“Tan, white, beige compact.”
“Three witnesses, three colors,” she said.
“Yeah, no one saw plates.”
“No one ever sees plates,” said Cap.
“So they couldn’t see his face,” said Vega. “Because of the hat.”
“None of them got a good look, no.”
“Who took the statements?” said Cap.
“Ralz and Harrison.”
“The word’s getting out?”
“Every cop in Pennsylvania has the description, but they can’t pull over every tan, white, or beige vehicle on the street.”
Cap nodded.
Em tapped all his fingers on the table and bounced back and forth on the seat a little bit.
“I better get back. I told Junior I needed some coffee that didn’t taste like cat shit.”
“Thanks for doing this,” Cap said. “What changed your mind?”
Em exhaled loudly and said, “I’m just thinking about it. Went home to my kids, you know. Jake’s the same age as the little Brandt girl, and I was like, what the fuck am I doing? Why not, why fuckin’ not? Let’s get this thing by the fuckin’ nuts, right?” he said, looking at Cap. Then, to Vega, “Excuse me.”
“Talk about nuts all you want,” she said. “Did Traynor bring in a Fed?”
“Yeah, his name’s Cartwright. He just came in this morning and been locked up with the chief.”
Cap nodded, said, “Look, I shared some information with Junior earlier. We might all be working together real soon.”
“Good. That’s good, right?”
“Right. Thanks, Em.”
Em grinned, looking a little dopey. He turned to Vega, waiting on something, like he’d asked her a question that she hadn’t answered yet.
She stared back, unsure of what he wanted. She glanced at Cap, who made some eye rolls in Em’s direction.
“Oh, thanks,” she said.
“My pleasure,” said Em. “I’m gonna go. Nice to meet you, Miss Vega,” he said, standing up from the booth. “Talk soon, Cap.”
Then he headed for the door. He grabbed a toothpick from a dispenser on the counter on the way out and stuck it in his mouth like a cowboy.
Vega watched him out the window for a second longer as he walked through the parking lot, while she handed the envelope to Cap. Please thank you, please thank you, please thank you, she thought, because it helped to practice.
—
A half hour later they were at Cap’s house, their notes and the statements spread out on the kitchen table. Cap put on a pot of coffee and then winced and shook a finger at Vega.
“I don’t have tea,” he said.
“I’m fine,” said Vega, looking over the pages.
“So three people,” said Cap. “Rachel Simmons, twenty-three, getting into her car after returning a Blu-ray player at Best Buy, notices the girls crossing the street, sees one of them hug a boy, presumably the driver, wearing a white baseball hat and light-colored sweatshirt. Girls get into the car, which she thinks is tan. Doesn’t think anything’s strange about it, thinks the girl and boy must be boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Carl Crain,” said Vega. “Forty-five, loading baseball equipment into the back of his truck with his son. He sees the girls cross the highway and thinks, Where’re their parents? Then sees the bigger one hug a Caucasian male dressed in a gray sweatshirt and white baseball hat. They get into the car and drive away. Son doesn’t see anything.”
“And Roy Eldridge, eighty-seven, as he’s being driven by his niece out of the mall parking lot onto the highway, sees a boy hug a girl. Then he says two girls get in the car with Harry. Ralz asks who Harry is. The niece says Harry is Eldridge’s son; Eldridge is old and confused. Thinks the boy in the baseball hat is his son.”
“Or looks like his son. And the niece didn’t see the boy or the girls.”
“Right.”
“It doesn’t say anything about what Harry looks like,” said Vega, staring straight ahead.
“No, but the niece wouldn’t necessarily know that. May not be relevant either. Eldridge is almost ninety and prone to bouts of”—Cap looked back at the statement and read—“?‘disorientation and aphasia.’?”
“We could still check. All of them, see if their memory’s been jogged at all since they talked to Ralz.” She took a deep breath and tapped her fingers on the table. “Maybe he didn’t write everything down either.”
“It’s a possibility,” said Cap, his phone buzzing in his pocket. “They were probably rushing trying to talk to everyone at the mall who might have seen something. That’s a lot of statements to take and only two police.”
Cap looked at his phone. A text from Nell: “Have you seen the news??? Break in your case. Turn on 6.”
“What is it?” said Vega.
“Nell. My daughter. Says there’s a break in the case.”
Cap went to the living room and dug the remote out from the couch, turned on the TV, and stood there with his arms folded. There was footage of a boy, a teenager, long-limbed and lanky, being led out of a cruiser, a sweatshirt pulled up over his face, and up the steps of the station. Cap recognized most of the cops standing on the steps, waving off the press like mosquitoes. Ralz guided the boy through the front doors.
“—brought in for questioning this evening,” said the anchorwoman. “The police are releasing no information about the underage suspect except to say they have reason to believe he may know the whereabouts of Kylie and Bailey Brandt.”
The image cut back to the anchorpeople with their moderately concerned expressions and moderately detached commentary.
The woman said, “Kylie and Bailey Brandt were last seen at the Ridgewood Mall on Sterling Road East and Highway 61 last Saturday morning. If you have any information regarding their whereabouts, please call your local authorities. Scott?”
Scott had a downcast sort of look and said thoughtfully, “Terrible.” Then, a pause. “A Reading man pleaded guilty to two counts of homicide this morning—”
Cap muted it. He turned to Vega, who had the phone pressed to her ear.
“Who are you calling?”
“Jamie Brandt.” Vega’s eyes focused as she listened to a voice on the other end. “Why?” she said into the phone. Then she pulled it from her head and tapped it, held it out in front of her.
“That’s Sonny Thomas,” said Jamie’s voice, sharp and strained on the speaker.
“The boy who lives in your apartment complex,” said Vega.
“Jamie, it’s Max Caplan. Why would the police want him? Did you tell them anything about Sonny you maybe forgot to tell us?” Cap said, feeling his heart rate speed up.
Something about it wasn’t right, he knew, but it was useless to try to pin it down now.
“What’s ‘Sonny’ short for?” said Vega, staring at Cap.
“What?” said Jamie, distracted, her mother’s voice in the background.
“Sonny,” said Cap. “The name, is it short for something?”
“Son-of-a-bitch,” said Jamie, realizing. “It’s Wilson. Wilson Thomas.”
Jamie said she had to go and hung up on them.
“Why did we cross him off our list again?” said Cap, agitated.
“Jamie didn’t think he was a viable candidate.”
He shook his head to some internal rhythm.