THE house was never messy, but there were a few chores to be done. Dishes, laundry, dusting-there was never an end to them. Genie supervised the boys while Carrie did the sort of work she’d never entrust the boys to do.

As she put the mortar and pestle away, she saw a jar of strawberry preserves one of their aunts had given them. A Mason jar.

She thought of Genie, of her plea to ask Ms. Kelly about someone named Mason.

THEY were finished with the chores before ten. Genie had even managed to get the boys dressed and ready.

Mom and Dad hadn’t come out of their bedroom.

“Now what do we do?” Aaron asked.

“I know,” Carrie said, wondering if her mother had given her the ability to be an actress. “Let’s play hide-and-seek.”

Genie stared at her. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. I’m braver than you think.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Genie said, then turned to the boys and said, “I’ll be ‘it’ first.”

She covered her eyes and began counting. “One-alligator, two-alligator, three-alligator…”

CHAPTER 39

Tuesday, May 2

8:30 A.M.

NEWSROOM OF THE

LAS PIERNAS NEWS EXPRESS

NOTHING like a day away from the office to ensure that your next morning will be delivered hot and fresh from hell.

I heard my phone ringing from across the room as I made my way to my desk. John was motioning me into his office, Mark Baker was calling my name, and Lydia Ames was waving a thick fan of pink message slips at me in an imperative way.

I raised my index finger in the waitress-style “be right with you” sign to John, Mark, and Lydia, and answered the phone as I dropped my purse onto my desk.

“Irene? It’s Caleb. I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I was just wondering…”

I sat down under the pressure of a load of guilt. “Oh, hi, Caleb. Of course you want to know what happened yesterday. Sorry, I should have called you as soon as I got back from talking to the Garcias.” I quickly gave him a synopsis of what we had learned. He was excited and full of questions. I answered a few, then said, “I can’t go into much detail right now-I just got into the office. I can tell you more after I get off work, or you could call Ethan. He was awake when I left the house this morning.”

He thanked me and said he’d call Ethan.

Lydia walked over with the stack of message slips before I finished talking to him. “Your voice mail is full,” she said the moment I hung up the phone. “Here’s hoping one of these people can help you find her.”

“Help her father find her,” I said.

That seemed to amuse her, but she only said, “Better talk to John.”

The talk with John didn’t take all that long. He was pleased with the story. Mark had done his usual fine work, following up on the aspects of the story that concerned the police work in the case of Carla Ives. His review of their efforts ran as a companion piece to mine.

I told John about my visit with the Garcias, and he called Mark in to talk that over. He decided, as I had thought he would, that I should keep my mitts off the story, since it so closely involved the Las Piernas Police Department. If it had gone to certain other reporters on our staff, I might not have been so complacent about it.

I got back to my desk and started picking up messages from my voice mail. I had another set of calls from parents of children who were missing, all of whom wanted me to put a story in the paper about their own child. I could understand their desperation. I doubted they would understand that I was already pushing the limit on the number of stories I’d be able to write on the subject, and that I wasn’t the one who decided what would be in the paper each day. I spent a brief moment contemplating what the paper would be like if I did, another contemplating the headaches that went along with that power, and went back to listening to calls. Several were about children allegedly taken by noncustodial parents.

A few were from people who thought they’d seen a girl who looked something like Carla Ives. Two of these I recognized as people who called the paper about twice a week, claiming some connection to various stories. I made a list of the others, although most sounded vague-like the man who said he had seen her in a grocery store with another little girl in Huntington Beach, but had no idea where she lived or who she was with. When he added that he thought she might be deaf now, because the two girls were using sign language, I was almost positive he had seen someone else.

I got a real surprise about halfway through the playback process. A woman’s voice said, “My daughter Jenny has been missing for five years, and my son was wrongfully convicted of killing her and my husband. My name is Elisa Fletcher…”

She went on to leave a callback number and a request that I contact her as soon as possible. I hesitated over it, then copied her name and phone number on a second slip of paper and gave it to Mark. “Curiosity is killing me,” I admitted. “I’ll want to talk to her at some point, but I don’t want to step on your story.”

When I got back to my desk, I got a call from Reed. He had some questions about the Fletcher dentists, most of which I couldn’t answer.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Sheila’s presence at the scene of Gerry Serre’s burial, though,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Are they rushing the DNA on the cigarette butts found at the scene?”

“That’s not something for publication,” he said. “How did you find out about it?”

“I’d rather not say. And I couldn’t write about it, anyway. You know that.”

“You could talk to Mark.”

“This sounds like a roundabout way to try to get me to tell you who talked to me.”

He laughed. “The DNA in the cigarettes was tested. No hits in any of our databases.”

“Did you check it against the shoe DNA?”

“That hasn’t come back yet. We’re hoping they’ll finish it this afternoon.”

“How about comparing the cigarettes to Sheila’s DNA?”

There was a pause. “Now, what makes you ask something like that?”

“I can’t help but think that she had some reason to be at the scene out at the Sheffield Estate. Some reason other than searching with Altair. She wasn’t really trying to find anything, and if it was supposedly for attention, why did she arrive there before the press was on hand? She didn’t know I was going to be there-she damned near ran me off the road when I got there, and kept going, so if it was publicity she was after, what was up with that?”

“She made sure the Express was there that evening, for the show with the teeth.”

“Yes. A show.”

“If she knew something about the death of Gerald Serre, that little show probably got her killed by his murderer.”

“Hmm. Maybe.”

“What’s on your mind, Irene?”

“What if she knew something about his murder or burial because she was there when it happened? Or killed him herself?”

“Revisiting the site in full view of the newspaper and investigators?”

“Offering to be of help in the investigation. Don’t tell me she’d be the first killer to do that.”

“No, of course not.”

“Reed, what if she wanted the press to be able to say there was a reason for her DNA to be found there? That we had seen her smoking there, and so on?”

Another pause. “Ben documented every step of that recovery process.”

“Did she know that?”

He thought about this for a moment. “Maybe not. She got there after the coroner left. Anyway, we’ll be running her DNA as part of the investigation of her murder. I’ll ask the lab to do a comparison.”

I went back to listening to messages and making notes. About three messages after the one Caleb’s mom left, I heard another one that piqued my interest.

“This is Martha Hayes. I used to be Martha Faroe. Reggie Faroe was my son. I’m very sorry about that man’s little girl, but Reggie had nothing to do with her being taken, and I can prove that. Please call me.” She left a number, so I gave her a call.