Pretties in Pink

6. Ford

6

FORD

Four-year-old Amelie Buckler sat on the floor surrounded by big-eyed dolls dressed in cutesy colours. Dr. Debra Carey, a child psychologist with extensive experience in interviewing young witnesses, leaned back against the couch next to her, cross-legged, and Ford silently thanked Chief Broussard for vetoing Duncan’s plan to interview Amelie himself.

As it stood, he was pacing the observation room, nitpicking every question Dr. Carey asked, and Ford sincerely hoped the one-way glass was soundproof.

“You said the man who took Vonnie was big?”

“Yes.”

“What shape was he? Was he thin like Swiper? Or wide like Benny?”

“She should show the kid a picture of Ganaway,” Duncan muttered. “Ask her if it was him. This is taking too long.”

Ford blocked the man out and checked his phone again. Still no message from Hallie, but he took the opportunity to google Benny and Swiper and found they were characters from Dora the Explorer.

“Just big. Big like Gru. Big and black.”

Big and black. That was the phrase Duncan had latched onto when they’d first spoken with Amelie on the day after Vonnie’s abduction. Specifically, the “black” part, arguing that any man would seem big to a kid her age. Ford’s counterargument that any man would look black in near-darkness had been met with a shrug as Duncan once again viewed the evidence through the lens of his own prejudices.

Amelie’s initial statement was why he’d focused on Micah Ganaway as a suspect so early on, despite the fact that Ganaway stood only five feet nine with a build best described as wiry. Ford conceded that he could have been wearing a bulky jacket, but there’d been no blood, blonde hair, or female saliva on the only coat from his apartment that fit the bill. True, he could have discarded his clothing, but Occam’s razor was looking pretty damn blunt at that point. Then Duncan found out Ganaway had once been charged with the distribution of child pornography, and as far as he was concerned, he had his man.

On the other side of the glass, Amelie picked up a doll and placed it in the toy bed on the table. Picked up another doll and laid it on the pint-sized couch opposite. Ford held his breath. She was recreating the crime scene, something Dr. Carey had been trying all morning to get her to do, but until now, she’d resisted.

The night Vonnie disappeared, her parents had gone to the theatre with a group of friends, and her regular babysitter, an eighteen-year-old student named Vikki Walton, had been on duty. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But at the last minute, another couple in the party, the Bucklers, had been let down by their own sitter and rather than letting them miss out on the show, the Feinsteins had offered up Vikki’s services. A kindness that had led to Amelie being interrogated three times in as many weeks.

The little girl covered both dolls with blankets and tidied doll-Vonnie’s hair. The two girls hadn’t been close friends, but they went to the same church and sometimes saw each other at picnics and get-togethers. And when Amelie wouldn’t settle alone in the guest room, Vikki had carried her through to Vonnie’s room and tucked her onto the couch with a quilt and pillow. That was where she’d been when the man who took Vonnie climbed through the window.

At the end of September, the weather in Richmond had been unseasonably warm. The Wednesday before Vonnie disappeared, the Feinsteins’ AC had developed a fault, and when the technician couldn’t source the right part until the following week, they’d cracked the little girl’s window open so the room wouldn’t get stuffy. A fatal mistake.

As best as Ford and Duncan could ascertain, the intruder hadn’t even noticed Amelie. He’d missed her bundled up in her shadowy corner. There’d been a partial moon that night, and the light would have allowed her to see his outline against the window on the other side of the room, but not necessarily vice versa. She’d been frozen in fear, still too scared to move or speak when her parents came to pick her up a little before two a.m. Now she was talking more, but would she reveal anything useful?

Amelie picked up a third doll, a boy dressed in black, and Ford noticed her hand was shaking now.

Dr. Carey watched her carefully. “Can you show me what the man did?”

“Why you ask me that?”

“Because we don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You didn’t be there?”

“No, we weren’t there.”

Amelie put the boy-doll down and stared into space, processing. She lived in a world where adults knew all the answers, and now she was being asked to provide them. A toy unicorn sat on the table, and she grabbed it, stood up, and walked around the room. She got distracted like this a lot, but she was doing her best.

“Where’s my mommy?”

“Do you want to see her now?”

“Can I have a drink? Please?”

“What would you like to drink?”

“Milk. And a cookie? Please can I have a cookie?”

Somebody had prepared for that eventuality because a minute later, an assistant knocked on the door with a plastic cup of milk and a package of Oreos. Amelie twisted the cookies apart and ate the filling first while Duncan bitched that it was lunchtime and he was hungry.

“Why don’t you go out and buy food?” Ford suggested.

“Because we’re in the middle of the interview.”

“They’re recording it from two different angles, and I’ll fill you in on whatever you miss.” Plus he was serving no purpose by being here other than getting on Ford’s last nerve. “Can you pick me up a sandwich?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

Ford handed his partner twenty bucks. “Take your time.”

At least now he could focus on Amelie without feeling constantly on edge. He leaned forward as she lifted the boy-doll into the air where the window would have been, then walked him straight to the bed. Put his hand over doll-Vonnie’s face. And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“Did the man stand there like that?” Dr. Carey asked.

“Yes.”

“Did Vonnie say anything?”

Amelie shook her head. “Not really.”

Not really?

“Did she make any sounds?”

“Like mmm-mmm-mmm. But then she stopped.”

“Did she move?”

“No.”

The man wouldn’t have killed her right then, surely? What would have been the point? Plus they’d have found evidence of that—her bladder and bowels would most likely have voided as her sphincter muscles relaxed at the moment of death. Yet she’d gone quiet. So…drugged?

“Did the man say anything?”

“Yes.”

Holy s**t, this was new.

“What did the man say, Amelie?”

“He said Vonnie was pretty.”

“What words did he use?”

Amelie screwed her eyes shut, but she didn’t cry, not this time. There’d been plenty of tears this morning, but she’d turned out to be damn brave for such a little thing.

“He touch her like this.” Amelie demonstrated with the dolls, and rather than the s****l assault Ford had half expected—and dreaded—the intruder stroked Vonnie’s hair. “Come on, my pretty.”

She whispered the words, and that just made it even more f*****g creepy.

“That’s what he said? ‘Come on, my pretty’?”

“Yes.” A look of panic flashed in her eyes. “My mommy says I’m pretty. Will he take me now?”

“No, sweetie. Your mommy and daddy will keep you safe.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Because Mommy says you can’t break a promise.”

“I absolutely promise. What did the man do next? After he spoke to Vonnie?”

“He put her out the window.”

“Did he drop her?”

Blank look.

“Did you hear a thump?”

“No.”

“Can you show me how he held her? With the dolls?”

He’d used a bridal carry, then leaned out of the window and lowered her to the ground. Amelie squeaked in frustration because the boy-doll wouldn’t bend in the right places, but Ford got the picture.

“And then he left too?”

“He went through the window.”

“Did you see him again after that?”

“No.”

“Did you get up and look through the window?”

“I didn’t get up at all. Not until my mommy came.” Now the tears were back, but she’d done well. “I go now. I want to go.”

“We’ll get your mommy, okay? She’ll take you home.”

“Will the man come?”

Ford sure hoped not. It was why they’d gone to such lengths to hide Amelie’s existence from everyone but the tight inner circle of the detective’s department. Broussard had threatened to shitcan anyone who leaked, and with a child’s life on the line, for once the ship had stayed watertight. So why was he considering risking his job to tell Hallie?

He checked his phone again. Still nothing. Why hadn’t he asked for her number in return? Because he’d been caught up in the moment, that was why. Ensnared by those big hazel eyes and a coy smile. He thought she’d felt the pull too, but what if he’d been wrong? Almost twenty-four hours, and she still hadn’t gotten in touch.

On another day, he might have been tempted to go back to the Grindhouse, order a coffee, and wait. Although that might be classed as stalking. What if he called Blackwood? Could somebody on the switchboard patch him through? Would that come across as desperate? He was pondering his options when Duncan came back, and from the look on the man’s face, he had something new.

Uh-oh.

Ford should have been fired up at the prospect of another lead, but instead, all he felt was an impending sense of trepidation.

“Guess who just called the tip line?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Micah Ganaway’s old boss.”

“From the fast-food place?”

“No, from five years ago. He runs a landscaping company, and whose home do you think was on his roster back then?”

Five years ago? There could only be one home that would have set Duncan drooling like Pavlov’s dog.

“The Carmody place?”

Duncan clapped Ford on the back. “We’ll make a detective out of you yet.”

Asshole.

“Ganaway did yard work for the Carmodys?”

“Not on a regular basis, but sometimes the staff covered vacations and sick leave.”

“So did Ganaway fill in at the Carmody home?”

“The guy couldn’t remember, but he said it was definitely possible.”

Possible. Yet another piece of circumstantial evidence, but to Duncan, it represented one more nail in the lid of Ganaway’s coffin. Ford should warn Hallie. It wasn’t quite the big juicy steak he’d promised her—it was more of a French fry—but she’d need to know the investigation was veering in that direction. Micah would have been, what, eighteen years old at the time? Barely more than a kid. Could he really have broken into a mansion, successfully evaded all security, snatched Mila, and gotten away with it? When Ford was that age, he’d been too busy playing football and partying to hatch something that complex.

His phone buzzed in his hand, and he didn’t realise how much tension he’d been holding until it leaked out of him.

Unknown: I have a peach for you. H.

Hallelujah.

“What are you so happy about?” Duncan asked.

So the man did have an iota of observational skills, even if he chose not to use them most of the time.

“My nephew won a spelling bee.”

Duncan just grunted, but at least he turned away. The smell of tuna filled the small room as he unwrapped his sandwich.

Ford: My favorite fruit. Meet me tonight?

Her reply was almost instantaneous. No more games.

H: Where?

A good question. Ford’s place would be too forward, ditto for her place, plus that could come across as pushy. No way was he going to walk into the Blackwood offices, same as she couldn’t go near the police department. Which left neutral territory. It was too cold for a stroll in the park, and they needed somewhere quiet to talk. So basically, that meant a restaurant.

But which restaurant? Too casual, and he risked looking like a tightwad, too expensive and he’d come across as a snob. Middle-of-the-road could be a minefield, especially when he hadn’t lived in the city for long.

Easier to turn the question back to her.

Ford: What’s your favorite restaurant?

H: Is that a good idea?

Shit, she’d gotten cold feet since yesterday?

Ford: We both have to eat.

In reality, the radio silence couldn’t have lasted for more than five minutes, but it felt like forever. Finally, finally, Ford’s phone vibrated in his hand again.

H: Il Tramonto, 8 p.m. I’ve made a reservation.

He typed out It’s a date, then quickly deleted it. It wasn’t a date. It was a…business meeting? Not quite, but close.

Ford: I’ll bring a banana.