The Last Thing She Ever Did(55)

“See that?” he said. “I think that’s the kid.”

Esther didn’t say anything. She could see Charlie’s sneakers walking away from the shoreline.

The camera spun around, and the canoe went back to the beaver lodge. In doing so, it picked up the image of a man with binoculars looking across the river. Matt talked incessantly to his dog the whole time, telling her what a good baby she was and how he didn’t want her to go after the beavers.

“If we get lucky enough to film them, we can put it on YouTube,” he said.

After ten minutes he started upriver again.

Carole’s voice could be heard now, calling out, “Have you seen my little boy?”

Matt didn’t reply right away. “Say that again?”

“Here,” Matt told Esther, pointing at the video. “I pulled out my earbuds right there. I didn’t answer the lady right away because I didn’t know what she was talking about. She seemed a little out of line. You know, yelling like that.”

“I’m going to need to keep this camera,” Esther said.

“I’ll get it back, right? You won’t keep it forever, will you?” He looked skeptical.

“Yes, you’ll get it back. We’ll copy the video. All right?”

“Was there anything on there that was helpful with the case of the missing boy? I know that some people think he might have gone in the river, but I think if he did, Chelsea would have barked at him. She’s a barker. She barks at a leaf when it blows across the road.”

“Yes,” she said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

Esther didn’t say so, but one thing struck her as particularly odd. The old man with the binoculars was Dan Miller.

What was he looking at? And why hadn’t he said anything to her about that when they talked?



Esther ran into Jake outside of the records section. Jake smiled at her, but she didn’t return the gesture. Smiling was almost never her first reaction to seeing someone.

“Canoe guy came in,” she said, handing over the GoPro. “Took some video.”

“What’s on it?”

“Charlie.”

“No shit?”

“He’s walking away from the water. He doesn’t go in—at least, not at the moment he was being filmed. He’s carrying a bucket. Can’t make out much more than that. And Dan Miller. He’s on the tape too. You need to download it so we can see it on a larger screen.”

“On it.”

“Good.”

With that, Esther returned to her office to drink more coffee and scroll through messages. Media calls, mostly.

Charlie almost certainly had not fallen into the water. The canoe guy and Brad Collins would surely have noticed that. That was good. That meant the child hadn’t drowned. On the other hand, that meant that it was more likely than ever that he’d gone somewhere under his own power—or with someone else.

Someone, she thought, that the boy almost certainly knew.





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

MISSING: ONE WEEK

Dan Miller opened the front door wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and flip-flops. The retired doctor’s white hair apparently hadn’t yet decided on a direction to lie in that day: it was all over the place. In one hand he held the remote control to his television set. While Dan had talked to other officers, he’d never responded to her request to get in touch when she’d talked to the neighbor and left her business card.

Esther was circling back. The GoPro video was a good reason to make another run at the old man.

“Golf is on,” he said, opening the door wide and revealing an interior that looked every bit the authentic Old Bend the house portended from the street. It wasn’t a faux cabin with fake moose-antler chandeliers and bear silhouettes stenciled on parchment-colored lampshades. It was real. Heavy beams supported the soaring ceiling. Dark oak flooring, scarred from years of people coming and going, led to a stone fireplace whose firebox, circled by a heavy shadow of black soot like a teen girl’s heavy-handed mascara, indicated decades of memories.

“I’m here about the Franklin boy, Dr. Miller,” she said.

Dan motioned her inside and shut the door. “Been sitting in my chair, watching the river and the goings-on over there,” he said, indicating a leather chair that swiveled from the picture window to face the TV. He had a front-row seat to all the action, on both the Deschutes in front of the house and the links on the large flat-screen, his only apparent nod to modern technology. He muted the TV, although it didn’t matter much. Golf is the quietest of any broadcast sport, with whispering announcers barely registering above a suppressed cough.

Dan offered Esther something to drink, but she declined. It wasn’t a social visit. Esther didn’t do those anyway.

“Mrs. Franklin says you were out doing yardwork when her little boy disappeared,” she said.

The old man fiddled with the remote for a second. The joints of his fingers showed signs of arthritis. Twigs with tiny burls. He set down the remote.

“I was cutting the grass, yes,” he said, “but I don’t know a damn thing about the kid disappearing. I was busy. I was ‘in the zone,’ as the kids say. It takes focus to do things the right way. Even mowing the lawn needs to be done right.” He paused before adding, “I try not to look over in that direction much anyhow.”