Our young computer whiz is no longer working directly from Shane’s laptop, having transferred the contents to his own workstation. Identifying the woman in the emailed video attachment turns out to have been straightforward and relatively simple, as such things go. She popped almost immediately in the facial recognition software because she had once been a suspect in the disappearance of her own daughter, a seven-year-old girl.
Young Teddy has done an amazing job of organizing available data into a concise narrative, exactly as Naomi has taught him.
“It all started five years ago in Kansas City, Missouri,” he begins, laying out the story. “Her husband was a big-time car dealer—Hummers—who dumped her for a newer model. His secretary, so no imagination there. A nasty custody battle ensues. The husband tried to make it look like his soon-to-be ex-wife was involved in kiddy porn—selling images of her own daughter over the internet—and when little Stacy goes missing, it’s assumed that Mrs. Mancero has kidnapped her own daughter to sell her to the highest bidder.”
“Damn,” says Jack. “That’s the connection. Shane.”
“Right, right,” says Teddy.
“Yeah, I remember this one,” Jack goes on. “Not the details, but I remember Shane going to KC to help some poor woman who he said was being framed. As I recall, there wasn’t a happy ending.”
Teddy’s gel-stiffened hairdo bobs in agreement. “Yup, you’re right. According to media accounts, former FBI Special Agent Randall Shane established that it was in fact the husband who had traded images of his own daughter online. The husband, Gerald ‘The Hummer Man’ Mancero, was eventually arrested on pedophile charges and the wife was proved innocent. Shane managed to prove that the images of the daughter were downloaded by one Jason Hargrove, who was a crony of the husband’s. Hargrove, scion of a wealthy family in the chemical business, confessed to kidnapping and killing seven-year-old Stacy Mancero, and disposing of her body in such a way that not much of anything was ever recovered. Dissolved the remains in a vat of acid, courtesy of the family business.”
“What a nightmare,” says Jack. “And it didn’t end there. The husband shot the guy, right? The killer? As he was being transferred for arraignment? And then, let me see, was in turn shot dead by courtroom officers. They called it ‘The Kansas City Bloodbath.’”
Watching Naomi, I get the distinct impression that she had the whole awful case in mind as soon as Teddy spoke the woman’s name, but hadn’t said so because she wanted to let him make a full presentation of the facts. Now that he has, she’s free to comment.
“There’s no doubt in your mind that Kathleen Mancero is the woman in the video clip?” she asks.
In answer, Teddy puts the image of her driver’s license up on the screen next to a still from the video and lets the pictures speak for themselves. Same eyes, same facial structure. Clearly both images are of the same woman.
“What happened next?” Naomi says, prompting him.
“After the shoot-out Mrs. Mancero had a serious breakdown. She became delusional, kept seeing her daughter in the faces of unrelated children—rushing up to families in malls, and so on—and was several times taken into protective custody. Eventually she voluntarily checked into a psychiatric hospital and was treated for six months. According to a follow-up story in the Kansas City Star, which ran a year ago, she was finally able to accept the fact that her daughter was dead, even though there was never a body to recover or bury. She also continued to have contact with Shane.”
“What kind of contact?”
“Emails. Information she forwarded about other missing children. Mostly stuff she pulled off various websites. There are, like, a zillion sites about missing kids. From the tone of the emails, Mrs. Mancero sounds obsessed with the idea that she can do something for other missing children. My sense is, she wanted to help Shane somehow, as she had attempted to do, and failed, in her own daughter’s case.”
“How sad,” says Naomi, maintaining an expression of studied indifference. “Did he encourage her?”
Teddy shakes his head. “Just the opposite. He was really nice about it, but it’s clear that Shane wanted her to stop looking into what he called ‘the abyss.’”
“The abyss?”
“He doesn’t explain it. It’s like part of a continuing discussion. Something they talked about when she was in the psychiatric hospital.”
“He visited her there?”
Teddy shrugs. “Don’t think so. My impression is, he spoke to her by phone.”
“Had they communicated recently?”
“The last exchange of emails was two months ago. She forwarded yet another missing-child story, taken from one of the websites, and he politely but firmly declined to get involved.”
“And the video clip that Professor Keener forwarded to Shane? What’s the date stamp?”
“The day Keener was killed. It logs as being downloaded into Shane’s email server at 5:12 a.m., at about the same time the professor called him. Which makes sense, assuming he was calling Shane’s attention to the clip. Maybe he just got it and wanted to share.”
Jack says, “So the first Shane knows of the Mancero involvement is the video clip. And the world blows to hell before he can do anything about it. That explains a lot, actually.”
Naomi leaves her empty glass on a table by the door, for eventual collection by Mrs. Beasley. She takes her seat behind her desk, catty-corner to where Teddy has been working, and leans back in her chair with her slender arms folded, as if in a posture of defense. “This is a particularly awful example of the dark side experienced by anyone who investigates missing children. By that I mean what Shane referred to as ‘the abyss.’ When things go wrong they stay wrong forever and the survivors are sometimes dragged over the edge, into a cycle of grief and despair that’s very difficult to escape. Clearly that’s what happened to Kathleen Mancero. Just as clearly, she would never have willingly participated in the abduction of someone else’s child. There must be another explanation. Theories, anyone?”
I resist raising my hands, which isn’t strictly required during informal discussions. “Maybe she came across something about Keener’s case, forwarded it to Shane and somehow got involved? Trying to help?”
“Any evidence of that on the laptop?” Naomi asks Teddy.
Giving me a “sorry” look, he shakes his head. “There’s a bit of emailing between Shane and the professor, but it all seems to have occurred after Keener first contacted him by phone. There’s no mention of Mrs. Mancero. And for that matter no real specifics about the professor’s case. Mostly Shane’s notification of when he’ll arrive, where he’ll be staying.”
Jack, sprawled in one of the narrow chairs, says, “Randall would never discuss the specifics of a case by email. No way. And he would have been particularly cautious, knowing there were national security implications.”
“And how would he have known that?” Naomi asks.
“Experience and instinct,” Jack says, sounding slightly defensive of his old friend. “Genius scientist with a top-secret project and a missing kid? Stands to reason he’d be monitored by the kinds of people who read emails and tap phones.”
After a pause she nods and says, “Agreed.”
“Yeah, sure, okay,” I say, jumping back into the discussion. “An experienced guy like Randall Shane wouldn’t have discussed specifics in his email or texts or whatever. But what about poor Mrs. Mancero? Would she have been so careful? Maybe someone flagged her emails to Shane, did a little background research and decided she could be exploited.”
“Good point,” says Jack.
Naomi purses her lips, gives it some thought. “That theory has considerable merit,” she decides. “Teddy, we need deeper background on what Kathleen Mancero has been up to recently. See what you can find in Olathe. It’s an upscale suburb of Kansas City, surely her neighbors would know her story. There may be those willing to share.”