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Learning the fine art of interrogation techniques was on next semester’s course load. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t practice now.
Besides Kat’s mother Helen, and the murdered stepfather Scott, who obviously would be of no use, the next best person to talk to was Kat’s father, Cody Brannigan. If anyone had his own anger-fueled suspect list—or in my theory should be on it—it was the bio-dad. Tristan had mentioned his domestic violence history. All with the same woman, his then-wife Helen. I hadn’t expected his arrest record to be two pages long, a grade A wife-beating douche bag. Certainly he’d been one of Tristan’s prime suspects, but after several uneventful interrogations and surveillance that led nowhere, he became a dead end as far as the captain was concerned. After checking the database at work for his last known address and poring over the case file notes, I clocked out for the day and headed straight to Cody Brannigan’s house on the outskirts of Raleigh.
The townhouse he lived in sat in the middle of a line of average homes on an average street. All matching gray aluminum siding; the only difference from one to another was the color of the front door or faux shutters, all dismally bland shades of blue, black, and brown, with the occasional burgundy. Clearly the Home Owner’s Association ruled with an iron fist in this neighborhood.
I had to parallel park half a mile down the street, which took me over ten minutes as I inched my way back and forth between two huge SUVs that parked so crookedly that they deserved to get dented. I never had the luxury of a father teaching me the nuances of parallel parking as a teen, but coaxing my tiny car between these two would have challenged even the most expert parking valet.
Walking along the tree-lined sidewalk, I passed a young mother—she looked close to my age, in her mid-twenties—pushing a baby in a stroller, and I wondered what it would be like to be her. To have a family. To spend time with my kids. To watch them grow. To come home to a husband and a noisy house.
Maybe that last part was the problem—I’d always want to be the one coming home, not the one someone else was coming home to. Sitting at home all day, entertaining little kids? Fuhgettaboutit. How did mothers do it without losing their sanity? It sounded boring as hell. But then again, what man would want to marry a woman who felt the way I did about domestic life?
Watching the house numbers roll downward, I found the address I was looking for, shiny gold numerals emblazoned against a black door. I pressed a dimly lit doorbell button and heard the chime inside, a standard melody used by millions of other doorbells. A man answered the door, his head so shiny and bald I wanted to rub it for good luck. I noticed the twin eagle claw tattoos on either side of his thick neck, like talons clutching his collar. He had kind brown eyes and a nice smile, which defied what his arrest record told me.
“Good evening, miss. Can I help you?” he asked pleasantly. Was this polite man the same one who beat his wife once upon a time? I supposed the best of killers were the most charming ones. Ones who could easily draw victims in.
“I’m looking for Cody Brannigan.”
“Look no more. You’ve found him.”
“Oh, hi. My name is Ari Wilburn, and I’m with the Durham Police Department. May I come in for a moment?” I didn’t want to mention that my job as a file clerk had absolutely nothing to do with why I was there. I figured sliding around those details was the only way he would speak to me. I’m sure it was illegal impersonating an officer, though was it really impersonation if I didn’t say I was a police officer? The devil was in the details.
His smile faded away. “Oh God. You’ve found my daughter Kat. Is she—?”
Watching my face carefully, he stepped aside for me to slide past him inside the entryway.
“No, sir. I’m informally investigating her disappearance—off the books. The department doesn’t know I’m here.” I needed to cover my ass just in case this conversation ever came up with my boss. “I’ve been going through old files and came across Kat’s. I figured maybe I could offer a fresh look at what happened, if you’re willing to talk to me.”
He turned toward the living room, talking with his back to me. “Yeah, sure. Why not? I’m surprised after all this time they’ve even kept the file. After so much time passes, you kind of give up hope that anyone cares, y’know?”
“The department is doing everything they can to get answers, sir.”
“Cody. You can call me Cody.”
“Okay, thanks, Cody. I’m sorry that we haven’t found your daughter yet, but I’m hoping to change that.”
The living room was unremarkable, save for its messiness. Brown suede matching sofa and loveseat, two end tables covered with random papers and fragments of children’s toys. A coffee table littered with empty plates, mugs, and cereal bowls indicated Cody—and Tempest, when he exercised his visitation rights—took their meals here, before the shrine of a wall-mounted flat-screen TV. The only notable personal effect was a family portrait on the wall of Cody, Helen, Kat, and Tempest in happier days. The picture looked to have been professionally, if rather gaudily, framed. The Olan Mills logo stood out against the black background. I imagined what an event it must have been for the family, dressing up in their Sunday best to get their portrait taken in a “fancy” studio.
“Coffee or anything?” he offered, still standing while I took a seat on one end of the sofa. A sharp object poked at the back pocket of my jeans. Scooting aside, I pulled a Snow White mini-figure out from between the cushions, finding a puzzle piece and a board game token along with it. Sofas tended to hide a trove of childhood treasures, though the days of finding loose change like when I was a kid were long gone since the advent of debit cards.
“No thanks. I won’t stay long. I just need to ask a few questions.”
Cody sat on the farthest end of the loveseat. His right leg bounced uncontrollably with a nervous tremor he seemed unaware of. “Okay, shoot.”
“I understand you and Helen are divorced. What happened there?”
“Typical marriage problems, I guess. I didn’t like what she did for a living, and I felt she’d be better off staying home with the girls. She disagreed. And we were stuck at an impasse that we couldn’t get past.”
So we were going to start off being evasive ... I’d have my work cut out for me.
“Ah, the bartending, right?” Cody nodded. “I can see your perspective. She probably got hit on a lot, and no husband wants to watch his wife be sexualized by other men—especially when she’s the mother of his children.”
“See? You get it. I don’t know why it was so difficult for her to understand. But it’s water under the bridge now.”
I’d gained his confidence. Time to hit him with a sucker punch. “Full disclosure here—Helen told me violence was common in your marriage.”
“Of course she did.” Cody exhaled loudly and dropped his elbows on his knees, resting his face on his hands. “Yes, Helen and I had our fair share of fights. Though I wasn’t the one who started it. If you look at my record, I have no history of violence before Helen. All my problems started after I married her. The reality? She’d beat on me, and when I tried to defend myself she’d call the cops on me. Of course they always sided with her, the woman. Because the woman’s always the victim. No one ever considers the man a victim.”
“Cody, c’mon now. You’re bigger, stronger, easily able to walk away from a fight. And if she was beating you, why were you so intent on staying married to her?”
“First of all, I love my wife—I’m sorry, my ex-wife. No matter what she did to me, I always loved her. And she was a great mom. So I figured it was better to deal with her breakdowns than to lose her altogether. And as for walking away from a fight, have you met my wife? She’s what you might call a big-boned gal—not fat, just meaty in an attractive way. I like curves on a woman.” He looked my slender frame over appraisingly and added, “No offense.”
“None taken.” Well, maybe a little.
“And she’s taller than a lot of men. Hell, she’s probably stronger than me, too. She doesn’t take any crap from anybody. But walking away was not an option, because she liked the confrontation. To be honest, I think ignoring her would have made her even angrier.”
“Is that why you shaved your head—to appear more menacing?”
“Premature balding, actually. Thanks for questioning my manhood, by the way.” He grinned, and I couldn’t help but feel bad for him now. “And in case you were wondering, the tattoo isn’t a stick-on. It’s real ... and yes, it makes me feel more manly.”
I laughed. At least all of his suffering—losing his child, his wife, his good-guy image—hadn’t stolen his sense of humor.
“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to emasculate you. It’s just, well, a red flag when a girl goes missing and you find a history of violence from the father—plus a divorce on top of that. Logically it makes the most sense that you would have taken her, considering your wife was seeking primary custody. Run away with her, start a new life, but then why not Tempest too?” I examined him, searched his eyes for the truth, saw the wrinkles of worry and the paleness of sleepless nights. I sensed that he’d lost himself when he lost Kat. “But I’m thinking that’s not what happened.”
Sitting back, he crossed the bouncing leg over the other, hands folded in his lap. “You actually believe I’m innocent. Why? The cops certainly didn’t.”
“Because I know the look of someone who’s lost the other half of their heart. Kat was yours, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“What kind of relationship did you have with her?”
His eyes watered in the wistful, contemplative way when sepia memories come alive again in vibrant color.
“Kat was funny. Oh, her sense of humor was far more advanced even than mine.” He grinned boyishly. “And smart. Whip-smart. By eighteen months she knew her entire alphabet. By two she was spelling words. She would have gone on to do great things if she was still here. And beautiful. Dimpled cheeks, eyes that unveiled your secrets—she was intense, in a good way. That kind of intensity that makes you want to be a better man because you know she deserves so much more than you can offer. And yet she was so perfectly happy with the simple life she was given. She was my everything.”
It was as if he was reciting a lovely, poetic epitaph at her funeral. His body still mourned her in the stoop of his shoulders, the creases in his forehead, the grief in his voice. Perhaps every day he relived his own personal memorial for his daughter.
“How are things with your other daughter, in spite of everything that happened?”
A smile softened the sadness in his face. He looked away from me, toward the family portrait on the wall, then returned his gaze to me. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Tempest. But it’s ... well, I never had the connection with Tempest that I had with Kat. Kat always loved me most, a daddy’s girl. Tempest is her mama’s little girl. But she’s still my sun, moon, and stars. She’s all I got left. I miss Kat with every fiber of my being, but Tempest ... well, she keeps me sane. I’ve always loved both my girls. I would never hurt them. Ask Helen—even though she hates me, she knows I’d never hurt my girls.”
I believed Cody wouldn’t, but what about Helen?
“Would she ever hurt them?”
Cody waved his hands frantically. “God, no! She’s a great mother. I don’t blame her for what happened. I don’t think she had anything to do with it.”
“What about Scott Guffrey, her boyfriend at the time?”
“No, I can’t imagine him wanting to hurt Kat. I mean, why? He’s a father himself. I knew the guy—he was a good guy from good stock. No, like I told the cops, I think it was the drug dealer who lived down the road from Helen. I’ve heard it happens—those people stealing kids and selling them for ...” Closing his eyes, he shook his head. “I can’t even think about that. My baby girl ... that happening to her. The cops might have questioned him, I don’t remember, but they didn’t go anywhere with it.”
“Do you have his name?”
“No, just what he looks like and where he lives ... if he still lives there.”
It sounded like a wild-goose chase to me. But one I was willing to pursue just in case there was something to it.
“If you give me whatever information you have, I’ll look into it.”
It was a shot in the dark, I knew, since Kat would have been long gone by now if the dealer had sold her. And it wasn’t like he would just blurt out a confession simply because I asked him to. But maybe I could find something, anything, that would point me in the right direction. For the sake of this shattered family, I was willing to do just about anything.