The phone number for Ellen and Odell Haysbert rang and rang.
Elliot had been trying to reach Corian’s foster parents off and on since Saturday evening, but not only did the Haysberts not pick up, they didn’t seem to have an answering machine.
He was about to disconnect when, unexpectedly, the phone rattled off the hook.
A woman’s voice inquired cautiously, “Hello?”
“Mrs. Haysbert?”
“Yes?” the voice said, still more doubtfully.
“My name is Elliot Mills. Would it be possible to meet with you for a few minutes this week?”
She said, sounding a little less faint and faraway, “Elliot Mills? Who are you? I don’t know you.”
“I’ve been working with the task force assigned with—”
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” she burst out, and he fell silent. “Haven’t you people done enough damage?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you—”
“My husband is dead thanks to you. I hope you all rot in hell!”
The receiver slammed down.
Elliot slowly replaced the handset.
Okay. Well, at least he knew the phone number was still good. He’d give Ellen Haysbert a little time to calm down and then try again.
He went outside and resumed work on the modular dog kennel he was putting together for Sheba.
After his trip to Todd Rice’s home, it was pretty clear that Sheba would not be returning home anytime soon, and since she did not take kindly to being left in the cellar, he was taking temporary measures to keep her safe and comfortable while he was out tracking down whatever information he could on Tucker.
Not that he was adopting Sheba. But he had to keep busy or he’d go crazy.
By Thursday morning, Tucker had been missing for six days, and Elliot knew that the chances of finding him alive were increasingly slim.
I’d know if he was dead. I’d feel it.
How many times had he heard a grieving parent or spouse say something similar? Hell, little more than a year ago Elliot had heard Pauline Baker say the same thing about her missing son.
Refusing to believe he would never see Tucker again, refusing to believe Tucker was dead, was not the same as knowing Tucker was still alive.
With every passing day the chances of Tucker returning home safe and sound dwindled dramatically. That was the statistical reality. The odds were against them—and getting worse every single day.
He was not the only one to recognize this fact. He’d had a message on his answering machine from Adam, Tucker’s ex in Oregon, offering whatever help and support Elliot needed. Adam had not offered condolences, but how long before the sympathy calls started?
He paused in attaching one of the corner stands with the rod clips, and wiped his forehead. This was really a two-man job. But then life was a two-man job. He glanced over at Sheba, lying beneath Tucker’s hammock, and she swished her tail in encouragement.
“If you jump out of here, we’re through,” he informed her.
She gave him that silent doggy laugh.
He’d spent Wednesday harassing various law enforcement agencies, starting with convincing Bellingham PD to open a missing persons file on Todd Rice. If they’d made any progress, they weren’t sharing it with him, but then he wasn’t really expecting them to make progress. That would be partly up to the National Forest Service and partly up to Black Diamond Police Chief Woll, who Elliot had also phoned and informed of finding Rice’s dog in the woods behind Corian’s property.
He and Woll had a difference of opinion there, both as to the significance of finding Sheba and to Woll’s responsibility in the matter.
As Woll pointed out, Black Diamond was surrounded by thousands of acres of park lands and open space. The fact that the dog of a missing man had been found running loose near the property of an imprisoned serial killer did not automatically prove a link between the missing man and the imprisoned serial killer. Especially given the fact that the man had gone missing nearly a year after the serial killer had been imprisoned.
“You don’t think that’s one hell of a coincidence?” Elliot had asked.
He could hear Woll’s sigh clear across the Puget Sound. “Do you know how many lost and missing hikers we get each year?” Woll had asked.
“Yes,” Elliot said. “I do. Zero in the last five years, if we’re talking about people who stayed missing for more than twenty-four hours.”
After a moment of silence, Woll said, “You’re spending your time researching lost hikers in King County?”
Was there an implication Elliot should be doing more to help Tucker? Or was that Elliot’s own guilt and fear?
He snapped back, “Not all of King County. Just the area Todd Rice was supposed to be camping in. Could someone at least have a look for this guy’s vehicle?”
Woll’s tone grew frosty. “Okay, Professor Mills, why don’t you give me whatever information you have on this lost hiker of yours, and the Black Diamond Police Department will see what we can do for you.”
Elliot spoke to Deputy Sheriff Dannon and got pretty much the same answer—although Dannon seemed to take Elliot’s interest more good-humoredly than Woll had.
“You think this imaginary accomplice of Corian’s snatched Mr. Rice out of his campground and murdered him?” Dannon wasn’t exactly mocking, but there had definitely been amusement in his tone.
“Imaginary accomplice?” Elliot had repeated.
“Is there any proof, any evidence at all, that this accomplice actually exists? Corian himself didn’t come right out and say so. He hemmed and hawed and hinted. That’s not proof where I come from.”
Where was that? Westworld?
But Elliot clamped his jaw shut on saying anything that might antagonize another resource. He had only the most tenuous of connections with the other task force members now, and he couldn’t afford any more slammed doors.
Into his silence, Dannon had said, “Why would this accomplice go after your Mr. Rice? What was so special about him? If you’re thinking that the poor hombre was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, why don’t we have a whole bunch of missing campers in Black Diamond?”
The obvious—at least in Elliot’s mind—answer to that was that Todd Rice had hiked his way into the middle of something fatal. Maybe it had to do with the Sculptor’s accomplice—Elliot felt like proximity, locality had to be considered in this—and maybe it didn’t.
He didn’t want to share too much of his thinking on that, given MacAuley’s insistence that the Sculptor’s accomplice had been real and had been at his party. Granted, he had also insisted the unsub had left before Elliot’s arrival, which would seem to clear Dannon of suspicion. But Elliot was not in a trusting frame of mind.
MacAuley had held a theory. Theories were not facts.
“I’m not drawing conclusions, I’m just pointing out there’s a possibly alarming coincidence. And we do have a missing and possibly endangered adult out there somewhere who nobody seems to give a damn about.”
Dannon said, and now there was mockery in his voice, “So your main concern is for this guy Rice? Is that right?”
Elliot said, “I’ve got other concerns right now, you’re right. But it does bother me that this guy has gone missing and no one can be bothered to take a look.”
“Okay, okay,” Dannon said. “You made your point, Professor. I’ll take a look-see and see what I can find.”
Though Detective Fallis and Tacoma PD were supposed to keep Elliot updated, their idea of “updates” did not match his. Here at least his relationship with the FBI served him well, because Special Agent Yamiguchi was monitoring Tucker’s case closely—the Bureau had delivered on Montgomery’s promise to provide every possible resource to the police—and Yamiguchi did call him with daily updates on the lack of progress.
Of course she didn’t phrase it that way, but that was what it amounted to.
Though, in fairness, not for lack of trying.
The phone company, pressured by the Bureau, had supplied Tucker’s cell phone records. The final ping from Tucker’s phone before it went dead had come from Capitol Hill.
“Has anyone questioned Honoria Sallis?” Elliot had asked Yamiguchi. “She’s still living in Capitol Hill.”
Yamiguchi patiently assured him that Sallis had been questioned and cleared of any suspicion in Tucker’s disappearance.
“What about the businesses surrounding the car park? Has anyone tried to get surveillance footage from them?”
“Yes. Efforts are under way to retrieve footage from surveillance cameras other than the car park’s.”
“Did Pine or someone show Barro’s photo to Connie Foster? Was she able to ID him?”
Yamiguchi said, “Yes. Detective Pine showed Barro’s photo to Foster. At first she said she couldn’t identify him. Then later she decided perhaps he was the man she had seen working for Corian.” The very lack of inflection in Yamiguchi’s voice spoke volumes.
Foster’s unreliability as a witness was exactly as Elliot had feared. But he persisted, because what else did they have? What else did he have?
“There’s a possibility she might be able to identify a missing hiker I spoke to both Woll and Dannon about—”
Yamiguchi cut him off there. “Yes, Professor Mills. Deputy Sheriff Dannon brought up your concern over the disappearance of Todd Rice. Police Chief Woll spoke to her about the hiker. He showed her photographs. She could not identify him, though she did identify his dog.”
Elliot was a little surprised Woll had been so thorough, although there was nothing in his service record to indicate he would be other than competent and conscientious.
Into his silence Yamiguchi had said, and this was real kindness, “If you think of anything else, another angle, Professor Mills, let me know and I’ll make sure we follow up.”
The problem was—and Tucker had pointed this out more than a few times—being a control freak, Elliot had trouble trusting anyone to be as thorough and meticulous in their investigation as he would be.
It was a fine line though. He was getting more access and more information than the average citizen would, but if he pushed too hard or was perceived as trying to take matters into his own hands, that door would slam shut in his face.
So he had focused on the Haysberts. No one else seemed interested in them, and he still believed that if Corian had foster siblings...well, difficult to say. But he wanted a definitive answer to that question.
But the Haysberts weren’t talking. In fact, it sounded like Mr. Haysbert might have given up speaking permanently.
So Elliot was trying other channels, official channels. He had calls into the Children’s Administration of the Department of Social and Health Services, the Northwest Adoption Exchange, Foster Parent Association of WA, and the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children.
He had spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people on Wednesday and Thursday—and he had spent a lot of time being reminded of how very difficult it was to get answers fast from a bureaucracy when you didn’t have the clout of the FBI behind you.
* * *
His cell rang as he was showering before leaving to meet Roland for dinner.
He had tried to get out of the meal. Not only did he not want to have to socialize with Nobb, he had trouble concentrating on anything unrelated to Tucker’s disappearance. Plus, unable to sleep more than an hour or so at a time, he was exhausted both mentally and physically.
But Roland had pretty much insisted and Elliot didn’t want to risk their newly restored harmony. Plus, he needed to drop his lesson plans off for the next couple of weeks—not that Roland would use them. He’d be lucky if his father hadn’t turned all his students into raging revolutionaries by the time he returned to work.
Was he going back to work? It was hard to picture. Hard to imagine life ever being normal again...
Elliot turned off the taps, popped the shower door and grabbed his phone off the sink with soap-slippery hands. A text from Detective Pine read CHECK YOUR EMAIL.
Wrapping a towel around his waist, Elliot went to check his laptop. His heart was jumping around his chest with refreshed anxiety, but he knew Pine would not deliver the worst news through an email. Whatever this was, it wasn’t that.
He waited, trying not to drip on his keyboard. The email came through with the cryptic subject heading Re: Further Data.
What further data? Elliot clicked the email. The message read You didn’t get this from me.
Okay. Burn after reading. Pine had been watching too many spy movies.
There was a video file attached. Elliot downloaded the file and opened it.
The video began to play.
He appeared to be looking at the car park where Tucker usually left his Xterra. The security camera from a nearby business had recorded a partial blurry image of someone who appeared to be Tucker buying coffee from a food van, drinking a couple of mouthfuls and throwing a paper cup or napkin into a trash container at the edge of the lot before walking back to his car. A black van pulled up next to Tucker’s Xterra a moment later.
Because the van had blocked the camera’s view, it was impossible to see what had next occurred—except that after the van departed there was no sign of Tucker, and his vehicle had never moved from its parking space.
That was it. Not quite four minutes’ worth of complete disaster.
Elliot replayed the clip. And then again. And again. And again. Over and over. He probably watched the surveillance footage a hundred times, and with each viewing Tucker’s fuzzy figure seemed to move farther and farther away from him.