CHAPTER 19
Louis went through the glass doors of the Fort Myers Police Station, his notes on Emma Fielding in his hand. He didn’t have much to tell Landeta. Just that if Emma Fielding hadn’t been reported missing, she probably would have run away soon anyway. The question was, had Frank Woods played any part in her disappearance? Had he been able to lure a vulnerable girl with a promise of protection and security? But if she had gone willingly, why did Frank Woods keep the newspaper clipping?
At the top of the staircase, Louis saw a uniformed officer coming out of Landeta’s office, pulling the door closed behind him.
“Hey,” Louis said, “tell Detective Landeta Louis Kincaid is here to see him, would you?”
The officer stuck his head back in. “Mel, Kincaid’s here.”
“Tell him I’ll be a minute.”
Louis stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at the lobby below. The minutes passed. Finally, he flipped open his notebook and read his notes on Emma, hoping maybe something would click. Nothing. Nothing but the same nagging question. Why hadn’t Emma Fielding —- or her body —- resurfaced after thirty-four years?
He walked down the hall and took a drink of water from the fountain, then moved back to the stairwell. Landeta’s door was still closed.
His eyes drifted down the hall. Small white signs stuck out from doorways, labeling the offices, ANIMAL CONTROL. COMMUNITY RELATIONS. CONFERENCE ROOM. BURGLARY AND FRAUD.
At the end of the hall, there was a sign for RECORDS, with an arrow to the right.
Louis looked back at Landeta’s closed door. Screw this.
He walked down the hall toward Records. A plump redhead stood behind the counter. Her name tag said GEORGIA.
“Georgia,” Louis said.
She smiled, her eyes almost disappearing into her freckled face. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Louis Kincaid. I’m working with the Chief and Detective Landeta. I was hoping you could help me with something.”
“Oh yeah,” Georgia said. “The Chief called us a few days ago. Said to give you whatever you want. What’ll it be?”
“Missing persons information.”
“From when?”
Louis pulled out the Xerox copies he had made of the index cards from Frank’s drawer. “Sixty-four, sixty-five—”
“Oh, wow. We don’t have those on computer. I’ll have to get into the storage, and I really can’t right now.”
“I’ll look.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I should call Detective Landeta.”
“He’s in a meeting. I’m doing this at his request.”
She shook her head. “Boy, I know how that goes. I do lots of things at his request. Copy this, look for that, read me this. It’s like the man is helpless, for crying out loud.”
Louis nodded. “I understand.”
She leaned toward Louis, her breasts resting on the counter. “You know what we call him? Lemon-head. Kind of a combination of the yellow glasses and the bald head.”
Louis grinned. “About the files...”
Georgia waved him behind the counter. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”
Louis followed her to the back and down one floor of concrete steps. She used the keys on her belt to open a door marked AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY. The door creaked and stuck, like it hadn’t been opened in a while. Georgia gave it a shove with her ample hip.
“We call this place the dungeon,” she said. “We don’t put much stuff down here anymore, just the old junk and the cold cases.”
Georgia hit a switch. The fluorescent light overhead fizzed, popped, and finally flickered on. One of the bulbs was burned out and the other gave out a feeble greenish light.
“The files are sorted by date. You should start back there by the window,” Georgia said. “If you want anything copied, just bring it upstairs.”
“Thanks.”
Georgia left, swinging her keys and humming.
Louis He headed down the rows of old black file cabinets toward the small dust-veiled window at the back, scanning the cabinet labels as he went. He heard a dripping sound and finally he saw an old janitor’s sink, black with grime and rust.
The label on the cabinet next to it was covered in dust and he wiped it clean. January-February 1964. He had to give the drawer a hard yank before it finally opened with a scrape and a cloud of dust.
All he had were the girls’ first names, so he scanned the file folder tabs for a Cindy or Cynthia. Nothing.
He moved to the next drawer down. There was a Cynthia Shattuck file in the middle of the drawer. Inside was a single piece of paper, the responding officer’s report. It was three paragraphs. Stapled to the inside of the folder was the same photo Louis had seen on the index card in Frank’s office, but it was the original and it gave him a better look at Cindy Shattuck.