Chapter Six
The address Sarah Greene’s mother provided is just beyond the business district’s perimeter, so close and yet so far. Crawling along Main Street, Midge realizes she could have walked over from police headquarters and gotten there faster.
If this were an emergency, or a response to a crime, she’d turn on the siren, but . . .
Sixteen years old. Two hours late?
For all she knows, Sarah is among the gaggle of teenage girls clustered in front of the Chic Boutique’s plate glass window, admiring the mannequins’ fall fashions.
Or perhaps she’s hanging out in the gazebo with a group of teens who appear to be smoking weed and hiding the joint as Midge’s squad car crawls past. Or maybe she’s already home and her mother is caught up in being relieved and/or grounding her for being late.
Maybe.
Because she isn’t missing, missing. She can’t be.
Not on a beautiful summer evening.
Not in Mulberry Bay.
Not like Caroline.
At last, Midge turns onto Valley. More lane than avenue, it winds up, away from town, toward distant Catskill ridges kissed by late-day sunshine. Split-levels and raised ranches are set back on sloping lawns.
She parks on the road beside a mailbox marked 25. Its red flag is up, signaling that it holds outgoing envelopes for the carrier to pick up tomorrow.
In nearby Kingston, thieves have been raiding curbside boxes for checks enclosed with bills, altering them to steal the funds. The crimes have been well publicized, but idyllic Mulberry Bay has its guard down.
Midge steps out of the car into hushed, sodden air. Butterflies flutter above a curbside bed of black-eyed Susans and purple coneflowers.
Unseen insects keep up a steady whir as she plods up the steep driveway toward the house.
It has tan vinyl siding and brown vinyl shutters, bordered by shrubs and beds of pink and white impatiens.
An American flag hangs from a bracket beside the door, lank and motionless.
A gray Nissan is parked in front of the closed garage.
Sarah hasn’t come home yet. Midge can feel it.
The door flies open before she can ring the bell.
She instantly recognizes the slender blonde on the threshold—not just from glimpsing her around town over the years, but specifically, from the group of women at the Klatte house in the aftermath of Gordy’s murder.
They all had beauty parlor hair, wore skirts or dress slacks with gold crosses or pearls, and spoke in sweet, restrained, girlish voices.
Now Sarah’s flaxen waves are mussed, her sleeveless petal-pink blouse is damp with sweat or tears, and her big blue eyes are red rimmed and mascara smudged.
“Sarah Greene? Detective Sergeant Kennedy with the MBPD.” She quickly flashes her badge.
“Yes, I know. Thank you for coming.”
“Your daughter isn’t home yet?”
“No, she’s not . . . no.” She presses a fist to her mouth, scanning the yard behind Midge as if the girl might be hiding among the rhododendrons. She’s clutching her phone in the other hand.
“Mind if I come in?”
“Please.” Sarah opens the door. “Sorry, I’m forgetting my manners.”
“You’re fine.”
Midge steps inside. Bright sun pours through the west-facing windows. As at police headquarters, the air-conditioning isn’t set nearly low enough for her taste.
“Would you like something to drink? Lemonade?”
Midge would love nothing more—well, other than an ice-cold beer—but she says, “No, thank you.”
“Are you sure? I made a pitcher this morning. It’s no trouble.”
“I’m sure, but thanks.”
“If you change your mind, let me know.”
You learn a lot about people when you walk into their home while working a case.
Typically, there’s some degree of domestic disarray—maybe a few dishes in the sink, crumbs by the toaster, dust. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Once in a while, though, you encounter hoarded garbage stacked to the ceiling, dozens of cats, thousands of roaches.
Or the residents are scrambling to conceal drugs, illegal weapons, stolen merchandise.
Sometimes it’s far worse—a skittish spouse with a black eye, a wailing toddler clad in nothing but a dirty diaper. Midge has seen it all.
The Greene house offers nothing jarring.
Sarah Greene, though, offering a pitcher of homemade lemonade and remembering her hostess manners at a time like this . . .
Well, that gives Midge a bit of pause. It could be that etiquette is deeply ingrained in this woman. Or it could be a red flag.
Midge’s gaze falls on a pair of large, gilt-framed formal photographs on the wall. An earnest young man gazes out from one. In the other, she recognizes a slender blond teenager with a sweet smile. Sarah Greene looks a lot like her mother.
“Are you from Mulberry Bay?” Midge asks.
“No, we grew up in Poughkeepsie.”
“We . . . ?”
“My husband and me.”
“Oh. Right.”
“We moved up here ten years ago, because . . . Well, where we lived, things were changing. It didn’t seem safe. We wanted to raise the children in a small town, but . . .” She trails off, looking troubled.
“You chose a good one,” Midge assures her.
“I hope so. But I keep thinking about that girl who went missing—the one who used to go to our church. She just walked into the woods and never came out.”
Midge sucks in a breath.
Caroline.
“I mean, Elizabethville isn’t that far away, you know?”
Not Caroline after all.
Sarah’s mother is referring to Junia Stanton, a seventeen-year-old from a neighboring town. She went hiking in April, never to be seen again. The family has plastered the region with posters, and they’re offering a hefty reward, but so far there have been few concrete leads.
“She went to your church?” Midge asks.
“Years ago, when she was a baby. But then they moved. I think they joined a congregation in Phoenicia.”
“Do Sarah and Junia know each other, then?”
“Not at all. Why?”
“I’m just wondering if there’s some connection.”
“There isn’t! Why would you ask that?”
“It’s routine, not—”
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I’m just worried sick about Sarah. She’s so trusting. What if . . . I can’t even say it.”
She doesn’t have to. Midge knows how the question concludes.
What if something terrible happened to her?