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“We’d like to put together a comprehensive biography of your daughter, filled with details that only she could know. The layout of the house, family stories, in-jokes. Anything and everything you can remember.”
“That would take hours, maybe even days.” And break my heart a thousand times over. For thirty years Miriam had understood that she had to share her family’s saddest secrets with investigators-her husband’s failing business, her affair, the roundabout way that Su
The female detective, Nancy-it was overwhelming for Miriam, meeting so many new people-flipped through her notes. “She’s been consistent on birthdays, the schools they attended, your address. Thing is, most of that is on the Internet or in news accounts, if a person is inclined to dig deep enough, pony up for the archive searches. At one point, she said something about vacations to Florida and a person named Bop-Bop-”
“That’s right. Dave’s mother. She coined that hideous name for herself because she couldn’t bear to be anything matronly. She hadn’t enjoyed being a mother and being a grandmother really discomfited her.”
“But that’s not exactly proprietary, is it? Heather could have told that to kids at school, for example.”
“Yet would it be remembered thirty years later?” Miriam asked, then answered her own question. “Certainly you wouldn’t forget Bop-Bop if you ever met her. She was a piece of work.”
Willoughby smiled.
“What, Chet?” Miriam asked, sharper than she intended. “What’s so amusing to you?”
He shook his head, not wanting to say anything, but Miriam caught his gaze and held it. She shouldn’t be the only person answering questions this morning.
“You’re just so very much as I remembered. The…candor. That hasn’t changed.”
“Gotten worse, I would think, now that I’m an old woman and don’t care what anyone thinks of me. Okay, so this person knows Bop-Bop, she knows what Heather’s purse looks like. Why don’t you believe her, then?”
“Well, there’s the fact that she doesn’t remember seeing the music teacher, when he was adamant that he saw her,” Nancy said. “And in the original notes you told investigators that Heather had a little box in her room where she kept her birthday and Christmas money, but the money-somewhere between forty and sixty dollars, by your recollection-was missing. So Heather took her money to the mall that day, but when we asked for the contents of the purse-”
“The purse was empty when it was discovered.”
“Right. We know that. However, Heather wouldn’t, unless she emptied it herself and threw it down, and no one thinks that happened. This woman didn’t mention it, however. She said there was a little cash, a brush, and a Bo
“We didn’t have rules about makeup per se. I told her it looked silly on young girls, but it was her choice. Bo
Nancy sighed. “Everything she says sounds plausible. At least when she describes the day, what happened. It’s when she describes the abduction and…” Her voice faltered.
“Su
“It’s just so lurid,” the young woman said. “Like something out of a movie. The details of the day-what they had for breakfast, how they took the Number Fifteen bus to the mall-again, something that’s in the news accounts, as is the usher who remembered them getting kicked out of Chinatown-those things ring true. But being kidnapped by a cop who takes them to a deserted farmhouse and decides to keep Heather instead of killing her after she witnesses the murder of her sister? When she gets to that part, all the details fall away, and the story no longer rings true.”
“Is it the cop part?” Miriam asked. “Is that what’s so unbelievable?”
To their credit, the four detectives, current and former, did not protest too quickly or readily, did not swear to the heavens that they had found it easy to consider one of their own as a killer and sexual predator. Infante, the handsome one who had picked her up at the airport, spoke first.
“The cop part makes a lot of sense in some ways. That’s how you would lure two girls away-show each one a badge, say you have her sister, that she’s in trouble. Any kid would follow a cop.”
“Maybe not Dave Bethany’s children in 1975-Dave was given to calling police officers pigs, before we found ourselves in their debt, before Chet became a trusted friend.” That was a conscious gift to Chet on her part, a way to make up for the sharpness in her voice earlier. “But okay, I see your point.”
“It’s just this particular cop, it doesn’t really track,” Infante continued. “He was in the theft division, a good guy, well liked. None of us knew him, but the guys who did are stu
“Dunham,” Miriam said. “Dunham. Stan, you said?”
“Yes, and the son’s name was Tony. Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Dunham rings a bell. We knew someone named Dunham.”
“Not anyone you ever told me about,” Chet began, his voice defensive. She put her hand on his forearm, wanting to comfort him, but also keen that he stop talking, so she could follow this train of thought.
“Dunham. Dunham. Du
You could do the mornings… But who would do the afternoons?…The guy is screwing us anyway, reversing the route in the afternoon… We have to find some way to cut our budget.
It was an argument they had almost every month that year, and Miriam had prevailed every month, once again making out the check to Mercer Transportation, up in Glen Rock, Pe
“Stan Dunham owned the private bus company, Mercer, that we used to get Su
“Mercer owned the property,” the girl all but yelped. “It was an LLC, the previous owner before the development went in. I thought Dunham sold it to Mercer, but he must have simply transferred the deed to his own LLC. Shit, I can’t believe I missed that.”