Читать книгу Limb from Limb - George Hunter - Страница 16

Kozlowski was planning to call the missing woman’s husband to set up an interview in his home when the phone in the detective bureau rang at about three that afternoon. Surprisingly, it was Stephen on the other end of the line, wanting to know how the case was going. Kozlowski explained he wanted to meet him at the house on Westridge Street, and Stephen agreed.

At about 5:00 P.M., the detectives slid into black Ford Taurus cruisers and swung out of the sheriff’s department garage, heading north toward Washington Township. Because McLean had started work early that day, she planned to go straight home after the interview, while Kozlowski would be heading back to headquarters. They took separate vehicles.

They rode west on Hall Road, the county’s perpetually jammed main east-west artery, then headed north on M-53. The northern end of the highway toward Washington Township was usually littered with dead raccoons and other small animals, which increasingly were forced out of their habitat by the rampant development in the area.

After making the seventeen-mile trek in about twenty minutes, the detectives pulled into the Carriage Hills subdivision and located the Westridge address. Stephen let them in and introduced the children and their nanny, Verena Dierkes.

McLean took Verena aside to the living room, while Kozlowski talked to Stephen in the kitchen. The kids were watching television. The au pair seemed in a rush to leave, McLean thought. “She was in a hurry to get out of there. She didn’t want to talk to us. She said she had somewhere to go.”

Verena, a tall, slender blonde who spoke in a soft German accent, had graduated from high school in her hometown of Aulhausen only eight months earlier. She still carried herself with an air of awkward innocence.

On the night of February 9, Verena told McLean, she’d gone out at about eight o’clock with a group of fellow au pairs to Mr. B’s, a bar and grill in nearby Shelby Township.

Verena partied at the popular nightspot for a few hours and arrived home at about 11:30 P.M. She confirmed Stephen’s account of a belligerent greeting when she walked through the door, adding that he told her he thought she was Tara. Stephen told her that the couple had been in an argument earlier in the evening, and Tara had left in a huff. The nanny said she and her employer stayed up and talked for a while and then retired to their respective bedrooms.

As Verena talked to McLean, she repeatedly told the detective she had to leave to meet friends. “The whole time, it was obvious she didn’t want to have this conversation,” McLean said. “I was suspicious of that from the beginning.”

McLean was able to talk to Verena for about ten minutes before the young woman departed for her night out. “She said it was unusual for Tara not to call to check on the kids,” McLean said. Verena also told the detective that it would have been odd for Tara to summon a cab or limousine service—which called into question Stephen’s earlier story to Deputy Hughes that Tara often hired a car to take her to the airport. “She also said she had no knowledge of any marital problems,” McLean said.

After Verena left the house, McLean talked to six-year-old Lindsey. “She gave me a tour of the house,” the detective said. “Both the kids were hilarious—just great little kids. Lindsey is like a little mom. She’s a really smart girl. She took me upstairs to show me their bedrooms, and then took me downstairs to show me the play area,” McLean said.

As the girl showed off her home, the detective kept her eye open for clues.