The walls on either side of the fireplace contained a gallery of framed photos, almost all of them featuring Christopher James Danielson. Taken together they showed a chronology of the boy's young life. There were photos of birthday celebrations, complete with cakes and candles. One school head shot after another showed his gradual facial changes from year to year. Several showcased him in a Cub Scout uniform while others had him dressed in a Little League outfit, glove and all. Those kinds of over-the-top photo displays are usually limited to the walls of doting grandparents. In this case the doting was being done by a loving great-aunt and -uncle.
Seating arrangements in the space consisted of two leather recliners directly in front of the TV set with a narrow end table standing between them. Off to one side sat an upholstered love seat. A rolling walker was stationed within easy reach of a graying fifty-something man seated in one of the recliners.
“I’m Walter Olmstead,” he said, holding out his hand in greeting. “Have a seat. I hope you’ll forgive me for not standing. Football injury,” he added in explanation, patting one hip, “a new one rather than an old one. I’m the coach, you see. The first game of the season was a doozy. In the middle of a crucial play, I saw two players charging straight for me. Unfortunately, I dodged to the right when I should have dodged to the left. Broke my hip and had to be stretchered off the field. The doctors tried screwing it back together, but they finally gave up and did a hip replacement. With any kind of luck, I’ll be back at school after Christmas break.”
“Ouch,” I said, settling onto the love seat while Penny sat down on the other recliner.
“Them’s the breaks,” Walter said with an offhand shrug accompanied by an engaging grin. “But the Wolverines went on to win state without me, so you can see how much my coaching is worth. What can we do for you, Mr. Beaumont?”
“As your wife said, I met with Danitza yesterday—with her and James both. He looks like a great kid,” I added, gesturing toward the collection of photos.
“He is a great kid,” Walter declared proudly, “no question about it. His mom has done a terrific job of raising him.”
“But not without a good deal of assistance from the two of you.”
“We do our best,” Penny agreed with a modest smile.
“But what can we do for you today?” Walter insisted. “Why this sudden interest in finding Chris now? Why not twelve years ago?”
“Because twelve years ago it wasn’t clear he was missing,” I answered. “Since Chris was estranged from both sets of grandparents at the time he disappeared, no one ever got around to reporting him as missing. Now, though, his only remaining grandmother, Annie Hinkle, is likely on her deathbed back in Ohio. She asked Chris’s brother, Jared, to try to find him in hopes of having a last-minute reconciliation. Jared’s the one who brought me into the picture.”
“I don’t see how we can be of much help,” Penny said. “Wally and I never actually met Chris. All we know about him is what Nitza has told us over the years.”
“From what I’ve heard, you two were part of a very limited group of people who knew much of anything about what was really going on at the time Chris went missing.”
“You mean about her being pregnant?” Penny asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “I guess Nitza’s parents weren’t too thrilled with the news. What can you tell me?”
“Saying they weren’t thrilled doesn’t come close!” Penny objected. “Roger Adams was downright furious, and when Roger is angry, he’s a force to be reckoned with. As for my sister, when it came to choosing between her husband or her daughter, Eileen always went along with whatever Roger said. That’s one of the reasons I tried to stay close to Nitza over the years, even when she was little. I wanted her to feel like she had someone on her side.”
“You must have succeeded,” I remarked, “because that night when the chips were down, she trusted you enough to come straight here.”
“And we’re both glad she did,” Walter declared, sending a smile in his wife’s direction. “I was always troubled by the way Roger and Eileen treated their daughter, but when Roger refused to let Nitza attend her own mother’s funeral? That was the last straw in my book.”
“Did you go?” I asked Penny.
“To the funeral, you mean?” she wanted to know.
I nodded.
“I tried,” Penny said. “Nitza and I wouldn’t even have known it was happening if one of Shelley’s friends hadn’t called and told me about it.”