‘And Deputy Collins says she was nowhere near the County Road when you were stopped. She drove over there to assist Sheriff Whiteside in searching you.’
‘She’s lying too. Don’t you see that?’
‘I also spoke very briefly with a Mr Emmet Calhoun just about thirty minutes ago, and he tells me there were no children around when he towed the car. He thought it odd at the time, because of the booster seat and various bits and pieces he saw in there. He said it was just you in the back of Sheriff Whiteside’s cruiser.’
‘But he came after,’ Audra said, loud enough to make Showalter wince. ‘Of course he didn’t see them, he didn’t get there till after my children had been taken.’
Mitchell laid her hands flat on the table, spread her fingers, like smoothing a sheet. ‘Audra, I need you to calm down. I need you to try to do that for me, okay? I can’t help you unless you’re calm.’
‘I’m calm,’ Audra said, lowering her voice. ‘I’m calm. But I want my children back. They took them. Why aren’t you out looking for them?’
Showalter spoke for the first time. ‘We’ve had a helicopter up in the air since first light, searching from here down to Scottsdale. My colleagues are liaising with police and sheriff’s departments in neighboring counties, getting search parties together. Don’t worry, Mrs Kinney, whatever you did with those kids, we’re going to find them.’
Audra slapped the table with her palm. ‘I didn’t do anything with them. Whiteside and Collins have them, for Christ’s sake, why won’t you listen?’
Mitchell held her gaze for a moment, before turning it to the iPad that lay on the table in front of her. She entered a passcode, illuminating the screen.
‘Audra, I need to show you something.’
Audra sat back in the chair, fear tightening her chest.
Mitchell said, ‘Agents from the Phoenix field office have given your car a preliminary search before it goes to the CID pound for a more detailed analysis. They took a few pictures. Do you recognize this?’
She pulled up an image, turned the iPad so Audra could see it. A striped T-shirt. Sean’s. A reddish-brown stain on the front.
‘Wait, no—’
Mitchell swiped a finger across the screen, replacing that image with another. ‘And this?’
The interior of Audra’s car, the rear footwells, the back of the passenger seat, the passenger-side rear door. With the tip of her pen, Mitchell indicated several points across the image.
‘I’d say those look like bloodstains. What do you think?’
Audra shook her head. ‘No, it’s Sean, he gets nosebleeds. He had one day before yesterday. I had to pull over and get him cleaned up. I wiped around the car, but I couldn’t do it properly, there was no time, it was getting dark.’
Mitchell swiped again. Another image.
Audra said, ‘Oh God.’
‘Audra, tell me what you see in this picture.’
‘Louise’s jeans,’ Audra said. Fresh tears came as she began to quiver. ‘Oh God. And her underpants.’
‘Lying in the rear passenger-side footwell,’ Mitchell said. ‘They were tucked underneath the passenger seat.’
‘How … how …?’
‘Audra, can you make this out?’ Mitchell put the tip of her pen to the image. ‘The jeans appear to be ripped, with blood on them. You can’t tell from the image, but they’re also damp with what seems to be urine. Is there anything you want to say about that?’
Audra studied the photograph, the jeans, the stitched tulips for pockets.
‘She was wearing them,’ she said.
‘Your daughter was wearing these jeans,’ Mitchell echoed. ‘When was she wearing them?’
‘When she took her.’
‘When who took her?’
‘Deputy Collins. When she took my children away, Louise was wearing those. But they weren’t torn. There was no blood on them.’
‘Then how did these jeans wind up back in your car? After it was towed away, how did they get there?’
Audra shook her head, tears free-flowing down her cheeks, dropping fat and heavy on the table. ‘I don’t know, but the sheriff and the deputy, they took my children, they know where they are. Please make them tell you.’
An idea sparked in her mind so bright and clear that she gasped. She put a hand to her mouth.
Mitchell leaned back. ‘What?’
‘The cameras,’ Audra said, feeling a giddy fizz behind her eyes. ‘The police cars, they all have cameras, right? Like you see on TV, when they do a traffic stop, they record it all, don’t they? Don’t they?’
Mitchell gave her a sad smile. ‘No, Audra, not in Elder County. Deputy Collins’ cruiser is almost fifteen years old, it’s never had a dashcam fitted, and the one in Sheriff Whiteside’s car stopped working three years ago. There’s never been spare change in the budget to fix it.’
‘What about GPS, anything like that?’
‘Nothing like that.’
The weight of it settled on Audra’s shoulders again – the fear, the anger, the impotence. She covered her eyes with her hands as Mitchell spoke.
‘Now, I’ve listened to what you’ve told me about Sheriff Whiteside and Deputy Collins, and believe me, I will speak with them about that. But right now, even if I discount the things we found in your car, it’s your word against theirs. And I’ve talked to some people today. Including at the diner you ate in early yesterday morning. The manager confirmed Sean and Louise were with you then. As far as I know, she’s the last person to have seen you and your kids together. She said you looked nervous.’
‘Of course I was nervous,’ Audra said through her hands. ‘I was trying to get away from my husband.’
‘I spoke with him too.’
Audra’s hands dropped away from her face. ‘No. Not him. Don’t listen to him. He’s a liar.’
‘You don’t know what he told me yet.’
‘He’s a goddamn liar.’ Audra’s voice rose again. ‘I don’t care what he said. He did this. He paid Whiteside and Collins to take my children from me.’
Mitchell sat quiet for a moment, let the silence dampen Audra’s anger.
‘I spoke with Patrick Kinney early this morning while I was waiting to board the flight from LAX to Phoenix. He told me about the problems you’ve had in the past. The alcohol. The cocaine.’
‘The cocaine was a long time ago, before the children, before Patrick even.’
‘Maybe so, but not the alcohol. Or the prescription meds. He told me you had three different doctors handing out uppers and downers like they were candy. He told me there was a time you barely knew your own children.’
Audra closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Goddamn him. He did this. I know he did.’
‘Mr Kinney told me since you left and took the kids, he’s been trying to get them back.’
‘There, see?’ Audra said, ignoring Mitchell’s irked expression. ‘He’s been trying to take them from me. He paid the sheriff—’
‘Let me finish, Audra. You’ve had New York Children’s Services circling, threatening to take the children back to their father. That’s why you upped and ran four days ago. Isn’t that right?’
‘I wasn’t going to let him take my—’
‘What happened, Audra?’ Mitchell leaned forward, her forearms on the table, her voice smooth and soft and low. ‘I have three kids myself, and an ex-husband. I’m lucky my mom’s around to help, but even so, they’re a handful. Raising children is hard. So hard. It’s stressful, you know? Even with all the love I have inside me, when they push hard, I can only bend so far. Every mother should get a medal, I think, just for getting through a day with children.’