“We insist that you stop interrogating our son,” demanded the woman, with all the conviction of someone who routinely got what she asked for. There were three of them in the reception area, the woman and two men. It was after eleven, and major crimes was quiet, with just a few detectives in the office, most of those on duty out on the street working the Warner case, following up on tips generated by Joey’s photo on the ten o’clock news.
My empty stomach rumbled. Of course, now that I’d seen Joey staring up at me from the photo, I’d long since forgotten dinner. Unfortunately, my body wasn’t in agreement. Still, something nagged at me. David’s kiss in the break room reminded me that we had unfinished business. As worried as I was about the kid, I couldn’t help consider that at some point I really needed to figure out where my personal life was heading and whether or not David Garrity was going to be a part of it.
“Hello. You must be Special Agent Garrity and Lieutenant Armstrong,” said an affable-looking man in a navy blue jogging suit with wide white stripes down the sleeves and pant legs. “I’m Randy Rogers, Mr. and Mrs. Warner’s attorney. A deputy called this evening asking questions, and we understand that you have their son, Evan, here. Excuse my appearance, but we rushed over, and I was at the gym when Alice and Jackson called. Is Evan under arrest?”
“No,” David said, shaking the man’s hand. “Evan’s son, Joey, disappeared late this afternoon from a park, where he was with his mother. We’re looking for the little boy and just asking questions.”
“That woman probably did something to that child,” said Alicia Warner, a tall, straight woman with rowdy brown highlighted hair that she’d undoubtedly struggled with most of her life. Her face was weathered with thick creases etched down from the corners of her lips, not up—from frowning, not smiling, was my guess. She wore big silver jewelry and a loose black dress. Her husband, Jackson Warner, looked her male mirror image, as resolutely erect as she, with thick, unruly gray hair and restless, faded blue eyes.
“That child isn’t a concern of ours. He’s his mother’s problem,” said Jackson, his expression cold. “But our son is. We’ll take him with us and leave.”
“We have questions for your son, Mr. Warner,” David said. “It’s important that we find your grandson quickly, and we need Evan’s cooperation and yours to help make that happen.”
“We don’t consider that child our grandson. In fact, we’ve never been at all sure that he is,” Mrs. Warner snapped. “Tell Evan we’re here, please.”
“Why won’t you help?” I asked, peeved. I felt my blood pressure rising along with my anger. “Has this four-year-old insulted you somehow, enough that you would let him disappear, perhaps die? A child’s life is in danger, and you’re too busy to be bothered. Is that what you’re telling us?”
“Lieutenant,” the lawyer chastised, wearing a cautionary frown, “I must ask you to refrain from talking to Mr. and Mrs. Warner that way. You have no right to expect them to become involved in this situation. Now please tell Evan that we’re here.”
“Seems to me that common decency requires their involvement,” I said, half expecting David to jump in to stop me. He didn’t, and I figured I was saying pretty much what he was thinking. “Any moral code, even a halfhearted imitation of one, requires assistance when an innocent young child may be in danger.”
“Your code, not ours,” the grandmother said, to my astonishment. “Our code says that the boy doesn’t exist, and he’s not our problem.”
At that point, Evan trailed out from the interview room. We’d asked him to wait, but he’d apparently inherited his parents’ uncooperative genes. “What are you two doing here?” he asked, shooting them both a brooding glance. “I can take care of this. I don’t need you or your lawyer.”
“Your parents are here to take you home, son,” the attorney said. “Get your things, if you brought anything with you. We’re leaving.”
“I just told them I’d take a lie detector test,” Evan said, as if it were no big deal. “I think it’ll take a while. I’ll come home when I’m done.”
“No!” his mother shouted, visibly alarmed. “Grab whatever you have here, if you have anything, we’re leaving.”
Evan paused for a moment, then shrugged and moved toward his mother, indicating he’d decided to follow orders and would soon be out the door. If we had any hope of convincing him otherwise, we had to talk fast.
“Even if your clients don’t, Mr. Rogers, you know this isn’t smart,” David told the attorney, pushing ever harder. “Let Evan take the polygraph. Why not? Do you want us to think he’s involved, that his parents are tangled up in this somehow? Why else would they be so uncooperative with the life of their own grandchild hanging in the balance?”
“You’re not listening to us. We’re not involved with that child. We’ve never even seen him,” Alicia Warner fumed. “Our son was tricked into marrying that awful girl. She’s the one you should be questioning.”
I grabbed a flyer with the outdated photo of Joey off a nearby desk and thrust it in the face of his less-than-devoted grandmother. “This is your grandson. He’s a little older now, four, and he has light brown hair, round blue eyes like your husband’s and your son’s. His name is Joey, and he likes to play with trucks in the park sandbox,” I said, holding it up so both Evan’s parents had no option other than to look into their missing grandchild’s sweet face. “This is your grandson. You need to talk to us and help us save his life.”
For the wink of a moment, I thought it might work. Both Alicia and Jackson looked at the photo, stunned. But I was wrong. “Evan, we’re leaving, and you’re going with us,” Alicia ordered, turning away resolutely. “Now!”
Casting an angry glare in my direction, Jackson grabbed his son by the arm and coaxed him toward the door as the attorney in the jogging suit led the way. “Don’t you care about your own son, Evan?” I called out. “He’s a child, a little boy. Your parents may not know him, but you do. You’re his father. And if you don’t help us, he may die. Don’t you care?”
His head spun around as his parents urged him out the battered metal door to the corridor that led to the stairs to the lobby. In minutes, Evan would be gone, and we had no way to stop him. “If I thought Joey was really in trouble, I’d help you. But he’s not in danger. Go after Crystal,” Evan shouted on his way out the door. “That bitch has our son stashed somewhere. She’s doing it for the money. You check it out. Crystal knows where Joey is, who has him, and everything she does is for money.”