Chapter 9
Despite not wanting to think about Wallace, I found myself unable to avoid it once I got home, thanks in no small part to the billowing vase of white roses and lilies on my doorstep. I plucked the card from the prongs buried between the blossoms and got a face full of floral fragrance.
We are so sorry for your loss. Our thoughts are with you—Melanie, Jana, she was good enough not to get caught.
She had married Scott Browning eight years ago, and their two children were born within the past five years.
Scott worked for a tech giant, and Melanie stayed home with the kids.
She had held a job outside of the house before the kids were born, working for a wholesale shipping company. Again, something I noted made sense.
Melanie had the necessary experience and connections, and she knew how to run a business.
I flipped next to a series of photos obviously shot with a telephoto lens, and pictured Bray leaning out of his sedan’s window, clicking a shutter.
My lips involuntarily moved into a smile at the thought of him, and how he probably took several shots with the lens cap on before he noticed.
In the photos, Melanie stood behind her SUV with the back hatch open and the inside filled to the brim with rows of identical boxes.
I pulled the photo closer to see the boxes were holding those rainbow-colored stackable rings for babies.
I counted a dozen versions of the same thing—and that was only what I could see in the photo.
Given the size of the SUV, there had to be upward of fifty boxes inside.
I flipped to the next photo. This one showed Melanie outside of her SUV again, this time with a pile of collapsed strollers jammed into the back.
Do you know how much a quality stroller costs?
Bray had said when he first told me about the case.
I didn’t know, but just like the rainbow rings, I doubted anyone needed, from what I could tell, eight identical strollers.
I placed the two photos side by side to study the background in each, and recognized the driveway where I had stood the night before. The photos were of the front of Melanie’s house, and given the angle, I had a strong suspicion I knew where they had been taken from.
Wanting to confirm, and feeling a little creeped out, I carried the photos and my phone with me into my bedroom. I marched to the window facing the street and held up each print. My stomach dropped in realization when the angle matched perfectly.
I pulled out my phone and texted Bray.
Have you been in my bedroom?
His bouncing dots appeared right away.
I assume you’re looking at
the photos in the file?
Yes. You didn’t answer my question.
I looked at the area where I stood while I waited for his response, checking for evidence someone had been in the exact spot to spy on the neighbors: a footprint in the carpet, a smudge on the window. I saw nothing of the sort.
Yes, I have. But it wasn’t
your bedroom at the time.
The thought of him in my space filled me with a strange but pleasant warmth and also a feeling of vulnerability. I quickly scanned the room looking for any blinking red lights I may have missed as discomfort washed over me.
There’s not surveillance
equipment in here or anything, is there?
No, but that’s an excellent
idea to keep watch on the street. Would you mind
if we put some up?
I’m pretty sure you don’t have to ask my permission.
You’re right, I don’t. But I am ?
His damn smiley face threatened to put a smile on my own face. I fought it with a twist of my lips and barely succeeded.
Fine. But don’t be obvious when you get here.
10-4.
While I waited, I flipped through files on the other two moms.
Jana held a degree in communications and had done a brief stint at a PR firm before she married Paolo. As a teenager, he’d moved to the U.S. from Italy with his parents. The two met at an event Jana’s company had been promoting. They had a three-year-old son and an infant daughter.
Sandra had attended journalism school and had bylines in several major outlets.
In recent years, her work appeared mostly in parenting and family lifestyle outlets.
She had a four-year-old son—who must have been the little boy needing the bathroom at the park—and her second child was due in the fall.
Nothing about any of the moms screamed criminal.
On paper, they all looked normal. Harmless.
The photos Bray had of them—in the park with their kids, having coffee at a sidewalk café, dressed up and glamorous for black-tie fundraisers—looked nothing but ordinary.
I knew, though, the best criminals hid in plain sight.
They blended into the scenery so no one saw the misconduct going on right under their nose.
I flipped next to a file of bank records.
“Whoa.” The word slipped from my lips. I figured they had to be loaded, given the neighborhood but, whoa.
Scott Browning’s income was exorbitant. Same for Paolo Russo, and Michael Vassar’s was too before he got laid off.
Despite Bray’s comments about Sandra’s new car being out of budget—which it was, based on their family income records—she still did plenty well for herself.
These were the types of families to use “summer” as a verb, to have hired help for everything, to never have to think about the price tag before purchasing, whether it be a gourmet cheese at the grocery store or a house.
On paper, none of the families needed money.
Whatever bad debt the moms had, there was no paper trail.
I wondered if it had come as a result of their operation somehow, rather than them starting a smuggling ring to clear an existing debt.
But still, why would a group of neighborhood moms be running an underground smuggling ring for baby products? What was their motivation?
I spread out the files around me, looking for an answer and making a nest of papers on the bed.
The title of one of Sandra’s written pieces caught my eye.
The printout poked from underneath Sandra’s photo.
“The 21st Century American Mom.” I pushed it sideways to find several more beneath it: “The Silent Struggles of Motherhood.” “Seven Natural Solutions for Diaper Rash.” “What to Do When None of Your Friends Have Kids.”