Chapter 27
It was a typical strategy of “Good Cop, Bad Cop.” Sandra, who was by nature more sensitive and understanding, played her “Good Cop” role to the hilt, asking if Anton would like her to run into a corner market to buy him a snack and something to drink. Maya, with her years of experience interrogating lowlife drug dealers and lying robbery suspects, was much more comfortable as the “Bad Cop,” shouting over Sandra, threatening to get Anton’s host parents on the phone right now to let them know just what a holy terror he had been on this class trip, how a full expulsion and a deportation back to Russia might be in order since he was unwilling to follow a few simple rules.
Anton, for his part, once again begged for leniency, just like he had with Fern after his first vanishing act. Sandra quietly explained that she might be willing to go easier on him if he just fessed up and confessed the truth about why he was on that security tape, but Maya pretended she did not want to hear any more of his lies. It was obvious to her now that this kid was utterly incapable of telling the truth and so they might as well turn him over to the police and be done with him.
Clancy, who was enjoying the floor show as he drove the bus into the overnight parking structure and up a ramp to find a vacant guest parking spot, suppressed a chuckle as Maya brutally laid into the now pale-faced, panic-stricken boy.
“Please, I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything to Tess, I swear; I just . . .”
“Just what?” Sandra asked calmly, placing a motherly hand on his arm.
“I just went there to talk to her, that’s all.”
Sandra leaned in closer. “About what?”
Anton dithered some more, eyes flicking from sweet Sandra to monstrous Maya.
Clancy watched them through the rearview mirror, a big, knowing grin on his face.
“Why are we wasting our time here?” Maya snapped. “Let’s just call the cops and have them book him.”
His eyes widened in fear.
“Give him a chance to explain,” Sandra sighed, pretending to give Maya an admonishing look. “He’s just nervous.”
“You need to stop coddling the spoiled brat. Maybe a night in a cold, dark jail cell will get him to focus!”
Clancy couldn’t help but audibly snicker.
Maya shot him a stern stare through the rearview mirror.
She felt they were getting close to wearing Anton down enough so he might start telling the truth, and she certainly did not want Clancy screwing it up now.
Anton shifted uncomfortably in the front seat of the bus just behind Clancy where Maya had pushed him down to question him. “The other day at the Capitol Building, when we went to visit Mr. Wallage—”
“Senator Wallage,” Maya corrected him.
Anton nodded. “Right. Senator Wallage. When we were introduced to the staff, and I saw her for the first time . . .”
“Tess?” Sandra asked.
Anton nodded again. “I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I could not take my eyes off her. When we were shown out, I kept thinking about her, I couldn’t get her out of my mind, I had to see her again, talk to her, find out more about her, and so when we got to the Ford Theatre I peeled away from the group when no one was looking, and took the Metro back to the Capitol Building.”
“How did you get back inside?” Maya barked.
“I didn’t. I waited outside for like three hours. I was about to give up, but then I saw her. She was all alone, but I couldn’t work up the nerve to say anything. She walked right past me, didn’t even recognize me, and so I followed her. She took the Metro to Mr., I mean Senator Wallage’s apartment, and went inside. I stood outside like an idiot, practicing over and over in my mind what I would say; then when I finally worked up the courage to go for it, and went to the front entrance, the guard was gone from his desk, so I used the call box to ring upstairs.”
Maya folded her arms, incredulous. “And she just let you right in, without even knowing who you were?”
Anton shook his head. “No. I said I was Ryan.”
Sandra rubbed her forehead with her hand. “Anton, no.”
“It was the only thing I could think of that might get me inside the building and it worked. She buzzed me right in. I took the elevator up, and when I got to the apartment, she was already there with the door open waiting for me. She knew right away I wasn’t Ryan, and she suddenly looked really rattled.”
Maya angrily threw her hands up in the air. “Of course she was rattled! You lied your way inside the building! You could have been anyone! The poor thing was probably scared half to death!”
“I tried to explain why I was there, that I only wanted to talk to her, how pretty I thought she was, but she didn’t want to hear it. She just wanted me to go.”
Anton lowered his eyes to the floor, hurt.
“And did you?” Maya snapped.
“Did I what?” Anton mumbled.
“Did you go, or did you force your way inside so you could talk some more?”
“No!” Anton yelled. “She stepped back inside and shut the door in my face, so I left. That was it. Then I walked all the way back to the hotel because I was out of money and couldn’t buy another Metro card.”
“How convenient you took another hour to walk from the condo to the hotel. And I’m fairly certain no one who may have passed you on the street that night will ever remember seeing you. That leaves quite a big chunk of time left with no discernible alibi,” Maya growled.
“I did not kill Tess!” Anton cried, near tears. Convinced Maya was now a lost cause and would continue doubting his story, Anton turned all his attention toward Sandra. “Please, Mrs. Wallage, you have to believe me!”
He hurled himself at Sandra, throwing his arms around her, sobbing. Sandra comforted him.
“For what it’s worth, I believe the kid,” Clancy announced from the driver’s seat as he pulled the school bus into an empty parking space.
Sandra tended to agree.
And she could tell from the softening expression on Maya’s face that despite her best efforts to play “Bad Cop,” she was leaning in that direction as well.