Iris Johansen - Quinn

She instantly flared. “I never asked you to-I don’t want pity. I want help.”

“Then tell me how you want me to start. Isn’t that why I’m here?”

She nodded. “Yes.” She drew a deep breath, obviously struggling to control herself. She looked down at the box of papers and envelopes on the table. “I need you to look at these. I want every one of them to be investigated.”

“What are they?”

“Letters. I’ve received a lot of letters since Bonnie was taken.” She tapped one pile. “These are the ones that are from people who say they’ve seen her alive and well in different locations.” She tapped the next pile. “These are the sick ones. Some of them say I’m to blame and should go to hell for letting Bonnie be taken.” She moistened her lips. “Some of them are from people who say they took Bonnie and describe what they did to her before they killed her. There are only three of those. Two of them I got the first week, and I turned them over to the police. They checked them out and said that they were nutcases and actually had alibis for the day that Bonnie was kidnapped. The last one I received yesterday. I held it to give to you. I was careful about fingerprints.” She gestured to the box. “Take them all.”

“You said that you’d told the police about them? The ones where Bonnie had been sighted?”

“Of course, I did,” she said harshly. “They said that they’d checked those out, too. I don’t trust them. I want you to do it again.”

He carefully opened the last letter she had received yesterday and was scanning it. Incredibly ugly. Sickeningly explicit. It must have been pure torture for Eve to read it. “Didn’t Detective Slindak tell you to just give the unopened letters to him?”

“Yes. I couldn’t do it. They were addressed to me. She’s my daughter. I had to be part of what happened to her.”

“These aren’t part of what happened to her. These are just a bunch of hyenas crawling out of the woodwork and trying to tear you apart. I’ve seen it before in these cases.”

“Have you? Well, I haven’t. It’s all new to me. So I have to treat everything that comes my way as if it had never happened to anyone else before. Maybe you and the police are taking it too much for granted because you don’t have the same perspective as I do. Maybe you’re not careful enough.”

“I’m careful.” He carefully put the letter back in the box. “I’ll check these out again for you.”

“Particularly the ones where Bonnie was seen alive.”

“Particularly those,” he said gently.

“I want to go with you.”

“That’s not procedure.”

“To hell with procedure. You said we’d search for Bonnie together. Was that bullshit?”

“No, but I didn’t think you’d be this proactive.”

“I was supposed to sit here and wait for you all to do everything according to ‘procedure’?” Her eyes were glittering fiercely, her hands clenched. “I can’t do that. I’ve waited for her to come home. I’ve waited for you to tell me you’ve found her.” Her voice was uneven. “I’ve waited for you to tell me my baby is… dead. I can’t wait any longer. I have to find out for myself.” She took a step closer to him. “Can’t you see that? I won’t behave like some hysterical female. I won’t get in the way. But I have to help bring her home.”

She was tearing him apart. What she was asking was strictly against the rules and procedures. He’d be handed a reprimand and could even be taken off the case.

To hell with it. He couldn’t deny her the chance she wanted.

He turned away. “I’ll drop this last letter off at ATLPD for processing. Then I’ll come back and pick you up, and we’ll go interview those four people who say they’ve actually seen your Bonnie.”

“I could go with you now,” she said eagerly. “I’ll just get my-” She slowly nodded. “You don’t want to be seen with me while you’re investigating. You’ll get in trouble. I don’t want you to lose your job.”

“I won’t lose my job. I just want to avoid difficulties.” He smiled faintly. “But what would you do if you thought that I would?”

“You’ve got plenty of money. It wouldn’t hurt you like it would some people. Still, it wouldn’t be good.” She hesitated. “But it wouldn’t change what I had to do. I’d just call your boss and tell him that I’d go to the media and tell them how uncooperative the FBI was being with a bereaved mother. I don’t think they’d like that.”

He chuckled. “Lord, you’re tough.”

“I told you, I grew up in the projects. I had to fight every day of my life in one battle or another.” She turned away. “Go to the precinct and see if they can start the process of finding out anything from that poison-pen letter. I can wait.” She sat down at the table and opened one of the envelopes. “I’ve gone over these letters dozens of times to see if I could find anything in them that would offer me any hope or insight as to where Bonnie might be.” Her hands were shaking as she spread out the first letter. “It won’t hurt me to go over them again. Maybe I’ll notice something more this time. Then I’ll phone the people who wrote the letters and ask them for permission to come to see them.”

She was sitting very straight, her lips tight, and her gaze fixed on the letter. Her concentration reminded Joe of a painting he’d once seen of Anne Boleyn in a London museum, staring at the sword that was going to take her head. The same fascination, the same resolution, the same tortured bewilderment. It was incredibly painful for him to stand there and watch her. He wanted to reach out and touch her, ease that terrible tension.

She glanced up at him. “What are you waiting for? Go on. We need to get started checking these right away.”

And the chances that they’d come up with anything new were poor at best. The sad thing about that knowledge was that in her heart, Eve knew it as well. But he’d be damned if he’d voice it. He turned away. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll call you if I get delayed.”

7:15 P M.

Stone Mountain, Georgia

“MRS. NEDRA TILDEN. IT’S THE last name on your list,” Joe said quietly. “Are you sure you want to talk to her?”

“You mean because the other so-called witnesses were such disasters? I can see why the police didn’t want me involved,” Eve said. “Facing the mother of a victim must be difficult for anyone. Two of them were embarrassed about their mistake when I pinned them down to a description of her. The other man was belligerent and just wanted me to go away and leave him alone.” Eve was gazing at the cedar-shingled gray house at the end of the block. “At least you haven’t said I told you so.”

“I’ll never say that to you.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” She opened the passenger door. “Let’s go see, Mrs. Tilden.”

“Eve,” he said hesitantly. “According to the police report, she’s not quite rational.”

“You mean she’s nuts?” She shrugged. “That doesn’t mean that I should ignore the chance that she may have seen something. Maybe the police didn’t question her thoroughly because she seemed unbalanced.” She glanced at him before she stopped at the front door. “I’ll go in alone if you think you’re wasting your time.”

“I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I just don’t want you to be punished unnecessarily.” He punched the doorbell. “By all means let’s talk to the lady.”

It was opened immediately by a small, plump woman somewhere in her seventies or eighties whose eyes were bright as an inquisitive squirrel’s. “You’re Eve Duncan.” Her dark eyes were fixed eagerly on Eve’s face. “Come in. Come in. I’ve been waiting for you. It’s about time you came to see me. If I’d wanted the police to come knocking, I would have called them.” She glanced at Joe. “You police?”