“Is there a Mr. Broadstreet?”
“There was. He’s been dead for many years.”
“Okay. We’re going to want to take a look at your house and your vehicle. Do we have your permission to do that?”
“I guess. Although I think the time might be better spent searching around the day care.”
“We’ll be doing that, too,” Rena assured her. “Just one more question, Mrs. Broadstreet. You’re absolutely sure it was Kara Wiese that you saw in the lobby this morning?”
“I...of course I’m sure. Emma has been in her room for months.”
“And what’s your relationship with Kara?”
“She’s fine. I mean, I think she’s good with the kids.”
“Then you can’t think of any reason why she might not remember this morning’s events exactly the same way as you do?”
Mrs. Broadstreet stared at her. “I’ve told you what happened. I saw her by the office and I left Emma with her. If she’s saying anything else, then she’s a liar.”
* * *
Rena found A.L. alone in Emma Whitman’s classroom. “Blithe checked vehicles for Alice Quest, Troy Whitman, Leah Whitman and Elaine Broadstreet. All cleared. Now he’s going to accompany Leah Whitman home. He’ll search the house while he’s there. I’ve got Officer Taylor following Elaine Broadstreet home and he’ll search that property.”
“Tell me about your conversation with Elaine,” he said.
She did.
“We need to check her route, see if we can place her there,” A.L. said.
“Just sent the text asking for someone to check the street cameras. It bothers me that she didn’t say anything initially about signing Emma in on the clipboard. I had to prompt it.”
“Could be something,” he agreed. “Will be less important if we can place her driving here with Emma and then driving away without Emma.”
“Agree. Tell me what Kara Wiese had to say?”
He did and finished up with, “Troy Whitman and Kara Wiese are joining the other volunteers. I imagine Alice Quest is in her office, calling her attorney and insurance carrier. I told our guys that we were going to need Alice and her desktop computer to get some information. They’ve cleared her office and Classroom 1, as well as the hallway bathroom for use. Everything else is off limits for now.”
“Fine. You know she told me she has a granddaughter Emma’s age,” Rena said. “Two granddaughters, in fact. Five and three. I think she’s feeling this on all different levels.”
“Is she married?” A.L. asked.
Rena flipped a page of her notebook, proving that she’d put the time with Alice to good use. “Divorced for more than fifteen years. Ex-husband died six years ago. Has one adult daughter who lives in Baywood with her husband and two children. That’s why she came to Baywood five years ago. To be close to her daughter, who was having a difficult pregnancy. Needed a job. Has a degree in early education and had taught preschool when she was raising her daughter. This business was for sale and she jumped at the chance to buy it. She’d come into some unexpected money when it was discovered that her ex never took her off as a beneficiary on his insurance policy.”
“Lucky break for her. So what do you think so far?” A.L. asked.
“I have no idea. A loving grandmother, by all appearances, drops off her five-year-old granddaughter at day care, in the custody of a trusted teacher. Ten hours later, it’s discovered that the child is missing and nobody from the day care has seen her and said teacher claims she was never in the lobby and didn’t see either the child or grandmother.”
“Is the grandmother lying? Is she confused? Is Kara Wiese lying? But why? She’s worked here for more than three years. Her boss has never had any reason to be concerned,” A.L. said.
“Agree. If we believe one, we can’t believe the other. If we believe both of them, then the only logical explanation is that Elaine thought she handed Emma off to her teacher but it was somebody else. And maybe that person didn’t even realize what was happening. She’s standing there, minding her own business, and somebody says good morning. She responds with good morning like most people do. Then she leaves. Goes to work. To the gym. Wherever. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that Emma is alone in the hallway for a few minutes, then maybe she’s outside. And then something happens. What, we just don’t know.”
“What’s this feel like to you?” A.L. asked.
“You’re not the touchy-feely type,” Rena said, her tone full of suspicion.
“Missing five-year-old,” A.L. said. “I’m willing to pull out all the stops. If I thought it would help, I’d be knocking on the psychic’s door right now.”
“Well, I’m not psychic but I think there is definitely something not quite right between Troy and Leah Whitman. They’re each staying pretty strong, given the circumstances, but they don’t seem to be drawing strength from one another.”
He’d noticed that. No hugs. No arms around a shoulder. No clasped hands. Didn’t mean they were bad people, bad parents, or in any way responsible for Emma’s disappearance. “When Troy mentioned Garage on Division, you had a reaction.”
She shrugged. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Missing five-year-old,” he said.
“Gabe was having some trouble with his car last week. Needed a tune-up or something. Anyway, the garage we usually use closed down about six months ago so he was looking for someplace new. He asked for recommendations at Sunday dinner at the Morgans’. One of his sisters said that she always took her car to Garage on Division, but then his brother said that he’d heard some bad things about their work. That there was even some talk that the place might be close to shutting down.”
“Gabe and his brother are talking again?” Months ago Danny Morgan had made a pass at Rena and things between the two Morgan men had gotten sticky.
“Gabe and Danny are civil to one another. We’ve had a couple family things this summer and nobody ended up in the emergency room. Always happy and relieved about that.”
“Nobody else in the family knows,” A.L. said.
“God, no,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a secret that Danny, Gabe and I are taking to our graves.”
“Another couple years, you’ll be laughing about the whole thing.”
“A stiff smile, perhaps. I wish it was like it was before.”
“Give it time. Jacqui and I can actually do small talk now.” He’d been divorced for five years after his wife had decided to warm somebody else’s bed. “It doesn’t happen overnight.”