They lingered for a second, the short one rattling off imaginative threats punctuated with “cunt” and “bitch,” and didn’t seem to be wrapping it up.
“Go away!” she shouted, this time aiming the Springfield at the short one’s chest, and he finally shut up.
They both ran out, the front door flying open, letting in the cold and the light for a second.
Vega put her gun away. She jumped the bar, swung her legs around, and knocked over a few mugs. Pastor was trying to stand, still stunned, a thin line of blood trickling from his eyebrow. He was mostly moaning.
The old man on the other side of the bar had not moved, still drank his beer.
“You got something to say, Papi?” she said.
He put his mug down, pinched his upper lip to wipe the foam, and pointed at her.
“You remind me of my late wife,” he said thoughtfully.
Vega was too distracted to laugh, so she nodded. Then she looked back down at Pastor, who was sitting up with his knees bent and his head down. He asked her to turn off the taps, so she did. One by one the streams stopped, reminded her of ceiling leaks getting plugged. Then she sat on her heels next to Pastor, who thanked her before he told her everything he knew.
17
Cap sat with Jamie in Junior’s office. As she listened to him, ruddy splotches appeared on her cheeks and forehead, tears spilling loosely from her sealed eyes. She rubbed them with her fingertips.
“Jamie, we’re getting all the security video we can and canvassing the strip mall near the ballet studio,” Cap said. “Do you remember anyone who stood out? A delivery person or a salesman maybe?”
“No, it was just a strip mall, and it was just her ballet class. I don’t remember a delivery guy,” whispered Jamie, coughing. She smacked her forehead with her palm gently. “Part of me feels like I got Bailey; there’s no way I’m gonna get Kylie too, right?—that’s just too much luck.”
Cap knew he should speak, but he couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound patronizing.
“I just,” Jamie started, “I just think I could handle anything….I think I could live with just Bailey if I had to, I just, I just…” She kept braking on the “just.” No new tears were coming; her eyes were small and dry, her face wet like a stone. “I just couldn’t handle it if they cut her up. You know, her body parts. I’ve thought about this a lot. Then I’d do the overdose right. Bailey could live with my folks.”
She touched her hair dreamily, still gazing past Cap as she thought about it. Cap stood up and saw confetti in the corners of his eyes, held the edge of the table with one hand, queasy.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” he said.
Jamie nodded, still spacey.
Cap jogged out of the office, down one floor to the break room, fed dollars into the vending machine. Two packs of peanut M&M’s dropped to the tray, and Cap grabbed them and ran back upstairs to Jamie. She was still staring blankly ahead, resting her head on her fists, stacked on top of each other.
“Here,” said Cap, setting the candy on the desk in front of her.
She raised her head and looked at the yellow bag like it was a rock from the moon.
“Have you eaten any solid food yet?” Cap said, ripping open his own bag.
“Yeah, I had some toast and soup.”
“Try a couple,” he said. “They’ll give you a little energy.”
He tilted his head back and poured some of the candy into his mouth and started crunching. Then the syrupy sweetness of mass-produced chocolate hit him, and he accidentally made a little grunting noise.
“You really like M&M’s,” said Jamie, opening her bag with two hands.
“The cheap sugar’s the only thing that keeps me going when I’m this tired,” he said. “Might help you too.”
“Kylie doesn’t love anything like she loves sugar,” she said. “I tell people that and they’re all, duh, she’s a kid, but it’s different. I have two kids, and Bailey loves ice cream and cake and Twizzlers as much as the next, but Kylie…”
She paused, shook her head, stared at the bag of candy in her hand.
“Go on,” said Cap.
“I still have to stop her from sucking on ketchup packets when we get hot dogs. She puts them in her pocket. It’s like a drug problem.”
She set the bag down on Junior’s desk.
“Do you think…they actually lured her with candy, like the stuff they used to tell us when we were kids?”
Cap swallowed and the candy went down rough—a collection of unchewed peanuts.
“This sounds a little more organized than that,” he said. “Which is good for us actually. Random’s usually harder to figure out.”
Jamie nodded. She picked out one M&M, bright unreal blue, and ate it. She closed her eyes and held it in her mouth for a good long time.
—
In the big blue conference room, Vega connected her laptop to a projector, and the image, split into four, appeared on the beige screen: the parking lot of the strip mall on Church Street; the western entrance where the ballet studio was visible, in between a shoe store and a juice bar; the eastern entrance; and the rear parking lot for trucks making deliveries.
The Fed and Traynor stood and stared, watching footage in black-and-white, people coming and going.
“How’d your guy get this so quickly?” said the Fed.
“He has a talent,” said Vega.
“Maybe he should come work for us,” said the Fed, glancing back at his boss, who sat and drew delicate slashes with his fingertip on his tablet.
“He’s an independent contractor,” said Vega. “How far you want to go back—six months?”
“Six months?” said Cap. “Come on.”
“Let’s start with one,” said Traynor. “Emerson?”
Em sat near the head of the table chugging an energy drink, surrounded by three officers still in their blues from their previous shifts.
“Yes, sir, we’ll each take a screen. Looking for a white male who shows up more than once, probably near or around the ballet studio.”
“Anything that stands out, anyone who looks familiar,” said Cap.
“The ballet instructor remember anything?” said Traynor, nodding to the Fed.
“We talked to her for about an hour,” said the Fed. “There’s a guy who works for Moreland—came in to measure mirrors a while back. She said she didn’t like the way he looked at her and some of the older girls.”
“Was Kylie one of the older girls?” said Cap.
“No. Oldest was twelve. But that may not make a material difference to a pedophile,” said the Fed. “Our man at Moreland is going through his records, trying to find the guy he sent to measure their mirrors—he’ll send it as soon as he has it.”
“Does he need someone to help him along?” said Junior, annoyed.
“I’m sure he’s capable, Captain,” said Traynor.
“There’s only nominal information in the McKenna and Cahill files about the ballet classes, so we should get the parents in here.”
“The McKennas are on their way now. Anything from neighboring businesses?” asked Traynor.
The Fed shook his head.
“Everyone’s got a story. You ask people enough questions, they start to think the UPS guy looks suspicious.”