Wilson rose from his chair, extending his hand. She took his hand, warmed by his firm touch. He had the long slender fingers of a piano player.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Rayburn?”
He had eyes the same silvery brown as his hair—or were they gray? She doubted the faint growth of stubble on his face was a fashion statement. He probably had a thick beard and been at the job since early morning. Before she could respond, Conlin suggested they use the conference room.
Once they’d settled at a long table in the adjoining room, the detective began, “James, Lisa was referred to me by Patty Barkley. She’s writing a book and came across some information she felt we should look at.”
As soon as he mentioned writing a book, Lisa’s experienced radar detected a barely perceptible shift in Wilson’s features. Clearly, police perceived writers as an irritating distraction. Lisa repeated her story as she told it earlier, once more abbreviating it as much as possible. Somewhere in the middle of her narrative, Conlin excused himself and left the room, stating he’d be at his desk if she needed him for anything. He’d pawned her off.
Alone with James Wilson, she made her point, concluding, “Detective Conlin said you could explain why this figure is so high.”
Wilson looked thoughtful. Before he could answer, a woman wearing a stern expression pushed into the conference room.
“James, as soon as you are done here I need to go over something with you,” she announced, with no acknowledgement of Lisa’s presence.
Lisa took an immediate dislike to the woman whose photo on a badge read, Lt. Marian Bergman. It hung from a cord around her neck, centered on the front of a double-breasted gray dress with two rows of metallic buttons down the front. She wore her black hair in a braided knot, polished and slick as a cue ball.
Remembering how Conlin had described the unusual pecking order in the department, Lisa wondered how Wilson would respond to the rude attitude of the woman supposedly his superior.
Unflustered, he looked at his watch. “When I finish up here I’m meeting Russo from the FBI. I won’t be back until about 3:00, but I can meet with you then if that works.”
Bergman didn’t argue, her body language speaking for her as she turned on a spiky heel and left the room. “I suppose it will have to.” Her mannerisms, clipped speech and rigid posture—like her appearance—contributed to her air of military composure.
Wilson studied the sheet Lisa had handed him as if there’d been no interruption. “I see your figures come from records kept by the Women’s Center. Our statistics on missing persons don’t break people down into defined categories. And abused women going missing? Our detectives would deal with those on a case-by-case basis.
“If you’re only looking at abused women, I don’t see how you could expect to gather accurate data. Many of these women leave of their own volition and come back just as readily.
“Assuming the figure is accurate, there could be multiple causes for the rise in numbers.”
Lisa couldn’t speak for the accuracy of the figures. She’d talked to Amanda but had yet to discuss them in detail with the centers, hoping to have feedback from the police when she did. Certain with this short discourse, James Wilson thought she’d go back to suburbia and forget all about it, she asked, “Do you mind sharing some of these multiple causes with me?”
He reached over to a table next to the wall and yanked over a wireless keyboard. As his fingers started tapping on it, a large computer screen hummed down from the ceiling at the end of the conference table.
He said, “I’m bringing up a website we were watching about a year ago.”
A colorful website with a black background popped onto the screen. “This is the home page of something called ’The Vanishing Wife,’ subtitled, ’How It Could Be Done.’” As he scrolled through the site, Lisa realized it was a how-to for anyone wanting to get rid of a spouse, the pictures explicit.
“Our Computer Crimes Division tried to locate the origin of the site and its operator. While not exactly illegal, we felt it worth our time to track down the source, and discovered it had already been dismantled—still there but no longer functional. After a while it popped up again at a different web address with a new look but in a watered-down format, and again, by the time we located it, it was defunct. On the third go-round, they wrote it in a way that would almost convince the viewer it was satirical.”
Lisa, sickened, remained silent.
He brought up another website, again with a black background, titled, ”The Men’s Club.”
The paragraph below the title described it as a place for The gathering of men who find it difficult to control errant and disobedient women. Connections on the site sold various tools used for punishment and bondage. Lisa flinched at the long list of handcuffs, whips, poisons, lightweight aluminum clubs and chains. One page gave a blueprint and instructions for installing an escape-proof room.
“We’ve checked into many of these websites. Some of these investigations led to the person or persons behind them and some didn’t. Again, even when we had a real person to interview, their sites were cause for suspicion, not arrest. Without a link to a crime, there is little we can do to stop this kind of thing.” The screen went dark, and Lisa watched as it disappeared back into its housing.
“My personal opinion? Since no bodies have turned up, the most likely explanation is an underground organization assisting women in changing their identities and leaving the area.”
Lisa rebutted, “But in all my years of working with abused women, I’ve heard no hint of any secret organization of the kind in Milwaukee. I’ve heard about them in general, but it seems to me there would at least be rumors floating around if there was one here.”
“We have a credible source claiming it does exist but no real leads as far as where or how it operates.”
He tossed the keyboard back to the side table and faced her, crossing his arms. Annoying as he was, Lisa couldn’t help admiring him; the man reeked of masculinity. God, she missed Tyler.
Wilson said, “It is very possible this statistical increase may be innocuous. With the advent of the Internet, it is becoming easier for these women to disappear on their own.”
Before he could dismiss her, Lisa said, “A woman, a patient of mine, went missing recently. So my concern isn’t based on statistics alone. I don’t believe this woman left of her own accord or that her husband had anything to do with her disappearance. My concern for her safety, coupled with these statistics, has me very worried about her and others like her.”
He stood. “While I understand your interest, I have to tell you I see no reason to believe these disappearances are related. As I said earlier, missing person reports are handled on a case-by-case basis, and that’s how your client’s disappearance will be investigated.” He took a step toward the door.
Lisa rose from her chair, fighting her annoyance. “Well, I thank you for your time and the information you’ve given me, frightening though it may be. Maybe the women’s centers should be giving these women warning pamphlets. They seem to be an endangered species, for more reasons than one.”
Wilson smiled for the first time since she arrived in his office, a fleeting smile bearing no pleasantries. “We appreciate your coming in with your concerns. If anything more conclusive develops, please contact us.” He handed her a card with his name and phone number. No title.
On the drive home, Lisa stewed about her visit to MPD. It had turned out to be a dead end. She had to do something. If there were someone or some group preying on abused women, it had to end. They’d be easy prey, vulnerable to assault from another front. As if abused women didn’t have enough problems.
Lisa was all too familiar with it. She’d left her obsessively controlling husband when he’d begun to terrorize their daughter Paige, who at eighteen months couldn’t get the hang of potty training. Lisa had put up with his rigid dominance when applied to her, but once he moved on to their daughter, she left him. He’d never been violent, but she’d been sure it would only have been a matter of time.