“That she’s a nice lady. But just to make sure I had a good read, I went to her kids’ school afterwards and chatted with the principal. Kids are well behaved. There’s never been any issues with either Tanya Knight or her husband. In fact, Tanya is a frequent volunteer and guess what, everybody loves working with her.”

“What about Benita Garza?” Rena asked.

Ferguson flipped pages in his notebook. “She’s late fifties. Used to—”

A.L. held up a hand. “Wait. Back to Tanya Knight. You said she’s thirty-four. What does she look like?”

Ferguson shrugged. “White. Nice shape. Blond hair.”

“Long or short?”

“Chin length. Straight.”

“How tall is she?”

Ferguson rubbed his chin. “Five-five, maybe five-six. If it’s important, I can call and ask her.”

“No. That’s good enough. Back to Benita.”

“Benita worked at the button factory full-time but retired about a year ago. Stayed home for about three months before she started working at the day care. Her grandchild is enrolled there. Her shift is from 10:00 to 2:00 every day. Said it’s the best job she’s ever had. She did work on Wednesday but did not arrive until about 9:45. Said that she didn’t know anything was wrong until Wednesday night when Alice Quest called and asked her if she’d seen Emma. She couldn’t believe that the child was missing.”

A.L.’s father and uncle worked at that same factory. They likely knew Benita. “Her house?”

“She lives with her daughter, son-in-law and their two children. Cute farmhouse at the edge of town. Much cleaner than the Knights’ abode.”

“So you’ve cleared them both?” Rena asked.

“Didn’t see anything that makes me think we should look at them any harder,” Ferguson agreed. “Anything else?”

“Nope. Not right now,” A.L. said. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Rena waited until Ferguson got back to his desk across the room. “I feel like we’re living Doug Franklin’s life. He cleared all the people at the Dover day care.”

“I know. This sucks. But did you think Ferguson was going to open a bedroom door somewhere and there would be Emma Whitman, playing with some dolls?”

“No. But I also can’t stand the idea that it’s been roughly a day and a half since Emma was dropped off and we don’t appear to be close to an answer.”

“We don’t know how close we are. Right now it’s hard to see how much incremental gain we’ve had but I have to believe with every conversation we know a little more. When we turn over the right stone, we’re going to know it.”