Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838) (21 page)

For two restless days and nights, Connie's visit plagued Kit. Images swarmed her like wasps every time she dropped her guard. She saw her father, sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. She saw the empty space in the garage where her mother's car used to be. And she saw the day she came home from school, second-grade papers in hand, to find her older brother eating cereal at the kitchen table.

Where's Mom?
she had asked.

She's gone
.

Where?

I dunno. Just gone. Gone for good
. Justin got up and threw his cereal milk down the drain.
Go look in her room
.

Kit raced up the stairs. She stood staring at her mother's empty closet, the papers in her hand fluttering to the floor. Then she burst into tears.

Shut up!
Justin said as she came back into the kitchen.
Don't cry! Dad will be home when he gets out of court. Now shut up. Only girls cry
.

Only girls cry. Thinking about those days left Kit feeling like a little kid. Why? Why now? She'd dealt with the reality of her mother's abandonment for years. Why were these feelings still so potent?

It's true: she'd never really talked out what happened, and the way she felt, with the men in her life. Not her father. Or her brother. They all just soldiered on. And when was the last time she'd had a heart-to-heart talk with a female friend? In college? With her roommates? Before her marriage?

She lived in a man's world. Her father. Her brother. Her husband. The men at work. It felt natural to her, but just now, talking to Connie, she realized she'd left her heart behind somewhere. Misplaced it. And she wondered if she'd ever get it back.

Several nights later, Kit's cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. Her heart jumped. Oh, God, she thought, please help me stay strong. Bracing herself, she resolutely pushed the button.

“Kit,” David said. His voice sounded tense.

What was wrong? “Where have you been?”

“I'll tell you about that later. I need your help.”

“What now, David? What now? I told you . . .”

“Look,” he said, taking a deep breath, “this is not about you. Or me. Honest.”

She didn't respond.

“Can you come over here?”

“Why?” she could hear the resistance in her own voice.

“Kit, listen to this.”

Another voice came on the phone. “Miss McGovern? Alice Pendleton here.”

The famous photographer?

“We need you ASAP.”

H
OW LONG HAD
D
AVID BEEN BACK ON
C
HINCOTEAGUE
? W
HERE HAD
he been? What did he want? Why was Alice Pendleton at his house? Kit alternately chastised herself for her rudeness and prayed on the eight-minute drive to David's. What in the world did he want?

An old, battered Ford sedan sat in the driveway. Kit pulled up beside it, jogged to the front porch, and mounted the steps.

“Evenin',” a man's voice said, startling her. An elderly man with a bald head and a big potbelly sat in the wicker rocker on the dark front porch.

“Hi,” Kit said, cautiously. “Is David inside?”

“Yep. Alone with my wife.”

Just then, David came to the door, and Kit felt a rush of emotion. Her eyes were captured by his arm, held in a sling. “What happened?”

“The doc said to rest it.”

“What doc?”

“The guy who put me back together after I got shot. I went back to D.C. for a while.” David's eyes were searching her face like a rock climber searching for a handhold. She looked away
to break his gaze. “Come in,” he said, suddenly. “I'm sorry . . . I . . . uh . . .”

She stepped past him into the familiar room. She could feel his presence. The smell of his aftershave, the brush of his arm against hers, the look in his face all sent emotions surging inside her. She wanted to tell him about the cop. She wanted to tell him about farm and the man with the scar on his face. She wanted to tell him about Connie and her mother and all the stuff that churned inside her. She put her hand to her forehead to calm down.

“Go into the kitchen,” David said.

Kit threaded her way through the living room. A gray-haired woman sat at the kitchen table, photographs spread out before her.

“Kit, this is Alice Pendleton,” David said. There was a quiet tension in his voice, like a taut wire vibrating. “Ms. Pendleton, Kit McGovern.”

“Good evening, young lady.” Alice Pendleton had a mass of gray hair caught up in a bun and held in place with a tortoiseshell barrette. Her gray eyes were sharp but the wrinkles around their edges made her look kind. She wore khaki pants and a long-sleeved green L. L. Bean shirt with an egret pin on the collar.

“It's very nice to meet you, Mrs. Pendleton,” Kit said. “I've admired your work for a long time.”

“Nothing to it,” Alice responded, “long as you're willing to tromp through a marsh.”

David picked up a photo from the table and handed it to her. “Look at this,” he said.

In the photo, Kit saw a dock. On the tops of three pilings sat three seagulls, all looking the same direction. In the background, she could see what looked like the corner of a building and the edges of a parking lot. She looked at David, puzzled.

“Now check these out.” He handed her three more photographs. Each was a progressive enlargement of the background of the first shot, which grew fuzzier with each frame. “What do you see?”

“The edge of a building. A car or truck, three people . . . wait, what is this, David?” Kit looked up at him. “Is someone forcing the woman into that truck? Abducting her?”

“That's what I think.”

Kit's stomach tightened. She studied the pictures carefully, using light and angle to see every square inch, holding them close and then at arm's length.

“I never did see it the day I got those shots,” Mrs. Pendleton said. “I was just taking pictures, like I always do. But when I looked at them on my computer, I couldn't believe my eyes. So I thought, I'll have this nice young man look at them, since he's a police officer.”

“Where did you take them?” Kit asked.

“Behind that motel across the street. At their dock. I went out there to get the sunset. But I saw these seagulls and, well, something made me take that shot.”

Kit looked at David. “What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking that's Maria, the desk clerk. I know her. Well, I talked to her sometimes. I recognize the dress.”

Kit felt an odd twinge. Of course, he'd be attracted to other women. And they to him. She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to refocus. “When did you last see her?”

“The day before Mrs. Pendleton took those shots.”

“And when was that?”

“Thursday, three weeks ago,” David and the photographer said in unison.

“Look, Kit,” David said, running his hand through his hair, “here's what I want. Can you run those tags for me?” Kit looked
at the photographs again. Visible beside the building's edge was the front of a truck, and a partial license plate.

“It's a Ford Super Duty,” David said. “I can tell by the grill design. Not too many of those around, compared to the 150. So if we looked up the model and the vehicle color . . .”

“What are these numbers?” Kit became aware of a growing tension in her shoulders and her neck.

“Those last three digits? 5-3-9. That's what I'm seeing, anyway.”

A cold chill swept over Kit. “Could they be 5-8-9?”

David squinted at the photographic blow-up. “Well, yes, yes, I think so. Why?”

“Because if those are the numbers, I know that truck.” She glanced toward Mrs. Pendleton, then back to David. “It belongs to the company that owns the farm where the live oaks are.”

“The oaks? You got an identification?” David asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes.” Then, because she didn't want to reveal anything else, she said, “Mrs. Pendleton, may we keep these photos?”

“Of course!”

“Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.”

Mrs. Pendleton waved her hand. “Say no more, young lady. I'll be getting on out of here.” She rose. “My work is done.”

David rubbed his left arm, still in a sling, with his right hand. “What do we have?” he asked Kit, when the Pendletons had left.

We? Kit took a deep breath. “The forensic botanist identified the acorns in the boy's pockets as coming from the same tree as our sample D6.”

“Which one was that?”

“Do you remember the farm with the long lane, and the old house with all the windows broken out? The tomato fields were in front of the house, stretching out quite a ways.”

“Yeah. I remember.” David paced. “So who owns it?”

“C&R Enterprises. Same company that owns the truck.” She gestured toward the photo on the table.

“You want to go take a look? In the morning?”

“I've been there.”

“With who?”

“By myself.”

His frown conveyed his disapproval.

She told him about the farm, then asked, “What's Maria's last name?”

“I don't know.”

“All right. That's the first step: I need to check with the motel and get all the info on her I can.” She tossed her head. “Thanks, David. I'll take it from here.”

“No, I'll go to the motel.”

“No.”

“Yes.” He rubbed his arm. “Kit, I knew this girl. I spoke with her many times. I can't just pretend she's a stranger.” The tendons in his jaw were popping. “You have pictures of the farm?”

She nodded.

“I want to see them.”

Her resistance lasted two seconds. “OK. Go talk to the motel manager, then . . . then come to my place. I'll fill you in.”

Why did I invite him to my house, Kit wondered as she drove back to her place. She hit the steering wheel with her hand. “I hate this!” she said out loud, but a large part of her didn't hate it at all. A large part of her couldn't wait until he showed up.

“The guy's not right,” David said half an hour later when he walked into Kit's kitchen.

“What do you mean?”

“Jackson Montgomery. The motel manager. He's hiding something.”

“What?”

“Maybe he's part of the abduction. Maybe he was using her. Maybe he smokes dope. I don't know yet.”

“Did he give you the information?”

David held out a paper. “He said it was everything he had on her.”

Kit took it and read Maria's name, “Maria Allessandro,” her Social Security number, address of record, and a phone number.

“I tried the phone number on the way over here. It's not in service. You look up the social and I'll bet you find the same thing.”

Indeed, the Social Security number traced back to one Maria Allessandro of Philadelphia, an 85-year-old widow. “False identity,” Kit confirmed to David when she hung up the phone. “The ‘home address' is an abandoned warehouse in Salisbury.”