26

 

Jane met Eric and Suzanne at the front door of the theater and walked them up to her office on the second floor. Cordelia and Nolan were already there, Nolan behind his desk, Cordelia standing with her back to the windows. Jane made introductions as she pulled up a few more chairs, and then she offered to get everyone coffee. Nobody wanted any.

Setting a small tape recorder on the desk before he sat down, Eric said, “When the family talked to Jack last night, I taped the conversation. I keep a small tape recorder in the kitchen that I use to leave myself messages. I grabbed it and hid it in my jeans. Maybe I should have said something to Jack, but I didn’t. I thought what he said, and maybe even the way he said it, would be important.”

Nolan nodded for him to turn it on.

Jane took out a pen and a notepad and scratched a few thoughts as the tape played.

After the second time through, Suzanne said, “What do you think? I feel like he’s holding something back. Is it just me?” She looked worn out, her eyes red from lack of sleep.

Nolan tapped his fingers on the desk. “Describe his demeanor?”

“Subdued,” said Eric. “He was tired—and hungry. Nothing unusual in any of that.” He explained how he’d found Jack hiding next to the front porch, crouched down away from the worst of the wind and the rain. “He was soaking wet. Relieved to be back home. After he talked to Bill Jennings, the new officer assigned to the case, he went upstairs, crawled into bed, and fell asleep. I didn’t hear a peep out of him until this morning.”

“Andrew took him to see a doctor right after breakfast,” said Suzanne. “He didn’t have any scrapes or bruises, didn’t seem hurt. The doctor concurred.”

“At least nothing anyone could see,” added Eric. “But he was scared. That was more than apparent.”

“I agree with Suzanne,” said Cordelia, folding her arms over her chest. “I feel like he’s only giving us part of the story.”

“Can we keep the tape?” asked Jane. “I’d like to listen to it again.”

“You did the right thing to tape him,” said Nolan. “Don’t worry for a second about that.”

“If he knows something about Gabriel, I don’t understand why he won’t tell us,” said Suzanne. She was close to tears.

“Let’s back up a minute,” said Jane, folding up the notebook and returning it to her pocket. “Whoever took the boys demanded a ransom, which we paid. That suggests that the reason for the abduction was money.”

Everyone nodded.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” she continued. “I’ve got a few questions I need to find answers to, mainly about three people.”

“Name them,” said Suzanne.

“Aaron Eld, for one.”

“Eld? You think he had something to do with the boys’ abduction?”

He’d been the one to find Gabriel’s cell phone, which might have been pure serendipity, though it was always possible that it pointed to something more sinister. “I talked to his wife yesterday,” said Jane. “Seems he may have had some problems at the middle school this past year.”

“You mean that creationism flap?” asked Suzanne.

Eric groaned. “I’d forgotten about that. If I recall correctly, Eld didn’t want to teach a unit on young earth creationism. He felt it was completely unscientific, simply a way for those with a fundamentalist bent to get their religious ideas taught as science. I don’t know all the details.”

“The principal of the middle school, Craig Gilkey, is part of my congregation,” said Suzanne. “He was getting a lot of pressure from a group of parents who were trying to force the science department to include the subject. He eventually caved in, ordered Eld to cover it.”

“Did he do it?” asked Cordelia.

“I’m not sure,” said Suzanne. “I was so involved with church business at the time that I never asked. Winfield is fairly conservative. Eld made a big mistake when he did an interview for the local paper. He talked about the problem of getting all the various dinosaurs onto Noah’s Ark. Even if they were babies, as the creationists suggest, it boggles the mind. He made a joke out of it, which it is in the opinion of the larger scientific community, but it made the local supporters of the theory furious.”

“He still have his job?” asked Cordelia.

“Far as I know.”

The idea of a teacher abducting two children, even if he planned to let them go, was a stretch in Jane’s opinion. Still, because of his late-night excursions, she wanted to follow up on it. “I’m also curious about Matt Steinhauser. I know you asked to have him removed from the investigation. I think that was a good call. I can’t help but wonder why he did such a poor job on the case. I mean, he covered a few of the important bases, but left some of the most obvious opportunities to discover information completely untouched.” Jane could have added, but didn’t, that she wondered if his relationship with Gabriel went beyond him being his baseball coach—an ominous thought. If he was behind the boys’ abduction, for whatever reason, as a police officer he’d be in a perfect position to know how to go about it—and how to cover his tracks.

Suzanne shuddered. “He has a great deal of anger in him. The odd thing is, he never used to be that way.”

“You said three people,” said Eric. “Who’s the third?”

“Your uncle.”

“Yeah, figured as much.”

“Where does he go when he leaves on his motorcycle?”

“No idea. Sometimes he doesn’t come back for days.”

“How does he make a living?”

“He’s never said a word about that. He doesn’t talk about himself, always deflects direct questions. He was our dad’s brother. Suzanne and I rarely saw him when we were kids.”

“He was in the navy for a while,” added Suzanne. “Never married, at least as far as anyone knew. He was like a ghost. He’d appear out of the blue, and then leave without telling anyone.”

“I realize he’s a strange man,” continued Eric, “but that doesn’t make him bad.”

The meeting broke up a few minutes after noon. Jane promised that she’d drive down later in the afternoon. She wanted to talk to Jack, though she had to figure out a way to do it without making it seem like an interrogation.

Cordelia said she planned to come along. “I’ll make us reservations at that five-star motel again,” she said with a resigned sigh. “I think that hazmat suit is really going to come in handy when I travel.”