Ryan looked a little startled, like he’d forgotten Liann was there.
“Oh?”
“She doesn’t trust the police. She’s been in some trouble, so getting you to talk to her is going to be a tough sell.”
“Nobody likes talking to the police, Liann. Tom, do you like talking to the police?” I could tell it was a rhetorical question, and Ryan didn’t allow me to answer. “But sometimes we just don’t have a choice, do we?” he said.
“I really had to work on her just to get her to tell the story to Tom,” Liann said. “I’d like to be there when you go inside to talk to her.”
Ryan shook his head. “Negative.”
“I’m acting as her counsel,” Liann said. “She has that right.”
Ryan made a snorting noise that might have been a laugh. “Liann, make up your mind. When you want to be a lawyer, you act like a lawyer and work cases. But when you want to be a victims’ rights crusader, you put on that hat and ride herd over the police and the prosecutor’s office and everybody else.” He raised his index finger in the air. “You don’t always play well with others, and you haven’t stored up many favors with the police.” He dropped the finger. “Besides, this girl doesn’t need counsel. Not that I’m aware of anyway.”
“Let me go back,” I said.
“No.” Ryan’s voice took on an edge. “In fact, why don’t the two of you clear on out? I’ll call you when I know something.”
“Forget it,” I said. “I’ll wait here. I want to talk to you as soon as you come out.”
Ryan studied me again, then nodded. He took a step toward the door, but Liann stopped him.
“Look, Ryan,” she said. “That’s a scared girl in there. She’s lived a tough life. So none of your storm trooper bullshit, okay? She’s not a criminal; she’s a witness. She has rights.”
“Are you saying criminals don’t have rights?” the detective asked. Liann started to respond, but he held up his hand and cut her off. “I know how to do my job, Liann. I know how to handle witnesses, and I know how to handle criminals. And I do know the difference between the two, even without you on my back. And I’ll even go a step further—thank you for bringing her to our attention. I do appreciate it.”
Liann still looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. I didn’t care about their back-and-forth, their little power plays and gamesmanship. I wanted to know something else, something most important to me.
“Ryan, wait,” I said. “I forgot to ask her something, that woman in there—Tracy.” I searched for the right words. “I wanted to know if she thought . . . did she think Caitlin was . . . I know she wasn’t okay, of course, but . . . was she—is she okay?”
Ryan came over and placed his big hand on my shoulder. Beyond a handshake, I don’t think he’d ever touched me before. I felt like a little boy being comforted, and it was reassuring.
“Wait here with Liann,” he said. He gave me a couple of good pats and started back toward the door. “I’ll talk to you when I come out.”
Chapter Eight
Liann refused to sit. As soon as Ryan went inside, she started to pace back and forth. It was like some portion of my nervous energy had been transferred to her.
“I know what he’s doing in there,” she said. “It’s the way the police operate, especially male cops. He’s in there trying to knock all the supports out from under her story. He’s trying to get the whole thing to collapse. That’s his goal, Tom—make no mistake about it. He doesn’t want to believe her. He wants to doubt her.”
“I don’t think so, Liann. This is it. This is real. Once he talks to her, he’ll see it.”
She spun toward me and jabbed her finger toward the door of the Fantasy Club. “The cops are the ones pushing the possibility that Caitlin ran away. You know that, don’t you? It’s shown up in the papers, right? ‘Police department sources say . . .’ Maybe it’s not Ryan himself. He may not think that. But cops like to push the runaway theory. It makes it easier on them. It gets them off the hook.” She slowed down and turned away. She seemed to be cooling off a little. “It’s what the police always do. They criminalize the victim. They blame her.”
“But could she have run away? What if what Tracy said in there . . . ?” I made a futile gesture behind me, toward the club. I couldn’t say it, but Liann knew what I meant.
Caitlin, on her knees in front of that man . . . Doesn’t that mean she wanted to be there?
“No, Tom.” Liann came back over and sat next to me, her index finger raised like a stern schoolteacher’s. “You can never think that,” she said. “That’s the way the police think. You know your daughter. Do you think she ran away? Really?”
I shook my head. “No.”