Capturing Angels Read online

  He reached out to take my hand and stop my nervous activity. Finally, I looked directly at him for the first time. Although he didn’t look much older than I was, he had an air of maturity and competence. It would sound strange to anyone listening, but I suddenly felt like throwing my arms around his neck and lowering my head to his shoulder just so I could feel the strength in him circling my body, comforting me. I am just a little girl again, I thought. I want Daddy.

  He brushed some of his dark brown hair away from his forehead and fixed his hazel eyes on me.

  “For example,” he continued, “maybe she was wearing something very distinct, unique.” He looked at the information the mall police had written on a form. “Besides a blue skirt, light blue blouse, dark blue cardigan, and white and blue loafers with light blue socks,” he continued. “Some mothers have their little girls wearing earrings at this age,” he added with a quick shrug and a soft smile.

  “No, no earrings. She has a blue ribbon around her hair. She wears it like I do,” I said, indicating how my light brown hair was brushed back and fell to the base of my neck. “We have the same color hair, and she loves wearing it however I do.”

  “See?” he said. “That’s not on here.” He made it sound like a break in the case. “Go on. You left the house. You’re married, I gather.”

  “Yes, of course. I mean . . . yes, we’ve been married nearly seven years. Mary’s our only child. We’ve been trying to have another for some time now,” I added. I didn’t know whether that sort of information was necessary, but I was afraid of leaving something out now that he had pointed out the ribbon I had forgotten. “My husband wanted us to wait until Mary was five. He thought it was a good age difference and best for college planning.”

  Lieutenant Abraham smiled. “Yes, that’s probably very wise.”

  “John researches everything, even down to a new can opener.” I paused. “I don’t know why I’m telling you these things,” I said with frustration. “I feel like I’m babbling nonsense, like a babbling idiot.”

  He smiled softly again. “It’s all right. I understand. Was your husband home when you left with Mary this morning?”

  “No, he had left early for an important business trip.”

  Lieutenant Abraham nodded and looked at the form. “John Clark Jr. He works for Eternal Software?”

  “He’s their business manager.”

  “I see. Where did he go for this business trip?”

  “San Bernardino.”

  “Well, that’s just a little more than an hour away. Have we tried to reach him yet?” he asked the mall security guard.

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay. I guess we should be doing that,” he said, mostly to me. I nodded and searched my purse for one of John’s business cards because they had his mobile number on them, too. I realized that avoiding informing John now was a hope that had dissipated like steam.

  I handed Lieutenant Abraham the card.

  “Thank you. So, you left the house about what time?”

  “Nine-thirty.”

  “And did you stop anywhere before arriving here?”

  “No, we came right here. I went directly to the department store. What, do you think I went somewhere else, forgot my daughter, and came here before I realized it?”

  “No, no, of course not. Were you holding your daughter’s hand the whole time you were at the mall?”

  “Of course.”

  He looked as if he was swallowing a poison pill and then gently said, “At some point, you must have let go.”

  The words seemed to go into my ears and plunge down my spine, echoing as they descended. Of course I had to have let her go. Of course this was my fault. Snapping at him or anyone else wasn’t going to change that fact.

  “I’m not sure when I let go of her hand. I can’t remember. It just seems so foggy.”

  “Sure. I understand.” He looked at the mall parking ticket. “Your parking ticket has you here at ten forty-five,” he said. “That’s a little long for how far you had to come if you were coming here directly.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t exactly nine-thirty,” I said. “How can anyone plan on the traffic here?” My voice was becoming shrill again.

  “We just want to lock in these details.”

  He glanced at John’s business card as if he had just realized he was holding it.

  “Do you want to call him first?” he asked.

  I didn’t reply. I was sure I would have trouble speaking. I’d probably start to cry so hard that John wouldn’t understand a word.

  “We could call him for you,” he said. “Let me handle that. I know how upset you are.”

  “Yes, thank you.” I released the pent-up hot air in my lungs. I remember thinking, This man is very sensitive for a policeman. He reminds me more of a kindly male nurse.

  “I imagine you’ve been here before with your daughter?”

  “Yes, many times since it opened. Well, maybe not many, but at least three.”

  “Did your daughter ask to go anywhere special in the mall when you arrived? Did she want something to eat? Go to a toy store?”

  “No.”

  “So, you came up the escalator from the parking lot and went directly to the department store. Did you go right to the area where you were when you realized she was missing?”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. These questions felt like death by a thousand cuts. I threw up my hands. “How could someone take my daughter out of a department store? She wouldn’t let anyone forcibly take her. She would scream for me. Someone must have seen her,” I said, finally feeling the tears flooding into my eyes.

  “We’ve got people interviewing every salesperson in the store. Well,” he said, getting up, “let me phone your husband. You want anything—coffee, cold drink, anything—in the meantime?”

  I shook my head and dabbed at the tears on my cheeks. Surely, I thought, any moment someone would come in holding Mary’s hand. I stared at the door and with all my might willed it to happen.

  When Lieutenant Abraham returned, he had two cups of coffee.

  “Just in case,” he said, handing one to me. “I just put a little milk in it, but here are some sugar packets if you want.”

  I immediately put them and the coffee on the desk. He sipped his and looked at me more intently. It was as if he was looking in my face for clues about Mary’s disappearance. What was he thinking? That I had made all this up, that I didn’t even have a daughter? What?

  “Your husband didn’t pick up, but I left a message.”

  “If he’s in a meeting, he won’t have his phone on,” I said. “He’s adamant about that and not above chastising anyone who does leave his or her phone on in a meeting.”

  “Gotcha. Just to be sure, I also called his office and left a message with his secretary.”

  “Okay.”

  Just to have something to do with my hands, I picked up the cup of coffee and sipped some. It felt as if it was burning my throat even though it was just warm.

  He felt his cell phone vibrate, took it out, and rose to take a few steps away from me. He turned and nodded to me to indicate that it was John. Then he walked a few more steps away to talk. A minute or so later, he turned back to me.

  “He was just leaving his meeting. Pretty calm guy,” he said.

  “Oh, yes, that’s my John,” I said proudly. My whole body was trembling, but I tried to hide it. “Actually, one of the reasons I fell in love with him was his inner strength and stability. There’s no one better in a crisis than my John. He thinks first and never lets his emotions run away with him.”

  “Not bad qualities to have nowadays,” Lieutenant Abraham said.

  “He’s very religious, too. I think that’s where he gets his inner strength.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  It didn’t take a genius to see
that he wanted to keep me talking.

  “John never misses a Sunday at church if he can help it. I’m not as devout, but even if I don’t go, my daughter does. He’s a big football fan, too.”

  “Oh, Rams?”

  “Believe it or not, he’s a Giants fan and a Yankees fan.”

  “That is surprising. Is he from New York?”

  “No, but he went to NYU.”

  “Ah.”

  “Graduated with honors. He’s a strong man. He’ll know what to do,” I muttered. “John will know what to do.”

  “That’s good. We’ve got to keep clear minds, keep thinking about everything. Try to picture the scene again,” he added as he sat across from me. He leaned forward and focused on me as if he wanted to hypnotize me. For a moment, I actually wondered if that wasn’t a police detective’s technique. I’d gladly go into a trance if that would solve the problem, I thought. “Go on, please, visualize,” he said.

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  “Good.” He smiled again. “Let’s just go over it all again. Sometimes there’s a detail we might have missed or overlooked, okay?”

  He’s good at this, I thought. He knows what he’s doing. I’ve got to be more cooperative. I felt a little more relief, a little sense of calmness. I was happy that he was the detective on duty.

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “So, you’re at the counter. You’re talking to the saleslady. Does your daughter ask anything, want anything? Kids get impatient.”

  “No, she’s a very well-behaved little girl. She never pesters. I told them that. She’s being homeschooled, but she already knows a great deal more than the average first- or second-grader, especially when it comes to history. John’s hobby is ships in bottles, and he only builds famous ones and then explains them. You should see how patiently she sits and listens. So you see, she wouldn’t be impatient in the store. My daughter wouldn’t run off. The whole idea is ridiculous.”

  He paused, sipped some more coffee, and then said in a surprisingly casual tone, “The saleslady doesn’t recall a little girl standing beside you.”

  It felt as if he had delivered the famous bombshell in a courtroom during cross-examination of a witness. It took me a moment to gather my wits and respond. I bit down hard on my lower lip, trying to keep my rage from overflowing like volcanic lava.

  “She was probably just intent on making the sale,” I said in a very controlled but sharp tone. “She had dollar signs in her eyes that were blocking her vision.”

  He nodded, with a slight smile crossing his lips, and then sipped his coffee, his eyes still fixed on me with an intensity that was beginning to unnerve me. I closed my eyes and thought about what he had said about my letting go of Mary’s hand.

  Somewhere else in the mall, in malls across the country, on city and village streets, mothers were walking with their little girls. Statistically, as John might say, there were probably thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of those little girls who were the same age as Mary, many even born on the same day. These mothers had their daughters’ hands firmly in their grips. Their eyes went everywhere as they walked. We’d all been made so aware of the dangers that lurked around us, especially for our children. As difficult as it was, all of these mothers tried to remain alert, protective, and sensibly frightened, sensibly because fear could be a good thing. It made us safer. We double-locked our doors and put alarms in our homes and in our cars. We installed cameras on the fronts of our homes, and more and more these days, we were installing them in streets and in stores. John always said that we should be more like London, where there were cameras everywhere.

  “Cameras,” I said aloud when a thought suddenly followed. “Doesn’t the store have a security camera? We can see that the saleslady is wrong.”

  Lieutenant Abraham nodded. “Mall security is checking it out right now,” he said. “Now, I’m not jumping to any conclusions here,” he continued, “but it’s important to cover everything in a case like this, okay? Don’t jump to any conclusions from my questions.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said, now feeling more impatient now than frightened.

  “Have you noticed any strangers in your neighborhood lately who happened to be watching your house, your family? Have you noticed any stranger, the same stranger, who just happens to be in places you are? Something like that?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t notice anyone lurking near your home?”

  “No, of course not. I would have mentioned something like that to my husband immediately, and he certainly would have warned me. We live on a cul-de-sac, so someone loitering would be very obvious.”

  “Do you usually go shopping alone with your daughter? Any friends go along?”

  “Sometimes, yes. I just . . . what difference does that make?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, almost smiling. “I have to be as thorough as I can here. What about other relatives? Anyone you’re not getting along with, anyone who is critical of how you bring up your daughter, maybe?”

  “No,” I said. “Both my husband and I are only children. My parents are retired. My mother had me late in life. They live in Rancho Mirage in a development. My father’s addicted to golf,” I added. He widened his eyes and smiled, but I wasn’t trying to be funny. John repeated it so often that it became attached to any description of my parents whenever anyone asked about them.

  “How do you get along with your in-laws?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Like tolerable fine or . . .”

  “We get along,” I said. “I don’t understand these questions. This has nothing to do with family. In fact, we’re a perfect family.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” he said. If he was bothered by my attitude, he didn’t show it. “I had a case recently, though, where a woman’s mother-in-law did something like this to teach her son’s wife a lesson. She thought she was too careless with their child. Most missing children are actually family-related abductions.”

  “Well, that’s not us. Neither John nor his mother has ever been critical of the way I take care of our daughter. No one has, especially not my in-laws or parents. If anything, they’re always accusing me of doting on her too much.”

  “Do you have a regular babysitter?”

  “Yes. She’s a neighbor, actually, Margaret Sullivan. She’s a widow in her fifties and like another member of our family now. My husband is very comfortable, as I am, with her watching our daughter. She’s a religious woman and often goes with us to our church or with John and Mary when I don’t attend.”

  “No children of her own?”

  “No. I think that is another reason she took to Mary so quickly, why she became a member of our family so quickly.”

  “Why didn’t she have any children of her own?”

  “She’s never been fond of talking about it, but from what she did tell us, her husband couldn’t get her pregnant, and Margaret would never agree to try any of the scientific alternatives, nor would she adopt.”

  He nodded and asked for her address.

  “It’s the house right next to ours on the right when you face our house,” I explained.

  “Does she only babysit at your home, or does she take Mary into her own house?”

  “Mary feels comfortable in her home, but she babysits in our home only. I have never let Mary sleep in Margaret’s house, not that she would have felt uncomfortable doing so. It’s just the way I am with her. John usually accuses me of smothering her with attention, which is what makes all of this even more bizarre.”

  “So, Margaret has never taken your daughter places without you?”

  “Why are you asking me all this about Margaret?” I asked, losing my patience. “Margaret is like another grandmother to Mary. She’s been there to help nurse her when she’s been sick. She’s been at every birthday. It’s debatable who dotes on my daug
hter more, me or Margaret.”

  “Things could have happened around her that she was not aware of. Did she take her somewhere without you recently?”

  “No.” I shook my head and brought my hands to my face.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you any more than you already are. I’m just trying to get a full picture,” he said, and then turned to the door when a security guard entered the office. I saw him jerk his head to indicate that Lieutenant Abraham should come to him.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Lieutenant Abraham said, walking over to the guard.

  They moved to the side and talked. Then the security guard left, and Lieutenant Abraham returned, walking very slowly, a new and more concerned expression on his face. My heart raced. He knew something more, something significant.

  “Was that the man looking at the videotape?” I asked hopefully.

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “When you approached the counter in the jewelry department, you didn’t have a little girl with you on the videotape,” he said.

  2

  Strangers

  Numbness tingled in my fingertips, perhaps because I had my fingers locked so tightly together. I shook my head like someone trying to shake the words she had just heard out of her ears.

  “How could I think I had my daughter with me in the store if I didn’t?” I asked Lieutenant Abraham.

  Actually, I was asking myself, but I looked at him, hoping that he would pluck an answer from his investigative experience. From the expression in his face, I thought he was struggling for one because he really wanted to help me. The pained look in his eyes told me he couldn’t explain it, either, however.

  “I guess I must have let go of her just outside the entrance and thought she had come in right behind me. She always hangs on to me or stays right beside me, so I just assumed . . .”

  He nodded. “Very likely. Obviously, something must have distracted her long enough for the door to close between you. Maybe she didn’t even realize you had gone in,” he said.

  “She knew I was going into the store, though. She wouldn’t just stand out there dumbly. She knows how to open a department-store door and follow her mother in through it.”