I nodded and waited for him to continue.
“Sara’s ex-husband, Gary, has an alibi. He was having breakfast with his daughter all morning and left straight from her house to catch his plane. She’s confirmed this over the phone, but we still need to get her in here for an official statement.” Tom began feeding coins into the machine.
“So now there are no suspects?”
“Not really. He was our best shot.” He shrugged. Tom banged on the machine to get the soda out. “Gary did tell us that Sara’d been receiving some sort of threats through her website. He doesn’t know whether she kept records or not. We’re looking into it.” Tom knelt on the floor to peer up into the dispenser. He gave the machine another whack. A can of soda shot out and caught him in the nose.
Ten minutes later, Tom, with an ice pack to his face, gestured us back out into the hallway. We followed him to a small room with a table and three chairs. Seth shuffled behind us as if he were being led to his own execution. He hesitated at the doorway.
“Dis id our inderbiew roob. Id’s quieder here dan by desk,” Tom said, the ice pack still on his nose.
“Are there people watching through that glass?” Seth asked, and pointed to the wall.
Tom turned around and looked at the mirror mounted on the wall as if he was noticing it for the first time.
“Doh, eberyone’s out on calls ride now,” he said. He leaned toward us, removed his ice pack, and lowered his voice. “We actually store our office supplies in the observation room.”
“Then why are you whispering?” I said.
He snapped upright and pulled out a chair, gesturing toward the other two.
Seth sat, crossed his arms, and peered at Tom from underneath his fringe of blond. I sent him mental messages to sit up and pull himself together. He clearly did not receive them.
“So, Seth,” Tom began. His lips stretched across his teeth, but he didn’t pull off the smile.
Seth gave him the dead-eye look perfected by teenagers the world over.
Tom tried again. “Can you tell me, in your own words, what happened yesterday from the time you left your house until I came to Sara Landess’s house?”
“You want to know everything?”
“Well, just summarize what you did until you got to Ms. Landess’s house.” Tom wrestled with his small digital recorder.
Seth reached out to turn it on for him.
“We picked up Baxter, walked some dogs, went to the lady’s house, and found Tuffy. He was really scared, and then we saw the body lying in the kitchen.”
“That’s it?” Tom asked.
A crash and cursing sounded from the room beyond the mirror. Whoever it was, he wasn’t editing himself for Seth’s sake.
“I thought you said no one would be in there,” Seth said.
“I didn’t think anyone would be. I’ll be right back.” Tom jumped up, knocking over his chair as he rushed next door.
We heard voices. Tom’s sounded pacifying and the other was a deeper angry rumble. Another crash. A door slammed.
Mac and his cane clomped into the room.
“Sorry about that,” he said. He looked at Seth carefully.
Seth pushed his shoulders back and sat up a little straighter in his chair, glancing at me.
“Seth Proffit? I’m Detective McKenzie.” Mac extended his hand.
Seth wiped his palm on his jeans and stood to take Mac’s hand.
“Nice to meet you, Detective.”
My mouth hung open in shock at these newfound manners. It was as if Seth had been replaced by some other teen. But I realized this was the polished, private-school-on-the-east-coast Seth. I was used to the summer Seth.
“Have a seat. Officer Andrews is needed elsewhere. If you don’t mind, I’ll take your statement.”
“No, sir. I don’t mind,” said refined Seth.
“Excellent. Let’s get started.”
I still hadn’t said a word and decided not to. They were doing just fine without me. I watched the ice pack sweat on the table where Tom had left it. Mac’s interview led Seth through the morning, which touched on the bat-hunting episode and my brief wrestling match with Baxter. I was sure I didn’t imagine Mac taking extra care over these extraneous details. Seth managed to skate quickly over his own puking and finished his story with me talking Tom into allowing us to leave the scene. He made it sound like I had bullied the guy because I used to babysit for him. Since this was Seth’s testimony, I kept quiet.
I had a lot of time to sit and observe the two of them. Seth seemed older somehow. He’d pulled himself together to impress Mac; he was well-spoken with a larger vocabulary than I had been led to believe he had. I tried not to study Mac too much, but he was right across the table from me.