...And Never Let HerGo

over his shoulder at the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI, he was still planning how he would deal with the Wilmington Police. Unless he could make the ground rules, he was extraordinarily reluctant to get into an interrogation session with local investigators—partly because he knew it wouldn’t be just with city police; it would also be with the Delaware State Police and the Executive Security Unit.
    A lot of people seemed to be poking their noses into his private life, which made him uncomfortable, an alien feeling for Tom. How ironic that he, the man to whom the Wilmington Police chief once reported every morning, the man from whom the governor himself sought advice, should now be in such an untenable position. Thesearch for Anne Marie had spread, it seemed, over half the Eastern seaboard, and as Bud Freel had predicted, the national media were hovering already.
Inside Edition, Unsolved Mysteries,
and the
New York Times
had contacted one principal or another in the case and asked for interviews.
    Although Tom would insist he had tremendous respect for the Wilmington Police Department, the way every federal law enforcement agency in the country seemed to be jumping in bothered him. In reality, those who knew him said that Tom counted on the Wilmington Police to bungle the investigation. He figured that everything would die down by the end of summer and he could get on with his life.
    Tom spoke with Harry Manelski, who was a retired Wilmington chief of police. “We talked in general terms about the case,” Tom said later, “and we talked about what was clear to both of us—about the massive political ramifications of the case; and what with the federal government and State Police and the governor’s security task force, just something didn’t smell right. I said, ‘Harry, you know, I’d like to get this cleared up. I’ve even tried to reach out to the family, but I don’t know what to do.’ ”
    Manelski suggested that Tom talk to Lieutenant Mike Maggitti, who was head of the Wilmington Detective Division, and he offered to arrange a meeting. That meeting never took place. Tom was still adamant that he would not talk to the police about his family or his personal life.
He
would set the conditions of any police interview. Meanwhile, Anne Marie was still missing and the Wilmington Police were at an impasse. It was obvious that Tom was never going to submit willingly to questions about her disappearance.
    Anne Marie’s siblings kept their lonely vigil at her apartment, often sitting on the front porch, as if watching to see who came up and down Washington Street and might help them find their sister. Someone had wound yellow ribbons around the porch’s thick white columns. Everyone in town knew that Annie was gone, and her family members were approached with all manner of words of sympathy and concern, suggestions, and theories. The case was like gold to psychics and would-be psychics, who called or wrote with their otherworldly messages about where Anne Marie might be found. A missing persons case with so much publicity attracted pseudoscientists, the definitely peculiar, and the just plain crazies. And still, the Faheys were polite to them all, always hoping that someone might provide the shred of information that would lead them to their sister.
    Through Robert’s connections, Revere Outdoor Advertising offeredto donate a billboard along Interstate 95 at the Delaware 141 interchange, with an 800 number that anyone with information could call. Now, forty thousand motorists a day read, HELP US FIND ANNE MARIE FAHEY : 1-800-TIP-3333, as they drove the interstate.
    It was so hard for any of the Faheys to sleep at night. Their days took on a grim routine, a marathon of hope, anxiety, and mourning. By mid-July, Kathleen, Kevin, Mark, Robert, and Brian probably knew in their hearts that Annie wasn’t coming back. If she was alive, she would not have stayed away for more than a month; she would have found some way to come home or to get word to them.
    If Anne Marie had left of her own accord, as Tom Capano suggested, how was she surviving? None of her clothing was gone; she didn’t have her purse or her wallet. The only things missing were her keys and her favorite ring, and maybe her Walkman. She didn’t have her car, and there had been no activity on her credit cards, no checks written or withdrawals from her bank account.
    And so her family was still caught in that no-man’s-land of not knowing.