Chapter Thirteen

Virginia

I MADE IT all the way to the police station without facing the choice to either ram my father off the road or, more likely, just drive past him scowling.

I parked my car on the street in front of the station, noticing the detective had beaten me there—just barely as he was still in the small parking lot clutching his gas station coffee.

I hopped out and hustled toward him to allow our interaction to occur in the infinite space of the outside world and not in the claustrophobic confines of the station. He noticed me right away as I was the only other human in sight.

“Hi,” he said, apparently feeling inclined to speak first but not sure what to say.

“I was just wondering if there have been any breaks in the case,” I said, cutting to the chase.

“Oh.” He paused like maybe he thought I was there for some other reason. I don’t know. To report a stolen bicycle or something. “Yeah,” he said to buy more time, scratching at the back of his head.

I didn’t think it was a particularly difficult question. His awkwardness screamed the answer was yes, unless he was just ashamed that it was no.

“Did you hear something?” he finally asked.

“Not yet,” I quipped, smirking a bit to encourage him to fill the void.

“Well, I can tell you there has been some movement and I promise to fill you in as soon as I can.”

“Well …” I mimicked, highlighting his delivery. “You can fill me in right now.”

“Virginia.” He smiled like he appreciated my effort, but it wasn’t quite enough.

“I promise I won’t tell anyone. I don’t even have anyone to tell if I wanted to. I just need to know; I need to know there’s something going in the right direction. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.” He rubbed at the back of his head again, clenching his teeth and weighing whether or not to walk away.

“Please,” I added, short, soft, and just the right kind of pathetic.

He exhaled. Admitting defeat.

THEY FOUND BENJY LINCOLN at a bus station in Maryland. The police were keeping it under wraps to avoid a media swarm, but now I knew about it.

Detective Colsen led me through the station, staying close, as if he could sense how uncomfortable I became once we were inside. He kept his hand on my back and his pace steady to discourage anyone from asking any questions or daring to stop us.

The preferential treatment was causing the release of some long-dormant endorphins. In that moment, he was giving me something I hadn’t realized I wanted. Somewhere inside, I liked it, but I couldn’t admit it. For eight years I had told myself I would never, could never, have feelings for someone else. Accepting that I might have feelings now would mean for all those years I was wrong. The darkness I lived in had to be real. It had to be something I couldn’t have avoided.

I ALLOWED DETECTIVE COLSEN to hold the door open for me as I stepped into the small viewing room. The space was tight for two. If either one of us swayed, our arms would touch, but we both held our ground.

“Be happy,” he said. “We’ve got him.” Colsen tipped his head toward the double mirror, nodded, and excused himself.

I turned to the mirror. Benjy sat on the other side. He wasn’t what I’d expected. I’d envisioned a comb-over, thick out-of-style glasses, maybe a van offering free candy and some lost puppy posters. He just looked depressing. He was overweight, egg-shaped, with a quarter inch of buzzed hair. He wore gray sweatpants that tapered off right before his velcro sneakers and a stretched-out light blue T-shirt. The pocket over his left breast was even further stretched out, evidencing he actually used it to carry things.

I was not feeling the vengeful satisfaction of my sister’s murderer being brought to justice. I felt lost, unaffected, unable to ground myself in the moment. There was something wrong. Even if he didn’t kill her, he was still a grown man overly affectionate toward young girls. Something inside me was broken.

Detective Colsen entered the interrogation room looking down at a folder, just like he had for me. He needed more moves.

Benjy looked up, fear all over his pudgy face.

Colsen took a seat and fanned out the folder. There it was again, Jenny’s dead body. Benjy retreated, turning his head to the left as far as he could away from the picture, the skin on his neck bunching and twisting. His eyes closed so tightly deep lines formed across his forehead.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Colsen. He closed the folder. “It’s OK. I put them away.”

Benjy opened his right eye and turned back just enough to confirm the pictures were gone. The closed folder brought the rest of his head back around. He waited, wide-eyed, for the detective to say something.

Colsen stared at him, watching him squirm, seeing if he would speak. Benjy said nothing.

“Mr. Lincoln, did you know the victim, Jenny Kennedy?”

Benjy averted his eyes, but nodded.

“Mr. Lincoln, please answer all questions with a verbal yes or no.”

“My—my name is Benjy,” he stuttered.

“OK.” Colsen softened his voice. “Benjy, did you know Jenny Kennedy?”

Benjy nodded again, but then remembered. “Yes.”

“And what was the nature of your relationship? How did you know Jenny?”

“I saw her in the pageants. She was very good. She was nice to me.”

“And what happened at the pageant in New Hampshire on April 19 of this year?”

Benjy began to rock in his seat.

“Mr. Lincoln … I’m sorry, I mean Benjy …” Colsen corrected himself with enough compassion to encourage honesty.

“They locked me in a closet. Then I had to go to the police station. I didn’t like it. And then Jenny didn’t do any more pageants.”

“And this upset you?”

Benjy nodded, and I wondered why he didn’t have a lawyer. I wasn’t even sure he was capable of comprehending he was a suspect.

“When’s the last time you saw Jenny?” Colsen asked.

Benjy started shaking his head. “No, no, I didn’t see Jenny.”

“I asked when the last time was. You have seen her before. When was the last time? Was it last week?” Objection, leading the witness, per every law show ever.

“No, no, not last week. Not for a long long time.”

“You were in Maryland, at a bus station. We talked to Mr. Johnson. He said you left your apartment four weeks ago. Were you running away from something?”

Benjy continued to shake his head. “No, no, I was not. I was moving away.”

“Why were you moving away?”

“I’m going to live in Mexico.”

“Mexico? You just decided to move to Mexico at the same time Jenny was killed?” Colsen flipped back open the folder, revealing the gruesome pictures.

Benjy jumped from the chair and stumbled to a corner of the room, his hands cuffed together. “Stop. I don’t want to look. Stop.”

“What happened, Benjy? Was there an accident? I know you didn’t mean to hurt her, but sometimes accidents happen.”

Benjy pressed his face into the corner of the room. “I would never hurt her. She’s my friend. No, no, no.”

WHEN IT WAS OVER, Colsen squeezed himself back into the viewing room. He leaned against the two-way mirror, his arms crossed around the folder and a satisfied smirk on his face.

“We got him. He’s going to go to prison for a long time. Does that help, knowing he’s not out there?” He uncrossed one arm to put his hand on my shoulder.

“You’re acting like you got a confession. Unless this is a trick mirror, all you got was a man to cry and run into the corner professing his innocence.”

Colsen pulled his arm back. “Oh, c’mon, he was fleeing the country.”

“You said he left his home weeks ago. How does that make any sense? If he was fleeing the country, why did he leave weeks before the murder?” I felt like Nancy Drew.

“He left to come here, then he fled after the murder.”

“Then you think the murder was premeditated? He packed up all his belongings to move to Mexico after a quick murder along the way? Look at him. You think he planned this? You think he had the wherewithal to put on a condom so that he wouldn’t leave any DNA? He has velcro sneakers for God’s sake.”

“I don’t have to explain anything to you,” Colsen said, stepping toward the door. “You know your way out?”

“I don’t think it’s him.”

“Prove it,” he said as he walked away, not bothering to hold the door for me.

I turned back to Benjy. His picture would look perfect juxtaposed with Jenny’s glamour shot on every newspaper. People would love the justice for that manufactured little girl who was nothing like the teen who had been murdered.

I wondered what Jenny would think about all of this. I didn’t know my sister very well. That was obvious. I was on a soapbox telling everyone to stop pretending she was some perfect doll, but that’s how I always saw her. I didn’t try to get to know her. I didn’t take her out for ice cream or go to any of her pageants. To me she was just the epitome of what my father wanted me to be, and therefore my natural enemy. Maybe it wasn’t too late to get to know her. Somebody had to.