The Last Thing She Ever Did(52)

“Why didn’t he get money from Carole?”

“Always said, ‘The bitch has me by the balls. She made me sign a goddamn prenup.’”

Esther could be a master of the understatement. She let one fly just then. “He wasn’t happy with Carole?”

“No,” Amanda said. “And she’s nice. A little out there with her weaving, but she doesn’t know what kind of jerk she’s married to. She probably thinks that he loves her for her. I’m telling you, he only loves her for the money. He’s all about the money.”

“Where was he that morning? Do you have any idea?”

Amanda picked at some cat hair on a throw pillow as she thought. “I just know that when he came back and the police were looking for him, he didn’t even seem alarmed. Like he already knew. It made me wonder, but I tried to not think about it. I tried to put it out of my mind but I couldn’t. That’s why I called you.”

Amanda’s charm bracelet began to shake, and she clasped her fingers around it. She was crying quietly.

The detective gave the young woman a moment to pull herself together. She would have reached out to her, offered some comfort, but Toby was in the way.

“I know this was hard,” she said. “I really appreciate your telling me what you know.”

Amanda’s tearful eyes looked into Esther’s. “It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“Charlie’s going to be fine. Right? It’s almost a week. Most kids . . .”

“I sure hope so” was the best she could do.

Back in her car, Esther phoned Jake and let him know of David Franklin’s scorn for his wife and son.

“Holy shit,” the young man said. “That could be big. The motive.”

Esther cautioned him. “It’s a possibility,” she said. “But it wouldn’t be easy for David to get home and take Charlie unseen by anyone.”

“No, but you said you thought that if someone took the boy, it was more than likely someone familiar. If it were a stranger, he would have raised holy hell. At least, most three-year-olds would. One time my sister asked me to pick up my nephew from day care. I know the kid. I was supposedly Justin’s favorite uncle. But he flipped out in front of everyone. It was surreal.”

“Charlie’s dad would have to have returned home to get him, and how could he have been sure the mother wouldn’t have seen him do it? She was home with him, watching him.”

“I guess. Was Amanda sleeping with the dad?”

“I don’t know,” Esther said, looking at the time. “I don’t think so. She says that he was messing around with someone else but that it sure wasn’t her. I doubt she’d let him so much as touch her.”

She told Jake to meet her at the Franklin place.

“I need you there,” she said, pulling into a traffic circle. “We’re going to have a little chat with Carole.”





CHAPTER THIRTY

MISSING: SIX DAYS

Esther and Jake dodged the media—Bend’s mostly—that had remained parked across the street from the Franklin house for nearly a week. Esther recognized one reporter as a stringer for the Oregonian. A missing little boy doesn’t generally catch the interest of news editors unless he’s white and comes from a wealthy family. Charlie Franklin was tailor-made for the media. When Esther worked the missing-boy case in Corvallis, the boy was half Native American, and she practically had to beg the local TV affiliate to do a story. It was an ugly truth that all police officers knew.

Carole met them at the door with anxious, haunted eyes. “Did you find him?” she asked. She looked tired, wan. She wore the same pink sweater that she’d changed into when she gave up the top she’d been wearing when she tore her earlobe. Esther thought that she smelled of alcohol, but it might have been an alcohol-based mouthwash.

“Is Mr. Franklin here?” she asked.

Carole stepped back a little, letting them in. “He had a meeting,” she said. “Do we need him here now? I can try him.” She reached for her phone.

“No,” the detective said. “We want to talk to you. Just you.” Her tone was formal, she knew. She wished that she had a way of communicating with a softer touch, but that morning she just didn’t have it in her. The pressure she was feeling was like a stack of stones planted on her chest. One more, and her rib cage would splinter.

“You don’t have any news about Charlie, do you? What about that pedophile from out of state?”

“No. We’re pretty sure it wasn’t him. We’re all but certain that Charlie wandered off with someone he knew.”

“Who? Who do you think?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Esther said. “We want to find out more about what’s going on with you and your husband.”

Carole wrapped her arms around her thin frame and looked nervously away. “I don’t understand. What are you getting at?”

“Carole, we need some honesty here,” Esther said. “What is going on in your marriage?”

Carole stiffened. “Our marriage is solid.”

“We’ve heard otherwise,” she said, trying to push gently. “We need to get at the truth.”