And Then There Was One (21 page)

“The ransom demand? Anything from Norman Watkins?” Katie said, once they’d reached Jackie’s room. “Or Keith Franklin?”

“No,” Streeter said, “but Agent Camry will be staying here, at the hospital. She’ll let you know immediately if we have something.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Katie said. “We’ll be with Jackie. They’re setting up a couple of cots for us in her room.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Streeter asked. The question made his heart stop. The exact words that Sammie had said four days ago before getting into a car with that woman,
Is she going to be okay?

Continental Flight 61 from Brussels to Newark, New Jersey,
Lands Safely after Mid-flight Death of Pilot.
—
International News, Thursday, June 18

Marge Spansky clomped down the basement steps, carrying a large plastic bowl brimming with popcorn. She’d promised the twins that she’d be back after their dinner to read to them. Jennifer had asked for
Heidi
, Marge’s all-time favorite, and Jessica wanted to read the next installment of the The Bobbsey Twins. Those two didn’t know how good they had it.

As she passed the door leading to the outside, she looked to make sure that both the bolt and the chain locks were secure, and at the bottom of the steps, she unlocked the door to the basement with the key around her neck.

First, she blinked, then dropped the bowl of popcorn, when she opened the door. Strewn about were scraps of paper. Parts of board games, doll clothes, their clothing. What had they been thinking? Were they trying to play a trick on her? This was
not
funny.

“What have you two done?” Marge stared at the mess, her face turning shades of red. “You’ve trashed the place.”

Before they could answer, she swooped inside. The girls sat on folding chairs at the twisted cardboard table, their faces sassy and fresh.

Marge lunged at them, unable to control the anger bubbling up inside. Such defiance could not be tolerated. Jessica swung out of the way, but Marge’s slap connected with the side of Jennifer’s face.

“Stop it,” Jessica shouted. “You hit her!”

Marge reached out to grab Jessica, but Jennifer pulled on her arm, and Marge stepped backward.

“You’re going to pay for this,” she warned. “Now get the broom and clean up this mess. Forget me reading to you tonight.”

Jennifer moved to get the broom, but Jessica stared at her with a sullen look. Before she unlocked and relocked the room, Marge lifted Jessica up by her hair and smacked her hard across the face.

“Double trouble,” she mumbled on the way out.

Dr. Susan Reynolds and Lucy Jones were about to leave for the evening, hoping that Katie and Scott could get some sleep in the cots adjacent to Jackie’s bed.

Since Streeter had shown them the police artist’s sketch, they’d searched their memories again and again. The FBI had e-mailed the sketch to everyone in their professional and personal universe, but got no plausible match. The Tampa field office had promptly checked out the two new leads Agent Rusk got from his visit to Roberta and the Cutty boys. Camry had passed on the results: nothing.”

“Waste of time,” Rusk told Streeter from Tampa. “Babcock, the Cutty cleaning woman. Nice lady. Thinks Cutty was a pompous jerk, but she knows nothing about Katie Monroe or her family. The late Mrs. Cutty hired her just weeks before she died so she doesn’t have much family history to draw on. She said the boys were sweet, but holy terrors around the house.”

“What about the Cutty sexual abuse thing?” Streeter had asked.

“No inkling, or so she claimed,” Rusk said. “Soon as Kaninsky moved in, Cutty fired her and hired a cleaning service. As you know, we’ve already checked them out. Before you ask, yes, the Babcock woman has an airtight alibi.”

“What about the kid’s teacher?”

“Vera Patches. The woman’s never been north of the Florida state line. She’s clueless about the Cutty domestic scene, but quite concerned about the boys.”

“So if Cutty arranged to take Katie Monroe’s kids, he went to his grave without disclosing where he put them.”

“Shit, Streeter those little girls are probably dead. You know the odds. Going on five days without a trace?”

“They get in a car five miles from Grandma’s with a white woman who looks like anybody’s aunt or neighbor, and they disappear without a trace. God, let the statistics here
not
hold true.”

“You’re sure you’ll be okay,” Susan asked before leaving Katie that evening. “I am optimistic that Jackie will recover, but when I cannot say.”

“I’ll be okay, and thank you, Susan. We appreciate you driving Mom home.”

On her way out the door, Lucy studied the sketch one more time. “No, I surely don’t recognize her,” she said. You
sure
that nobody in your family knows her, Scott?”

Scott shrugged. “The FBI has shown her face to all of them, even Dad at the Mayo Clinic.”

“How’s your dad doing?” Lucy asked. “With what’s happened here, I’ve neglected to ask.”

“The heart valve replacement went well, but he can’t travel. Bobby was going to fly here from Rome, but I asked if he’d go to Minnesota to be with Dad. You know how close Dad has always been to the girls. What’s happened can’t be good for his recovery.”

Lucy nodded. Scott and Katie had been one of those lucky couples whose families got along well. Lucy had a particular fondness for Bobby, Scott’s brother the priest, stationed in Rome.

When the psychiatrist and her mother left, Katie placed a kiss on Jackie’s forehead. “She hasn’t moved,” Katie whispered, adjusting the angle of the plastic bag of fluid hanging from a pole. For a while, Katie sat next to Scott, caressing his hand, as they both spoke in soft, soothing voices to their little girl. Jackie lay on her back against snow-white sheets, her head propped by a thin pillow. Her dark hair was brushed back, tucked behind her ears. Her skin looked lighter than usual and her eyes remained closed and her chest rose and fell rhythmically. They told her how much they loved her, how much they just wanted to see her beautiful smile.

Lucy had brought sweatsuits for Katie and Scott to sleep in. When
they’d both changed, Scott kissed Katie gently on the cheek, said good night, and pulled the covers over his face. From beneath the covers, she could hear him sobbing. Falling apart would not help Jackie, but Katie could not stop her own leaking tears. Occasionally, she blew her nose quietly into a Kleenex as did Scott. What else could they do?

Katie knew that she needed sleep, that she was physically and emotionally drained, but when she closed her eyes, the horrors of what might be happening to her daughters burned her retina. And if she did close her eyes, she would miss Jackie, should she awaken.

When she thought that Scott had drifted off to sleep, Katie climbed out of bed, knelt, and prayed. She prayed that she and Scott would be strong no matter what happened. She prayed for Sammie and Alex, and she prayed that Jackie would emerge from this catatonia. Conversion disorder was a psychological diagnosis, made when there was no physical disorder but great psychological stress. She knew that it used to be called “hysterical paralysis” and that it was rare in kids younger than ten. What happened was that anxiety was converted to physical symptoms. There was no cure other than suggestive, supportive, psychosocial therapy, and sometimes hypnosis. All she could do was to keep Jackie surrounded by love and calm.

But in doing so, Katie felt as if she were caught in a trap, locked up in the hospital. But she didn’t dare leave Jackie. Over and over, her mind cycled: who had taken her other two daughters? And why? Three distinct faces kept flashing from one to the other: Maxwell Cutty, Norman Watkins, Keith Franklin, plus a phantom face of whoever had sent that ransom demand. What if the kidnapper was Cutty, and he had been the only person on earth who knew the location of her daughters? Sammie and Alex could starve to death or die of thirst before anyone found them.

Katie crawled back into bed and tried to get the faces to stop flashing, and sometime in the middle of the night, she fell into a restless sleep.

Monroe Kidnapping: Going into Fifth Day. Experts On Odds of Finding Sammie and Alex.
—
Friday Morning News, June 19

Streeter arose Friday morning after a decent night’s sleep, the first in five nights. Not taking time to fix himself breakfast, he headed to his office. He lived in one of those renovated buildings along the Detroit river, an apartment that his daughters called “luxury.” While it had all the modern amenities, there were only two bedrooms. He slept in the guest bedroom, leaving the large master suite for his daughters. That way they’d have a big closet and plenty of room for three twin beds. As he prepared to leave that morning, he picked up the eight-by-ten photo of his own daughters.
Where are you, Alex? Where are you Sammie?

Streeter knew so much about the missing Monroe triplets that it was hard to believe that he’d never met two of them. Only Jackie. How tragic what was happening to that little girl. Survivor guilt? She was safe, but her sisters were — what would be going on inside Jackie’s mind? He stared at Kloe, his eldest. Thin, like Jackie, about her height, dark eyes, dark hair but shorter. Kloe was so tan that her skin color almost matched Jackie’s. What would Kloe feel if anything happened to her two sisters? How could anyone ever know what was going on in a kid’s mind? If someone could, wouldn’t it be Dr. Katie Monroe? He put down the photo, counting the hours since the abduction: one hundred twelve.

Camry, her short brown hair gleaming, her plum linen pantsuit meticulously pressed, was waiting for Streeter in his office. With a
twinkle in her eye, she announced, “Guess who showed up this morning?”

Streeter’s first reaction was anger. Could they have found Sammie and Alex and not called him?
Impossible
.

“Adam Kaninsky arrived fifteen minutes ago,” Camry said. “We held him for you. But I’ve got bad news, too. Norman Watkins died last night.”

“Shit.” Streeter sunk back against the wall and set down his briefcase. “Did he ever say anything?”

“No,” Camry said. “Not a word. And his wife is raising hell with the press. Wrongful death shit.”

“Cutty dead. Watkins dead. Let’s hope that Kaninsky has something for us. Let’s go.” Then Streeter hesitated.

“You okay, Tony?”

“Be better if I had some coffee.”

“I’ve got that and something else you’ll like. Follow me.”

She led him into her office on their way to the Kaninsky interview. She pushed the button on her single-cup coffee maker and reached into a plastic container. “Orange walnut muffins. My neighbor made them early this morning. She felt sorry for me, knows how tough the Monroe case is on us.”

Streeter inhaled the fresh-baked aroma and picked one. “Only good thing about all this is I’ve lost a few pounds.”

Adam Kaninsky took the chair opposite Streeter and Camry. Streeter had seen his photo, but in person Kaninsky looked like a model for J. Crew in a cranberry golf shirt and slacks on the tight side. The guy was trim but plenty buff. Blond hair right out of a salon, blue eyes with expensive dark glasses perched casually on his head. What did this twenty-year-old kid know about the Monroe girls and why had he shown up voluntarily?

Streeter planned to cut to the chase, but was preempted.

“Look,” Kaninsky said. “I’ve been out of the country. I didn’t even know you were looking for me until I got here this morning. I decided to come talk to you. Okay? Not the other way around.”

“Okay,” Streeter said, forcing back a blink, not expecting this proactive stance.

“I’m going to come right out and say what’s on my mind.” Kaninsky did not flinch. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I have nothing to hide.”

“Okay,” Streeter wondered whether he ought to read this kid his rights.

“We’re taping this. That a problem?”

“No problem.” Streeter judged Kaninsky to be on the up-and-up, but could he trust his instincts? So far they hadn’t contributed shit in this case.

“Okay, Adam,” Streeter said. “You’ve got our attention.”

Kaninsky began, “You know that I am gay. At least I think I am. I’ve been having sex with men for money since I was ten.”

Camry actually gasped.

“Starting with my older brother. I was only a kid.”

“How old?” Camry asked.

Ellen Camry’s background was psychology, but Streeter didn’t want to waste time exploring Kaninsky’s psyche. He shot her a “don’t interrupt” look, and she blushed ever so slightly.

“Three, four, I don’t know. Brad, he was ten years older. Maybe someone was doing him, too. I don’t know. All I know was that he started on me right after my dad left us. There was me, my mom, and Brad. Of course, Brad threatened me not to tell — all the usual stuff.”

“Let’s get to the point. What do you know about the missing Monroe girls?” Streeter’s pulse quickened. Kaninsky could be the key to their whereabouts. Why else would he show up here?

“Nothing, man. Just that I heard the news when I was in Nevis. That’s where I was. That’s where Maxwell sent me.”

Question marks appeared on the agents’ faces.

“I’ll explain,” Adam said. “When I was maybe nine, my brother hurt me pretty bad. I wore light-colored pants to school the next day and my teacher saw the blood stain. She took me to the principal. You know the drill. Child protective services. Physical exam. Psychological therapy. That’s where I met Dr. Katie. I got to know her and came to trust her. She made me understand that it wasn’t my fault. Convinced my mom to get help for my brother. Bastard finally ended up in jail. He couldn’t stop. Nobody should get away with doing that to kids.”

“Tell us about Maxwell Cutty and Dr. Monroe and her children,” Streeter repeated.

“First, I just want to say that I think that Maxwell murdered his wife, Olivia.”

Streeter was losing patience. The dead bastard would never be prosecuted for that, no matter how horrendous that charge.
Tell me where Cutty hid the Monroe children.

“Look,” Streeter said. “That accusation is serious, but it’s a matter for the Tampa Police to investigate. What we have to focus on now is finding Alex and Sammie Monroe. Do you know where they are? Because if you do —”