And Then There Was One (20 page)

Rusk sneezed and pulled out a white handkerchief.

“Must be the cats,” Roberta said, “and I guess you noticed, I don’t have air-conditioning.”

Rusk used the excuse to make his exit. He’d call in these two names from the car: the Babcock cleaning lady and the Patches teacher, new persons of interest.

After calling the Tampa field office, Rusk called Streeter in Detroit. He could sense the excitement in Streeter’s voice and he prayed that he would not disappoint.

On his way back to headquarters, Rusk laid out his theory. Cutty arranged for the kidnapping, through an intermediary, using a local woman whom the girls would trust. Cutty had been under twenty-four-hour surveillance. He’d been followed into an Ybor City club the day of his death. He’d carried a bag going in. He’d not had the bag going out. He’d gone directly home and not emerged until late that evening when he’d taken an assassin’s bullet. The FBI had saturated Ybor City, but nobody saw Maxwell Cutty meeting with anyone. Witnesses saw him come in and saw him go out, but they saw nothing else. He must have met with someone in that club, and Rusk swore that he would find out who.

Third Monroe Triplet Rushed to Children’s Hospital in Detroit.
— Thursday News, June 18

Streeter waited five minutes for Scott to return with Katie before knocking gently on Jackie’s hospital room door. He’d been told that she had fallen at her grandmother’s home and that she’d been admitted for observation.
Fallen?
Then why would she be on the psychiatric floor? Was Children’s Hospital that crowded?

“The little girl’s room is sacrosanct, sir, the female agent who escorted him to Jackie’s room said. “She needs calm and quiet. Nothing can be said about the missing ones, sir.”

As Scott opened the door, Streeter heard the familiar music,
It’s a Small World
, his youngest daughter’s favorite.

“One of us should stay with Jackie,” Scott said in a whisper.

“I really need you both,” Streeter insisted. “This could be important.”

“Jackie’s asleep,” Scott said. “I’ll get Katie, but we can’t stay out long, in case she wakes up.”

In case she wakes up
? Streeter looked quizzically to each parent as they walked toward a nearby conference room. Several agents were in sight, stationed to keep Jackie’s hallway free of unauthorized personnel and visitors.

“Please,” Katie said, her eyes darting toward Jackie’s room. “I know that this is important, but could you hurry?”

Streeter started by telling them that a little before noon, the bureau had received a credible call. One that was now under intense investigation. Something in the caller’s voice, a rapid-fire tone that signaled
urgency and veracity had triggered the intake agent to pass the woman on to Streeter himself.

The caller was Sheila Gladksy. She’d been shopping last Sunday afternoon at the Hill Mall. Streeter explained to the Monroes that Mrs. Gladsky came in late last night to give her statement. She was very apologetic about not calling sooner, but she’d been camping in the Upper Peninsula, in a tent, no electricity. She called the instant that she found out about the abduction of your daughters.

Streeter opened his notebook. “I’m going to tell you pretty much like she told us. If you could listen closely for any connection whatsoever, for anything that strikes you, for anything that may trigger a memory.”

Both Monroe heads nodded.

Streeter read, “‘Okay, here’s what I remember. I was buying all that camping stuff. First time me and my girlfriend ever took the kids so far into the woods alone. I mean, I used to camp when I was married, but — well, it’s different when you’re on your own. But I wanted Brendan to learn how to rough it. We didn’t go too far. Just across the Mackinac Bridge. But we were out of touch with the world. My Brendan — probably because he wants to be a Boy Scout — was okay, but my girlfriend’s boys complained the whole time about no television. And you wouldn’t believe the size of the mosquitoes. I thought they would eat us alive.’”

Streeter looked up. Katie and Scott were both trembling. He read on, “‘Anyway about those girls, I want to get this right. I know exactly what time it was because I forgot my watch. When I saw that clock on the way out of the mall, I realized I was late.

“‘It was 1:31 p.m. Precisely. I’m an accountant. A CPA, actually. So I’m very precise. Got to be.

“‘I walked out the south exit coming from the pharmacy where I’d picked up some first-aid supplies, Band-Aids, disinfectant, that type of thing. I still have the receipts.

“‘I was stuffing two bulky sleeping bags in the trunk of my Honda, which was parked next to the passenger side of a maroon sedan, or maybe brown, not a new model, but I’m not good with cars. That’s when I heard a child’s voice so I turned.’”

Streeter paused to assess the Monroes. Both were listening intently. Scott had grabbed Katie’s hands to keep them from shaking. Streeter returned to his notes. “‘I saw a little girl. What she had said was, plain as day was, ‘Is she going to be okay?’

“‘It was the little girl in the pictures. The one in the multicolored pants, a geometric design, and a yellow top, the one with the ponytail and a red ribbon. She had cute red sandals with black trim. I thought she sounded upset. Not really scared, more like concerned. But not frightened. I did wonder what she meant. Like, was someone ill? But I never found out.’”

Katie gasped, said nothing, but her eyes started to blink.

Streeter read on. “‘The other girl with no ponytail, in a very pretty lavender sundress with lacy straps crisscrossing in the back — I was sure they were twins — how could I have known they were from triplets — didn’t say anything. I did notice her cute sandals, shiny white with a big yellow daisy.

“‘Then the woman they were with unlocked the car with a key, and the girl with the ponytail got in the passenger side of the front seat. The woman had to kind of push the other girl into the backseat. Not shove, just sort of nudge. I did hear her say, ‘Hurry up,’ but I thought nothing of it.

“‘Once I got home and watched the news and saw the newspaper, I was sure that they were the missing children. Both had light brown skin and dark hair, very pretty. Made me wish that I had a little girl.’”

“They got in her car?” Scott interrupted. “They just got in her car? With no protest? Voluntarily?”

“Did either of them say anything else?” Katie asked, sitting on the very edge of her chair.

“No,” Streeter said, returning to the written statement.

“‘Once they got into the car, I’d finished loading my stuff and I got in my car and drove away. I left the parking lot before they did.’”

“Unfortunately, she didn’t notice the license plate and her description of the car was not very helpful. But she did have one crucial piece of information. She described Sammie’s and Alex’s shoes. The girls’ shoe detail had never been disclosed to the media.”

“Who was this woman?” Katie asked. “Was she white or black?”

“A white woman. Middle aged. Auburn hair, with some gray. Hair style described as poufy. She was wearing a dark blue dress, on the long side. White sneakers, white socks.”

“Sammie got in the front seat, and Alex got in the backseat?” Katie said in a near whisper.

Scott’s voice boomed in comparison to hers, “And they didn’t seem panicky or even frightened?”

Streeter observed both parents intently as he answered, “Shiela Gladsky repeated over and over that the girls looked concerned, not scared. That leads me to ask, could Alex and Sammie have gone with a relative or friend of the family?”

“How old was this woman?” Scott asked. “And she was white?”

“Early fifties, the witness estimated. Definitely white. The witness described her as moderately overweight, not stylishly dressed.”

“They would never have gone off with a stranger,” Scott said.

“We asked Mrs. Gladsky to take a lie detector test. She did. She passed.”

“Katie and Scott looked to each other, the obvious question on each face, “Do you know who this could be?”

Streeter scrutinized them. With this eye-witness report, it seemed more likely than ever that the abductor was known to the girls. The investigation would be taking a more inward look, unfortunately disrupting an already distressed extended family and circle of friends.

“And Sammie said, ‘Is she going to be okay?’” Katie said. “What did she mean by that? Who is the
she
?”

“We don’t know, Dr. Monroe, but we judge Mrs. Gladsky to be credible. Her description fits with Courtney Davis’s report, the woman with two screaming kids whom Jake Plummer interviewed at the mall that Sunday. She said the woman wore a darkish blue dress that came mid-calf and sneakers. She described her as mid-fifties, sloppy, overweight, with teased auburn hair, streaked with grey. The woman had one child in each hand and they were walking fast. The Davis woman never saw the woman’s face, only her backside.”

“My God, Scott, who could she be? Two witnesses saw them with a
white
woman?”

“The description of the children met the description of Alex and
Sammie. But until Sheila Gladsky came forward, we had no description of the woman’s face and we still have no idea where she may have taken the girls or who put her up to it.”

Streeter handed Katie and Scott a police artist’s sketch. An overweight, middle-aged woman in an unstylish housedress with auburn hair strewn with streaks of gray.

“Nobody I’ve ever seen,” said Katie.

“Nor I,” said Scott. “Can we have some copies to show to our families? Maybe somebody will recognize her.”

Streeter handed him several copies and then closed his briefcase, preparing to leave. There was much to be done. “I’m afraid that we’ll have to question your friends and relatives again on both sides of your family, and because the woman is Caucasian, we’ll start with the Monroe side.”

Streeter had already interviewed Scott’s two brothers and their families as well as his famous sister, Monica, and her husband. Among them all, he’d found nothing but grief. Scott’s mother had died thirty years ago and his father, Nick Monroe, was at Mayo Clinic, recovering from heart surgery. Today, he would dispatch Agent Juan Ortez to Rochester, Minnesota. If something evil was beyond the caring veneer of the Monroe family, Nick Monroe, the patriarch, would know.

In the back of Streeter’s mind had always been the nagging suspicion that the girls’ abduction could be related to some form of racial prejudice. Racial purists still existed. The election of a biracial president of the United States last year should have squelched that philosophy, but who knew what evil lurked in the minds of the modern neo-Nazi’s? One of the worst, the National Socialist Movement, was headquartered in Detroit. He’d gagged when he’d read the twentyfive points of their creed — only those of pure white blood could be members of the nation. Very repulsive stuff.

Streeter had never addressed the race issue with the Monroes, and he decided to do so now. “You asked about whether this woman was black or white,” he began. “Has there been any tension or any criticisms of the biracial aspects of your marriage? Any individuals that have expressed any objections or dissatisfaction with the marriage of a black woman to a white man?” Streeter knew he had to tread carefully
here. He wished he paid more attention in the diversity classes the agency made them take.

Scott slumped forward, gripping the edge of the table so fiercely that his knuckles turned a starker tone of white. “You think that Sammie and Alex are in the hands of white supremacists?”

“I just raise the question,” Streeter said, recalling the “one drop rule.” Dating back to slavery, still pervasively embedded in American society to the point that in some communities biracial individuals are still considered black no matter what their appearance if they have even a fraction of African heritage. Case in point, Barack Obama, white mother, black father, almost universally classified as black. In reality, Barack Obama is a biracial American, obviously a powerful role model for the Monroe children.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Katie said. “Alex and Sammie went off without a struggle. How could a hateful racist get them to do that? A white woman simply leading Alex and Sammie away in her car? I can’t see a racial angle here. And the answer to your question, Agent Streeter is no. We haven’t been experiencing any racial unpleasantness. Don’t you agree, Scott?”

“Yes, but what if —?”

“Look when we’re out with the triplets, we get a lot of looks. We used to get them as a couple before we had kids. Curiosity, yes, but not bigotry. Nothing that would come even close to outright racism. But then again we refuse to raise our racial antennae out there. So we might have missed something. What do you think, Scott? That woman who took our daughters is white.”

“I just can’t see it. Yes, we know all about the theoretical implications for biracial families. And there are many: ideological, institutional, and individual racism. We debate all this with our friends, but none of that theoretical stuff has interfered with our lives. I can’t think of a single incident over all these years. Could something have changed? Or maybe we didn’t notice it?”

Streeter was becoming uncomfortable and wondered whether it had been wise to raise the racial issue. The Monroes had so successfully built their life devoid of racial prejudice and he didn’t want to jeopardize that by pursuing a futile avenue of investigation. Earlier
he’d consulted with the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service, the arm of the department that dealt with hate crimes. CRS had been created following the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It had no law enforcement responsibility, but intervened in suspected discrimination issues. He’d kept an open line of communication with them, but no hints of hate-crime motivation had surfaced from any source.

“There’s one more thing,” he said. “Before I go —”

“I have to get back to Jackie,” Katie interrupted.

“Okay, Katie, but you and Scott have things to talk about,” Streeter said, scrutinizing them, not able to shake the remote possibility that they were involved, individually or together. “Once you’ve had a chance to think about that woman who was seen with Alex and Sammie, maybe something will come to you.”