Finding Claire Fletcher (22 page)

Mitch frowned. “Okay,” he said. “So the guy wasn’t using his real name which means he’s probably got priors. Anything?”

Connor shook his head. “No. I checked the whole state for the last thirty years looking for priors on everything from forcible rape to indecent exposure for guys who would have been in his age range. I got nothing. But I did find this.”

He handed Mitch a final sheet of paper. “This guy died in 1992. His name was Rod Page, he was thirty-three. Car accident.”

“You think our guy was cruising the obits?”

“Claire’s abductor? Probably. He may have had priors in other states or maybe just arrest records under his real name or other assumed names. He might have moved here about ’92, looking for a new identity. I’m betting the real Rod Page died in ’92, and Claire’s abductor took over his identity.”

“If Claire’s abductor took over Rod Page’s identity, then he might have tried to get a driver’s license with it,” Mitch said, eyes widening with excitement.

Connor shook his head and grimaced, extinguishing the flicker of excitement in the older man’s eyes. “I already checked. Claire’s abductor never renewed the driver’s license in Page’s name so I couldn’t get a photo. The DMV sent out a renewal form to a post office box registered in the city, but he never got the photo taken. But he did file taxes as Rod Page from the post office box until 1994.”

“So we can find out where he worked,” Mitch said.

“Yeah. It might take a couple of days to find out and interview the employers, but we’re not dead in the water yet.”

Mitch studied the sheets of paper Connor had given him. He pursed his lips, then spoke. “This guy has got to have priors,” he said. “Why else do you go looking for a new identity? I mean he moved in with Irene Geary in 1994, so he probably wasn’t planning on abducting anyone at that time.”

“He already had a twelve-year-old girl right there at home,” Connor agreed.

“Did you check the violent crime database?” Mitch asked.

Connor nodded. “VICAP? Yeah, but I haven’t got any results back. But what about you? Find anything on missing persons?”

Mitch slid two sheets of paper across the table. “Okay, in the last ten years, there have been seven girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen.” He tapped a finger midway down the list. “Now, two of them were thirteen, but they’re listed as custodial interference and the parent who took them is listed along with them. One was twelve and one fifteen, but those two are custodial interference as well.

“These two,” Mitch continued, tapping a finger at the bottom of the list. “Sixteen and seventeen, are listed as probable runaways. Both had a history of running away, drug use, trips to juvenile court, and dropping out of school—what you usually see with runaways. This last one.” Mitch indicated the first name on the list. “Seventeen-year-old Miranda Simon disappeared eighteen months after Claire was abducted. She drove to cheerleading practice, worked out with her team, stayed after to talk to her coach, walked back to her car, and was never seen again. She lived about twenty miles northwest of the city.”

“Seventeen,” Connor said. “That’s a little old for our guy, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I was thinking that too, but I don’t think we should rule it out.”

“All right,” Connor said. “What’s that?” He pointed to the last sheet of paper lying in front of Mitch.

“Oh yeah.” Mitch slid the paper over to him. “This wasn’t in my search parameter, but I think it’s relevant. It’s been all over the news the last month.”

“The Ward girl?” Connor asked.

“Yeah, Alison Ward. Eleven years old. Went missing a month ago. Walking home from school. Never made it. No one saw or heard anything.”

Connor studied the photo. It was a school picture. In it, Alison Ward showed off a toothy grin. Her long, shiny brown hair was partially pulled back, her thin arms resting in front of her in an artificial pose.

“Where was this?” Connor asked.

“It was over in Rancho Cordova,” Mitch said, referring to a nearby city in Sacramento Valley. “I’m sure your department was contacted on this one.”

“Yeah,” Connor said, still looking at Alison Ward’s photo. “We were. I know a couple of guys who went down there and helped search. I didn’t go because I’ve been swamped with cases, although I might have all the time in the world after tomorrow.”

“What time is the review board?” Mitch asked.

“I have to be there at noon,” Connor said. He flashed the missing persons flier at Mitch. “You think this could be our guy?”

“I don’t know,” Mitch said. “Anything is possible. I wouldn’t rule it out. But we’re working on a theory here.”

“That the guy who took Claire lived nearby.”

“Yeah, which led us to Rod Page, who fits in a lot of ways—the description is similar, he had access to a similar car, he was a pedophile, and now it looks like he was using an alias. All very suspicious, but if the theory is wrong, we’re way off track.”

Connor nodded. He knew that in the same way a case could be solved by looking into the smallest detail, it could also be hindered when an investigation focused on the wrong detail for too long and went on from there. He looked at Mitch. “I think we have it right though,” he said.

“Yeah,” Mitch said. “Me, too. We still have a lot of work to do. We’ll see what VICAP turns up. In the meantime, assuming that Claire’s abductor was using the Rod Page identity, we can try to get his tax records from ’93 and ’94 and see where he worked. Then we can go down there and start asking questions.”

Connor nodded. “You still have a call out on those phone records?” he asked.

“Yeah. It’s gonna take a few days though.”

They sat silently for a few minutes. Connor felt exhausted even though it wasn’t quite evening yet. He also felt disappointed. He’d known the odds of actually finding and catching Claire’s abductor that night hadn’t been great but in a way, he really wished they had. He’d have to go home to his empty house again, worrying about an intruder or a fire, spend an hour looking at the phone, wishing Claire would call, and try not to think about the review board. It wasn’t a night he was looking forward to.

“Wanna get something to eat?” Mitch asked. “My treat.”

Connor smiled. “Sure,” he said. “My last meal.”

Farrell waved a finger at him, brow furrowed. “Don’t joke about that, son,” he said.

Connor rolled his eyes. “I meant my last meal as a detective.”

“Oh. Well, don’t joke about that either. You’ll do fine.”

Tiffany put on weight in the months after her arrival. By the time the chocolate incident was over, her arms were thick and pudgy, and small doughy rolls of stomach announced themselves beneath her too-small shirts. I sat in a chair across from her permanent station on the couch. She did not look at me. We sat in silence for a long time, the television babbling endlessly at a lowered volume as the sunshine waned outside.

I saw only her profile, which looked morose and slightly bored. She sighed loudly and flipped through the channels, finally returning to the one she’d been watching in the first place.

“Where do you think he is?” she said abruptly, not turning to look at me.

“What?” I said.

“Where do you think he goes when he leaves?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “Well, he has to go somewhere,” she said.

“He’s probably out raping young girls,” I said.

Now she looked at me. “What?”

I looked straight into her eyes. “He’s a pedophile, Tiffany.”

“A what? What’s that?”

“A sicko, a pervert, a child molester. He likes little girls.”

She crossed her arms in front of her. “That’s stupid,” she said. “You’re lying.”

“No. It’s true. Why do you think he brought you here?”

“He loves me. That’s why. He told me so.”

I laughed, short and hard. “He loves any girl under fifteen. The only thing he loves about you is that you let him do things to you. He should be in prison.”

She snorted. “You’re just jealous because he doesn’t want you anymore.”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked. “I’m too old for him now. That’s why you’re here. He needs a little girl to satisfy his sick sexual fantasies.”

She glowered at me. “I’m not a little girl,” she said.

“Why did you leave home?” I asked. I expected her to tell me it was none of my business, which was her usual response to any questions I asked that were personal in nature.

Instead, she responded, “It was easier on the street. I got to do whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to take care of anyone’s babies and I didn’t have to get beat up every day.”

“Who beat you up?”

“My mom. She was a real bitch. Real stupid too. She just kept getting pregnant, and men would always leave her because she was so stupid. So I had to take care of all those stupid babies all the time while she watched TV all day.”

Sitting in front of the television with boxes of candy piled up around her, Tiffany did not see the parallel.

“What about your dad?” I said.

“I don’t even know who my dad is,” she said. “Like I said, she could never keep a man around. She used to keep me home from school a lot to take care of her dumb kids. I hated them. I think she used to be nice to me before she had them.”

She told her story carelessly, as if it had happened to someone else. Her mother had gotten in trouble with child services after sending Tiffany grocery shopping alone at seven years old. Tiffany had lived in a foster home for a while before being placed back with her mother. Her mother started going to church and taking better care of Tiffany and her siblings, but by that time Tiffany had no patience for all of her mother's new rules.

“So you just left?” I asked.

“Yeah, well there was this other girl I knew at school who was running away. She was like thirteen and still in the same grade as me cause she kept getting held back. She said she had some boyfriend in the city, and she was gonna go live with him. She said I could come with her so I did. But that guy lived in a fucking car. He did all kinds of drugs, and when we got there, it turned out he just wanted us to hook so he could make money to buy drugs. After a while I left. I figured if I was doing all the work, I should get to keep the money. So I found some other people to hang out with and went with them.”

“Where did you live?”

“Oh you know, we didn’t really live anywhere. All we had to do was find a place to sleep where the cops wouldn’t bother us.”

It was the most she had ever said to me without spewing insults. Her entire existence was alien to me. I had grown up with a loving family. I had never once dreamt of running away.

“What about you?” she asked. “You’re here.”

“He kidnapped me,” I said.

She laughed. “Yeah, right,” she said.

“He did. He kidnapped me and kept me tied up. He raped me.” It was the first time I had spoken the words. Said them aloud to another person. I felt suddenly vulnerable, as if all the nerves in my body were exposed. I felt skinless.

“I was raped once,” Tiffany said. Her cavalier tone scraped against my raw, armorless nerves.

“I had a family,” I said. “I loved them.”

“So why didn’t you just leave?” she asked.

“I tried. He caught me every time.”

“So go home now,” she said, her face scrunching up, her tone annoyed as if she were tired of this discussion. “You’re not tied up.”

“I can’t,” I said.

She looked at me. Her eyes narrowed as the bud of an idea bloomed in her head. “You can leave. You just don’t want to. You like it. You’re just mad because he loves me now.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

“Yes it is. You’re just jealous. That’s why you said all that stuff about him being a pervert. So I wouldn’t love him anymore and I would go away. Then you could have him all to yourself. Well, forget it. You’ll never have him. He’s mine now. You just watch. I’ll make him get rid of you.” Her smile was a scowl as this latest scheme took root in her mind.

“Be my guest,” I said, although I did not want to go home again.

I couldn’t. How could I tell my family what he had done to me? How could I tell them about the dead bodies in the backyard? Then there would be police. They would want to know what he had done to me. They would make me tell it all over and over again. They would make me talk about watching Sarah die. They would want to know why I had done nothing as he choked her with his belt. I had broken from my bindings before to escape, but I had not been able to do it the night of her death. They would blame me. They would blame me for all of it—the rapes, the torture, Sarah, and Rudy.

I dreamed of being free but not of going home. I was not the Claire Fletcher who had left for school that day, head full of boys and a science test, of the weekend and my mother taking Brianna and I to the mall. There were living nightmares in my head, and I could not share them with my family.

That night at dinner, despite my misgivings about going home, Tiffany cracked my death-infested eyes open to the last bastion of my strength and this I held onto for a very long time.