“You have a lot of experience letting your clients call the shots?” he said with an edge.
“Only when their arguments make sense,” said Vega. “How would a fifteen-year-old who lived a few doors down from the Brandts coordinate the abduction, stash the girls somewhere, and then keep showing up at home, business as usual?”
“It’s possible,” said Cap.
“Not probable,” said Vega.
“The kidnapper is someone who’s not probable,” said Cap. “Otherwise it would be obvious who he is.”
“Did Em call you back yet?”
Cap glanced at his phone.
“No.”
“Then we can’t do anything. Junior’s going to want Sonny alone in a room before his mother can get a lawyer to him—he’s not going to call in the witnesses until tomorrow midday at the earliest. Let’s talk to them first.”
Vega watched Cap as he chewed on his lips. He looked at his watch.
“We can’t knock on their doors now,” he said.
“Probably not,” said Vega. “But we can call, set it up for first thing before they go to work.”
Cap bit his lip and nodded mechanically, all his pissiness replaced by fatigue.
“I’ll call them,” said Vega, closing her laptop, tucking it under her arm. “I’ll be here at seven. I’ll park across the street, so your neighbor can walk his cat.”
She saw the first curl of a smile on him before she left, before he had a chance to say anything, probably either “Thanks” or “Okay,” muttered into the empty space of his living room.
—
She held her breath, all of her abdominal muscles hugging the organs, stretching her legs up to the ceiling. Fingers out—they’re duck feet, they’re oven mitts. The idea was that it should be all parts working equally, but that was for Indian gurus and vegan socialites. Vega’s was circus yoga, a magic trick, and it always felt like there was one thing pushing harder than anything else. Today it was her forearms. Vega knew it was her body making the selection (her core was weak from riding around in a car for so many hours, shoulders stiff from pulling Brandon Haas across the parking lot), but a skittering bug in her brain told her it was for a reason. The forearms are active because you will need them more today.
Then her phone began to hum on the table, moved toward the edge like it was drawn by a magnet. Vega felt a strange predatory affection for it: Come here, little thing. Come closer.
8
Rachel Simmons lived in her parents’ garage in Black Creek; it was a large room with one small window near the ceiling facing out onto a balding lawn. She sat in between Cap and Vega and squinted at Vega’s phone, at the picture of Sonny Thomas that Jamie had sent.
In the picture Sonny was wearing a floppy beanie with a ball on top and an oversized T-shirt. He was leaning to the side hugging Kylie.
“Um, I don’t know,” said Rachel. “I mean, I was in the parking lot, you know? This all happened across the highway.”
Vega tapped on Sonny’s face to zoom. Cap thought he looked like a TV show’s idea of a teenager: unthreateningly handsome, check; mild acne, check; nearly imperceptible smirk, check.
“Yeah, I really didn’t see his face,” said Rachel.
“But it’s possible this was him,” said Vega.
“I guess so,” she said.
“Is there anything else you can remember,” said Vega, “Anything that stands out at all?”
Rachel picked a piece of lint off her jeans with her long fingernail, painted blue.
“I was far away,” she said, turning her head from Vega to Cap. “I’m real sorry, I just got one little look.”
She frowned, her face framed by frizzy blond hair, her eyes big and shaky, and Cap could do nothing but believe her.
—
Carl Crain kept them on the porch.
He was a big man with a belly and a buzz cut. He closed the screen door behind him and was panting, like he’d been rushing.
“Kids are getting ready for school,” he said by way of explanation.
“That’s fine,” said Vega. “We only need a minute of your time.”
He smiled at her awkwardly and then looked past her to Cap and said, “I saw on the news they got him. They got the guy who took those girls.”
Women get hellos, Vega thought. Men get business.
“Not quite,” said Cap. “They’ve only brought someone in for questioning.”
“Do you recognize this boy?” said Vega, and she held up her phone to Carl Crain’s face.
He peered over the phone and said to Cap, “Is this him? Is this the kid?”
Vega turned around to look at Cap too,
“Yes, he’s the one the police have brought in,” said Cap reluctantly.
“I know I was across the street,” said Carl, “but this is him.”
“Your statement says he was wearing a hat that covered his face,” said Vega.
Carl looked at her sideways, confused, either by her asking questions about the case or by her speaking words at all.
He responded to Cap, as if Cap had asked him the question. “Yeah, but he was tall and skinny like that. You know, long armed. You think they’re going to bring me in to do a lineup?”
He put his hands on his hips and cleared his throat, as if he were preparing to identify someone in a lineup at that moment. He rocked back and forth on his feet.
“Possibly,” Cap answered him, over Vega’s head. “They have all your contact information, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” said Carl, as if his contact information were a great source of pride.
“I’m sure they’ll be in touch,” said Cap.
Vega said nothing, stood between them like a dumb little ghost.
—
As soon as they got in the car, Cap started the engine and said, “Look, some guys around here only want to talk to other guys about anything substantive. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is.”
“Sure,” said Vega. “You do a decent impression of one of those guys.”
Now she had offended him. He took his hands off the wheel and turned to her.
“No, hey, give me a small break, Vega. I was trying to get information and move to the next thing.”
“Then let’s move to the next thing. My lead.”
“All yours.”
“You don’t have to be so fucking supportive,” said Vega. “You can just let me work.”
Cap shrugged. “Fine.”
They didn’t speak until they got to the last witness on the list. A woman named Alyssa Moser let them in but was anxious about it. She wore a chunky wool sweater with a large spiral pattern on it. Her face was covered with freckles like a girl, though Cap put her age at about fifty.
“I keep going back in time in my head, wishing I’d turned around and seen something that could help you,” she said. “You have to understand, my uncle isn’t well. We told the police. I don’t know what you could get by interviewing him again.”
“He seemed to remember a few things when he gave his statement,” said Vega, not combatively.
“Good days, bad days,” she said, looking sad. “He used to be so funny is all,” she added, as if to explain her sadness.
“He said the suspect looked like Harry?” said Vega.
Alyssa gave them a wounded smile.