Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

There had been a lot of speculation about what had happened to her, from kidnapping to consumption by the local wildlife. Other than a pink sweater hanging on a bush, she had vanished without a trace.

“I have pictures,” Mrs. Metrano said. She laid out the familiar poster snapshot, and then a series of computer-generated sketches that projected what Amy might have looked like at various ages, had she lived. I picked up two of the sketches, one labeled age twelve, the second age sixteen. The artist had assumed that she remained healthy and well-fed, and round-faced. Pisces’ features had been gaunt.

I put the sketches down and looked over at Mike.

“What do you think?” he said.

“She was a pretty little girl.” I shrugged.

He nodded. “When we get your videotape down, we’ll get a forensic anthropologist to make a bone-structure comparison.”

“What videotape?” Mr. Metrano asked.

“I filmed part of my conversation with the girl who called herself Pisces. I’m sure you’ll have a chance to see it. Just remember, she was lying to me. She was a little scam artist, but she wasn’t a hooker.”

Mrs. Metrano began to weep, “My baby, my baby.”

I thought poor Mike would have to leave the room. I have watched Mike follow an autopsy from Y cut to final suturing without flinching – unphased even when the skull popped open like a champagne cork. But this weeping woman was another matter.

Mr. Metrano held his wife against him and patted her back rather hard.

“Mr. Metrano,” I said, “if this girl is your daughter, where do you think she’s been for the last ten years?”

He had turned a sickly pale. “Right at the beginning, we got a report from this private investigator that Amy Elizabeth had been sold into a sort of white slavery ring. He told us they were always looking for little blond-haired girls. We went up to Montana where this ranch was supposed to be, where they took these girls. But we never found it. I took out a second mortgage on the house, and we kept on looking until the money ran out.”

“You believed in this PI?” I asked.

“Well, he kept at it after the police and sheriffs said there was no hope. No one else was giving me anything. And he showed me pictures. Awful pictures of grown men and little girls.”

“Was Amy Elizabeth in the pictures?” I asked.

“I couldn’t tell. A father sees his princess doing what they had those babies doing, you think he could make himself recognize her?”

“Did you see the pictures, Mrs. Metrano?”

“I wouldn’t let her,” George jumped in. “No mother should see that.”

“This girl, Pisces, was never used that way,” I said. Metrano took a deep, shuddery breath. Color began to return to his face.

“I ask again,” I said. “If this is Amy, where has she been?” Mike cleared his throat, and I looked over at him.

“Sorry,” I said. “Was I messing in your territory?”

“You’re doing just fine,” he said. “Nice of you to bring me along.”

“Now what?” I asked.

Mrs. Metrano sat upright. “We want to take our baby home. She’s never even had a memorial service.”

“I’m sorry,” Sharon Yamasaki said. “I can’t release her until we have investigated further. You understand our need for caution.”

“We’ve waited so long,” the mother sighed.

“You have to understand,” Mr. Metrano said, tears in his eyes as well. “We accepted a long time ago that our Amy might be dead. But until we know for sure, we can’t move on. If my wife feels in her heart that we have found Amy, then I believe her.”

“We haven’t eliminated any possibilities, sir,” Mike said. “But I caution you not to get your hopes up too high.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Metrano,” Yamasaki said gently, “why don’t you go on home now. I’ll call you personally if anything comes up.”

Mr. Metrano lifted his wife’s chin and tenderly kissed her. “She’s right, Leslie. The kids are waiting for us.”

She nodded and rose with him. They started for the door. “One more thing,” Mike said. The Metranos stopped and turned to face him.

“Who called you?” Mike asked.

“Someone from the coroner’s,” Mr. Metrano said.

“I’m certain you are mistaken,” Yamasaki said. “Our office called no one.”

“That’s what he said,” Metrano insisted. “A man called about three o’clock and said he was from the county coroner’s office. He said we should come and identify our daughter. We used to get a call like that every week or so in the beginning. But it’s been a long time.”

Mike made a note in his case book. “He actually said, ‘Come and identify your daughter’?”

“Yes. That was different, come to think of it. They used to drive over with a snapshot and say, ‘Do you know her?’ or ‘Can you identify her?’ Now and then they would have us drive all the way up here, just to make sure. They’re real careful about what they say.”

“You drove up here from where?” Mike asked.

“Where we live. Down in Long Beach.”

Long Beach. If I had ever given Long Beach a thought, and I cannot imagine why I ever would, I would have assumed that the city was to Los Angeles what the flats of Oakland are to San Francisco. That is, a backyard in which to stash some less than-lovely utilities: harbor, shipyards, downscale housing. I was right. And I was very wrong.

After some telephone tag, Mike had managed to locate the owner of Rainbows Jewelry. It was late, nearly ten o’clock, but the man had agreed to meet us. He gave Mike directions to his shop in the Belmont Shore section of Long Beach.

All the way down from L.A., Mike told me cop war stories. They were good stories, well told; he kept me laughing. I knew what he was doing, though. Sometimes when he has something on his mind that might be difficult for him to say, he busies the air talking about other people until he feels ready to get to the real stuff. I was in no hurry to hear what was on his mind.

Until the night before, I hadn’t seen Mike, or spoken to him, for six months. I needed some time to get over the initial physical hum of being with him again before we got into “So, now what?”

We exited the freeway and drove along a dazzling oceanfront city skyline of post-modern high rises, posh hotels, a new concert center, and a vast yacht harbor. Downtown ended in a strip of million-dollar mansions with a million-dollar view across the water toward Catalina Island.

Belmont Shore was a few miles farther down the beach, a quaint neighborhood and shopping area surrounded on three sides by water. Something like a flat version of Sausalito.

Second Street, the main thoroughfare, was jammed with Saturday-nighters. The crowd assorted itself into thickets: around the Keg and Panama Joe’s, rowdy youth in need of gutters to barf in or dark nooks for some postgrad Anatomy 1A spilled into traffic; toward the east a more sedate, upscale parade convened around Cafe Gazelle and Belmonte, and strolled in and out of trendy boutiques.

We found the jewelry store easily enough, but a place to park posed a challenge. After ten minutes of cruising, circling around through alleys and trying again, Mike spotted a Porsche about to leave a choice space in front of the sports bar across the street from our goal. He got into position and, with the skill born from years of city living, wedged the big Ford into the tight space. I was impressed.

Rainbows was closed for the day, but as we crossed the street, we could see a light inside and the owner watching for us behind the window. Mike showed his ID through the glass, and the man unlocked the door to let us in. And bolted it again after us.

“I’m Dennis,” the man said, switching on more lights. “I was afraid my directions had led you astray.”