Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

“Mom’s doll collection’s in there. Off limits to all,” he said.

Grace nodded and backed off. “When did you last see Emma?”

“At work,” he said.

“Right. Did you leave together? See where she went?”

Oliver shook his head and fiddled with the controls next to his TV.

“Not really. I had to clean up.”

The TV went on and he started to demo his game, Babe Hunter.

Grace watched for a moment, but something else caught her eye. On the coffee table in front of the TV was a picture of Emma.

Oliver stopped what he was doing. “Oh, that? I found it. Just kept it. She could get another.”

“Get another?”

“Yeah, it was her mall photo ID. No biggie. Just kind of wanted to keep it. You don’t think that’s weird, do you?”

Grace did, but she shook her head no.

“No,” she said. “Not at all.”

After a few more moments watching Oliver Angstrom play the world’s worst video game, she thanked him for his time.

“We’ll be in touch,” she said.

“Do you want me to burn a disk of my game for your nephew?”

“That would be great, but no thanks. He’s too young for your game. Looks kind of adult for his age.”

Oliver nodded and went back to the screen.

The detectives waited until they got back into the car before saying anything. It had been one of those kinds of interviews.

“What did you find out downstairs in the creepy kid’s crash pad?”

“He had a picture of Emma. Said he found it. Seems like he might be a stalker or something. Maybe obsessed with her. Wouldn’t let me go in one of the rooms. He said his mom had a doll collection that was off limits. You? Anything with the parents?”

“Mr. Angstrom said about two words, maybe three. Mrs. Angstrom went on and on about what a disappointment her boy was and how she wants to kick him out. She actually said she wished he was a suspect in Emma’s disappearance because that would mean he’d made a move on a girl. Think about it. Domineering mother, creepy basement, if there was a dead dog and wet bed we’d have the address of a serial killer.”

Grace smiled, but it was a grim smile. “Oliver’s no serial killer. He’s a dope. I’m kind of with his mother,” she said. “Even with all that, I’m kind of curious about what’s behind that basement door. Doll collection? That really would be the topper.”

“Agreed,” Paul said as he turned the ignition.

“You mind dropping me off at my mom’s?” Grace said.

“Wednesday night, is it?”

“Yeah. Love my mom, you know I do. But since Dad died I made a promise. Every Wednesday is our night.”

“At least you’ll have lots to talk about,” he said.

She nodded. “That we will.”

Sissy O’Hare was an exceedingly attractive woman, the kind who didn’t think old age was an excuse to fall apart and give in to the inevitable ravages of time. She didn’t chase after youth with facelifts, exotic oils, or clothing that wasn’t appropriate for her age. Sissy changed her hairstyle with the times-refusing to be one of those women who looked like a sorry depiction of their high school yearbook photo. She ate right and exercised. In a nod to her favorite fashion icon, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Sissy O’Hare wore a strand of favorite pearls when she was gardening.

She let friends call her Sissy O.

Grace adored her mother, even when she resented the circumstances of her birth. There had certainly been hard times between them, bouts where they hadn’t spoken for days on end. Most of that dissipated when Grace left home for college. It was around that time that she’d really gotten to know her mother and what made her do all that she did. Grace didn’t have children of her own, but through Sissy, she imagined she understood just how powerful the love for a child really could be.

Since her father’s death, Grace and her mother talked almost daily. At least once a week she and Shane would have her over to dinner or take her out. Wednesdays were a mother/daughter day, a date carved in stone. The conversations were no longer about when Grace and Shane were going to have a baby, though that sometimes slipped through in veiled ways.

“I saw the cutest baby clothes yesterday at Nordstrom,” Sissy said one time, knowing full well what she was doing.

“I’m sure you did, Mom,” Grace said, refusing to take the bait.

“Can you believe that Octomom woman? All those children! Wouldn’t you be happy with just one?”

“Yes, Mom. One day, one would be nice.”

“I didn’t mean now,” she said, not too gracefully, trying to step back a little.

“I know.”

That all was then. Water under the bridge. Done and gone. Their relationship was on solid ground, and though neither woman said so out loud, both were grateful for that.

Sissy liked to eat at 6:30 on the dot, a holdover from her days when Conner would come home dog tired, belt down a Manhattan, and slide himself into a chair at the dinner table. The table. As Grace picked at her mother’s eggplant parmesan casserole-a specialty that had always been her “company’s coming” dish when she was a girl-Grace couldn’t help but be transported back to that time and place. Her mother in the kitchen, wearing a strand of pearls, stirring the marinara as it simmered over the blue flame of the stove and soaking the eggplant in a light, acidulated brine. On the refrigerator was the usual cavalcade of children’s artwork-a tracing of a hand made to look like a turkey, a self-portrait of a little girl with pigtails, a cat lumbering along the top of a fence.

All were drawings that had been made by Tricia, the sister she’d never known.

Grace couldn’t remember, all those years later, if she’d ever asked her mother or father about why they insisted on keeping those relics front and center. It wasn’t that she didn’t command some display space, because she did. While Tricia’s artwork was on the front of the refrigerator door, hers was relegated to the side of the appliance.

One time when her mother must have noticed the disappointment on Grace’s face, she’d remarked on it.

“Honey, your drawings would only get faded. There’s less light where I put up your lovely work.”

Grace hadn’t bought the excuse. Yet by then it had been clear that there was no competing with the memory of a dead, murdered girl. Never could be.

Her mom served Grace a plate and watched for her approval.

“Delicious, as always.”

“Glad you like it, honey.”

“Company’s coming, Mom,” she said.

Sissy grinned, her teeth as white as they had been when she was young. Teeth, she liked to boast, that were all her own. “You remember!”

“I remember everything, Mom,” Grace said, leaving the “everything” to mean whatever her mother wanted it to be. It didn’t have to be anything about Tricia.

And yet that was why she was there. As the investigation of the Tacoma girls went on, the subject at hand was driven by Grace’s need to talk about the cases. Not specifics, really. And not really about the cases at all.

“Mom, I know I’m supposed to understand what motivates these killers, but it is beyond me.”

Sissy wiped her mouth with the corner of a chambray blue cloth napkin. “It is beyond everyone, honey.” She placed the napkin back in her lap and smoothed out the wrinkles. “It riles me that there are complete morons on TV every single day talking about the evil that men do to young, unsuspecting girls.”

One helmet-headed blonde was particularly irksome.

“Oh that ninny!” she went on. “She always talks with complete authority. Who but Jonathan Edwards can get into the heads of others, let alone a sociopath’s? Sure, these idiots have their degrees-” She stopped, realizing that her daughter held such a degree. “No offense,” she added quickly.