He was talking freely now. Maybe it was easier to talk about himself instead of the kids.
“How come you were playing so early? It was your day off. You could’ve taken it easy.”
“I like to get up early, get a head start on the day. My pop always said early was the best part of the day. And it gets too hot later on. I don’t like to be out in the sun in the afternoon.”
“So you played your round—how was it?”
“It was good to be outside. But the guy I played with, Ed, he said twice my game was shot to hell. Guess he was right.”
“Why was that?”
“Well—the custody thing. It was on my mind a lot. Seeing the kids, it got me thinking. Guess I was upset.”
“I can understand that. It must have been tough on you—that, and the separation.”
Frank nodded. Pushed the food around his plate. Wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Pete leaned in again. “The separation, that was Mrs. Malone’s idea?”
“Yeah. I guess.” He still didn’t look up.
Pete pitched his voice low. “That’s real hard. Did she ever tell you why?”
He shrugged.
“Was there maybe another woman involved?”
Frank’s head whipped around. “You think I was cheating on her? No way. No way! That’s not how it was!”
Pete raised his hands in apology. “So how was it?”
“She was . . . I found her. With someone.”