Gully arrives at the station, but the witness doesn’t. The half hour passes, then an hour.
“She’s fucking with us,” Bledsoe says in frustration.
“She’s either lying,” Gully says, “or she’s afraid to come forward, to identify herself for some reason.” She wonders what that reason might be—if there is one, it must be good. She’s as frustrated as Bledsoe.
They speak to the officer who took the call on the tip line. It’s the same officer who took her first call, Officer Weeks, and he assures them that it was the same woman. She wouldn’t give her name on the phone but admitted she was the one who had called earlier. She wanted to know why Ryan Blanchard hadn’t been arrested yet. He’d explained that they couldn’t do much based on her information, unless she came forward—an anonymous tip wasn’t enough. She’d reluctantly agreed to come in. “But she’s obviously had a change of heart,” the officer concludes, clearly disappointed. He adds, “She told me that when Avery got into the car, she was wearing a T-shirt and jeans; she didn’t say anything about a jean jacket. I pressed her for more details, thinking she’d add the jean jacket. She didn’t, but she said Avery had her hair in one braid down her back.”
Gully turns to Bledsoe. “Erin didn’t mention anything about that. I’ll call her.” She quickly makes the call and Erin picks up. “Erin, it’s Gully,” she says. “Do you remember how Avery was wearing her hair on Tuesday?” She waits, mentally crossing her fingers.
“I think—I think I braided it for her,” Erin answers.
“One braid or two?” Gully asks.
“Oh God, have you found her?”
“No, but please, just tell me.”
“One braid, down the back.”
“Thanks, Erin, I’ll keep you posted,” Gully says and disconnects. She turns to Bledsoe. “Her mother did her hair that morning—one braid, down the back.” She asks, “Do we have enough to get a search warrant for Ryan Blanchard’s car?”
Bledsoe says, “It’s unusual to get a warrant based on a tip from an anonymous witness. But it can be done—if the witness has details that make him credible, and I think that’s the case here. The girl’s been missing for about forty-eight hours. I’ll find a judge.”
Gully turns away and almost collides with an officer who’s approaching her.
“There’s someone here to see you,” the officer says. “Gwen Winter and her son. She said you asked them to come in?”
“Yes, good.” She follows the officer out to the front desk and greets Gwen and her son, Adam. He’s a tall, good-looking boy, but he won’t meet her eye when she talks to him. He’s carrying his drone protectively, and his mother has his laptop in a case.
“Come over here, with me,” Gully says, and leads them to a quiet area. She calls over another uniformed officer, one with more technical expertise than she has. “Adam, you understand why we want to look at your drone footage?” Gully asks.
“I’m autistic, not stupid,” the boy says bluntly. Then he proceeds to put down his drone carefully and pulls out his laptop and sets it on the desk in front of him. “I didn’t need to bring the drone—I’ve already downloaded everything onto my laptop. But I’d be happy to show it to you—”
“Maybe after we look at the footage,” Gully says.
“Okay.” He gets everything started, makes a few clicks, and says, “I’ve had this drone for seven weeks tomorrow. I’ve flown it almost every day, so I have lots of footage, but you’re probably most interested in what my drone might have seen when Avery Wooler disappeared, right?”
“Yes,” Gully says. “Let’s start with Tuesday.”
He makes a few more clicks and then they are all looking at the footage on the screen of his laptop. It’s like seeing below from an airplane. The image is very crisp and clear. This is amazing, Gully thinks. She looks at the time signature on the screen. The drone took off on Tuesday at 4:05. Her heart begins to race. There is Adam’s house on Connaught Street below.
“Where were you when you flew this thing?” Gully asks.
“In my backyard. It can go about a half a mile in any direction from where I’m standing. I can see what the drone sees, and I didn’t see anything happen to Avery. I would have said.”
But maybe they’ll see something. Gully focuses on the screen in front of her.
Twenty-three
Erin Wooler doesn’t even wash her face or change her clothes. She hasn’t showered since Avery went missing. She doesn’t care what she looks like. She looks frantic, she knows that. She grabs her keys and knocks on her son’s bedroom door, opening it. “I’m going out for a bit,” she tells him from the doorway. When she tells him that, he looks frightened.
“Why, where are you going?”
She comes into the room and sits down on the bed. “I’m just going to speak to your father, at the hotel. We have things to discuss.”
“I don’t want to be here by myself,” Michael says plaintively.
She thinks about that. There are still reporters outside their door, like so many swarming insects, and Michael will be alone inside. “Just don’t open the door to anyone. Anyone, okay? Even if it’s the detectives. I’ll lock the door behind me. If the detectives come, tell them through the door to call me on my cell; I’ll have it with me.” She gives him a firm hug and kisses the top of his head. He seems so young, suddenly, that she wonders if she should stay. But she thinks of her missing daughter, and gets up and says, “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”
She goes back down the stairs clutching the rail, her head swimming. She hasn’t eaten much in the last couple of days or slept either. But she has fear and rage simmering through her veins, and it’s enough.
She puts on her jacket, takes a deep breath, and opens the front door. She’s immediately blinded by the flashing of cameras, assaulted by the clamor of voices. It’s a crazy tumult on her doorstep, and somehow it matches exactly what she’s feeling inside. It doesn’t faze her. She stands still and gives them a stony stare and says nothing. Her suffering confers on her a kind of dignity. They are so surprised to see her suddenly there, alone and vulnerable on her front doorstep, that they fall silent and still, as if waiting for her to speak. Instead, she makes her way down the front walk, and they step aside, allowing her passage. It’s a bizarre moment, Erin thinks, but this is all bizarre. It’s as if it’s happening to someone else. She feels detached, there and not there.
She reaches the driveway, and they move for her so that she can get to her car. But she walks past her car and turns right at the end of the driveway. She walks quickly, with purpose, her heart pounding. They start to follow her then, cameras clicking, calling, Where are you going? Has there been any news? How are you feeling, Mrs. Wooler? Where is your husband? She ignores them.
* * *
? ? ?
Michael listens to his mother leave the house; he hears the front door open—the shouting of the mob of reporters—then the door closes behind her and the journalists are muted again. He wants them to leave his mother alone. Maybe he should have gone with her. He hurries to the front of the house and slips into his parents’ room; their window looks out onto the street. He sees his mother walk past her car and head down the drive. She’s not going to the hotel to see his father like she said. Where is she going? His stomach lurches; she must be going to Derek’s, because of what he said. He feels sick now. But no, she turns right and keeps going, past the Setons’ house. He watches the mob of reporters and camera people follow her, at a slight distance. It makes him think of the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin; his mother is the piper and the journalists are the rats following her down the street. He wonders what makes him think of that, until he remembers that the Pied Piper stole children, that must be the connection. Avery has been stolen. And he begins to cry—broken, ugly crying that he wouldn’t want anyone to see, to hear. But he keeps watching through his sobs and is shocked to see his mother turn up the driveway at the Blanchards’ house.