Missing Persons (22 page)

“But it’s all around you. I saw that woman, the missing girl’s mother. She was grabbing on to you.”

“She needs support.”

“It has to be so draining. I think it’s so admirable that you care about these people so much.”

As she was talking about my compassion, I watched Andres push in on Linda’s face. That’s the great thing about cameras. He had never moved from the same spot he’d been in the entire time, which was at least fifty feet from Linda, yet I could tell just from the way Andres positioned his foot that he was getting a close-up of Linda’s fear and worry.

I turned back to Vera. “It can be hard sometimes.”

“I don’t think Frank understood what you have to deal with every day,” she said. “He should have been more supportive.”

I smiled a little. “He didn’t really know what I did. I tried to explain it, but I could see his eyes glazing over and I just gave up.”

“He never came to a shoot?”

“No, but then I never asked him to.”

“Maybe you should have.”

“Too late now, Vera.” I motioned toward her car, parked only a few yards away. “I appreciate the ride but I can get Andres to take me home.”

She considered my suggestion but stood her ground. “I kind of want to see what happens, if that’s okay.”

“The more the merrier, I guess.”

 

 

While the police organized a volunteer search party, Andres, Victor, Vera, and I sat in the car, blasted the air-conditioning, and waited. Since I had a full day to shoot, I figured we might as well stick around, just in case. Vera and Victor sat in the backseat and talked about music while Andres and I took turns complaining about Mike, Ripper Productions, and TV in general.

After about a half hour had passed, Andres tapped on the driver’s-side window and pointed. “I wonder who called him.”

“I did,” I confessed. “I thought it might be interesting to see what happened if he showed up.”

Jason stood by his car, watching the police and Theresa’s family huddled together. He seemed unable to move toward them but also didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave.

Andres grabbed his camera. “You coldhearted bitch.” He laughed. “This is the reason Mike loves you.”

Vera leaned forward. “Who is that?”

“The ex-boyfriend,” Victor told her. “And the guy Gray is setting up to take the fall.”

I turned to him. “When did you come up with that theory?”

“When that Gray guy showed up this morning all muscles and pretty-boy smiles. He’s always around. Always wanting to help. Did you notice that? I think it’s weird. I think he’s using poor old Jason as a patsy.”

Andres frowned. “Why?”

“I think he was having an affair with Tom. Tom looks like a guy with a secret. I’ll bet that’s it. Theresa found out, threatened to tell his wife. Maybe she even blackmailed him. That’s where she got the dough. But she wanted more money, so he killed her.”

“Why Tom? If he’s having an affair, why not Theresa?” Andres asked.

“Look at that Gray guy. There’s no way he’s straight. He’s too well-groomed.”

I laughed. “It’s really hard to keep up with you, Victor. You change suspects every five minutes. Next you’ll say Vera did it.” I looked to Vera. “You ever murder anyone, Vera?”

It just sort of popped out of my mouth, the question I’d been wanting to ask since we’d met.

She just laughed. “Not that I know of.”

“You’ll let us know if you do, though, won’t you?” Victor asked.

“You mean you won’t figure it out for yourself, Sherlock?” I said.

“Laugh at me if you want to, Kate, but I’d bet serious cash that someone in this crowd is a killer.”

“Maybe more than one.” I smiled at Vera, then got out of the car to talk to Jason.

“T
he police are organizing a search party,” I told Jason.

“I’d like to help,” he said.

“Is that why you came?”

“You called me.”

“I know. But why did you come?”

Andres held the camera five feet away, but I could tell Jason was feeling penned in.

“I don’t know,” Jason said. “I just thought, maybe I should come.”

As I was about to ask another question, Andres turned the camera. I immediately saw why. Tom had realized that Jason was there and was coming toward him at full speed.

Andres and I stepped back.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tom screamed, but without giving him a chance to answer, he tackled Jason and began punching his face. As much as I wanted a bit of drama, this wasn’t what I had in mind. Tom was turning Jason into hamburger.

Andres looked over at me. “You do realize that one of us has to shoot this, and one of us has to break it up.”

“Sorry, Andres, but you probably take a punch better than I do.”

He handed the camera over to me. “Don’t drop my camera.”

“Don’t block my shot.”

As Andres went to break up the fight, Gray, Wyatt, and Dave ran up the hill to help. Within seconds Gray had pulled Tom off Jason and Dave and Andres had pushed Jason away from Tom. After a little more shouting, Jason walked away, and Wyatt took Tom back to his family. As I was turning off the camera, Gray walked over to me, yanking my arm so hard that the camera nearly fell out of my hands.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled.

He pulled me away from the others. “Did you get all that?” He wasn’t shouting but he wasn’t hiding his anger.

“I was invited here by Detective Rosenthal to shoot what was going on.”

“You don’t have to get the bad stuff.”

“Is it just occurring to you now that I work on a television show that exploits people’s pain for ratings?” I said the words slowly. “I’m not quite sure what your agenda is, Gray, but that’s mine.”

His eyes flickered. There was something—anger, disappointment, I couldn’t tell. “It’s just—isn’t it kind of sleazy to be doing this now?” he said. “This is a family in crisis.”

I said nothing. Just clenched my jaw. He was right. It was sleazy, but I wasn’t about to take ethics lessons from a politician. I turned my back on him and went to see the playback of the video we just got.

 

 

Three more hours passed. For the first hour we shot the searchers as they walked the forest preserve. People lined up, arm’s length apart, and walked an area, carefully looking at just the space around them. Once they were done, they reassembled to walk another area, in a grid pattern. We got about twenty minutes of footage, then retreated to the car. There was only so much tape of searching we were going to need. And now that David had convinced Jason to leave, there was only so much excitement I could create.

“How much longer?” Andres said.

“We have three more hours until overtime,” I pointed out.

“I’m hungry,” Victor announced from the backseat.

“I still have some chips,” Vera told him.

Vera was with us, still waiting to see what happened. Maybe it was a bit masochistic of me to let her stay, but I was curious. I wanted to know who it was that Frank had left me for, and if she was the reason he was dead. It was easier to tolerate her with the guys around. She and I didn’t have to chat too much, but I could still observe her. And a little part of me, maybe a large part, wanted to reassure myself that of the two of us, I was the better woman.

Unfortunately it wasn’t working out that way. Vera was unfailingly cheerful, friendly, and helpful. It turned out to be handy to have an unpaid production assistant on the team. She got us food when we were hungry, and she watched the equipment when we went into the woods with the searchers. She kept Victor amused, which was no small feat, and she gave me the rundown on Gray Meyer.

“He was pretty shy in school,” she told me. “He had one girlfriend for a long time but they broke up in college. He was athletic, smart, the kind of guy who should have been popular but he sort of kept himself apart. He’s gotten more assertive as he’s gotten older.”

I chuckled. “Clearly.”

“You don’t like him, do you?”

“There’s just something about him,” I admitted. My arm didn’t hurt from where he’d grabbed it, but my ego was a little bruised.

“I don’t think he makes a great first impression. I think he’s very sincere, and people sometimes misread that as politicking.”

“Given his professional interests, I think that’s a smart way to see him.”

Vera tilted her head. “He had an older brother who died. It was after Gray went to college. We were out of touch for a while, so I don’t know the circumstances, but I think it was sudden. I’m sure it’s affected him.”

“Or he paints himself as a tragic hero to win sympathy.”

She laughed. “Frank said you were hard on people. Boy, was he right.”

I didn’t want to get into Frank’s opinions in front of the crew, so I let it go. Vera, however, seemed to realize what she said.

“I just meant you’re tough. That’s a good thing.”

We both seemed content to drop the matter and sit in silence, but it was too late. A lightbulb was illuminating over Victor’s head.

“You’re
that
Vera?” Victor said. “The one who was doing Kate’s husband?”

“We were friends,” she said gently, trying to deflect the situation.

“Jesus, Kate,” Victor continued. “You’re hanging out with Frank’s bit on the side. That is so cool. I’ll bet he’s spinning in his grave ’cause he never managed to get you guys in a threesome.”

I was spared from more of Victor’s excitement when a group of people came running out of the woods. “Let’s get out of the car,” I said.

Vera and I jumped out while Andres grabbed his camera and Victor took his boom mic. Andres’s camera was off, and lowered to his side, but we stood on the hill, away from the gathering crowd, just in case.

“Should we go down there?” Vera asked.

“No,” I said. “If we need to shoot, we’ll want to be at a distance so no one notices us.”

She nodded and stood waiting with the rest of us.

Linda and Tom walked out of the woods and toward their friends, but judging by their faces, they didn’t seem any more informed than we were. Julia and David joined them, and Wyatt stood back, talking on his cell phone.

“Do you think they’re done for the day?” Andres asked.

I shook my head. “Who knows?”

A few minutes passed. Gray came out of the woods, followed by Detective Rosenthal. The two spoke quietly for a moment before Rosenthal, her face dark and somber, headed for the family.

Andres raised his camera.

“No,” I said quietly. “We don’t need this.”

I watched Detective Rosenthal reach Linda and her family. She spoke for several seconds, though I couldn’t hear the words. I didn’t need to. It was like watching a slow-motion film of a boxing match, frame by frame of a gloved hand moving toward the jaw of an opponent. It’s going so slow you almost feel you can stop it. But you can’t. The glove hits the jaw and it shatters. There’s nothing you can do. Watching Rosenthal deliver her news was the emotional equivalent of glove hitting jaw. Linda’s face was filled with hope, then twisted in tortured contortions as she began to scream uncontrollably.

It took only a minute for news to spread through the crowd and reach us. Remains of a human female had been found only twenty yards from the purse, buried in a shallow grave.

“W
e’re wrapped for the day,” I said to Andres.

He put his arm around my shoulder and gave it an approving squeeze.

“If Mike ever asks,” I said, “tell him we hit overtime before the body was found. Tell him we’d left.”

“You got it, boss.”

I turned to Vera. “Andres and I have some stuff to shoot at a different location, so he’s going to take me home. I don’t need sound, Victor, so we’ll drop you first.”

“Vera can take me home,” Victor jumped in. “We have to get into the whole Frank situation.”

After we transferred Frank’s things to Andres’s van, I watched Vera and Victor head off to her car. I felt a little sorry for Vera having to endure Victor’s questions about Frank, but it was her own fault for hanging out with us all day. Andres and I stood back and watched the rest of the crowd disperse.

Wyatt left quickly. Though his car was parked near ours, he walked past without a word. Julia and David left soon after. Instead of going directly to their car, Julia walked toward us, with David following.

“I can’t believe this,” she kept saying. “I figured she was dead, but knowing . . .” She started to cry.

David wrapped his arms around her. “It’s better this way. Now we can put it all behind us.”

“I don’t think you can yet,” I said. “There’s still the matter of finding Theresa’s killer.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with us,” he said.

“The police will want to talk with you.”

“They can talk to us. We’ll just keep saying what we’ve always said. Julia had no plans to see Theresa that day.”

I looked at Julia, pressing her head against her husband’s chest and crying into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Julia,” I said. “I know you were hoping for a different outcome.”

David answered for her. “We all were.”

He led Julia to their car and helped her into the passenger seat. She was still crying when he pulled away.

Gray, Rosenthal, and Theresa’s family were together at a spot in the clearing near the trees. I wanted to chat with Rosenthal but this wasn’t the time. And unless Mike hired me for another day, it wasn’t, technically, any of my business.

“What’s this other shoot you want to do?” Andres asked.

I took a deep breath. “Oh, that. This is going to sound girly so I apologize in advance, but when I got home last night there was a package wrapped in brown paper on my doorstep. When I opened it, it was a shoe box with a dead bird in it.”