And Then There Was One (3 page)

“Where could they be?” Katie said through tears. “I just keep asking myself. Over and over, where could they be? They’d never go off with a stranger. After all we’ve taught them? But then how? Did someone force them? Just take them? The head security man found a lady who thinks she saw them near the fountain by the movie theater, but she got distracted by her own kids and didn’t see where they went. She didn’t see them leave the mall. Other than that one lady, the police haven’t been able to find any witnesses, so maybe they’re okay.”

“Babe, where is Jackie?” For the first time Scott glanced around the room. “Is she okay?”

“Yes, I mean,
no
. Mom took her to the restroom. Scott, she blames herself. She and Sammie got into an argument about which movie they wanted to see. So Danielle let them split up. Danielle and Jackie. Sammie and Alex.”

“What about Danielle?” Scott asked in a near whisper.

“She’s distraught, blaming herself. Everybody’s blaming themselves, including me, for going off to that lunch. Letting this happen.”

Scott tipped Katie’s chin up so he could look into her eyes. “Katie, promise me, no blames. We can’t blame anybody, including ourselves. Hell, I ought to have come with you to Detroit.” With a handkerchief, he wiped fresh tears off her cheek.

“Dr. Monroe. Mr. Monroe, I’m glad you got here so soon.” A man with an authoritative voice appeared at the door.

Still holding Katie close, Scott turned.

“Special Agent Streeter, Tony Streeter, FBI.” A man of Scott’s height and build and age stuck out his hand. Streeter wore the predictable dark navy suit, a starched white shirt with a maroon striped tie, and smartly polished shoes. The ramrod straight stride, no nonsense crew cut hair, and a steel glint in his blue eyes projected an aura of competence that Scott found reassuring.

Scott reached to shake Streeter’s hand.

“Sorry to meet under these circumstances, sir,” his tone urgent, but polite. “I’m the agent charged with finding your children. Let me be up front. We suspect they’ve been kidnapped.”

Scott felt Katie sag at his side. He tightened his hold, waiting for Streeter to continue, wanting to hear more, but aching to see Jackie. To see for himself that she was okay.

“Time is of the utmost importance. We need to go over every possible angle with you. We have Dr. Monroe’s statement.” A deferential nod to Katie. “But I want to review everything with both of you.”

“I understand, Agent Streeter,” Scott said, but my wife and I need a few moments with our daughter.

“Understood,” said Streeter. “But quickly, please.”

The mall manager had secured a secluded conference room for Lucy, Danielle, and Jackie. He’d sent in sandwiches wrapped in plastic, a variety of chips, and soft drinks. As Scott and Katie stepped inside, they all rose, one by one, and exchanged silent hugs. All except Danielle, who hung back. When Scott went to her, the sobs she tried to muffle poured out, “Uncle Scott, I’m so sorry. If only I hadn’t left them.”

“None of that, Danielle.” Scott gathered her in his arms. “No blame, promise me?”

Danielle nodded, but didn’t stop crying. Then Scott felt a tug on the pocket of his pants.

“Dad, you have to find Alex and Sam. Mom’s really scared and so am I.”

Scott bent down to pick up Jackie as if she were a toddler. She looked so fragile in her butterfly outfit, trimmed in blue. So alone without her sisters. His girls were always together. Had never spent a night without each other. Although he and Katie kept promising to let each of them, independently, spend a night with a friend, so far they hadn’t. Much to Jackie’s chagrin, she, ever the agitator for more independence.

“Everything will be okay, Jackie,” Scott promised, praying that he was right. “I am so glad to see you, honey. I was worried about you, too.”

“When Danielle and I came out of the movie, they never showed up. The policemen and a nice policelady asked me questions, and I told them the truth. Even though I had to say some things about Sammie — like how she’s naughty a lot.”

“Jackie, you were so helpful,” Katie said, leaning heavily into Scott as he held Jackie in his arms.

“Honey, the FBI have to talk to Mom and me,” said Scott, “so you can go home with Grandma. Okay?”

“Scott,” Katie said, turning her face to his, “I think that Jackie should stay with us. For now, until we know more.”

“I know everything about Sammie and Alex,” Jackie said. “I want to stay here, with you.”

“Tell you what,” Scott said, setting Jackie down. “If the police have a question, they can call you at Grandma’s.”

“Okay,” Jackie said, “but you and Mom just gotta find them. They must be so scared. Especially Alex.”

“You say your prayers,” Scott said, kissing Jackie on the top of her head as Lucy stepped forward to take her hand.

Katie took Jackie’s other hand, gently tugging the child toward her. “She wants to stay with us, and I think it’s best.”

Lucy released her granddaughter’s hand with a sad shake of her head. Scott knew his mother-in-law well. She did not approve, but she was not going to interfere.

On his way to Detroit, alone in the cabin of the chartered plane, Scott had racked his brain. Why would two of his daughters go off on their own? They were sensible nine year olds. He and Katie had always kidded about Sam’s wild streak, but compared to other girls her age, Sam was well behaved and trustworthy. And Alex? Alex personified the obedient and loving child. He and Katie sometimes worried that she was too compliant.

Scott could not even contemplate a life without their three daughters. He and Katie had both been thirty-eight years old and married thirteen years before their daughters were born. He, a professional baseball player, a catcher for the Yankees, until a catastrophic collision at home plate and two cracked vertebrae in his neck ended his career. He’d been twenty-nine years old and devastated. He’d dedicated his whole life to baseball. But in the end, that fanaticism and his popularity with the players landed him a job with the Yankees as manager of spring training operations at George M. Steinbrenner, formerly Legends Field, in Tampa. Over the years, his popularity had not waned as he’d become a sports media personality. When baseball commentary was required, Scott Monroe was the favorite go-to expert. The
reason he was in the Bronx today was to moderate the ESPN pregame show for the much touted subway series between the Yankees and the Mets.

But much more important than baseball to Scott had always been Katie. He’d met her during her medical school surgical rotation when she’d diagnosed his hernia. She’d just ended a long-term relationship, and after their first date, a Detroit Tigers baseball game, he’d known that she was the woman for him. Neither had a problem with the concept of an interracial marriage, and they married a year later. Now, Katie was a forensic pediatric psychiatrist in Tampa. They lived on Davis Island in Tampa and, to their eternally incredulous delight, were parents of nine-year-old triplets. Even more incredulous, the triplets were identical. Identical triplets, conceived without the aid of fertility treatments; the chances of that, an astounding one in two hundred million pregnancies.

Wherever they went, the girls attracted attention. “Are they triplets?” “Are they identical?” “Do multiples run in the family?” “Did you have fertility treatments?” and on and on until Katie and Scott would just laugh and say, “Yes, yes, no, no.”

Neither Scott nor Katie minded these questions, but they’d always been wary that their daughters attracted attention in another sense, too. Scott, of European descent was six foot two, muscular, with light, freckled skin, hazel eyes, crew cut brown hair, and a brilliant toothy smile. Katie, an African American, was trim at five foot five, with shoulder-length black hair, creamy dark brown skin, brown eyes, and a gleaming smile. They realized that they were a handsome, but unusual, couple and they’d adopted a nonplussed attitude as they accepted as inevitable the omniscient stares and double takes when they were out and about with their three identical little girls whose skin tones exactly blended Scott and Katie’s. But as complacent as Katie was about attracting attention, she was adamant about not letting the girls out of her sight. She’d seen enough atrocities to convince her that evil can lurk beneath a thin veneer of assumed innocence.

Agent Streeter was waiting for the Monroe parents in a small office off the mall manager’s suite. Head bowed, he massaged his temples, trying to dispel the irrational. Two nine-year-old girls were missing. How
would he react if they were his? How could he comfort Marianne? Or were the missing girls’ parents somehow involved? Too many times things were not as they seemed. Too many times with missing children the parents had been implicated. He tried to recollect details of the Madeleine McCann case, the four-year-old British girl who had gone missing while vacationing in Portugal several years ago. Her parents had been considered suspects, of that he was quite sure. He even recalled the Portuguese term, they’d had
arguido
status.

A knock at the door and Streeter jumped up, smoothing his wiry crew cut, straightening the maroon striped tie, not bothering to button the suit jacket. He was facing two choices. Step up his fitness program or move up to size forty. He acknowledged the Monroes politely, noting that Scott still had that athletic build, lean and buff, the look he used to have back when Streeter and Marianne were still together. Back before a steady diet of junk food.

As the Monroes gathered at the conference table, Streeter hesitated a moment to see what they’d do with Jackie. Dr. Monroe proceeded to settle the child on her lap. Scott Monroe pulled his chair close to them, and Jackie reached out to pat him on his arm, a tender, natural gesture. Could these parents be behind the abduction? Had they for some perverse reason wanted to eliminate two of their three kids? For a long moment he just observed, all his senses tuned to the Monroe parents. All he could feel was their profound distress and Jackie’s total trust. His impression: these parents were not faking. How could the confusion and grief etched on their twisted, tearstained faces not be genuine?

He needed to get started despite his discomfort with exposing the child to uncomfortable questions. Streeter began his interrogation gingerly, then moved to rapid fire: Who would want to do this? How much were the Monroes worth? Answer: comfortable, but not wealthy enough to make them a ransom target. Any enemies? No. What about professional motives? Anything to do with baseball rivalries? No, everybody loved and respected Scott Monroe. How about Katie? Her pediatric psychiatry practice? Testimony in child abuse cases — physical as well as sexual — sending perpetrators to jail, removing children from abusive parents? Sex offenders exposed? How many vengeful adversaries had she accumulated? Plenty.

But nothing in Michigan, Katie insisted as she kept twisting her daughter’s hair in and out of a braid. All that was in Florida, and much of it before a five-year hiatus between the birth of the triplets and when they’d started kindergarten four years ago. Wasn’t it too much of a stretch to think that a child abuser or sexual pervert would track her to Detroit to abduct her children?

Streeter wondered. The evil he’d seen in human beings defied logic and exceeded the worst horrors that most people could not even dream. Except for Katie Monroe, she’d seen that kind of evil. He could imagine the desperate scenarios that must be playing in her mind.

Streeter’s first impression of Katie had been admiration. A woman with the guts to go up against the scumbags of the world in order to protect little children. Tough, raising a family and holding down such an emotionally demanding job. She was different from his ex-wife, Marianne, who seemed exhausted just taking care of their kids.

To him it seemed cruel to keep hammering Katie with questions, but he had to be relentless if he was to find her daughters. After two solid hours, a faraway look crept into Katie’s eyes and Streeter realized that he’d hit the point of diminishing returns.

“Let’s take a break,” he suggested.

As Streeter headed for Plummer’s inner office, he knew he’d need to uncover the worst of the child abusers that Katie had helped put away. He’d have the Tampa field office pull court records to generate leads. But his interrogation did identify one glaring person of interest. Dr. Monroe was scheduled to testify in a child sexual abuse case the following week. Guy by the name of Maxwell Cutty.

Streeter picked up Plummer’s phone and called the Tampa field office. He spoke to the special agent in charge and asked that Dr. Katie Monroe’s cases, whatever was in the public domain, be pulled with immediate attention on Cutty. He asked for subpoenas to access whatever was sealed. It would be a long night in Detroit and in Tampa, too.

Could the abduction of the Monroe kids be racially motivated? Streeter wondered. The Monroes were a mixed-race couple. Could there be a maniac bigot out there who would do the unthinkable? Detroit was a fanatical place and Streeter knew his history; riots in 1943
and in 1967. The city never had recovered from them, and now with the collapse of the auto industry who could predict what might erupt? Hate crimes were on the rise. He searched his memory for details of the bureau’s recent briefing on white supremacy organizations and grimaced. The National Socialist Movement (NSM), one of the country’s largest neo-Nazi groups, was based right there in Detroit.

Two Tampa Children Missing in Detroit Suburb.
— Tampa Morning News
, Monday, June 15

Maxwell Cutty tossed and turned, the silk sheets cool against his skin. He hated sleeping alone and craved the warmth of a young body, male or female, either would do. He hit the muted light on his night stand and reached into the drawer for his bottle of Ambien. He shook out two tablets and gulped them down with the bottled water he kept by his bedside. No wonder he had trouble sleeping. His life had spun out of control. First Olivia, his wife, had screwed him over big time when she found out that he was gay, or bisexual, as he’d tried to explain. They could have lived together in the house with their sons. They could have remained partners in the business they had built together. But no, Olivia had freaked. Kicked him out of his own house — at least temporarily. Damn near bankrupted him, demanding her share of the business. Then that bullshit about the boys — way over the edge even for that vindictive bitch. Oh yes, Olivia deserved what she got.