The Couple Next Door

“No. Cynthia came out with me.” Marco flushes; Rasbach notices. “She’s the neighbor who had us over for dinner.”

Rasbach turns his attention to the wife. She’s an attractive woman, with fine features and glossy brown hair, but right now she looks colorless. “You don’t smoke, Mrs. Conti?”

“No, I don’t. But Cynthia does,” Anne says. “I was sitting at the dining-room table with Graham, her husband. He hates cigarette smoke, and it was his birthday, and I thought it would be rude to leave him alone inside.” And then, inexplicably, she volunteers, “Cynthia had been flirting with Marco all evening, and I felt bad for Graham.”

“I see,” Rasbach says. He studies the husband, who looks utterly miserable. He also looks nervous and guilty. Rasbach turns to him. “So you were outside in the backyard next door shortly after twelve thirty. Any idea how long you were out there?”

Marco shakes his head helplessly. “Maybe fifteen minutes, give or take?”

“Did you see anything or hear anything?”

“What do you mean?” The husband seems to be in some kind of shock. He is slurring his words slightly. Rasbach wonders just how much alcohol he’s had.

Rasbach spells it out for him. “Someone apparently took your baby sometime between twelve thirty and one twenty-seven. You were outside in the backyard next door for a few minutes shortly after twelve thirty.” He watches the husband, waits for him to put it together. “To my mind it’s unlikely that anyone would carry a baby out your front door in the middle of the night.”

“But the front door was open,” Anne says.

“I didn’t see anything,” Marco says.

“There’s a lane running behind the houses on this side of the street,” Detective Rasbach says. Marco nods. “Did you notice anyone using the lane at that time? Did you hear anything, a car?”

“I . . . I don’t think so,” Marco says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see or hear anything.” He covers his face with his hands again. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

Detective Rasbach had already checked out the area quickly before coming inside and interviewing the parents. He thinks it unlikely—but not impossible—that a stranger would carry a sleeping child out the front door of a house on a street like this one and risk being seen. The houses are attached row houses set close to the sidewalk. The street is well lit, and there is a fair bit of vehicular and foot traffic, even late at night. So it is odd—perhaps he’s being deliberately misled?—that the front door was open. The forensics team is dusting it for fingerprints now, but somehow Rasbach doesn’t think they’ll find anything.

The back holds more potential. Most of the houses, including the Contis’, have a single detached garage opening onto the lane—behind the house. The backyards are long and narrow, fenced in between, and most, including the Contis’, have trees and shrubs and gardens. It is relatively dark back there; there are no streetlights as there are in the front. It’s a dark night, with no moon. Whoever has taken the child, if he had come out the Contis’ back door, would only have had to walk across the backyard to the garage, with access from there to the lane. The chances of being seen carrying an abducted child out the back door to a waiting vehicle are much less than the chances of being seen carrying an abducted child out the front door.

The house, yard, and garage are being thoroughly searched by Rasbach’s team. So far they have found no sign of the missing baby. The Contis’ garage is empty, and the garage door has been left wide open to the lane. It’s possible that even if someone had been sitting out back on the patio next door, he or she might not have noticed anything. But not likely. Which narrows the window of the abduction to between approximately 12:45 and 1:27 a.m.

“Are you aware that your motion detector isn’t working?” Rasbach asks.

“What?” the husband says, startled.

“You have a motion detector on your back door, a light that should go on when someone approaches it. Are you aware that it isn’t working?”

“No,” the wife whispers.

The husband shakes his head vigorously. “No, I . . . it was working when I checked on her. What’s wrong with it?”

“The bulb has been loosened.” Detective Rasbach watches the parents carefully. He pauses. “It leads me to believe that the child was taken out the back, to the garage, and away, probably in a vehicle, via the lane.” He waits, but neither the husband nor the wife says anything. The wife is shaking, he notices.

“Where is your car?” Rasbach asks, leaning forward.

“Our car?” Anne echoes.

THREE

Rasbach waits for their answer.

She answers first. “It’s on the street.”

“You park on the street when you’ve got a garage in back?” Rasbach asks.

“Everybody does that,” Anne answers. “It’s easier than going through the lane, especially in the winter. Most people get a parking permit and just park on the street.”

“I see,” Rasbach says.

“Why?” the wife asks. “What does it matter?”

Rasbach explains. “It probably made it easier for the kidnapper. If the garage was empty and the garage door was left open, it would be relatively easy for someone to back a car in and put the baby in the car while the car was in the garage, out of sight. It would obviously be more difficult—certainly riskier—if the garage already had a car in it. The kidnapper would run the risk of being seen in the lane with the baby.”

Rasbach notices that the husband has turned another shade paler, if that is even possible. His pallor is quite striking.

“We’re hoping we will get some shoe prints or tire tracks from the garage,” Rasbach adds.

“You make it sound like this was planned,” the mother says.

“Do you think it wasn’t?” Rasbach asks her.

“I . . . I don’t know. I guess I thought Cora was taken because we left her alone in the house, that it was a crime of opportunity. Like if someone had snatched her from the park when I wasn’t looking.”

Rasbach nods, as if trying to understand it from her point of view. “I see what you mean,” he says. “For example, a mother leaves her child playing in the park while she fetches an ice cream from the ice-cream truck. The child is snatched while her back is turned. It happens.” He pauses. “But surely you realize the difference here.”

She looks back at him blankly. He has to remember that she is probably in shock. But he sees this sort of thing all the time; it is his job. He is analytical, not at all sentimental. He must be, if he is to be effective. He will find this child, dead or alive, and he will find whoever took her.

He tells the mother, his voice matter-of-fact, “The difference is, whoever took your baby probably knew she was alone in the house.”

The parents look at each other.

“But nobody knew,” the mother whispers.

“Of course,” Rasbach adds, “it is possible that she might have been taken even if you were sound asleep in your own bedroom. We don’t know for sure.”

The parents would like to believe that it isn’t their fault after all, for leaving their baby alone. That this might have happened anyway.

Rasbach asks, “Do you always leave the garage door open like that?”

The husband answers. “Sometimes.”

“Wouldn’t you close the garage door at night? To prevent theft?”

“We don’t keep anything valuable in the garage,” the husband says. “If the car’s in there, we generally lock the door, but we don’t keep much in there otherwise. All my tools are in the basement. This is a nice neighborhood, but people break into garages here all the time, so what’s the point of locking it?”

Rasbach nods. Then he asks, “What kind of car do you have?”

“It’s an Audi,” Marco says. “Why?”

“I’d like to have a look. May I have the keys?” Rasbach asks.

Marco and Anne regard each other in confusion. Then Marco gets up and goes to a side table near the front door and grabs a set of keys from a bowl. He hands them over to the detective silently and sits back down.