The Couple Next Door (9 page)

‘My understanding is that they
had
a sitter but she canceled at the last minute.’

She nods. ‘Right. But I would never have said they couldn’t bring the baby, if they didn’t have a sitter. They showed up with the baby monitor and said the sitter had canceled and they would just plug the monitor in and check on her a lot.’

‘And what did you think of that?’

‘What did
I
think of it?’ she asks, raising her eyebrows in surprise. Rasbach nods and waits. ‘I didn’t think anything of it. I’m not a parent. I assumed they knew what they were doing. They seemed fine with it. I was too busy getting the dinner prepared to give it much thought.’ She adds, ‘To be honest, with one of them leaving every half hour to check on her, it would probably have been less disruptive just to have had the baby here.’ Cynthia pauses. ‘On the other hand, she’s a pretty fussy baby.’

‘And Anne and Marco – you say they went next door to check on the baby every half hour?’

‘Oh, yes. They were rigid about it. The perfect parents.’

‘How long would they be gone when they checked on her?’ Rasbach asks.

‘It varied.’

‘How do you mean?’

She tosses her black hair over her shoulder and straightens
her back. ‘Well, when Marco went, he’d be pretty quick. Like five minutes or less. But Anne would stay away longer. I remember I joked with Marco at one point that maybe she wasn’t coming back.’

‘When was this?’ Rasbach leans forward slightly, fastening his eyes on hers.

‘I think around eleven. She was gone a long time. When she did come back, I asked her if everything was all right. She said everything was fine, she’d just had to feed the baby.’ Cynthia nodded firmly. ‘That’s right, it was eleven, because she said she always feeds the baby at eleven, and then the baby sleeps through till about five.’ Cynthia suddenly looks uncertain and adds, ‘When she came back after the eleven-o’clock feeding, it looked like she’d been crying.’

‘Crying? Are you sure?’

‘That’s how it looked to me. She’d washed her face after, I think. Marco looked at her like he was worried. I remember thinking it must be a bore having to worry about Anne all the time.’

‘Why do you think Marco was concerned?’

Cynthia shrugs. ‘Anne can be moody. I think she’s finding motherhood harder than she expected.’ She flushes, realizing the awkwardness of what she’s just said, given the circumstances. ‘I mean, motherhood has changed her.’

‘Changed her how?’

Cynthia takes a deep breath and settles further into her chair. ‘Anne and I used to be better friends. We used to have coffee, go shopping, talk. We actually had a lot in common. I’m a photographer, and she worked in an art gallery downtown. She’s mad about abstract art – at least she used to be. She was damn good at that gallery – a good curator, good at sales. She has an eye for quality and for what will sell.’ She pauses, remembering.

‘Yes?’ Rasbach prompts.

Cynthia continues. ‘Then she got pregnant, and it seemed like all she could think about was babies. She only wanted to shop for baby things.’ Cynthia gives a little laugh. ‘Sorry, but I found it a bit tedious after a while. I think she was hurt that I wasn’t that interested in her pregnancy. We had less in common. Then, when the baby was born, it took up all her time. I understand that – she was exhausted – but she became less interesting, if you know what I mean.’ Cynthia pauses and crosses her long legs. ‘I think she should have gone back to work after the baby was a few months old, but she didn’t want to. I think she felt she had to be the perfect mother.’

‘Has Marco changed much since the baby came?’ Rasbach asks.

She tilts her head, thinking about it. ‘Not really, no, but then we haven’t seen much of him. He seems the same to me, but I think Anne’s been bringing him down a bit. He still likes to have fun.’

Rasbach asks, ‘Did Anne and Marco speak privately after she returned from checking the baby?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did you and your husband go into the kitchen to clean up or anything and leave them alone together at all during the evening? Did they sit together in a corner or anything?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Marco was mostly hanging out with me, because you could tell that Anne wasn’t in too cheerful a mood.’

‘So you don’t remember them conferring together throughout the evening?’

She shakes her head. ‘No, why?’

Rasbach ignores her question. ‘Describe how the rest of the evening went, if you don’t mind.’

‘We were sitting around in the dining room mostly, because it’s air-conditioned, and it was such a hot night. Marco and I were doing most of the talking. My husband is generally pretty quiet, sort of an intellectual. He and Anne are alike that way. They get along.’

‘And you and Marco get along?’

‘Marco and I are more extroverted, for sure. I liven up my husband, and Marco livens up Anne. Opposites attract, I guess.’

Rasbach waits, letting silence fill the room. Then he asks, ‘When Anne came back after the eleven-o’clock feeding, besides looking like she might have been crying, did she seem different in any way?’

‘Not that I noticed. She just seemed tired – but that’s the way she is these days.’

‘Who checked on the baby next?’

Cynthia thinks. ‘Well, Anne got back around eleven thirty, I think, so Marco didn’t go. He was going on the half hour, and she was going on the hour – that’s the arrangement they had. So Anne went again at midnight, and then Marco went at twelve thirty.’

‘How long was Anne gone when she went to check the baby at midnight?’ Rasbach asks.

‘Oh, not long, a couple of minutes.’

‘And then Marco went at twelve thirty?’

‘Yes. I was in the kitchen, clearing up a bit. He slipped out the back door saying he was going to pop out and check the baby and he’d be right back. He winked at me.’

‘He winked at you?’

‘Yes. He’d been drinking quite a lot. We all had.’

‘And how long was he gone?’ Rasbach asks.

‘Not long, two or three minutes. Maybe five.’ Cynthia
shifts in her seat, recrosses her legs. ‘When he got back, we went outside to the patio for a cigarette.’

‘Just the two of you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you two talk about?’ Rasbach asks. He remembers the way Marco flushed when he mentioned having the cigarette with Cynthia, remembers how angry Anne had been about her husband flirting with the woman sitting across from him.

Cynthia says, ‘Not much. He lit me a cigarette.’ Rasbach waits, saying nothing. ‘He began stroking my legs. I was wearing a dress with a slit up the side.’ She looks uncomfortable. ‘I don’t think any of this is relevant, do you? What does this have to do with the baby being kidnapped?’

‘Just tell us what happened, if you don’t mind.’

‘He was stroking my legs. And then he got all hot and pulled me onto his lap. He kissed me.’

‘Go on,’ Rasbach says.

‘Well . . . he got pretty excited. We both got a little carried away. It was dark, we were drunk.’

‘How long did this go on?’ Rasbach asks.

‘I don’t know, a few minutes.’

‘Were you not worried about your husband or Anne coming out and finding you and Marco . . . embracing?’

‘To be honest, I don’t think we were thinking too clearly. As I said, we’d had a lot to drink.’

‘So nobody came and found you.’

‘No. I eventually pushed him off me, but I was nice about it. It wasn’t easy, because he was all over me. Persistent.’

‘Are you and Marco having an affair?’ Rasbach asks bluntly.

‘What? No. We’re not having an affair. I thought it was just
a harmless flirtation. He’s never touched me before. We’d had too much to drink.’

‘After you pushed him away, then what happened?’

‘We straightened ourselves out and went back inside.’

‘What time was it then?’

‘It was almost one, I think. Anne wanted to leave. She didn’t like that Marco had been with me out on the back patio.’

I bet
, Rasbach thinks. ‘Were you out on the patio anytime earlier in the evening?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. Why?’

‘I’m wondering if you had an opportunity to notice whether the motion-detector light went on when Marco went into the house anytime earlier in the evening?’

‘Oh. I don’t know. I didn’t see him go over there.’

‘Other than you and your husband – and Marco and Anne, of course – do you know if anyone else knew that the baby was alone next door?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’ She shrugs her elegant shoulders. ‘I mean, who else would know?’

‘Is there anything you can add, Ms Stillwell?’

She shakes her head. ‘Sorry, I’m afraid not. It seemed like a normal night to me. How could anyone imagine something like this happening? I wish they’d just brought the baby with them.’

‘Thank you for your time,’ Rasbach says, and rises to go. Jennings stands up beside him. Rasbach hands Cynthia his card. ‘If you remember anything else, anything at all, please give me a call.’

‘Of course,’ she says.

Rasbach looks out the front window. The reporters are milling around, waiting for them to emerge. ‘Do you mind if we slip out the back?’ he says.

‘Not at all,’ Cynthia says. ‘The garage is open.’

The detectives slip out the sliding glass doors in the kitchen and make their way across the backyard and through the Stillwells’ garage. They stand in the lane, unseen from the street.

Jennings looks sidelong at Rasbach and raises his eyebrows.

‘Do you believe her?’ Rasbach asks him.

‘About what, exactly?’ the other man asks. The two detectives speak in low voices.

‘About the hanky-panky in the backyard.’

‘I don’t know. Why would she lie? And she
is
pretty hot.’

‘People lie all the time, in my experience,’ Rasbach says.

‘Do you think she was lying?’

‘No. But something about her is off, and I don’t know what it is. She seemed nervous, like she was holding something back or hiding something,’ Rasbach says. ‘The question is, assuming she’s telling the truth, why was Marco making a pass at her shortly after twelve thirty? Was he able to do that because he had no idea that his baby was being taken at roughly that time, or did he do it because he’d just handed the baby off to an accomplice and had to look like he didn’t have a care in the world?’

‘Or maybe he’s a sociopath,’ Jennings offers. ‘Maybe he handed the baby off to an accomplice and it didn’t bother him at all.’

Rasbach shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ Virtually all the sociopaths Rasbach has come across – and after decades on the force he’s come across a few – have had an air of confidence, even grandiosity, about them.

Marco looks like he’s about to crack under the strain.

ANNE AND MARCO
wait in the living room by the phone. If the kidnapper calls, Rasbach – or if Rasbach isn’t there, someone else from the police – will be present to coach Marco through the call. But there is no call from the kidnapper. Family and friends have called, reporters, cranks, but no one claiming to be the kidnapper.

Marco is the one answering the phone. If the kidnapper does call, Marco will do the talking. Anne doesn’t think she can hold it together; nobody thinks Anne can hold it together. The police don’t trust Anne to keep a cool head and follow instructions. She is too emotional; she has moments approaching hysteria. Marco is more rational, but he is certainly jumpy.

Around 10:00 p.m. the phone rings. Marco reaches for it. Everyone can see that his hand is shaking. ‘Hello?’ he says.

There is nothing on the other end but breathing.

‘Hello,’ Marco says, more loudly, his eyes shifting quickly to Rasbach. ‘Who is this?’

The caller hangs up.

‘What did I do wrong?’ Marco says, panicked.

Rasbach is by his side instantly. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’

Marco gets up and starts pacing the living room.

‘If that was the kidnapper, he’ll call back,’ Rasbach says evenly. ‘He’s nervous, too.’

Detective Rasbach watches Marco closely. Marco is clearly agitated, which is understandable. He is under a lot of pressure. If this is all an act, Rasbach thinks, he is a very good actor. Anne is crying quietly on the sofa, periodically wiping her eyes with a tissue.

Careful police work has determined that nobody with a garage opening onto the lane was driving down the lane at 12:35 a.m. the night before. Of course, the lane is also used by others, not just those with garages there – it opens out to side streets at each end, and drivers use it to get around the problem of the one-way streets. The police are trying desperately hard to find the driver of that vehicle. Paula Dempsey is the only one they’ve found who saw the car at that time.

If there is a kidnapper, Rasbach thinks, they would probably have heard from him by now. Perhaps there will never be any call from a kidnapper. Maybe the parents killed the baby and got help disposing of the body and this is all an elaborate charade to divert suspicion of murder from them. The problem is, Rasbach has pulled their cell-phone records and their home-phone records, and there were no calls made by either of them to anyone after six o’clock the previous night, except the emergency call to 911.

Which means that if they did it, it might not have been spontaneous. Perhaps it was planned all along and they prearranged to have somebody waiting in the garage. Or maybe one of them has an untraceable, prepaid cell phone that was used. The police haven’t found one, but that doesn’t mean it
didn’t exist. If they got help disposing of the body, they must have called someone.

The phone rings several more times. They have been told that they are murderers and to stop fucking the police around. They have been told to pray. They have been offered psychic services – for a fee. But no one claiming to be the kidnapper has called.

Finally Anne and Marco go upstairs to bed. Neither of them has slept in the last twenty-four hours, and for the day before that. Anne has tried to lie down, but she’s been unable to sleep. Instead she sees Cora in her mind’s eye and can’t believe that she is unable to touch her, that she doesn’t know where her baby is or if she’s okay.