Capturing Angels (10 page)

7

Lifeline

The store wasn’t as busy as it would be during a holiday period, but there was enough going on to give me the feeling that I’d had back in November. The same saleslady was behind the jewelry counter. I didn’t see the same floor manager or either of the two security guards. For a few moments, I just stood there fighting to regain my composure.

Sam Abraham sensed it. “You all right?”

“Yes,” I said, and he stepped back.

I stood there thinking for a few moments. Now that I was long past the hysteria of the moment, it all seemed clearer. I experienced a gradual focusing that helped me better understand what actually had happened. The women’s jewelry counter was directly across from the entrance. A mere dozen steps would take me there, and I had been moving very quickly. I had been in one of those
Let’s get it over with
states of mind. My purchase was more like fulfilling an obligation. I had a gift list to fulfill, but except for the gifts I bought Mary, John, and Margaret Sullivan, everything else was more like a chore.

My clearer vision of the store itself was accompanied by a clearer memory of what had transpired. I nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

“What?” Sam Abraham asked.

“I was thinking this before, but now I’m positive. I let go of her hand as soon as we came up the escalator,” I told him. “She was pulling to get free. Mary liked to feel more grown up and independent. I realize exactly when I let go now.”

“I see. So, it’s possible that someone or something distracted her from there to the entrance of the department store.”

“And I didn’t realize it until I was already at the counter and finally looked down to see what she was doing.”

“Makes more sense. What was confusing to all of us was how quickly someone snatched her outside the entrance. According to what you’re saying now, there was more time for the abductors to act.”

“And the reason people here didn’t see her with me?”

“Exactly. Let’s go back out there,” he said, and led me out to the escalators.

I didn’t know what he expected to find, but he studied the area with an intensity that caused my heart to beat quickly again. For the first time, I felt as if Mary’s abduction really was being investigated. He turned and looked at the corridors of the mall and then at the escalators again. I saw him nod in agreement with his own thoughts.

“What?” I asked.

He held up his hand for my patience and turned around to look back down the escalator.

“Well, what if our Santa came along just at this place in the mall? It’s possible he came up the escalator right before you and Mary did and stood just off to the side to wait for the two of you to appear.”

“You mean, you think he was waiting for us in the parking garage below?”

“Something like that, yes. So, he comes up first. Some people see him, but that’s why not many see him and certainly why no one in any store remembers him.”

“But whoever he was, he would have to know I was coming here, right? This would have to be a well-planned-out abduction.”

“Maybe. As I said in the café, maybe he wasn’t out to get Mary per se. Maybe he was out to get any little girl, or I should say he and whoever was working with him. It could be that she just happened unfortunately to be the little girl of choice at this particular moment, a girl who presented them with the opportunity.”

“So, she was the victim of a random kidnapping?”

“Not random, exactly. This mall, places like this, are where people like that hunt for prey. There are more things distracting parents and many things distracting children. It’s a matter of where the best opportunities are.”

“People who sell children in Mexico?”

“No one ignored that possibility, and I don’t want to ignore it now, of course, but remember that your daughter’s photo and information went to border crossings and even to law enforcement in Mexico, for what that’s worth.”

“I see. So, if that happened, you’re not optimistic that we’d get her back.” I shook off the pessimism and returned to what he was saying. “Santa spots us, sees Mary. Then what?”

“Well, as you said, you come up and turn toward the department store. He steps away from a storefront nearby and approaches the moment you let go of Mary. She’s fascinated with the sight of him, so she lingers behind, and as you said, you didn’t notice that she was not beside you until you were in the store. He reaches out for her hand or . . . no,” he said, shaking his head and letting the air out of his conjecture. “That’s not enough. There has to be something more,” he added as if he was a producer listening to a writer pitch him a story.

“What are you thinking? What more?”

“I’m thinking she has to go down the escalator after him. If he takes her hand and pulls her or scoops her up, she would probably cry out, and you would hear.”

“Go after him on her own?” I shook my head, sinking back into disappointment with his theory. “She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t leave me, and I would have realized all that. I wasn’t on any medication,” I said.

He nodded. “I know. You’re right. That leaves a hole here, but boy, if it happened that way, no one would recall seeing a little girl with Santa Claus and . . .”

I looked down the escalator toward the parking-lot entrances. “And she’d be down there and swept away very quickly while I was entering the store and going to the counter.”

He looked at me. “Yes, exactly. That’s why it seemed as if she had literally disappeared. A lot of time was wasted while the security guards ran around the department store and then later, when they and the mall security were searching the mall. The parking-lot staff is all at the exit gates and informed about Mary, but by the time our Santa approaches the gates, he’s out of the costume. That’s why no one at the gates recalls a Santa Claus, but that’s also why there has to be at least two involved. He couldn’t drive and keep her subdued.”

Just hearing the word
subdued
revived every nightmare scenario I had envisioned these past nine months. I was sure that for a moment, my heart stopped beating, and then it began to race. I felt very dizzy. I must have wobbled, because he put his arm around my waist again. I closed my eyes, lowered my head to his shoulder, and took a deep breath.

“I’m okay,” I said.

He still held on to me. “No, you’re not. You’re still very fragile. We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I didn’t think it would get to me like this. I thought I had turned to stone. My skin feels like dry bread crust, totally unfeeling.”

“That’s a description of being fragile,” he said. He shook his head. “Really, I shouldn’t be doing this with you, especially here.”

“Of course you should, and I appreciate it very much,” I said.

He let go of me but held his arm out in case he had to embrace me again.

“I’m okay. Really.”

He nodded and glanced at his watch. “I’m on duty in two hours. There’s an extortion case I’m on and two possible vehicular manslaughters we’re investigating.”

He saw the letdown in my face. I wanted to go on for the remainder of the day and into the night if we had to. I didn’t want to let go of these hopeful moments. Just for a while, I had felt alive again.

“But don’t worry. I promise I’ll find time for this,” he said.

I looked at the escalator. What had we really discovered? The scenario he theorized made no sense to me. Yes, we had separated, but I just couldn’t believe I wouldn’t have noticed her not beside me for so long. But maybe I just refused to believe it.

“Find time for what?” I asked. “What else can you do?”

“Well, people don’t usually have Santa Claus outfits in their closets. I’ll get someone to check the costume rentals around the time of her abduction. That might lead us to someone with a record of these sorts of crimes. Perhaps David Joseph will get his people on it.”

“I just can’t believe she would be that distracted by someone in a Santa Claus outfit.”

He shrugged. “That’s what we have to do, though, look at things that seem impossible.”

“It happened in November. There’ll be lots of rentals, I bet.”

“Yeah, but maybe not that early. It’s a start,” he said.

He was trying, I thought. What good was it for me to be skeptical?

“Maybe I can help,” I offered. “There must be dozens of retail costume places in this part of the city.”

“Might not even be in this city, but this is the sort of nitty-gritty work we do. Don’t you know that detectives used to be known as flatfoots?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, that’s why.”

“But there must be something I can do, even if it’s just on a computer.”

“I’ll let you know. Let me see what I can do first. I want to give that hole in the theory more thought.”

I didn’t believe he would really devote much more time to this. He had met me and felt some obligation for the moment, but after we parted, reality would set back in. John was right. We had to prevent ourselves from grasping at our own wishful thinking. We had to plant our feet on hard, firm ground and not listen to any promises, whether they came from the FBI or anyone else.

“With all you have on your plate? When will you have any time for this?” I asked, my voice dripping with disappointment.

He shrugged. “Who needs to eat and sleep? Those things are for sissies or FBI agents.”

I found another smile that was able to push through my sadness and depression. I was sure that it popped on my face like a bubble on the surface of a dark gray pond. The tension and anger relaxed their grip on me.

“Thank you, Detective Abraham.”

“I think you can call me Sam by now,” he said.

“And you should call me Grace.”

“Right.” He looked at the escalator. “I can take this one down,” he said. “My car isn’t far from this parking-garage approach.”

“Me, too. I have nothing more to do here.”

“Okay.”

He let me go ahead of him. At the bottom, we had to go in opposite directions. He hesitated. I saw the debate raging in his mind.

“What?”

“If you want, we can meet again. I’m off at four tomorrow.”

“Back here?” I grimaced.

“You know Woody’s Tavern on the corner of Santa Monica and Floral?”

“No, but I’ll get to know it,” I said, and he laughed.

“I’ll meet you there, and we’ll noodle this some more. I’ll see about investigating the Santa costume rental tonight. Do you think you should bring your husband along? I mean . . .”

“Not yet,” I said. “John is the sort of man who would not like to devote time to—how did you refer to it?—fantasy police work. He doesn’t deal with theories, just facts . . . and numbers.”

“Just facts and numbers? How come he’s so religious, then? Facts contradict faith more often than not, don’t they? I’m sorry, that’s out of line again.”

I smiled. “No, it’s a good question, but I’m sure if I asked him, John would quote Walt Whitman.”

“Oh.” He tugged his ear like Humphrey Bogart did in so many of his films. “My Walt Whitman is a little rusty, as you know my John Donne is, too.”

“‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.’”

He smiled. “Serves me right for not paying attention in literature classes in high school. Okay, see you tomorrow at four at Woody’s,” he said.

I started away. When I was almost to my car, I turned and looked back. He was still there, watching after me.

Would John worry about me half as much?
I wondered, then immediately regretted it. The thought was unfair. John and I fell in love and married, but I knew from the start that we were different people. He had his way of mourning, and I had mine. I shouldn’t be so critical. I told myself that once you suffered what I’d suffered through, your tolerance for others and your generosity shriveled up. I hated that happening. The truth was, I no longer liked myself. Would I ever again?

Mary wasn’t the only one abducted that day, I realized as I got into my car. I was, too. I was trying to find myself almost as much as I was trying to find her. Maybe someday soon, we would come home together.

Driving away from the mall now was almost as painful as it was when I left without Mary nearly nine months ago. I felt the same pain in my heart, the same empty feeling in my stomach, and I was sobbing silently, with my throat aching almost as much. I kept my gaze forward and quickly turned into traffic to head home. As I drove, I thought about Sam Abraham’s question about involving John in this new investigation. Did I give Sam an honest answer? I had to ask myself what the real reason was for me to leave John out.

When he came home from work, I was very tempted to tell him what I had done, whom I had met, and what we had planned, but I didn’t. Before Mary’s disappearance, John would always ask me what I had done during the day. He didn’t ask like a husband checking up on his wife; he asked like someone really interested. Sometimes I had something interesting to tell him about a place I had taken Mary and especially her reaction to things we had seen or some conversation I’d had with a friend. Before he sat down to watch television or read or retreated to his room to work on his ships in bottles, he was still, as I liked to call it, in this world, the world in which Mary’s reactions, the things she had said and done, were just as interesting and exciting to him as they were to me. So many times, he and I had laughed together over something she had done or said. Sharing these delightful things your child does really brings a man and a woman closer.