Лиза Гарднер - Before She Disappeared

“She went back inside the school,” I fill in. “Someone had propped open that egress. She rounded the building, ducked in this side entrance, changed, then exited back out. How long was she back in the school?”

Detective Lotham doesn’t answer, then I realize he can’t. This is the blind spot, of course. No way to see, to know exactly what had happened here.

But I’m starting to connect some dots. Not just what Angelique probably did, but what a cop might think of it.

Fifteen-year-old girl fails to return home. Several hours later, aunt reaches out to the community liaison officer. He comes over, asks a few questions. A teenager late for dinner . . . difficult to sound the alarm.

But protocol would’ve dictated a call to the local field office, reporting the situation. At which point a detective would’ve been called out. Maybe even Detective Lotham. He would’ve taken a statement from Guerline and Emmanuel. Maybe Guerline had already activated her niece’s Find My Phone app, maybe the police pinged it. But that would bring the cops here, to a last known location with no sign of violence but plenty of evidence of local usage. A well-known student bolt-hole.

Brief canvass of businesses, maybe even an initial review of available security footage, enough to show that Angelique had exited the front door of the school, then walked in the opposite direction of her bus stop on her own volition. With no sign of violence but plenty of evidence of planning, which was bound to skew police perspective of her disappearance.

And on a Friday night to boot. Not just a night notorious for parties and teen mischief, but the end of a detective’s normally scheduled workweek. A situation where a teen has only been missing for a matter of hours and probably of her own will would hardly win OT approval.

So the detective went home, leaving a few uniforms to continue canvassing neighbors, review security videos. Saturday. Sunday. Till Monday morning, when the detective returned to his job to learn the teenage girl remained missing and the trail was now forty-eight hours cold.

Then it became serious. Pity for the BPD. Pity for Angelique and her family.

“You’re going to tell me to leave,” I say shortly. “To mind my own business.”

“Yep.”

“It won’t work.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I have permission from the family. I also have the right to ask questions.”

“Sounds like you have this all planned out.”

“Not my first outing.”

“So I’ve also heard.”

“Did you call the names I gave Officer O’Shaughnessy?”

“I decided to check you out for myself. Then hear what others had to say.”

“Good attitude for a detective.”

“Not my first outing either.”

“So?”

Detective Lotham shrugs his massive shoulders. “Sounds to me like you’re about five minutes from cracking this case and finding a teenage girl the rest of us have clearly been too stupid to locate. Please continue.”

I smile faintly. “Your original working theory was that Angelique had gone off on her own volition Friday night, to somewhere unknown by her aunt.” I pause. “And most likely her brother. Because while Emmanuel clearly knows something, he also loves his sister and would’ve told you by now if he knew where she’d gone on Friday.”

“And you got all this from meeting the family for what . . . five minutes?”

“More like twenty.”

Detective Lotham regards me for a moment, his flat expression unchanged. “Go home.”

“This is my home. I rented a room above Stoney’s.”

“It’s wrong to give the family false hope.”

“How do you know it’s false?”

“Because you’re out of your league. Because you only thought to check security feeds, when this area is surveilled by way more than cameras. This isn’t the-middle-of-nowhere USA. It’s fucking Boston, and we know what we’re doing.”

“So where’s Angelique?”

“Go home,” he repeats.

“Do you have LPR data?” A fresh thought occurs to me as I consider his surveillance comment. LPR is a license-plate reading system. Usually installed on police cruisers, parking enforcement vehicles, maybe even city buses. The technology continuously captures license plates as the vehicles drive around, creating snapshots of every single car parked at a given time in a given place. More surveillance data, as the detective said. I’ve heard of such things but never worked in an area sizable enough or sophisticated enough to have one.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss an active investigation,” Detective Lotham informs me stiffly.

Meaning yes, Boston uses an LPR system. Which would’ve given investigators every car, van, truck, taxi, Uber driver, and city vehicle that had been in the area. Enabling detectives to identify the owners, run background, and tag criminal histories in the days and weeks following Angelique’s disappearance. So much data. Way more than the-middle-of-nowhere USA, as the detective put it. And yet, eleven months later, not enough to help. I rock back on my heels, contemplating.

“All the cameras, surveillance,” I consider out loud. “You should’ve been able to retrace Angelique’s exact steps by now. Even if she exited the school in this blind spot, the minute she walked right or left, she would’ve appeared on camera. Whether she was on foot, in the passenger side of a car, tucked in the back of an Uber— something .”

Detective Lotham says nothing.

“She could’ve caught a bus or walked to the T stop,” I continue musing out loud. “But you would’ve tracked that, too. Her path to the station, then standing around, backpack free, wearing her new clothes. Of course once she boarded and swiped her student pass, that would create yet another trail of breadcrumbs to follow.”

“Assuming she swiped her card.” Lotham appears bored with the conversation. “It’s possible she used cash for a single-use ticket. Then again, we got cameras on buses, subways, and trains as well. And a whole MBTA police force well versed in studying such visuals. Boston is clever that way.”

He’s being sarcastic, but I take the assessment seriously. “In other words, Angelique didn’t take mass transit because you would’ve spotted her. Likewise, she couldn’t have walked away and she couldn’t have driven away. Which leaves . . .”

I frown. Consider. Frown again.

“The sidewalk didn’t just swallow her up,” I say at last, frustrated.

“At this time, we’ve ruled out the sidewalk as a suspect,” Detective Lotham intones. Wise-ass.

“Then you missed something.” I announce firmly, never one to avoid a fight. “Technology is great, but it’s not foolproof. Maybe fucking Boston, the world’s cleverest city, has grown too dependent on its toys. I don’t know. But a fifteen-year-old girl didn’t just disappear off the face of the earth. There’s an answer to this puzzle. There always is.” I pause, then nod vigorously. “I’m glad I came. Whether you know it or not, you need me.”

“Excuse me—”

“According to you, you have plenty of resources and experience, not to mention a shitload of technology at your disposal.”

He glowers at me again.

“And eleven months later, how has that worked for you?”

“Listen—”

“I don’t understand half the crap you do as a big-city cop; I’ve only ever read about LPR, let alone the other bells and whistles the BPD brings to the party. But it doesn’t matter. Your best practices have failed you.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“An outsider. But that’s what it takes to find most of our missing children in the end.”

“Stay away from my investigation,” Detective Lotham warns.