One Cold Night

seeing Lisa’s and Becky’s pictures side by side, their names connected by the undefined deeds of an evil man no one knew. He ground his jaw, hating himself for not seeing the connections sooner, but it was too late for regrets. The two investigations had merged and he was officially on the case now. Disciplining himself to focus his attention on the facts, he leaned forward and began the simplest way he could, with the basics every detective wanted to know first about a missing child.
    “Lisa’s mental state was excellent when we last saw her yesterday. She’s been living with us for a little over a year, going to school. Well behaved, nice friends as far as we could see, no real signs of teenage rebellion except the usual verbal stuff. She’s a freshman at LaGuardia High School in Manhattan, where she majors in singing. She’s a good student, a good kid, generally does what she says she’ll do.” He leaned back into his chair, folding his arms across his chest, and continued. “Here’s where it gets complicated. Lisa was adopted; that is, she grew up thinking she was adopted at birth by my wife’s parents, Carole and Bill Bailey. They were her parents, my wife Susanwas her sister; that was the family story. But the truth is this: Susan gave birth to Lisa when she was fifteen — and Lisa was told this just last night. The birth father was a boy named Peter Adkins. He was seventeen at the time, which makes him thirty-one now. He was told Lisa was aborted, so presumably he doesn’t know about her.”
    Ramos wrote Peter Adkins’s name in black on the board and underlined it twice, saying, “Adkins matches the general description of a suspicious-person call we got just this Monday, same area of Lisa’s disappearance. White guy about thirty, medium height, blond hair. An anonymous caller complained about this guy loitering a long time on Water Street for no obvious reason. Man with a scar under his eye. We don’t know yet if Adkins’s got a scar, so that’s one thing we gotta find out.”
    Three of the detectives sitting at the table scribbled that note; the others just listened. One of them raised his hand but didn’t wait to be called on before speaking.
    “Did Adkins have a facial scar back when Mrs. Bailey knew him?”
    “I don’t believe so,” Dave answered. “But we’ll double-check that.”
    The hand stayed raised. “Did we talk to this Adkins fellow yet?”
    “Still tracking him down,” Dave said. “CIS found out he left Texas nine years ago. They’re doing a national search in the DMV database to locate him now.”
    “I’ll do more,” Bruno offered. “I’ll get into some chat rooms, put it out there.”
    “Good,” Ramos said. “Better check voting records, and go to the IRS if you have to. He might not drive.”
    “Every teenager in Texas learns to drive,” said anotherdetective, a young white man with a blond crew cut who looked like he would know.
    “He might not drive now, ” Ramos said, “if he lives in the city. We get anything yet from family and friends?”
    “None of Lisa’s friends know squat,” Bruno said. “No enemies, no big problems, she didn’t tell anyone she was planning to run away.”
    “She didn’t run away,” Dave said.
    “No,” Ramos echoed, “she didn’t.”
    “Lisa’s verbal.” Dave sat forward, hoping to create an accurate portrayal of Lisa, to make her real to these people who knew so little about her, to make finding her as urgent to them as it was to him. “Running away, avoidance, would not be her style. If anything she’d want to vent, really let Susan have it for not telling her the truth until now. Of course, it would be impossible to say for sure, but I can’t see Lisa running away, and the yellow paint, especially the footprint, supports that sense of her.”
    “Ditto,” Ramos said. “But listen, Dave, you know we’re gonna have to dig anyway. LaPierre and Shabbaz, I want you two down at the home. Check out all the kid’s stuff, get into her computer. Look for a blog or a paper diary or whatever and read back as far as they go.”
    Two detectives, a large black man in an orange shirt and a skinny Middle Easterner wearing a Yankees cap, rose from the table and left the room.
    “Lafferty” — Ramos addressed the young crew-cut detective — “grab a partner and get over to her school, LaGuardia, up at Lincoln Center. Talk to the principal, her teachers, anyone you can get.”
    “Will do.” Lafferty followed