She sat at a long oval table in a dim blue room with a bunch of cops.
Cap was next to her, and the chief of police and the FBI agent were at the front of the room, projecting images from a laptop onto a ratty screen. Cap and Vega were near the head of the table. The presentation was for them.
There was a school photo of a girl on the screen, round faced, with straight blond hair to her chin. She smiled out at the camera, but it was one of those trained-kid smiles. Smile, smile, smile, Vega could hear the photographers in her head. Always laid it on thick for the girls—Come on, princess, you’re gonna be Miss America, smile for me. All the boys got was a Hey buddy, say cheese.
“This is Sydney McKenna,” said the chief. “Disappeared on her way home from school two years ago near Harrisburg. She was eight years old at the time. You remember?” he said to Cap.
Cap nodded. “I think so, yeah.”
“Splashed around the news for a couple of months. Never found her.”
Traynor nodded at the kid with the mouse, who clicked.
Another photo, another little girl, wearing a sailor top and a navy bow in her hair. She was younger than the last, her hair a darker blond, but still there was a resemblance.
“Ashley Cahill, age six, was seen getting into a car in the parking lot of a public swimming pool in Lebanon four years ago,” said Traynor.
He let it all sit for a moment.
“Gone. Never seen again. Either of them. We think,” he said, nodding to the Fed, “what we have is an MO, which is not much, but it’s similar, and there’s a physical resemblance between all the girls. That and they all took ballet classes. These two and Kylie Brandt.”
Traynor nodded at a cop by the door, who flipped on the lights. The photo of Ashley Cahill stayed on the wall behind him, overexposed, the top half of her face whited out.
“We’ve talked to every registered sex offender who fits the profile between here, Harrisburg, and Reading. Everyone ruled out aside from five we can’t locate. Agent Cartwright has people working on that.
“As you know, we have three witnesses of varying reliability, two of whom have a similar description of the suspect, which matches the image of the sender of the email we got from Kinko’s. You say you have something similar?”
Vega nodded.
“We’ll want to have a look at that afterward to line it up. You tell us—Caplan, Miss Vega—what brought you to Evan Marsh?”
Caplan looked at her and held his hand out, opening a door.
“After we received the email about Nolan Marsh we talked to his mother,” said Vega. “She didn’t have anything new as far as we could tell. I talked to Evan Marsh just to cover the base. He seemed under the influence of something—your team will find the pills in his bathroom. And your ME should look at his right wrist—I saw scratch marks there.
“We, Caplan and I, we think Evan Marsh had some opportunity to meet Kylie, even though we’re not sure where.” She paused. “We think he was the kidnapper, initially at least. His plan was to take the girls and use them to get his brother’s case revisited. Then, we think, he would’ve returned them. He wasn’t a pedophile, didn’t want to raise them as his own, just wanted his brother’s body so his mother could put on a funeral. But he obviously didn’t do this alone, and whoever helped him or worked for him got angry.
“But now, this guy, Marsh’s killer, has the girls and an unknown motive. Maybe he’s one of your five.”
The Fed, Cartwright, leaned forward.
“You talk to Marsh’s acquaintances? Co-workers? Girlfriend?” he said, no blame in his voice, just a slight southern accent.
“We didn’t get that far,” said Cap. “This is our theory as of”—he looked at his watch—“two and a half hours ago. And we’ve been tied up.”
“What about your team?” said Cartwright to Traynor. “They get anything from Marsh before he was killed?”
“Hollows?” said Traynor.
Junior sat at the opposite end of the table. He looked at something on the palm of his hand.
“Lieutenant Ralz spoke with the mother. She indicated she had no involvement.”
“Which is probably the case,” said Traynor. “What did Evan Marsh say to you?”
Hollows paused and glanced at Ralz.
“We didn’t speak with him.”
Traynor combed his mustache with his bottom lip. He turned his head halfway, in Cartwright’s direction.
“Let’s get two people to the mother’s house now to break the news and get the information while it’s fresh.” He turned back to the group at the table. “We’ll keep the team we have now at Marsh’s apartment and have them look for anything, specifically financial records and statements, get his phone and computer so we can get the tech in here. Miss Vega, Cap, you two,” he said, pointing to Junior and Ralz. “Stay two seconds with me, please. Everyone else, let’s move.”
The rest of the cops scattered and filed out the door. Vega watched Traynor and the Fed. Traynor gripped the edge of a chair and leaned down slightly. Nervous energy, she thought, but holding it together. The Fed’s face was round and red. He tapped a pen on his knee and watched the cops leave, moved his jaw like he was cleaning something out of a molar with his tongue.
The door closed, and Junior held his hands up, indignant.
“This is what we’re going on now?” he said. “This is the working lead?”
Cap laughed lightly. He’s used to it, Vega thought, this little fucker’s attitude and sycophantic bullshit that passes for work. Doesn’t make a move unless it makes things easier for him, less paper on the desk. Or, worse, he just can’t have anyone else be right first. Even cleaning five bloody, shit-stained toilets with her own T-shirt in Basic was better than working in a goddamn office with goddamn office people trying to climb a ladder, crushing knuckles along the way. Vega squeezed her hand open and shut around her pen.
Traynor shoved the chair into the table.
“Yes, Captain, it is one very viable lead seeing we’ve had an abduction and a homicide within four days’ time that appear to be related. Just so you can get a nice sleep tonight, we’ll still chase the five SOs and the father. That okay with you?”
Junior shifted in his seat.
“Yeah, Chief.”
“You sure? You sound a little depressed about it.”
Junior stopped moving, and Traynor stepped back toward the wall, crossed his arms. Vega watched him, noticed how he got relaxed as soon as Junior appeared to be getting nervous. She could see the cop in him then, could imagine him in an interrogation room firing questions out one after another before the suspect had a chance to think up a lie.
“It’s clear to me you and Miss Vega have met before, correct?”
“Yes, Chief,” said Junior.
“When was that?”
“Monday, Chief.”
“Did you discuss this case?”
“Yes, sir. She wanted to pool resources.”
“And what was your response to that proposal?”
Junior’s face contorted for a second. Sniffing bad milk.
“I told her we don’t work with civilians, Chief.”
“You said no thanks,” said Traynor.
“Yes, sir.”
“You turned down help from an experienced private investigator hired by the family.”
Junior rolled his shoulders back.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Policy, sir. We don’t work with civilians, never have.”
“And you didn’t think this case might warrant a different approach, when we’re maxed out on manpower and officers are working triple shifts?”
Junior didn’t answer. Vega wove the pen through her fingers and stared at him, thinking he looked like a mouse that had just hit the glue.
“I take your silence to mean, No Chief, I did not think that because I thought I could handle this myself, and I’m too self-satisfied to admit I need help. Here is a fact, Captain: your pride was a useless thing to me before, but now that it has gotten in the way of this investigation it is a fucking abomination. After we find these girls we’re going to sit down and brainstorm about some methods you could utilize to improve your performance. Until then we, and by we I mean you, don’t sleep, take your meals and piss in a cup either in your car on the way to interview witnesses or at your desk with the paperwork so we don’t waste any more time. Got it?”
Junior slumped in his chair and cocked his head to the side, cracking his neck with no sound.
“Yessir.”
Traynor put both hands behind his head, ran them down to his shoulders.
“Now,” he said. “You and Detective Ralz can have the honor of telling Marsh’s mother her only remaining son is dead, and I want you there for however long it takes to get the name of every known associate she can spit out through her grief. Meantime, you can hope Miss Vega and Cap won’t be pressing assault charges.” He waved the two of them off with a stroke in the air, sharp as a salute. “Go.”
Junior and Ralz stood and walked out. Junior nodded at Cap and Vega as he left. Vega didn’t do a thing, didn’t even stare, just let her eyes rest on him like he was scenery.
“Okay, Miss Vega,” Traynor said when they’d left. “You have my attention and cooperation. What do you want to do next?”
Cap and Vega stood in the freezer section of the Giant waiting for the manager. They’d talked with Traynor and Cartwright for thirty minutes about next steps, about their preferences and what they’d done so far, agreed to frequent communication. Cap felt high on it, the energy and the planning, and yes, the vindication and approval from the chief, which came only in the form of Traynor looking Cap in the eyes and asking what he thought of this or that. He remembered the feeling from a long time ago, and it made him feel younger. Awake.
The supermarket manager came through two gray swinging doors. He was a kid in short sleeves and a tie, beady eyes and a cluster of pimples on his forehead.
“Hi, Mr. Caplan,” he said, shaking his hand. “Drew Bennett.”
“Mr. Bennett,” said Cap. “This is Alice Vega.”
“Hi, ma’am,” said Bennett, holding his hand up in a motionless wave.
Would have tipped his hat if he had one, thought Cap, but no handshake for a girl. “Come back to my office, please.”
They followed him through the double doors, through the back room filled with boxes, the rear of which opened up into a loading dock, and past that, the parking lot. Bennett led them to a small cluttered room on the side with a yellow-tinted window that looked out onto the boxes. He closed the door and stood in front of the desk.
“So is this about Evan Marsh?” he said to Cap.
“What makes you say that?” Cap answered.
“Ran out an hour before his shift ended and didn’t say anything about it. Not returning my calls either.”
“He do that before?”
“He’s been calling in sick more and more, leaving early, but he always lets me know. Except today. He in some kind of trouble?” Bennett said, crossing his arms. Cap thought he must have seen a lot of actors on TV say that.
“Yeah, he’s dead,” said Vega.
Now Bennett acknowledged Vega. He stared right at her, leaned on the desk.
“No way,” he said.
“Yes, actually,” she said. “He’s dead.”
“How? Was it an overdose?”
“Cause is yet to be determined. Would you not be surprised if it was an overdose?” Vega asked.
Bennett stared at the space between them, eyes glassy, and now Vega stepped directly in front of him so he couldn’t look away from her if he tried. She stacked the questions quick, one right after another, so he didn’t have time to be stunned.
“No, I guess not.”
“Were you aware of him using drugs?” she said.
“Yeah, I mean, not directly.”
“What does that mean—‘not directly’?”
“I didn’t see him use drugs but just figured he was.”
“Why is that?”
Bennett blew air between his lips.
“He lost some weight, started acting spacey, like groggy, you know?”
“How long would you say that behavior had been going on?”
“I don’t know, really….”
“Three months, six months?”
“More like six.”
“Can you remember anything specifically about when the behavior started? Anything he told you or did that might have tipped you off that something was going on in his personal life?”
Bennett thought about it, and his gaze snapped back to Vega.
“I had to fire this guy, maybe eight months ago. He was a first-class loser, and Marsh was buddy-buddy with him.”
Then Bennett paused and regarded them both, unsure now.
“You said you were detectives?” he said, suddenly paranoid.
“Private investigators,” said Vega. “Not police, but we’re working with them and the Brandt family.”
“Can I see some ID?” he said, his voice lower, trying to act tough.
Fucking TV, thought Cap.
Vega pulled her wallet from her jacket pocket and pressed it against his chest.
“Here,” she said. “What’s his name?”
“Who?” said Bennett, genuinely disoriented.
Just then Cap pictured a kid passing the ball down the line to Nell in a soccer game, how it sailed right to her cleat like she had a magnet on it. His turn.
“The first-class loser?” said Cap.
“Charlie. Charlie Bright.”
Vega took a step back from Bennett, made room for Cap.
“Did you have a good reason to fire him?”
Bennett laughed. “He was never here. And when he was here he was too stoned to work half the time. Dropping boxes everywhere. One time a carton of Cokes in the glass bottles? In the summer? Ants and bees all over the dock for a month,” he said, exasperated.
“That’s terrible,” said Cap. “He and Marsh were friends?”
“Yeah, they might have known each other before. I remember one time, they came in late, two hours late, and I laid into them a little.” Bennett pointed to himself. “I’m a pretty reasonable boss, you understand, but I can’t be missing two loaders for two hours—we got all kind of stock backed up. And I was telling them they had to shape up, and they were just laughing. I said, ‘Keep laughing, assholes, next time you’re late you’re gone.’ ”
“So what happened?”
“So Bright was late a couple of days, a week later, and I fired him.”
“But not Marsh?”
“No, he was on time mostly, but then, like I told you, he started coming in late more and more the last couple months.”
“Why didn’t you fire him?”
Bennett sighed.
“Because he always called, said he had to take care of his mother. I know she’s sick, and I’m the type of guy who’s sensitive to that. I’m not some heartless boss.”
Cap nodded. He generally didn’t like the type of guys who went out of their way to tell you what type of guys they were.
“But you didn’t believe it, that he was late because of his mother. You thought he was into drugs.”
“A little of each, I guess. When he was here, he’d work, but if there was a minute of downtime, he’d literally nod off for that minute. Just sitting on the dock, leaning on a box.” Bennett paused. “I can’t believe he’s really dead. He was a nice kid,” he said, wistful.
“We’re going to need a list from you, Mr. Bennett,” said Cap. “Every employee who came in contact with Evan Marsh, addresses, phone numbers.”
“And Charlie Bright,” said Vega.
Bennett nodded.
“Of course, Mr. Caplan, Miss Vega,” he said, standing straighter. “Anything I can do to help.”
He handed Vega her wallet back and looked very sorry about everything.
“Thanks, Mr. Bennett,” said Vega. “Mr. Caplan and I appreciate it.”
Here was the message from the Bastard:
Hey, AV, can’t find residence for Charles Bright in Denville, PA/surrounding areas, just PO Box from old payroll. IRS is wrecking my shit, can’t get in.
Vega played with a pair of nylon restraint cuffs in her hands, shine from the streetlights passing over her like little camera flashes. Cap had pouches under his eyes; he stretched his lips out, trying not to yawn.
“My guy doesn’t have anything. He’s looking,” said Vega.
Cap nodded, stopped at a light.
“We can call it in to Traynor and Junior. I doubt they can get something your guy can’t. Where did you get those?” he said, examining the restraints in her lap.
“I got them off Junior’s belt when he grabbed me.”
“Of course you did,” he said. “Hey, so, how did you know all that stuff about his wife?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “I saw the Facebook page—it’s all about fitness, but all the likes are from guys. I just figured Hollows was insecure enough about it that it must bother him. Just a guess.”
Cap’s phone buzzed and he glanced at it. He smiled so faintly Vega couldn’t tell if it was from something he was reading right now or something he was remembering that was vaguely pleasant.
“My daughter,” he said, shaking the phone. “Telling me to eat something.”
Vega made herself smile politely.
“Hey, are you hungry?” Cap said.
“What?”
“Hungry, you know, food?”
“Not really.”
“Yeah, I could’ve seen that coming,” he said. “I’m pretty starving, and my daughter made some dinner. So look, why don’t we go to my place—we’re a few blocks away, have some food. We can look over the files from Traynor and wait for your guy. Go from there?”
Something about the way he asked made her embarrassed. She couldn’t remember the last time she was embarrassed. Junior high school, maybe. She’d refused to wear a bra. Boys stared at her breasts. She looked out her window.
“Unless you’re one of these gluten-free, dairy-free people? Or a pescatarian?” he said. “You are from California. Don’t you all eat locally farmed kelp and stuff like that? Mashed yeast?”
“Mashed yeast?” she said, turning to him, confused. “No, I eat anything. I don’t eat much but I eat anything.” Then she looked out the window again and repeated, quietly, “Anything.”
“Then we’re good,” he said.
He smiled a little, like he had a secret, and took the corners quick.
It felt like a first date. Vega had never been on a first date. She could not remember sleeping with someone she hadn’t been in a fistfight with first.
This wasn’t a date, she said to herself. This was a pause.
Cap’s house looked like one of those houses in a miniature Christmas village, lit from the inside with yellow light; Vega almost expected to see artificial snow sprayed on the windows, smoke puffing from the metal flue on the roof.
Cap pulled into the driveway, and Vega stepped out into the air. It was dark and cold, and she breathed in fast and held it.
“Come on, you can’t back out now,” said Cap from the front steps, teasing.
Vega shook her head and followed him inside. The house was warm and full of food smells. Garlic and onions and oil.
“I’m home,” called Cap. “And I have a special guest star.”
Vega looked at her hands and felt like a freeloader suddenly, someone Cap just picked up off the street out of charity. Then a girl appeared from the kitchen, tall and athletic looking with a thoughtful expression. Here was Nell, Vega thought, the owner of the sneakers by the door and the copy of Othello. When the girl’s eyes landed on Vega she looked nicely surprised.
“Hello,” she said.
“Nell, Alice Vega,” said Cap.
“Nice to meet you,” said Nell, coming forward to shake her hand.
“Hi,” said Vega.
It was a firm handshake for a young girl. Self-assured. When she let go, she backed up and examined Cap’s face.
“Are you swollen?”
“Yeah,” Cap said, touching his chin. “I got in a tussle.”
“What kind of tussle? Who hit you?” she said, calm.
“Brad Ralz.”
“Brad Ralz hit you? Why would he do that?”
“There’s a story,” said Cap. “Let’s eat and we’ll tell you all about it.”
“Well, okay then,” she said. Then, confessional: “I made too much food.”
“Great,” said Cap. “You ate, didn’t you?”
“Not yet.”
Cap shrugged at her, incredulous.
“It’s after nine,” he said.
“I had an apple after practice and I’ve been studying.” Then she looked at Vega. “My dad has a tendency to worry. Have you noticed this, Miss Vega?”
“I have.”
“He forgets I’m not seven,” she said.
“There needs to be at least one person in the household who maintains healthy eating and sleeping habits,” said Cap, removing his jacket and dropping it on the couch. “It was specified on the census.”
Nell sighed and said, “Whatever.” Then she went back to the kitchen.
“What?” said Cap, holding his hands out. He looked at Vega like, Can you believe this kid?
She knew right then he was a dorky dad, like one on TV. Here in this cartoonishly inviting house with a smart, witty teenage daughter. And she, Vega, was here with them.
She smiled, and it was real.
Nell was impossibly good with people, Cap thought, as he watched her pile whole wheat spaghetti onto Vega’s plate with tongs. It was like she was the perfect mix of him and Jules: She had Jules’s intensity and sincerity that came from the education background; the look on her face said I am listening to everything you’re saying and taking it very seriously. This combined with Cap’s easy smile and ability to make a stranger comfortable and therefore likely to tell him secrets.
But there was no calculation in Nell’s demeanor; she asked Vega polite questions and passed her bread and butter, refilled her club soda, apologized for the lack of lemons. Vega said more words in ten minutes than she’d done in two days. And there was something so surprising and soothing about it, listening to them talk, watching Vega actually smile, one tooth overlapping the other like the one in front was trying to hug the one in back.
Somehow Nell made it all sound natural and noninvasive: What’s the origin of the name Vega? Are you married? Have you always lived in California? Do you have family there? What’s it like living there? And Vega’s answers, similarly, were direct, but she seemed not at all uncomfortable responding between small bites of pasta: It’s Mexican—you can call me Alice; No; Yes; My father and my brother and his family live about ninety minutes away; it’s warm most of the time.
Vega pulled out her phone and looked for something on it, then handed it to Nell.
“This is my backyard. That’s my palm tree.”
Nell’s eyes got huge.
“Oh my God. Dad, did you see this? She has a palm tree in her backyard.”
Nell stretched across the table to give Cap the phone. Cap saw the picture, a thick, short palm tree that reminded him of an ear of eaten corn. The sky was a ridiculous Windex blue behind it. No clouds, just power lines. It looked like a set from a science fiction movie.
“Wow,” said Cap. “You should not look in our backyard.”
“Yeah, it’s a little overgrown. We don’t do a lot of landscaping,” said Nell.
“The palm tree was there when I moved in,” said Vega. “I don’t have to water it or anything.”
Cap smiled and couldn’t look at her for a second, something about how she was trying to not make Nell feel bad, fusing a connection through shitty backyards. It made him feel shy.
“So,” said Nell, looking at the clock on the coffeemaker. “I have to go up in ten minutes to finish Civ. You want to update me on the case and tell me about your jaw?”
Cap glanced at Vega, who nodded. Be my guest.
“I’ll give it to you in five.”
Cap gave her the highlights, as he’d been doing since she’d been about ten or eleven. Back then he left out the worst details: the ones that involved abuse of children, or anything particularly bloody, but now she could take it. She listened intently and crinkled up her face at certain points, covered her mouth in shock when Cap told her about Evan Marsh.
“That’s awful—he was shot in the head?”
“Looked like it.”
“This all happened today?”
Cap nodded. Nell thought for a moment.
“So why did Ralz punch you in the face?”
“Getting to it.”
Cap described the fight; Nell looked back and forth between him and Vega, dark eyebrows arched.
“So you basically taunted him into attacking you?” she said to Vega.
“Basically, yeah,” said Vega.
“This is, like, a lot of drama, you guys.”
“Serious drama,” said Cap.
“So that kid they had in custody had nothing to do with it?” she said.
Cap shook his head.
“And you think Marsh was involved?”
“Would be a heck of a coincidence if he wasn’t,” said Cap.
“So what’s the link?”
Cap leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms up, swallowed a yawn.
“That’s why me and Vega are here, Bug.”
“Can I see the paperwork?” she said, getting her determined look.
“Finish your Civ and then I’ll show you what we have.”
“Oh, fine,” she said, standing, sweeping up her plate and glass. She leaned against the sink. “I can’t believe you saw a dead person today.”
“I know,” said Cap, quiet.
“Let me know before you leave, okay?” said Nell. “Excuse me for eating and running, Alice.”
Vega nodded and said, “Thank you for dinner. It’s really good.”
“The next time you come, maybe my dad will make shrimp tacos. It’s his thing.”
Vega looked at Cap.
“It’s my thing,” he admitted.
“I’m sure it is,” said Vega.
Nell didn’t linger. She bounded up the stairs like a deer and shut the door of her room. Cap looked up, heard the floor creak, and traced her steps. Bed, earbuds in, over to the desk where she sat in her wheeled chair and rolled gently back and forth while she read.
Cap and Vega were quiet, pushing food around on their plates. Cap sipped his beer and became instantly self-conscious that he was drinking it instead of club soda.
“You tell her about your cases,” Vega finally said.
“Yeah, I do.”
“She’s the reason, right, why you changed your mind about me? Working with me?”
Cap smiled. “Yeah. Usually I don’t know what I think about something until I tell my daughter about it.”
His phone buzzed on the table and he looked.
A text from Nell: “She’s not a guy, Dad. Call her Alice.”
“If I hadn’t met her, I might not believe that,” said Vega.
Cap thought hard about the acronym for Mind Your Own Business, tried to type “MYOB.”
“But if I had a kid like her, I’d probably do the same,” Vega continued.
He hit Send, then realized he had hit the “V” instead of the “B,” and his phone had autocorrected to “Myocardial.”
The text came back from Nell in a second: “Are you trying to say myob? Lol Dad.”
“She’s a piece of work,” said Cap, placing the phone on the table. Then he chuckled, almost just to himself. “That’s something my father says. Let’s put it this way: I think she’s pretty extraordinary for a person, not even just for a kid. But as a parent you can’t go around saying stuff like that. I mean, you can, but you’d be one of those parents you meet at Back-to-School Night who can’t stop talking about how little Timmy doesn’t play any video games and just loves practicing the violin all the time.”
Then Vega laughed. Actually laughed. Cap saw the teeth again and felt out of breath. He realized he had forgotten what it felt like to make a woman laugh. It was almost better than making them come. With Jules, even when their marriage was in the mud, he could still make her laugh unexpectedly, and boy would she punch the brakes as soon as she realized it. The look on her face could sear you like a steak—No way you are making me laugh, motherfucker.
Stranger still, laughing made most women, including Jules, look younger, the spontaneity of it trimming the years off, letting you see the little girl on a merry-go-round, the sixth grader at the roller rink. But with Vega, she looked older in some appealing way, the skin around her eyes and lips falling into easy creases. It made Cap think, This is what she will look like at forty, fifty, sixty with spotty skin and filmy pupils, spine curved over like a fishing pole. But then you will make her laugh and all the light will pour right out of her just like it did that first time at your kitchen table.
“You ever think about it?” he said, feeling like he could ask her anything just then.
“What?”
“Kids?”
Out loud the word was toxic. Vega looked at her plate and didn’t respond right away.
“I’m sorry,” said Cap. “Way too personal, right?”
“No,” she said plainly. “Not too personal. Kids are…” She paused but only for a moment. “Not for me.”
Vega washed her hands in Cap’s bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought about death. Which was what she usually did when she looked in strange mirrors in strange bathrooms. It made her think of hospitals and morgues, how a body could look peaceful but only in the way a piece of luggage looked peaceful—it was simply an item that didn’t move.
However, as Vega had seen with her mother’s body, the opposite could be true. A body could be animated in one last shock, neck twisted, limbs shriveled. Why did you have to look at her face? thought Vega now, in Cap’s bathroom. Why did you have to see the teeth comically large for her head like those vampire choppers you got from quarter machines?
Is this you?
Cap loaded the dishwasher, cleaned out the soft spaghetti bits from the drain in the sink, opened another beer. He could still think clearly after three beers. Some nights he’d get to the end of the six-pack without thinking about it and wouldn’t feel any different, would still possess his powers of critical reasoning, was just able to sleep easier and more immediately. But he could still work. If the call came in with Charlie Bright’s address, he’d drink a pot of coffee with a lot of milk and sugar and be on the way.
He squeezed the dishwashing goo into the dispenser, and the bottle made a retching sound. He glanced toward the hallway, the bathroom door, to see if Vega was emerging. He did not want her to think that he had made the retching sound, or worse, that the sound had been him passing gas.
Not after he’d seen the picture of the palm tree in her backyard, after she’d allowed herself to be charmed by Nell and the three of them had sat around a table in a family-like formation. There was something, wasn’t there, some delicate strand between them, hovering like a jellyfish arm. Couldn’t there be more, when this was all over, when they found those girls, however they were going to find them? Couldn’t he take her to dinner and couldn’t she possibly have some wine and fix her focus on him, walk around the table and lean down to tell him something, press her face against his and breathe in his ear so he could smell the salt in her hair?
His dick woke up a little, and he knocked his fist against his forehead and sat at the table.
“Pull it together,” he said aloud. Let’s not have an erection like a twelve-year-old boy during his first slow dance.
He opened the file on Ashley Cahill and his eyes fell on scattered words: blond, blue, 44 inches, 45 lbs., Holling Pool, mother bartender, father worked at a sporting goods store, missing, missing, missing.
Then Vega came back. She nodded at him and sat back down at the table.
“Everything’s clean,” she said.
“Yeah…dishwasher,” he said. “You want anything else to drink?”
She shook her head and opened the file on Sydney McKenna. Cap looked back down at the Cahill police report. No one saw anything. She’d been at the pool with a group of kids, and one of their moms said one minute she was playing Marco Polo with the rest of them, and the next minute she wasn’t. Cap picked up the 5x8 matte school portrait. Nell didn’t have them done anymore, but Cap remembered them from grade school, her image in varying sizes—big, medium, a sheet of wallets. Rows and rows of Nells.
The girl, Ashley, was cute in the way all six-year-olds were cute. Large eyes, unblemished skin. There was, in fact, nothing extraordinary about her. Except, Cap thought, to her parents.
Vega closed the folder on Sydney McKenna and placed her hands on top of it. She looked intently at Cap, and he saw something strange about her eyes; they were clear and wet but not like she’d been crying. It was like she’d dunked only her face in a pool.
“I have to tell you something,” she said.
“Okay.”
She took a quick breath in and looked at the folder under her hands.
“My mother died when I was twenty. She had lymphoma,” she said. They both waited. “Then my friend Perry, the guy who was kind of my mentor in fugitive recovery, a skip stabbed him in the kidney and he died walking out to his car. On the lawn.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cap. He was unsure about a lot of things.
She continued: “Then I started working freelance. I got lucky right away with Ethan Moreno.” She paused, then said, “The biggest mistake people make is that they think they’re special. They’re not.”
She nodded, more to herself than to Cap, and seemed not to know what to do with her hands. She tapped her fingertips together like there were castanets on them. Cap didn’t like it, didn’t like her sad and somewhat confused. Could I hug her? he thought. Will she slam her forearm into my face if I hug her and kiss the crease between her eyebrows?
He didn’t have a chance. She put her hands flat on the folder again and said, “Is there a gun shop open this late?”
Quiet again in Cap’s car. Vega felt strange, unused to a stomach full of food. Especially pasta, all that wheat swelling up like a pile of wet shoelaces. For a few years now Vega had a neutral attitude about eating, bordering on animosity, frustration at the braking of her body’s systems when she was hungry. Watching people eat in restaurants, she thought it seemed like such a waste—Do you think you have this kind of time? she wanted to say to them. Hours and hours sitting over bread and butter and Big Macs. Perry had Diet Cokes and grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon three times a day every day she knew him, so he wouldn’t spend any seconds considering the options. So Vega did that too—bananas, power bars, milk, juice. Some vitamins, some fat, some protein. Every day.
“You’re gonna like this,” said Cap.
He parked on a dark street, and they got out, walked to a two-floor brick house, picture window on the ground floor with a paper sign, a certificate—SMOKEY’S GUN SHOP. Below that, in big black letters: GLOCK.
Then a woman came through a door to the right of the window with a ring of keys. She was round and short, with a boy’s haircut, the skin on her nose and cheeks red and speckled. When she saw Cap her face opened up, the keyhole mouth grew into a smile.
“Mister Caplan, ain’t seen you much anymore,” she said.
“Hey, Jean,” said Cap.
They hugged. Vega stood back.
“This is my colleague, Alice Vega. She’d like to look at some firearms. This is Jean Radnor. This is her shop.”
“Hiya, Alice.”
Vega shook hands with her, watched her unlock a series of locks on the glass door.
“Come on in, then.”
They followed her in as she flipped the light switches, fluorescents flickering on in succession. Handguns with orange tags in glass cases like jewelry. Shotguns and rifles on the wall racks.
“What you been doing, Cap? How’s your daughter?” said Jean, pressing a code into an alarm box.
“She’s well. Sixteen years old.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” said Jean, genuine surprise in her voice, almost to the point of being offended. “That makes us what, a hundred goddamn years old or what.”
“Something like that. How’re your sons?”
They kept talking about kids and houses and births and deaths. Vega looked at the semiauto rifles on the wall, arranged by popularity as far as she could tell: Bushmasters, S&Ws, Sporticals, a Colt at the end of the row.
“Jason and his wife had twins, I tell you that?” said Jean. “Sweet kids, but ugly. Don’t know how they got that way either. Jason and Melanie are attractive; it’s some kind of mystery.”
“Could I see your Colt?” said Vega.
Jean and Cap turned to her, both seeming surprised to hear her speak.
“You got it, hon,” said Jean, going behind the counter. “You know I can’t sell it to you, right? Have to wait for regular store hours.”
“That’s fine,” said Vega. “I just want to try it out.”
Jean found a key on her ring and unlocked the case, lifted the rifle and handed it to Vega over the counter, continuing her conversation with Cap.
“Names are Boyd and Blaine. I said, ‘Isn’t Blaine a girl’s name?’ Didn’t go over so well.”
One hand on the grip and the other on the underside of the barrel, Vega held the rifle up, pressed her cheek against the stock. She could smell the alloy in the back of her throat, the tinny burn of it. The stock pushed against her shoulder; something wasn’t right. A Goldilocks feeling.
“How long is it?” Vega said to Jean.
Jean thought.
“Thirty-two I think, with the stock retracted. Something wrong?”
“Seems long to me.”
Jean pulled out a lip balm stick and unscrewed the top, rubbed it across her lips, the color of rare meat.
“Well, what’re you comparing it to, hon?”
Vega glanced at Cap and could see him putting something together; she knew the look now, his eyes got a little dreamy, and his head bobbed slightly from side to side, like he was weighing two things. Like they were hanging on his ears.
“An M4,” said Cap. Then he looked at Vega. “Right?”
She relaxed the grip, held it to her side. Cap was grinning like he had won a poker hand.
“Right,” she said.
“Oh, you’re military?” said Jean. “My nephew’s in the marines.”
“I only went through basic,” said Vega.
At the mention of the word she felt the heat, dirt from the ground in her mouth, triceps and deltoids humming, mashed like lemon pulp. And the hunger that started in her bones instead of her stomach, for any kind of calories—meatloaf between bread dipped in whole milk to get it down quicker and as much coffee as she could swallow, throat already burned from breakfast.
“Army,” said Cap, pointing at her.
“Right.”
He smiled, pleased with himself. Almost made Vega smile too.
“Mind if I strip her?” said Vega.
Jean shrugged one shoulder.
“Help yourself. It’s brand-new, though; you’re not gonna find any deposits.”
“Sure. I just want to field-strip it,” Vega said.
Jean’s eyebrows arched up and she smiled peacefully, knowingly, reminding Vega of yoga teachers, the way at the end they would say, “The light in me bows to the light in you,” or some kind of bullshit.
“It relaxes you, right? Me too,” Jean said. “I’ll get you an Allen wrench.”
“That’s okay,” said Vega, pulling back the charging handle.
She took one of the pins from her hair.
“Ha!” shouted Jean. “She’s prepared. You got a good one here, Cap.”
Vega slid the front pivot pin to the side. The snap of the receivers coming apart had a soporific effect on her; finally she could rest a second.
At the inn, Vega went through the motions of someone getting ready for bed: took a shower, brushed her teeth, rubbed some of the complimentary gardenia-smelling lotion into her hands and on her legs. She lay down on the bed, closed her eyes, and did not sleep, ping-ponging questions back and forth in her head. Soon it was five or six, blue light out the window as the sun rose somewhere close. Vega got off the bed and onto the floor on all fours. Then into down dog, where she didn’t linger, walking her feet up to her hands until they met. She held her breath, tensed her abs, and brought her legs up above, then stretched them out. Widened the fingers. Breathed.
Then her mother in the hospital, the last time, Vega leaned down to kiss her forehead, and her mother grabbed her head suddenly and tried to pull her down, but she was not strong at that point. Vega was startled and a little terrified because she’d thought her mother was asleep. Her mother pushed her lips out like Vega was a drink she was trying to reach, and kissed the ridge between Vega’s nose and cheek. Then she went back to dying.
Vega came down from the handstand and sat on the floor with her knees bent and her head between them. She had been at her father’s house when she heard the news. She’d always thought she would just know, that there was a cosmic alarm clock built in her chest linking her to her mother, but no. Her mother had died, and Vega had no idea.
And the Brandt girls were not even blood. These things weren’t real, these connections between family members, husband to wife, parent to child. This psychic trash of people saying, “I knew when so-and-so died because I felt it in my soul or my heart or my pockets.” You didn’t, thought Vega, you had no idea. Those girls could have been in the ground two hours after they disappeared, and all of us have been running like hell in our mouse maze since then, tapping our bells and flags, desperate for pellets.