Noah's Rainy Day (22 page)

I walked slowly across the sea of garbage toward the car, hoping Beulah had warmed up and was fast asleep. Only a few feet away from the pick area, Jack called, “Liv!”

I turned back and saw him holding something up in the night for me to see. I couldn’t make it out, but I hurried back to the picking area, wobbling and twisting ankles as I worked my way over the unstable surface in response to his urgency. “What is it?”

“Shoe polish.”

“So?”

He shook the large bottle. “Empty.”

“I don’t get it.”

“If you were a businessman who needed to spiffy up your shoes, you might buy some shoe polish at the sundries store, right?”

I nodded, still not seeing his point.

“But a bottle of shoe polish this size would last for months. Years, really. No one could use this up in one buff.”

“Maybe the businessman brought the nearly empty bottle with him. From home.”

“Why? Wouldn’t he just polish his shoes before he left?”

“Maybe the bottle is from one of the airport shoe shiners.”

“Just one bottle? I was thinking something a little different.” He squatted down and scooped up a handful of used paper towels smattered with black. “See?”

He held the papers closer for me to inspect.

“What is that?”

“Paper towels with black shoe polish on them.”

“So? They used the paper towels to polish their shoes in the bathroom.”

He shook his head. “Look closer.”

I did. And I saw it. “Hair.”

“Black hair. Maybe it’s actually blond hair dyed black. With shoe polish.” He grabbed the evidence bag from my hand, examining the beret carefully until he found what he was looking for. He pointed. “There!”

I leaned in and peered through the plastic bag at the tiny cap inside. “What?”

“Shoe polish. A spot inside the beret.”

I saw it. Definitely a smudge of black. “Like a partial thumbprint.”

“Right,” Jack said, grinning. “It means we have hope.”

“He’s not dead,” I said, feeling buoyed by this newly found evidence.

“Why bother dyeing a boy’s hair if you’re going to kill him?”

I stood on my tiptoes, kissed Jack hard on the lips, and headed back to the car.

A few paces away, I heard Jack call after me. “He was six!”

I knew he meant the son he’d lost.

I WALKED INTO CASE
headquarters, just as Streeter keyed his radio. Heads turned our way as I walked side by side with my big red bloodhound. I led Beulah to her pallet in the corner and she quickly curled up and went back to sleep, happy to be left alone for a while. It was warm in the makeshift office space, her corner far from the cold windows and the blackness beyond. And it was well past her bedtime—12:30 a.m.—Christmas morning, technically.

“Search it again. Tell them all to be looking for hiding places. It’s a long shot, but maybe the child hid somewhere, got stuck or fell asleep. Look through a five-year-old’s eyes, think playing hide and seek. Go!” Gates put the radio back on the folding table.

“How did you do?” Streeter asked.

I held up the beret.

“Good work!” Streeter said, moving quickly toward me to inspect the bagged evidence. “Are you sure it’s his?”

I nodded. “I brought Beulah back and did a search one last time from gate B31, using the beret. She took the same route, led me to the same bathroom stall and stopped. But this time the bathroom was cordoned off and the pipes to the sink and toilet were missing.”

“Control Ops removed the catch basin for the sink and the curve of the commode pipe to check for any blood or tissue that might have been flushed down the toilet or washed down the sink. Luminal showed nothing in the bathroom out of the ordinary,” Streeter explained.

I let out a sigh. “That’s great news. I don’t think you’ll find anything.”

In reaction to the smile plastered on my face, Streeter pointed and asked, “What’s up with that?”

“Guess what else Jack found.”

Streeter scowled. “Jack? I thought he was downtown with Dodson reviewing videos?”

I shook my head. “He’s still out there with the pickers. But he found something that might have explained why Beulah lost the scent at the sink.”

“What?” Gates asked, approaching me, taking the bagged beret from Streeter’s hand and turning it over to inspect it.

“Shoe polish. See the smear inside the lining of the beret?”

Gates asked, “What does that have to do with—”

Streeter interrupted. “Quick and easy hair dye when you’re on the run.”

“Exactly! And the odor would likely be overpowering to Beulah if a child was drenched in it. At least, that’s what I’m speculating at this point,” I said. “Beulah’s trained to scent people. Sometimes animal scents distract her because their scent is more like ours. But not items like shoe polish. In fact, she’s trained to ignore them. Like the formaldehyde we use to preserve tissue. So I can’t find the trail beyond the damned bathroom.”

“And you’re smiling because to you that means little Max is still alive,” Streeter added.

“Of course. Why take the time to dye a kid’s hair if you’re only planning to kill him?” Gates asked.

“That’s what Jack said.” I noticed Streeter looked away at the mention of Jack’s name. “He found some paper towels with some shoe polish and some straight hair stuck to it. He’s taking it back to the lab.”

“He’ll need the beret,” Streeter said.

I nodded.

Gates handed the bag to Streeter, who pulled a desk lamp over to inspect the cap more closely. He poked his head over the dividers to see which of the technicians were still with us. Streeter called, “Taylor?”

A man came over to where we were working.

“See this?”

Taylor nodded.

“See if you can lift a print. Looks like a partial thumb to me.”

“Did to me, too,” I said.

“When you’re done with it, upload it to AFIS and tell Linwood. Then run this down to the field office.”

“Uh, Streeter, do you mind if I search the parking structures before we send the beret back to Jack?”

He nodded. Taylor took the beret over to his tiny lab area against one of the walls.

Streeter turned back to me and I said, “I also worked Beulah on a second scent from gate B31.”

Both men stared at me.

I held up Kevin Benson’s sweater that he’d left behind accidentally after the interview.

“Beulah followed the exact same path, only once we got the Buckhorn Bar and Grill, she circled the area several times, wandered about the main concourse, and eventually came back through security, back to Concourse B. I stopped trailing at that point, realizing she was following his scent when he was frantically searching for little Max in those first hours. I’d have been there all night.”

“So he’s telling the truth,” Gates said. “He’s not our guy.”

“Appears that way to me. What about the girlfriend?” I asked.

Gates and I had joined Streeter at the table.

“She most definitely is not a fan of Kevin Benson. And although he apparently told the truth about losing the boy at the Buckhorn and then looking for him, I’m not convinced that there isn’t a greater force at work here, a plan to deceive and distract.” Streeter added, “The shoe polish would be a strong indication that the abduction was planned, whether it was a random or specific victim.”

The door opened and in came Phil Kelleher.

“Are they ready?” Streeter asked.

“They’ve been ready for nearly two hours and are getting snippy. East conference room,” Kelleher said.

“Both of them?” I asked.

“All of them,” he said, his tight smile revealing something that looked like disgust.

When we approached the closed door on the other side of HQ, Streeter whispered in my ear, “Go on. You know the guy.”

“Crap,” I mumbled. “Can’t I go downstairs and look for little Max instead?”

Gates laughed. Streeter shook his head and motioned toward the door.

I opened it. To all of them. Officer Lou was right. Throw in a football and a whistle and we’ve got ourselves a game. There must have been twenty people in the room, half sitting along the wall on one side, half sitting along the wall on the other. His and hers. I felt like it was a mutual firing squad. I walked over to a man at the end of the table, sticking my hand out, saying, “Max.”

His black hair was still thick and wavy. A dimple punctuated his white, toothy smile, brilliant as a game-show host’s. And his suit was tailored to hug the biceps and pectorals he worked so hard to build. Ever the charmer, Max hadn’t aged one bit.

“Agent Bergen,” Max responded.

No one had ever called me that before. My cheeks burned. I felt silly dressed in grubby jeans and a baseball cap surrounded by an entourage of custom-tailored suits and couture purses. Until we shook hands, that is. His grip was painful against my raw palm. And his expression was vacant, as if I were a total stranger. I figured he was just being an asshole as usual and nodded at the dozen suits crowded around him.

I was tempted to announce to Max where my hands had just been a half hour earlier, picking through miles of garbage, but why spoil the surprise for the rest of these beautiful people? So instead, I asked, “Who are all these folks?”

“Business associates,” Max said, looking past me and shaking Streeter’s hand.

“This is Special Agent Streeter Pierce and Denver Police Chief Tony Gates. Chief Gates, Agent Pierce, this is Max Williams and his business associates.”

“Maximillian Bennett Williams II,” he said, correcting me before releasing Streeter’s hand and grabbing Tony’s.

“Oh, excuse me. Maximillian Bennett Williams II and his business associates.” I nodded with exaggeration toward Streeter. He suppressed a smile. I bit my tongue and zipped my lip so I wouldn’t add “the asshole to whom I was referring earlier” to my introduction. Instead, I walked down to the other end of the room, meeting each member of his entourage and then hers. I ended up face-to-face with the only woman in the room who could possibly be Max’s wife and shook her hand.

“I’m Special Agent Liv Bergen. And you are Mrs. Williams?”

The Barbie-doll blonde extended a limp-fish handshake, not unlike flight attendant Kevin Benson’s earlier. I didn’t squeeze it hard, though, because I was pleased that it was her hand, not Ida’s, that Max had taken to be his. She was Mrs. Asshole.

Her teeth were equally as perfect as Max’s; their dentist surely spent most of his winter months in the Bahamas after all the work he must do for them. Her eyes were wide and bright, the makeup she wore perfectly applied. I wondered if it had been painted on, knowing she’d been crying. Or maybe it was reapplied over and over. I just didn’t understand makeup all that much. Being the closest I’d ever been to a supermodel—my sister Ida excluded—I must say Melissa Williams was absolutely gorgeous. I imagined she was always that way, even without makeup. She had a killer body, sculpted taut and smooth, and her eyes commanded my full attention.

“Melissa,” she said. Shooting a quick dagger of a look in Max’s direction, she added, “And these are my friends.”

Point taken. Max had business associates. Melissa had friends. And there you have it, the continental divide that might otherwise be known as the Williams party.

“I’m so, so sorry for the strain you both must be under tonight, and we appreciate you flying into Denver to answer some questions,” Streeter said to everyone in the room after introducing himself to Melissa. “Let me start by thanking all of you for wanting to help us find Mr. and Mrs. Williams’s son. We’re going to need everyone’s cooperation and time is of the essence.”

“Then why did you keep us waiting so long,” whined the man with long hair on Melissa’s side of the divide. I think he was the one she called her publicist, but he could have been her hair-and-makeup artist.

“Because we were in critical interviews that will hopefully lead to the
recovery of little Max,” Streeter said. His voice was sugary, yet firm. “We have rooms set up for everyone. We will lead you to your assigned rooms where individual interviews will occur, and we have other agents who will be helping us gather information.”

“From us? What kind of information?” The man was on Max’s side of the divide and I think he said he was one of the attorneys. Max brought several.

Streeter added evenly, “Information that may help us find little Max.”

Separate and conquer. Well done, Streeter. The seventeen people in the room who were friends and business associates were rumbling. The Williamses said nothing. Standing midway in the room, careful not to choose sides by my position, I felt like firing the starting gun for the battle at Gettysburg.

“For the record, the interviews are being recorded and we’ll need to have you speak your names clearly, please,” Streeter stated the date, location, and names of the officials present for the interview including himself, Tony, Phil, and me.

“Wait,” Max interrupted. “Isn’t Agent Bergen going to conduct the interviews?”

Streeter looked to me to answer, knowing this was about who was lead. To avoid further delays, I simply said, “No, Agent Pierce will.”

Max’s eyes slowly moved from my face to Streeter’s as he calculated his next move.

Streeter continued, “Mrs. Williams, can you please introduce each of your friends to me and tell me his or her relationship to little Max so I know what room to assign them to?”

Melissa looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Her perfectly lined lips parted and then closed. She started again with a hug to the woman sitting next to her. “This is my publicity agent.” Then she pointed. “My hair-dresser. My makeup artist. That’s my attorney. Those two are bodyguards. And that’s my pilot and copilot.”

No one moved. They all just sat there. Streeter stared. So did I. Not one name. Maybe Melissa didn’t know their names. Streeter addressed the first woman. “Your name and relationship with little Max?”

And the eight people stated their names for the record, all of them
indicating how they knew little Max. Most had met him, but none of them stated anything more than that, except one bodyguard who admitted he had to babysit the child once and the hairdresser who indicated he’d cut the boy’s hair on a couple of occasions.