The Drowning Child

61

‘John, we need your help on this,’ said Ren. ‘We need you to give us everything you got. You see all the people we have here coming together to help find your son. We care deeply about this. We need the truth. I believe you can tell us the truth.’

‘I am telling you the truth,’ said John.

‘I’m afraid I don’t believe that you are,’ said Ren.

He looked at her, his eyes suddenly black with anger. ‘I did not harm my son. If you hooked me up to a polygraph—’

Hello? ‘You declined a polygraph,’ said Ren.

He held eye contact with her. ‘I know. What I’m saying is, I’m telling the truth. And separate to that, I don’t trust polygraphs.’

‘That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,’ said Ren. ‘You either believe that the polygraph would prove you’re truthful, or, as per your original reason for refusing, you believe that it wouldn’t.’

‘I’m exhausted,’ said John. ‘I’m just... so exhausted. I am so goddamned stressed that I don’t know how my body’s going to react: my heartbeat, my sweat glands, whatever the hell else you measure. You know who my sister is. There is no way she would ever recommend anyone taking a polygraph, guilty or innocent. I know how these things work.’

‘Taking a polygraph means that, if you pass,’ said Gary, ‘we can eliminate you, and focus on—’

‘You won’t eliminate me,’ said John. ‘Do you think I’m an idiot? Not after the way you’re talking. At the very most, you might set me aside, until you can come up with a new fairy tale about how I hurt my own son.’

‘Of course we’ll eliminate you if new evidence arises pointing to someone else,’ said Gary.

John threw up his hands. ‘See what I mean? Now you’re thinking, “Oh, hold on – why would he think we won’t eliminate him if he’s innocent? He must know that no evidence will point to someone else!”’

‘We’ve been in this job a long time,’ said Gary. ‘You can’t be part of the CARD team without having logged the hours on child abduction cases. We don’t walk in, pick one of the parents, and go from there. We look at the evidence. And some of this evidence, I won’t lie to you, is not looking good for you right now, John.’

John looked away, sullen and dark-eyed. ‘What evidence? I had nothing to do with this. I’ll keep answering your questions, if you think that will help, but I’d rather you were spending your time focusing on finding my son.’

Ren and Gary left John and went back into the office. Paul Louderback was putting down the phone.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘I finally got a hold of Paula Leon. She apologized for not getting back in touch. She was in lockdown, preparing a case. Ren, you were right – she loaned her rental car to Alice Veir, who told her her own car wouldn’t start and that she had to run an errand. Alice brought it back with a full tank, so Leon couldn’t tell how far she’d traveled.’

‘And why would she give a shit, either way?’ said Ren.

Paul nodded. ‘She said Alice Veir was definitely back in the hotel by six p.m., and that she left right away. Her own car seemed to have come back to life. Alice Veir missed the dinner that night. She went straight home to Spokane.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ren. ‘Was she transporting a body in that? We need to get on to AVIS – get that rental car in.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Paul.

Sylvie looked up from her desk. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but I’m just not buying the idea that in a matter of ten minutes on a Monday morning, Alice Veir gets involved in such a heinous crime.’

‘I know,’ said Ren. ‘The only rationale is that she owes her brother big time. The question is: what for? I mean, could she have taken away the body of his son and dumped it? And where? And how would she even manage that – she doesn’t seem like a very strong woman.’

‘She went home,’ said Paul, ‘she could have dumped him somewhere that was familiar to her.’

‘We can call in video from the conference hotel,’ said Ren, ‘but I doubt she would be stupid enough to have done this where she could be seen.’

‘I don’t need to stress how carefully we need to tread here with Alice Veir,’ said Gary. ‘That woman is ready to pounce on anything she can use to justify her war against law enforcement. We can call in Paula Leon’s rental car, send it to the lab, no problem. Getting a search warrant for Alice Veir’s property is not going to happen. She is going to resist every move we make. We need more evidence.’

Ruddock walked into the office, just as Ren’s cell phone rang. ‘Oh, shit: that’s Alice Veir,’ she said. ‘What are the chances?’

‘Pretty high, after what Gary just did to her brother,’ said Paul.

Ren picked up.

‘Agent Bryce?’ said Alice. ‘I just got off the phone with my brother. It is scandalous what you’re doing to him. His son is missing, he’s heartbroken, and he has to be subjected to what you’ve just subjected him to? It’s despicable. He’s under incredible strain right now, as you can imagine. This does not give you and your colleagues an excuse to take him into a room and attack him the way you did. He’s made himself available to you at all times, he hasn’t called in a lawyer because he feels he has nothing to hide, and he trusts in the system, which, to be honest, amazes me.

‘What this entire investigation should be about is finding out facts that will help us find Caleb.’

‘That’s exactly what we’re trying to do,’ said Ren. ‘Is there anything else you can think of that might help us in that regard?’ Like your visit to Lister Creek, you lying-ass bitch!

Ren allowed a silence to open up. Alice Veir didn’t close it.

What the fuck are you two hiding?

Ren looked up at Gary and Paul, and mouthed. ‘Can I call her in?’

They nodded.

‘Alice – where are you right now?’ said Ren.

‘In Spokane – why?’

‘We’d like you to come in to Tate PD, please.’

‘What?’ said Alice. ‘Why?’

‘For a chat,’ said Ren.

Pause. ‘A chat?’ said Alice. ‘About what? I’m very busy. It’s going to be hard for me to travel. I can tell you anything you want to know right now.’

‘There are a couple of things we’d like you to take a look at,’ said Ren. ‘It won’t take too long. I know you’re very eager to do anything you can to help us find Caleb, and, clearly, to help your brother too.’ She smiled sweetly at Gary and Paul. Paul smiled back.

Ren ended the call. ‘She can’t not come in, because if she’s hiding anything, the last thing she’s going to want to do is come across as uncooperative.’

Ruddock’s cell phone rang. He picked up, listened.

‘It’s CVIP,’ said Ruddock to the others.

Child Victim Identification Program? What?

‘Let me put you on speaker,’ said Ruddock, punching the button, holding the phone out to the others. ‘I’m with SSA Gary Dettling, SA Paul Louderback, and SA Ren Bryce.’

‘Hello, everyone – Bob Freeborn here, CVIP. I’m calling to let you know we got a hit on that sleeping bag image that you guys released to the media from the Caleb Veir disappearance.’

What the fuck? ‘What kind of hit?’ said Ren.

‘There’s a distinctive black ink stain on it. We’ve picked it up across a series of over a thousand images and videos of abused children.’