Lisa Gardner - Before She Disappeared

I thank her sincerely. High fives to all.

There’s a chime as a car pulls up to the drive-thru. They return to their stations and I head once more for the door, armed with coffee and my new and improved local guide.

I get on and off the right bus. It makes me smile so brightly even the bus driver, a stoic Black man who appears to be somewhere between old and ancient, grins back. I smile larger and he shakes his head. “You take care of yourself, you hear,” he says, and the fact I got him to speak feels like my second triumph of the day.

Forget Detective Lotham. Maybe I’m growing on the entire population of Mattapan.

My heady sense of success lasts until I make it to the front of the vast rec center complex. Again, much larger than I expected, and given the surrounding park, tennis courts, and running paths, nothing like I imagined. Sure, the rec center looks slightly tired and stooped, a giant metal hangar that had probably been very impressive in its heyday, and appears in need of a good power-washing and paint job. But the size, the access to the outdoors—I’ve visited plenty of neighborhoods with less.

Of course, I can’t figure out how to get in. If what my new AA bud Charlie said was true, the center’s hours would be mostly after school, evenings, and weekends. Which probably explains the locked front doors. However, a taped sign advises deliveries around back.

I’m a delivery. Of sorts.

I wander around the massive building. This close, I can see the pitting in the metal side panels, more signs of age. I’d guess the faded blue structure was built in the seventies or eighties. Maybe some government initiative to provide more opportunities for inner-city youths. I wouldn’t mind having these paths to run on. Or basketball courts or soccer fields. They are all empty now, but I’d guess around three in the afternoon, this place really comes alive.

I discover a side door, give it a tug. No luck. Keep on walking, all the way behind the building now. A second set of double doors, twin to the first. This time when I pull, the tinted glass door gives way. I step inside the cool, shadowed depths, seeking signs of human life.

There’s a check-in counter directly across from me. When I get closer, I see bins with various kinds of sporting equipment stacked behind it, locked behind metal grates. So this is where the kids check out the goods before heading out into the vast green park.

I follow the shadowed corridor deeper into the building. Given the lack of overhead lights and the deep hush broken only by the sound of my tennis shoes on concrete, the whole place is slightly ominous. Outside was filled with promise, but as for the inside . . . I spent a few days in county lockup once, and this makes me think of that. I wonder if the kids feel the same.

I walk past double doors leading to an indoor gym, but both are locked. Next up, I spy what appears to be a weight room, followed by some kind of kitchen area. Again, all shuttered tight. With the exception of the open back door, they appear to take security seriously around here. Belatedly, I realize I should’ve looked for cameras, outside as well as in. I wonder if I’m being recorded as I continue my path down the central corridor, still searching for signs of life.

Next up, a smaller gym with mats on the floor and a boxing ring in the middle. It makes me think of Detective Lotham, and I wonder if he ever came here to help out. Certainly, Officer O’Shaughnessy must know this place well, being the community liaison.

Voices. Finally. I follow the sounds to the end of the corridor, where light floods out from two separate offices.

I poke my head into the doorway on the right first, encountering two African American men, one short, one tall.

“Hi,” I say.

They stare at me.

“Are you in charge here?”

They stare at me.

I consult my notes from my new Dunkin’ Donuts friends. “Is one of you Dutch? Or maybe Antoine?”

“Dutch,” the shorter one concedes. He wears a whistle around his neck. I didn’t know that kind of thing was done anymore.

“Excellent. Charadee recommended that I talk to you about the rec center programs. I just moved into the area and would like to learn more.”

I deliver my best I’m-completely-harmless smile, then I stick out my hand. They take turns shaking it, which seems to break the ice.

“I understand you run an after-school program for local youths?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The shorter man, Dutch, confirms. His accent sounds pure Boston, no trace of immigrant anything.

“Please, call me Frankie. And you are?” I turn to the taller man, who appears roughly forty years old and has the erect bearing of a natural leader.

“Frédéric Lagudu,” the man says, with a trill of sand and sea. I gravitate toward him immediately.

“I’m a friend of the Badeau family. I understand from Ms. Violette that her niece and nephew came here often.”

“You are here about Angelique Badeau?” Frédéric asks, dark eyes narrowing.

“Yes.”

“She did not go missing here. She was back in school. That is what they say.”

“They say?”

He flushes. “What I know to be true.”

“That’s what I’ve heard, too,” I assure him. “I’m curious about the summer before school started. When Angelique and her brother, Emmanuel, were both here.”

The two men exchange glances again. I understand their natural distrust. I’m not the police, which makes me an unknown variable.

“Ms. Violette put me in touch with Officer O’Shaughnessy,” I volunteer now. “He recommended I talk with you.”

A stretch, but effective. Both men relax. O’Shaughnessy probably did help out around here, as I’d suspected. And while it might be a white lie, even if the men called O’Shaughnessy directly to check me out, I doubt he’d throw me under the bus. I’ve stirred up more activity in Angelique’s case in the past two days than the BPD did in the past two months.

“I know Angelique and her brother,” Frédéric confirms now. “Please. Come to my office. We can talk there.”

I think that’s a marvelous offer. I follow him across the hall, to a small, straightforward setup. Desk, ancient computer, coat rack, half-dead office plant. Frédéric has a brightly framed poster of a coat of arms on the wall. A palm tree upright in the middle of two golden cannons and what appear to be bayonets, cannonballs, anchors, bugles, all in patriotic colors of green, blue, and red. Below it reads L’Union Fait la Force .

“Our national emblem,” Frédéric tells me, following my gaze. “From Haiti, the country of my heart.”

“When did you immigrate?”

“Twenty years ago.”

Meaning he wasn’t caught up in the current visa turmoil of the earthquake survivors. “Do you still have family back on the island?”

“One brother, two sisters.”

“They don’t want to come here?”

“Maybe their children. For school. It’s better here than there.”

“I understand Angelique and her brother are good students. And Angelique is looking forward to studying medicine at a U.S. college.”

Frédéric shrugs. “I’m the executive director. We serve over five hundred families through our various programs. I know all a little, but none very well.”

“How does summer camp work? Do the kids sign up for specialized activities, something?”

Frédéric lays it out for me. Youths register for specific programs based on age and interest. After consulting his computer, he can tell me Angelique signed up for fashion camp while Emmanuel pursued basketball. I’m not sure why future doctor Angelique would choose fashion till Frédéric produces the program description. Apparently, fashion camp involves lots of sketching and art. Remembering the highly detailed medical drawings I’d found in in the teen’s collection, that makes sense. The activity director is a woman named Lillian, who is an art teacher from a local middle school and works for the rec center during the summer. Frédéric doesn’t want to give me her contact information but promises he’ll pass along my phone number to her.