There Once Was A Child Read online

  I fear I will never be what she considers a good daughter-in-law.

  Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe it’s easier to believe they don’t like me and then I don’t have to feel guilty when I let them down. David has said this to me frequently since I moved into his house. I wonder if this is the pattern for the rest of our lives together. I think of this baby growing inside me and I am suddenly extremely anxious. A child needs a happy home without all this tension and frustration.

  “She doesn’t like you?”

  I push away the thoughts of the future and almost laugh. “I really can’t say for sure. I think they’re still shocked David and I didn’t fizzle out after a few weeks. I’m reasonably certain they had a family meeting and concluded I was a momentary blip on his radar—a rebound adventure after he and his longtime, more appropriate girlfriend ended their relationship.”

  Walt grunts. He would just as soon see me single and happy again. I shake my head and focus on the landscape as we maneuver onto Hogan Branch Road. It is true that I’m happiest when it’s just the work and me. Got that from my dad. I’m not sure I’m capable of changing a part of me so deeply engrained. Probably embedded in my genes.

  First thing this morning I made up my mind not to mention anything about yet another headache to Walt. He worries about me too much as it is. Besides, how could I explain that not long after David and I made love, the agony woke me up from a dead sleep? That has never happened before. I was sleeping like a baby. I retreated to the guest room and shut out all light and all sound to get through the night. Rather than explain it to David, I left before he came downstairs this morning. I couldn’t possibly tell him that after our beautiful lovemaking I grew immensely ill.

  What is happening to me?

  And when did I become such a coward?

  “Here we go.” Walt navigates his SUV across a narrow stream that flows over a dip in the long gravel driveway.

  The cabin belonging to Janie Hyatt sits about a quarter mile beyond the stream, even farther from the road and surrounded by thick woods. The driveway bends around a small pond with a short dock jutting out over the still surface. A fishing boat floats in the water, one end tied to the dock. From all appearances it’s the typical log cabin with a screened in front porch overlooking a tranquil pond. The perfect getaway from the noise and stress of city life.

  “Nice place,” Walt says.

  “Yeah.” I reach for the door and climb out. No vehicles around. “I wonder if anyone’s home?”

  “Doesn’t look that way,” Walt says, mostly to himself.

  I scan the tree line as we move toward the cabin. Leaves flutter with the sudden movement of a bird. I watch it soar across the clear sky and disappear from sight. The quiet reminds me of the farm. Somewhere miles away I hear the sound of a car.

  “So I’ve been looking for a retirement place,” Walt announces. He flashes me a grin and a wink.

  “Good one.” We both know he’s planning a move to Florida but the cover is a solid one. If anyone shows up, we’re obviously lost. Just out driving around looking for the cabin we saw on some real estate site. What man wouldn’t love his own little fishing hole right off the front porch? Surely this perfect place is for sale.

  We separate and move around opposite ends of the cabin. No shed or barn or other structure. Just the cabin. On the east end, the one I round, there’s the massive stone chimney. The screened porch wraps around the west end—the end Walt is covering—and comes to a stop just past the back door. Since most of the windows are concealed by the presence of the screened porch, I climb the back steps.

  “I’ll see if anyone’s home,” I say as if I fully expect the owner to answer the door and usher us inside for sweet tea.

  Walt nods and heads back around front. He’ll go to the front door. It’s our usual routine. One goes to the back door, the other goes to the front. On the porch the flowers in the pewter pitcher standing on the table between two chairs are still alive. I check the water level in the pitcher, hall full. Someone has been here recently.

  I open the screen door and rap on the wood door behind it. I lean closer and peer through the glass. A small kitchen that leads into the living room. I can see the big fireplace and a couple of comfy looking chairs flanking it. It’s quiet inside. On a side table in the living room the screen on the small television is black. I hear Walt knocking on the front door. I should move on to the next window but instead I pull my sleeve down over my hand and turn the doorknob.

  The door opens.

  “Hmm.” Now that’s a surprise.

  Going inside without exigent circumstances or a warrant is against the law. I remind myself of this fact even as I cross the threshold. Walt would say the same thing if he were standing next to me, but he’s not. If there’s anyone in the house, I’ll just say the door was standing ajar and I was concerned.

  I drag a pair of latex gloves from my jacket pocket and pull them on as I walk across the uncluttered kitchen. The cabin is small. Can’t be more than four rooms. It’ll take barely a minute to walk through the floor plan. Fridge is empty except for an opened block of cheese and a half empty bottle of wine. Stove is cold. No dishes in the sink. I move to the living room. No ash in the fireplace. The temps have been fairly low at night. Anyone staying here would have needed a fire. I pass into a short hall. Three doors, the narrowest one is obviously a closet. I open it first. Shelves loaded with linens and other household goods. The second door is a small bathroom. A good size bedroom is behind the final door. Bed is made. No one hiding underneath it. No one in that dinky closet either.

  Walt is in the kitchen when I make my way back there. “Nothing?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “You find anything?”

  “I opened the door to the crawlspace. No hidden basement.” He peels off his gloves. “Just the usual. Spiders and crickets.”

  “We should take a look around beyond the tree line.” I survey the main living area one last time. “Make sure there’s not an underground storm shelter or a root cellar. Or one of those bug out hidey holes.”

  He nods. “That’s about all we can do.”

  It takes a solid two hours to have a good look around. If there’s an underground bunker of some sort, we couldn’t find any indication of a fresh air access or an entrance. No newly turned earth. None of the vegetation appears to have been disturbed. If Hyatt and Reeves killed Fanning, they buried him so deep in the woods we’ll never find his body without ground radar.

  At the front of the house I consider the pond. It’s possible they dumped him in the water. I walk out onto the small dock; the boards creak and sigh as if no one has disturbed them in a while. I scan the shimmering surface. Doesn’t look that deep but I don’t think I want to dive in and find out. The water would be as cold as ice.

  “Thinking of taking a swim?” Walt joins me at the dock.

  “I’ll pass.” I turn to him. “We’re closing in on the end of our list with nothing to show for it. Maybe we’re focused on the wrong victims.”

  If Fanning took a victim, getting injured in the process, he would be too scared to go back home. That’s a given. He would hide until he was found or escaped to someplace far away. The only question is: where would he hide? He has no living family. Certainly no friends. I can’t see him lying low with a friend anyway. Fanning is a loner. Based on his file, he always worked alone and he never ran. According to his own statements, he’d lived in and around Nashville his whole life. The experts agreed that every child he took without getting caught made him braver and braver.

  Cocky son of a bitch.

  My stomach growls. I turn to my partner. “We should grab some lunch and follow up on those two new names that popped up on the missing persons list.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Walt agrees.

  Personally, I need a break from focusing totally on Fanning. The two kids who only this morning were reported as missing are older, a sixteen and a seventeen-year-old. Fanning didn’t generally hunt
in that age group, but he’s been in prison a long time. His tastes or his ability to wait out the perfect prey may have changed.

  As Walt drives back toward Nashville, I find myself obsessing about David and his family again. I love him. I do. Sometimes I feel completely certain that I want to marry him. Then those doubts creep back in. Will I get used to his family and their overly pretentious ways? I can’t comprehend why I suddenly feel incapable of relating to them. Of fitting in. I’ve never experienced such a lack of confidence. And if I can’t see my way past all that, what about the baby? What do I do from here?

  For starters, I don’t sell the farm. I may end up needing to go back there to live. It’s a good place for kids. Quiet, peaceful. There are no horses anymore but that can change. I cannot imagine in a million years homeschooling my child as my parents did me, which is okay because the farm is located in a good school district.

  Could I be a good mother? My mother was a great mother. She died when I was twenty-three, but my father and I made it a point to speak of her often. Recalled all the fun times. He would not allow her memory to die. He made sure I never forgot no matter how busy I was with work. He reminded me of the family life we shared. Maybe keeping all those memories in front of me was his way of ensuring he never forgot a single moment either. He was a dedicated, loving husband, father and doctor.

  Though he didn’t have an opportunity to get to know David until just a couple of months before his death, he liked him. I had the impression he approved of our fledgling relationship. I wish there had been more time.

  I glance at Walt. I wonder if a man like David can possibly ever be the sort of caring man my father was, that Walt is. I’m not so sure men like them exist anymore. A dying breed.

  Walt’s gray hair is mussed on one side from our trek through the woods. I smile and resist the urge to reach over and smooth it. I don’t want to embarrass him. He’ll glance in the mirror and notice eventually.

  My thoughts shift back to David. No, he is not like my father or Walt. Chances are, he won’t ever be. But then I’m not exactly the storybook picture of a wife. I suppose I’m about as far from June Cleaver as is possible to get and still be a member of the female species. Which begs the question of my nurturing skills.

  Too late to worry about that now.

  When I snap out of my daze I realize we’re already at the first of the two addresses we need to visit. At the top of our list is Chloe Simone, sixteen years old.

  The Simone home is a small white bungalow with green shutters and a wide porch. The houses along the block are shoehorned next to each other with barely a strip of grass between them. It’s an older neighborhood with mature trees and no shortage of deferred maintenance. Chloe lives with her grandmother since her parents died in a house fire when she was only ten. She’s an honor student at her school and has lots of friends. The girl’s grandmother gave her free rein to roam the neighborhood as long as her homework was done and her grades were in order. Brighter than average, Chloe had all the free time in the world to wander to her heart’s desire. And now she’s missing.

  Posters, flowers and stuffed animals surround a shrine started in Chloe’s front yard. Please send Chloe home! Help us find Chloe! God will bring Chloe home.

  Unfortunately unless her abductor suddenly grows a conscience and drops her off somewhere or by sheer luck she escapes, the only way she is coming home is if the cops working on her case find her in time or via the morgue. At this point, to believe anything else is wishful thinking. Even the small reward offered for information on the missing girl will likely be futile. Chloe Simone has been missing for twice that critical forty-eight hours. The grandmother mistakenly thought the class trip was this week. It wasn’t until one of Chloe’s friends showed up looking for her that the grandmother realized her mistake. According to the police report, the poor grandmother is beside herself. She has not laid eyes on the child since Sunday morning and hope is dwindling.

  Sadly she has good reason to be afraid. Chloe’s odds of being found alive have diminished considerably over the past twenty-four hours. Even Fanning never kept a victim more than a few hours. Thankfully, none of his—as far as we know—were murdered.

  Unless his MO has changed this time or some aspect of his strategy has gone terribly, terribly wrong, hopefully he hasn’t killed anyone. I think of the blood at his duplex. He’s been out of the game for a long while. His abduction skills are no doubt rusty. A fatal accident may have occurred.

  Then again, there’s always the possibility that he has suddenly decided to keep a victim, hiding in plain sight as he did before. Still, keeping a sixteen or seventeen-year-old victim compliant wouldn’t be an easy task.

  Milton Simone, the grandfather, answers the door. Walt does the introductions and we’re promptly invited in. My partner begins with the expected questions. How are they holding up? Is there anything else the police should be doing that they are not? Can we get them anything they might need? Walt knows the manager at the local Kroger. He can have anything they need delivered.

  The elderly couple assures us they’re fine and that they have everything they need, except their granddaughter. A framed photo of Chloe sits on the coffee table surrounded by lit prayer candles and the family’s Bible. The Book is dog-eared and visibly worn from use.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Simone,” I ask, “have any of Chloe’s friends mentioned seeing her with an older man?”

  Chloe’s friends and classmates, as well as the neighbors, have all been questioned endlessly about any strangers who might have been lurking in the neighborhood or around the school. So far nothing has emerged in all the questioning. Chloe has no enemies. No trouble at school, none at home. She is happy. Her parents’ deaths were years ago and from all appearances she has adjusted well to living with her grandparents. Her pay as you go cell phone hasn’t been found and the laptop issued by the school is now at Metro’s crime lab for processing. The crime scene investigators combed through her social media pages but found nothing of interest. A friend last saw her on Sunday evening just before dark in the parking lot of the apartment building at the end of the block. Several of her classmates live in those apartments.

  Mrs. Simone shakes her head adamantly. “Chloe would never let herself be fooled by offers of gifts or money. We taught her to beware of strangers. If she got into a car with a stranger then she did so unconscious or kicking and screaming. There is zero chance it happened any other way.”

  Her voice wavers on the last.

  I nod, summon an encouraging smile that I in no way feel. “You taught her well.”

  The Simones have already been shown a photo of Fanning. They both stated they had never seen him before.

  “The police still think it might be related to that man—this Fanning?” Mr. Simone asks.

  “We’re following up on every possible avenue,” Walt explains. “The fact that Fanning disappeared at approximately the same time gives us reason to believe there might be a connection but that is the only related thread we have. No other evidence or statements suggest he was seen with your granddaughter.”

  “There was that one girl,” Mr. Simone says to his wife. “You know the one who told you she thought an old man had been hanging around the apartments. She said he was watching her and Chloe.”

  Mrs. Simone shook her head. “You’re thinking about the janitor they used to have at the school. He’s retired now. They got a new one,” she reminded him. “The police already checked him out. Detective Renault said they ruled him out.”

  I remember reading the statement from a janitor. He had an airtight alibi. Just an old man who likes ogling females of any age.

  Walt places his business card on the table. “Please call us if you think of anything else or if one of Chloe’s friends comes to you with any new information.”

  The Simones promise to do so and we leave. I glance around the rundown neighborhood. The Simones are clinging to the last vestiges of their optimism about their granddaughter but I h
ave a bad feeling this will not end well.

  “You said Sanchez will be back on Sunday,” I comment as we climb into the Tahoe. “You going to call me when he calls you?”

  Walt starts the engine and shifts into Drive. “You know it, partner.”

  Frankly, it seems like a bit of a moot effort since Sanchez has been out of town since before Fanning went missing. But Walt doesn’t want to mark him off the list until he’s interviewed him face to face.

  That’s because Walt is a good cop.

  A damned good cop.

  I’m still trying to figure out why the guy’s name sounds familiar to me. Too many other things going on to obsess about it. I guess I’ll find out on Sunday.

  At the end of the day I am spent. Walt and I interviewed the parents of the other missing teenager, Suzy Eldridge, and then one more name on our list of Fanning’s past victims. The latter was yet another harrowing account of the worst one human can do to another. I am amazed all over again at how a man like Fanning got off with only thirteen years and change in prison. Plea bargains save the courts money, ensure a conviction. I understand this. Still, it’s a travesty. One, I suspect, is being amended. I push away the images of his torture that instantly come to mind.

  As a cop, I’m disappointed at the prospect that someone has taken the law—justice—into his or her own hands. Conversely, as a human I’m thrilled that anyone had the balls not to let this go. My father would say it’s the universal issue of civilized society. As humans our basic instinct is survival and self-protection. The rules of society push us to forgive, to turn the other cheek…to give a slap on the wrist to the evil among us and carry on. All will be well.

  But evil doesn’t live by society’s rules. Evil lives for one simple purpose: to fulfill its selfish desires, whatever the cost to others.

  Joseph Fanning is pure evil. No matter, society’s rules dictate that Walt and I must find him and protect him if need be or arrest him if he’s committed some crime. We are no closer to accomplishing one or the other than we were seventy-odd hours ago when this case landed in our laps.