“That’s the boys. Taken last year. And that’s Kate with the girls at the church picnic.”
Pete craned his neck, caught a glimpse of a woman in a faded shirtdress, two girls dressed identically in pink with neat braids, straight white socks.
Devlin smiled at the figures in the pictures, tucked them carefully away.
Then Horowitz leaned back, sipped his beer, looked at Devlin over the rim of his glass.
“So how’s the case?”
He barked a laugh. “How’s the case? You come out with it just like that, in front of this kid I don’t know from Abe Lincoln?”
“Charlie, Charlie. I told you. Trust me. You need to talk to him.”
“Yeah, you told me.”
There was a long, uncomfortable pause, then Devlin pointed a thick finger at Pete.
“Okay. Here’s how it’s gonna be. I tell you what goes on the record. Anything else, you assume it ain’t for publication. Got that?”
Pete nodded.
Devlin watched him for a moment longer. Then he leaned back, took a gulp of iced tea. Turned to Horowitz.
“It’s all garbage. The autopsy reports came back with nothing. The mother ain’t talking, the father ain’t talking. She checked on the kids at midnight, fell asleep around four. He was home by midnight, didn’t wake up till she called him the next morning. That’s it. That’s all they’re saying.”
Horowitz waited until their food had arrived and the waitress had left.
“Do you think they’re lying?”
Devlin grunted through a mouthful of fries.
“Someone’s lying. You been to that neighborhood?”
He went on without waiting for an answer.
“When I got assigned to this, I took a good look at the map. I got two missing kids, so I thought I’d try to figure out how to make the search. I saw how close the neighborhood is to the World’s Fair and I set myself up for a long job. Thought I’d be interviewing witnesses and suspects and tourists until we put a man on the moon. Then I drove down there.”
He bit into his hamburger. “Those apartment buildings: they’re packed in so tight no one can squeak in there without the whole neighborhood knowing. If a car came along and parked by the building, or a stranger was there that night, someone would’ve seen them. Would’ve heard something. No doubt.”
Horowitz waited. He pressed his foot against Pete’s, warning him to keep quiet, and sure enough Devlin spoke again.
“There’s something wrong with the mother.”
“Something wrong with her?” It slipped out before Pete could think about it, and Horowitz winced, but Devlin didn’t seem to notice. He chewed slowly, nodding.
“The apartment was a mess. It was full of empty liquor bottles, letters from men. A lot of men.”
He shook his head.
“Soon as I saw her, I knew there was something wrong. The way she looked: makeup an inch thick, hair just so, clothes that showed everything the good Lord gave her. That’s not a grieving mother. That’s a woman who wanted to get rid of her children because they got in the way of her partying and her drinking. Of her men friends.
“And that’s not all. Her statement’s wrong too. There’s discrepancies in her times. We got a couple of witnesses who contradict things she said. She claims she was home all night, other than for twenty minutes when she took the dog out. That was just after midnight. I got a witness who called her at midnight, and then again at two a.m.—the second time he called, no one was home.”
His face was flushed.
“I took one look at her and I knew we had a problem, and everything I’ve found out since just confirms that.”
He shook his head, took another gulp of iced tea.
“You know, this job makes me sick sometimes. The dirt you dig up makes you want to go home and take a hot bath before you sit down at the table with your own kids.”
The pressure on Pete’s foot had eased up, which he guessed meant he could ask questions—but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Then Horowitz surprised Pete.
“You sure about this? About her?”
“Arthur, I’ve been doing this job for over twenty-five years. You get a sense. Ask any cop. You get to know how to smell guilt. And I smell it on her like cheap perfume.”
Pete leaned forward. “Are you going to charge her?”
Devlin looked him in the eye for the first time since they’d sat down.
“I want to. Believe me, there ain’t nothing I want more than to see that bitch behind bars. I’m under a lot of pressure on this one. But we don’t have enough yet. I need a witness.”
“To the murders?”
Devlin snorted. “Right. I should be so lucky. No—more like someone who saw her with the kids after midnight. After she said she put them to bed.”
He ate the last of his fries and said, “I need evidence to break her story. We’ll get it. We’re doing a public appeal for information. I got guys going over every statement that’s come in so far. We’ll get something.”
Then he swallowed the last of his iced tea and stood, bulky against the bright windows. Eyeballed Pete.
“For the record, Mister Wonicke, we have several promising leads and you’ll be the first to know when we make an arrest.”