Little Girls(86)

Tanya never made it to the bank of terminals down by the port. In fact, there was no evidence Tanya ever crossed onto the factory grounds. Had the overpass not been there, and had Chester Karski kept watching out his bedroom window, he might have seen what had happened to the girl. But the overpass was there, and by the time Tanya Albrecht had encountered her abductor, Charles Karski was making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.

After an hour had passed without Tanya’s return, Hillary went out onto the porch and peered down Kingland Terrace toward the intersection of Kingland and Highpoint. She saw no sign of her daughter, although this did not worry her. It wasn’t unusual for one of the girls to spend the lunch hour with their father before heading home. But when another hour ticked by, Hillary began to worry. Again, she went out onto the porch and looked toward the intersection. Again, there was no sign of Tanya. This was when panic set in. Even if the girl had decided to share her father’s lunch, she should have been back by now.

Hillary called Merle Daniels, who rode dispatch in the shipyard’s front office. Yeah, Hal was still on the docks. No, he hadn’t seen Tanya come through. Sure, he supposed Tanya could have gotten through without him noticing—“It ain’t like I’m Saint Peter keeping guard over the Pearly Gates, Mrs. A,” he said—and promised he’d check with Hal and call her right back.

When the phone rang five minutes later, it wasn’t Merle Daniels, but Hal himself. “No, I worked through lunch and never saw her,” he said. “What time did she leave the house?”

Hillary told him.

“Maybe she cut a detour over to the Barrows’ place,” Hal suggested, though his own voice did not sound very hopeful. Tanya was friends with Jennifer and Anne Barrow.

“Maybe,” Hillary said, twisting the phone cord around her index finger. The silence that followed this comment hung between both of them like the aftermath of some tremendous explosion. “I think—”

“Call the Barrows,” Hal said. “If she ain’t there, let me know, and I’ll come home.”

Tanya wasn’t at the Barrows’ house. Gloria Barrow answered the phone and advised that she hadn’t seen Tanya all morning, and that her own two girls were up in their bedroom playing Chutes and Ladders. Hillary thanked Gloria, hung up the phone, and once again found her talking to Merle Daniels in the dispatch office. This time, even Merle sounded unnerved. “I’m sure she’s fine, Mrs. A,” he promised her, though Hillary thought she sensed a different truth in his voice.

Hal arrived home ten minutes later. By this time, the two other Albrecht daughters were standing with their mother on the porch while, in the kitchen, the two Albrecht boys ate late lunches of tuna fish sandwiches and chocolate milk. Hal drove around the neighborhood in his Ford pickup, cruising down every dead-end street and alleyway. He must have crossed over Kingland Terrace five or six times. Once he reached the old railroad tracks, it felt like his stomach was full of live snakes. He didn’t want to head home; he thought heading home would be akin to accepting this horrible reality, and he didn’t want to accept it. Yet he knew the police would have to be called. Had it been one of his older daughters, he might have neglected to call the cops, choosing to wait for his daughter’s return in a folding chair on the front porch, a Camel smoldering between his lips, a switch from the birch tree out back in his hands. Hell, June and Caroline missed their curfew three nights out of the week on average, and couldn’t be counted on to show up for dinner without rolling through some tall tale about why they were late. Tanya, on the other hand, was never late. She respected her curfews—she respected her parents—and she was not apt to get caught up along the way like her sisters. Which was why Hal Albrecht had a very bad feeling when he ultimately turned the pickup truck around and headed back toward Highpoint Boulevard.

His bad feeling only increased when, halfway down Montclair Street, he saw a crumpled brown paper bag on the side of the road. Hal pulled over, got out of the truck, and picked up the bag. He opened it. Had it not been for the block of apple streusel wrapped in cellophane that Hillary had baked the night before, he might not have broken into a full-fledged panic.

The cops arrived at the Albrecht house at approximately 3:45 P.M. Hillary gave the officers a description of the clothes Tanya had been wearing while Caroline hunted for some recent photos of the girl. The officers took a lot of notes then radioed in for assistance. Caroline turned over a few school photos of Tanya to the officers. Since this was a time before AMBER Alerts, the best the officers could do was issue a BOLO through dispatch with the girl’s descriptors. When a second patrol car showed up, rack lights flashing, the officers took to the streets. Hal got back into his pickup truck, along with Tom Murray and Will Williams, and resumed his own search. A few of the other neighbors began walking through the neighborhood, which was not a particularly good neighborhood to walk through after the sun went down. Two more officers went door-to-door, asking residents if they had seen Tanya Albrecht that afternoon. The officers only got one confirmed sighting, from Chester Karski. In the days that followed, Karski would be the closest thing the county police had to a suspect in the disappearance. Karski knew they were suspicious of him, but he also knew that he had done nothing wrong. If it took subjecting himself to the cops’ redundant questioning in order to put them back on the right track and find Tanya Albrecht, so be it. He was interrogated—interviewed, the police detectives called it, always a friendly smile on their face—three times. The third time, Karski brought his rabbi with him, a wizened relic in a black tunic who spoke with a heavy Polish accent. Throughout the interview, the rabbi said nothing. Karski was amiable enough, answering all of their questions . . . or at least the ones he was able to answer. Yes, he had seen the Albrecht girl earlier that day. Yes, he had spoken to her. Yes, she had spoken back. No, the Albrecht girl had never been in his home. Yes, the police were more than welcome to search his one-bedroom flat. No, they wouldn’t even need a warrant—he would give them permission. When the interview was over, Karski left without a word, feeling the worse for wear. His rabbi followed him out, saying, “Shalom” to the detectives as he went.