Maryann nodded.
“I’m stage 3B. Which means I’m only seventy-five percent screwed as opposed to a hundred percent screwed. Funny thing, I only smoked here and there when I was younger. Doctors don’t know if it was Nolan’s smoking or my folks’ or the asbestos around Beth Coal where I worked for twenty years.”
She crossed her hands in her lap and smiled at them.
“And really, who cares? Machs nix, as my dad would have said.”
“Is it in all of your lymph nodes?” said Vega.
“Oh yes, hon. It’s everywhere. Survival rate is shit, excuse me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Cap.
Maryann shook her head as if to tell them not to worry. Vega’s mouth was unbelievably dry just then; she bit the tip of her tongue to create some liquid.
“Could we speak with your other son at some point, Ms. Marsh?” Cap said.
“I don’t see why not. I’ll give you his number,” she said. Then she reached into the pocket of her sweater and pulled out her cell phone. “You know,” she said, pausing, “the detective called me yesterday. The one who I filed the report with originally.”
“Detective Ralz?” said Cap.
“Yes, Ralz. He said he was going over old files and wanted to know if I’d ever heard anything. I told him no. We talked for only a couple of minutes.”
Cap glanced at Vega. Maryann put on a pair of reading glasses and held her phone in her lap, tapping the face of it.
“You know what they say about coincidences,” she said, still eyeballing the phone.
“That there are none?” said Cap.
Maryann looked up at a point above their heads. “Is that what they say?” Then she shrugged. “I thought they said something else.”
—
The Linsoms lived on a cul-de-sac in the Sherwood Forest subdivision, part of the Sprawl, as Cap called it—rural edges on the north side of town transforming into Monopoly-house planned communities. He’d seen a billboard on the highway on the way in: LIVE LIKE A KING IN SHERWOOD FOREST. Then the list of amenities, if the name was not enough to grab you: 2-, 3-, 4-BEDROOM NEW LUXURY HOMES, JACUZZIS, WINE CELLARS, OUTDOOR GRILL ISLANDS. There was the happy family right in the picture, standing in their front yard. See them waving? See how cheery they are? You’d be that happy too if you had your own outdoor grill island. Instead you have a boring indoor oven, and your kids think you’re a failure.
“You talk to the kid, okay?” said Vega as they walked up the driveway.
They had not really spoken after leaving Maryann Marsh’s house. Cap couldn’t tell if Vega was working something out in her head or if it was something else—the vaguest sense of grief seemed to rinse over her face, but there was no way he was going to ask her about it. Maybe in the future, over beer or tea or motor oil—whatever she consumed in her leisure time.
Lindsay Linsom answered the door and let them in. Her face was an arrangement of delicate bones, her hair pulled into a neat bun. Everything inside was white—white walls, white carpet, white furniture, the only standout a mahogany upright piano against one wall with a nickel-plated table clock on top, ticking audibly. Mrs. Linsom led them into the sunken living room and offered them drinks and seats on the couch.
“We met with the police at the school yesterday,” she said. “They asked Cole some questions already.”
“We understand, Mrs. Linsom. Like I said, we have some new information that we have questions about. Cole might be able to help us with it. It will take only a few minutes.”
Mrs. Linsom looked at both of them and touched her hair gently.
“Of course we want to do everything we can to help. I can’t imagine what Jamie must be going through. We just had Kylie over last weekend,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll get Cole. She said her stomach hurt, so I kept her home today. I think she’s just worried about Kylie. You never know how kids will process these things.”
She left, up a carpeted staircase. Cap looked around, at the straight stack of hardback books on the glass coffee table, the throw pillows angled in the same way in the corners of the couch, not a thread out of place on anything.
“Cozy,” said Cap.
Vega nodded, examining a glass deer centerpiece on a table behind her.
Mrs. Linsom came down the stairs with Cole, a slight girl with white-blond hair and pink lips. She stood in front of them, wide-eyed, uneasy.
“Cole, this is Mr. Caplan and Miss Vega.”
Cole stared at them and took a step closer to her mother.
“Hi Cole,” said Cap, as gentle as he could.
He’d actually forgotten how small ten-year-olds were. He had come to see Nell as an unstoppable force of development, since she had gotten out of the baby stage and started outgrowing clothes and shoes every other month. Cap’s reaction to her was still, I can’t believe how big she is. He would look at her on the soccer field and be awed, watching her slide tackle the ball with her long legs, her arms coming out like pea shoots from the sleeves of her uniform.
But this girl wasn’t like that; she seemed younger than ten, smelling faintly of baby powder. Kylie is this age too, he thought, but she seemed older somehow. He couldn’t put his finger on it, so he stopped, focused on this pale girl in front of him.
“How old are you now?” he said, like he was any family friend.
“Ten,” said Cole, soft and airy.
“Ten’s big. When will you be eleven?”
“August sixteenth.”
“It’ll be here before you know it. When my daughter was ten, she had about twenty of those Webkinz—you have any of those?”
“Yeah,” said Cole, her face splitting into a smile. “I have the cocker spaniel because we can’t have a real one.”
Cap laughed.
“Well, that’s the next best thing. A lot easier to take care of,” he said.
He looked up to Mrs. Linsom, who laughed with some relief.
“Can I ask you a question about Kylie?” he said then. “You’re friends with her, is that right?”
Cole nodded.
“You know her mom’s working really hard to find her and her sister, right? And that we’re helping her?”
Nod.
“You can do a lot to help us, Cole. All you have to do is tell the truth, okay?”
Nod.
“Good. Okay, did you guys have any games you liked to play together?”
Cole scrunched up her face.
“Like video games?”
“Sure. Or other kinds of games, like pretending to be in a club.”
Cole looked up at the ceiling.
“A club,” she said.
Mrs. Linsom leaned forward in her chair.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Caplan, what do you mean?”
“I think Cole knows what I mean,” said Cap. “Cole, did you have a club with Kylie? Just the two of you?”
“Um,” said Cole, now looking at the floor.
“Cole?” said Mrs. Linsom, facing her. “Answer Mr. Caplan. This is very important.”
“It’s a secret, though,” said Cole.
“Cole, this is to help Kylie. I promise she won’t be mad if you tell,” said Cap.