leaned on it, the chipped, sun-baked paint crackled under our forearms like logs in a fire.
On the porch I could smell the odor of barbecue a few houses away, and from somewhere on the next block came the sounds of a backyard gathering-a woman’s loud voice complaining about a sunburn, a radio playing the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, laughter as sharp and sudden as ice cubes shifting in a glass. Hard to believe it was October. Hard to believe winter was near.
Hard to believe Amanda McCready floated farther and farther away out there, and the world continued turning.
“So,” Doyle said, as he leaned over the railing. “You solve the case yet?”
Angie looked at me and rolled her eyes.
“No,” I said, “but we’re close.”
Doyle chuckled softly, his eyes on the patch of concrete and dead grass below the porch.
Angie said, “We assume you advised the McCreadys not to contact us.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Same reason I would if I were in your position,” Angie said, as he turned his head to look at her. “Too many cooks.”
Doyle nodded. “That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?” I said.
He laced his fingers together, then pushed the hands out until the knuckles cracked. “These people look like they’re rolling in dough? Like they got cigarette boats, diamond-studded candelabras I don’t know about?”
“No.”
“And ever since the Gerry Glynn thing, I hear you two charge pretty steep rates.”
Angie nodded. “Pretty steep retainers, too.”
Doyle gave her a small smile and turned back to the railing. He gripped it lightly with both hands and leaned back on his heels. “Time this little girl is found, Lionel and Beatrice could be a hundred grand in the hole. At least. They’re only the aunt and uncle, but they’ll buy spots on TV to find her, take out full-page ads in every national paper, plaster her picture on highway billboards, hire psychics, shamans, and PIs.” He looked back at us. “They’ll go broke. You know?”
“Which is one of the reasons we’ve been trying not to take this case,” I said.
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you here?”
“Beatrice is persistent,” Angie said.
He looked back at the kitchen window. “She is that, isn’t she?”
“We’re a little confused why Amanda’s mother isn’t as well.”
Doyle shrugged. “Last time I saw her, she was doped up on tranquilizers, Prozac, whatever they give the parents of missing kids these days.” He turned back from the railing, his hands out by his side. “Whatever. Lookit, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with two people might help me find this kid. No shit. I just want to make sure that, A, you don’t get in my way; B, you don’t tell the press how you were brought on board because the police are such boneheads they couldn’t find water from a boat; or, C, you don’t exploit the worry of those people in there for money. Because I happen to like Lionel and Beatrice. They’re good people.”
“What was B again?” I smiled.
Angie said, “Lieutenant, as we said, we’re trying hard not to take this case. It’s doubtful we’ll be around long enough to get in your way.”
He looked at her a long time with that hard, open gaze of his. “Then why are you standing on this porch talking to me?”
“So far Beatrice refuses to take no for an answer.”
“And you think that’s somehow going to change?” He smiled softly and shook his head.
“We can hope,” I said.
He nodded, then turned back to the railing. “Long time.”
“What?” Angie said.
His eyes remained on the backyard and the one just beyond it. “For a four-year-old to be missing.” He sighed. “Long time,” he repeated.
“And you have no leads?” Angie asked.
He shrugged. “Nothing I’d bet the house on.”
“Anything you’d bet a second-rate condo on?” she said.
He smiled again and shrugged.
“I take that as a ‘not really,’” Angie said.
He nodded. “Not really.” The dry paint sounded like brittle leaves under his clenched hands. “Tell you how I got into the kid-finding racket. ’Bout twenty years ago, my daughter, Shannon? She disappears. For one day.” He turned to us, held up his index finger. “Not even one day, really. Actually, it was from like four o’clock one afternoon till about eight the next morning, but she was six. And I’ll tell you, you have no clue how long a night can be until your child goes missing in one. The last time Shannon ’s friends had seen her she was heading home on her bicycle, and a couple of them said they saw a car following her real slow.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hand and blew a rush of air out of his mouth at the memory. “We found her the next morning in a drainage ditch near a park. She’d cracked up the bike and broken both ankles, passed out from the pain.”
He noticed the looks on our faces and held up his hand.
“She was fine,” he said. “Two broken ankles hurt like hell and she was one scared kid for a while, but that was the worst trauma her or my wife and me suffered through her whole childhood. That’s good luck. Hell, that’s amazing luck.” He blessed himself quickly. “My point, though? When Shannon was missing and the whole neighborhood and all my cop buddies are looking for her, and me and Tricia are driving or walking everywhere and tearing our hair out, we stopped for a cup of coffee. To go, believe me. But for two minutes, while we’re standing in this Dunkin’ Donuts waiting for our coffee, I look at Tricia and she looks at me and both of us, without saying a word, know that if Shannon is dead, we’re dead, too. Our marriage-over. Our happiness-over. Our lives would be one long road of pain. Nothing else, really. Everything good and hopeful, everything we lived for, really, would die with our daughter.”
“And that’s why you joined Crimes Against Children?” I said.
“That’s why I built Crimes Against Children,” he said. “It’s my baby. I created it. Took me fifteen years, but I did it. CAC exists because I looked at my wife in that doughnut shop and I knew, right then and beyond any doubt, that no one can survive the loss of a child. No one. Not you, not me, not even a loser like Helene McCready.”
“Helene’s a loser?” Angie said.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Know why she went to her friend Dottie’s instead of vice versa?”
We shook our heads.
“The picture tube was going on her TV. The color went in and out, and Helene didn’t like that. So she left her kid behind and went next door.”
“For TV.”
He nodded. “For TV.”
“Wow,” Angie said.
He looked at us steadily for a full minute, then hitched his pants and said, “Two of my best guys, Poole and Broussard, will contact you. They’ll be your liaisons. If you can help, I’m not going to stand in your way.” He rubbed his face with his hands again, shook his head. “Shit, I’m tired.”
“When’s the last time you slept?” Angie said.
“Beyond a catnap?” He chuckled softly. “Few days at least.”
“You must have someone who relieves you,” Angie said.
“Don’t want relief,” he said. “I want this child. And I want her in one piece. And I want her yesterday.”
3
Helene McCready was watching herself on TV when we entered Lionel’s house with Lionel and Beatrice.
The on-screen Helene wore a light blue dress and matching jacket with the bulb of a white rose pinned to the
