The word sets off something in Neal. “Arrest?”
He stands, the muscles on his slim forearms twisting as he presses his hands onto the tabletop. He’s wearing glasses today, a pair of wire rims that somehow make him look younger than he is. “They’re just asking me a few questions,” he says, presumably to Jay, but he’s looking at the detective, wanting Moore to confirm this. The detective steps around Jay, leaning into the tiled hallway, searching for backup. But Jay knows the detective is flying solo. There’s a pane of mirrored glass cut into the wall behind Neal’s seat, on the other side of which, Jay guesses, sits an observation room. If there were officers monitoring this little chat with Neal Hathorne, they would have flown into the room the second Jay stepped inside. The detective hollers down the hall for an assist. He steps back inside, turning to Jay and shaking his head. “You can’t just come in here.”
“I can if he asks for a lawyer.”
“He’s not being interrogated.”
“Oh, is that right?” Jay says, making an exaggerated show of looking around the room. Two uniformed officers appear in the doorway, one with a hand on his holster. Jay shoots Neal a look, silently encouraging the young campaign manager to consider why he’s in this small, boxlike room. Neal sighs, shoves his hands into the pockets of his softly wrinkled slacks.
“He can stay,” he says.
The detective turns to Neal. “What’s that?”
“I want a lawyer,” Neal says. “He can stay.”
The detective turns from Neal to Jay, the surprise guest. He seems momentarily unsure of how to play the situation. Finally, he waves off the uniformed cops, shaking his head to himself, before stepping aside to let Jay cross the room to his client. “I’ll need a chair,” Jay says.
CHAPTER 8
They found her purse and wallet, separated by two hundred yards and a drain ditch, in the weeds along a deserted stretch of road by the Port of Houston, a good quarter mile from where the residents had been concentrating their search efforts. With Jay in the room now, there’s no more need to tiptoe up to it. The facts are what they are. Detective Moore lays them out before Jay and Neal: a faux leather hobo bag, the stitching on the straps coming undone; and a pink nylon wallet, Velcro at the seams and open to the center, the slots for credit cards empty and one prom photo sticking out, Alicia and the boyfriend, Jay thinks. The wallet is too thin to have ever held more than a few dollars. Beside it are other details of the young girl’s life: Bonnie Bell Dr Pepper lip gloss; a mechanical pencil with basketballs printed on it; a tin of face powder; Bayer aspirin; a tampon, its outer packaging torn at the corners; a dusty pack of Tic Tacs; a folded-up copy of the Buffalo Bayou Development Project flyer; and a small black pager. The items are set on a plastic sheet, and Detective Moore doesn’t touch any of them, especially avoiding the pager, to which this conversation, half an hour after Jay sat down, has finally circled around. Until its discovery, Alicia’s parents had no idea she owned a pager, let alone why Neal Hathorne’s mobile number would be on its screen. His was the last number received, a little over an hour before Elma Johnson spotted the girl through the curtains of her kitchen window. She was waiting on someone, the woman said.
“Help me out here, Mr. Hathorne,” Moore says. He’s removed his jacket, letting it hang on the chair back behind him, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “How is it that your cell phone number showed up in Alicia Nowell’s pager?”
“I have no idea. I never met her.”
Jay reaches out a hand to stop him, almost as he would if one of his kids was riding next to him in the front of the car and he put on the brakes. “Let’s be clear,” he says, “none of this means Mr. Hathorne was in contact with Alicia, only that someone in possession of the seven digits that make up his phone number happened to punch in those numbers when paging Alicia Nowell.”
“What’s her pager number?” Neal says, pulling out his phone.
He starts scrolling through his call list, ready to clear this up right now.
Again, Jay holds out his hand.
“Look, we’re here to help. We all want the girl found safe and sound. Which is why we can’t afford to waste any more time. It’s been five days.”
“No one is more aware of that than I am, Mr. Porter.” Moore turns his attention once again to Neal. “She wasn’t working for your uncle’s campaign?”
“No,” Neal says. “I told you, I never met the girl.”
“Then again, Mr. Hathorne, why was your phone number in her pager?”
“I think we’ve established that’s not getting us anywhere,” Jay says.
“Did you call her?” Moore asks.