“It may be,” Gerritsen said.
“Thanks for sharing all this information with me,” Wilcox said. The irony was lost on Gerritsen. Most irony was.
“Thank you for calling, Agent Wilcox.” Gerritsen placed just enough stress on the word “agent” to let Wilcox know he was only humoring him by using the title. “We’ll check this out and get back to you.”
Wilcox hung up without responding. He popped the Rolaids into his mouth and went to shake another out of the bottle. It was empty. Time to buy more.
Marie felt like she had gone through the looking glass when the day-care director introduced herself as Miss Melanie. It was also on her office door. She was a short, plump brunette, with red cheeks and a perpetually sunny smile that never left her face even when talking about the taking of one of her charges. The perpetual singsong quality of her voice never changed, either. It was as if spending day after day with children had destroyed her ability to converse normally with adults.
They were sitting in Miss Melanie’s office just off the main playroom of the Tiny Tots Daycare Center. The office was minuscule, barely a cubicle. Every wall was covered with chaotic children’s drawings of unidentifiable subjects. It was just after lunch and the children lay on thin mats laid out in rows on the linoleum floor. Miss Melanie had left the door open to keep an eye on the playroom.
“We’re a little shorthanded today,” she said with her sweetly grating voice.
“Miss…ah, ma’am,” Marie said, “I know this may be a bad time for me to just drop in…”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all, hon,” Miss Melanie said, leaning forward to pat Marie on the knee. “It’s nap time, so we can set and have a nice talk.”
“Did you know that Alyssa’s mother and father were having domestic problems?”
“Oh, no, dear,” Miss Melanie said. “Nothing like that.”
“Her mother ever say anything to you about being afraid her father was going to take her?”
“No, no,” Miss Melanie said. “If she’d said anything like that, we’d have wrote it down in the book up front. So the staff would know to keep a lookout. No, ma’am, she never told us.”
“Can you tell me what happened the day Alyssa was taken?”
Miss Melanie never lost her smile. “Well, shug, I’d like to. But the folks from the insurance said we’d best not talk to nobody about it. You know how them lawyers are.”
Marie was taken aback. “You mean someone threatened a lawsuit?”
“No. Not yet at least. But, you know. Lawyers.”
“Yeah,” Marie said. “Lawyers.” She stood up. “Thanks again,” she said.
“Anytime, shug,” Miss Melanie beamed up at her.
Marie made her way through the rows of children lined up on the floor. A few gazed up at her curiously. None of them were asleep.
As Marie stepped out the front door, she noticed a young black woman leaning against the side of the pre-fabricated metal building that housed the day-care center. She was smoking a cigarette. The woman eyed Marie suspiciously as she walked over.
“Hey,” Marie said.
“Hey,” was the reluctant reply.
“My name’s Marie Jones,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m a private investigator. Mind if I talk to you a moment?”
The woman ignored the extended hand. “It about Alyssa Fedder, I don’t know nothing.”
“You don’t know anything, or you’ve been told you don’t know anything?”
The woman gave Marie a look of amused contempt. “They any difference?”
“Not to me, I guess.”
“Damn right,” the young woman said. She took a short, abrupt pull on her cigarette. “Already one of us lost her job over this. An’ that ole bitch in there ain’t bothered to replace her.”
“So they leave you shorthanded.”
The woman blew the smoke out on an angry blast through her nostrils. “Shit. We always shorthanded.”
Marie looked sympathetic. “Trying to cut down on costs, I guess.”
“You got that right. Ole bitch. I ought turn this place in to the state, ’cept I need the job. Don’t know why Violet ain’t done it.”
“So Violet’s the one that got fired?”
The woman threw the cigarette down angrily. “Now you got me sayin’ too much. Who you say you was again?”
“I work for Alyssa’s mom. She’s worried sick about her daughter.”
“Huh,” the woman said. “That’d be a change.”
“What do you mean?”
She ground the cigarette into the dirt with the toe of her running shoe. “I tole you, I ain’t got nothin’ to say. An’ my break is over.”
“Okay,” Marie said. She started to walk away. After a few steps, she heard the woman’s voice. “Hey.”
Marie turned around. The sullen look had left the woman’s face. When she spoke again, the defiant hardness had left her voice. “That little girl in any danger?”
Marie spread her hands, palms up. “I don’t know,” she said. “I have to find her first.”
The woman looked around furtively. “Lady got fired name Violet Prickett. She know something about it, and the ole bitch ain’t got nothin’ to hold over her no more.”
Marie nodded. “You got an address? A phone number?”
The girl nodded. “She move in with her son. He stay in Wilmington. We talk sometimes.” She told Marie the number. Marie memorized it; she didn’t want to be seen writing it down in case Miss Melanie was watching.
“Thanks, ah…”
“Janica,” the woman said. “You find that little girl you tell her Miss Janica said hi. She’ll know who you talkin’ about.” She shook her head sadly. “She a sweet little thing. I hope you find her.”
***
Violet Prickett lived in one of the areas near the Cape Fear River where older houses had yet to be bought up by affluent white people and turned into “historic” homes. The house, while clean and recently painted, was losing the battle with gravity and dry rot. The front porch visibly sagged in places, one of the carved support posts slightly askew. The screen door behind which Prickett stood had been torn
