The next morning, an unfamiliar truck roared into the driveway. Through the space between the kitchen curtains, I saw Bud Anderson get out of his truck and limp toward the house. What could he want? I cinched my robe around me as a loud knock reverberated through the house and then I cracked the door open.
“I came to see if there is anything you need.” He removed his hat and stomped mud off his boots. Rain ran in torrents down the driveway.
I nodded and backed into the house. “I need my children home.” My voice was tinged with desperation. Sketcher lumbered to the door. The odor of wet dog assailed my nose. I grabbed his collar but the dog stood calmly by my side.
“I know. I’ve been searching since day one,” he said. “The woods and lakes and rivers in this town are as familiar to me as the back of my hand. I’ve been hunting and fishing ’em since I was a kid.”
“What are you trying to say, Officer Anderson?” Rain pattered on the porch roof. Over the din, I spoke louder than I normally would.
“After the search didn’t turn up anything, I started at the volunteer command center every day after work, studying maps and thinking about other places where two kids could be hidden,” he said.
“Do the police know you’re doing this?”
“If you’re asking me whether they gave their approval and crossed me off the suspect list, the answer is ‘yes.’ I have an alibi for the day your kids disappeared. The cops interviewed me and my parents and everything checked out. You didn’t think I had anything to do with their disappearance, did you?”
The wind whipped through the porch. It was a struggle to keep the door ajar. “I’m sorry, I … would you like to come in, Officer Anderson?” I didn’t want to turn away anyone who offered to help, especially someone with as much knowledge of the terrain as Anderson had.
“It’s okay,” he said noticing my reticence. “If anything happened to my kids, I wouldn’t trust anybody either.” His fingers burrowed into Sketcher’s thick coat. “Sweet dog.”
“He seems to like you. I was just about to have a cup of coffee. Can I get you some? You’d better come in out of this rain.” Even though he had apologized, I was still guarded after the incident at the Christmas party.
“If you’re sure it’s no trouble. I came to see if there’s anything I can do.” He removed his rain-soaked jacket and wiped his boots on the mat. The stench of his cologne followed him in. I took his jacket and hung it on a peg in the mudroom. “Sorry about the mess.” Bud gestured at the muddy footprints on the floor.
“It’s okay. Sit down. You know, there is something that’s been bothering me.” I took a deep breath. “Josie told me a while ago that she saw you outside Alex’s house one night when I was there. With a camera. She thought you might have been taking pictures of me. Someone slashed my tires that same night. I need to ask if it was you.” I looked directly at him, not sure what I expected him to say.
“You think I slashed your tires?” Bud snorted. “No way. I admit I was there one night. It was just after my wife left me. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have followed you, but I never took any pictures … I’m embarrassed to even tell you this …”
“Go on.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Sketcher whimpered at my side.
Bud flushed a deep crimson. “I was stupid enough to believe there might be something between us. It was crazy, I know, but I swear I didn’t slash your tires and I sure as hell didn’t take any pictures.”
“Or follow Alex and me here? Somebody tried to run us off the road, for God’s sake.” A clap of thunder made us both jump.
“No! I swear on my mother’s life. It wasn’t me. I may have acted like a jerk to you at the Christmas party and followed you that day, but I had nothing to do with any of that other shit. I saw you were with another guy and I left.”
I had been a psychiatrist for over ten years and believed I had developed a sixth sense of when people were lying. There was nothing defensive or angry about Bud’s manner. No physical signs that would show anything but his telling the truth. I needed his help and I decided to trust my gut instinct and believe him. The house grew dark. “Looks like a big one rolling in,” Bud said. “Do you have flashlights and candles case the power goes out?”
The kitchen drawers were crammed with the detritus of our lives. Old report cards, birthday candles, notepads, and pencils. Batteries long past their expiration dates. I searched for matches and then for the candles on the utility room shelf. Bud had gotten up and stood behind me. The sound of his breath filled the small laundry room.
“I can get them,” I snapped. The thought that maybe I shouldn’t have let him in entered my mind. “What were you doing at Alex’s house that night, with a camera?”
“Is that what you’ve been thinking? That I’m a fuckin’ pervert? Is that what the bitch, excuse me, Josie Garrett told you? She’s always had it in for me. She came down, asked me what I was doing there and I left. Period. No camera. Listen, I’m in a custody battle for my kids. I’m trying to get joint custody.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” I wondered what that had to do with anything.
“It was clear you and your boyfriend were an item, and I accepted it,” he continued. “I couldn’t do anything to mess up that or my custody case. I guess it was just wishful thinking that a classy, well-educated woman like you would ever look twice at me. Hell, I even …”
The wind and rain rattled the windows. “You even?”
“It’s nothing. I just thought for a while that you might get tired of your boyfriend …”
Lightning flashed in the sky, heralding a storm, but the power hadn’t gone out yet. I turned and regarded him warily. “I love Alex. But, thanks for telling me, Officer.” I poured two mugs full of coffee and brought them to the table. “Cream and sugar? You didn’t see anything unusual that night did you?”
“Bud, remember? Just sugar. Hell, when I left, your tires were just fine.” He wrapped his hands around the mug. His broad shoulders strained the fabric of his uniform. Another clap of thunder shook the house. Sketcher whined and paced around the table.
“Bud. So who could have slashed them? Who followed us home? Who took the kids? I can’t help thinking there’s some connection.” I stirred the bitter coffee, deep in thought, as I admitted, “You’ve helped me more than you realize. I was so sure it was you who had slashed the tires and followed me home that night.”
Bud shook his head. “I swear it wasn’t me. I want to help any way I can. I keep thinking what if those were my kids.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I want to call Detective Meyers. These events are really starting to seem like they’re tied together. Thanks for coming by.”
The rubber soles of Bud’s army boots thumped on the hardwood floor as he walked to the door. “Remember, anything I can do, let me know.”
His truck pulled away and I shivered. Fall had come early. The days were getting cooler and already a damp chill suffused the air. I paused at the door, thinking about what he had said. The tires, the near car accident. It seemed clearer to me now that those incidents must be in some way connected to the abduction. I stood at the window and punched in the number I knew by heart, hoping the children were not outside in the chill air. The windbreak at the edge of my property blocked my view of the neighbors’ farm. Why had I moved to such an isolated location?
“Meyers here.”
His voice had a reassuring familiarity which soothed me every time I heard it. “Detective, it’s Grace Rendeau. I just had a visit from Bud Anderson. Remember I told you about him when you asked if there had been any problems with anybody at work?”
“Yeah, I remember. Donnelly and I interviewed him ourselves. What’d he want?”
“He said he was fishing that day and then went to visit his parents.”
“Yup, that’s right. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson validated his alibi. We were also able to verify that someone saw him on the Zumbro in his canoe that morning, fishing, just as he said he was. We subpoenaed the gaming site and the registered players for the time he said he was on, and it all pans out. Every moment of his day from ten o’clock on is accounted for.”
“He said he’s been assisting in the search and volunteering at the command center, manning the phones and studying aerial maps.” As I spoke, Sketcher nudged me wanting to go outside. The worst of the storm seemed to be over. The sky was still half-dark with clouds but a rainbow suddenly appeared and spread across the sky.
“He’s a good person to have in our corner, Grace. With his background in the Marines and the Minnesota National Guard, he’s potentially a help. In 2009, he was deployed to Afghanistan and based out of Kandahar Airfield. They provided evacuation services to patients and delivered over 200,000 gallons of fuel to the Marine’s helicopter fleets. He was pretty badly injured in a crash. What’d he want?”
I hadn’t known Bud was in the National Guard. “He came to offer his help. I asked him about the night I mentioned to you, when I was at Alex’s and Josie found him outside taking pictures. I was so sure he was the one who had slashed my tires and followed Alex and me back to my house. But he swore it wasn’t. And you know what, Detective? I believe him.”
“It wasn’t him outside Dr. Sawyer’s house?” Meyers asked. A telephone rang in the background.
“No, he admitted to that. He said his wife had left him, and he acknowledged he had some notion of us getting together, but he swears he didn’t slash the tires, take any pictures or follow us to my house that night. I wanted to tell you because I’ve been so focused on Bud Anderson as the one who did those things, but what if all these coincidences are tied up with the person who has the kids?”
“I’m gonna bring in Dr. Sorenson, Grace. She’s a forensic psychologist we’ve worked with in the past to develop a profile of the type of person we’re looking for. Why don’t you come in first, though, and we’ll go over what’s happened so far?”
“Of course, I’ll do anything.” Sunlight poured in through the door as I hung up. I felt more optimistic now that one suspect had been eliminated.