Chapter 3

Daphne's $7,500 used car got her a long look from one Danforth Patrol Car as she crossed the city limits, but they chose to let her pass. Her GPS app on her phone got her to the Black's house exactly on time where she found another Danforth patrol car parked in the driveway. The street ended in a cul-de-sac which she used to turn around so she could park at the curb in front of the house.

Wrestling the backpack out of the car, she started up the driveway on foot to what was probably a 3,000+ square foot house which was smallish for Danforth and probably priced at above $750,000. If the private detective gig did not work out, she was definitely going to get her real estate license and get out of the cosmetics department at the mall.

The door opened before she got there and Amanda stepped out onto the elevated front stoop.

"Hi. We just got here ourselves. Robbie took his pain medicine and went to bed, so I'll be showing you around."

Daphne climbed the steps to the front stoop which was easily large enough for both of the women to stand and talk, "The police are here?"

"Yes. One of the officers from last night. He is here to wait in case there is a ransom demand."

"But they let you come to our office together this morning?"

"We don't have a landline. If someone is going to contact us, it will be by cellphone, text, or e-mail which are all mobile and go with us."

"But he stayed here anyway?"

"We asked him about that. He said that is what their book says to do. So, that is what he will do."

"Should I check in with him?"

"Right now, he's asleep on the den sofa."

"Okay. I'll check in when he wakes up." She began looking around, "So, this is the door through which the kidnappers entered?"

Amanda nodded.

Daphne pulled out the copy of the police report, "And Robbie's report said that two of the men were on the stoop and the third was one step down so he couldn't see his height but was able to ascertain a guess at his age. There's no peephole in the door?"

Amanda shook her head.

Daphne checked around the door. The side windows were translucent stained glass but there was no way to see anything through them. She looked around for a camera.

"Do you have security cameras?"

Amanda spoke this time, "No."

Daphne stepped into the house leaving Amanda, the homeowner, out on the front stoop. But she was in the zone and didn't think about it. Amanda waited patiently to be let into her own home. Daphne cracked the door and peered out and then quickly shut her eyes. She stepped back from the door and tried to remember as much as she could about Amanda. Clothes, height, etc.

Then she realized that Amanda was still outside and opened the door, "Sorry, I got caught up in my own little world for a minute."

Amanda entered and shut the door behind her, "Please do whatever you have to do to bring my daughter home." The words themselves should have been passionate but again delivered with no emotion. It was odd and somewhat off-putting. But that was not her problem. Her problem was figuring out who took a child from her home and sent her father to the hospital.

Daphne looked at Robbie's account again, When I cracked the door, the first two men suddenly rammed their shoulders against the door which made the door hit me in the face and knocked me backward. She again cracked the door and looked through the crack with her, holding the doorhandle with her left hand while peering through the crack with her right eye and placing her face where the door would still hit it when it was pushed open. It was a little awkward but it all worked.

The entry foyer was relatively large and she pantomimed being hit in the face with the door, stumbling backwards, and sitting down. She pulled out her tape measure and this motion put her roughly in the middle of the room about seven feet in from the door. There were some small stains right behind where she was sitting. Closer examination showed them to be dried and brown. Likely Robbie's blood. She took more pictures.

There were large openings to her left and right. To her left was an office/sitting room with double doors which were presently open. The doors had a smoked glass inset. To her right was a formal dining room which had no doors and she could see back into the kitchen over her right shoulder.

She pointed at the office/sitting room, "Are these doors normally open or closed?"

"Always open. We never use that room much, so it doesn't get messy."

Daphne was still sitting on the floor and sketching onto her notepad. The floor in the foyer was a large white marble or faux-marble tile and covered with dirty footprints. Possibly from the kidnappers but also possibly from the police. More pictures. She dropped down to a knee. There were two locations where the footprints and the blood stains were at the same location and the blood stains were clearly smeared where someone had stepped on them. Close-up pictures were taken. It was easy to see the blood stains on the footprints as they crossed the white marble floor heading toward the rear although the amount of blood per footprint was waning with each step away.

Both the dining room and the office/sitting room to either side of the foyer were hardwood. She would deal with those in time. She got up and began measuring the foyer and filled in the dimensions on her sketch. She then followed the footprints to the third large opening in the back of the foyer which went past a small half-bath to her left and then opened into a hardwood-floored den area. The den included a sofa complete with sleeping policeman (of the real variety rather than the speed bump variety). The police officer was younger than Daphne had expected, probably a few years younger than she was, and was kind enough to not be snoring. But the depth of his breathing indicated a sound sleep. The footprints went up a staircase which went off to her right from the den floor and up to a loft area which included four doors, all of which were open. Daphne continued sketching.

To her left was the kitchen which connected the den with the dining room. The kitchen was large and had colorful ceramic tile flooring. A breakfast area was included that would have been large enough for a dining room in most homes. There was a bright red wood burning stove in one corner. There were no footprints in the kitchen.

"Has anyone cleaned the kitchen?"

Amanda shook her head, "No. Nothing's been cleaned."

Daphne continued out into the center of the den and looked back. All of the footprints came straight out of the foyer and went up the stairs. There were no strays wandering out into the den. She then moved on past the den and kitchen into a short hallway with two doors. On the right was a bathroom and on the left was a closed door. She pointed at it and looked to Amanda.

"That's the master bedroom. Robbie's in there resting."

Everything was hardwood.

Daphne went back past the ever-vigilant police officer who remained asleep on the sofa and through the kitchen and then the dining room back to the foyer. She got down on her hands and knees in the dining room and confirmed that there were no footprints except for a couple of prints which appeared to have been made in the foyer scuffle. She walked across to the office and found no footprints at all. She continued sketching and measuring as she went.

Then back through the den and up the stairs which were also hardwood. Her shoes were flats but still made a noticeable amount of noise on the climb. The police officer was a sound sleeper. She got down again on her knees and was able to follow the specific footprints which still retained a small amount of dried blood. More pictures and more sketches.

At the top of the stairs, the footprints went to every door. Two were bedrooms, one bathroom, and one closet. The last bedroom was decorated for a child with a hand-painted jungle motif on the walls and white clouds on a blue sky on the ceiling. A fake quarter of a palm tree had been incorporated into a corner. The footprints were fading and she could no longer make out the brown of the blood stain. But there were at least two sets in this room.

Amanda had followed her into all of the other rooms but remained in the hallway and did not enter her daughter's room. Daphne looked out the door expecting to see some expression of emotion on the young mother's face but saw none. The face was passive. But she noticed that Amanda was again making fists with her hands over and over.

"Hey Amanda?"

Amanda stepped in, "Yes?"

"Was anything taken? Any clothing or personal effects?"

"I don't know."

"Have you checked?"

"No. The police wouldn't let me in here when they were here."

"Could you check now?"

Amanda went to the small brightly-painted chest of drawers and opened each before reporting, "Some of her clothes and her pajamas are missing."

Without being asked, she left the room and Daphne followed her to the bathroom. "Her toothbrush and training potty are also gone."

Daphne nodded, made notes, and returned to the child's bedroom. The measurements were all taken but there was something unusual. The wild, bright colors of the room along with a dazzling trees, birds, and animals painted on the walls were way over the top. If she and Fred ever had kids… She stopped herself. That was a thought she would shelve for later.

"Who painted Bettie's room?"

"Robbie. He wanted to be an artist when he was a kid."

"He certainly has talent. It's very full."

"He wanted her to have lots of visual stimulation."

Daphne smiled, "He succeeded. It's beautiful."

She headed down the stairs followed by Amanda and they both remained careful not to step on the footprints. The police officer was now sitting on the sofa and stretching. He jumped up when he saw the two women descending the stairs.

"Oh! Sorry. I didn't hear you come in."

Amanda responded, "No. You didn't." Again, there was the odd disparity between the words which would normally be sarcastic and the tone which was matter-of-fact.

The officer's eyes lit on Daphne, "And… wait… you're Scooby Doo."

Daphne looked at him a little sideways, "No. He's a dog. I'm Daphne Jones."

"Oh. Sorry. That's what I meant. You're part of the Scooby Doo television program. I watched it as a kid."

As a kid? Ouch.

"Thank you. I'm now a part of Scooby Doo Investigations, Private Detective Agency."

"Seriously? You mean you people are for real?"

"Yes. It was a reality television show."

"You mean… you took your van into space, and it could fly and become a submarine? No way."

"Okay. You're right. The basic mystery solving was real. The network added a lot of things that never really happened. The van could never turn into a submarine or fly."

"But outer space?"

"No. Never happened."

"Well, I just lost an eight-year-old bet with my buddy from junior high."

Her turn to apologize, "Sorry."

"Are you helping the Blacks?"

"Yes. They've hired us."

"That's good. I'm glad they're getting some more help."

This was not the reaction that Daphne had expected.

"Are you sure you work for the Danforth Police Department?"

He smiled, stood, and rubbed his eyes all at the same time, "The old-timers are pretty rough around the edges, and we spend a lot of time with Metro Riley PD looking down their noses at us. So, our folks can have an attitude at times. But there's a little girl involved and we're stretched thin. When the call came in last night, I had just gotten home from the 12-hour day shift and I had to come back in for the night shift and then we stayed at full power going into today's day shift. So, I was pretty tired when I got here this morning and hadn't slept in about 30 hours. I'm better now. Did anything happen while I was asleep?"

Amanda shook her head, "No. No calls or messages of any kind."

He looked back to Daphne, "What was your name again?"

"Daphne. Daphne Jones."

"I thought from the show that you were a Blake." Although the Blakes lived in Crystal Cove, that much money was well known in Danforth."

"I am. I got married."

"Oh. That's right. To the blond guy."

"Fred."

"Right. As long as we're on the topic…"

"Velma's not gay."

"Oh. Then…"

"She's presently involved with someone, unavailable, and probably about ten years older than you."

"I figure it didn't hurt to ask."

"Unless you're a police officer and standing right next to a woman whose child has been kidnapped."

"Omigosh! You're right!" he turned to Amanda, "Ma'am, I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Again, without a hint of emotion.

Daphne looked down at the officer's feet and noticed that he was wearing the plastic booties over his shoes to protect the crime scene. She pointed down, "Were all of your people wearing foot protection like you are when they were in the house?"

"Yeah, we have boxes of these things. They're probably the only thing we have enough of. We use them every chance we get."

She looked to Amanda, "And these footprints weren't here when you left for work?"

"No."

Back to the officer, "Did anyone else come in that might have left or added to these prints?"

"No. They're mentioned in the report of the first officer on the scene with some pictures. By the time the EMTs showed up, Mr. Black was up and around so he met with them outside.

The officer looked at his watch, "Oh crud. I need to be checking in, I'll step out to my car for a few minutes and be right back." And he left.

Daphne turned to a clean sheet on her pad, "How often do you entertain? Have people into your home?"

"Pretty much never. We can't afford to throw the kinds of parties that people in Danforth expect."

"How about people from work? Has anyone from your or Robbie's work been here?"

"No. neither one."

"Neighbors or relatives?"

"Yes. Our neighbor comes over sometimes. Lulu from next door. Robbie's parents come when they're in town. But Robbie's sister Chastity is over probably the most."

"What about your parents?"

"They live in Florida. They've never been here."

"What's the neighbor's full name?"

"Lulu Anderson."

"Do you mind if I talk with her, Chastity, and Mr. and Mrs. Black?"

"Anything you need to do."

"Do you have Chastity's address?"

Amanda provided it and the telephone number from memory.

Daphne finished writing and looked up hesitantly, "Now the question I have to ask. How is your marriage?"

The answer was immediate, "Not good."

No emotion. No further information.

Daphne pressed, "I'm sorry to be pushy but I need some details."

"Um… It's my fault. I… I'm sure you noticed that I have problems."

'You process emotions differently than most people."

"Among other things, yes. When I was younger, I was kind of a recluse. I had no friends and certainly nothing romantic. But I watched your show and I could see Velma dealing with many of the same issues that I was."

"She still is. Probably will be for life."

"But she got out and she did things. Because of her, I thought I could do the same."

"And you couldn't?"

"No. I thought I could but I did it wrong. I didn't overcome my problems and go out as myself. I hid my problems and created a fake personality. I laughed. I showed emotions. I touched people. And I would talk about myself. It seemed to work." She paused, "You understand that I feel emotions, right? They just come out wrong."

"Yes. Velma's been my best friend my entire life."

"Well, I fell in love with Robbie and he fell in love with the fake version of me. It was one thing to maintain the fiction on dates but then we got engaged and then married. Keeping it up all of the time was not healthy for me, mentally. I began to get depressed. So, I went to a therapist hoping to avoid medication if I could. And she told me what I already knew."

"You had to quit living a lie."

"I told Robbie and he was supportive at first but, as the real me came out more and more, I think that he has been realizing what he is up against. 'Til death us do part' seems like a long way away."

"So, Robbie doesn't have similar emotional issues?"

"No. He just mirrors mine because he doesn't want to force anything on me."

"That sounds like he cares about you. Has he told you anything about questioning the marriage?"

"No. But he has to be thinking it."

"If you're like Velma, then you can't read people well."

"No. I can't."

"I'm sure that your therapist told you that you have to talk with him."

"Yes. She did. And I tried twice. But both times, he got really emotional which made me confused and anxious. And he wanted to hug me which got me more anxious. I really don't like being touched. Then, he got emotional again. I didn't really understand a lot. The words were not clear and most of the communication was non-verbal. It didn't help anything."

"But you don't know how he really feels."

Amanda shook her head.

Sometimes cliches are unavoidable, "And how does that make you feel?"

"Frightened. All the time. All day. Every day. My dreams are stress dreams and I don't sleep."

Again, the disparity between the emotionally-charged words and the emotionless delivery was jarring.

The young officer returned from his car and Daphne took a moment to check the name on his nametag. It was Larkin.

She shifted topics, "Amanda, we might have to disturb Robbie's rest a little. I need to take pictures of the bottoms of all of his shoes so that we can compare them against the footprints."

Officer Larkin interrupted, "You mind if I do that, too? It sounds like a good idea."

Amanda looked at Daphne, who shrugged slightly, and answered, "It's fine."