The Neighbor

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After consulting with Marianne Jackson, the forensic interviewer, D.D. had commandeered a room from white-collar crimes. The space was nicer than anything the homicide unit had to offer, and hopefully less likely to scare the kid. Marianne brought with her two child-sized folding chairs, a bright, flower-shaped rug, and a basket crammed with a collection of trucks, dolls, and art supplies. In ten minutes or less, the child specialist had the place looking like a cool kids’ hangout, versus the fraud squad’s interrogation room of choice. D.D. was impressed.

She’d been happy with the morning’s press conference. She had intentionally kept it brief. Less was more at this point. Fewer innuendos to come back to haunt them later, should they decide the registered sex offender was their suspect of choice, versus the husband, or heaven help them, an unknown subject yet to be identified. Besides, their biggest goal was to increase the number of eyes and ears actively seeking Sandra Jones. Find the wife alive, save them all a headache. Thirty-seven hours into the investigation, D.D. still had hope. Not a lot of it. But some hope.

Now she busily arranged her notepad and two pens on the table of the observation room. Miller was already present, sitting in the chair closest to the door, where he seemed to be lost in thought, given his rhythmic stroking of his mustache. She thought he should shave the mustache. A mustache like that practically cried out for a powder blue leisure suit and she really did not want to see Detective Brian Miller in a powder blue leisure suit. She didn’t say anything, though. Men could be very touchy when it came to facial hair.

D.D. fiddled with her pens again, clicking and unclicking the ballpoints into place. The speakers were already turned on, allowing them to hear what was said in the interrogation room. In turn, Marianne was fitted with a tiny earpiece so she could receive any follow-up questions or additional inquiries they made into a cordless mic. Marianne had already warned them to be tight and focused. The rule of thumb for interviewing children was five minutes per year of child, meaning they had roughly twenty minutes to learn everything there was to know from four-year-old potential witness Clarissa Jones.

They had formulated their strategy in advance: key questions to determine Clarissa’s credibility and capability as a witness, followed by ever more specific questions regarding Sandra Jones’s last known moments on Wednesday night. It was a lot of ground to cover in the time they had, but Marianne had emphasized the need to be thorough-follow-up interviews with a child witness were risky. Next thing you know, a defense attorney was arguing the half a dozen interviews you required for specificity were actually a half a dozen times you badgered, cajoled, and otherwise corrupted your young, impressionable subject. Marianne gave them two shots at talking to the child, max, and for better or worse, D.D. had already used up one, questioning Clarissa at her house on Thursday morning. So this was it.

The downstairs sergeant notified them that Jason and his daughter had arrived. Marianne headed down immediately to hustle them upstairs before Ree became too overwhelmed by the full police headquarters experience. Some kids were enthralled by men and women in uniform. A lot, however, were just plain intimidated. Talking to a stranger was tough enough without Ree starting the process scared witless.

D.D. and Miller heard footsteps in the hall. Both turned expectantly toward the door and, despite her best intentions, D.D. felt nervous. Questioning a kid was twenty times worse than facing the news media or a new deputy superintendent, any day of the week. She didn’t care about reporters or, most of the time, a new supervisor. On the other hand, she always felt bad for the kids.

First time she’d ever interrogated a child, the eleven-year-old girl had asked them if they wanted to see her menu; then she’d proceeded to pull from her back pocket a tiny scrap of paper, folded into an impossibly small square. It was a menu of sex acts, prepared by the girl’s stepfather: Hand Job quarter, Oral Sex fifty cents, Fucking one dollar The girl had taken twenty bucks from her stepdad’s wallet. This was his way of letting her repay the loan. Except last time she’d performed a “service,” he had refused to pay, and that had made her mad enough to come to the police. Oh, the sad stories that had been told in this room…

The footsteps stopped outside the door. D.D. heard Marianne talking.

“Clarissa, have you ever been in a magic room before?”

No answer, so D.D. assumed that Ree was shaking her head.

“Well, I’m going to take you into a special room now. It has a pretty rug, two chairs, maybe some toys you’d like to check out. But it’s also a very special room with special rules. I’ll tell you all about it, okay, but first, you gotta say goodbye to your daddy. He’s going to wait for you in this room right here, so he’ll be close by if you need him, but this magic room, it’s just for you and me.”

Still no answer.

“Say, what’s the name of this fellow right here? Oh, I’m sorry, this gal. Lil’ Bunny? I should’ve guessed she was a girl, look at that pink dress. Well, Lil’ Bunny, do you like big pink flowers, because you look to me like the kind of rabbit that might enjoy a really large pink flower. I’m talking huge. Kind of flower you have to see to believe. Really? Well, come on, I’ll show you. And I’ll explain to you a little bit about magic.”

The door opened. Jason Jones entered the room. Clarissa’s father walked stiffly, as if he was moving on autopilot. The shuttered expression was back on his face, that one where D.D. couldn’t decide if he was a complete psychopath or the most stoic man she’d ever met. He closed the heavy door behind him, then looked at D.D. and Miller a bit warily. D.D. twisted around the permission slip she’d already printed out, and slid it across the table toward him, producing a black ink pen.

“This forms shows you’ve given consent for a certified forensic interviewer to question your child on behalf of the BPD.”

Jason gave her a look as if he was surprised his permission really mattered. But he signed the form without a word, returning it to her before taking up position on the wall farthest from the observation window. He leaned back with his arms crossed over his chest. His gaze went to the window, through which they could now see Marianne and Ree entering the interrogation room. Ree was clutching a tattered-looking brown bunny for dear life, its long floppy ears obscuring her hands.

Marianne closed the door. She moved to the middle of the room, but rather than taking a seat in one of the little red folding chairs, she sat cross-legged on the edge of the pink rug. She ran her hand over it a few times, as if inviting the girl to take a seat.

D.D. picked up the mic, and stated for Marianne’s sake, “Consent form has been signed. You may begin.”

Marianne nodded slightly, her fingers brushing over the receiver nestled inside her ear. “What do you think?” she stated out loud to Clarissa Jones, gesturing to the pink rug. “Is this a pretty flower? It looks like a sunflower to me, except I don’t think sunflowers come in pink.”

“It’s a daisy,” Ree said in a small voice. “My mommy grows them.”

“A daisy? Of course! You know a lot about flowers.”

Ree remained standing, clutching her well-worn rabbit. Her fingers had found one of its ears and were rubbing it rhythmically. The unconscious movement pained D.D. She used to do that as a kid. Had a stuffed dog. Wore its ears right off its threadbare head.

“So, as I told you downstairs, my name is Marianne Jackson,” the specialist was saying brightly. “My job is to talk to children. That’s what I do. I talk to little boys and little girls. And just so you know, Ree, it’s not as easy as you think.”

For the first time, Ree responded, her forehead crinkling into a tiny frown. “Why not?”

“For one thing, there are special rules for talking to boys and girls. Did you know that?”

Ree edged closer, shook her head. Her toe touched the pink flower. She seemed to study the rug.

“Well, as I mentioned outside, this is a magic room, and there are four rules for talking in a magic room.” Marianne held up four fingers, ticking off. “One, we only talk about what really happened. Not what might have happened, but what really happened.”

Ree frowned again, moved a tiny bit closer.

“Do you understand the difference between the truth and a lie, Clarissa?” Marianne reached into the toy basket, came up with a stuffed dog. “If I say this is a cat, is that a truth or a lie?”

“A lie,” Ree said automatically. “That’s a dog.”

“Very good! So that’s rule number one. We only talk about the truth, okay?”

Ree nodded. She seemed to get tired of standing, taking a seat just beyond the flower rug, her bunny now on her lap.

“The second rule,” Marianne was saying, “is that if I ask you a question and you don’t know the answer, you just say you don’t know. Does that make sense?”

Ree nodded.

“How old am I, Clarissa?”

“Ninety-five,” Ree said.

Marianne smiled, a bit ruefully. “Now, Clarissa, do you know how old I am? Have you asked or has anyone told you?”

Ree shook her head.

“So really, you don’t know how old I am. And what are you supposed to say if you don’t know something?”

“I don’t know,” Ree filled in obediently.

“Good girl. Where do I live?”

Ree opened her mouth, then seemed to catch herself. “I don’t know!” she exclaimed, a trace of triumph this time.

Marianne grinned. “I can tell you’re very good in school. Are you an excellent student?”

“I’m very pre-pre-cushush,” Ree said proudly. “Everyone says so.”

“Precocious? I fully agree and I’m very proud of you. Okay rule number three. If you don’t remember something, it’s okay to say you don’t remember. So how old were you when you first walked?”

“I’ve been walking since I was born,” Ree started, then caught herself as she remembered rule number three. She let go of her stuffed bunny and clapped her hands gleefully. “I DON’T REMEMBER!” she shrieked with delight. “I. Don’t. Remember.”

“You are the best pupil I’ve ever had,” Marianne said, still sitting cross-legged on the rug. She held up her four fingers. “All right, star student-last rule. Do you know what rule four is?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Ree shouted happily.

“You are so good. So, rule four, if you don’t understand something I say or ask, it’s okay to say you don’t understand. Capisce?”

“Capisce!” Ree yelled right back. “That means ‘I understand’ in Italian! I know Italian. Mrs. Suzie’s been teaching us Italian.”

For a moment, Marianne blinked her eyes. Apparently, even in a forensic interviewer’s world, there was precocious, and then there was precocious. Frankly, D.D. was having a hard time keeping a straight face. She slid a glance in Jason’s direction, but he had the same blank look on his face. Light switch, she thought again. He was in the room, but shut off.

That made her think of a thing or two, and she found herself scrawling a quick question on her notepad.

In the interrogation room, Marianne Jackson seemed to recover herself. “All right, then. You know the rules. So, tell me, Clarissa-”

“Ree. Everyone calls me Ree.”

“Why do they call you Ree?”

“ ’Cause when I was a baby, I couldn’t say Clarissa. I said Ree. And Mommy and Daddy liked that, so they call me Ree, too. Unless I’m in trouble. Then Mommy says, ‘Clarissa Jane Jones,’ and I have until the count of three or I get the timeout stair.”

“The timeout stair?”

“Yeah. I gotta sit on the bottom step of the staircase for four minutes. I don’t like the timeout stair.”

“What about the little gal you’re holding? Lil’ Bunny. She ever get into trouble?”

Clarissa looked at Marianne. “Lil’ Bunny is a toy. Toys can’t get in trouble. Only people can.”

“Very good, Clarissa. You are a smart cookie.”

The child beamed.

“I like Lil’ Bunny” Marianne continued conversationally. “I had Winnie the Pooh when I was your age. He had a music box inside that when you wound it up, played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’”

“I like Pooh, too,” Ree said earnestly. She had moved closer now, onto the rug, peering around Marianne to the wicker basket. “Where is your Pooh bear? Is he in the basket?”

“Actually, he’s at home, on my bookshelf. He was a special toy for me, and I don’t think we ever outgrow our special toys.” But Marianne moved the basket onto the rug, closer to Ree, who was clearly engaged now and very curious about the rest of the contents of the magic room.

D.D. sneaked a second glance at Jason Jones. Still no response. Happy, sad, worried, anxious. Nada. She made a second note on her pad.

“Ree, do you know why you are here today?”

Some of the spark went out of the child. She hunched a little, her hands rubbing her rabbit as she sat back. “Daddy said you are a nice lady. He said if I spoke to you, it would be all right.”

Now D.D. could feel Jason tense. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, but the veins suddenly stood out on his neck.

“What would be all right, sweetheart?”

“Will you bring my mommy back?” Ree asked in a muffled voice. “Mr. Smith came back. Just this morning. He scratched on the door and we let him in and I love him, but… Will you bring my mommy back? I miss my mommy.”

Marianne didn’t speak right away. She seemed to be studying the child sympathetically while letting the silence stretch on. Through the observation window, D.D. contemplated the pink rug, the folding chairs, the basket of toys, anything but the pained look on the little girl’s face. Beside her, Miller shifted uncomfortably in his chair. But Jason Jones still didn’t move a muscle or say a word.

“Tell me about your family,” Marianne said. D.D. recognized the interview technique. Back away from the sensitive topic. Define the child’s broader world. Then circle back to the wound. “Who’s in your family?”

“There is me and Mommy and Daddy,” Ree began. She was rubbing Lil’ Bunny’s ear again. “And Mr. Smith, of course. Two girls and two boys.”

D.D. made more notes, the family genealogy as seen through the eyes of the four-year-old child.

“What about other relatives?” Marianne was asking. “Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, or anyone else?”

Ree shook her head.

D.D. wrote down, Extended Family??? The child apparently didn’t know about her own grandfather, perhaps confirming Jason’s assertion that Sandra and her father were estranged, or perhaps confirming that Jason Jones had done an excellent job of isolating his much younger wife.

“What about babysitters? Does anyone else help take care of you, Ree?”

Ree regarded Marianne blankly. “Mommy and Daddy take care of me.”

“Of course. But what if they’re working, or maybe they need to go somewhere?”

“Daddy works, Mommy watches me,” Ree said. “Then Daddy comes home, and Mommy goes to work, but Daddy has to sleep, so I go to school. Then Daddy picks me up and we have Daddy-Daughter time.”

“I see. Where do you go to school, Ree?”

“I go to preschool. In the brick building with the big kids. I’m in the Little Flowers room. Next year, though, when I am five, I will go to the big classroom with the kinnygardeners.”

“Who are your teachers?”

“Miss Emily and Mrs. Suzie.”

“Best friends?”

“I play with Mimi and Olivia. We like to play fairies. I’m a Garden Fairy.”

“So you have best friends. What about your mommy and daddy who are their best friends?”

It was another routine question, generally used in CSAs, or Child Sexual Assaults, when the person of interest might not be a relative, but a suspected neighbor or friend of the family. It was important that the child define her own world, so later, should the interviewer bring up a name, it did not appear as if the interviewer were leading the witness.

Ree, however, shook her head. “Daddy says I’m his best friend. ‘Sides, he works a lot, so I don’t think he gets to have friends. Daddies are very busy.”

This time Miller looked at Jason. Ree’s father, however, remained immobile against the wall, staring resolutely through the window as if he were watching a TV show and not a trained specialist interviewing his only child. After another moment, Miller turned back around.

“I like Mrs. Lizbet,” Ree was volunteering. “But she and Mommy don’t play together. They’re teachers.”

“What do you mean?” Marianne asked.

“Mrs. Lizbet teaches seventh grade. Last year, she helped teach Mommy how to be a teacher. Now Mommy teaches sixth grade. But we still get to see Mrs. Lizbet at the basketball games.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, I like basketball. Mommy takes me to watch. Daddy works, you know. So it’s Mommy-Daughter night, every night. Yeah!” For a moment, Ree seemed to forget why she was in the room. Then, in the next instant, D.D. could see the realization crash down onto the child, the little girl’s eyes widening, then her whole body collapsing back into itself, until she was hunched once more over her stuffed rabbit, rubbing the poor bunny’s ears.

Behind D.D., Jason Jones finally flinched.

“When did you last see your mommy?” Marianne asked softly.

A muffled reply “She put me to bed.”

“Do you know the days of the week, Ree?”

“Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” Ree sang in a little voice. “Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.”

“Very good. So do you know what day it was when your mommy put you to bed?”

Ree looked blank. Then she began to sing again, “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…”

Marianne nodded her head and moved on; it was obvious the child knew a song about the days of the week, but not the days themselves. Fortunately, there were other tricks for establishing date and time when dealing with a young witness. Marianne would start asking about shows on TV, songs on the radio, that sort of thing. Children may not know a lot from an adult’s perspective, but they had a tendency to observe a lot, making it possible to fill in the necessary information, often with more credible results than a witness simply saying, “Wednesday night at eight P.M.”

“So tell me about your night with your mother, Ree. Who was home?”

“Me and Mommy.”

“What about Mr. Smith, or Lil’ Bunny or your daddy or anyone else?”

The anyone else was another standard interview technique. When presenting a child with a list of options, the last item always had to be “anyone else” or “something else” or “somewhere else;” otherwise, you were leading the witness.

“Mr. Smith,” Ree said. “And Lil’ Bunny. But not Daddy. I see Daddy during the day, Mommy at night.”

“Anyone else?”

Ree frowned at her. “Nighttime is Mommy and me time. We have ladies’ night.”

D.D. made a note.

“So what did you do for ladies’ night?” Marianne asked.

“Puzzles. I like puzzles.”

“What kind of puzzles?”

“Um, we did the butterfly puzzle, then the princess puzzle that takes up the whole rug. Except it got hard, ’cause Mr. Smith kept walking on the puzzle and I got mad, so Mommy said, maybe we should move on.”

“Do you like music, Ree?”

The girl blinked. “I like music.”

“Did you and your mommy listen to music while doing the puzzles, or maybe have the TV on, or the radio on, or something else?”

Ree shook her head. “I like to rock out to Tom Petty,” she said matter-of-factly “but puzzles are quiet time.” She made a face, perhaps like her mother, embarking on a lecture with one wagging finger: “ ‘Children need quiet time. That’s what makes brains grow!’”

“I see.” Marianne sounded suitably impressed. “So you and your mother had quiet time with puzzles. Then what did you do?”

“Dinner.”

“Dinner? Oh, I like dinner. What is your favorite dinner?”

“Mac-n-cheese. And gummy worms. I love gummy worms, but you can’t have them for dinner, just for dessert.”

“True,” Marianne said sympathetically. “My mother never let me eat gummy worms for dinner. What did you and your mommy eat for dinner?”

“Mac-n-cheese,” Ree supplied without hesitation, “with little bits of turkey dog and some apples. I don’t really like turkey dogs, but Mommy says I need protein to grow muscle, so if I want mac-n-cheese, I have to eat turkey dogs.” The girl sounded mournful.

D.D. jotted down the menu, impressed not only by Ree’s level of detail, but the consistency with her first statement given Thursday morning. A consistent witness always made a detective happy. And the level of detail meant they could corroborate Ree’s account of the first half of the evening, making it harder for a jury to discount what the child might say about events in the second half of the night. All in all, four-year-old Clarissa Jones was a better witness than eighty percent of the adults D.D. encountered.

“What did you do after dinner?” Marianne asked.

“Bath time!” Ree sang.

“Bath time?”

“Yep. Me and Mommy shower together. Do you need to know who was in the shower?” Ree apparently recognized the pattern by now.

“Okay.”

“Well, not Mr. Smith, ‘cause he hates water, and not Lil’ Bunny, because she takes a bath in the washing machine. But Princess Duckie and Mariposa Barbie and Island Princess Barbie all needed baths, so they came in with us. Mommy says I can only wash three things, otherwise I use up all the hot water.”

“I see. What did your mommy do?”

“She washes her hair, then she washes my hair, then she yells at me I’m using too much soap.”

Marianne blinked her eyes again.

“I like bubbles,” Ree explained. “But Mommy says soap costs money and I use too much, so she puts soap in this little cup for me, but it’s never enough. Barbies have a lot of hair.”

“Ree, if I tell you I have blue hair, is that the truth or is that a lie?”

Ree grinned, recognizing the game again. She held up her first finger. “That’s a lie, and in the magic room, we only tell the truth.”

“Very good, Ree. Excellent. So you and your mommy are in the shower, and you have used a lot of soap. How do you feel in the shower, Ree?”

Ree frowned at Marianne, then something seemed to click. She held up four fingers. “I don’t understand,” she said proudly.

Marianne smiled. “Excellent again. I will try to explain. When you and your mommy shower… do you like it or do you not like it? How do you feel?”

“I like showers,” Ree said earnestly. “I just don’t like having my hair washed.”

D.D. could sense Marianne’s hesitation again. On the one hand, a mother and her four-year-old girl showering together was hardly inappropriate. On the other hand, Marianne Jackson wouldn’t have a job if all parents were appropriate. Something had gone wrong in this family. Their job was to help Ree find a way to tell them what.

“Why don’t you like your hair being washed?” Marianne asked.

“’Cause my hair snarls. My hair’s not really short, you know. Nope, when it’s wet, it goes halfway down my back! It takes forever for Mommy to get all the shampoo out, and then she has to condition it or it gets all snarly and I don’t much like my hair at all. I wish I had straight hair like my best friend, Mimi.” Ree sighed heavily.

Marianne smiled, moved on. “So what did you do after your shower?”

“We got dry,” the girl reported, “then we go to the Big Bed, where Mommy wants me to talk about my day, but mostly I tickle her.”

“Where is the Big Bed?”

“Mommy and Daddy’s room. That’s where we go after bath time. And Mr. Smith hops up, but I like to wrestle and he does not like that.”

“You like to wrestle?”

“Yeah,” Ree said proudly. “I’m strong! I rolled Mommy onto the floor and that made me laugh.” She held up her arms, apparently in imitation of flexing. “It made Mommy laugh, too. I like my mommy’s laugh.” Her voice trailed off wistfully. “Do you think my mommy’s mad because I pushed her off the bed? She didn’t sound mad, but maybe… Once, at school, Olivia tore the picture I drew and I told her it was okay, but it wasn’t really okay and I got madder and madder and madder. I was mad all day! Do you think that’s what happened? Did my mommy get mad all day?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Marianne said honestly. “After you and your mommy wrestled, then what happened?”

The girl shrugged. She looked tired now, wrung out. D.D. glanced at her watch. The interview had been going on for forty-four minutes, well beyond their twenty-minute target time.

“Bedtime,” Ree mumbled. “We got on PJs-”

“What did you wear, Ree?”

“My green Ariel nightgown.”

“And your mother?”

“She wears a purple shirt. It’s very long, almost to her knees.”

D.D. made a note, another detail that could be corroborated, given the presence of the purple nightshirt in the washing machine.

“So after pajamas?”

“Brush teeth, go potty, climb into bed. Two stories. A song. Mommy sang ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’ I’m tired,” the girl declared abruptly, a trace petulant. “I want to be done now. Are we done?”

“We’re almost done, honey. You’ve been doing a really good job. Just a few more questions, okay, and then you can ask me anything you want. Would you like that? To ask me a question?”

Ree regarded Marianne for a bit. Then, with a sudden, impatient exhalation, she nodded. The girl had the stuffed bunny on her lap again. She was rubbing both ears.

“After your mother tucked you in, what did she do?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did she turn out the light, close the door, something else? How do you sleep at night, Ree? Can you describe your room for me?”

“I have a nightlight,” the girl said softly. “I’m not five yet. I think when you are four, you can have a nightlight. Maybe, when I ride the school bus… But I’m not on the school bus yet, so I have a nightlight. But the door is closed. Mommy always closes the door. She says I am a light sleeper.”

“So the door is closed, you have a nightlight. What else is in your room?”

“Lil’ Bunny, of course. And Mr. Smith. He always sleeps on my bed ’cause I go to bed first and cats really like to sleep.”

“Is there anything else that helps you sleep? Music, a sound machine, a humidifier, anything else?”

Ree shook her head. “Nope.”

“What is the name of my cat, Ree?”

Ree grinned at her. “I don’t know.”

“Very good. If I told you those chairs were blue, would I be telling the truth or would I be telling a lie?”

“Nooo! The chairs are red!”

“That’s right. And we only tell the truth in the magic room, don’t we?”

Ree nodded, but D.D. could read the tension in the child’s body again. Marianne was circling around. Circling, circling, circling.

“Did you stay in bed, Ree? Or did you maybe get up to check on your mommy or go potty or do anything else?”

The girl shook her head, but she did not look at Marianne anymore.

“What does your mom do after you go to bed, Ree?” Marianne asked softly.

“She has to do her schoolwork. Grade papers.” The girl’s gaze slid up. “At least, I think so.”

“Do you ever hear noises downstairs, maybe the TV, or the radio, or the sound of your mother’s footsteps, or something else?”

“I heard the tea kettle,” Ree whispered.

“You heard the tea kettle?”

“It whistled. On the stove. Mommy likes tea. Sometimes we have tea parties and she makes me real apple tea. I like apple tea.” The girl was still talking, but her voice had changed. She sounded subdued, a shadow of her former self.

D.D. eyed Jason Jones, still standing against the far wall. He had not moved, but there was a starkness to his expression now. Oh yeah, they were homing in.

“Ree, after the tea kettle, what did you hear?”

“Footsteps.”

“Footsteps?”

“Yeah. But they didn’t sound right. They were loud. Angry. Angry feet on the stairs. Uh-oh,” the girl singsonged. “Uh-oh, Daddy’s mad.”

Behind D.D., Jason flinched for the second time. She saw him close his eyes, swallow, but he still didn’t say a word.

In the interrogation room, Marianne was equally quiet. She let the silence draw out until abruptly, Ree began speaking again, her body rocking back and forth, her hands rubbing, rubbing her stuffed toy’s ears:

“Something crashed. Broke. I heard it, but I didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t want to get out of bed. Mr. Smith did. He jumped off the bed. He stood by the door but I didn’t want to get out of bed. I held Lil’ Bunny. I told her to be very quiet. We must be quiet.”

The girl paused for an instant, then spoke suddenly in a soft, higher-pitched voice: “Please don’t do this.” She sounded mournful. “Please don’t do this. I won’t tell. You can believe me. I’ll never tell. I love you. I still love you…”

Ree’s gaze went up. D.D. swore to God the child looked right through the one-way mirror to her father’s face. “Mommy said, ‘I still love you.’ Mommy said, ‘Don’t do this.’ Then everything went crash, and I didn’t listen anymore. I covered Lil Bunny’s ears, and I swear I didn’t listen anymore, and I never, ever, ever got out of bed. Please, you can believe me. I didn’t get out of bed.”

“Am I done?” the child asked ten seconds later, when Marianne still hadn’t said anything. “Where’s my daddy? I don’t want to be in the magic room anymore. I want to go home.”

“You’re all done,” Marianne said kindly, touching the child softly on the arm. “You’ve been a very brave little girl, Ree. Thank you for talking to me.”

Ree merely nodded. She appeared glassy-eyed, her fifty minutes of talking having left her spent. When she tried to rise to her feet, she staggered a step. Marianne steadied her.

In the observation room, Jason Jones had already pushed away from the wall. Miller made it to the door just ahead of him, opening up the room to the brilliant fluorescent wash of hallway light.

“Miss Marianne?” Ree’s voice came from the interrogation room.

“Yes, honey.”

“You said I could ask you a question…”

“That’s right. I did. Would you like to ask me a question? Ask me anything.” Marianne had risen, too. Now D.D. saw the interviewer pause, squat down in front of the child, so she would be at eye level. The interviewer had already unclipped her tiny mic, the receiver dangling down low, in her hands.

“When you were four years old, did your mommy go away?”

Marianne brushed back a lock of curly brown hair from the girl’s cheek, her voice sounding tinny, far away. “No, honey, when I was four years old, my mommy didn’t go away.”

Ree nodded. “You were lucky when you were four years old.”

Ree left the interrogation room. She spotted her father waiting for her just outside the door, and hurled herself into his arms.

D.D. watched them embrace for a long time, a four-year-old’s rail-thin arms wrapped tautly around her father’s solid presence. She heard Jason murmur something low and soothing to his child. She saw him lightly stroke Ree’s trembling back.

She thought she understood just how much Clarissa Jones loved both of her parents. And she wondered, as she often wondered in her line of work, why for more parents, their child’s unconditional love couldn’t be enough.

They debriefed ten minutes later, after Marianne had escorted Jason and Ree out of the building. Miller had his opinion. Marianne and D.D. had theirs.

“Someone entered the home Wednesday night,” Miller started out. “Obviously had a confrontation with Sandra, and little Ree believes that someone is her father. ’Course, that could be an assumption on her part. She heard footsteps, assumed they had to be from her dad, returning home from work.”

D.D. was already shaking her head. “She didn’t tell us everything.”

“No,” Marianne agreed.

Miller glared at the two of them.

“Ree totally got out of bed Wednesday night,” D.D. supplied. “As is exhibited by the fact she went out of her way to tell us she didn’t.”

“She got out of bed,” Marianne seconded, “and saw something she’s not ready to talk about yet.”

“Her father,” Miller stated, sounding dubious. “But at the end, the way she hugged him…”

“He’s still her father,” Marianne supplied softly. “And she’s vulnerable and terribly frightened by everything going on in her world.”

“Why’d he let her come in, then?” Miller challenged. “If she came into the bedroom Wednesday night and saw her father fighting with her mom, he wouldn’t want her to testify.”

“Maybe he didn’t see her appear in the doorway,” D.D. suggested with a shrug.

“Or he trusted her not to tell,” Marianne added. “From a very early age, children get a feel for family secrets. They watch their parents lie to neighbors, officials, other loved ones-I fell down the stairs, of course everything is fine-and they internalize those lies until it becomes as second nature to them as breathing. It’s very difficult to get children to disclose against their own parents. It’s like asking them to dive into a very deep pool and never take a breath.”

D.D. sighed, eyed her notes. “Not enough for a warrant,” she concluded, already moving on to next steps.

“No,” Miller agreed. “We need a smoking gun. Or, at the very least, Sandra Jones’s dead body.”

“Well, start pushing,” Marianne informed them both. “Because I can tell you now, that child knows more. But she’s also working very hard at not knowing what she knows. Another few days, a week, you’ll never get the story out of her, particularly if she continues to spend all her time with dear old dad.”

Marianne started picking up the toys in the interrogation room. Miller and D.D. turned away, just as the buzzer sounded at the pager clipped to D.D.’s waist. She eyed the display screen, frowning. Some detective from the state police trying to summon her. Figures. Throw a little party with the media, and all of a sudden everyone wants in on the action. She did the sensible thing and ignored it, as she and Miller headed back up to homicide.

“I want to know where Jason Jones comes from,” D.D. stated, working her way up the stairs. “Guy as cool and collected as that. Working as a small-time reporter, sitting on four million, and according to his own child doesn’t even have a best friend. What the hell makes this guy tick?”

Miller shrugged.

“Let’s get two detectives digging into some deep background,” D.D. continued. “Cradle to grave, I want to know everything about Jason Jones, Sandra Jones, and their respective families. I can tell you now, something there is gonna click.”

“I want his computer,” Miller murmured.

“Hey, at least we have his garbage. Any news?”

“Got a crew on it now. Give them a couple of hours, they’ll have a report.”

“Miller?” she asked with a troubled look on her face.

“What?”

“I know Ree saw something that night. You know Ree saw something that night. What if the perpetrator knows it, too?”

“You mean Jason Jones?”

“Or Aidan Brewster. Or the unidentified subject 367.”

Miller didn’t answer right away, but started to look concerned, as well. Marianne Jackson had been right: Ree was very, very vulnerable right now.

“Guess we’d better hurry up,” Miller said grimly.

“Yeah, guess so.”