“She has fewer rights than this guy in the jail?” I asked.
“Hold it, Tom.” Abby held her hands out for silence. “Hold it.”
“Abby, he doesn’t care about Caitlin . . .”
She kept the hand up in the air between us, and I stopped talking. Abby looked calm and determined, so I yielded. “Who is this man?” she asked Ryan. “And are the things Tom is saying true? Did he hold Tracy there?”
Ryan shifted his eyes between the both of us. “Late last night, police in Union County pulled Mr. Colter over for speeding. Do you know where Union County is?”
Abby nodded. “About seventy miles away.”
“When they ran him through the system, the warrant for the arson came up, so they took him in and called us. We collected him in the morning and brought him back here to have a little talk about the house fire. Let’s just say we caught a lucky break. Caitlin’s story has been in the news, so our officers have seen that composite sketch on an almost daily basis. One of our officers raised the question, and we put it together with the house with the room in the basement.”
He held his hands out. There you go.
After four years, a speeding ticket wrapped it up.
“What did he say?” Abby asked.
“Nothing yet. When we brought up Caitlin’s name, he said he’d read about her in the paper. But that’s it.”
“And witnesses?” Abby asked. “The girl from the club? Tracy? Is it true he took her too?”
“She’s gone,” I said.
Abby whipped her head toward me.
“She’s disappeared,” I said. And my voice was quieter, distant even to my own ears. “No one can find her. Not her mother, not Liann. Two weeks and no sign of her.”
“She’ll turn up,” Ryan said. “They usually do. Like I told you, that girl has problems, drug problems. She’s not reliable.”
“Who is this guy?” I asked. “What does he do?”
“He’s on disability. Some kind of knee injury. He used to work at the Hearn plant, but it’s been about ten years since he did that. He hasn’t been in much trouble with us. One assault arrest about fifteen years ago. Otherwise, nothing.”
“How old is he?” I asked.
“Fifty-three.”
The number stabbed me like a knife. Fifty-three. Older than me.
Ryan leaned back and worked his hand into his pants pocket. He brought out a Polaroid photo. “I’d like you to look at this and tell me if you know this man.”
He held it out in the air between us, but neither Abby nor I made a grab for it. Finally, she moved and took it. The corners of her mouth turned down with revulsion.
“I don’t know him,” she said.
She passed the photo to me. My hands shook as I took it.
I looked down at a stunned face, one that didn’t appear prepared to have its picture taken. His surprisingly blue eyes were open wide, his lips slightly parted. He bore a strong resemblance to Tracy’s description and the sketch the police had created. There was the same long, greasy hair, the wide nose. His skin was ruddy and pocked, like twenty miles of bad road, as my stepfather used to say. I didn’t recognize the man from anywhere in my life, but I continued to stare, searching for something. A mark of evil, a sign of malicious intent. But I couldn’t find the marker that would tip me off, the thing that told the world this man aimed to destroy lives. It was an ugly face, not an evil one.
“Do you recognize him?” Ryan asked.
“No,” I said.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I held on to the picture, and Ryan reached out and took it back. He didn’t put it in his pocket, but held it in his hand. He tapped it against his thigh a few times. “I need to talk to your girl,” he said.
“You said you don’t need our permission,” I said. “Are you just going to drag her out of here while we watch?”
“I don’t need your permission, but I’d like it.” He continued to tap the photo against his leg. “I’d also like to talk to her away from here. Since it didn’t go so well the last time, I thought we might try it at the station. She might take it more seriously.”
“Will she have to see him?” Abby asked.
Him. We all knew who she meant. The man. John Colter.
Ryan shook his head. “No way,” he said.
“But she would have to see him at a trial?” I asked.
“That’s why we’d like her to talk now. Maybe this guy agrees to plead to something and save us all a lot of trouble. If we can get to the bottom of this sooner, it might save Caitlin some grief.”
Abby looked at me. “Tom?”
I recognized my cue. “Ryan, I—we—were a little concerned about the way you spoke to Caitlin the last time. It seems as though you were treating her like she had done something wrong. She’s the victim here, remember?”
“Of course, Tom.” Ryan shrugged, and the gesture seemed too large, overexaggerated. “We all have the same goals here, to understand what happened and to get Caitlin the help she needs.”
“She’s only sixteen now,” Abby said. “Sixteen is so young . . .”