She shrugged. “Sure. It would have been nice if somebody had seen Timmy, if they had stepped up to the plate to help him. It didn’t happen.”
“Did you ever wonder if maybe he was kidnapped, and he’s living another life somewhere?”
“Absolutely. I keep hoping for that. You hear of cases like that. As you know, we’ve seen it, where various girls have been held captive for ten-plus, even twenty, years, and all of a sudden they surface—after living horrific lives in captivity somewhere. Some of the cases aren’t that bad, and others are something you don’t ever want to contemplate.
“In my case, this was my brother. So it’s a little different, since most of those cases are about girls, but it’s not impossible. There’s always that sense, that bit of hope that maybe Timmy’s alive out there somehow. But hope is scary because there’s absolutely no guarantee that it will come true. And so you wait, and you wait some more, and then you wait even more.”
“In the meantime,” he reminded her, “you’re checking out every lead that comes, every time we get a boy or a child’s body.”
She nodded. “And those are the worst,” she said quietly. “Because, even though you hope, every time a body is found, you know it could be the one you don’t want it to be.”
He nodded in understanding, got up, and they left the interview room. As they walked back to their desks, Rodney said. “Now what?”
“Now let’s look into those other cases you pointed out at the very beginning of this case, the ones you emailed me, and also I want to phone those two pizza-eating kids.”
“Did they really say something that triggered a lead, or did they just upset you?”
“Both. I just don’t know what it was. For all I know, they didn’t want to talk to me because they had joints on them or something stupid like that.”
“And yet it’s legal.”
“It’s legal, but maybe they have a reason that it’s not allowed in their world. Maybe they’re on a sports team or something. Maybe they don’t want their parents to know. Let me put it this way. They definitely acted guilty about something.”
“Good enough. Sometimes all we have to go on is that instinct.”
She nodded. “In this case something’s there. I just don’t know what it is.”
“Let me know how it comes out.”
She laughed. “Yep, will do.” And, with that, she headed back to her desk and had an afternoon that just wouldn’t quit. “I’ll start with those two kids,” she muttered to herself. She began with the male, the one who really got to her with his arrogance and his entitled attitude. She looked up his name, and, when she called the number he had given her, he answered but sounded distracted. “This is Detective Kate Morgan. I spoke with you yesterday… about the accident.”
“What about it?” he asked, his voice immediately surly.
“It seemed to me like you weren’t saying something,” she said calmly. “So I’d like to go over some of these questions again.”
“And maybe I should phone my lawyer.”
“That’s fine. In that case, I’ll expect you both down here tomorrow at one o’clock. Okay?”
“Wait, wait. What are you talking about?”
“If you’re calling your lawyer, you may as well come in and give a formal statement and be done with it,” she said, her tone hard.
He hesitated. “Fine. What questions?”
“The same ones. I just want to go over some of these because it doesn’t jive with what other people were saying.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t jive?” he said in disgust. “Who the hell were you asking?”
“Everyone who was there.” She calmly went over the questions again, what he’d seen, who he’d seen, and basically he didn’t have anything to say. “Hmm.” She tried to make it sound like she was unimpressed.
“What? Did I get something wrong?” He sounded stressed. “Nothing was there. Honest.”
“So, what are you hiding then?” she asked quietly.
“Nothing, and, if you say that again, then we will be talking to my lawyer.”
“Okay, give me his name, please.”