They drank, feeling the whiskey settle into their bones. Sand peppered the windows. Larry looked over the tossing sea. Some things didn’t change. They had a lifeguard tower here, though, for when the sea was sedate. That was never going to happen where he lived.
“So,” she said. “Tell me how I can help.”
Larry told her about the lack of reports for the boys who’d run away from Brightwood.
“That sounds about right. The agency keeps everything inside.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“A kid gets raped in a center? File an internal report. Someone runs away? Another internal report.”
“Rapes and runaways should be reported to the police.”
“And often they are. But let’s talk about what happens when they are. The child’s name and information is protected by confidentiality laws. That means the police can’t put their name on the news or put the report into the online databases or even use their name with witnesses. In some cases, they can’t even tell their parents. Their hands are literally tied in an investigation.”
“Okay. So what happens then?”
“What do you think? Nothing happens. I worked a case where this little girl turned up dead in a ditch. Turned out she had gone missing from her foster home. The worker had called the police in the town she went missing in. The next town over? Never even heard of her. Howcould she have possibly been found under those circumstances? Months had passed, Larry. Months.”
She took another slug of her drink. The low lights of the bar glittered in her long hair.
“So the cook might be telling the truth.”
“I’d say it’s likely. If boys ran away, the director probably called their caseworkers. Did the caseworkers call anyone? Maybe. Maybe not. How will you ever know?”
“But there would be internal reports.”
“Good luck getting them.”
“What about someone like you, on the inside?”
“You’d need a name for me to search. But how would you know their names, with the laws keeping them secret? This is why we have an estimated twenty thousand children missing from the foster care system, and no one has the faintest idea where they are.”
Larry put down his drink. The alcohol was making him feel muzzy. He rarely drank anymore and decided he didn’t like it.
“The unmissing,” he said.
She turned to stare at him.
“Yes. Exactly.”
She finished the last of her toddy and signaled for another.
“You want another?”
Larry looked at his unfinished drink. “No. You can finish mine, if you like. I don’t have germs.”
“Funny, I always took you for a drinker.”
“Must be my charming personality.”
Larry was liking this moment, despite the subject matter. He felt more like himself but a newer, more rested version. He had thought it was gone forever.
“You thinking about going back into business?” she asked, as if reading his mind.
“I’m retired.”
“You could always become a private investigator. Lots of retired cops do that.”