THE TRANSLATOR ARRIVED just after breakfast. She was an older woman, in her late sixties probably, a shock of white hair and a stern expression.
“Maria Zeklos,” she said, shaking Stevens’s hand as she climbed from her car. “Where is the girl?”
“She’s inside,” Stevens told her. “Listen, thanks for coming on such short notice. We—”
Zeklos waved him off. “Never mind,” she said. “Shall we talk to your suspect?”
Stevens and Nancy swapped glances as they followed her to the front door of the sheriff’s department. “Where’d you find this woman, anyway?” Stevens whispered. “I feel like she’s about to put me in detention.”
Nancy laughed. “She runs some kind of Romanian-language school in Saint Paul,” she said. “Came up on a list of available translators. Through your office, I might add.”
“Well, okay,” Stevens said. “Then I guess she’s my problem.”
He kissed his wife good-bye, and promised to keep her updated. Then he walked into the sheriff’s department and nearly collided with Maria Zeklos at the secretary’s desk, where she was refusing Ed Watkins’s offer of a fresh cup of coffee.
“I was told this girl killed a deputy,” she told Stevens. “And that she doesn’t speak any English. I believe we can save the coffee until after we’ve talked to her, don’t you?”
“Fine by me,” Stevens replied. “Save the coffee. I’d kind of like to hear what the suspect has to say myself.”
> > >
IF THE YOUNG WOMAN’S CONDITION had improved overnight, it was minimal at best. Nancy had sworn she’d seen the girl eat, but even though Stevens could see a little more color in her cheeks, the girl was still rail thin, her eyes sunken and lifeless. She sat opposite Stevens and Zeklos in the little interview room, as far away as she could, hugging herself and staring down at the floor. She looked like she hadn’t slept a minute.
She was trembling, Stevens realized. She was still so afraid.
“We’re not here to hurt her,” he told Zeklos. “Would you tell her that, please?”
Zeklos studied Stevens as though she were gauging the truth in his statement. Finally, she leaned down and spoke softly to the girl. The girl didn’t answer. Didn’t look up.
Stevens cleared his throat. This was a first for him; over his nearly twenty years in law enforcement, he’d never needed a translator. So he paused, aware of the sheriff’s eyes on him through the room’s two-way mirror. “Maybe she’d like some coffee,” he told Zeklos. “Or some water?”
Zeklos relayed the question. Again, the girl didn’t respond. She looked small, frail, traumatized, and Stevens felt a twinge in his heart as he looked her over. Whether she’d killed Deputy Friesen or not, this young woman’s problems were serious. If he could only convince her to talk to him.
“Tell her we’re here to help her,” Stevens told the translator. “She’s safe now. We just want to know what happened.”
Zeklos translated. Still the girl said nothing. She was crying, he saw. Silently shaking. He watched a tear slide down her cheek. Then she mumbled something without lifting her head.
“What did she say?” Stevens asked.
“She wants us to go,” the translator said. “Leave her alone.”
The girl whispered. “Please.”
“We should go,” Zeklos said. “She is in no shape to talk.”
Stevens looked at the girl. Looked at the two-way mirror where the sheriff stood, watching. Looked around the tiny interview room and then back at the girl.
He stood. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “We’ll try again later.”