“Yes, and a debit card that she used to withdraw two hundred dollars last night.”
“Where does the family money come from?”
“Her mother. She’s loaded.”
Kids did not run away from happy homes. They were either pushed out or forced out. I had to figure out why Suzie had run. Once I did, I would have a better idea how to find her.
I walked around the bedroom and stopped at the toy chest. A Winnie the Pooh teddy bear caught my eye. There was something dark and slender sticking between Winnie’s legs. I started to reach for it, then stopped.
“Is it okay if I touch this?”
“Go ahead.”
I removed the object from the toy chest. It was a baseball bat, only smaller, the kind used by kids in Little League.
“Did you see this?” I asked.
“Yes,” Burrell said. “I mentioned it to the girl’s father. He said that Suzie was a tomboy, and liked to play softball with the boys on the street.”
The reason struck me as lame. I hit the bat against the palm of my hand.
“Where’s her glove?” I asked.
“Beats me.”
I kept hitting the bat against my palm and walked around the room. I had a bad feeling in my gut, and needed one more piece of evidence to confirm that feeling.
I stopped at the door. It was being held open by a doorstop. Thirteen-year-old girls didn’t use doorstops, and I kicked the doorstop away, and pulled the door back. My eyes fell upon the deadbolt directly above the doorknob. The wood around it was badly chipped. Suzie had installed it herself.
I quickly checked the other bedrooms on the second floor. There were four, all occupied by adults. None had deadbolts on their doors. I returned to Suzie’s room.
“Someone’s been trying to molest Suzie Knockman,” I said.
CHAPTER 26
Give me that thing before you hurt yourself,” Burrell said. I handed Burrell the baseball bat I’d found in Suzie’s toy chest. Holding up my hand, I extended all of my fingers.
“We have five suspects,” I said.
“Five? I only count four,” Burrell said. “Suzie’s father, her uncle, and two male cousins, who are sixteen and eighteen years of age. Who am I leaving out?”
“The grandfather.”
“Oh, come on. He’s eighty-five years old.”
“Viva Viagra.”
“That’s sick, Jack.”
“You can’t rule him out.”
“He uses a walker.”
“And he has a penis.”
“That’s really sick.”
“Is it any sicker than her father, or uncle, or a cousin coming on to her?”
“All right. We have five suspects in the house, one of whom is trying to molest Suzie, if the deadbolt on the door and baseball bat mean what you think they do. So which one of them is it?”
“I’m leaning toward the father. The line about his daughter being a tomboy is lame. But I need to look around the bedrooms before I start accusing anyone.”
Burrell glanced at her watch and shook her head. “Snook isn’t going to stand on the front lawn forever. If he comes inside and sees you, there will be hell to pay.”
“So stall him.”
“How can I do that? I can’t control the length of his press conference.”
“There are a dozen reporters questioning Snook. How many do you know?”
“Five or six. Why?”
“Which of the reporters do you know best?”
“Deborah Bodden with Fox News. She covers the crime beat.”
Bodden had been a reporter for as long as I’d been finding kids, and I’d never had a bad experience with her. I said, “Call Bodden on your cell phone, and ask her to keep questioning Snook. Promise to give her an exclusive when you bust the case open.”
“That’s not ethical, Jack. I could get in trouble.”
“If you don’t want to do it, I’ll call her.”
Burrell shot me a cold stare. When it came to finding missing kids, ethics were situational. I was willing to do whatever was necessary to find a child and get him or her home safely. Sometimes that meant skirting the law or breaking it. It was one of the reasons I wasn’t a cop anymore.
Burrell took out her cell phone. “You don’t back down, do you?”
“Never,” I said.
I left her standing in Suzie’s bedroom, and started my search.
Suzie’s parents’ bedroom was at the opposite end of the hall. Buster had joined me, and put his paw against the door.
“Let’s find out what Dad’s been up to,” I said.
I pushed the door open with my foot and stood in the doorway. The bedroom was the width of the house and looked like it had been decorated by Laura Ashley. A private bathroom was off to my left. The door was open, and I spied glistening marble countertops and a bathtub fit for a Roman emperor.
I went to the window beside the bed, and looked down at the lawn. Snook was still talking up a storm, and I saw Fox reporter Deborah Bodden ask him a question, and stick a mike in his face. Snook was not the kind of guy to walk away from free publicity, and he answered Bodden while dramatically waving his arms.
“Beautiful,” I said.
I went around the bedroom pulling open drawers. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. Just another piece of evidence that said Dad was a creep.
The drawers turned up nothing. Nor did I find anything inside the walk-in closet-which was bigger than my old apartment-or beneath the bed. I was beginning to doubt myself when I came to a dresser and felt the hair rise on my arms.
A framed wedding photo sat on the dresser. It had been taken on the dock of the Rusty Pelican restaurant in Key Biscayne, the restaurant’s colorful sign visible in the background. Mom wore a floor-length wedding dress, Dad a tux and red bow tie. They were holding champagne flutes, their arms interlocked as they drank from the other’s glass. Both stared lovingly into each other’s eyes.
Suddenly the situation became clearer. I did another search of the bedroom. The closet was divided into His and Hers, and I focused on Dad’s side. Two dozen expensive suits hung from the racks, and I searched the pockets. In one jacket, I found an envelope inside the inner pocket, and pulled it out. It was filled with photos of Suzie lying asleep on a bed in her underwear clutching a teddy bear. The photos could have been touching, only they were focused on Suzie’s breasts and her crotch.
I grabbed the wedding photo off the dresser and snapped my fingers for my dog. Buster emerged from the closet with a smelly running shoe in his mouth.
“Drop it,” I told him.
I headed down the hallway to Suzie’s bedroom with my dog hugging my leg. Burrell was inside the room, taking photos of the deadbolt on the door.
“Who interviewed Dad?” I asked.
Burrell lowered her camera. “I did. Why? What did you find?”
I showed her the photos of Suzie I’d found in the closet. Then I showed her the wedding photo, and pointed
