“Nope,” she replied. “Just one million more questions that we have to find the answers for. To start with, who the hell knew that the parents would be away and that the kid would be off on the streets with his little thug friends?”
Rodney thought for a moment. “Well, anybody who watched the house, I guess. Or somebody who worked with the dad, who might have known they were taking off for the holiday. Any of the neighbors might have known. The parents probably warned them about it and asked them to keep an eye on the place or something.”
“You know what? That’s a good thought.” She sat here, thinking about it. “It takes a pretty shitty person to go after your neighbor’s daughter though.”
“Honestly it just takes somebody who doesn’t give a shit,” Rodney replied. “Not necessarily a shitty person. They just do what they want to do, and they don’t care. This was probably an opportunity they couldn’t let slide.”
She nodded. “So I still want to do a walkthrough of that crime scene in the original house though. We didn’t get that done yet.” She frowned and reached for her phone, but it rang beneath her fingers. When she answered, it was the woman from the building development corporation.
The receptionist said, “I spoke to the boss, and he’s given permission for you to go into the house.”
She flashed a smile over at Rodney. “Good, we’ll be there in the next twenty minutes.”
“How long do you think you need?” the woman asked hesitantly.
“I don’t know,” Kate replied. “I’ll let you know after I’ve been there.” She hung up, bolted to her feet with more energy than she’d had all morning, and told Rodney, “We got the go-ahead to get into the house.”
He looked at her in surprise, slowly getting to his feet. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yeah, maybe this will be the break we’re looking for.”
As they walked out, he looked over at her. “Are you and Simon doing okay?”
She nodded, with a shrug. “Sure, why not?”
He frowned. “That’s hardly a good answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
“It’s just hard on relationships—this business, I mean.”
“Is everybody out to warn me to get some balance in my life today?” she snapped.
He looked at her in surprise.
She shook her head. “The sergeant was just on my case about it.”
“Which also means that he’s seen it too.”
“Seen what?” she asked, glaring at him.
“That.”
She slowly sighed. “Look. I’m fine. Simon and I are fine. But this case? It’s getting to me.”
“There’ll always be a case,” he reminded her.
“I know,” she acknowledged.
“But if you have plans to spend a good amount of time in this profession, then you have to pace yourself.”
“I know. I know.” She slowly rotated her head, as they headed out to the parking lot. “I’m just tired today. Listening to Rick talk last night, it—” Her voice broke off.
“Yeah, it’s tough, but don’t be so sympathetic that he fools you.”
“No,” she noted. “I don’t think that’s the case here, but we do need to figure out what happened. What pisses me off is that, by confessing, he completely derailed the original investigation. Nobody looked anywhere else because they already had the right guy. Now we look around, and we see that maybe we don’t have the right guy, and we have literally nothing to go on because so many years have passed.”
“But it’s not all lost,” Rodney stated. “We’re still waiting on forensic evidence on this latest case.”