Esther ran into Jake outside of the records section. Jake smiled at her, but she didn’t return the gesture. Smiling was almost never her first reaction to seeing someone.
“Canoe guy came in,” she said, handing over the GoPro. “Took some video.”
“What’s on it?”
“Charlie.”
“No shit?”
“He’s walking away from the water. He doesn’t go in—at least, not at the moment he was being filmed. He’s carrying a bucket. Can’t make out much more than that. And Dan Miller. He’s on the tape too. You need to download it so we can see it on a larger screen.”
“On it.”
“Good.”
With that, Esther returned to her office to drink more coffee and scroll through messages. Media calls, mostly.
Charlie almost certainly had not fallen into the water. The canoe guy and Brad Collins would surely have noticed that. That was good. That meant the child hadn’t drowned. On the other hand, that meant that it was more likely than ever that he’d gone somewhere under his own power—or with someone else.
Someone, she thought, that the boy almost certainly knew.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MISSING: ONE WEEK
Dan Miller opened the front door wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and flip-flops. The retired doctor’s white hair apparently hadn’t yet decided on a direction to lie in that day: it was all over the place. In one hand he held the remote control to his television set. While Dan had talked to other officers, he’d never responded to her request to get in touch when she’d talked to the neighbor and left her business card.
Esther was circling back. The GoPro video was a good reason to make another run at the old man.
“Golf is on,” he said, opening the door wide and revealing an interior that looked every bit the authentic Old Bend the house portended from the street. It wasn’t a faux cabin with fake moose-antler chandeliers and bear silhouettes stenciled on parchment-colored lampshades. It was real. Heavy beams supported the soaring ceiling. Dark oak flooring, scarred from years of people coming and going, led to a stone fireplace whose firebox, circled by a heavy shadow of black soot like a teen girl’s heavy-handed mascara, indicated decades of memories.
“I’m here about the Franklin boy, Dr. Miller,” she said.
Dan motioned her inside and shut the door. “Been sitting in my chair, watching the river and the goings-on over there,” he said, indicating a leather chair that swiveled from the picture window to face the TV. He had a front-row seat to all the action, on both the Deschutes in front of the house and the links on the large flat-screen, his only apparent nod to modern technology. He muted the TV, although it didn’t matter much. Golf is the quietest of any broadcast sport, with whispering announcers barely registering above a suppressed cough.
Dan offered Esther something to drink, but she declined. It wasn’t a social visit. Esther didn’t do those anyway.
“Mrs. Franklin says you were out doing yardwork when her little boy disappeared,” she said.
The old man fiddled with the remote for a second. The joints of his fingers showed signs of arthritis. Twigs with tiny burls. He set down the remote.
“I was cutting the grass, yes,” he said, “but I don’t know a damn thing about the kid disappearing. I was busy. I was ‘in the zone,’ as the kids say. It takes focus to do things the right way. Even mowing the lawn needs to be done right.” He paused before adding, “I try not to look over in that direction much anyhow.”
“Why’s that?”
Dan gave his head a little shake and then stepped to the window and pointed. “Seriously?” He turned to meet Esther’s gaze straight on. “It’s like I told the other young officer.” He pointed toward the window. “Look at that monstrosity, sticking up like a middle finger between the homes that have been there for forty or fifty years. Excuse my French, Detective, but I look at that house and the people who live there as a big middle finger to the rest of us. Or at least what’s left of us. New people with their glitzy homes and European cars are ruining this town. It’s just a matter of time, and this place will be a city without children, populated by people who look at the Internet all day long and have nothing of interest to say to anyone.”
Dan was on a roll, and as much as Esther enjoyed his rant—and could see the truth in what he was saying—she needed to guide him back to the subject at hand. “So you saw nothing,” she said. “You were right outside. You waved to Mrs. Franklin before she went inside.”
“I don’t recall waving to anyone,” he said. “And if I did, it was only because I’m polite to a fault. Mom raised me that way. Truth is, I can’t stand those people over there. Not even Carole. I mean, from what I’ve seen and when I’ve run into her and her husband in town.”
“You’re not sugarcoating a little for me?” Esther asked with a friendly smile, to soften her sarcasm. Or at least try to.
Dan caught it and smiled back. “The little boy’s all right,” he said. “The parents? Jesus, that David is a piece of work, and Carole’s useless. They fight all the time. It’s like living across from some kind of movie-of-the-week trash that’s always on and with no way to change the channel.”
“How so?”
Dan didn’t say anything. He sat down heavily, mute.
“How so?” she repeated.
“You don’t want to know,” he finally said.
“But I do,” Esther said. “I actually need to know.”
Dan looked away, back out the window to the river. “Well, then I don’t want to say. I’m over seventy, but I won’t use the old-guy’s trick of really speaking my mind and then pretending I’m too senile to know I did it.” He pointed across the river. “You can see a lot from here.”
The detective and the old man watched as, as if on cue, the couple with the missing boy faced off in the kitchen. David was saying something in what seemed to be a spirited fashion, but it was hard to see if he was angry or upset. Esther noticed a pair of binoculars on a table next to the swivel chair but didn’t think she should pick them up to get a better view.
“You saw something,” she said.
“Not anything important. Nothing that has to do with anything that really matters here, Detective. I’ve seen things, but nothing that would help you.”
“A little boy is missing, Dr. Miller. I need to know what you know. I understand you don’t like the parents much, but beyond the big house I can’t see why you’d despise them so much. Seem like a nice couple.”
Dan leaned into his leather chair and swiveled it in the direction of the detective. “Like I said, he’s a jerk and she’s a moron. Do I need to spell it out?”
“I think you do,” she said. “Yes.”
The elderly man wasn’t a shrinking violet by any means, but he shifted uncomfortably before speaking. “He’s a player. I think that’s the word you use today.”
Esther pushed a little. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen him over there with a woman. Not his wife.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “My eyesight isn’t as bad as you might think, and though it’s been a while, and most all of it is from memory, I know it when someone is having sex.”