Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(12)

“I can just imagine,” Max said. Afton kicked him under the table.

“So,” Pink said, finally easing herself into a kitchen chair. “You wanted to talk about that kidnapping?” She gave a little shiver. “Although I don’t see how something like that could be tied to yesterday’s doll show.”

“Mrs. Pink,” Max began. “As I mentioned on the phone, a three-month-old baby was kidnapped from her home last night. Interestingly enough, one of the last people the baby’s mother spoke to was a woman by the name of Molly who had a booth at your show.”

Sadness reflected in Muriel Pink’s eyes. “Such a terrible, sad thing.”

“Which is why we’re following up on every possible lead,” Max said. He pulled out a hanky and mopped his face. “You mentioned to me on the phone that you had an exhibitor list?”

Pink’s brows knit together. “It’s more of a partial list,” she told them. “We had a couple of walk-in exhibitors.”

Afton and Max exchanged glances. “Does that happen often?” Afton asked.

“More often than you’d think,” Pink said.

“Do you have their names?” Max asked.

“Better than that, I’ve got their checks,” Pink said. “I haven’t deposited them yet.”

“Do you remember a woman by the name of Molly?” Afton asked. “She was displaying some reborn dolls?”

“Molly,” Pink repeated. She stood up, shuffled over to a highboy stuffed with dolls, and picked up a black notebook. “Let me take a look.” She thumbed through a few pages and glanced up. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anyone on my exhibitor list by the name of Molly.”

Max looked startled. He reached a hand out. “May I see that?”

“Certainly,” Pink said, handing the notebook over to him.

Max pursed his lips as he searched Pink’s list. “Just to make sure,” he said, “this is the list of exhibitors for yesterday’s doll show at the Skylark Mall.”

“Yes.” Pink nodded.

“But Molly isn’t listed here.” Max directed his statement to Afton.

“Is one of your checks from someone named Molly?” Afton asked.

They went through all of Mrs. Pink’s checks, one by one, but couldn’t find one that had been written by anyone named Molly.

“She could have used a fake name,” Max said.

“This might sound like a strange question,” Afton said. “But could an exhibitor have just walked in and sort of set up shop?”

Pink looked startled. “I never thought about that. It’s very unlikely.”

“But it could have happened?” Max asked.

“I suppose so,” Pink said. “I never . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Were you present the entire day?” Afton asked.

“No,” Pink said slowly. “I was there at setup, collecting money, and showing exhibitors where to place their tables. And then I had a dentist appointment and did some shopping. I was back there at seven o’clock to pay the mall people. They charge a fee, you know. I have to give them a percentage.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Max said. He hesitated. “These shows are big business. I mean, you arrange a lot of them?”

Pink smiled. “Almost every other month. Sometimes more in summer when people are more apt to travel.”

“And you don’t have a computerized list of your exhibitors?” Afton asked.

Pink shook her head. “No computers, just my notebooks.”

“Is it possible to make copies of some of your pages?” Max asked. “I mean, we’d go to the nearest Kinko’s or whatever and bring your notebooks right back.”

“Surely,” Pink said. “If you think that would help.”

“It might,” Afton said. “You never know.”

“This woman, Molly,” Muriel Pink said, looking more than a little nervous. “You think she’s a suspect?”

Max pursed his lips. “Let’s just say she’s a person of interest.”





6


THE farmhouse was quarantined on twenty acres of ninety-year-old cottonwoods perched on the edge of a cliff. And like the trees that feebly sheltered it, the house was nearing the end of its life. Once upon a time, long before the First World War, the enormous two-story house with its carved finials and finely turned balustrade had been built as a showcase to boom times. Wisconsin settlers, newlyweds, flush from a pre-income tax inheritance, had lived there and raised a large family.

In the nineteen thirties, Alvin Karpis and his bank robber gang, anxious to escape harassment from both the Chicago and the Saint Paul Police Departments, had leased the place and found it perfect. It was centrally located, but still off the beaten track, perfect for a little gangster R and R.

Dull and homely now, thanks to wind, rain, snow, termites, and old age, most of the home’s exterior had been worn down to bare, gray wood. And not the silvered elegance of old barn wood, but the dowdy, gritty look of zinc.

The fields surrounding the house had been fallow for nearly twenty years, choked with an overgrowth of buckthorn and thistles. The skeletal remains of a large grain bin stood as the only testimony to this having once been a working farm.