Author's Note: Long chapter tonight folks! Enjoy!
Chapter Three: The Investigation Begins
"How can you solve a crime if you don't understand the victim?"
Jane Gilbert (CSI Season 1, episode 20 "Sounds of Silence")
Within half an hour, police cars covered the grounds of the stately mansion. Several cars had parked in front of the gates, barricading them in order to keep the press out of the way of an active crime scene until the police were ready to make a statement. Of course, that hadn't stopped them from congregating outside the gates, waiting for any news. At the moment, all they had to go on were hearsay and rumors, but the police didn't arrive en masse at the home of the wealthiest man in Bayville without good cause.
Inside the mansion, Charles was showing the police who had responded to his 911 call the set-up for his security system. He had already given them a description of Elizabeth, along with a photo that Susan had snapped of her the day after he had brought her home from the hospital. At the moment, one of the officers was questioning him about how he had discovered that she was missing.
As he spoke to the officer, a technician from the police lab was carefully dusting the alarm control pad for fingerprints. Just then, another officer stepped into the room. "Mr. Xavier?"
"Yes?" Charles asked.
"There's an agent from the F.B.I. downstairs who would like to speak with you," the officer reported.
Charles glanced at the officer he was speaking to. The officer nodded, indicating that he could leave. Charles turned back to the second officer. "Of course." Following the second officer, he made his way to the elevator and quickly descended to the ground floor of his home.
The agent was waiting in the middle of the foyer. He was middle-aged, with close-cropped blonde hair and sharp, piercing blue eyes. He wore a neatly tailored grey three-piece suit and went clean-shaven. He turned as Charles approached. "Mr. Xavier? I'm Special Agent Fred Duncan from the Missing Persons unit of the New York branch of the F.B.I."
Charles only nodded wordlessly.
Agent Duncan took a moment to study Charles, his keen eyes quickly sweeping over him, automatically noting details about height, appearance, and his emotional state. "Is there somewhere private, near a phone, where we can go to discuss your daughter's disappearance?"
Charles nodded. "My study." He turned his chair and led the agent through the mansion until he reached a small, comfortable room tucked at the back of the house.
Despite the small size, the room was well-appointed and cozy. The room was lined wall-to-wall with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The only places where there were no bookshelves were along the west wall, which was where a graceful marble fireplace held sway, and the south wall, which held a bay window that overlooked the cliff that the mansion sat on. There was well-used furniture, mostly armchairs, lamps, and one low couch scattered around the center of the room, and just in front of the window was a massive oak desk with two chairs in front of it.
"Please, have a seat Agent Duncan," Charles said, steering his chair through the room and stopping it behind the desk. A large desk calendar sat on the desk surface, with a telephone, desk organizer, lamp, and in-tray arranged neatly to the sides and top of the desk. Charles folded his hands in front of him and rested them on the desk as Agent Duncan took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and pulled out a small notepad and a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket.
"All right, Mr. Xavier. I need to ask you some questions about your daughter and yourself. The more that I know about your background and hers, the more leads that I will have to pursue."
Charles nodded.
"What is your daughter's name?"
"Elizabeth Anne Xavier," Charles replied.
"And how old is she?"
"Five months."
Agent Duncan started in surprise. "That young? I was only told that she was missing, not how old she was. I was expecting her to be a teenager, or at least a pre-teen."
Charles shook his head, knowing where the man's impression had come from. "I'm not as old as I look, Agent Duncan. I just recently had my birthday. I'm now thirty years old."
Agent Duncan took another long look at the father sitting in front of him. Charles was completely bald, confined to a wheelchair, and his face was weary and tired looking. "I apologize, but I'm afraid I don't understand."
Charles sighed softly. "I went bald when I was in high school Agent Duncan. I believe that it has something to do with the fact that my father was a nuclear scientist and did a great deal of work with nuclear radiation. It is possible that he was exposed to enough of it before I was born that it affected my genes."
"I see."
Charles shook his head again. "It is a common enough mistake, Agent Duncan. I've been told many times that I look older than I really am. It actually gives me a greater degree of respectability, especially with my students."
"Students?"
Charles nodded. "I am a professor of Genetics, Biophysics, and Biology at New York University. I'm currently on a leave of absence, due to doctor's orders."
Duncan made a note of this. "All right. Your daughter is five months old. May I have a description of her?"
"Blonde hair and green eyes. She's small for her age and weighs about ten pounds. I already gave a picture of her to the officers upstairs."
"That does seem to be rather small for a five-month old," Duncan commented as he continued to make notes.
"She was born two months premature, and she's still catching up in a lot of ways," Charles explained.
Duncan noted that as well. "If I might ask, Mr. Xavier, where is her mother? Is she out of town?" The agent had noticed a gold wedding band on Charles' hand, but thus far he had not seen any sign of the man's wife.
Charles' face stilled and for a very brief moment, grief flashed across his face and was reflected in his eyes. He swallowed hard as the grief faded from his face, but it was still in his eyes. "Her mother…my wife…is dead."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Duncan stated sincerely. "It happened recently?"
"Five months ago. Lizzie…Lizzie died in childbirth," Charles replied, swallowing again. "There were complications…a caesarian saved my daughter's life, but Lizzie was bleeding internally during the procedure and she lost too much blood. The doctors weren't able to stop the bleeding in time."
"Lizzie?"
"Elizabeth…my wife. Her full name was Elizabeth Anna. I named our daughter after her, in honor of her mother. I always called her Lizzie, and so did all of her friends. It had been her nickname since childhood."
"So you're raising your daughter alone?" Duncan asked. When Charles nodded, he continued. "There's no other family?"
Charles shook his head negatively. "No one close. My parents, Brian and Sharon Xavier, died when I was a child, and I'm an only child. Lizzie's parents, James and Rachel Michaels, are still alive, but they're living in Toronto at the moment. They were making plans to move down here this summer to be closer to their grand-daughter. Lizzie was also an only child. Elizabeth's godmother is here in Bayville. Her name is Dr. Susan McGee." His eyes widened in shock. "Oh no…Susan! I didn't even think to call her! She loves Elizabeth as much as I do."
Duncan made a note of Dr. McGee's name. "You and Dr. McGee are close?"
Charles nodded. "We've been friends since college. She and Lizzie were best friends when they were growing up, and they both went to the same college, since they both wanted to pursue medical degrees." He shook his head in dismay. "I can't believe that I didn't call her."
"Would you like her here?" Agent Duncan asked kindly. "I can send an officer to pick her up."
"If you would, I would appreciate it, Agent Duncan. She shouldn't have to hear about this on the news," Charles replied softly. "I'd call her, but I was told by the police who first responded that we needed to keep the line open for a ransom call."
"Absolutely right. What is Dr. McGee's address?"
Charles gave him the address of Susan's clinic on Main Street. He knew she would be there by this time. Agent Duncan left the room for a moment, and returned shortly. "An officer will go and pick her up, Mr. Xavier. Are you all right to continue answering questions until she gets here?"
Charles nodded. "Yes. And it's Dr. Xavier. I have a PH.D in education, and a second PH.D in Genetics."
"I apologize, Dr. Xavier," Agent Duncan made a note in his notebook. "Do you have any enemies, Doctor?"
Charles shook his head. "No. I have some rivals, but in the world of academia, that's not that uncommon. Scientists are always competing with each other for research grants and teaching positions. Any rivals I have are purely academic ones, and none of the rivalries are worth kidnapping my daughter over. Most people don't even know I have a daughter. I've only informed a handful of people."
"May I have their names?"
Charles frowned. "Let's see…Lizzie's parents, obviously. I'm not sure who they might have informed. Susan knows, since she delivered Elizabeth. I also notified my friend Dr. Moira MacTaggert, but she's living in Scotland at the moment."
He paused in thought. "I also notified the University, but only as a courtesy, since it wasn't going to be affecting my teaching while I was on medical leave. At the University, I would guess that the President of the college and the Dean of the Science department would know, and they might have informed some of the other professors." He shook his head. "That's all I can think of. I just didn't inform that many people, since I have no remaining family, and I was in shock from losing Lizzie so abruptly. The doctors weren't sure if Elizabeth would live for a while, given the sudden onset of complications that Lizzie suffered, and I was so worried about her that I barely was able to arrange Lizzie's funeral. Her parents did most of the work for me."
"That's understandable," Agent Duncan commented, still making notes. He paused for a moment. "Dr. Xavier, you mentioned that you were on a leave of absence from your teaching position. Could you explain that to me, please?"
Charles gestured at his wheelchair. "I was only recently paralyzed, Agent Duncan. It happened last June, while Lizzie and I were vacationing in Europe. When I came home and recovered, the doctors suggested that I take a semester off to come to terms, emotionally and physically, with the aftermath of the accident. I was planning to resume teaching this past January, but after Lizzie's death and Elizabeth's birth, I requested another semester off to care for my daughter, since I didn't want to leave her in the hands of baby-sitters while she was still so tiny from being born premature."
Agent Duncan made note of this. "And the university didn't have any objections?"
Charles shook his head. "None at all. I'm perfectly within my rights to request a sabbatical or a leave of absence, since I am a tenured professor, and they were very understanding when they heard about everything that had happened."
"All right, Dr. Xavier. I'd like you to walk me through the events of your day yesterday, from the time you woke up, until the time when you discovered that your daughter was gone."
Charles nodded. "I woke up about eight, when Elizabeth started calling for me to feed her. I took her downstairs, fed her and ate my own breakfast and then gave her a bath and got her dressed for the day. Then I put her in her playpen in my room so I could shower and dress."
"You keep a playpen in your room?" Agent Duncan asked.
"Agent Duncan, you have to understand that I don't have as much mobility as other parents. Until Elizabeth is old enough to be left alone for long periods of time I have to keep her close to me, and my wheelchair prevents me from running to her if she needs me." There was a touch of anger and frustration in the father's voice. "I keep a playpen in every room that I spend a great deal of time in. They collapse easily and I can unfold them and set them up in a matter of moments, despite my wheelchair."
"I apologize, Dr. Xavier," Agent Duncan replied.
Charles closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself down. Anger won't help you get Elizabeth back, he reminded himself. Despite the fact that he was so worried about her he was nearly sick, he knew that if he didn't stay calm, he would only hinder the police. There would be time later to get angry. "It's not your fault, Agent Duncan. My…physical limitations are still new to me and I sometimes react oddly when I'm questioned about them. I was an athlete. Learning to cope with my new situation has been a challenge, and between being paralyzed, losing Lizzie, gaining Elizabeth, and now this…it has been a rather difficult year."
Agent Duncan nodded and made a note. "Please continue, Dr. Xavier."
"After I showered, I brought Elizabeth down here and put her in her playpen so I could do some work. I had some lesson plans that I needed to adapt, and some of my own research to work on," Charles continued. "I had to stop several times in the morning because Elizabeth needed me, and then I stopped for lunch just before noon. I fed Elizabeth and then put her upstairs for her afternoon nap, but I brought the baby monitor down here so I could hear her while I caught up on some routine chores. Paying bills and a little bit of light cleaning mostly."
He paused again, thinking. "Elizabeth woke up from her nap around two-thirty, so I took her out into the garden and played with her for a few hours. I started dinner around six, and we ate around quarter to seven. I gave her another bath and read her a story and then put her to bed around eight. After that I came back down and watched the evening news, and then a movie came on, so I watched most of that. Elizabeth woke up a little before ten and wanted to be fed, so I fed her and changed her and put her back to bed. Then I got ready for bed, but I stayed up until almost midnight reading."
"And nothing seemed unusual or out of place?" Agent Duncan asked.
Charles hesitated while he thought about it, remembering his uneasiness the night before. But how would he explain that to this agent without making him curious? It had only been a passing feeling after all. "No."
Agent Duncan noticed the hesitation and made a mental note of it, but otherwise didn't comment. "Did you have the baby monitor with you in your room last night?"
"Yes. I always keep it close to me when Elizabeth and I are not in the same room. The volume was plenty loud enough that I should have heard anything from her room."
"But you didn't hear anything?" Agent Duncan clarified.
Charles sighed and shook his head. "No, but I'm a rather heavy sleeper. My sleeping patterns have changed somewhat since the accident, since I sometimes suffer from pain in the middle of the night, and since Elizabeth was born I've often had to get up in the middle of the night to go to her." He smiled, somewhat tiredly. "I didn't realize how hard being a single parent was, and how it can wear you down. If there were any noises from Elizabeth's room last night, I must have slept right through them."
He decided not to add that his telepathy was a more reliable indicator of Elizabeth's needs than the baby monitor. While he might have slept through any sounds from the room, if she had been in any kind of distress or need, he would have sensed it, but he couldn't admit that to the agent without revealing that he was a telepath.
"And overall, the day was fairly normal for you?"
Charles nodded in agreement. "Yes. We follow the same routine almost every day. I'm not teaching this semester, so I don't have worry about finding anyone to watch Elizabeth while I am in class, and I don't leave her with baby-sitters if I have to run any errands, because I take her with me."
"What about hired help? I noticed that your estate is rather large. Do you have someone who helps maintain it?"
"I do have the grounds maintained by a company, but they don't have any access to the house, and while they're here I keep the alarm set," Charles answered.
"What about inside the house? Do you have a housekeeper or a maid?"
Charles shook his head. "Only if I am expecting a large group of people over. The last time that anyone came in and cleaned was last spring, just before graduation. I was asked to host a fundraiser for the university," he gestured around the room, "since my estate is more than adequate to accommodate a fancy gathering and a large group of people. Lizzie enjoyed doing housework and before I was paralyzed, I helped her out quite a bit with the day-to-day maintenance and cleaning. Most of the rooms are kept closed off unless I am expecting guests, and the remaining public areas are easy for me to maintain, even with my wheelchair. But I haven't had any one over since Lizzie…" he trailed off, remembering.
Agent Duncan gave the younger man some time to compose himself, noting that he seemed to be lost in happier memories. It only took Charles a few moments to shake off his melancholy and return to the conversation. "I apologize, Agent Duncan."
He paused in thought. "When my parents were alive there was a live-in staff, but after they died I spent most of the year at a private boarding school, and during college I was living in the city, so there wasn't much point to keeping a full staff in place."
Agent Duncan nodded. "All right, Dr. Xavier. Let's focus on this morning and your discovery of your daughter's disappearance."
"I woke up when my alarm went off at eight," Charles began. "Elizabeth wasn't calling for me, but sometimes I do wake up before her, so I take advantage of those mornings to shower and dress before I wake her up, and that's what I did this morning."
"So you weren't curious or suspicious that she wasn't awake?" Duncan clarified.
"No. It doesn't happen often, but it has happened before," Charles stated. "I didn't think anything of it. I took the baby monitor into the bathroom with me, so if she woke up while I was in the shower, I'd hear her. After I finished getting dressed, I came back in here and made my bed, and then I deactivated the security system from the control pad in my room…"
"You're sure that the alarm system was activated before you turned it off?" Agent Duncan asked.
"Absolutely. I always set the alarm immediately after I put Elizabeth to bed. All the windows and doors are wired with sensors. There are only two control pads, one in my bedroom and one downstairs next to the front door. They both control the entire system, but with the downstairs one I can also key the front gates to open or close at will. I keep the gates closed unless I am driving in or out."
Agent Duncan looked grim, but he continued to make notes. "Please continue."
"I deactivated the alarm, and then I went into Elizabeth's room to wake her up. The first thing I noticed when I entered was that her window was wide open. I never open the windows in her room, especially not at night. Her health is still to fragile from being born premature. She's improving rapidly, but she's still not at the same stage that a baby born full-term would be at five months."
"And there's no way to open the window while the alarm is activated?"
Charles shook his head. "None. The sensors are sensitive enough to pick up anything larger than a leaf hitting the glass. When I saw that the window was open, I knew immediately that she was missing. She's too young to be crawling, so she couldn't have gotten out of her cradle and just hidden herself somewhere."
"Did you call the police right away?" Duncan asked.
Again there was hesitation. "Not immediately," Charles admitted after a moment. "I was in shock, and…"
"About how long was it before you called the police?" Duncan pressed.
"I'm…I'm not sure," was the reply. "I don't think it was longer than fifteen minutes, but I wasn't really watching the clock."
Duncan made a note to have the time of the call checked with the dispatchers from the local PD. "Did you touch anything in her room?"
Charles nodded. "The outside doorknob and the blanket that she had been covered with last night. It must have fallen off of her when the kidnapper picked her up."
Duncan thought for a moment. "How is your daughter with strangers, Dr. Xavier? Does she allow them to pick her up?"
"I don't know. She hasn't been around many strangers since I brought her home from the hospital. She was too young and too weak to fuss if the nurses and doctors picked her up, and since I brought her home only her grandparents, Susan, and I have touched her. Her grandparents are in Toronto. They got here the day after Lizzie died and were here until about a week after I brought Elizabeth home."
"So she may or may not have fussed if the kidnapper picked her up?"
Charles shrugged. "I don't know. I think that if she had fussed I would have heard her."
Duncan frowned in thought and made a few more notes, not exactly liking the picture that was being painted. Before he could continue, there was a knock on the study door and an officer stuck his head in.
"Excuse me, Agent Duncan. The officer you sent to fetch Dr. McGee is here and she's demanding to see Mr. Xavier."
Agent Duncan nodded. "Send her in please."
As the officer left, Charles steered his chair away from the desk and towards the study door. Just as he pulled abreast of where Duncan was sitting, the study door swung open and Susan entered.
"Charles?" she made a beeline for her friend.
"Susan. Thank you for coming," he said softly. As she reached him she leaned down and embraced him tightly, just holding him. He sighed and relaxed into her arms.
Agent Duncan studied her closely. She was dressed for work in a soft, pale green cashmere sweater, a casual khaki skirt, brown ankle boots, and a lab coat thrown over top. Her brown hair was casually twisted up and pinned in place at the back of her neck, and she wore no make-up.
After several moments, the two adults broke their embrace. "I'm so sorry, Charles. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"I…I don't know, Susan," he admitted.
"Have you called Lizzie's parents yet?" she asked softly.
He shook his head. "No. I was told to keep the phone line open in case the kidnapper calls in a ransom demand."
Before Susan could continue, Agent Duncan rose to his feet. "Excuse me, Doctor Xavier." He turned to Susan. "Doctor McGee, my name is Special Agent Duncan with the F.B.I." He offered his hand to the lady and she shook it briefly.
"I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you," she stated.
"I understand. I would like to ask you some questions, if you don't mind."
"If its all right with Charles," she replied.
"By all means, Susan. If he thinks you know something that can help us find Elizabeth, go right ahead. I'll wait out in the living room," Charles answered softly.
"I'd appreciate it, Doctor Xavier, if you would speak to the technicians that are setting up the wire tap on your phone. They'll instruct you what to do if the ransom call comes in," Duncan requested.
Charles nodded and headed towards the door. Susan put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it tightly, in a silent gesture of support. He reached up and placed his larger hand over hers and squeezed back, offering a sad, but thankful smile. As he left the room he closed the door behind himself.
"Now, Doctor McGee, if you'll take a seat, we'll begin," Agent Duncan said.
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