Vanished

“Sure. Shoot. What is it? Call Louie the Lover?” He smiled and Taylor laughed.

“No. Marielle Patterson. She must be a wreck, wondering what's going on. I didn't tell her about Louie getting fifty grand to plant the pajamas. I just told her we had a new lead. I didn't want to get her excited.”

“Sure. What'll I tell her?”

“I don't know …” Taylor hesitated, and Tom found himself wondering what his interest in her was, but he told himself he was too suspicious about everything, he was turning into a real bastard. “Just make sure she's all right. Patterson's giving her such a hard time. He's divorcing her, you know.”

“Swell guy.” Tom was disgusted, but not surprised to hear it.

“That's what I said. He doesn't know how lucky he is. But I think he's going to get what he deserves with little Miss Krautland. Underneath all that blond hair, she looks like one tough cookie.”

“May I quote you, Special Agent Taylor?” Tom laughed, and Taylor chuckled tiredly in answer.

“Anytime, Counsellor.”

“You've got to admit, the little kraut looked cute on the stand though.” They both laughed and Taylor went back to work reorganizing his agents. They had already torn apart twelve ships and they had four to go before the next morning.

Tom managed to call Marielle, as he'd promised Taylor.

“Is there something particular going on, Mr. Armour?”

Marielle sounded really worried. “I keep thinking they've had some kind of information about …about …” She was afraid to say it. “I keep worrying that they're going to find Teddy's body. I guess we should know if … I don't know which is worse, not knowing, or finally knowing that it's over.” Either one sounded pretty awful to Tom. He still remembered finding out about his wife and the baby. It had been beyond bearing. But this had dragged out for so long, maybe it would be a relief to finally know if he was gone, instead of just having him disappear into thin air, and never know. It had taken them two months to find the Lindbergh baby.

“I hope we'll have good news for you soon.”

“Do you know what it is they're doing?”

He didn't want to tell her they were turning the port upside down, looking for Teddy. “I think they're just looking into some final evidence before we close. It'll all be over tomorrow.”

“How's Charles taking it?”

“Actually …” Tom leaned back in his desk chair and smiled. She had a nice voice, and he liked talking to her. He liked everything he'd seen of her during the trial, but he hadn't let himself think about her before, except in relation to his client. “Actually, he's driving me crazy, to tell you the truth.”

“That sounds like Charles.' And then she grew serious again. “Is he very worried?”

“As worried as he should be. This new evidence may be of some help to him though. We're hoping so anyway. The FBI is checking it out for us. We'll let you know if we hear anything at all.”

“Thank you.” She wasn't supposed to be on their side, but there didn't seem to be sides anymore. There was just everyone searching for the truth …and for Teddy.

The next two days seemed endless to her with Malcolm away, and John Taylor gone to help with the investigation. Suddenly, she had no one to talk to, and with Malcolm gone, the house seemed unusually quiet. It made her start to think about what she would do when she moved out. She had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no family to turn to. In some ways it worried her, but she wasn't as frightened as she might have been years before. He didn't frighten her anymore. Suddenly, she didn't care about him at all. All he had done was hurt her.

Bea Ritter called her once too on the second day of the recess, but she didn't say what the investigation was about either. She pretended not to know, and she didn't admit that she had brought the tip to Tom Armour. She just called to say hello, and see if they had any more leads about Teddy.

“No, nothing. Have you seen Charles again?”

“A few days ago. He's incredibly tense since they're so close to going to the jury.” And she was praying they wouldn't have to.

But by midnight that night, nothing had changed. There were two more ships to go through, and one of them was refusing. It was German and they claimed they didn't have to submit. It took another eight hours to get a court order to force them. And at ten o'clock the next morning, as Judge Morrison called the court to order, John Taylor was boarding the last ship with the Coast Guard, the Port Authority, and the FBI, and he was sure they would find nothing. But if nothing else, he had to do it for Marielle. He called Tom Armour from the dock, just before he left for the courtroom.

“Well?”

“We got nothing. We came up empty. No Teddy, no more tips, no one will talk, no one knows anything. We touched base with every one of our informants. Nothing. And Louie the Lover's not answering his phone. I think he's scared. He may have run out on us.” Taylor had nothing but bad news for him.

“Shit. What am I supposed to do now?”

“You close your case, just like you were going to do two days ago.”