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wallpaper and one of Santa’s elves to hang it for your very special little girl.”

“Spare no expense. It’s an inspired idea.”

Chapter 18

Liz was a full twenty minutes late for her appointment with the DYS girls. Since the photographer had arrived, shot pictures, and left, Liz was left with the task of coaxing good quotes from the girls the photographer had chosen to focus in upon. It was often the case, Liz knew, that a striking face was a poor indicator of its owner’s talent with words. With females, especially, a less-than-stunning appearance was often a better predictor of verbal skills. With this in mind, and preoccupied with the more pressing desire to advance the Johansson investigation, Liz labored to appear enthusiastic about her subject. But then a young woman named LaShandra Washington called her on it.

“Look. Do you care about talkin’ wit’ us or not? We been waitin’ on you to get your ass over here so we could tell you something that matters. You get what I’m sayin’?”

“You’re being blunt with me, so I’ll be straight with you. I’ve got a little girl missing her mother, who disappeared from Newton last week.”

“Boo hoo! We should care about some white-bread kid from a perfect home that turns out to be not so perfect? Some people know all about things that never gonna be perfect. But you people in the press, you never get it, do you? This is where the real stories are, in us kids whose moms is always missin’.”

Liz looked LaShandra in the eye. “You have a point, LaShandra,” she said. “So what do you do about that? How do you keep going?”

“Not by making smart-ass New Year’s resolutions, I can tell you.”

“That’s right,” a couple of other girls chorused.

“Then how?”

“By kickin’ ass and tellin’ it like it is, that’s how!”

“Kickin’ ass about what kinds of things?”

“Abuse, for one thing,” LaShandra said. “Sex-u-al, verbal, e-mo-tional abuse. Abuse in every flavor. You mess with me, I kick your ass.”

“That’s right,” the girls chorused again.

What about telling it like it is? Who do you tell?”

“Depends on what you’re tellin’. If your daddy mess wit’ you, you don’t go runnin’ to him, ’cept to tell him to go fuck hisself.”

“That’s right!”

LaShandra dropped her eyes and softened her tone. “I might tell Father James somethin’ like that. Get him to restrict the old man’s visits, you know what I mean?”

“That sounds like a good idea. It also sounds like it would take courage,” Liz said.

LaShandra paused. “It takes that. Yeah, you need courage. But you also need resolve. That’s it. Some things you can’t fix with one of your New Year’s resolutions. You got to have resolve.”

Thanking her lucky stars that the photographer chose LaShandra as one of his subjects, Liz spoke with a few of the other girls, two of whom she recognized as contributors to the making of her afghan. On impulse, she took from her wallet a photo of Prudence preening herself on the afghan and gave it to them. Rough and tough as they were on the surface, they all dissolved into oohs and ahs as they passed the photo to one another. Only one of them seemed unmoved by the cat photo: a scrawny teen called Eleanor, a name that seemed far too big and old- fashioned for her. Liz made a mental note to seek out the reserved girl for a future report.

Saying her good-byes to the young women and to Father James, Liz knew time was tight, lines were up, and Dermott McCann would be on the warpath when she arrived late. Thanks to the cell phone, she was able to call and say she was on her way in. But that didn’t do a thing to take the sting out of city editor’s wrath.

“Where the hell’ve you been, Higgins?” the city editor demanded as soon as Liz approached his desk. “How are we supposed to get a paper out when we don’t know what you’ve dug up for us till after lines are up? Was it so difficult to come up with a freakin’ New Year’s resolution piece with a whole day to spare?”

“I’ve got that and more, Dermott. I managed to get inside the Johansson house with the missing woman’s mother. The police have stripped . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What else is new?” He pointed to the television screen mounted above his head, over the city desk. Its volume was low, but the picture was clear. Standing in front of the Johansson house was Channel Six newsman George Sanders, expounding on the wallpaper stripping.

“I hope, at least, you got a good look at the clue on the wall.”

“What clue?”

“I wish to hell I knew. Police aren’t saying. Hell, Higgins, you better wish you knew. You mean to tell me you were inside the house, inside the bedroom, and you didn’t see it?”

“I saw a completely stripped room. No, I take that back. Three walls were stripped completely. The fourth was only partially stripped.”

“Christ almighty, Higgins! Are you telling me you didn’t take a good look at that number-four wall? And why the hell didn’t you call for a photographer? Say something! Don’t just give me those puppy-dog eyes! Get the hell to your desk and file that New Year’s resolution story. I hope at least you’re good for eight inches on that!”

As she wrote the story, Liz felt utterly deflated. It is a reality of the media wars that television journalists have a huge advantage over daily newspaper reporters. TV types could break news the same day as it happened, instead of delivering it the next morning. But Liz had lost more than the scoop here. If she had been on the ball, she literally would have gotten the inside story and had more to report than the television people did, even if it appeared in the next day’s paper.

Instead, she’d let her emotions get in the way of doing her job. No matter how much her heart went out to Olga Swenson, she did the woman no service by holding her hands instead of getting to the bottom of the mystery. Dick Manning had a point when he warned her it’s not a good idea to get emotionally involved with the people you meet in the course of reporting.

And would she heed this advice tonight, Liz wondered, when dining someplace “rather special” with Cormac Kinnaird? Much would depend on the unpredictable mood of the good doctor.

Although the clock was ticking towards her rendezvous with Cormac, she took the time to search the telephone database for Harmony Haven, Clifford Buxton, and Ali Abdulhazar. Finding the music teacher was as simple as whistling a happy tune. A Buxton, Clifford, was listed as residing on Liszt Lane in Bourne, Massachusetts. The street was probably one of several that composed a housing development known as Harmony Haven. But finding Ali was not so easy. Liz learned quickly that Arabic names are spelled with numerous variations, some phonetic and others reflecting the linguistic influences of those who militarily occupied, governed, or culturally influenced parts of the Arab world. Thus, Abdul might also be spelled in the French manner, Abdoul. And then there was the punctuation problem, which presented more variations, including Ab’dul and Abd’ul. Combine this with the rest of Ali’s last name and you had to search through variations such as Ab’dulhazar, Ab’dul-hazar, Abdoulhazar, Abdoul-hazar, and more. Add to this the fact that Ali is an extremely common Arab name, and Liz came up with hundreds of possibilities. Narrowing the search by age still left her with eighty-six possibilities in eastern Massachusetts alone, and Liz did not know if it was reasonable to assume Ali had remained in the area.

If she were going to make her date with Cormac, she would have to pursue this further tomorrow, so she gathered her things and prepared to leave the newsroom. Back at her desk, she noticed the light blinking on her phone, indicating a call had come in. Picking it up, she heard a recorded message from the Cape Cod Mayhew. “Hey, it’s Doug Mayhew again. You planning to cover my band’s gig or not?” the voice demanded. Then he changed his tone. “I sure hope so,” he said.

Ah, the power of the press to raise—and shatter—hopes! Thinking of her promise to Veronica that she would