The Couple Next Door Page 6

  Detective Rasbach watches the chinks in the couple’s relationship widen. The tension he had picked up on immediately after their daughter was reported missing has already blossomed into something more—blame. The united front they had shown in the first minutes and hours of the investigation is starting to erode. How could it not? Their daughter is missing. They are under intense pressure. The police are in their home, the press is pounding at their front door. Rasbach knows that if there is anything here to find, he will find it.

  EIGHT

  Detective Rasbach leaves the Contis’ house and sets off to interview the babysitter at her home to confirm their story. It is late morning, and as he walks the short distance down the leafy streets, he turns the case over in his mind. There is no evidence that an intruder was in the house or yard. But there are fresh tire tracks on the cement floor of the garage. He is suspicious of the parents, but now there is this news about the babysitter.

  When he arrives at the address Anne provided, a distraught-looking woman answers the door. She has obviously been crying. He shows her his badge.

  “I understand Katerina Stavros lives here.” The woman nods. “She’s your daughter?”

  “Yes,” the girl’s mother says, finding her voice. “I’m sorry. This isn’t a good time,” she says, “but I know why you’re here. Please come in.”

  Rasbach steps into the house. The doorway opens into a living room that appears to be full of women crying. Three middle-aged women and a teenage girl are sitting around a coffee table covered with plates of food.

  “Our mother died yesterday,” Mrs. Stavros says. “My sisters and I are trying to make arrangements.”

  “I’m very sorry to bother you,” Detective Rasbach says. “I’m afraid it’s important. Is your daughter here?” But he’s already spotted her on the sofa with her aunts—a chubby sixteen-year-old, her hand hovering over a plate of brownies as she lifts her eyes and sees the detective enter the living room.

  “Katerina, there’s a policeman here to see you.”

  Katerina and all the girl’s aunts turn to stare at the detective.

  The girl starts spouting fresh, genuine tears and says, “About Cora?”

  Rasbach nods.

  “I can’t believe someone would take her,” the girl says, putting her hands back in her lap, forgetting about the brownies. “I feel so bad. My grandma died, and I had to cancel.”

  Immediately all the aunts hover around the girl while her mother perches on the arm of the sofa beside her.

  “What time did you call the Contis’ house?” Rasbach asks kindly. “Do you remember?”

  The girl begins to weep. “I don’t know.”

  Her mother turns to Detective Rasbach. “It was about six. We had a call from the hospital around then, asking us to come, because it was the end. I told Katerina to call and cancel and come to the hospital with us.” She puts a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “We feel terrible about Cora. Katerina is very fond of her. But this is not Katerina’s fault.” The mother wants everyone to be very clear on this point.

  “Of course not,” Rasbach says emphatically.

  “I can’t believe they left her alone in the house,” the woman says. “What kind of parents would do that?”

  Her sisters shake their heads in disapproval.

  “I hope you find her,” the girl’s mother says, looking worriedly at her own daughter, “and that she’s okay.”

  “We will do everything we can,” Rasbach says, and turns to go. “Thank you for your time.”

  The Contis’ story has checked out. The baby was almost certainly still alive at 6:00 p.m., or how would the parents have dealt with the expected sitter? Rasbach realizes that if the parents had killed or hidden the baby, it had to have happened after that six-o’clock call. And either before seven, when they went over to the neighbors’, or sometime during the party. Which means they probably wouldn’t have had enough time to dispose of the body.

  Maybe, Rasbach thinks, they’re telling the truth.

  • • •

  With the detective out of the house, Anne feels she can breathe a little more easily. It’s like he’s watching them, waiting for them to make a misstep, to make a mistake. But what mistake can he possibly be waiting for? They don’t have Cora. If they had found some physical evidence of an intruder, she thinks, he wouldn’t be zeroing in, wrongly, on them. But whoever has taken Cora has obviously been very careful.

  Perhaps the police are incompetent, Anne thinks. She is worried that they will bungle everything. The investigation is moving too slowly. Every hour that goes by ratchets her panic up another notch.

  “Who could have taken her?” Anne whispers to Marco when they’re alone. Anne has sent her parents home for the time being, even though they’d wanted to settle themselves in the spare room upstairs. But Anne, as much as she relies on her parents, especially in times of stress and trouble, finds they make her anxious, too, and she is anxious enough. Plus, having them around always makes things more difficult with Marco, and he already looks like he’s about to snap. His hair is a mess, and he hasn’t shaved. They’ve been up all night, and the day is half gone. Anne is exhausted and knows she must look as bad as Marco does, but she doesn’t care. Sleep is impossible.

  “We have to think, Marco! Who would take her?”

  “I have no idea,” Marco says helplessly.

  She gets up and starts pacing back and forth in the living room. “I don’t understand why they haven’t found any evidence of an intruder. It doesn’t make sense. Does that make sense to you?” She stops pacing and adds, “Except for the loosened lightbulb in the motion detector. That’s obviously evidence that there was an intruder.”

  Marco looks up at her. “They think we loosened the lightbulb ourselves.”

  She stares at him. “That’s ridiculous!” There is a note of hysteria in her voice.

  “It wasn’t us. We know that,” Marco says fiercely. He runs his hands nervously up and down his thighs on his jeans, a new habit. “The detective is right about one thing—it looks planned. Somebody didn’t just walk by, see the door open, and go in and take her. But if she was taken for ransom, why wouldn’t the kidnapper have left a note? Shouldn’t we have heard from them by now?” He checks his watch. “It’s almost three o’clock! She’s been gone over twelve hours already,” he says, his voice breaking.

  That’s what Anne thinks, too. Surely they should have heard from someone by now. What was normal in cases of kidnapping? When she’d asked Detective Rasbach, he’d said, “There is no normal in a kidnapping. They’re all unique. If ransom is demanded, it can be within hours—or days. But generally kidnappers don’t want to be holding on to the victim for any longer than they have to. The risks go up over time.”

  The police have put a wiretap on their phone to record any potential conversations with the kidnapper. But so far no one claiming to have Cora has called.

  “What if it’s someone who knows your parents?” Marco suggests. “Maybe one of your parents’ acquaintances?”

  “You’d like to blame this on them, wouldn’t you?” Anne snaps, walking back and forth in front of him with her arms crossed.

  “Hang on,” Marco says. “I’m not blaming this on them, but think about it for a minute! The only ones with real money around here are your parents. So it has to be somebody who knows them and knows they’ve got money. We don’t have the kind of money a kidnapper would be after, obviously.”

  “Maybe they should be monitoring my parents’ calls,” Anne says.

  Marco looks up at her and says, “Maybe we need to be more creative with the reward.”

  “What do you mean? We already offered a reward. Fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Yes, but fifty thousand dollars for information leading to our getting Cora back—how much is that going to help if nobody saw anything? If anybody actually s
aw something, don’t you think they would have told the police by now?” He waits while Anne considers this. “We have to get things moving,” Marco says urgently. “The longer they have Cora, the greater the chance they’ll harm her.”

  “They think I did it,” Anne says suddenly. “They think I killed her.” Her eyes are wild. “I can tell from the way that detective looks at me that he’s already made his mind up about me. He’s probably just trying to decide how much you had to do with it!”

  Marco jumps up off the sofa and tries to embrace her. “Shhhh,” he says. “They don’t think that.” But he’s worried that that is exactly what they think. The postpartum depression, the antidepressants, the psychiatrist. He doesn’t know what to say to her to soothe her. He can feel her agitation building and wants to prevent a crisis.

  “What if they go see Dr. Lumsden?” Anne says.

  Of course they’ll go see Dr. Lumsden, Marco thinks. How could she imagine for a moment that they wouldn’t visit her psychiatrist?

  “They probably will,” Marco says, his voice deliberately calm, even matter-of-fact. “But so what? Because you had nothing to do with Cora’s disappearance, and we both know it.”

  “But she’ll tell them things,” Anne says, clearly frightened.

  “No she won’t,” Marco says. “She’s a doctor. She can’t tell them anything you told her. Doctor-patient privilege. There’s no way they can get your doctor to tell them anything you talked to her about.”

  Anne starts to pace up and down the living room again, wringing her hands. Then she stops and says, “Right. You’re right.” She takes some deep breaths. And then she remembers. “Dr. Lumsden’s away. She’s gone to Europe for a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s right,” Marco says. “You told me.”

  He places his hands on both her shoulders and presses down on her firmly, anchors her with his eyes. “Anne, I don’t want you to worry about that,” he says resolutely. “You have nothing to be afraid of. Nothing to hide. So they find out you’ve had some problems with depression—even before the baby—so what? Half the people out there are probably depressed. That fucking detective is probably depressed himself.”

  He fixes her with his eyes until her breathing returns to normal and she nods.

  Marco drops his arms. “We need to focus on getting Cora back.” He flops down on the sofa, exhausted.

  “But how?” Anne says. She is wringing her hands again.

  Marco says, “What I was starting to say before, about the reward. Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. Maybe we should try to deal directly with whoever has her—maybe we offer a lot of money for her and see if he calls us.”

  Anne thinks for a minute. “But if a kidnapper has her, why hasn’t he made a ransom demand?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe he panicked. Which scares the hell out of me, because then maybe he’ll kill Cora and dump her somewhere!”

  Anne asks, “How do we start negotiating with the kidnapper if he’s not even in touch with us?”

  Marco looks up. “Through the media.”

  Anne nods, thinking. “How much do you think it would take, to get her back?”

  Marco shakes his head in despair. “I have no idea. But we only get one shot at this, so we have to make it worthwhile. Maybe two or three million?”

  Anne doesn’t even flinch. “My parents adore Cora. I’m sure they’ll pay. Let’s get them back here, and Detective Rasbach, too.”

  • • •

  Rasbach returns hurriedly to the Contis’ house, summoned by Marco on his cell phone.

  Both Marco and Anne are standing in the living room. They have freshly tearstained faces, but they look resolved. For a brief moment, Rasbach thinks they are about to confess.

  Anne is watching for her parents at the front window. At that moment Richard and Alice arrive and come swiftly up the steps past the reporters, somehow maintaining their dignity in spite of the flash of cameras around them. Anne lets them in, careful to remain unseen behind the door.

  “What’s happened?” Richard says, alarmed, looking at his daughter, at the detective. “Did you find her?”

  Alice’s sharp eyes try to take everything in at once. She seems both hopeful and frightened.

  “No,” Anne says. “But we need your help.”

  Rasbach watches all of them closely. Marco says nothing.

  Anne speaks. “Marco and I think we should offer money directly to the kidnapper. A significant amount. Whoever’s got her, maybe if we offer enough money and promise not to prosecute, he’ll give her back.” She turns to her parents. Marco stands beside her. “We have to do something,” she says piteously. “We can’t just sit here and wait for him to kill her!” Her eyes desperately search her parents’ faces. “We need your help.”

  Alice and Richard regard each other very briefly. Then Alice says, “Of course, Anne. We’ll do anything to get Cora back.”

  “Of course,” Richard agrees, nodding emphatically.

  “How much do you need?” Alice asks.

  “What do you think?” Anne says, turning to Detective Rasbach. “How much would be enough to get someone to give her up?”

  Rasbach considers the question carefully before answering. If you’re innocent, it would be natural to want to throw money, any amount of money, at the person who has your child. And this family appears to have almost unlimited funds. It’s certainly worth a try. The parents may not be involved at all. And time is running out.

  “What were you thinking, in terms of amount?” Rasbach asks.

  Anne looks uncomfortable, as if she’s embarrassed to put a price tag on her child. She has no idea, really. How much is too much? How much is too little? “Marco and I were thinking maybe a couple million, maybe more?” Her uncertainty is obvious. She looks at her mother and father uneasily. Is she asking too much of them?

  “Of course, Anne,” Alice says. “Whatever you need.”

  “We’ll need some time to get it,” Richard says, “but we’ll do anything for Cora. And for you, too, Anne. You know that.”

  Anne nods tearfully. She hugs her mother first, then goes over and puts her arms around her father, who hugs her back. He holds her while her shoulders shake with sobs.

  For a brief moment, Rasbach thinks about how much easier life is for the wealthy.

  Rasbach watches Richard look over his daughter’s head at his son-in-law, who says nothing at all.

  NINE

  They settle on three million dollars. It’s a lot of money, but it won’t ruin Richard and Alice Dries. The couple has millions more. They can afford it.

  Less than twenty-four hours after they first reported their baby missing, early Saturday evening, Anne and Marco face the media again. They have not spoken to the press since seven o’clock that morning. Once again they have carefully crafted a message at their coffee table with the help of Detective Rasbach and then gone out onto the front steps to give a statement.

  This time Anne has changed into a simple but chic black dress. No jewelry, save pearl earrings. She has showered, washed her hair, even applied a small amount of makeup, trying to put on a brave face. Marco has also showered and shaved and changed into a white shirt and clean jeans. They look like an attractive, professional couple in their thirties, blindsided by tragedy.

  When they step out onto the small porch, just before the six-o’clock newscasts, the cameras flash as before. Interest in the case has built throughout the day. Marco waits for the hubbub to die down and then addresses the reporters. “We would like to make another statement,” he says loudly, but he is immediately interrupted before he can begin.

  “How do you explain the mix-up in what the baby was wearing?” someone asks from the sidewalk below them.

  “How could you make a mistake like that?” another voice demands.

  Marco glances at Rasbach and then ans
wers, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “I believe the police already issued a statement about that earlier, but I’ll tell you again.” He takes a deep breath. “We put Cora down earlier in the evening in the pink onesie. When my wife fed her at eleven o’clock, the baby spit up on her sleeper. My wife changed her into a different one, a mint green onesie, in the dark, but then in all the distress of her being taken we simply forgot that.” Marco’s manner is cold.

  The crowd of reporters is silent at this, digesting it. Suspicious.

  Marco takes advantage of the silence and reads from his prepared text. “Anne and I love Cora. We will do anything to get her back. We beg whoever took her to return her to us. We are able to offer the sum of three million dollars.” There is a gasp from the crowd, and Marco waits. “We are able to offer three million dollars to whoever has our baby. I’m speaking to you, to whoever has Cora—call us and we will talk. I know you are probably watching. Please contact us, and we will find a way to get the money to you in exchange for our daughter’s safe return.”

  Then Marco lifts his head and says directly to the cameras, “I say to the person who has her, I promise you there will be no charges. We just want her back.”

  He has gone off the prepared script with this last bit, and Detective Rasbach’s right eyebrow rises slightly.

  “That’s all.”

  The bulbs flash furiously as Marco lowers the piece of paper in his hand. The reporters pepper him with questions, but he turns his back on them and helps Anne into the house. Detectives Rasbach and Jennings follow them inside.

  Rasbach knows that regardless of Marco’s message, the kidnapper, whoever he or she is, will not be immune from prosecution. The parents don’t get to make that call. The kidnapper no doubt knows it as well. If this is in fact a kidnapping for ransom, the trick is to get the money into the hands of the person who has the baby and get the baby back unharmed without anybody panicking and doing something stupid. But the crime of kidnapping is a serious one, so for a kidnapper, if things go south, the temptation to kill the victim and dump the body to avoid being caught is strong.