26

Billy Collins’s partner was Detective Jennifer Dean, a handsome African-American woman his own age whom he had met at the Police Academy, where they had become fast friends. After a stint in the Narcotics Division, Jennifer had been promoted to detective and transferred to the Central Park Precinct. There, to their mutual satisfaction, she had been assigned to be his partner.

Together, they met with Tiffany Shields at Hunter College during her lunch break. By that time Tiffany had convinced herself that Zan Moreland had deliberately drugged both her and Matthew. “Zan insisted I have that Pepsi that day,” she told them, her mouth tightened into a narrow line. “I felt lousy. I didn’t want to babysit. She gave me a pill. I thought it was Tylenol for colds, but I think now it was the kind that makes you sleepy. And let me tell you something else. Matthew was out like a light. I bet anything she drugged him, too, so that when she grabbed him out of the stroller, he wouldn’t wake up.”

“Tiffany, you didn’t tell me that you thought Zan Moreland drugged you the day Matthew disappeared. You never hinted that you thought that,” Billy said quietly. His tone did not reflect the fact that to him what the girl was saying made sense. If Moreland had been looking for a way to kidnap her own child, Tiffany may have given her a priceless opportunity. That day was unseasonably warm, the kind that made anyone sleepy, never mind someone who was drowsy from having a cold and then possibly drugged.

“There’s something more I’ve been thinking about,” Tiffany went on, her voice sullen. “Zan put an extra blanket at the foot of the stroller just in case I wanted to sit on the grass. She said that it was so warm that every bench in the park would probably be filled. I thought she was being nice, but now I think she was just hoping that I’d fall asleep right away.”

The detectives looked at each other. Was Moreland possibly that manipulative? they both wondered. “Tiffany, you never suggested the day Matthew disappeared — or any time after that when we spoke to you — that you had been drugged,” Jennifer Dean reminded her calmly.

“I was hysterical. I was so scared. All those people and cameras around and then Zan and Mr. Carpenter coming, and I knew they were blaming me.”

Because of the heat, the park had been unusually crowded that day, Billy thought. If Moreland had waited her chance, then casually walked past the stroller and picked up Matthew, no one would have thought it unusual. Even if Matthew had awakened, he wouldn’t have cried. We attributed Moreland’s calm to shock. When Ted Carpenter arrived on the scene, he did what most fathers in his position would have done. He tore into the babysitter for falling asleep.

“I’ve got a class,” Tiffany said, as she stood up. “I can’t be late for it.”

“We don’t want you to be late for it, Tiffany,” Billy agreed, as he and Jennifer rose from the hallway bench where they had been sitting.

“Detective Collins, those photos prove that Zan Moreland took Matthew and set me up to be the fall guy. You don’t have a clue how miserable these two years have been for me. Try listening to my 911 call to you. You can still find it on the Internet.”

“Tiffany, we can understand how you feel.” Jennifer Dean’s tone was soothing.

“No, you can’t. No one can. But do you think Matthew might still be alive?”

“We have no reason to think that he is not alive,” Billy hedged.

“Well, if he’s not, I just hope that that lying, lousy mother of his spends the rest of her rotten life in a jail cell. Just promise me that I get a front seat at her trial. I’ve earned it.”

Tiffany spat out the words.