Final Approach (2 page)

Chapter Three

Our flight was full, and the cabin too warm. We’d barely received the safety spiel and located the nearest exits when Richard set his briefcase on his lap, popped its locks, and pulled out a folder.

“Eric Lyons is my clients’ son,” he said without looking at me. “He and his wife divorced after Christmas.”

So much for small talk, I thought.

“They shared custody of their boy, Casey. Eleven months old.” He passed me a thin stack of photos. Casey was a cherub sprouting dark curls, adorable dimples, and a wide smile with four budding teeth.

“The arrangement was amicable until last week,” he continued. “Karen, the ex, took a job in Louisiana. Told police that when she asked Eric to go back to court to change the custody order, he got upset—afraid he’d never see the boy.”

“Change the order?”

Richard nodded. “Otherwise she couldn’t relocate more than a hundred and fifty miles away. Then Friday night, Casey disappeared from his mom’s home. No forced entry.”

I shot him a quizzical glance, but he wouldn’t look at me. He paged through his folder and dumped more facts, like an information waterfall.

“In her police report, Karen noted she didn’t change the pass code for her security system when Eric left. And, since Casey’s disappearance, Eric hasn’t returned to his apartment. Naturally, police suspect a parental abduction. But my clients are sure they’re wrong.”

We accelerated down the runway. Richard swallowed, then brushed his nose nervously, and I suspected his verbal deluge had more to do with self-distraction than with filling me in.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Fine.”

“Not a fan of planes?”

He didn’t speak or look at me, just shook his head.

I begrudged his intrusion into my life, and couldn’t resist twisting the knife a little.

“I love planes.”

He didn’t bite. If I’d known ahead of time that he was afraid to fly, I’d have figured a way to stick him with my window seat.

Our wheels touched off and we ascended through spotty clouds. I peered through the window at the snowy landscape below.

“On jump runs, we go to fourteen thousand feet,” I said. “Much higher, we’d need oxygen masks. Much lower, we’ll complain we’re not getting enough altitude for our money.”

I turned from the window back to Richard. “What’s our cruising altitude today? Thirty, thirty-five thousand? That’d be about two minutes of freefall, Richard.”

He swallowed again and nodded. When he stole a glance at the puke bag in the pouch in front of him, I decided against taking this much further.

I switched gears. “Do you believe the parents?”

His eyebrows twitched. “I never met Eric. I’m taking their word.”

A baby in the front of the cabin cried out, and I ached for it.

Richard continued, “If Eric didn’t take the boy, police are wasting valuable time.”

I heard his words, but my attention had shifted to the crying in the front of the plane. Most passengers worry the fussing will be everlasting. My take is that there isn’t much about young kids that’s everlasting. If I could hear my daughter’s noises again—any of them, good or bad—you can bet I’d listen up in a heartbeat.

Richard was still talking. “If somebody else has Casey, the sooner that trail is picked up, the better. So it doesn’t really matter who I believe. I’m one more person looking for this kid, and that’s enough for me.”

I wondered whether his devotion could be some sort of penance. Was he making up for the mess he’d made of the Shelton case? Or was he trying to gain back my trust so I’d give him my full effort?

“What do you know about Karen Lyons?”

“Only what’s in her report. She woke up late on Saturday morning and knew right away something was wrong. It was 7:45 and Casey hadn’t woken her up yet. When she checked his room, he wasn’t in the crib.”

I flashed on a similar event in my own past, and my chest felt like it was being squashed. The scenario Richard described—an intruder slipping unnoticed into a protected home and targeting its most vulnerable occupant—was personal. I’d lived it, and Richard knew that. I resented him for pulling me back into an emotional viper pit, and when I looked at him this time I could feel my face was flushed, and it wasn’t from the heat in the cabin.

His eyes leveled on mine. A confrontation was brewing, but neither of us would initiate it. I avoided it because it was too painful. I figured Richard avoided it because he was a coward.

A flight attendant’s call bell sounded, and Richard jumped. His fingers fumbled across his lap until he found his seatbelt buckle, then he pulled the belt tighter. He took a slow breath.

He added, “No prints were lifted from the home. The family hasn’t been contacted. No ransom demands, threats…nothing. HPD canvassed the neighbors and are looking for Eric’s vehicle. But the Lyonses think police are barking up the wrong tree. They’re worried sick about their son and grandson.”

I remembered Keith and Nora Shelton, my friends from Cleveland, and the extra investigators they’d hired when Mattie disappeared.

“Why do you suspect a skydiver?”

“Couple things,” he said, tugging at his folder again. He opened it and searched its papers until he found a 5”x7” color print of a paper chit. Its ink had run and the text was partly smudged, but I recognized it.

“A jump ticket,” I said.

I’d used my share of jump tickets, but that was the first time I’d seen one photographed and enlarged, looking like evidence. It was weird.

Richard said, “This was in Karen’s landscaping. Police bagged it, but don’t think it’s related. It could have come from anywhere, maybe blown across the neighborhood from someone else’s trash. It could have been stuck in the mulch for days or weeks. Karen didn’t recognize it, and neither did her neighbors.”

The plane lurched and Richard reached to turn the overhead knob for more air conditioning.

“Getting warmer in here,” he mumbled.

“What else do you have?”

He shrugged. “A gut feeling. Someone gave me the slip at that drop zone yesterday. I interviewed the owners, staff…a few regular jumpers. Friendly people mostly, but a tight-lipped bunch. One employee agreed to talk to me, but left before I got to him. That seemed odd.”

I thought about the tight-lipped part and believed it. Skydivers are a tight group, period. Protective of each other, and probably chattier with new jumpers they’ve just met than with the non-jumping postmen they see every day. “Okay. What else?”

“That’s it.”

“You came to Cleveland, got me on a plane to Texas, put me in deep water with my boss…because of a gut feeling and a ticket in this lady’s shrubs?”

We lurched again and Richard hesitated. “Emily, sometimes whole cases are broken because of one tip, one clue. Nobody’s following up on this one. What if it’s important?”

I didn’t answer.

Doctor Hess, my graduate student advisor, came to mind. He popped into my brain the way Cinderella’s fairy godmother popped into her garden the night of the ball. I remembered advice he’d offered in a lecture years before: “When you’re problem solving with a team and somebody has an idea,” Hess had said, “separate the idea from the person talking, because once in a while a jackass might come up with something useful.”

I thought, Hess, this one’s for you.

“It’s not trash,” I said. “If you aren’t going to use tickets, you cash them back in. Did the police visit the drop zone?”

“I’m sure they did, but I’m not privy to that investigation. I asked about the ticket when I was there yesterday, but they can’t trace who bought it. It’s not marked with a date or number or anything.”

“They can’t trace the buyer specifically, but they could have helped you narrow it down. Jumpers sign waivers. If the ticket isn’t older than a year, when waivers expire, the owner’s name is in the drop zone files somewhere. Granted, you’d turn up the names of all the jumpers who’ve gone through there in the last year…probably a long list.”

Richard didn’t answer, but a purposeful tilt of his chin told me he was digesting the information.

I continued. “Also, only licensed skydivers buy tickets. Students don’t use them, so that eliminates some of the clientele.”

I considered the context of the ticket and added, “If I were visiting a drop zone and didn’t use all my tickets, I’d cash them in before leaving. But, if it were my home DZ, the place I jumped most of the time, I’d save them for next time. Since whoever bought that ticket left with it, I bet it was a regular, somebody who knew he’d be back.”

I looked at the picture again. The ticket was the size of a business card and looked like it was generated from a desktop printer. Some of its characters were blurred, I assumed from its stay in Karen Lyons’ mulch bed.

ULF CO ST SK DIV NG

$17

“Gulf Coast Skydiving,” Richard read out loud, filling in the smudged characters. “A mom and pop operation about ninety minutes south of Houston. Your home for the next few days.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Introduce yourself and make friends. Tell me who seems unusual. Find out if anyone’s left town recently. Does anyone have trouble with the law? That sort of thing.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“I was there already, asking questions. If somebody there is involved, or somebodies, it’s better they don’t know you’re with me.”

I cringed. “I’m not ‘with you,’ Richard.”

He took back the photograph and closed it in his briefcase hard enough that the tray table under it bobbled.

Awkward silence followed. Cold-shouldering is worse on an airplane because you have to sit so close.

I pouted. He ignored me. He reached for a magazine in the seat back and thumbed through a few pages before giving in and speaking first.

“I’ll think about how we might get a look at those waivers. But, until we can get names, I’d like to work on faces. We’ll—”

A mild patch of turbulence cut him short.

When it passed, he started over. “We’ll hide a camera on you and then show pictures of the jumpers to Karen Lyons. Maybe she’ll see a familiar face.”

“I’ll be in and out of a jumpsuit all day. Anything I wear will get covered up or hurtle toward earth at a hundred-twenty miles per hour. What kind of hot shot camera do you have?”

Richard slumped. He tapped the rolled magazine in his palm. I enjoyed watching him re-plan because re-planning meant his first idea had been wrong and it felt good to make Richard be wrong. But then I felt a little guilty, since I knew all along his scheming would be unnecessary.

“Relax,” I said. “Skydivers are hams. The most subtle way to take pictures is to tell them to say ‘Cheese.’”

After that, we didn’t talk much. Richard leaned his head back and closed his eyes. His face looked gray.

I thought about what was in store for me at Gulf Coast Skydiving. Would I fit in as easily as I hoped? Could I be a convincing liar? And how well could I judge people, anyway? The last question worried me most, considering who I was sitting next to.

Chapter Four

In Houston, Richard put me up in a hotel near his office. He made arrangements by cell phone on our way from the airport, dropped me off at the entrance, and told me he’d come back first thing in the morning for a working breakfast. Then he peeled out of the hotel drive so fast you’d think I was a bucket of festering biological waste.

It was four o’clock Central Time. Going home to an empty house back in Cleveland was no treat, but checking into an empty hotel room was worse. I was already lonely and bored, wondering how to pass the rest of the day without a car to explore town. Movie channels would offer no relief. There could be nothing showing I hadn’t already seen in four years of spending Friday and Saturday nights alone on my couch.

I checked in and found my room. With the day mostly over, the responsible thing to do would be to work on Bowman’s monthly reports, but what I really wanted to do, although I wasn’t sure why, was have a look at my old journal. The record from
then
—when I still believed Richard was a good guy, there to serve and protect. I pulled it from my gear bag, and stared at its worn cover. I’d stopped journaling years ago, when it seemed little in life was worth remembering anymore.

I sat on the edge of the neatly made bed and thumbed to the day I’d first met Richard, back when life was good and my family was alive. He was a cop, answering a call. I was traveling on business, killing time. Funny how life tosses folks together.

***

April 8—11:30 a.m.

Asphyxiating from bus fumes

I’m curbside, at Austin Bergstrom airport, waiting for the bus that will take me to my rental car. Tried to call Jack and see how he’s faring as a single dad (frightening prospect) but nobody’s home. Annette is probably eating a Dairy Queen Blizzard for lunch, his treat.

It’s Sunday. Conference starts tomorrow. I read in the paper about a state record they hope to set at a local drop zone today. Figure I’ll head that way, grab lunch, and go watch. If my bus ever comes.

April 8—8:21 p.m.

Austin police station, waiting room chairs

Never made it to drop zone. Ended up here instead. Still reeling from coincidence.

Five miles from the drop zone, I pulled over for carry-out and found Mattie Shelton belted into a plastic high chair at a table with strangers. Sudden change of plans.

I stepped out of line, seated myself at a corner table, and stared. I thought about how long Mattie had been missing, and how long it had been since I’d seen him. By my calculations, it’d been three weeks since his abduction, and two months since I’d seen him. Our last visit was when Nora turned thirty.

Three people were with him—a couple and another man, all dressed nicely. It looked like a young family out for Sunday lunch, except the extra man was shuffling folders and taking notes.

I reached for my cell phone, but thought better of it. No sense making an ass of myself. I’ve confused people before, called them by the wrong name. Not the best with faces, especially baby faces that change so much, so fast. What if I had the wrong kid?

So I got up and walked toward his table as if headed to the restroom. I stopped to admire him, and this brought lots of information from the woman standing in as Mom: the baby was about to turn one, a good eater, and a shameless flirt. His favorite character was Thomas the Train and he loved to be outside. She called him Ben. That was freaky.

I said hello to “Ben,” took a tiny, ketchup-coated hand in mine, and gave him a little baby handshake. I found what I was looking for on the inside of his wrist, a small hemangioma. Nora had told me once that the little strawberry birthmark would disappear on its own in the next few years.

I wanted to take him from the high chair right then and run for my car. But I collected myself and moved on.

The hallway with the restrooms was far enough from the table to be out of earshot and still allow a view of Mattie. I used my cell to call the police, told what I knew of Mattie’s disappearance, added that I’m friends with the Sheltons, and finished with how I’d checked the birthmark. The dispatcher said to stay put; a patrol car was on the way. We hung up.

A waitress brought the check to Mattie’s table and I panicked when one of the men pulled out a credit card. How to keep them there? I shoved open an “Employees Only” door, found the manager, explained, and convinced him to stall their credit slip. He left to take care of it, then joined me by the front door. We watched for police, but I couldn’t see Mattie’s table anymore. It was behind a salad bar partition.

The manager noticed my Indians jersey and asked me about Cleveland, which I thought ridiculous, considering everything going on. Turns out he knew folks in Shaker Heights. I figured he was trying to calm me down. He had a UT ring and a cursive “T” tattooed on his wrist, both potential topics for small talk, but the first cruiser pulled into the lot faster than I’d expected and I was off the hook.

I introduced myself to the officers when they walked inside. One went around the corner to Mattie’s table. The other waited near the manager and me. Standing by a cop made me as nervous as driving in front of one. He asked for my story.

A second cruiser pulled in.

I heard the officer in the dining area introduce himself to the people at the table and ask about Mattie. There was no way to talk to one cop and eavesdrop on the other. But, the cop with me seemed equally curious about what was going on behind the salad bar. The manager too. We all stood there, straining our ears like dogs. At first we only heard a little of what was said, but voices at the table grew louder, more agitated. Mattie fussed, and finally the rest of the dining room fell silent while everyone watched the drama. The couple sounded confused and indignant. They got defensive. My officer buddy moved into the restaurant to help his partner.

That’s when the policemen from the second cruiser came inside. These were plain-clothes guys. Detective Frank Morgan was big as a tree and smelled like Old Spice. His partner, Detective Richard Cole, was in his early forties and had the same concerned look that Father Denny used to have when I’d see him for confession in high school. They told me they had questions for me. I had questions too.

That was seven hours ago. Since then, the detectives and I have done oodles of talking. I’ve had entirely too much bad coffee. I’ve memorized the graffiti in the bathroom. There’s a shaky guy sitting across from us who shares a random Bible verse with me every twenty minutes. I think he’s with the hooker they brought in right before the desk sergeant’s Little Caesars order arrived.

Mattie’s waking up! More later.

April 9—1:05 a.m.

Days Inn, Austin

Too wired to sleep, so will finish getting this down. Keith and Nora made it to the station and were reunited with Mattie tonight. I’ll tell it in order so I won’t mess it up.

At the restaurant, I’d started to fill in details for the detectives when the other officers brought the couple toward the door. No handcuffs, only stern faces on the cops and desperate explanations from the couple. The woman seemed shocked and was crying. Her husband was irate.

Mattie, in the arms of one of the policemen, squirmed and reached for the woman. The officer carrying him wouldn’t hand him over, and Mattie’s outstretched arms and wriggling upset this woman even more. I asked whether I could hold him, and the officer told me, “Not yet, ma’am,” and whisked him past me, out the door.

Morgan and Cole asked me to follow them to the station to give a statement. Confused, I asked about the second man from the table. The detectives and the patrolmen had a brief discourse outside, and when Morgan and Cole returned, I learned that, whoever the second man was, he was gone by the time my call had been answered.

But where did he go? And when? I’d watched all of them at their table during my call and was standing at the exit after that.

I described the guy and the three of us searched the restaurant without luck. The place had video surveillance of its parking lot though. It showed a hurrying man, in clothes like I remembered, leaving through an employee entrance. His face was grainy, but I felt pretty sure it was the guy. He got into a dark pick-up and booked it out of the lot. Morgan rewound the tape, paused it, and wrote down part of a license plate number.

I called Nora on my cell while following the detectives to the police station. I started with, “I found Mattie!” and never got around to the nuts and bolts of how that happened. She was hysterical. Listening to her carry on, my eyes started tearing so badly I had to keep wiping them so I could see the road. Keith picked up on another extension and asked questions that made me feel useful. Am I sure it’s him? Where did I find him? Does he look mistreated? Who has him now? He gave his cell number and said they’d be on the next flight to Austin. I heard keys jingle in the background as he said it. I promised to call them with more updates and the street address for the station as soon as I knew it. And I promised to stay with Mattie.

When we got to the station, Mattie was undergoing a physical exam in a private room but I was told I could be with him shortly. I’m not sure how cops divvy up their questioning, but apparently Cole got me and Morgan got the “parents.” He led them to an office and I watched as the crying woman collapsed into her husband’s arms. I think she said “we were so close” right before Morgan shut the door.

Cole sat me at his desk with a small stack of statement forms and told me to write about my experience using as many continuation sheets as I needed. It took fourteen hand-written pages.

Next, it was off to a computer station where I used special software to create a likeness of the mystery man. It wasn’t perfect, but gave the detectives a start.

Meanwhile, Keith had been in touch with the Austin PD and asked that I be allowed to stay with Mattie until he and Nora arrived. Keith’s company has a corporate plane; his VP was happy to help any way he could. They traveled on a private flight and would arrive at the station in a few hours.

Finally, I got the little guy. When I scooped him into my arms, I imagined how this would feel to Nora and Keith when they got to hold their baby again. As soon as he settled into my lap, I dialed them. When Nora answered, I said, “I have somebody here who wants to talk to his mama,” and got teary again.

After our call, the hard part started. The station is no toy land, and I wasn’t allowed to leave with the baby. Entertaining a toddler for nine hours in a police station was…well, shitty. But what are friends for?

Detective Cole walked up with two Dr. Peppers and a carton of milk in time to see Mattie try to decapitate me using my necklace. I searched my purse for something safer and came up with a library card and the keys to the rental. What he really wanted was my lipstick. I made a mental note to tease Keith.

Cole noticed my parachute pendant. I pulled a picture of Annette from my wallet and explained why I quit skydiving. He produced his own photo of two cute kids, the reasons he sometimes worries about being a cop.

He went back to work and Mattie and I were relegated to the waiting room chairs. Keith and Nora burst through the doors around 11:30 p.m. and I’ve never seen parents look worse or better.

***

Even after so much time, those memories were sharp.

My cell phone rang, muffled within the bowels of my purse, and jolted me back. I sniffled and brushed away tears. When I answered the phone, I tried to sound normal.

“Where are you?” Jeannie wanted to know.

“In a Houston hotel.” I crashed backward on the bed with my feet hanging over the edge of the mattress. My eyes closed involuntarily.

“Is Richard there with you?” she whispered.

My eyes popped open. “Of course not.”

“What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is, this is a mistake,” I said. “The only reason he wants to explore the drop zone angle is that police found a jump ticket in some lady’s bushes.”

I thought of the staff member who’d evaded Richard’s questioning, but left that part out. I stared at the swirls on the ceiling.

“What about you?” I said. “What’s going on there?”

“Sure, I’ll get that ready before I leave. No problem.”

I knew the cover. She’d called from her desk at work—and had been busted.

“Talk to you later,” I sighed.

I tried to concentrate on the BioTek work I owed Bowman, but Richard’s case was distracting. After forty-five minutes, I closed my laptop, changed into running clothes, and left to explore the city on foot.

I started east at an easy pace, toward what I thought was downtown. Traffic often moved slower than I did, and for blocks I passed only apartments, strip malls, and donut joints. But within a mile, establishments like the Taco Cabana and local pregnancy crisis center faded off the landscape, replaced by more upscale businesses like leather vendors and gourmet smoothie shops. High rises in shades of green and blue loomed ahead and, even though it sure looked like downtown, signs said otherwise. I’d found the Galleria.

On Post Oak Boulevard, I passed Williams Tower. The building reminded me of a 1920’s skyscraper, except that it was fronted with glass, and it was so tall I stumbled when I tried to look up at it. Ahead, a series of ornamental silver arches spanned each intersection. Running beneath them felt like going under a bunch of chrome rainbows. The effect was too over-the-top for my taste, but at least there were no creepy men leering at me like in Cleveland. Instead, the quizzical looks from suited businessmen and swanky women seemed only to ask why I’d reduced myself to public exercise.

I continued in the shadows of parking garages and high-rise offices, and each time I spotted a luxury hotel—they could be found in any direction I looked—I wished Richard had put me up in one of those suckers instead. The air quality in Houston was disgusting, I realized, but at least none of the cars had chains on their tires. They didn’t seem to rust, either. Without salted roads, even older models still looked strangely new. On two occasions, I noticed “Don’t Mess With Texas” bumper stickers.

My new environment was certainly interesting, but even fancy landscaping and posh architecture couldn’t take my mind off the reason for my visit. At the drop zone, I’d meet potentially dangerous people. I had no undercover experience, no reason to believe I’d be any good at my assignment. I was a thirty-two-year-old burned out chemist, for Pete’s sake, not a swashbuckling private eye. My imagination went haywire, conjuring wild cloak and dagger scenarios. I ran faster, imagining myself a tough she-woman like Jaime Sommers, Sydney Bristow, or Xena.