head with it.
A jailer popped his head from inside the doorway to the conference room. “Lineup’s ready.”
“Steffi, remember,” Camille said, ushering her toward the glass.
“It isn’t a latte stand,” Steffi said, turning to Donna. “We’re a full-service restaurant and patisserie.”
Donna nodded, her affect smug. “So I hear.”
The lights went up inside, and the miniblinds that covered the window/mirror rose.
Five men stood in a row. Three were jail inmates; two were DUIs, and the third was a burglary II. One was an assistant jailer who often pulled duty for a lineup. He had the kind of bland face and average build and height that made him good filler for lineups. Mitch Crawford was also in the mix. He, like the others, was clad in jeans and a button-down shirt.
Steffi inched forward and studied each one.
“Take your time,” Camille said. “This isn’t about being fast. We’re looking for truth here.”
“All right,” Steffi said, this time without a laugh.
“I’m going to have each one move forward and turn to the right and left,” Camille said.
One by one, each man followed the command.
“Number five looks familiar,” Steffi said.
“Take your time,” Camille said, her heart sinking a little.
Donna impatiently shifted her weight and pulled her handbag close. “I think she’s doing fine.”
Steffi looked at the defense lawyer, then back to the five men. She was so far from laughing by then, that Emily wondered if Steffi Johansson was about to cry. Frustration on her face was unmistakable. Her lips were tight and her eyes seemed glossy with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “Number five seems so familiar, but I can’t be sure.”
Donna Rayburn turned to leave. “This identification is over. Thanks, ladies. I’m off to Chicago.”
No one said good-bye to Donna. She slipped away and headed toward the jail office.
“I’m sorry,” Steffi said, a tear rolling down her check.
“You did your best, Steffi, that’s all we can ask.”
As the three women started to leave they saw Donna walking down the hallway. She wasn’t alone. She was chatting with man number five.
It was Mitch Crawford.
Chapter Twelve
The next day, Emily Kenyon’s morning started as it always did: She pulled into the line at Java the Hut, and ran through a mental checklist of what she’d be doing that day. She wrote a quick “luv u, jenna. see u soon!” to her daughter, using the instant-note feature that allowed her to scroll down and select a prewritten message without having to write each letter. It was cheating, in a way. But at 7 A.M., what in the world was a mother with a murder investigation supposed to do?
She ordered a quad latte instead of the usual triple and tipped the girl a dollar instead of the remaining change. It was the holiday season, of course.
Her list for the day:
Christmas music was playing softly in the background of the Landon Avenue Methodist Church meeting room, where three women worked in unison to find Mandy Crawford. With the color-coordinated finesse of the champion scrap-bookers that they were, they’d set up a Mandy Central that rightly would be the envy of many larger organizations. Even professional ones.
When Emily stopped in on her way to the office and did a quick once-over, she half-expected missing child advocate John Walsh to pop out of the men’s room down the hall. They’d made two trips to the copy center for fliers and had made two dozen outreach calls to community leaders who might be able to spread the word. Not a bad amount of work already done, considering that it was barely half past eight in the morning. The three women all had jobs, but had taken the early part of the morning off so they could get a start on their efforts to bring Mandy Crawford back home.
Emily was troubled by something she’d heard on the Spokane newscast she’d watched with Jason the day before. She entered with a smile, said hello, and then got right down to business.
“Has Mitch Crawford been over here to help with the search?”
Erica Benoit, who’d been friends with Mandy through a scrapbooking group, let out a laugh.
“I saw that SOB on TV last night, too. He’s only been over here one time. I asked him to bring one of Mandy’s photos—a recent one—so we could put it on the flier and on the Web. The way he put us off, you’d think we were going to swab his mouth for DNA or something.”
The other women laughed.
“My daughter, Michelle, is making a MySpace page for Mandy,” Alana Gutierrez said, looking up from her laptop.
“Good idea. So did Mitch get you the photo?” Emily asked.
Alana looked disgusted as she snapped her laptop shut. “Begrudgingly, I’d say. He made sure we cropped him out of the photo.”
“Like we wanted to include him,” Erica said, rolling her eyes.
“The guy’s ego is so big,” said Tammy Sells, another scrap-booker. Tammy was older than the other two, a heavyset redhead with a penchant for gauzy tunics even in the dead of winter. “I’ve never liked him. I’ve never, I’m glad to say,
“You seem to be holding back,” Emily said with a smile. “Tell us how you really feel about Mitch Crawford.”
Erica and Alana laughed a little, but Tammy didn’t crack a smile. “I guess you know how I feel. Good God, we’re trying to help bring home his wife and he’s too busy to come down here.”
“So,” Emily said, “he hasn’t been down here making calls, pouring coffee, preparing fliers?”
“Are you kidding? It seems like he’s the last one on the list when it comes to people in Cherrystone who care about Mandy.”
“I know what you’re getting at and I’d say that his lawyer is as big a liar as his client,” Erica said.
Emily didn’t argue with that, in fact, Tammy’s remark made her feel pretty good just then.
“Coffee, Sheriff?” Alana asked. “We’d love to find out what’s going on with the case.”
Emily shook her head and did what she hated more than anything. She lied. “I’m sorry that I can’t tell you anything right now. But as soon as I can, you’ll hear it from me before it’s on the news, OK?”
It was a lie because there really wasn’t much to report—and when there was, they’d be among the last to know. That fact pained her.
“Fair enough,” Tammy said.
