Chapter Five

Kerry James

Friday November 2008

On the hour-plus drive to downtown St. Louis Friday morning, between giving directions and running commentary, Vicky texted and called contacts to set up and confirm her plans for the day.

“Take the next exit.” She took them on a detour through Forest Park, site of the 1904 World’s Fair, so she could point out The Muny, the outdoor theatre. “It’s in the city charter that, quote, ‘the last two rows are reserved for those who cannot afford to or are disinclined to pay.’ End quote. I love that phrase, and the thinking behind it.”

They drove past the TV station where she’d worked, and the sites of a couple of interesting news stories. They got stuck in morning traffic near her old apartment.

“Wasn’t this crowded when I lived here.”

“It sounds like you liked St. Louis.”

“Yes, but I never planned to stay long. I wanted to get back to California.”

Pete glanced at her. “So, it was just a step along the way to somewhere else.”

Uh-oh. This conversation could too easily swerve to the topic of living together. Not a good time to go there. They’d been seeing each other for months—exclusively, enthusiastically, energetically. Still, she was surprised last week when he floated the prospect of getting a place together. They’d agreed to talk about it later. The ball was in her court, but it wasn’t the only one. And she wasn’t ready to play.

“Pretty much. That’s how it worked out.” Vicky gazed out the window. She’d had many second thoughts as she packed her apartment, three floors up in a beautifully restored brick building in the Central West End. Back then, she liked the physical process of moving from one place to another. She enjoyed deciding what to take, what to leave, deploying boxes and bags until she had a separate pile to go in the car, the essential things she wanted to keep right with her.

She’d had a notion once, that shedding non-essentials was like a body protecting itself from freezing, like blood retreating from limbs to protect the core functions, the lungs and brain and heart. She’d rolled her eyes at her contrived analogy.

The famous Gateway Arch framed their route to the courthouse. Vicky pointed out an arrangement of massive, rusted walls of steel. “That’s the Serra sculpture. The first time I saw it, I assumed Serra referred to the California missionary. I didn’t get what slabs of metal had to do with him or what he had to do with Missouri. Turns out it’s the name of the artist.”

“Sure. Richard Serra.” Pete pulled over at a bus stop. “This okay? Let’s call or text later.”

They kissed, Vicky hopped out, and Pete headed off to see Smallpox Island, a speck on the Mississippi River where Confederate soldiers with the disease had been taken to die. It was one of the sites on his to-see list. Abraham Lincoln was challenged to a duel there, but the other man backed down when Abe chose the weapons. Sabers. Abe’s reach was clearly superior to his much shorter opponent’s.

At the courthouse, Vicky met a chatty old friend in the sheriff’s department, just to visit and get the inside scoop on the Rose Willwood investigation. Background info. Theories. The cops didn’t have much to go on. There were rumors about the aunt who was supposed to be babysitting when the kid disappeared from in front of her house.

Later, Vicky dropped in on a couple of hearings and an attempted murder trial to see who was working. She chatted up a bailiff and a court clerk, pals from her days as a reporter, then headed off to research property records, to find out who owned what near Rose’s house. Her stomach burned at how close that was to where the levee girl turned up. One girl lost where another was found. Less than two miles and nine years apart.

****

That evening, Vicky was already seated when her friend walked into the restaurant. Kerry looked great—sharp and confident in a charcoal gray dress, bold belt, and high-heeled boots. Her dark hair was cut short, with bangs falling gracefully to one side. Vicky’s disobedient mane would never cooperate like that.

They hugged and exchanged compliments before they slid into the booth. Vicky was glad she’d decided to wear black pants and her dressy sweater instead of her usual hoodie and jeans or yoga pants. These days, she never dressed like she was going to a meeting because, of course, she wasn’t.

Vicky tipped her glass. “I’m having chardonnay. Wasn’t sure how much time you have so I ordered some spring rolls.”

“That sounds great. I’m good for dinner.” Kerry caught the waiter’s eye and pointed to Vicky’s glass, then herself. They dipped into the peanut sauce as they caught up. They hadn’t talked in person since before Vicky’s divorce three years ago.

Kerry leaned forward. “Tell me all about this guy you’re with.”

“Pete Harris. I’ve never liked so much about a man before. He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s even a good listener.” Vicky lightly bit her lower lip and raised an eyebrow. “Plus, he has the most beautiful back. I love the way his shoulder blades move.”

“Oh, my.” Kerry picked up her napkin and mock-fanned herself.

“Exactly. And he’s a great cook. He’s tidier than me, so I’ve upped my game there, which I needed to do. Traveling by RV, you have to put things away.”

“How long’s this trip you’re on?”

“Depends. I saw the Amber Alert about the little girl missing in Walkers Corner, and since we were camping anyway, decided to come to Missouri.”

“Rose Willwood.” Kerry slumped slightly. “She’s been missing five days now. We’ve done a lot— Amber Alerts, stories every newscast, even a live phone bank with the sheriff.”

“I’ll volunteer if you do another one. I signed up at the sheriff’s department to help with the search. The deputy said they’d call, but right now they have all the help they can use.”

“Yes, they are well-organized. FBI, helicopters, dogs, tons of ground searchers. They’ve covered miles around, as far as she could have walked and then some. They’re running out of places to search.”

“Heartbreaking. Her poor mom.”

Vicky had never had a child, but she’d interviewed enough distraught and grieving parents to feel some of the agony that slashed their lives. She could barely remember her own parents, but whenever she heard about a missing kid, her baby sister’s face filled her mind. She tamped down the wave of emotions she always felt about that loss before it could take hold.

“Rose’s friend was right there when it happened?” Vicky asked.

“Aaron Dankin. They were riding bikes. He says he got to the end of the block, looked back, but Rose wasn’t there. Her bike was on the ground in the cul-de-sac.”

“And Rose’s aunt was on the porch? Watching her?”

Kerry pursed her lips. “So she says.”

“What, you don’t believe her? Do the cops?”

“She claims it was just a couple of minutes between when she last saw the kids and when she heard Aaron calling Rose’s name. The cops tell me this Sara Willwood is not terribly reliable. Drugs.”

“No chance it’s a custody thing?”

Kerry shook her head. “Probably not. The birth father hasn’t been around since before Rose was born. They weren’t married, or at least she uses her maiden name, Willwood. She works at the local diner. They moved to Walkers Corner about a year ago.”

“I’ve seen reports by our friend Rick Carr. He’s gotta have good connections, being an ex-cop.”

“He hasn’t gotten much either.”

“Are you glad you hired him?”

Kerry shrugged. “He’s a decent reporter and good on air.”

“He learned from the best. He sure liked hanging around with us news people.” Vicky paused. “I always thought he’d really be something if he’d just tone himself down fifteen or twenty percent. And his clothes? I swear he made detective so he wouldn’t have to wear a uniform every day. Remember how he’d strut around with that fancy leather bag?”

“He still carries it.” Kerry tilted her head. “I wish I could give him more time to work on Rose, but we need him on other stories, too. We’re always understaffed these days.”

“We’re lucky we were reporters when we were.”

They spent a few minutes reminiscing about the days when they could focus on one story at a time. When they didn’t worry about budgets and ratings. When pressure from the general manager and corporate were someone else’s problem. That’s what bosses were for. The good old days, before they became bosses, and the pressure fell on them.

Vicky took a sip and a slow breath. Time to dive into the real reason she’d come back here after all this time. “Rose went missing close to where that other little girl was found on the levee, right?”

“Lisa Dee. Yes, Rose’s house is just a couple of miles from the levee.”

“Little Lisa Dee. I still think about her.”

Nine years before, in 1999, a farmer found a little girl walking out in the middle of nowhere, covered in blood and crying her heart out. At the hospital she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say a word. A nurse talked with her, trying out names. The girl just stared at the floor until the nurse said Lisa. The girl looked up for a dazed moment before her eyes glazed over again.

At first, the cops and reporters called her Lisa Doe instead of Jane Doe. Then someone pointed out that while Jane and John Does were unidentified, they were usually dead. That sounded awful for a live little girl, so they changed it to Lisa Dee.

Vicky took another sip. “No one figured out who she was?”

“No. And we never learned anything about where she came from.”

“Lisa on the Levee.” Vicky used the old newsroom nickname for the story. “Last I heard, she was in a hospital in Chicago.”

“As far as I know, she grew up there, in hospitals and foster homes.”

Vicky put down her glass. “That story stuck with me. We all just move on when there’s nothing new to report. It was just left hanging.”

“There’s always something new pushing the old stuff back,” Kerry agreed. “There’s never enough time. But Lisa definitely sticks out.”

“I like that about my life now. Having time.”

“I bet. It’s hard to imagine. So how is it, travel writing? Sorry, I haven’t read your stuff yet.”

“True crime travel writing. I just started. A magazine published an article I wrote a couple of months ago. The editor said to submit what I write next, and she’ll consider it.”

“Oh, you’re freelancing.”

The faint hint of judgment in her voice made Vicky chuckle. “Good thing I don’t have to make a living at it.”

“I bet it’s nothing like TV news.”

“That it is not.” Vicky loved writing for TV, even under pressure, maybe especially then, when time was measured in seconds and every word counted. “Have you ever written non-news?”

“No. Not really.” Kerry paused. “Well, maybe a bit of fiction, a few times, in monthly reports to my boss.”

They clinked their glasses. Over their second glass of wine, they got a little gleeful talking about a former news boss they’d both worked for, at different times and stations. His creepy behavior had finally caught up with him.

“Remember how he’d always say, ‘fake it ‘til you make it’?” Vicky pretended to barf. “And stand too close when you’re sitting at your desk?”

Her friend mock-shuddered in disgust. “What an ass. Though I don’t think ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ is total BS. It’s just the way he said it.”

“Exactly. It’s not bad to plan how to act. Did I ever tell you about the last time he said it to me?”

“Tell me.”

“This was just before I left St. Louis. I tried out for the weekend anchor spot. Did you hear about this?”

“Not from you.”

“Uh-oh. I had to talk him into letting me audition. He finally agreed, but it was last-minute, and he acted like he was doing me a big favor. So, I’m heading to the restroom to get ready, and he calls me into his office, supposedly for a pep talk. He starts talking about himself and keeps going on and on. The crew already has barely enough time to fit me in before they have to get ready for the newscast. Guys came by twice saying we needed to get started, but he kept talking and talking and talking, and I was dying to pee.”

Kerry chuckled.

“Yeah, and so by the time I got on set, it was starting to feel fairly urgent.” Vicky demonstrated, twisting and fidgeting. “And then there was only like ten minutes left until they had to get to work on the newscast.”

Vicky covered her eyes in mock embarrassment. “I don’t think I got through a single sentence without messing up. Thank God there’s no tape.” A friend in editing had erased the only recording of Vicky’s awful audition.

“Umm.”

“What?”

Kerry chuckled. “You probably shouldn’t have called him names.”

“I’m trying to read on-camera and he keeps whispering in my earpiece, ‘Just fake it and you’ll make it.’ You saw tape? No way. Tell me you’re lying.”

“You said he was an effin’ faker, and not even good at that.”

“Ha! There’s no tape. I wasn’t wearing a mic then.”

Kerry’s phone buzzed. “I have to get this.” She left the table to take the call.

Vicky finished her wine. Thank God she could end her audition story on a chuckle. It was the most profoundly embarrassing humiliation of her professional life and yeah, she’d been furious and let loose at her boss. It still burned.

“Work. Nothing major.” Kerry slid back into the booth. “Hey. I remembered something, after you said that about Rick strutting around with that bag.”

“He could be insufferable.”

“He wasn’t so bad. Don’t forget, I hired him. I thought you two might have had a thing going for a while…”

Vicky did her Mona Lisa gaze.

“Anyway. Remember when everyone was staked out near the farmer’s place? The one who found Lisa? I forget his name.”

“Williams? Wilson?” Vicky frowned slightly. She prided herself on her recall. “He wouldn’t let us on his property.”

“Wilton? I can’t remember.” Kerry shrugged. “I got a message on my pager. This was before we all got cell phones. We still used those pagers where you typed out messages—”

“Willets. He found Lisa in May 1999.”

“Right. Anyhoo, it was more like garbled notes than a whole message. I thought Rick might have sent it by accident, though he’d never paged info before, just his number. Anyway. I don’t remember details…it was like…kitchen… yeah, kitchen. And a name, a woman’s name.”

“What name?”

“I can’t remember now, but I tracked her down at the time. She lived near the levee.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Yes. I tried to find out if that message meant something, but I didn’t have much to work with. I asked if she’d seen anything odd, did something happen in her kitchen? She claimed she didn’t know what I was talking about, she hadn’t reported anything. She was pissed I even knew her name.”

“That’s it?”

“She finally said a cop was there, asking about the levee girl, and she might have said something out loud without thinking. But it was nothing, just talking to herself.”

“Did you ask Rick about it?”

“No. It seemed like a dead end. And if he sent it by mistake maybe he’d do it again. I forgot all about it until now.”

“Sooo…” Vicky stretched out the syllable. “I don’t get it. What’s the connection?”

Kerry made a just a sec motion. “This’s been bugging me since your snide comment about Rick’s bag—"

“Not many guys carried them back then. Especially not cops. We used to call them man-bags, remember? His was reddish leather.” Vicky liked detail and had reason to remember what Rick carried. “The handle was carved bone or—”

“I’d forgotten all about this. One just like Rick’s was on the porch floor. At first, I thought it was his. Then I got paged someone found Lisa’s shoe and took off.”

“Really? Could you see what was in it?” A low-level vibration thrummed deep inside as Vicky pictured Rick, his kitchen, his bag. The day her life had changed so completely. If it had something to do with the levee girl…

Kerry shook her head. “No. But it made me think of Rick. And it didn’t seem to belong. It was a humble place. The bag was upscale, like his.”

They discussed possible explanations for its presence on the porch. Vicky favored the idea it was Rick’s, and he had something going on with the neighbor lady. Kerry dismissed that, saying it was a woman’s tote, brand new but dirty.

They paused while the waiter delivered two pots of herbal tea and a single fruit torte with two forks.

“By the way, Vick, you didn’t answer me about whether you had a thing with him.”

“You didn’t put it in the form of a question.” Vicky shook her finger in a mock scold. “I wouldn’t call it a thing.” She poured a taste of tea to see if it was ready, then put the pot down. “Talking about his bag reminds me. I should tell you something about Rick, from back then, but it doesn’t feel entirely right, since he works for you.”

“He didn’t work for me then. He wasn’t even in news.”

“Still. I would have told you this before you hired him, but I’d already left Missouri.” Vicky briefly reexamined her motive for telling his boss now. Surely it wasn’t because he had humiliated Vicky so thoroughly. No. It could be relevant now.

Kerry’s gaze was direct and serious.

Vicky picked up her teacup. “It might have been important.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay. His bag.” Vicky swirled her tea before she continued. “This was when he lived in town, out by me. It was the same evening, right after my nightmare of an audition. I was pretty upset. I stopped at a liquor store on my way home.”

She went on a brief tangent to grouse about Missouri’s blue laws back then, when you couldn’t buy anything but wine and beer in grocery stores, and not even that on Sundays until after noon. You had to stock up on trips to the liquor store. Sometimes it looked bad.

She described the encounter nine years ago. Rick wore jeans and a sweatshirt. His shoulders were slumped. “You know how shopping’s a good time to think because it’s okay to stand and stare? But he stood there longer than usual, not picking anything up.”

Kerry listened intently, not moving. Vicky paused, wanting to be careful. It could be wearying, remembering and deciding what to share.

“I said, ‘Hi, Rick,’ and he jumped. He looked awful, like he’d been doing some serious drinking.”

“What’d he say?”

“You know him, he always wants to make a good impression. He was friendly, acted normal. But he was sad. It sounds like an old country western song, but he had to put his dog down that afternoon. Long story short, we went to his place, had drinks, and talked for hours.”

“About what?”

“His dog. The area. Our histories.”

“And?”

“Bear with me, I’m getting to his bag. We sat on his porch drinking whiskey. He was drinking hard. I was sipping.”

It was a painful memory, the kind she could recall with clarity but usually chose not to. They’d sat on Rick’s front porch on two shabby wood chairs placed side by side, facing a crate used as a table and footstool. Rick cracked open the bottle and took a deep swig. “Ahhh. Like they say, ‘Smooth as Silk.’” He passed the whiskey to Vicky, who sipped a small taste and shuddered slightly.

“I’m more the white wine type, but I remember it left a nice little burn. I think it was the last time I drank straight from the bottle.” Vicky was stalling. And this was the easy part.

“His new bottle was half gone by the time he told me about when he first got his dog, back when he was in high school. She was a new puppy. Margie? Maggie, I think. Anyway, he’d just gotten her. He was out with his dad, who was seriously pissed off about something.”

“Was he sheriff then?”

“Yes. Rick said they were at someone’s cabin, a shack really. Rick let Maggie run around while the sheriff was inside. He could hear him yelling. Then he stormed out and hauled off and kicked Maggie like a football. She hit a tree. Broke her leg.”

“How awful.”

“She limped her whole life. I said it must have been hard, having her put to sleep. He said he shot the old dog to put her out of her misery.”

They both shuddered slightly.

“Rick said”—Vicky made her voice gruff— “‘Pa never said sorry for nothing.’ But he had that bag when he came out and gave it to Rick when they got home. He said it’s the only thing his father gave him that he’s kept.”

“That’s a weird story. Why worry about telling it to me?”

“There’s more. I’m trying to remember this exactly. It was a long time ago. Rick said he’d been at the cabin before, when he was a kid. He was pretty well smashed when he told me this. He was with his father and…I want to say the caretaker maybe… anyway, a man and his son. Yeah, caretaker. The son was older, a teenager. The men drove off and left the boys.

“The older kid took off into the woods and Rick followed him. I remember he said the guy was like a ghost. He could barely keep up. They stopped at a clearing where his dad’s SUV was parked next to a cargo truck. Rick was scared because there were men with rifles or shotguns, long guns, like guards. People were carrying things from the truck into a big house.”

Kerry sipped her tea, watching Vicky intently.

“Anyway, I asked what he thought was going on, but Rick changed the subject and got up. We went inside to get a drink of water. I happened to see a document next to his bag. A state grand jury subpoena for a case involving his father.”

“Happened to see?”

“Hey, it was out on the table. Had to do with illegal distribution. I didn’t see of what. Anyway, Rick was pissed.” Vicky skipped over the humiliating part about how he rejected her.

“What’d you find out about it?”

“That’s the thing. Nothing. I should have, but I didn’t follow up.” Vicky paused. The familiar surge of guilt tapped from under the surface. She might have been the only one—besides Rick—who knew about both the cargo truck and the grand jury investigation. And she was certainly the only one who also saw what she saw two nights later, in the bed of a pickup in front of his house.

“It was right before I left for Texas. We all know an investigation can stall out and die if no one cooperates and no one’s reporting on it. Or maybe there was nothing to it. I don’t know. But Rick knew the state was investigating the sheriff. His dad.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“A couple days later but only briefly. He wouldn’t talk about it.”

“So you’re saying he knew his dad was into something dirty.”

“He had to suspect it. He had the subpoena, and he remembered the cargo truck from when he was a kid. I think he didn’t want to know too much that might touch on his old man.”

Vicky paused to let that sink in. “Which is something I would want to know about my lead reporter, when his father was sheriff for thirty years.”

With both hands on her teacup, Kerry leaned forward, her voice serious and very intense. “What are you thinking?”

Vicky would be equally concerned if she learned this about a key news employee. Was it right for her to talk about this? Was it ethical? Well, it was true. Was she violating his privacy? No. He’d told her the stories, and she saw what she saw. Would this hurt him with his boss, professionally? Maybe. But a child is missing. Everything’s on the table.

“I’m thinking Rose was kidnapped close to where Lisa was found on the levee. I know it’s a stretch, but they might be related. And it sounds like there was some crooked shit going on, at least at one time. And I think Rick knows something about it, or at least suspects.”

Vicky clenched her fists. “Don’t you want to know what the sheriff was up to? Grand jury documents were secret. I should have followed up. At least passed the tip along. The state probably didn’t find enough and dropped the whole thing. Did anyone check out that property when Lisa turned up on the levee? Where the boys spied on their dads. That sure sounded suspicious.”