...And Never Let HerGo

her connection to Tom Capano was. She was missing. The first thing they needed to do, then, after they checked out her apartment thoroughly, was to try to contact him.
    At this point they had no idea what they were dealing with; Anne Marie’s disappearance could have been the result of a lovers’ quarrel, she might have gone away on her own, or she might be dead. Detectives learn to consider the worst-case scenario. For them a body must be considered the result, first, of a homicide; second, of an accident; third, of a suicide—and only when those possibilities have been ruled out may they decide that death came of natural causes. But of course, there was no body.
    If something
had
happened to Anne Marie Fahey, and if it had happened in her apartment, the detectives were late going in: She had been missing for almost three days. Worse, her apartment was certainly contaminated—in terms of evidence—by the comings and goings of the family and friends who were looking for her. Doorknobs, drawer pulls, and flat surfaces had been touched, and the toilet had probably been flushed. Most people don’t think the way a detective does, and quite naturally, those who were worried about Anne Marie weren’t thinking about disturbing physical evidence as they looked for clues to her whereabouts.
    What was done was done. And there was certainly no overt signthat anything violent had taken place in Anne Marie’s third-floor apartment. Except for the food on the counter and a few garments that had not been hung up, everything seemed to be in order.
    There was no point now in telling anyone not to touch things. Probably it wouldn’t matter anyway. Chances were that Anne Marie was with someone she knew and trusted, that she had just grabbed her keys and left on a momentary whim.
    And the chances were just as good—better, maybe—that she wasn’t.
    B OB D ONOVAN, thirty-three, would have had a hard time working as an undercover detective. He was big, square, and his short crew cut only accentuated his strong features. He looked for all the world like an Irish cop from a long line of Irish cops. He was Irish, but he was the first police officer in his family. It was something he had wanted to do for as long as he could remember. In June 1996, he had been a Wilmington Police officer for nine years, with the first seven and a half on the road in Patrol. He had been in Detectives only a year. Detectives worked all major crimes, but the homicide rate in Wilmington wasn’t very high. (Nineteen ninety-six would show the highest number in years—twenty-two homicides; ten was average, with most of them drug or gang related.)
    Bob and his wife, Karen, had two small children, ages five and one. He was home asleep at 12:30 A.M. when he was rousted out of bed by the watch commander for the Wilmington Police Department’s third watch. As one of two detectives on call for the weekend, Donovan had been available for call-out from 4 P.M. Friday and would be until 8 A.M. Monday morning. All he was told was that he was to respond to 1718 Washington Street in reference to a missing person. That was fairly unusual—missing persons complaints didn’t generally elicit night call-outs—but he didn’t ask questions. He had arrived at Anne Marie Fahey’s apartment fifteen minutes later.
    There were an awful lot of cops there for a missing persons report: Donovan’s supervisor, Sergeant Elmer Harris, and two uniformed officers from the Wilmington PD, Sergeant John Snyder and Officer Paul McDannell. Surprisingly, there were also two Delaware State Police officers, Lieutenant Mark Daniels and Sergeant Steve Montague.
    Donovan, whose kindness has been extolled by any number of people caught in the face of tragedy, could display a somewhat watchful attitude at first meeting, and watch he did; he seldom missed a thing. A long time later, when he was asked what he foundat Anne Marie Fahey’s apartment, he said quietly, “A room full of people.”
    Kathleen told the detectives that Anne Marie had been seeing a therapist—Dr. Michelle Sullivan. Perhaps she might know something that would help. Used to late-night emergency calls, Sullivan answered on the second ring. When she heard Anne Marie was missing, she didn’t hesitate. “I’m coming right over,” she said. She was worried, too.
    Dr. Sullivan told them that she knew Anne Marie well. She had not seen her, however, on Thursday; their session had been on
Wednesday
evening. Anne Marie was to