“Francie,” Hoyt says. “You know we can’t comment on an active investigation.” He takes a sip of his coffee, watching her. “Is this why you came today? To see what we know?”
“Yes. Well . . . I’ve also been thinking about some things. Things you might want to be aware of.” She keeps her eyes on Hoyt. Unlike Schwartz, he wears a wedding band. Maybe he has children himself. “There’s a guy who lives a few blocks from Winnie.”
“Okay,” Hoyt says.
“A registered sex offender.”
She’s right. Hoyt is sympathetic. Something in his face softens when she says this, and he leans forward on his elbows. “Francie, do yourself a favor. Stop reading the crime blogs. It’s going to make you crazy.”
“No, you don’t get it. Apparently, there was a middle-aged white guy sitting on the bench near her house that night, and he’s a sex offender. Yes, fine, I read about it on a crime blog, but so what? And you can look it up—where sex offenders live. There’s one in the big apartment complex a few blocks away.” Francie knows she’s talking too fast, and she tries to slow down. “I’ve been watching her house.” She reaches into the front pocket of her diaper bag for the photograph she took and had printed at the pharmacy. “This guy comes by a lot, walking a little dog. He seems to have a weird interest in her building. Like, he’s always stopping in front of it, peering into the windows. Almost like he’s casing it, to be honest.”
“Why have you been watching her house?”
“Well, not watching it, like, through binoculars or anything. I live nearby. I walk by there with the baby. The idea that it’s a neighbor who took Midas makes a lot of sense. Think about it. It was Winnie’s first time out of the house at night. Her first time away from the baby. It has to be someone who knew that. Who was watching her.”
“It sounds like you’ve been watching her,” Hoyt says.
“What? No. I mean—” She pauses to compose herself. “She’s my friend.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Awhile. Four months. But we knew each other over e-mail months before that.”
“Four months? That’s not a whole lot of time.”
“Yes, it is. And also, this is different. We’re new moms. You wouldn’t understand. It’s a special kind of friendship.”
Hoyt is silent, nodding, expecting her to go on, but she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to explain to this guy what it’s like; how the members of May Mothers understand Francie in a way nobody else has. How often they were there for her during her pregnancy, when she was terrified that she would lose this baby, like she’d lost the others. How much they’ve helped her since Will was born—sending articles, responding to her questions and her reflections on motherhood, helping her battle the isolation.
“I’m not here to talk about friendship,” she says to Hoyt. “There’s something else I want to tell you. A confession, really.” Hoyt glances at the wall of glass, and for a moment she wonders if there’s someone behind there, watching them. “Something happened that night, and it’s only hitting me now how strange it was.”
“And what was that?” Schwartz asks. He sounds bored.
“Do you remember that guy I mentioned when you interviewed me? The guy at the bar, who approached her out of the blue?”
“Yes.”
“You should find that guy. Bring him in.”
Schwartz leans back, tipping his chair so that it’s balanced on the back two legs, and clasps his hands behind his head. “I’m no legal scholar—hardly made it through police academy, if you want to know the truth—but I’m pretty sure approaching a woman and offering to buy her a drink is legal. At least in New York.”
“I’m not suggesting those things are illegal, Detective.” She’s trying her best to keep her voice steady. “I’m suggesting that the behavior is a little suspicious.”
Schwartz begins to speak, but Hoyt raises a hand to stop him. “Fine. I’m going to play along. What’s suspicious about a guy speaking to a woman at a bar? Isn’t that why guys go to bars?”
“Maybe. But—”
“Your friend Winnie is a very beautiful woman.”
“Yes. I know. But—” Will squirms at her chest, and Francie realizes she’s stopped bouncing. “But I have an idea of who that guy might have been. It didn’t dawn on me until this morning, really. This is something you have to pursue.”
“What is?” Schwartz asks.
“Are you familiar with the name Archie Andersen? Winnie’s stalker?”
Schwartz sighs heavily and stands up, walking toward the door. “I’m going back to work.”
She looks at Hoyt after Schwartz has left, feeling a twinge of relief that they’re alone. “I really think that guy at the bar could have been Archie Andersen. Have you looked into him?”
Hoyt rubs his eyes. “Francie, you need to know we’re doing our job. We’re taking this case very seriously.”
“Do you have children?” Her voice sounds strained, and she silently berates herself. This is no time to cry.
“Three.” He reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, taking out a wrinkled photograph of three little girls standing in a kiddie pool. “I’m old-school. Still like these things on paper. This was a few years ago.” He examines the photo more closely, as if he hasn’t seen it in some time. He shakes his head. “They really do grow up fast.”
“Can you imagine, Detective, how upsetting it would be to lose one of those little girls before they had the chance to grow up? Like Winnie has?” She lifts the diaper bag from the back of the chair, accidentally bumping Will’s head with her arm, causing him to wake with a start. His eyelids flutter open and his face grows pink, on the brink of a wail. She feels the sweat pooling around the fabric of the baby carrier, and the sudden need for fresh air. “I’ve said what I’ve come to say. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t.”
She starts for the door, but Hoyt steps in front of her. “Listen, Francie. I meant what I said. We’re doing everything we can to find Midas. I want to see that kid alive as much as anyone.” She nods and tries to move past him, but he rests a firm hand on her arm. “And you want to know the truth? In cases like this, when a baby goes missing, when there’s no sign of forced entry, no revenge motive, we have to start looking in places we don’t want to look.”
She yanks her arm away and hurries down the hall toward the exit. Will is crying louder, drowning out the buzz of the light, but she can still hear Hoyt’s words as she charges toward the lobby.
“I mean it’s time to start questioning the motives of people who knew him. I mean, Francie, people close to the family.”
Chapter Twelve
Night Six
My mom always said I was naive. She was, of course, usually referring to an interaction with my father: my most recent decision to forgive him for something he said, or something he did, for the way he came home drunk again, pulling me out of bed by my arm, dislocating my shoulder, telling me to put away my fucking shoes, left in the middle of the hall, trying to kill him.
“He feels bad about it,” I’d say the next morning, avoiding her eyes as she held the ice pack to my shoulder. “He didn’t mean it.”
She’d shake her head. “You’re so clever about everything except him.” I can see the disappointment in her eyes. “When are you going to learn?”