The Winner, page 24
Emily shook her head. “Nothing I can think of.”
“No bumper stickers, nothing like that?”
“She’d never put a—No, nothing.”
“If you can find a picture, send it to me. I’ll put a BOLO on it—that’s ‘be on the lookout’—in a national database. If an officer anywhere runs its plates for anything, it’ll come through the computer that it’s wanted in connection with a missing-persons case.”
“What about her phone?” Emily asked.
The detective’s frame straightened with interest. “You’ve got her phone?”
“No. I didn’t see it in the house, but I can look again.”
“If you find it, bring it here. There’s a lot we can find out if we have access to the device.”
“Like what?”
“Texts, emails. When it hit different Wi-Fi routers, which would give us her exact locations before she left.”
“Can’t you call her phone company and find out all that stuff?”
“We can get CDRs—call detail records—in a day or two. That’ll show us who her calls and texts are with, but not what’s in the texts. We can issue a subpoena to her carrier to turn over the texts, but it’ll be hard at this point to convince a judge to sign off on a warrant, and a lot of times the texts are lost, anyway. Emails are even harder to get. And you can only see the router data if you have the phone. Everything’s a lot easier if we have it, even if we don’t know the password.”
“Can’t you just ask her phone company to tell you where her phone is right now?”
“To go up on a phone immediately, you need an exigent circumstances exception. Would you be willing to swear to a judge that your mother is a danger to herself or others?” He phrased it in a way that suggested he knew, from experience, that most people would balk at the prospect of going through with this in a court of law.
“I guess she’s not,” she said. “There’s nothing else you can do with her phone?”
“I apologize for putting it like this, but since your mother has a place on Cutters and owns a Mercedes”—mothah, Cuttahs, Muh-cedes—“does that mean she . . . has a good amount of money?”
“Well . . . yes,” Emily said.
Clark nodded. “Good. Good. That’ll make it easier to get a warrant for her cell tower info. It’s imprecise, but it’ll give us the general location.”
It was hard to miss this suggestion that a rich person’s life was considered worthier of law enforcement protection.
“Can you put out an alert for the police to stop cars that look like hers or anything?” Emily asked.
“Your mother isn’t a child or elderly or mentally impaired,” the detective explained. “There are no suspicious circumstances here. Odds are she went on a trip, just like she told you—her phone isn’t working or she’s not getting reception, and she’s not checking or responding to her email. It’s a free country, and people are entitled to go where they want without being in contact with anyone. We can’t call in the cavalry every time this happens. This is all we can really do until we have cause to believe your mother’s in danger.”
Another reassuring response. The detective had no reason to think this was anything beyond a wealthy woman taking a trip on a whim without alerting anyone to her whereabouts.
“One more question,” Clark said. “No one’s seen her since the twenty-first. Between then and now, was there any moment something seemed amiss? Maybe you noticed her car was gone, anything like that.”
“There was that one night all her lights were off,” Emily said, glancing at Conor for confirmation. “It was the night we saw her wineglass on the pier, maybe a week ago. Though it’s not that strange, I guess.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really. I didn’t think anything was off until I texted her that I had something important to tell her, and she didn’t respond at all. That’s when I started to get worried.”
“What was the important thing?”
“That we got engaged,” Emily said.
Clark again looked quite curious about this new piece of information, and Conor wished she hadn’t revealed it. He’d been able to recede into the background thus far, but a shotgun engagement to the daughter of a missing woman from Cutters Neck would certainly arouse suspicion. Maybe he shouldn’t have proposed to Emily at all. But she would have kept trying to reach her mother if he hadn’t imposed a news embargo. And if he hadn’t asked her now, if he hadn’t locked it down, she might not ever have agreed once her mother was missing and presumed dead—in which case, everything he’d done would have been for naught.
“You got engaged? When?”
“When did you propose?” Emily asked Conor. “Four days ago?”
“I think so,” Conor said. “Before we knew her mom was gone, of course.”
“So the twenty-seventh?” Clark confirmed.
“That sounds right. Yeah.”
“I thought”—the detective consulted his notes—“I thought you knew she was gone by the morning of the twenty-seventh. So you proposed after that?”
“Right,” Conor said. “We knew she was traveling. Just not that she was . . . ignoring texts.”
“I’m a little confused,” Clark said. “If she didn’t respond when you said you were engaged, and if that worried you, why’d you wait four days after that to come to the police?”
“Well, Conor—” Emily began.
“We both decided we wouldn’t tell anyone about the engagement right away, including both our moms,” Conor interrupted. “So we got engaged on the twenty-seventh, but we didn’t actually reach out to Emily’s mom till yesterday. So it was just one day. And, as we told you, we spent the whole day looking for her.”
Clark added to his notes.
“So we can’t do anything until you get those records?” Emily asked.
“Actually,” the detective said, “me and my partner can swing by your mother’s house later today and take a look around.”
Emily might not have understood why he was suddenly up for a search, but Conor did. Thanks to her blurting out the news of their engagement the day after her mother left Cutters on an impromptu trip in the middle of the night, Clark had cause to believe that Catherine Havemeyer was in danger.
“I THINK THAT WENT WELL,” CONOR SAID AS HE DROVE THEM AWAY from the station. “He sounded more competent than I expected.”
Emily was quiet.
“Don’t you?” he asked.
She was crying silently. He pulled over on a commercial street.
“I have a really bad feeling,” she said. “Something’s not right. This isn’t like her at all.”
“It’s gonna be okay,” he said. “It’s like the detective said, she’s somewhere on the Cape and she’s just not checking her phone. Or she’s not getting service.” He hugged her and delivered more reassurances, but it wasn’t working.
“Do you want to take a break from Cutters?” he asked. “Maybe go see Olivia?”
“She’s camping in Australia with her boyfriend. I can’t even call her.”
“Someone else, then?”
Emily looked down. “I don’t really have anyone else,” she said.
“Do you want to call your dad?”
“I texted him. He said, ‘Keep me posted.’”
Out her window was an upscale-looking coffee shop. “You haven’t eaten yet today,” he said. “Let’s get you something in there.”
They put on their masks and went into the coffee shop. Conor ordered a coffee from the barista, whose back was to him as she fiddled with the espresso machine. “What do you want, Em?” he asked.
As Emily stooped to survey the pastries under the glass, the masked barista turned around.
“Well,” a familiar voice said to Conor. “Didn’t think I’d see you again.”
He was grateful to be wearing a mask. “Hi, there,” he said cheerily. “How are you?”
“I’ll get your coffee,” Georgia said icily.
After Emily selected a croissant, he paid and left a large tip, stuffing the singles into the jar so that Georgia would see.
“Thanks so much,” Georgia said. “Really nice of you.”
“Who was that girl with the purple hair?” Emily asked when they were back in the car. “How does she know you?”
“I met her and some of her friends from around here at a bar at the very start of the summer, before I met you, and I invited them all to swim at Cutters that night,” he said. “We ended up hooking up, to be honest. I sent her a polite text the next day saying I didn’t think we should do it again. I guess she didn’t think it was so polite.”
Emily nibbled her croissant.
“I thought it was law school friends,” she said after a minute.
“Hmm?”
“You told me you invited law school friends to swim. I remember because I’d wanted to ask you who they were, because I was insecurely thinking there was a girl involved, so I didn’t end up asking. You didn’t say it was strangers from town.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. I told that to Lawrence so he wouldn’t freak out. I knew they hadn’t done anything, but if I said it was townies, he would’ve gotten the FBI involved.”
“But why’d you tell me it was law school friends?”
“I guess I just . . . didn’t want to tell you about a one-night stand, and saying it was strangers from town seemed like it would point to that. Sorry.”
Conor sipped his coffee, and they didn’t speak for the rest of the drive.
Chapter 30
Detective Clark arrived in a black Chevy that afternoon with his younger and stouter partner, Detective Sousa, whose biceps strained against his short sleeves. Both men’s faces were exposed as they waited on the driveway, but they put on masks when Emily and Conor joined them.
“Shit—should I not be touching anything?” Emily asked when she opened Catherine’s front door. “Because of fingerprints?”
“It’s fine,” Clark said. His cavalier attitude was comforting to Conor. Despite the detective’s suspicions over the proposal, this visit was just ticking a box.
She showed them through the house and the garage, the pool, the pier, and the end of the neck. The search was cursory enough that the detectives didn’t even notice the empty bottle of lorazepam in the bathroom wastebasket. They ventured out onto the dry boulders and peered in the crevices, then gave Emily’s cottage a perfunctory examination.
“You been living here all summer?” Clark asked Conor.
“No, I’m in a cabin down the road. It belongs to the resident I’m giving tennis lessons to.”
Even with his own additions, the bloodstains remained barely visible to the naked eye, and only if you were looking in the right spot for them. Volunteering it for a speedy appraisal by detectives eager to get on with their day would further suggest he was being helpful and might put off a future search.
“You want to see it?” he asked. “I mostly just use it as a base during the days.”
“That’s all right,” Clark said. “Just keep calling Miss Havemeyer’s phone every few hours and check in on her house. We’ll be in touch.”
CONOR HAD BEEN PUTTING OFF TELLING HIS MOTHER ABOUT THE ENGAGEMENT. But, no longer fearing an unexpected message from Catherine, he’d left his phone on a table when he went to get a glass of water in Emily’s cottage, and she handed it to him as it buzzed. “It’s your mom,” she said.
He picked up and said hello as Emily watched him. “So, I should tell you something,” he said. “It’s good news. I got—Emily, the girl I was telling you about—we got engaged. I proposed to her a few days ago.”
There was no response.
“Mom? You still there?”
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m just . . . You’ve been together all of two months and you want to get married?”
Emily continued observing him.
“I know it’s fast,” he said. “But we didn’t see any point in waiting.” He gave her an opportunity to speak, but she didn’t. “Normally this is when you say something like ‘Congratulations.’”
“I haven’t even talked to her yet,” his mother said. “And you told me she’s twenty-three? Are her parents okay with this?”
He took the phone into another room and shut the door.
“We haven’t gotten the chance to tell them yet,” he said. “She doesn’t really have a relationship with her dad.”
“Doesn’t her mother live there?”
Conor moved to the far end of the room and spoke more quietly. “She’s . . . not available.”
“Not available? What does that mean?”
“Well, no one’s heard from her in a few days.”
“How many is a few?”
“Ten or so.”
“Ten days? Is this normal behavior for her?”
“I guess? I don’t really know her. I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said. “She texted Emily that she was going to the Cape—Cape Cod—but we haven’t been able to get in touch. Emily’s very upset about it, so I’d rather not discuss it now. The police say there’s not much they can do at this—”
“The police? The police are involved?”
“Yes. We spoke to them today, and they searched the house.”
“Searched the house? Conor, what’s going on? You tell me you proposed to a girl I’ve never even spoken to, then her mother goes missing—”
“It’s nothing, Mom. She’s probably just not getting reception on the Cape.”
His mother didn’t say anything.
“You’ll meet Emily soon,” he said. “Once it’s safe, and once this thing with her mom is resolved.”
“HE WANTS ME TO COME DOWN TO THE STATION,” EMILY SAID THE NEXT day after she got off the phone with Detective Clark. “You, too.”
“Why both of us?” Conor asked.
She shrugged. He was fine with tagging along for moral support, but his requested attendance, especially after the disclosure of the engagement, made him uneasy. He told himself that perhaps the detectives needed him to run interference if Emily became distraught.
At the station, Clark met with them in his office and reviewed his computer screen as he told them that they’d secured a warrant for the cell tower data. Catherine’s phone hit the tower closest to Cutters nearly continuously after the party she was last seen at, up through August 26. Then, at 12:25 a.m. the morning of the twenty-seventh, the signal went in and out for a few minutes, getting patchy service as it left the neck, and resumed pinging towers along I-195, heading east, and at 1:08 a.m. it pinged close to Wareham.
Walking the phone away from her house’s Wi-Fi signal daily had been unnecessary, as they no longer had access to the device itself, but his more daring decoy had worked: it looked like Catherine had driven—or been driven—off the neck.
“Can we do the thing where I tell a judge she’s a danger to herself?” Emily asked. “To find out where her phone is? I’ll say whatever I need to.”
“It won’t do any good,” Clark explained. “The phone’s been off since Wareham. That’s the last known location.”
“So she’s in Wareham? Did you call the police there?”
“They don’t have anything, and no hospitals within a seventy-five-mile radius do, either. But it means that’s where her phone was last on. Not necessarily where her person was, or was last, or even where her car was or still is. Now, it’s within the realm of possibility that her phone died while she was on the highway and she just hasn’t gotten a new one yet, and she hasn’t checked her emails on her computer, either. Possible, but unlikely, especially since the last activity on her credit cards was a grocery order on the twenty-fourth, which would be odd if she’s gone on a long trip.”
“Aren’t there cameras at tollbooths?”
Clark explained that the route the phone took didn’t pass through any tollbooths or by any license plate–recognition cameras. They’d requested surveillance camera footage from gas stations near the Wareham exit, but nothing so far was proving useful. Her E-ZPass transponder hadn’t been read at any tolls since then, either, and if someone stole the car, he said, the first thing they probably did was rip it off and throw it away.
Conor had been concerned about all this, but for all the furor about America as a surveillance state, it sounded like it was easier than people thought to drive a car undetected along the country’s highways.
“Now, you said she’s single,” Clark said. “You’re absolutely certain about that?”
“Pretty certain. Unless they drove in late at night and parked in her garage, I’d’ve seen anyone coming in to visit her this summer.”
“What about someone living on Cutters, who wouldn’t need a car?”
Conor’s foot jittered under the desk. Clark was just asking standard questions, he reminded himself, and no one would ever think he was romantically involved with Catherine.
“No, definitely not. I mean, there are men around her age, but they’re all married, and I just can’t see her with any of them.”
“What about the community next to it, Tanners Point?”
“No, Tanners is all new—” She caught herself. “She wouldn’t be with someone from there.”
“How about from around here?”
“You mean from . . . town?” Emily asked, nearly channeling her mother’s hypothetical snobbery at the prospect. “No.”
“We’re still working on getting her call records, but you think there’s zero chance she might be visiting someone on the Cape?” Clark asked. “Maybe someone she met online? That could explain why she might not want to be in contact, if she doesn’t want you to know about them for any reason. And unless she’s carrying a lot of money on her and is paying for everything in cash, it would explain how she hasn’t used her credit cards in a while, if the person’s paying for her.”
“I guess it’s possible, but she never goes to Cape Cod, and it just doesn’t make—” Emily looked like she had an idea and reviewed her phone. “She wrote ‘the Cape.’ My mom never calls it ‘the Cape.’ She always says ‘Cape Cod.’”
“Prolly just texted it like that to save time,” said Clark. “Especially if she was driving.”
