What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(7)

Undeterred, Childress said, “Does this mean you’re going to look into my mother’s disappearance?”

“I wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t my intent.” Tracy tapped her black binder. “I have to ask you some tough questions, Ms. Childress.”

“Anita,” she said. “And I doubt they’re tougher than the questions I’ve asked myself. Like, could my father have killed my mother and disposed of her body?”

“That would be one.”

“The husband is always a suspect, isn’t he?”

“He is.”

“The detectives looked at my father long and hard. You’ll find some evidence in your file, I’m sure, that my mother and father had their disagreements.”

“What did they disagree about? Do you know?”

“From what I have pieced together from the police file, and conversations with my grandparents, and with my father, they fought about things married couples always fight about—a lack of money and a lack of time. My father didn’t like my mother leaving in the middle of the night to meet sources for her stories without telling him any of the details. On one occasion, the argument apparently got heated and the neighbor in the apartment next door called the police.

My father was asked to leave the apartment for the evening and did.

There’s a report in the file I had pulled from the archives.”

“Any indication of physical violence?”

“No, and my father moved back home the next day with my mother’s blessing.”

“What about the night in question? Did your father have an alibi?”

“Me.” Childress smiled, but it waned. “With my mother out at night, my father was my babysitter.”

“Did your mother go out at night to meet sources often?”

“Often enough that my father worried about her safety. He told me he had started to put a can of bear spray in her bag because my mother wouldn’t get pepper spray.”

“Did the police have any other theories about what happened to your mother, that you’re aware of?”

Childress leaned away, clearly uncomfortable. “They found my mother’s car parked in a garage stall not far from the Greyhound bus station. The detective said they couldn’t rule out the possibility that my mother voluntarily got on a bus and left.”

Tracy could see the pain in Childress’s expression. “What do you think?”

Childress’s eyes moistened. She inhaled a deep breath while gazing up at the ceiling and using an index finger to wipe away a tear.

“Take your time,” Tracy said.

“My mother had trouble expressing emotions. I would prefer to tell you she loved me and never would have left me, but I can’t. Over the years, my grandmother and grandfather assured me my mother loved me, but they also said they didn’t think she fully grasped that I was dependent on her for my survival. My father became my caregiver because my mother often became absorbed in one of her stories. There were instances . . .” Another deep breath. “Instances of my mother leaving me at home to chase a source. My father would get home and find me in my crib. I don’t really know what to tell you. Other than that, my mother just disappeared. No evidence of foul play. No body. She just disappeared.”

Just like Sarah. “Are your mother’s parents still alive?”

“My grandmother lives over in Laurelhurst. My grandfather is deceased.”

“And your father?”

“My father lives in Medina with his new partner.”

“Wife?”

“They aren’t married.”

“When did he start dating her?”

“Not until after I went to college.”

“Did your father have a life insurance policy on your mother?”

Tracy asked.

“Not until after I was born,” Childress said. “It was a mutual policy.”

“Whose idea was it to take out a policy?”

“My father’s. He said he worried that if anything happened to him . . . He wanted me taken care of. He didn’t think my mother could do it on her own, and he didn’t want me to be a financial burden on anyone.”

“Did he receive an insurance payment?”

“Not for a long time. The insurance company was waiting for the police to declare my mother dead. My father finally went to court to get a judicial declaration.”

Interesting. “Do you know what happened to the money?”

Childress squirmed. “My father gave up his career to stay home and take care of me. We needed the money to live on after my mother disappeared, until he built up his real estate business.”

“Is that what he did before he stayed at home? Sold real estate?”

She shook her head, looking more uncomfortable. “He had a start-up company. A tech business. The company failed. He filed for bankruptcy, but the court ruled that about $150,000 of the debt wasn’t dischargeable.”

He needed money, Tracy thought. “When did he file for bankruptcy?”

“About six months before my mother’s disappearance.”

Suspicious. No wonder the detectives focused on the husband.

“Something else you should probably know,” Childress said.

“My mother was pregnant when they got married. My father has told me they always intended to get married, but I came as a surprise, and I was the motivation.”