Chapter 35
Monday morning
JP didn’t have a name. He didn’t have a report, or even a clean description, just what a neighbor thought she saw through a cracked door. Yet he had to find a young, quiet girl who didn’t want to be at the home of Todd Maddox.
So, JP stopped focusing on the younger girl and started trying to understand Bay, because wherever she came from, however she lived, the other girl was likely living the same way.
He parked a block away from Maddox’s place and walked the area again, slower this time, not looking at the duplex but at everything around it. He looked for where someone would come from and where they would go.
The street wasn’t busy. A couple of cars, people coming and going without noticing anything around them. It was a good place to disappear.
JP stood on the corner and turned slowly, mapping it out in his head. If Bay had been on foot, she hadn’t come from far, not if she was waiting and watching.
He walked the neighborhood in widening circles. One street over, then another, watching for small units, back houses, converted garages, cheap places someone could stay without being noticed. Most of it looked quite normal.
He stopped at a narrow side street behind a row of houses.
There was no traffic and no reason to be there unless you knew it existed.
JP stepped into it. Gravel underfoot, trash bins, fences patched together.
He moved slowly, taking it in. If someone was living off the radar, this was the kind of place they would pass through.
He came out the other end and circled back toward Maddox’s block.
Bay hadn’t driven. At least nothing suggested she had. No witnesses mentioned a car, and nothing tied a vehicle to her.
So, either she walked, or someone dropped her off.
JP paused at the curb and looked back at Maddox’s place. If she walked, she came from somewhere close, unless she took a city bus or an Uber, but that didn’t seem as likely. If she had been dropped off, then someone else was involved. He filed that away.
JP scanned the neighboring houses, then started knocking. Not formal interviews this time, just casual door-step questions. He asked about teenagers who lived close by and teenagers who might have been in the neighborhood around the time of Maddox’s murder.
Some didn’t answer the door. Others shrugged. One man said, “Kids pass through all the time.”
JP gave him a brief description of Hannah and Bay.
The man thought about it. “Maybe. Hard to tell these days.”
JP went back to his truck and sat for a moment, thinking it through.
Bay hadn’t panicked. She hadn’t run. Or tried to hide what she’d done.
That didn’t fit someone living a normal life.
That described someone who followed rules, expected structure, and believed something would happen next.
It sounded like someone who wasn’t used to making decisions alone.
JP started the engine but sat for another moment. He realized this was nearly an impossible task. Sabre had to get him more information. Meanwhile, he’d move in another direction.
~~~
JP read through the list of suspects in the Caldwell abduction.
One name stood out, the one both Field and August had at the top of their suspect list: Nigel Gates.
He pulled what he could on him, older records first, then anything current.
It didn’t take long to find what the original file had missed.
“Well slap me silly and call me ecstatic!”
JP said out loud. “Gates is in Donovan.”
He read on. Gates had been there for over a year on child molestation charges.
Then, he sat back in his chair for a moment.
At the time of Hannah’s disappearance, Gates had been the man Field and August were uneasy about.
He always watched the kids. Then Hannah disappeared, and the cops looked at him, but moved on.
JP closed the file. Sometimes people got cleared too easily. Sometimes they got ignored too quickly. Either way, Gates was worth another look.
~~~
JP went back to Donovan for the third time this week. He signed in, waited, and was led back to the interview area.
Nigel Gates was brought in a minute later. He looked older and thinner than the photo JP had seen. He was worn down in a way that only came from time spent in prison with the kind of jacket he had. The prison tried to cover those, but it didn’t usually take long before the word spread.
Gates sat across from JP and stared without saying anything at first. He just studied him. “Who the hell are you?
“JP Torn, a private investigator.”
“What are you investigating?” His tone held deep suspicion.
JP got right into it. “You lived near the Caldwell house.”
Gates’s eyes narrowed. “That was a long time ago.”
“But you were there the day Hannah Caldwell disappeared.”
Gates shrugged. “I lived in the neighborhood. That’s it.”
JP leaned forward. “You were looked at,” he said.
“Yeah,” Gates replied. “I remember, but it wasn’t me. They were looking where it was easiest,” Gates said. “That’s the reason they came to me. But they found the right guy. I saw him.”
“What do you mean?”
Gates shifted in his chair. “I used to take walks,” he said. “Same time most days. Kept me out of the house.”
“Near the school?”
He smiled. “Yeah.”
JP cringed.
“Did you see anything that day that stuck with you?”
Gates took a moment, apparently trying to decide if he wanted to help. “I saw the car, he finally said. “A gray sedan. Nothing special about it, but the way it was moving caught my attention. It was erratic, like the driver was drunk.”
That surprised him. “Did you see the driver?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d seen him before. Victor Hayes.”
“Was the girl with him?”
Gates gave a short breath through his nose. “She was in the front on the passenger side.”
“Where did he go?”
“He turned just a few blocks down, but there was another car behind him. It was back a bit, but going in the same direction.”
“Was it following Hayes?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Could’ve been. Could’ve just been another car on the road, but it did turn the same place Hayes turned.”
“Could you see who was in that car?”
“Just some guy. But I didn’t recognize him or the car he was driving.”
“But you noticed it.”
Gates grinned. “It was a 1966 yellow Mustang. I had one like it when I was young.”
“Did you tell anyone about Hayes?”
Gates gave a short, dry laugh. “You see where I ended up?”
Right where you belong, JP thought.
“If I’d walked into a station back then and told them I saw something, they would’ve locked onto me harder than they already had. Besides, I’m not going out of my way to help the cops.”
“So, you said nothing.”
Gates nodded. “So, I said nothing.”
“Do you ever regret that?”
“No. They already had the right guy.”
“And you had nothing to do with her abduction?”
“No. I don’t hurt little girls.”
JP did all he could to keep from punching him.