Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(96)

“Vero’s abduction was the exception, not the norm?” Tessa asked. “Madame Sade grabbed her maybe because she fit a general type, brown hair, blue eyes, but probably even more to the point, was clearly unguarded in the park, as her mom was passed-out drunk. Vero’s abduction was a crime of opportunity, but for other girls, the madam took a more direct approach?”

“Well, now, just to make matters more interesting,” D.D. said, “Vero’s mom wasn’t the one who reported her missing.”

“What?” Tessa sat up straighter. Now D.D. had her and Wyatt’s complete attention.

“I pulled the original file. Because frankly, it got me curious. I mean, so few missing children’s cases from that time period, and now here is one, suddenly back from the dead, and yet she never looked up her mom. Didn’t that bother you? ’Cause again, being a paranoid homicide cop, it bothered me.”

“She said she wasn’t ready, looked nervous and scared on the subject . . .” Tessa shut up. Nicky Frank wasn’t even Veronica Sellers in the end, so what did it matter?

“Report says Vero and her mother, Marlene, went to the park. Mom ended up falling asleep on the park bench. When she wakes back up, her six-year-old daughter is gone. Uproar ensues, cops are called. But here’s the deal. According to the individual witness statements, Marlene wasn’t calling her daughter’s name. She was just walking around the park. It wasn’t until another woman approached her, asking about her daughter, saying she’d seen Vero leave the park, wondering what had happened . . . That’s when things got off and running. Police came, Marlene gave a statement, a reward was hastily assembled, a local case was born. But you tell me, mom to mom”—D.D. was speaking to Tessa at this point—“would you walk around a playground, never calling your vanished child’s name?”

Tessa didn’t have an answer. It was unfathomable to her.

“Hold on,” Wyatt spoke up. “This was nearly thirty years ago. Missing children’s cases didn’t have the publicity they do now. It might not have occurred to Marlene to assume the worst.”

“True. And the investigating officers at the time apparently agreed with you. Case was worked, ran out of steam, put away, taken back out, reworked, ran out of steam, and eventually, ten years ago, pulled again as a cold case. Because you never know, right?”

“Sure,” Tessa and Wyatt agreed.

“Now, that detective, in his notes, raises some questions right off the bat about Marlene Bilek. And not just her behavior, or lack of urgency in the park. No, what caught his attention was that six months later, Marlene opened her first-ever savings account with five thousand dollars cash.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Now, by this time, Marlene had taken up with a fellow officer, Hank Bilek. He swore the money came from her abusive ex. Basically, this Ronnie guy had bashed in her face one too many times. Hank did the noble thing, stopped by, told Ronnie if he ever laid a hand on Marlene again, Ronnie would spend the next six months assembling all his broken body parts. To make it official, Ronnie would cover Marlene’s moving expenses, hence the five grand so she could leave him and get a place of her own.”

“Okay,” Tessa interjected, “I gotta say I like Hank’s style.”

“Sure, what’s not to love? One problem, though . . . Ronnie’s account never showed a five-thousand-dollar debit. And he had the money. He’d just finished up some major plumbing job. But while Marlene has a record of cash coming in, Ronnie has no record of cash going out. So where’d the money come from?”

“You think Marlene might have sold her six-year-old daughter for five thousand dollars,” Wyatt said slowly.

“It’s a question worth considering.”

“But Marlene didn’t even get the money until six months later,” Tessa protested.

“Case was front-page news. That kind of cash appearing in Marlene’s name within twenty-four hours of her daughter’s abduction? Please, they would’ve had her in handcuffs for sure. Six months later, however, with no leads, no suspects, no theories . . . Press had moved on. And so had the police.”

“Any proof,” Wyatt asked now, “linking the money to Vero’s disappearance, or, say, a person of interest?”

“Not that lucky. The deposit was in the form of cash, so no way to trace. And for that matter, Marlene has a clean record. A history of alcohol abuse, yes, but criminal mischief, no. So . . .” Tessa could hear the waffling in D.D.’s voice. “Marlene hardly made for a great suspect. Especially given the grieving-mother act that had already been filmed on TV.”

“What about her new life with her new family, new daughter?” Tessa quizzed.

“Clean as a whistle,” D.D. reported. “By all accounts, Marlene is a law-abiding citizen. The worst may have happened to her thirty years ago, but she turned things around.”

“Well, a mysterious cash infusion of five grand doesn’t hurt,” Wyatt muttered.

“Now,” D.D. spoke up, “you’re saying Nicky Frank is not Veronica Sellers, right? So who is she?”

“We’re running her fingerprints now,” Wyatt provided. “We believe she was Vero’s roommate in the dollhouse, first name Chelsea. But we don’t have a last name or any other information as of yet.”