And Then There Was One (7 page)

Like that would hold her interest
, Scott thought, bitterly resenting that Katie had not let the girls travel with their video games. Obediently, Jackie sat down, staring straight ahead at the bare wall.

“You have my patient records?” Katie seemed incredulous at the array of folders spread in front of her. “But they’re confidential.”

“Not what’s on public record,” Streeter said. “Where you’ve testified.”

Scott stayed focused on Jackie. Afraid to confront her mother, he felt he’d let Jackie down, and his chest contracted when she looked up at him as if to say, “that’s okay.”

The triplets were used to Katie’s protective nature, which bordered on paranoia. They all reacted differently according to their personality. Sammie, with her rebellious streak, would challenge her mom. Alex, would comply, no questions asked, and Jackie tried to reason everything out in her logical, practical way. Scott told himself that he didn’t have favorites, but truth be told, he felt closer to Jackie than the other two. He, rather than Katie, had always been Jackie’s confidant. She was so like him. Congenial, but capable of a certain toughness. She might sit here in submission, but she’d take it all in and ask him about it afterward. Scott had always understood how Jackie at times resented being a triplet. He knew that she longed to be more independent, to have her own friends. That’s why she and Sammie were always going at it. Sammie, so determined to corral the other two into a tight threesome clique.

“This is not going to be pleasant.” Streeter scanned his five colleagues seated around the conference room and gestured for one to turn on the projector.

There followed a parade of unseemly characters. Katie seemed familiar with them and the atrocities they’d committed. Growing up in the Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit, Scott lacked firsthand experience with bloodshed and brutality. Hurting a child was beyond his comprehension.

When Streeter projected a toddler with its naked torso scarred by cigarette burns, Scott stood abruptly. “Katie, give me Jackie. We’re going to get that ice cream.”

This time, without protest, Katie nodded her assent. Scott took Jackie by the hand and left the room.

“Dad, did you see those pictures?” Jackie asked once they were out in the hall. Her voice shook and a trickle of tears appeared. “Of those kids who were hurt? Is that what’s happening to Sammie and Alex?”

Scott flinched, horrified. Of course, what else would a smart child like Jackie deduce after exposure to Katie’s mutilated patients? “No,” he said as firmly as he could.

“Dad,” she said, “where do you think they are? I keep thinking and thinking. We know not to talk to strangers. You and Mom are always telling us that. So where did Alex and Sammie go? Why can’t you find them?”

Scott had to swallow hard to choke down the surge of acid. The anguish in his daughter’s voice, her fear for her sisters was destroying him. “We’ll find them, Jackie.” He felt he would gag on the promise, but he had to be strong for his daughter’s sake. “Now let’s find those vending machines.”

Once Scott and Jackie left, Katie sat straighter in her chair, steeling herself to focus on her former patients and their abusers as Streeter continued the slide show, a parade of her forensic career. Those men and a few women whom she’d testified against in child abuse cases dating all the way back to the early nineties when she’d completed her residency at Columbia University, left New York City, and started a pediatric psychiatric practice in Tampa. She hadn’t intended to do forensic work, but the need was there and she had boards in pediatrics and psychiatry. Katie pressed her fingers against her temples. Why hadn’t she declined? Why had she let her professional ego drive her to these high-profile challenges? She’d taken a break after the triplets were born. But once they started kindergarten, she’d jumped back in.

And why had she overstepped a professional ethical boundary in trying to help the Cutty boys? She couldn’t help thinking that Maxwell Cutty was behind this. He had taken Sammie and Alex away from her to prevent her testimony, preying on the worst fear of a mother. Wasn’t this the only scenario that made sense, what with no ransom demand?

When Streeter left the room to take a call, Katie rested her head on the table. Exhausted, terrified, she just couldn’t shake the image of Maxwell Cutty locking her daughters up — or worse. Wading through her professional knowledge, she tried to determine whether he would
sexually abuse Sammie and Alex or whether they’d be protected by his preference for young boys.

Then there was the lingering specter of Keith Franklin. She’d intended to tell Agent Streeter about him last night, but she’d been too exhausted. Why after so many years had he sent her that e-mail? Naturally, she had not responded, but could his ego have become so fragile that a rebuff could have set him off? Triggered an act of retribution of such drastic proportions? Could her old boyfriend have Sammie and Alex? His email had said
I’ll take care of your daughters.

Katie’s head stayed down until Agent Streeter returned. She had no choice. She had to tell him, and in doing that, she’d have to disclose to Scott the only secret that she’d ever kept from him. How he would react she didn’t know, but the lives of their daughters were hanging in the balance.

“You okay?” Streeter he asked.

“Agent Streeter, I have something to tell you.” She nodded at the other three agents still in the conference room. “Just you, please, and Scott?”

Monica Monroe Cancels European Tour to Be With Family.
— USA Today
Tuesday, June 14

Early Tuesday morning, two FBI agents pounded on the front door of the Franklin home on the east side of Detroit. Keith himself came to the door. He looked his age, fifty, had skin a shade darker than the tan coveralls he wore, sleeves rolled up to emphasize impressive biceps. The agents had approached the home cautiously. Could this be the lead they so desperately needed? Through an open window, they heard the canned laughter of a sitcom rerun interspersed with the strident shouting common to marital combat.

The feds had tracked Franklin as he left his job at central sanitation. He’d put in his eight-hour shift, driving the truck, helping to wrestle garbage cans, a messy job, not a pleasant one. No wonder he followed his shift with a beer or two at a local bar before heading home.

“Mr. Franklin, we’re from the FBI,” the senior agent announced, hand on holster. “We would like you to come down to the field office. We have some questions we’d like to ask you.”

A woman inside, whom the agents assumed was Penny Franklin, his wife, was still shrieking expletives nonstop.

Franklin stood slack jawed and mute and opened the door more widely.

“What’s it about?” Franklin asked as a slender, attractive woman, several years younger joined him.

“What are they doing here?” The woman tossed her hair and pointed to the two agents in suits.

“Mr. Franklin, we need to question you about the Monroe children,” came the response. “You need to come with us.”

Franklin’s face gave nothing away, but his wife’s glare was pure hostility. Turning, she slapped him, hard on the face. “What the fuck have you been doing with that bitch?”

“Nothing.”

“I thought so. You are seeing her! Do you have anything to do with those missing kids? Are you in this with her, you piece of shit? Because if you are, I’ll see you burn in hell.”

“Come with us, Mr. Franklin.” The agents flanked him, separating him from his wife and three boys who stood gawking in the background.

Keith Franklin responded without a word.

Streeter acquiesced to Katie’s request that the agents in the conference room give them a few moments. As they filed out, Katie asked, “Could someone keep Jackie while we talk?”

“Ellen,” Streeter called, “come back. Can you locate Mr. Monroe and bring him in here? Then could you keep an eye on Jackie?”

A few moments later, Scott walked into the conference room with Jackie. He already looked like all the life had drained out of him. And now, she had to deepen his anxiety. What she was going to tell him would not be the problem, it was just that he’d be hearing it for the first time, and she and Scott had vowed never to harbor secrets between them.

“You okay, Mom?” Jackie asked. “Do you want one?” She held up a melting Eskimo Pie. “Dad said not to get you one. That it would just melt, but I wanted to.”

“No, sweetie.” Katie knew she should smile, but only a grimace appeared.

“Katie, what’s wrong?” Scott asked. “Something about Cutty?”

“No,” Streeter answered for her. “He hasn’t left Tampa. We’re still looking for his ex-companion, Adam Kaninsky.”

“I still can’t understand why you just don’t arrest him,” Scott’s voice boomed louder than usual, then lowered as Jackie left with Agent Camry. “Guy like that, you have to put the pressure on. If he knows where my daughters are —”

“Scott,” Katie said, “I —”

“Those are my daughters out there, man. Some sick fuck has my
little girls and what are you all doing, strutting around, talking into your walkie-talkies, typing on your computers. You need to
arrest
that bastard.”

“Scott,” Katie interrupted again. “I need to tell you and Agent Streeter about something — someone —”

“Mr. Monroe, let’s hear what your wife has on her mind.”

Streeter leaned back into his chair and waited. He had a new line of questioning for Dr. Monroe, too, but he’d hear her out first.

Katie began, “Scott, what I have to say — it could be important. It’s about an old boyfriend, Keith Franklin.”

Scott’s eyebrows rose, he twisted in his chair, but he said nothing.

“Before I met you, I dated a guy, Keith Franklin. The one in some of the family photos at Mom’s. I dated him in high school and all through college. He was good to me, but he turned out to be a drug dealer. He tried to involve me in hiding drugs, and I testified against him at his trial.”

“Good lord, Katie, how terrible for you.” Scott looked puzzled, but agitated, too. “What does that have to do with Sammie and Alex?”

“I received an e-mail from him. A couple of weeks ago.”

Streeter reached into a folder and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Yes,” he said, “I was about to ask you about that. We found it on your hard drive, deleted, but we found it. He pushed it across the table, centering it between Scott and Katie. Katie squeezed her eyes shut as Scott read silently.

Katie,

I think about you every minute of every day even though it’s been twenty-four years. I made such a stupid mistake and I lost you, the only good thing that ever happened to me. My mother sees your mother and keeps track of where you live and what you’re doing. I know that you are still married to that white baseball player and I’m sorry that I sent you that one note. I have nothing against the man, except that he has you and I don’t. I know that you have three daughters and I want you to know that I have three sons. Katie, I’ve changed.
I need to be with you. I’ll leave my wife. I’ll take care of your daughters. All I think about is you. Please say that you’ll have me back. I love you and I can’t forget you and what might have been.

Yours forever,
Keith

As they read silently, Scott’s face turned a bleached shade of white. Streeter noticed that he squirmed just a fraction of an inch away from Katie, and he kept his eyes focused straight ahead.

No one spoke for a moment. Streeter finally said, “Katie, start at the beginning. Tell us everything you know about this man. And why he is appearing in your life again.”

Katie spoke in a husky monotone. She began with her senior prom where she’d first met Keith Franklin. She’d gone to St. Mary-of-the-Woods, an all girls academy run by nuns and catering to the rich. She, following in the footsteps of her three sisters, had a scholarship. She was one of three black girls in the class, and since it was a boarding school she’d had little opportunity to meet nice black guys. She’d been so excited when her mother’s friend suggested her son as a prom date. Keith was two years older than Katie and a student at Detroit Community College. He was fun, attractive, with lots of friends.

They’d started dating exclusively almost immediately after the prom. Shortly thereafter, Keith quit school and got a job with FedEx at the Detroit airport loading and unloading planes. She and Keith were a couple through all four years of her college and into her third year of medical school. Had she been in love with him? She honestly didn’t know. She’d never dated anyone else. She’d had no frame of reference.

About the time she started med school, Keith started to give her expensive gifts: a Rolex watch, dangling diamond earrings, even a car, not a new one, but a Mustang convertible. He shopped for her at designer shops, always pulling out plenty of cash. But he never made demands of her, understanding when she had to study, taking her to lavish parties only when she was free. They’d never talked of marriage, which suited her just fine as she was preoccupied with medical school.

Her problem with Keith started abruptly. Keith had been brutally beaten and dumped along the road not far from the airport where he worked. A Good Samaritan had picked him up and taken him to a pay phone. She was the one he called to come get him. It was the night before her pediatric exam, but she went. He asked her to take him to a buddy’s house and to say nothing if anyone asked about him, especially the police. She begged him to let her take him to a hospital, but he refused. She took him to the address on the west side of Detroit, a place where she’d never drive on her own. She’d wanted to tend to his wounds, but he sent her away immediately. He shoved a shopping bag into her arms and told her to take it to her house and hide it in the back section of her closet behind a panel he knew was there.

When she got home, she inspected the bag, found it full of white powder she suspected to be cocaine. Behind the panel, she found three other such bags.

“My God, Katie,” Scott’s eyes had widened and his mouth gaped. “A dealer.”

“I didn’t know, Scott,” she said. “I was home alone that night. I didn’t know what to do.”