Chapter 3

"Mr. Katsaros, I know how upset you are, but we need your cooperation if we are going to find out who did this to your daughter," Francine explained for the third time. Her patience was rapidly wearing thin as the stone-faced man sat silently before her with tears running down his cheeks.

Tom Edwards, hearing the frustration in Francine's voice, piped up, "Sir, do you know who the father of the baby was? Maybe we could start with him. You know, talk to him, find out if anyone had approached him about your daughter."

"My daughter told me he wanted nothing to do with her son. That he was young, immature and that she made a mistake she would pay for her son's entire life," Mr. Katsaros finally spoke, his voice low and his accent thick.

"All right, that's a start. Did she say how she met him?" Tom pushed gently as Francine pressed her lips together.

Mr. Katsaros focused on Tom and nodded, "At a college dorm party last summer. I brought my daughter here for a better education, only three months after she arrives, she winds up pregnant by an athlete who didn't care about anything except for his own scholarship. As soon as she told him she was pregnant, he stopped talking to her altogether. She was already enrolled in her own classes, so she decided to continue. She left school at the end of the semester and has stayed in her room mostly, only leaving to visit the doctor or to eat."

"Did she have any friends she would have spent time with?" Tom continued.

Mr. Katsaros nodded, "She had two girls she met at school that would come to visit her almost every week. They even took her out shopping the week before she went missing." He swallowed hard before he added, "It was after that shopping trip she decided she was going to give her son up for adoption to not disgrace the family any more than she already had. She said she would return to Greece in the summer and never mention him again."

Francine straightened her back and asked, "You mean, she was planning on keeping the baby up to that point?"

Mr. Katsaros shrugged his shoulders, "I'm not so sure what she was planning to be honest. She wouldn't talk to me about it, but her friends were always polite and one of the girls…Paris…she told me one day Mari was picking out names for him. I naturally assumed if she was picking out names then she was planning on keeping him."

Tom jotted down what little information he had just given them. "Sir, you mentioned you thought this might be retaliation against you. Can you explain that?" he asked.

"No. I just thought…" his voice trailed off before he added softly, "I just need some answers. I knew your Agency has more resources than the local police and it doesn't seem like they can stop what is happening. It could be extremists or it could be some horrible person. I don't know."

Francine shook her head, "So, you don't think it had anything to do with your vote?"

"I'm not sure," Mr. Katsaros admitted.

Tom stared at his notes, "Mr. Katsaros, would Mari have told her mother if she was keeping the baby?"

"My wife has been gone since Mari was eight years old. She had cancer and it was just Mari and me for so long. I really thought she could make a better life here. A happier one, without the constant reminders back in Greece. I was wrong," he stated sadly.

"Mr. Katsaros, you said there were two girls. Could you possibly give us any other information about them?" Francine asked politely.

"Ναί, yes. Mari has a book on her desk…Had a book…What am I saying? The book is still there. It is my daughter that is gone forever," Mr. Katsaros cried. He dropped his face into his hands and openly sobbed as Tom and Francine stared at each other, unsure what they should do.

Slowly, Francine reached out and touched the grieving man's shoulder. He inhaled sharply, stood up and whispered, "Follow me." He walked up the staircase, Tom directly behind him and stopped by a closed-door in the hall. "I can't go in there. This is… was… Mari's room. Maybe you will find some answers where I have been unable to."

Mr. Katsaros left the two of them alone and went back down the stairs. He disappeared around the corner and several seconds later, they could hear water running from somewhere below. Francine looked at Tom and pushed the door open slowly. They stepped into the large bedroom and scanned the room slowly. The central focal point was the large white sleigh bed, decorated with a pink-flowered spread. Francine counted nine pillows, meticulously placed across the head of the bed, a small light blue teddy bear propped up against a pink heart-shaped one. Francine lifted the bear, squeezed it once before she gently placed it back down again.

Edwards moved to the desk across the room where a small red journal sat on the corner, complete with a matching red pen. Using the pen, Edwards flipped the cover open and skimmed the first few pages.

"Anything?" Francine asked.

"At first glance, not really. Most of it is in Greek, although, I can pick out a few words here and there, it doesn't mean much to me," he explained.

Francine looked over at him, "You speak Greek?"

"Not much, just a little. My great-grandmother was Greek. She thought it was important to pass on some traditions except the rest of the family wasn't into it. She died when I was nine but I do remember a few things she taught me. Like this word here... " Edwards pointed to one word used several times on the page, "Oikogéneia means family. And this one here, moró, means baby. There are a few other words I recognize, but not many." He closed the book and took a large plastic bag out of his pocket. "I'm going to bag this up and have Crypto go over it."

Francine shook her head, "You really think there's going to be some deep dark secret hidden in the diary of a nineteen-year-old college student?"

"No," Edwards smiled as he shook the book into the bag. "But it might have some insight into what she was thinking."

Francine groaned as she looked around the room again. Beside the bed, she noticed a small shopping bag which she promptly lifted carefully. "Hmmm, Maggie and Tuck's, Maternity, Baby and More. This looks promising," she read the name printed on the outside of the bag. She shook the contents out onto the bed, revealing a baby name book and several pamphlets. She flipped the pages of the book to discover several pages marked with additional pamphlets. "Well, if what Mr. Katsaros said was correct, she was considering names. There are four pages marked with these flyers and she's underlined a few names on each page." She looked into the bag and added, "Wait, there's something else in here." She pulled out a newborn-sized pair of pajamas printed with "Made in the USA". "I don't know if this is funny or not," she held the clothing with two fingers.

"Depends on how you look at it. Maybe one of her friends bought it for her?" Edwards shrugged.

Francine dropped the material and spread the pamphlets out across the bed. "Interesting reading material," she announced.

Edwards crossed the room and read the titles on the flyers, "WIC program, Single Parenting, Health of Your Newborn, What is Adoption?, Why Adoption? Looks like she was weighing all her options."

"You're right. Let's bag this stuff, too. I wonder what other types of information you can get at Maggie and Tuck's?" Francine suggested.

"Only one way to find out," Edwards stated and handed Francine another bag.