“Burying the body near the diner had to be done on purpose,” Decker said. “Meaning Elsie had to know about the field trip. What if Bertram was there when Baer brought Pauline into Elsie’s house?”

McAdams said, “If you were Elsie and you saw Baer was at the door with a body, and you knew that Bertram was in the house, what would you do?”

“Tell him to hide.”

“Exactly.”

“But suppose he sees what’s going on and he hears everything. How do you think that would affect him?”

“He’d be totally traumatized,” McAdams said. “Anyone would.”

“So how about this?” Decker said. “Elsie helps Baer bury Pauline near the diner knowing that Bertram has a field trip there. Once she gets back to her house, she tells Bertram to go back to Loving Care and stay quiet about what happened. She tells Bertram that she’ll meet him at the diner and they’ll escape together with Kathrine if he doesn’t tell anyone what happened. He agrees. In the meantime, she plans everything. It takes time to get tickets and passports and all the stuff you need to go abroad.”

“It still doesn’t explain why she’d leave her car there, pointing the finger at her.”

Decker formulated his thoughts. “If Bertram disappears from the diner, Elsie knows we’re going to scour the area looking for him.”

McAdams said, “She wanted Pauline’s body to be found?”

“It would certainly ensure an investigation into Pauline’s death.”

McAdams said, “Elsie convinces Baer to bury the body far away—in Greenbury—knowing that she’s going to meet Bertram at the diner and take him back to Germany because he was traumatized by what he saw and wanted to go back home.”

Decker nodded. “Trouble is, Harvard, no one we spoke to at the facility said anything about Bertram being traumatized.”

“And if he was traumatized, you’d think he’d talk to someone at Loving Care about it.”

“Let’s rewind the discussion.” Decker paused. “Weren’t you going to get coffee?”

“Yeah, it can wait. Unless you want some.”

“I’m fine for now, but you go get coffee. Let me think about this for a moment, okay?”

“Be back in ten,” McAdams said. When he returned, he said, “Got you a coffee anyway.”

“If you buy it, I will drink it. Thanks.” He took a sip. “Wow, way better than the station’s swill.” Another sip. “I was thinking about what we were saying, Tyler. If Bertram witnessed such an event, he would be traumatized. And the people we talked to said he clearly wasn’t traumatized. He was excited. What if Bertram had nothing whatsoever to do with Pauline and Brock Baer? What if he wasn’t at the house at all? What if Elsie’s plan to kidnap Bertram and Kathrine predated Pauline’s death?”

McAdams said, “The parents never called the police with a ransom demand.”