Pied Piper

“Is that so?” she replied, in a more approving tone, a finger nervously hooking some of the blonde hair and stashing it behind her left ear.

“The open house was during the time we believe the baby was kidnapped.”

“Was it the Pied Piper?”

“Chances are you may have seen something. A car? A man?”

“So you tricked me? Is that how you do it?”

“Every hour that baby is missing means we’re less likely to return her to her parents. There are over thirty of us on this case. Not one of us has slept in the past seventeen hours.”

“I didn’t see anything.” She glanced at the key in her hand. “You don’t want to see this house,” she realized. “You little shit! God, I can’t believe this. This is my tax dollars at work? Are you the best we’ve got, Detective?”

“Sergeant,” he corrected, thinking that Boldt was the best they had, feeling inferior suddenly. “I’d like to go inside, please.”

“Shit,” she said, keying the door for him. “Why didn’t you just ask-” But she caught herself, realizing he had. “Cops. You guys are a different species.”

LaMoia followed her inside, saying, “I want you to stand right here for a minute.” He took her shoulders gently and turned her toward the Shotz residence. “How many times you must have opened this door last night.” He left his hands on her shoulders, which were warm to the touch. It was dangerous ground, she could file a complaint about his misleading her, and the physical contact, if mentioned, would be difficult to justify to a review board. LaMoia had a history with the review board, and it wasn’t all rosy. “How many people came by to look at the house?”

She stood at an angle facing the Shotz residence, down the street. He could sense her searching her memory.

He asked, “Can you remember standing here?” She gave him a faint nod. “Can you glance over the shoulder of those people and see the street beyond?”

“I’ve never done anything like this.”

“That’s okay,” he coached. “Are my hands bothering you?”

“No, not at all.”

“You can close your eyes. It helps sometimes.”

He leaned around her to steal a peek; her eyes were pinched tightly shut.

“The house was all lit up over there. I remember that.”

Remember more, he silently encouraged. The baby sitter had confirmed the lights. She had turned on as many as she could find. She hadn’t remembered much else: a man wearing goggles at the back door-an exterminator.

Daech pointed, “An old-model Wagoneer, a white minivan, a black STS, my Hummer, an ancient pickup, kinda blue-gray. Driveway. Blue Toyota Camry. The STS and the Camry were mine-the open house.”

“You know your rides,” he said, somewhat disbelieving. They could check her recollections against vehicles owned by the residents of the other houses.

“Honestly? Listen, this may sound crude, sweetheart, but you are what you drive. When I see someone pull up to an open house, first thing I do is look at the car. You can judge one hell of a lot by that.” She added, “A couple getting out of a foreign car? That’s got good strong legs for me. I pay attention. The STS fits that: Cadillac, you know. A guy, alone, climbing out of something American and a couple years old: probably just killing time. Free glass of wine and someone to talk to. I get a lot of that. Maybe he’s got enough for the down, but I’m not betting on it. If it’s during a weekday, and it’s a woman, maybe a young kid or two in tow, a Volvo, an Audi, out-of-state plates, I’m thinking the wife is out shopping for a home while the hubby’s at the office.”

“You check the tags?”

“I’m telling you, out-of-state plates means they’re in a hurry-they’re looking to buy. Usually a little less concerned about price, more concerned about contents. Kitchen, if it’s a woman. Men are interested in the living room and the master bedroom. Women think about closets and tubs.”

The pickup truck or the minivan made sense to him for a person posing as an exterminator. “A minivan or a panel van?” LaMoia asked, trying to keep excitement out of his voice. The woman clearly studied her clients and applied her own skewed science to what she observed. She was a good witness-someone a jury would find believable. He couldn’t help but jump ahead. Hope was a detective’s only fuel.

“White minivan. A mommy-mobile. You know. Pretty new. Might have been something printed on the driver’s door.”

“What? A name? A business?” LaMoia encouraged.

“Listen, I’m not sure about any of this.”

“Parked where?” He didn’t want to lose her.

“Just down the street there.” She pointed again, though this time hesitantly. “Maybe two cars ahead of where you’re parked. I was just about where you are.”

“But not in front of the house, the Shotz house,” he clarified.

She grimaced. “Pretty damn close. Parking wasn’t easy last night. A lot easier this time of day.”

LaMoia took notes. “The driver?”

“Was the driver the kidnapper?” she blurted out quickly. “I don’t know about any of this.”

He removed his hands from her shoulders. “Take your time.”

She turned around and faced him. “Maybe it wasn’t last night. Hell, I see a lot of cars, you know?”

“The driver. You were watching to see who got out,” he reminded.

“A worker bee. I wasn’t interested.”

“Worker bee?”

“Overalls. Coveralls. You know? A worker bee. He wasn’t there for me. I tuned him out.”

LaMoia asked her. “Can you describe him?”

“I tuned him out,” she repeated, seeming confused whether to answer or not. “I don’t know,” she said, searching his face for the right answer. “Maybe that wasn’t last night.” A quick retreat. LaMoia had seen it dozens of times, almost always in the suburbs. People tended to be excited at first by the idea of having witnessed a crime; they felt important, listened to, wanted. Then it slowly dawned on them that, like jury duty, police involvement meant a commitment of time and energy.

LaMoia decided to try an end run, to play on her apparent tendency to make a show of herself. “Listen, if it’s the publicity you’re worried about: the TV, the papers-they’re likely to swarm a possible witness-there are precautions we can take. We can keep you off the front page.” He left it hanging there as a carrot.

Her face brightened. Her finger wormed that curl of hair again. “No, no … it isn’t that.”

“You sounded as if you weren’t sure about the minivan.”

“Oh, no,” she corrected. “I’m pretty damn sure about that minivan, Detective.”

“And the driver?”

“Just a worker bee in overalls.”

“Overalls,” LaMoia repeated, jotting it down. “Color? Description?”

Shaking her head, she confessed, “I don’t know. He pulled up over there, and I was thinking housewife until he climbed out. Then I was thinking what did I care because he was a worker bee, and no worker bee is going to pay over two for a home. Not in my experience. One-eighty’s the ceiling in that market and I don’t even list that stuff. The only people I’m interested in at an open house are the ones with that glint in their eyes. You know. Someone shopping? Someone in a buying mood?” She looked at LaMoia. “You were shopping when I saw you. But it wasn’t for a house, am I right? I understand that now. But at the time, I saw that car all buffed out like that, the boots, that hunger in your eyes, and I thought I had a live one.”

“The minivan? Windows, or a panel truck?” He thought of little Rhonda Shotz in the back of that minivan, and felt sick.

“Windows?” she winced. She wasn’t sure. “Listen, it was white. Windows? No clue about the windows.” Looking around nervously she said, “Tell me about the TV people. Who do we contact about that?”