What if the reason they couldn’t ID her was she didn’t have any fingerprints on record?
I wouldn’t worry about that now: Everybody had fingerprints on record these days—kindergarten kids, teachers. I did. All the Thornton Wilder instructors had been fingerprinted. And if she didn’t, she would be fingerprinted when they arrested her.
As it turned out, I had to leave a message for Pete Sunday, who was on his honeymoon. The colleague who answered asked if this matter could wait until Friday. “No,” I said. “Well, yes. But please tell him it’s urgent.”
Unknowing, I had waited years. I could wait a a few days more. I would think and make lists. I would go through all the texts and make a list of everything she said, and a list of her myriad phone numbers. I would put together a case. The important thing was that Pete Sunday believe me. I didn’t have to prove that Esme did it; he would have to do that. All I had to convince him of was that this wasn’t just a mother’s natural protective instinct coming up again after so many years.
Which, of course, it was.
And yet, if it were not for that instinct, I might have given up, long ago. Then there would be no answer. There would be no justice. There would be no other story.
11
Jep and Stefan were at work when Pete Sunday called me back. I was prepared to give an impassioned speech if Sunday didn’t take me seriously. But before I said anything, he pointed out, “I gave you the wrong box.”
“There are no mistakes,” I said.
“Well, other than this one. It was an honest mistake. I probably broke a law or two. I wanted you to see the evidence but I didn’t intend for you to see those crime-scene photos, Mrs. Christiansen.”
“Thea.”
“Right, Thea.”
“And it’s okay. You didn’t force me to look at them.”
“What’s up?” he said.
Then I plunged in, racing to reveal the whole jigsaw of suspicions and suppositions so that he would see this was more than just a mother’s longing. I explained how the mention of the fingerprints on the golf club in the report contained in the evidence box, unimportant as this seemed, was the final puzzle piece.
“Okay,” he said, as if talking to himself. “Okay. Say this girl, this…”
“Emily. On the texts, she calls herself Esme, which I guess is the name that Belinda called her. But if she’s the same girl that Stefan knew, and I know she is, her name was Emily Lindquist or Emily Lundgren and she came from Chicago.”
“Did she live in Black Creek?”
“I think so. I think she went to college there.”
“Did you ask Stefan if she was in school with Belinda?”
“I, uh, I haven’t told Stefan about this theory I have. I don’t want him to get his hopes up…or hate me…or think I’m crazy.”
“That makes sense. Do you have a picture of her?”
“I never saw her in my life. I have no idea what she looks like. Stefan might.”
“So you could ask him for a picture of her.”
“I could, but I don’t want to tell him. And maybe him having a picture is a long shot. There’s no reason he would have kept it, unless… I don’t know, the picture included Belinda too.”
“Why don’t you think that over?” Pete Sunday said. “As for the box, you can’t just pop these things in the mail, as you know. I’ll come to get it myself. Would that be okay?”
“You could just send someone else, someone junior. It’s a long way.”
I heard a beep and a shuffle. “From what I see here, it looks like about…mmm, twenty-two miles.”
“It’s nearly two hundred miles, detective. It took me three hours.”
“Well, I’m driving to work right now, it’s about a half hour drive, pretty drive, we live right on Red Cedar Lake near the winery. That winery is a beautiful place. Wine isn’t bad either.”
He was having some kind of chuckle at my expense. This seemed odd, and a little out of character, until I typed “Red Cedar Lake” into my phone. He really was twenty miles away. “You moved,” I said. “You took the job in Dane County…”
“Just a few weeks ago. Changed jobs. Got married.”
“Do you like it?”
“I never realized how simple and easy my job was before. The things I did once a year up there, I’ve had to do in my first week here. People here seem more determined to harm each other, you know?” he said. “They’re not all cases like Belinda McCormack. But people are bashing away at each other every night.”