Pursuit (6 page)

She drove down a dirt road scattered with homes that sat a hundred feet back, all of them featuring well-tended yards. Grassy expanses stretched through a culvert area right up next to the road's shoulder.

The door to the suburban cottage opened right away, answered by a woman who appeared older than her years.

“Mrs. Preston?”

The woman seemed distracted. She opened the screen door without speaking and ushered Julie into a pleasant though sparse living room. Dressed in baggy sweatpants and a faded T-shirt proclaiming she'd visited Meramec Caverns, a former hideout of the outlaw Jesse James, she gestured for Julie to sit.

“You have a nice home, Mrs. Preston.”

“Thank you, and it's ‘Miss.' I'm Betty's sis; she was taller.” She raised her hand above her head.

“I see. Yes.”

The woman then sat with knees together, hands folded in her lap.

“Miss, we, the State Criminal Investigation Unit, periodically go through our older files, trying with fresh eyes to see if anything new has developed.” Julie paused.

Neither curiosity nor concern showed on the woman's face.

Julie opened her black imitation leather portfolio and pulled out her notes on the missing Betty Preston. “According to this information, your sister was reported missing on October 1, 1995, by a family member.”

Nothing was forthcoming from the woman, except that now she began rocking slightly.

“It says here that Betty disappeared on the way home from school and that—”

“We took our regular shortcut across farmland through a bunch of woods.”

“You and your sister?”

“She was stubborn.”

“How do you mean?”

“She said she wanted to use the little girl's room. I said to wait til she got home; she went anyway. God save us, I continued on.” She recounted these events as if she had gone over them many times before.

“I realize this incident must be difficult to relive, Miss Preston. Is there anything about that day that has come to you over the years that wasn't said or discussed or passed on to the police?”

She shook her head, never taking her eyes off Julie.

“Are your parents . . . still about?”

She nodded again.

“It says in the initial report that the mother of the child—your mother—at first denied her daughter was missing, saying—”

“ ‘She wouldn't leave me, my little darling. No, she wouldn't run away from her loving mother.' ”

Julie looked down at the police report. The woman repeated her mother's words verbatim. “Do you live here alone, Miss Preston?”

Once again the solemn stare, the slight action of the head. Julie busied herself with her paperwork, and then thanked the woman and started for the door. She turned at the entranceway to thank her once again only to see the slight figure turn her back on Julie and walk to a shelf of knickknacks in the far corner of the living room. Julie saw her take something and hide it in her hand.

“I walk to the spot each day; it keeps me sane.” She cocked her head, and a smile crept out, allowing Julie to share her strangeness.

“The spot?”

The woman edged past her and then made several slow turns around the living room. She held out her treasure. It looked as if it were a piece of wood. Julie took it
and turned it over in her hand—a Y-shaped stick not unlike a slingshot.

“Is this from the area where your sister was . . . taken?”

“It smelled of pee-pee, so I brought it home.”

Julie set the wood object back on the shelf and rubbed her hands on her slacks. “When was this?”

Beverly Preston once again paced the living room. “Yesterday. I have others. Would you like to see?” Without waiting for an answer, she hurried toward the kitchen door.

Julie followed.

Standing beside a shed attached to the house, Preston signaled to Julie as she disappeared inside.

A dark flight of stone steps led down into a cellar under the house. The air cooled. Julie's breath floated in a white mist in the dank enclosure. She swatted away cobwebs that crossed her forehead. Preston stepped into the center of the room and snapped on a single naked lightbulb hanging from a floor joist. “In the summer, I sit down here to escape the heat.”

Under the bulb, a straight-back kitchen chair faced a long table stacked with shoes and frayed floral dresses. In the middle of the display, a foot-high cracked statuette of Christ, his arms spread wide as if presenting Beverly Preston's homage to her missing sister.

“If she returns, her clothes probably won't fit her.” She shrugged, her palms facing up in a “What can you do?” gesture.

Julie walked the length of the table, observing several more Y-shaped pieces of wood, teacups, a thick, old-fashioned comb, a toothbrush in a wood tumbler, and a mason jar. “What's in the bottle?”

“It's his.”

Julie took the offered object. Curled in a lump at the bottom of the jar, a ring threaded through a stiff, dirt-matted chain. All of it appeared as if undisturbed for a number of years. Julie also eyed insect remains at the bottom of the jar.

It struck her, the woman's way of never answering a question. “What are the holes in the top of the jar for?”

“When you catch a bug fresh from its den, it must breathe.” She hummed while circling the room, her arms paddling like a dog trying to swim. “Run Betty run. The house is on fire.”

Finally, a straight answer.
“May I take this to have it examined?”

“He would like me to have it when he appears.”

Julie replaced the jar on the table and followed Beverly Preston up the stairs. She thanked the woman and left. Once in her car, she called Walker.

“I'll get a warrant from the judge,” he said. “You think she'll hide the damn thing?”

“No, I don't think so, Cap. By the way, it has a heavy chain strung through it as if someone wore it not on their finger but around their neck. And, oh yeah, this woman, she's mental, but in the end, I think she'll give it up. She just has to be handled gently. She is, to put it kindly, disturbed.”

C
old case files
appealed to Julie. The exactitude of it all satisfied her. In her regular capacity as a detective, much of the work had become routine, her years of police work at times punctuated by chaos. On the whole, she settled into admin duty in her cozy basement spot.

She asked permission from Captain Walker to drive downstate to speak to the uncle of another missing female. While polite enough on the phone, the man assured her that the police had interviewed him at the time.

“On the document, it says here, Mr. Drew, you explained to an Officer Roberts, and I quote, ‘While at work, I was notified that Trudy, my niece, had gone missing. At the time, I didn't think much of it. The girl always stayed out late, disobeying her mother's rules on curfew. I tried to reassure my sister that she would show up with a lame excuse, but it turned out not to be the case.' Would you say it was an accurate reflection of the situation?”

Julie sensed hesitation.

“At the time, yes. Since then I've given it a great deal of consideration.”

“Mr. Drew, would it be possible to meet me either later today or tomorrow?”

Once again the man paused. The phone clicked, another wait, and then William Drew again. “I've moved a few things around, Miss Worth. Would noon tomorrow in the factory cafeteria be convenient?”

After receiving instructions on how to get to the plant, Julie went to Walker, who reluctantly gave permission for the trip.

“When I assigned you that shit detail in the basement, Worth, you
do
realize it was an alternative to administrative leave? A low-stress, take-it-easy-and-heal kind of assignment? You got that, didn't you?”

“Yes, and I'll make the trip downstate as disagreeable as possible.”

“I'll contact Adams in the southern district and let him know you're in the area,” he said smiling. “Don't enjoy yourself too much, Worth, or I'll have to punish you by putting you back on regular duty. Scoot on out of here, Sherlock.”

T
he plant, as
described, looked like a series of older buildings—starting at the front of the property—and stretching for a hundred yards back into a housing development. The office building, however, was new and bordered a series of row houses along its fence line.

The factory cafeteria was a wing of one of the older buildings, built as an afterthought, its long single story capped with a red-tiled pitched roof.

Mr. Drew's secretary met Julie at the entrance. A pleasant young woman who pretended to be interested in Julie's work.

“How exciting for you, dealing with all the lowlifes. Lots of stories, yes?”

They made their way through the noisy seating area of the cafeteria into a back private room. She left Julie at the doorway.

“Mr. Drew got caught with a long-distance call he couldn't avoid. He'll be out soon.”

The room was comfortable enough, if somewhat stark.
Photos on the walls of old white guys in suits and ties. A conference table for twenty dominated the wood-paneled enclosure. A settee and two overstuffed chairs semicircled a fake fireplace. Julie saw a setting for two arranged at a heavy oak coffee table. She was halfway through Drew Inc.'s rogues' gallery when the door behind her opened, and in walked Mr. William Drew. A nice-looking man, but he appeared slumped by the pressure of his responsibilities. His short, neat hair and tight, dark mustache complemented his navy blue suit.

“Miss Worth, so sorry to keep you waiting.” He glanced at his watch and motioned for Julie to have a seat at the place setting closest to the faux fireplace. “Lunch will arrive shortly. I've taken the opportunity to order for us. Short ribs and potatoes fine?”

It was going to be a long afternoon for a white-meat-only girl detective.

“I'm a little short on time, Miss Worth. So can we get to it?”

Julie noticed that he took another purposeful look at his watch. She had reviewed the file once before this meeting and knew there weren't many outstanding issues. “After that initial phone call from your sister about your niece missing, can you tell me what transpired?”

“My sister called several times over the next few hours, each successive call more rife with hysteria.” He leaned back into the leather chair. “I finally called the police for her. I must confess about having admitted to myself ad infinitum over the years that I truly didn't believe anything wayward happened to Trudy.”

“What did the police do?”

Drew fussed with a pleat on his dark blue trousers.
He seemed reluctant to meet Julie's eyes. “I admit I called the mayor, who at the time was a friend and shareholder in Drew Inc.”

“So it was the mayor who notified the authorities?”

“Miss Worth, how can I say this . . .” Drew picked at an errant thread on his Canali jacket to distract himself. “I explained to Mayor Bishop that Trudy was a troubled teenager, probably out on a tear, and that I hated to bother him with such a trivial matter. But, and this is the part that's difficult for me”—he took deep breaths—“I said, ‘Tom, as a favor, drop the police chief a note describing the missing girl so I can say I did what my sis asked of me. Is that possible?' ”

She didn't honor him with a reply.

“My sister died two years ago still not knowing what became of her daughter. And me, I've lived these last seventeen with the burden of knowing that if I'd acted in a more expedient fashion, maybe just by pushing with more alarm, Trudy might still be with us.”

Julie's instinct was to reassure Drew that no, he did the right thing. That's exactly what the man wanted to hear, but she resisted the urge. “Was there ever any word from Trudy at all; any clues as to what might have happened?”

He glanced once again at his watch and pushed an intercom button on the table. “Do you need help in the kitchen, Arthur? Should I assign someone from the office to give you a hand? Expedite, please.” He jabbed at the intercom. “Sorry, getting back to your question. No, there was never any word. It baffled the police. She vanished. Not a trace, no indication of kidnapping, ransom notes. Nothing.”