“No, we never forget a drink order. Faces, eh.”
I watched him as he finished the old-fashioned with a generous whiskey pour. I shook my head as he tipped the bottle in my direction. “Okay,” I said, flipping back to the pic of Veronica, “if she didn’t order anything, you wouldn’t remember her either?”
The bartender said, “No, I’d remember her. She’s hot. I mean, you’re not bad yourself, but—”
“She’s seventeen,” I told him, not in the mood. “And she’s missing. Look at this picture. Are you sure she wasn’t in here?”
He looked. “Positive.”
I went back into the office and resumed my stop-start watching of the video footage, but I reached the two o’clock county-wide closing time without seeing Kenny or Veronica or anything else out of the ordinary. Then I navigated back to his appearance on the sidewalk cameras and inserted the jump drive from my key ring into the computer, copying the files. Kenny hadn’t exactly been lying earlier—he was doing some work. But his work took him pretty damn close to Veronica’s probable location.
I needed more than that before I could try again with Lassiter, but at least no one could tell me this video footage didn’t exist.
I left my car where it was and walked across the parking lot to where it backed up to a row of trees. There was a clear path worn into the muddy ground from people making a habit of cutting through, just like Shelby had said.
I followed the trampled grass through the trees and came out in the backyard of a yellow split-level. The sky was grey and the air was wet and no one was around except a German shepherd that regarded me balefully as I hiked up the slight incline of the yellow house’s backyard. When I got out to the sidewalk, I saw that I was on the far end of Providence Street. About a dozen houses down, I could see two Belmont police cruisers now parked in front of the Wexford home. But no one was out canvassing, so I turned around and went up to the porch of the yellow house and knocked on the door.
I heard signs of life—shuffling and banging and then a prolonged period of someone struggling with the dead bolt. Finally, an old guy in a plaid shirt flung the door open and scowled out at me, leaning heavily on a cane. “Did you just walk through my yard?” he snapped.
“I did,” I said. “I’m sorry. People do that a lot?”
“All the goddamn time.”
I showed him the picture of Veronica. “Her?”
He grabbed my phone and held it an inch or two away from his face. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said, “she lives up the street or something.”
“She does. How about last night, did you see her last night?”
“Last night?” From his tone of voice, last night might as well have been last month.
“Yes, around seven thirty, eight o’clock?” I sensed his interest was flagging, so I added, “You seem pretty sharp, I bet you notice everything that goes on around here.”
He seemed to like the sound of that. “Last night?” he said again.
I smiled politely and waited while he thought about that.
“Right at the end of Wheel of Fortune.” He nodded. “Seven fifty-five, then. Someone went by. I got a light on a motion sensor.”
“And it was her?”
“I can’t swear to it, but I think so. That hair, it nearly glows when that spotlight goes on.”
So Veronica had likely passed through the trees at around eight. At eight fifteen, Kenny was walking out of the Varsity Lounge. Their paths would have converged right after that. I had no idea what had happened next, only that Veronica likely hadn’t made it as far as Insomnia, and Kenny didn’t get back to his house until ten.
After that, I tried the surrounding houses, but most yielded no response to my knocks—the residents either at work or hiding from me. Fair enough. When it started to rain, I headed up the street to Shelby’s house. The two cruisers in front of Veronica’s hadn’t moved, but I saw that one of the cops had gotten behind the wheel of one, ready to drive away. That is, until I got closer. Then he got out. It was Pasquale, the muscular guy who’d given me a hard time at the gas station last week.
I held up my hands in a don’t shoot gesture as I climbed the steps to the Evanses’ porch. But Pasquale didn’t buy it. His expression told me he knew about my encounter with Lassiter already somehow. “Ma’am, the situation is under control.”
I didn’t believe for one second that anything was under anything. But I didn’t want to get stuck explaining my way out of any more conversations with the Belmont police. “Oh, I know,” I said, knocking on the front door. “I’m just visiting a friend.”
“Oh, a friend?” Pasquale said, doubtful.
Fortunately, Shelby opened the door right then and invited me inside. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder and stick out my tongue. Instead I just followed her into the house. Joshua was in the armchair, talking on the phone, but he raised a hand to me in greeting. They both seemed slightly more relaxed, which made me wonder what spin the police were putting on Veronica’s absence now.
“He’s talking to my grandma,” Shelby told me as we went down the narrow hallway to her bedroom. “She lives in Indiana. He wants us to go there to stay with her but I don’t want to go anywhere, I want to stay here.” She sat down on the bed and spun her laptop screen around so I could see it. “I’m making a poster. I don’t know what else to do. Dad talked to the police and they told us we should stay home in case Veronica tries to come back and she gets nervous because of the police at her house.”
“Yeah,” I said. I was willing to bet that Lassiter was responsible for that brilliant excuse, but I supposed it didn’t matter. There was nothing Shelby could do yet anyway. I nodded at her poster. “That looks good. Listen, I’m going to show you a picture and I want you to tell me if you recognize the person.”
“Okay.”
I showed her the image of Kenny, and she immediately nodded.
My heart jumped into my throat. “You recognize him?”
“I think he lives around here,” Shelby said. “I’ve seen him driving by.”
My mouth had gone dry. Kenny didn’t live anywhere near Shelby’s street. East side, west side. “Shelby, when was the last time you saw him driving by?”
She thought about that for a second. “We saw him on Friday, I think. Yeah, Friday, it was the day you came over the first time.”
“Have you ever talked to him?”
“No.”
“Has Veronica?”
“No. I mean, not with me. He’s just some guy.”
He wasn’t. He wasn’t just some guy. He was hanging around on Shelby’s street often enough for her to notice. I was not going to let the Belmont police pretend that this was nothing anymore.
“Why?” Shelby said next. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. I ran a hand through my hair and tried to breathe. “You’re listening to your dad, right? Staying inside?”
She nodded.
“Good.”