Marcia Talley - Through the Darkness

A twenty-something gal wearing a blue windbreaker and tennis togs, looking wholesome in a L.L. Bean sort of way, sat sideways in the driver’s seat of a Volkswagen Jetta with the door open, her feet resting on the ground on either side of her gym bag. I glared at her suspiciously. Wasn’t that bag big enough to hide an infant the size of Timmy? I had just made up my mind to ask Paul what he thought about her when the young woman shrugged out of her jacket, leaned over, unzipped the bag, and stuffed the windbreaker into it. Then she stood, stretched, and plopped the gym bag on top of the VW. I sighed. Not a kidnapper. Just a dingaling who was going to drive off and forget about that bag sitting on her roof. In my youth I’d lost a fancy new camera that way.

A Toyota Camry and a BMW wagon’s distance away from the Jetta, another man who looked vaguely familiar rested his backside against the hood of a late model, gold Chevy Malibu. I’d been wondering about him for a while, too, and just as I heard the wail of the first siren, the penny dropped. It was Eva’s husband, Roger Haberman, who had arrived for his interview. I hoped Roger would be happy with his job at the marina a little while longer because he sure as hell wouldn’t get hired at Spa Paradiso today. Maybe not any day, the way things were going now.

“Looks like the police beat the fire brigade,” Paul murmured into my hair as a two-toned blue Anne Arundel County police car sped up the drive. It was followed by a second patrol car, lights flashing and sirens screaming. Seconds later a ladder truck from Eastport wheeled up the drive and, hot on its tail, the three-thousand-gallon water supply tanker engine the county keeps at the city’s Forest Drive facility.

Paul kissed my hair, then released me to lope down the steps and speak to the officer. The officer, in turn, jogged down the drive to consult with the firemen, several of whom had already dismounted from their trucks dressed in full fire-fighting regalia. After a few moments the driver of the tanker engine removed his fire hat and set it on the seat of the vehicle, then accompanied Paul and the police officers up the drive, zeroing in on me as if they knew I was the guilty party who had called in the false alarm.

“I’m sorry,” I said before anyone could admonish me. “It’s my ten-month-old grandson who’s missing. Pulling the alarm was the only way I could think of to flush everyone out of the building so we could search for him.” I was already feeling a twinge of regret for all the man-hours I wasted when a white and yellow EMS vehicle pulled in next to the ladder truck, adding to the blockade, and my vague sense of remorse. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

One of the policemen stepped forward. “We’ve met before, Mrs. Ives. I’m Ron Powers, and this is Officer Will Dunham and Captain Tom May of the Annapolis Fire Department.”

“Of course, I remember you,” I said, extending my hand. The last time I’d seen Officer Powers, he’d rescued me from a wrecked van after some crooks had taken me and my friend, Naddie Bromley, on a high-speed chase up Interstate 97. I recognized the serious gray eyes, but Powers had shaved his mustache since we’d said good-bye to one another in the emergency room after the crash, and somewhere along the way his chin had acquired a half-inch scar that only emphasized the resolute squareness of his jaw.

“So, there’s no fire.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No fire.”

Powers turned to Captain May. “The ladder and the tanker can head back, Tom, but we may need an EMT, so ask them to stick around, will you? Is there someplace inside where we can talk?” he asked, addressing Paul rather than me.

“They have a conference room.”

“That would be fine.”

As I led the officers into Paradiso, Powers asked, “You said it’s your grandson who is missing. Are you his caretaker?”

“No, my daughter and her husband run this spa. Timmy disappeared from the day care center when my daughter stepped out of the room for a minute.”

Disappeared . I couldn’t bring myself to use the word taken . Even then, as irrational as it seemed, I must have harbored some small hope that Timmy had escaped from his playpen, crawled off on some private infant adventure, and would be found napping quietly behind a curtain, say, or nestled comfortably in a pile of towels. But it was going on an hour past his feeding time, in which case Timmy-never one to pass up a meal-would most certainly have been howling from whatever hidey hole he’d gotten himself into.

“Has anyone been in the day care center since your daughter found the child missing?”

“No, just me. Emily…” I started to explain about Emily being called away to the loading dock, but what would that have accomplished? Making lame excuses for my daughter wouldn’t bring Timmy back. I lowered my eyes to avoid Ron Powers’s unblinking, uncompromising gaze. Don’t these people read the newspaper? Watch television? His eyes were accusing. Never leave a child unattended. Never!

“Would you like to see it?” I asked.

Powers nodded, then turned to Paul. “Mr. Ives, while your wife takes me to the day care center, will you show Officer Dunham to the conference room, then locate the child’s parents and have them meet me there in, say, ten minutes?”

Reluctantly, or so it seemed to me, Paul released my hand. His lips brushed my cheek. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I think so, Paul. I’m doing something, at least. That helps a little.”

Two minutes later I wasn’t so sure. I escorted Officer Powers to Puddle Ducks, but once there, I found I couldn’t go in. Even though the lights were on and the afternoon sun streamed through the French doors, the nursery seemed dark, the cheerful murals making a mockery of the playpen, its vast emptiness burning like a hole in the center of the room.

Officer Powers produced latex gloves from his pocket and slipped them on. He circled Timmy’s playpen, bent at the waist and peered into it, but didn’t touch anything. “Is that Timmy’s toy?” he asked, pointing a latex finger at Lamby.

“Yes. He won’t go to sleep without…” I paused, too choked up to continue. I turned my head away, concentrated on the painting of Jemima Puddle Duck, and fought back my tears. Dear God, let us find Timmy. Let him sleep in his own crib tonight, with Lamby by his side .

Powers crossed over to the French doors. “Were these doors locked?”

“I don’t know. They were closed, though. I’m sure of that.”

Powers straightened. “They aren’t locked now.”

Did I imagine it, or was there disapproval in his tone, an unspoken but they should have been ?

“Does Spa Paradiso have a Code Adam in place?” Powers asked as he gazed through the windows to the patio and the woods beyond.

“Code Adam?” It wasn’t until I said the words aloud that it occurred to me what they meant. Code Adam. Adam had to stand for Adam Walsh. “Is it named for that child who was abducted in Florida?”

“Right.”

Six-year-old Adam Walsh had been found murdered. Every parent’s nightmare, a horror too terrible to contemplate. “What exactly is a Code Adam?”

“Best thing ever to come out of Wal-Mart,” Powers explained as he opened the door to the supply closet and peered in. “Now more and more stores are following their example. When a customer reports a missing kid to a store employee, they get a description and broadcast a Code Adam over the P.A. Everything stops while they look for the kid, and employees monitor all the exits to keep the kid from leaving the store.” He shut the door firmly. “A Code Adam foiled a kidnapping out at the Barnes & Noble in Harbour Center last month,” he added.