“Come back anytime,” he said.
Starke had every fast-food restaurant you could name. I bought two value meals at Burger King, and ate lunch with my dog. Buster had lousy table manners, but I put up with them. I didn’t like eating alone.
We were splitting an oatmeal cookie when my cell phone rang. I pulled the phone off the Velcro patch on the dashboard hoping it was someone responding to my e-mail.
Caller ID said ANDY VITA. Vita was the Florida point man with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I gave Buster the rest of my cookie, and answered the call.
“Carpenter here.”
“Hey, Jack, it’s Andy Vita. You busy?”
“Just finishing my lunch. What’s up?”
“I just got off the phone with the principal of Oakwood Elementary School in Ocala. A four-year-old Honduran girl named Angelica Suarez disappeared from Oakwood this morning, and the cops are pulling their hair out trying to find her. The principal said you helped them with their abduction prevention program, and I was wondering if you remember the setup.”
Back when I was a cop, I’d traveled around Florida and helped dozens of elementary schools establish procedures to protect them from child abductors.
“I remember Oakwood,” I said. “It was tight as a drum.”
“I think we’re dealing with a pro,” Vita said.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because the kid vanished without a trace. One minute she was sitting in the reception area of the principal’s office, waiting to be assigned to a pre-kindergarten class, the next minute she’s gone.”
“She’s new to the school?”
“Yeah. Mother brought her in at nine this morning. The kid doesn’t speak any English, so the principal had to assign her to a teacher who was bilingual. The principal left the kid on a couch with a coloring book, and the kid disappeared.”
“From the principal’s office?”
“That’s right.”
“How long was she out of the principal’s sight?”
“No more than a minute.”
“If I remember correctly, the school had a full-time security guard. What’s he saying?”
“He didn’t see a thing.”
“That’s not good.”
“It gets worse,” Vita said. “The school doesn’t even have a photograph of Angelica to use for an Amber Alert. We don’t know anything about her except her name.”
“Can’t you get a photo from the mother?”
“The mother works as a chambermaid in one of the hotels. She gave the principal her number at work, only it’s not right, so they’re calling all the hotels, trying to track her down. I was wondering if you’d call the principal, and talk to her. Maybe she missed something.”
I backed out of my spot in the Burger King lot with a squeal of rubber. The abduction prevention program I’d helped Oakwood establish included a photograph of every student along with their fingerprints. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that the one child not in that database was now missing.
“How about I do it in person?” I said.
“Are you nearby?” Vita asked.
“I’m in Starke. Ocala is on my way home. I’ll drive to the school, and see what’s going on.”
“Great. I’ll call the principal and tell her you’re coming. How soon can you be there?”
I needed to take Highway 301 to reach Ocala, and pass through three of the worst speed traps in the state. Vita had once run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and still carried a lot of clout. I said, “That depends on what kind of police escort you can provide me.”
Vita laughed under his breath.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
I pulled into Oakwood Elementary’s parking lot with my police escort in front of me. I’d made record time down 301, and wished I’d had a camera to record the faces of the different cops I’d passed on the way down. I leashed Buster and went inside.
In the lobby stood several nervous adults. With them was a small woman in her late forties wearing a black pants suit and a white brooch on her lapel. She introduced herself as Marge Heller, the school principal, and thanked me for coming. I smelled cigarettes on her breath and saw desperation in her eyes.
“Where are the local police?” I asked.
“Two deputies are in the back of the school, searching the grounds,” Heller said. “The others are conducting a door-to-door search of the local neighborhood.”
“They think the girl was taken off the property?” I said.
“Yes,” Heller said.
Oakwood was a large school, and there were plenty of places within the building where a child could be hidden. The police shouldn’t have left so quickly, but I saw no point in telling that to Heller or the others standing in the lobby.
“I need to speak with you in private,” I said.
“Of course.”
Heller led me down a hallway lined with classrooms. The school was locked down, meaning no children would be allowed to leave until Angelica Suarez was found. The classrooms were unusually quiet, and I wondered if the children knew that something was wrong.
We entered Heller’s office. It had a waiting area, with a desk for a receptionist, a watercooler, and a pair of couches with matching blue cushions. Heller pointed at one of the couches. “That’s where I left Angelica Suarez. I went into my office to call her new teacher. I wasn’t gone more than sixty seconds. When I came back, the child was gone.”
“Where was your receptionist?” I asked.
“Sally went to the cafeteria to get an orange juice for the child. I asked her to go.”
“Your receptionist didn’t see anything?”
“No. It happened when Sally was gone.”
Her voice was trembling, and riddled with guilt. If only I hadn’t asked Sally to get that drink! We went into Heller’s office, which looked out upon a manicured ballfield behind the school. Heller sat down at her desk, while I remained standing. Her eyes fell upon my dog.
“He’s beautiful,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Does he help you find missing children?”
Hearing the hope in her voice, I nodded.
“I need to ask you some questions,” I said.
“Of course.”
“Is this the first time Angelica has been at the school?”
“Yes.”
“What about her mother?”
“Her mother appeared in my office yesterday and told me she wanted to register her daughter for our pre-k program. I gave her the necessary forms to fill out, and told her to bring Angelica in this morning. This morning was the first time I actually saw the child.”
I glanced at the wall beside her desk. It was covered with framed diplomas from various universities around the state. Heller was extremely well-educated, but none of her schooling had prepared her for this.
