so that the break-in would not be immediately noticed.
“Clean, neat job,” Richards said. No smudges, no visible shoe tracks across the recently mopped kitchen floor. When they dusted for prints, it was as they pessimistically expected:
They continued searching.
In the entry closet, stuck down behind some coats and scarves, Jamison came across a box with a baby doll, doll carriage, and some stuffed animals, a box very similar to the one in a closet in his own house except that his box held little-boy toys.
“It’s the baby’s Santa Claus presents,” he said sadly.
In the end, the only thing they had found with immediate possibilities was a short list of phone numbers posted by the kitchen phone.
Back in the office that afternoon, Mayleen Richards dialed the first number on that list—“Dr. T”—and listened to a recorded message from Mei Johnson’s pediatrician’s office. She jotted down the name of the practice and found it listed in the phone book. First thing Monday morning, she’d check out this Dr. Trogden. See what he could add.
Second on the list was Johnson’s own number in the DA’s office, followed by young Mei’s daycare center and two women, who said, when called, that they occasionally babysat for Ms. Johnson.
“What?” shrieked Nettie Surles, who answered a Makely number. “The baby’s dead? That’s impossible! They were just here.”
“When?” asked Richards.
“Friday afternoon. Little Mei had an ear infection so she couldn’t go to daycare. Tracy dropped her off here in the morning and then came back for her that afternoon after she finished in court. Babies don’t die from an ear infection. Not in this day and age. Who did you say you were? What happened?”
Richards explained as gently as she could and heard the woman begin to cry. She took down Mrs. Surles’s address and asked if she could be interviewed the next morning.
“Well, now, I do go to church at ten . . .”
They agreed on nine o’clock and Richards dialed the next number.
“Such a shame,” said Marsha Frye, who lived there in Dobbs, only minutes away from Tracy Johnson’s condo. “She was a nice woman and the baby was just precious. Who could imagine such a thing happening to them?”
She readily agreed to an interview, “but could you come now? The children are about to have their afternoon snacks.”
When Mayleen Richards drove out to the Frye home, Marsha Frye proved to be a young woman about her own age, with a warm and easygoing temperament. The house was a fifties-style brick ranch and was now surrounded by mature trees and overgrown foundation plantings. Inside, the living room was almost bare of furniture except for a shabby couch, shelves jammed with picture books, plastic bins full of toys, and a couple of low tables and small chairs. Colorful fingerpainted pictures of Christmas trees were thumbtacked to the plasterboard walls, and drying on a windowsill were a dozen or more sweetgum balls and English walnuts that had been dipped in silver or gold paint and tied with red ribbons, ready to hang on a real tree.
Four small tots, each holding a sippy cup of juice, lounged on the couch watching a Frosty the Snowman video.
“The three blondies are mine,” she told Richards. “Triplets. Three years old in February. We childproofed the house and turned this room into a playroom. I figure two more years, then they’re off to kindergarten, we redo the place, and I get my life back.”
“And you babysit for others, too?”
“Four or five aren’t much more trouble than three,” Marsha Frye assured her. “But I didn’t take Mei on a regular basis. I’ve kept her overnight once in a while when Tracy had to be out of town, but normally Mei goes to a daycare center near the courthouse. I was just the backup when Tracy had to work late or when Mei was sick. I’m a registered nurse and I can tend a sick baby without infecting the others.”
“She was sick Friday,” said Richards.
“I know. I kept her Thursday because she was just starting with her earache again. But Tracy has—I’m sorry,
“Nettie Surles?”
“That’s probably it,” Mrs. Frye said. “I do have the daycare number, if you need it.”
But when Richards pressed her for more information about Tracy Johnson, Marsha Frye had shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I’m sorry. It was pretty much a business arrangement, not a personal friendship. I haven’t had time to make new friends since the triplets came, and she wasn’t one for a lot of small talk either. The kids keep me on the run. I know she was an assistant district attorney and I gather that she liked her work and I also know she was crazy about Mei. Just the way she smiled when she came to pick her up.”
One of the sippy cups hit the floor with a thump.
“Mama, can we have more crackers?”
“And I want more juice.”
“I hate this stupid Frosty,” said the dark-haired child from the end of the couch. Can’t we watch
“How do we ask?” Mrs. Frye said automatically.
“Pleeease!” came the chorus in four-part bedlam.
“Sorry,” Mrs. Frye said to Richards.
