She didn't smile. She didn't jump for joy. She stared up at me and said, 'Why?'
'Because I don't like the people your sister was mixed up with.'
'Do you think something bad has happened to her?'
'We know something has happened to her,' I said. 'She was here and now she isn't. Whether or not it's something bad remains to be seen.'
Molly nodded at that, apparently pleased I hadn't tried to falsely reassure her. Most adults speak to children as if they're stupid simply because they haven't lived as many years. Molly Seabright wasn't stupid. She was smart and she was brave. I wasn't going to talk down to her. I had even decided not to lie to her if I could help myself.
'But if you're not a private investigator, what good are you?' she asked.
I shrugged. 'How hard can it be? Ask a few questions, make a few phone calls. It's not brain surgery.'
She considered my answer. Or maybe she was considering whether or not to say what she said next. 'You were a sheriff's detective once.'
I might have been that stunned if she had reached up and hit me in the head with a hammer. I who wouldn't talk down to a child. It hadn't occurred to me Molly Seabright would run home and do her own detective work online. I felt suddenly naked, exposed in that way I had earlier convinced myself was unlikely to happen. Blindsided by a twelve-year-old.
I glanced away. 'Is that your bus?'
A school bus had pulled up to the curb and the children gathered there were clambering aboard.
'I walk,' she said primly. 'I found a story about you in the computer archives of the Post.'
'Only one? I'm offended.'
'More than one.'
'Okay, so my dirty secret is exposed. I was a detective for Palm Beach County. Now I'm not.'
She understood to leave it at that. Wiser than most people I've known three times her age.
'We need to discuss your fee,' she said. Ms. Business.
'I'll take the hundred you offered and we'll see what happens.'
'I appreciate that you're not trying to patronize me.'
'I just said I'd take a hundred dollars from a kid. Sounds pretty low to me.'
'No,' she said, those too-serious eyes staring at me through the magnifying lenses of the Harry Potter glasses. 'I don't think so.' She put her hand out. 'Thank you for accepting my case.'
'Jesus. You make me feel like we should sign a contract,' I said, shaking her hand.
'Technically, we should. But I trust you.'
'Why would you trust me?'
I had the feeling she had an answer, but that she thought it might be too much for me to comprehend and so thought better of sharing it with me. I began to wonder if she was really from this planet.
'Just because,' she said. A child's pat answer to people who aren't really paying attention. I let it go.
'I'll need some information from you. A photograph of Erin, her address, make and model of her car, that sort of thing.'
As I was asking, she bent down, unzipped a compartment of her book bag, and withdrew a manila envelope, which she handed to me. 'You'll find everything in there.'
'Of course.' I shouldn't have been surprised. 'And when you went to the sheriff's department, who did you speak with?'
'Detective Landry. Do you know him?'
'I know who he is.'
'He was very rude and condescending.'
'So was I.'
'You weren't condescending.'
A black Jag backed out of the Seabright garage, a suit at the wheel. Bruce Seabright, I assumed. He turned away from us and drove down the street.
'Is your mother home?' I asked. 'I'll need to speak with her.'
The prospect didn't thrill her. She looked a little nauseated. 'She goes to work at nine. She's a real estate agent.'
'I'll have to speak with her, Molly. And with your stepfather, too. I'll leave you out of it. I'll tell them I'm an insurance investigator.'
She nodded, still looking grim.
'You should leave for school now. I don't want to be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.'
'No,' she said, heading back toward the house, head up, her little book case rattling along on the sidewalk behind her. We should all have so much character.
K rystal Seabright was on a cordless phone when Molly and I walked into the house. She was leaning over a hall table, peering into an ornate rococo mirror, trying to stick down a false eyelash with a long pink fingernail while she chattered to someone about an absolutely fabulous town house in Sag Harbor Court. No one would have picked her out of a lineup as Molly's mother. Having met Molly first, I might have pictured her mother as a buttoned-up attorney or a doctor or a nuclear physicist. I might have, except that I knew firsthand children and parents didn't always match.
Krystal was a bottle blonde who'd used one too many bottles in her thirty-some years. Her hair was nearly white and looked as fragile as cotton candy. She wore just a little too much makeup. Her pink suit was a little too tight and a little too bright, her sandals a little too tall in the spike heel. She glanced at us out of the corner of her eye.
'… I can fax you all the details as soon as I get to my office, Joan. But you really need to see it to appreciate it. Places like this just aren't available now during the season. You're so lucky this just came up.'
She turned away from the mirror and looked at me, then at Molly with a what now? expression, but continued her conversation with the invisible Joan, setting up an appointment at eleven, scribbling it into a messy daybook. Finally she set the phone aside.
'Molly? What's going on?' she asked, looking at me, not her daughter.
'This is Ms. Estes,' Molly said. 'She's an investigator.'
Krystal looked at me like I might have beamed down from Mars. 'A what?'
'She wants to talk to you about Erin.'
Fury swept up Krystal's face like a flash fire burning into the roots of her hair. 'Oh, for God's sake, Molly! I can't believe you did this! What is the matter with you?'
The hurt in Molly's eyes was sharp enough that I felt it myself.
'I told you something bad's happened,' Molly insisted.
'I can't believe you do these things!' Krystal ranted, her frustration with her younger daughter clearly nothing new. 'Thank God Bruce isn't here.'
'Mrs. Seabright,' I said, 'I'm looking into a case at the equestrian center which might involve your daughter Erin. I'd like to speak with you in private, if possible.'
She looked at me, wild-eyed, still angry. 'There's nothing to discuss. We don't know anything about what goes on over there.'
'But Mom-' Molly started, desperately wanting her mother to care.
Her mother turned a withering, bitter look on her. 'If you've told this woman some ridiculous story, you're going to be in such hot water, young lady. I can't believe the trouble you're making. You don't have any consideration for anyone but yourself.'
Two red dots colored Molly's otherwise paste-pale cheeks. I thought she might start to cry. 'I'm worried about Erin,' she said in a small voice.
'Erin is the last person anyone needs to worry about,' Krystal said. 'Go to school. Go. Get out of this house. I'm so angry with you right now… If you're late for school you can just sit in detention this afternoon. Don't bother calling me.'
I wanted to grab a handful of Krystal Seabright's overprocessed hair and shake her until the hair broke off in
