Jilliane Hoffman (10 page)

17

‘So you don’t have any idea where she might be?’ Bobby asked the skinny girl with the mop of wet, dark blonde curls. Just past the sky-blue foyer where he stood, an arched entryway led into the home’s kitchen. Plastic grocery bags were piled on the countertop and he could see something was boiling on the stove. The house smelled like meatloaf and onions.

‘Nuh-uh,’ the teen replied, rubbing her head with a Scooby-Doo beach towel. The mirror image standing next to her in the same exact bathing suit and shorts just shook her head.

‘Her mother called here last night at almost eleven o’clock looking for her,’ Mrs Weber added with a frown. ‘I told Debbie I didn’t think the girls had seen Elaine in a couple of weeks. They were at their dad’s all weekend and they had a swim meet this morning. They just got home.’ She rubbed the shoulders of either Melissa or Erica. Bobby couldn’t tell the difference. ‘Do you think she ran away? Is that it?’

‘Do you think that might be the case?’ Bobby countered.

Mrs Weber shrugged. ‘Elaine’s mother parents differently than me, let’s just say that. Her older sister is a mess, you know. A mess. Drugs and boys. That’s why I don’t like the girls over there. There’s no supervision. Elaine is very sweet, but …’

Bobby waited.

‘The apple never falls far from the tree, is all I’m saying.’

‘Mom! Lainey’s not like that!’ one of the girls protested.

‘Mo-o-mm!’ Mrs Weber said mimicking her daughter. ‘We’ll see,’ she added softly, casting a skeptical glance over at Bobby.

‘Well, give me a call if you or the girls or their friends hear from her.’ Bobby handed her a business card. ‘Or if you come into any ideas on who this Carla or Karen might be. Any at all. My cell’s on there.’ He turned to the twins. ‘Before I forget, do you two email with Lainey?’

They even nodded in unison. It must be weird to have two girlfriends who are identical in every way, Bobby thought. It might be a grown man’s fantasy, but a little overwhelming on a kid; you were always outnumbered. ‘Can I get her address from you? Her mom didn’t know it.’

Mrs Weber rolled her eyes.

‘Sure. It’s [email protected],’ the one with the towel said.

‘Thanks. Your other friend, Molly – I stopped by her house, but no one’s home.’

‘Her grandma died. She’s in New Mexico,’ Scooby-Doo offered.

‘Nebraska,’ her sister corrected.

‘Nuh-uh. It’s New something.’

‘New York?’ Mrs Weber asked. ‘New Jersey?’

The first one shrugged. ‘Maybe. She’s there till Monday, I think. Or maybe Tuesday.’

‘Does she have a cell?’ Bobby asked.

‘Yeah, but she got caught texting in science lab on Friday. Mrs Rohr took it and she can’t get it back till she does detention next Wednesday.’

‘What’s that number?’

Mrs Weber’s eyes rolled once again.

‘It’s 954-695-4229.’

‘One last question. Does Lainey have a boyfriend?’ Bobby asked.

Both girls giggled, embarrassed. ‘No.’

‘Another last question, then: Does she like boys?’

‘Well, yeah, she’s not a lesbo or anything.’

‘Erica …’ Mrs Weber scolded.

‘But she doesn’t have a boyfriend. The boys we know are idiots. She likes Robert Pattinson,’ finished Melissa.

Bobby slid the notepad into his jacket pocket. ‘All right. Thanks for your time, girls.’

He’d no sooner stepped out the door when it closed behind him with a thud. Amelia Weber wanted to keep whatever bad germs Bobby was carrying far away from her kids. A cop at her door on a Sunday afternoon inquiring about her daughters’ friend was not in the parenting plan.

He climbed into the Grand Am and looked at the dashboard clock. It was 2:24. Almost fifteen hours since Elaine Emerson had been reported missing, and more than fifty-four hours since she’d been dropped at the corner to wait for the school bus by her mother. If she didn’t surface by tomorrow morning, he’d visit Sawgrass Middle, talk to her classmates and try and track down every Karyn or Carla on the register to see who Lainey might’ve gone home with.

But right now, it was time to go car shopping. He slipped on his sunglasses, and pulled away from the curb, as Lainey’s identical friends, standing side by side, watched expressionless from the living-room window.

18

Even though Bobby had never met the guy before, or even seen a photo, he already had an idea what the CarMax Regional Salesman of the Month looked like. Maybe it was the used-car profession that had him drawing mental pictures, or Todd LaManna’s choice of a spouse, but stocky, short, temperamental and balding were the first four adjectives that came to mind.

Bobby stepped through the automatic glass front doors, and there he was: Stocky, short, temperamental and balding, dressed in a blue CarMax polo shirt and khakis, a clipboard in hand and a slippery smile on his ruddy, full face. Like a shark to chum, he rushed over to Bobby before one of his clipboard-carrying brethren could get there first.

‘Hey there, guy!’ Todd called out in a booming voice. ‘Thinking about helping out the economy today?’

‘Todd Anthony LaManna?’ Bobby asked, reaching for his badge.

The apple cheeks deflated. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t deny it. There was a big ‘Todd LaManna’ patch sewn on his polo. ‘What’s this about?’ he asked, the self-assured boom reduced to a decibel above whisper.

‘This is about your stepdaughter, Elaine, Mr LaManna. Do you have a moment?’

‘Not really,’ he replied, looking around. Besides salesmen, there was no one else in the showroom. ‘I’m kinda busy.’

‘Make one.’

They stepped into a glass-enclosed cubby that looked out on to the showroom. It was a room where deals were made. Where sales managers, in full view of the anxious customer back on the sales floor, but without the sound effects, finally ‘gave up’ their lowest price after bullshit haggling with the tenacious Salesman of the Month. It’d been a while since Bobby had bought a car, but the games were always the same, whatever dealership you were in or car you were buying.

But there was no dealing today. ‘I guess she’s not home yet,’ Todd said quietly as he closed the blinds.

‘And I’m guessing you’re not too worried about that,’ Bobby answered.

‘Oh, man, don’t make this about me. Debbie said she’s at a friend’s house. She’s probably having a good time, is all, and doesn’t want to come home and do shit around the house all day. I know I wouldn’t.’ He chuckled. ‘Why do ya think I work weekends?’

Bobby didn’t laugh back. ‘Any idea where Elaine might be?’

Todd shrugged. ‘She’s Debbie’s kid. She told her mother she was going out with some girl from school. I don’t know who her friends are; I don’t ask. I tried getting involved with the other one, Liza, ya know? To be a good parent and all. Lot of good it did me. That little –’ he cut himself off. ‘She’s constantly getting in trouble and me worrying about her don’t do no good. She doesn’t listen to anyone. I’ve had the cops in my life ever since the first time I caught her smoking weed.’

‘When was the last time you spoke with Elaine?’

‘I’ve been working a lot lately. I haven’t even seen her since, I don’t know, like maybe Wednesday? It’s gotta be, I’m thinking here, maybe Wednesday morning before she went to school. That’s when I talked to her. Told her to clean her friggin’ room up.’

‘What’s your relationship with Elaine?’ ‘What?’ Todd replied, his face crimson. ‘Fine, great. Normal.’

‘Normal?’

‘I’m feeling trapped here. Like you’re asking me questions for a reason.’

‘There’s no reason to feel trapped,’ Bobby replied. ‘She’s a teenager. Just trying to figure out what kind of relationship you two had. Why she might have gone running, if that’s what she did do.’

‘Well, you said it. She’s a teenager. It was, our relationship was, well … normal. She was pretty busy with school stuff and friends and she was, ya know, a real bitch sometimes, but aren’t all women?’ He laughed uneasily. ‘You know, when they get on the rag.’

Bobby looked at him a long time. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Whatever. I don’t want to say no more.’ Todd shook his head.

‘I ran your name through a couple of systems, Todd,’ Bobby began. ‘And guess what? I caught a fish. Domestic battery. Solicitation. And a really interesting arrest just last year. L & L. You know what that stands for, Todd?’

‘That was dropped to a fucking disorderly, man!’

‘Lewd and lascivious conduct,’ Bobby continued.

‘I was, you know, peeing against a wall when this dike-cop walked up! That’s all it was! I was taking a leak!’ Todd ran his hands through the few strands of hair he had left on his head. His round face was shiny with sweat.

‘Less than twenty feet from a playground?’

‘I’m no child molester, man! They overcharged me! It was a disorderly!’

‘Where were you Friday night?’

‘What? What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Where were you Friday night?’

Todd began to tap his shaking hand against his thigh. ‘I was, I was, well, out with the boys, ya know? We went out for a beer.’

‘Your wife doesn’t know where you were. Not a clue, Todd.’

‘Fuck this! I don’t need this shit. When the – when Elaine gets her ass home her mother can deal with her. I don’t need this bullshit from any more of her fucking kids!’

‘I’ll need the names of those boyfriends of yours. And the name of the bar,’ Bobby paused deliberately, ‘or other fine establishment you were holed up in.’

‘If I’m not under arrest, then I’m going back to work,’ Todd declared as he headed toward the door. ‘I know my rights.’

‘I’m sure you do. I’ll need those names, Todd.’

The cubby walls shook as the glass door slammed behind him and an angry Todd LaManna stormed back out into the showroom.

19

The FDLE Miami Regional Operations Center – a three-storied, cluttered, chaotic maze of squad bays, secretarial pools, Formica cubbies, and conference rooms – was normally bustling with activity. Home to more than fifty Special Agents – plus analysts, lawyers and support staff – there was always a handheld squawking, a cell phone ringing, or a meeting being held somewhere in the building.

At eight o’clock on a Sunday night it was empty.

Bobby looked up from the stack of crap on his desk that never seemed to get smaller and out his open office door into the deserted squad bay. Ten metal desks, each stacked with their own case files and clutter, sat abandoned in the darkness. It was so quiet, he could hear the traffic buzz by outside on the Dolphin Expressway. The light from his office spilled across The Board, the montage of Missing Children flyers that covered a corkboard on the far back wall.

He was supposed to be ‘flexed-off’ till the first of the month – meaning he had already worked his 160 hours for October and since FDLE didn’t want to pay overtime for any more, he was on involuntary vacation till November started – but the Emerson girl had given him a reason to drop in, write a report and finish up a few things. Once that happened, he couldn’t just ignore the stack of case files on his desk. Even when command told you to go home because the state was too broke to pay overtime, you were never really off, anyway. He had a charging conference Friday with the State Attorney’s Office on a multi-agency child-porn investigation, a depo on an upcoming murder trial, and a complicated search warrant to walk through Legal. Whether FDLE paid him or not, each case had to be attended to. So a thirty-minute stop-in had slipped into a four-hour-and-counting layover. He rubbed his eyes and downed the rest of his Red Bull. Guaranteed to have him pacing floors at four a.m., but he didn’t want to nod off on the drive home. Insomnia was a vicious cycle: dog-tired when you couldn’t afford to be, wide-awake when the rest of the world shut it down. He logged out of AIMS, the Automated Information Management System he was working in, and shoved the stack of files into his briefcase. Then as the computer started to shut down, a thought came to him. He logged back in, hopped on the internet, and clicked on to Elaine Emerson’s MySpace. She still hadn’t logged back on to her profile. He went to her My Friends space and clicked on the icon with the Miami Dolphins logo. The only friend that was missing a picture.

*ELCAPITAN*

Bobby scanned the webpage, set against a backdrop of an animated Rolling Stones tongue logo that kept licking provocatively at the computer screen. Although the profile was public, like Lainey’s, which meant anyone could see it, unlike Lainey’s, the personal info was pretty scant. His name was Zach, he lived in Jupiter and he played high school varsity football, basketball and baseball. He also played bass. That was it. Musical tastes, gauging from the album covers that dotted a corner of his page, ranged from Nine Inch Nails to The Fray. Most kids spilled their guts on their MySpace. This looked like the one kid who’d actually listened to warnings about personal data going out over the internet …

Who was this Zach? That was the question that Bobby’s gut still demanded an answer to. That and where the hell Todd LaManna had spent last Friday night. The used car Salesman of the Month was definitely a creep and he was definitely holding back. Whether that had anything to do with his missing stepdaughter or the prospective demise of his marriage had yet to be seen. As far as finding out more about the lone boy on Lainey’s friend space, even with a subpoena, Bobby wouldn’t be able to get the email registration info from MySpace corporate till probably Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest. Unless it was an absolute emergency, even favors took a few days. But with a little ingenuity and help from the World Wide Web, he figured he could maybe beat out the lawyers and find the kid himself.

A few searches on Google led him to Jupiter high schools and the Jupiter High website. From there it was on to their Athletic Programs and then a click on Football. There was no player roster, but there was a launch on to a
Palm Beach Post
internet news article about high school football stars.

And there he was. Zachary Cusano. #17. A Jupiter High Warrior to Watch. Position: Wide Receiver, Team Captain. Class: Senior. A 6′1″, 190 pound, blond-haired, blue-eyed, smiling All-American Warrior. Bobby then Googled ‘Zachary Cusano basketball Jupiter High School’. And there he was again – #17, saving the day last January when the Warriors basketball team romped the Boynton Beach Tigers. Another search under baseball found Zachary Cusano, a pitcher, expected to start this spring for the Warriors. An accompanying interest article named some of Zach’s favorite hobbies besides sports. Jamming with his band on bass guitar was first up.

Same description, same picture. Same kid.

No wonder Lainey was taking sexy pictures of herself. The kid was good-looking, no doubt. There was also no doubt he was seventeen. Bobby wondered if the star high school football player knew his cyber pen-pal was jailbait.

He ran an Autotrack using the kid’s name and birth date and …
voila!
Zachary M. Cusano, son of Violet and Thomas Cusano, residing at 124 Poinciana Lane, Jupiter, Florida. Social security number, school records, driving history, and a very brief employment history that consisted of a two-month stint at CVS Drugs popped up on the screen. No accompanying juvenile criminal history. That was good.

He printed everything out, including the pictures from the
Palm Beach Post
article, and slid them into the Emerson folder. He’d still subpoena the kid’s MySpace registration info, but at least he had something – someone – to start with, if necessary. If Lainey didn’t come home.

With his briefcase in hand, he headed out the door. Dinner was probably past cold and LuAnn beyond pissed. He’d pick up flowers and a bottle of her favorite wine from Publix on the way home. Maybe a couple of glasses would help bring him down from the Red Bull. At The Board he stopped, raised a finger to his lips and then ran it over a picture in the center of the sea of flyers. Over the beaming, beautiful young girl with long, straight, dusty blonde hair and baby blue eyes, and a smile that took over her whole face. KATHERINE ‘KATY’ ANNE DEES. D/O/B: 08/13/1992. MISSING FROM: Fort Lauderdale, FL. DATE MISSING: 11/20/08. AGE AT DISAPPEARANCE: 16 years, 3 months. The red-inked caption on the top of the flyer read MISSING CHILD / RUNAWAY.

Bobby kissed his little girl goodnight, flipped off the lights and headed on home.