#3–The Right Thing
Tom immediately whipped out his cell phone and called the number on the screen, not giving me a chance to explain. Left to my own devices I would have phoned in my scanty information with an anonymous call to the crime stoppers hotline, but Tom took charge and drove me to a rendezvous in a drab government building. We were met in the lobby by a man and a woman, both adhering to a dress code twenty years out of date.
Tom inspected both their IDs and showed his own, revealing enough military rank to earn some deference. His determination to stick with me meant that we were ushered into a plush conference room rather than a bleak interrogation booth. They offered me coffee which I wouldn’t take and water which I accepted.
“You told the clerk at the luggage counter that you’d seen a little girl in a pink coat but that she’d left the airport,” said the woman. “We were wondering if you would look at some photographs to see if you saw any of these people at the airport.”
She pushed a file folder towards me. I put my hand on it, holding it closed as if it might spring open of its own accord.
“Look,” I said, “I want to be helpful but it’s quite possible that the girl I saw is not the one you are looking for. Let me describe her before you show me any photographs. Perhaps some detail will enable you to eliminate this as a possible lead.”
They nodded. I hope, I thought fervently. I looked at my brother. His mouth opened in a silent ‘O’ of dismay as he guessed what I had seen. I closed my eyes and took a breath and she sprang up before me, that little lost sprite: her stiff black braids with pink plastic bobbles, the ring of white fluff on the hood of her pink coat, her blue denim skirt, heartbreakingly small shoes with a pink star on each toe, her face with its mocha and cream complexion, long eyelashes, plum mouth and dab nose like a round button.
I opened my eyes to find the federal agents leaning towards me, holding their breath.
“You saw her! Just a couple of hours ago at the airport. Can you remember which door she left by and who was with her?” The man was poised to spring into action.
“There was no one with her,” I said, my heart sinking into the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“Then how did she leave the airport?” demanded the woman.
“She wasn’t physically there. I only saw her because she is dead.”
The look on their faces slammed down like a steel cage. The man growled threats; my brother raised his voice. I checked a number in my cell phone and scrawled it on a notepad.
“Call this number at the NYPD and ask for Josh Hartig.”
The woman took it. Gathering up their files as if being in the same room with me would contaminate their hard won evidence, the federal agents left to make the call.
“I’m sorry I got you in to this,” my brother said. “Do you think they’ll arrest us?”
“If they don’t burn us at the stake first.” I laughed at his expression. Even if Joel wasn’t in, Adele would know me. But the fifteen minutes I expected to wait stretched to thirty and then to forty-five.
The woman returned. She had the file folder in her hand. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me. I’ve just spoken to Chief Detective Hector Veracruz of the NYPD Homicide Division. He suggested you might be willing to offer the same pro bono service you recently provided to his department.”
That dirty rotten hound, I thought. “Let me preface everything with a warning: I can’t provide evidence. All I can do is offer insights which might lead to evidence. One final thing: I’m a psychologist and not a psychic. I will be happy to consult with you, but you will call me Dr. Deweese to my face and in whatever record you make of this session, understood?”
She nodded.
“I didn’t hear you say ‘Yes, Dr. Deweese’.” If I wasn’t going to be paid, I would demand the full measure of professional courtesy.
She gave me a tiny smile. “Um, no, Dr. Deweese. I was going to ask you what would be the next step. I’ve never consulted with a…psychologist of your ability before.”
“Show me the photographs.”
One by one, she laid them in front of me. Silently, they told their own story. The first picture showed the little girl in the arms of her mother.
“She’s wearing exactly what you said!” exclaimed my brother. I glared at him. He shut his mouth.
The female agent said, “This picture was taken the morning she left Dallas by her stepfather. Here’s another taken on a different day that shows the whole family: the girl, her mother, her baby brother and the stepfather. He set the camera up to do a timed shot,” said the agent. “The stepdad is a professional photographer and the mother is a former model.”
They looked like a beautiful, happy couple who loved their adorable toddler and infant, but such things can be staged. I said so, adding, “People will nearly always smile for the camera, even if they are having a miserable time otherwise.”
“Here’s a picture of the little girl’s biological father.” She pulled it off of the bottom of the stack. The man wore a three-piece business suit and somberly faced the camera.
“This looks like a posed professional still that an actor might use as part of his resume,” I commented. The picture was larger than the others and printed on heavy-grade paper that felt almost like skin.
“Funny you should say that. He’s a lawyer for a Dallas corporation who lives in Washington. He dated the model and pays a token child support. Their custody arrangement allows him to spend several weekends a year with his daughter. The stepfather says he delivered the little girl to the airport a week ago last Thursday and handed her off to the father without any incident. The father said he stood by for an earlier flight and missed the handoff.”
“When was the girl reported missing?” I asked. “And who made the report?”
“This Monday the mother showed up at the Dallas airport to meet the returning lawyer and get the little girl. He hotly denied ever getting her and the pair of them went to the studio where the photographer works to confront him. The stepfather threw a punch and the lawyer charged him with assault. The Amber Alert went out that afternoon. Neither man has budged from his story. And of course, we have no body.”
I arranged the two pictures in front of me: the happy blended family and the somber responsible businessman. One of them was a lie, but which?
“If the lawyer didn’t take the little girl, how did her suitcase turn up at the Washington airport?”
“The lawyer was traveling on Delta via Atlanta for Washington National. The photographer was also traveling that day, on USAir via Charlotte for New York LaGuardia. Either man could have checked a suitcase for the little girl, but in either case, the suitcase shouldn’t have wound up where it did when it did. We aren’t one hundred percent sure that the pink suitcase today belonged to the victim. It matches a description turned in by the mother but the luggage tags are missing.”
I nodded. “Almost anything can happen with checked luggage. Of course, you must try to trace how it got there. But it was hers, trust me on that.”
The federal agent was looking at me the way Lyndi had in the car. “How do you know?”
“Something it contained was so emotionally charged that the child’s spirit chose to manifest near it. Would it be possible for me to see the suitcase and the things in it?”
She went to check.
Tom looked at his watch. “Sorry I got you into this.”
I mimed a shrug.
She returned. Tom trailed behind as she took me to another room but he had to wait outside. They gave me a disposable paper gown, surgical cap, mask and gloves so that my DNA would not contaminate the evidence. Gutted of its contents, the suitcase lay zipped open like a patient awaiting the surgeon’s knife.
And she was there also, with the one beloved item that should have been in her arms.
