Little Girls(91)

“Detective Freeling got caught up with some other business, but he should be here in a couple of minutes.”

“Thank you.”

When Shannon left, Laurie sat down in one of the two empty chairs that faced the nearest desk. Susan went over to the dry erase board and picked up one of the markers. She popped the cap off, then looked at her mother. “Will they care if I draw?”

“They might arrest you for vandalism.”

Susan snapped the cap back on the marker, then claimed the empty seat beside Laurie.

When Detective Freeling arrived a few minutes later, he had his shirtsleeves cuffed to the elbows and a hasty air about him. A gun and gold shield hung on his hip. He apologized for keeping them waiting. “Things popped up this morning, which I’ll tell you about momentarily,” he said.

“More information about the girls?”

“Not exactly,” Detective Freeling said as he dropped down behind the desk.

“Mommy, what girls?”

“Detective, is there a place where my daughter can wait while we do this?”

“Of course.” He jumped up and went to the door, opened it, and shouted someone’s name down the hallway. When he turned back around, his face was red. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem.”

“Will Mr. Genarro be joining us?”

“My daddy left,” Susan said before Laurie could respond. “He went back to Hartford without us.”

One of Detective Freeling’s eyebrows went up. He looked at Laurie.

“He had a business meeting in Manhattan,” Laurie explained.

“Oh,” said the detective.

An attractive young woman with a boyish bob of hair appeared in the doorway. She wore sensible rimless glasses, a tweed pantsuit, and a lanyard around her neck. She smiled brightly at both Laurie and Susan.

“Susan,” Detective Freeling said, “this is Miss Debbie. She just intercepted a whole shipment of illegal unicorns, princess gowns, pixie dust, and mermaids. Would you like to go with her and take a look?”

Susan’s jaw unhinged. Laurie laughed.

“You’re terrible,” Miss Debbie said to Detective Freeling. “Susan, hon, I’m Debbie. We don’t have any unicorns or mermaids or whatever, but we do have a litter of puppies in the sally port, if you’d like to come see them.”

Susan sprung up out of her chair. “Yes, please! Can I, Mom?”

Laurie nodded. “Go on.”

“Neat.” She bounded over to Miss Debbie, then followed the woman out into the hallway.

Detective Freeling shut the door and returned to his desk. “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine with Debs. Cute kid.”

“Thank you. Detective, I’ve never done this before. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s no big deal.” He was rifling around the desk drawers in search of something. “I’ll just turn on a recorder and have you tell me everything you told me last night. Couldn’t be simpler.” He frowned, then rubbed his forehead. He had big hands. “If I can find the recorder.”

She pointed to the breast pocket of his shirt, where something small and mechanical-looking stuck out. “Is that it?”

He glanced down, then smiled at her embarrassedly. “Yeah, that’s it.” He pulled the recorder out and fiddled with it. “This ain’t even my office. Normally, we’d do this at my desk, but it’s a cube, and there are about twenty other bucket heads moping around back there right now. Here.” He swiped some papers off to the side to clear some room on the desk. “I’ll turn it on, do a little preamble, and then you just tell your story. Don’t get nervous, it’s not a big deal. If you flub it up real bad, we can kill it and start again. Sound good?”

“Let’s do it.”

Detective Freeling hit the record button and then set the recorder down on the desk. He glanced at his wristwatch—a digital Casio that looked like he’d probably had it since high school—and said in a strangely official voice, “This is Detective Brian Freeling, Anne Arundel County Police, Eastern District.” He recited the time and the date, then nodded for Laurie to go ahead.





When she had finished, Detective Freeling switched off the tape recorder and dropped it back in the breast pocket of his dress shirt.

“Don’t forget it’s there,” she joked.

“Oh. Ha ha, yeah, no sweat. It’ll probably wind up going through the wash tonight.” He got up and dragged his chair around to her side of the desk, then sat down. “Hey, listen, I said I had some more news for you. It’s about your dad.”

“Oh. I thought you said it had nothing to do with Tanya Albrecht.”

“It doesn’t. It has to do with your dad’s death.”

She realized she was fumbling with the clasp on her purse. She stopped.

“He didn’t fall out that window,” Detective Freeling said. “He was pushed.”

“Someone—” she began, then cut herself off. Suddenly, her face felt very hot.

“We got a confession and made the arrest this morning.”

“Who?” The word squeaked out of her. She thought for sure he was going to say, Some little girl named Abigail Evans. Ever heard of her?