studied it for a moment, then handed it to Keller.
It was a standard portrait photograph, the kind available in department stores across the country. The girl in the photo appeared to be about five years old. Like her mother, she was blond and blue-eyed. What ever the photographer had been waving off camera to make the little girl smile, it had obviously delighted her. Her face was scrunched up in the expression of pure, spontaneous joy that adults lose along the way and never seem to regain.
“Pretty,” Keller said.
“She’s my life,” Carly said. Again, the words sounded as if they were being read off a script. But the tears that followed seemed real enough. “Find her. Please, please find her.”
“We’ll try, ma’am,” Marie said. It was a voice Keller hadn’t heard from her since she left the police force, a voice of competence and reassurance. “Tell me about Alyssa’s father,” Marie went on.
“What about him?”
“Where you met, for one thing.”
Carly took a tissue out of a nearly empty box on the coffee table and blew her nose. “I was waitressing at Bennigan’s. He and some of his buddies came in one night. We got to talking. He was young, good-looking, built…” She shrugged. “We hit it off.”
“How long were you together?” Marie asked.
Carly looked away. “We were never really together, not in any kind of boyfriend-girlfriend way. He was gone a lot. He’d give me a call when he was in town. I knew he was in the service, but he never would talk a lot about what he did, so I figured it was some kind of Special Forces deal.”
“Why?” Keller said.
She looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“You make it sound like you weren’t all that close. If you were just fuck buddies, why’d you think his not opening up meant he was Special Ops?”
She reddened slightly at the words. “It was just…something about the way he carried himself. I’ve dated a few guys in the service before, but he was different. Nothing fazed him, nothing rattled him. Like he was above it all.”
“How did he react when you told him you were pregnant?” Marie asked.
“He wasn’t happy about it,” she said. “But I told him I wasn’t going to have an abortion. He didn’t get mad or blow up or anything, he just walked out.” She took another tissue. “He called a few days later, said we’d be taken care of. He was going to arrange an allotment from his pay for support.”
“Did he see much of Alyssa?”
Keller saw the muscles in her jaw clench. “He was gone when she was born. He called me a few days later. I asked him where the hell he’d been.”
“What did he say?”
“He seemed surprised I had even asked the question. Like I said, we didn’t usually talk about where he was or what he did. I told him that all that had changed now, that I had to know I could count on him. He said it couldn’t work like that. I hung up on him.”
Marie looked puzzled. “So he didn’t visit with her?”
Fedder shook her head. “He didn’t call anymore. The checks came, but…no Dave.”
“But you said…” Keller began.
“Oh, he called once, a few days before he took my daughter. He said he’d heard what I was up to, the way I was living, and he wasn’t going to let his daughter grow up in that environment.”
Keller and Marie exchanged glances. “What did he mean by that?” Marie said.
She looked defiant. “Look, I moved on with my life, okay? I’m thirty-five years old. I’m a grown-up. I can live any damn way I please.”
“Was he unhappy about another relationship?”
“I don’t know what the hell he was unhappy about,” she snapped. “And just what did he mean, his daughter? If he’s not going to be there for her…” She was getting wound up. Marie tried to calm her. “Ms. Fedder,” she began.
“Look, are you going to help me find my daughter or are you and this tin soldier here going to cover up for him, like everybody else?”
Keller started to respond. Marie silenced him with a warning glance. “What do you mean, everybody else?” she said.
“I called the JAG office, the Provost Marshal, everybody I could think of. I got nowhere. It was like Dave had ceased to exist.”
“What exactly did they tell you?” Keller asked.
“Nothing,” she responded sullenly.
“So you asked them a question and you got silence back?” Keller said. “Come on. They said something.”
She sighed. “They said that they could neither confirm nor deny the whereabouts of Sergeant David Lundgren.”
Keller nodded. “Sounds familiar.”
She laughed bitterly. “I’ll bet. Bet you’ve said it yourself.”
“Ms. Fedder,” Keller said as he stood up, “when I was in Saudi, my squad and I got separated from our unit. It was late at night, out on the desert. A passing helicopter mistook our Bradley for an enemy tank. The Army killed nine of my men, men I was responsible for. If I hadn’t been outside to take a leak, I’d be dead, too. I still have nightmares about it.” He walked toward the door. “The Army acted like it had never happened, and tried to get me to do the same.” He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “You might want to consider that before making any judgments about me being some sort of tool for the Army.”
She was unfazed. “And what about you, Mr. Keller?” she said. “You haven’t judged me?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “It’s a fair point. Tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you. You don’t call me a whore and I won’t call you one.” He walked out.
Keller waited in the car for another five minutes, until Marie came out. She slid into the driver’s seat. She didn’t look at Keller or start the car. Finally, she said through clenched teeth, “You mind telling me what that was all about?”
Keller looked out the window. “Guess we didn’t hit it off.”
“You didn’t hit it off because you acted like a total jackass. What the hell is the matter with you, Jack?”
“I don’t trust her,” Keller said. “She’s not telling you the whole story.”
Marie shook her head and started the car. “Well, she still wants me on the job, God knows why. I sort of danced around the question of your involvement. From now on, you let me deal with the client, okay? You seem to have lost your people skills.” She began backing the car out of the parking space.
“Suits me,” Keller said.
Marie
