Chapter 9 #3
“I…” He knew he’d said something he shouldn’t have. She could tell by the way he shut up. And when he spoke again, it was on a different topic. “Mrs. Tucker, I’m here looking into the disappearance of Phillip Terrence.”
“Disappearance?” she asked. She lowered her head and pretended to paw through her bag in search of something, so he wouldn’t realize she was avoiding his eyes. “I’m sure you’re mistaken. I just saw him…day before yesterday.”
He came out into the hall, and with a gentle touch of his hand to her upper arm, guided her toward a classroom with an open door and no one inside. The deputy stayed behind.
“Yes, you did see him the day before yesterday,” Detective Sterling said. “In fact, you were one of the last people to speak to him. That we know of. Do you want to sit down?”
“One of the last people to speak to him?” she repeated, ignoring the offer to sit.
How could she sit when her skin was tingling from the fight-or-flight chemicals surging through her bloodstream?
He’d brought her into a private room. For questioning?
Was she a suspect already? “You say that as if something’s happened to him. ”
“When he didn’t show up yesterday and couldn’t be reached, the school requested a wellness check. A deputy went by his place and found it empty. Even the furniture was gone.”
“Are you kidding me?” That had sounded stilted and unnatural. “So he moved, then?”
“We don’t know what happened to him. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Oh,” she said. “You said today’s your last day, Detective Sterling?”
“Yeah, but I still have to ask you about—”
“That means this case will be Sam’s as of tomorrow. Doesn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, it does.”
She shook her head slowly. The universe had a dark sense of humor, didn’t it?
“Tell me, how did it escalate from a wellness check by a deputy to a matter for the Detective Division?” she asked.
Detective Sterling put his hands on his hips and tipped his head to one side.
The way he looked at her made her feel like he could see inside her brain or maybe read every thought from the dilation of a pupil, or the twitch of a lip.
She walked toward the windows to look outside and keep his keen cop’s eyes off her face.
“That’s an astute question,” he said.
“Well, you know, cop-mom.” She gave a lilt to her voice on the words.
“We found something that suggests he didn’t leave voluntarily,” Detective Sterling said. “So what did you go to see Mr. Terrence about?”
“What?” She pivoted from the window fast, stunned that he knew she’d gone to the dead man’s house.
“After your class, you went to Mr. Terrence’s classroom,” he said, “according to witnesses. What was that about?”
Her hand twitched, because it wanted so badly to press to her chest, where her heart had sped up unreasonably. “Oh! Right, I forgot about that. It was such a little thing. A student left something in my classroom. I knew she was meeting with Mr. Terrence next, so I took it to her there.”
“And this student will verify that?”
“She will if I tell you who she is. I really prefer not to, though. She’s a sensitive child and easily upset. She’d be terrified if a detective came to question her.”
“She have reason to be?”
“She’s a good girl,” she snapped.
“All right, all right.” He tilted his head to one side. “You’re a firecracker, aren’t you, Mrs. Tucker?”
“I’m offended you think I would lie about returning a scrunchy to a student. Thank goodness my son is taking over this case. He won’t waste time chasing rainbows.”
She had no idea why she’d said chasing rainbows. It had just popped in.
“I have no reason not to take your word for it, ma’am,” Detective Sterling said. “I apologize for upsetting you. It’s kind of nice, seeing a teacher so protective of her students.”
She shrugged and thought she probably shouldn’t have given that trait away. “No more than any other. Less, really, since I’m only a substitute. I just don’t like not being believed. I do not lie, Detective Sterling.” Only, she did. And she felt she was getting good at it.
“You uh…can call me Charles.”
She frowned at him.
“I literally only have eight hours left on duty,” he said. “You um…wouldn’t be free for dinner, would you?”
She blinked at him and it seemed to take inordinate amounts of time for it to sink in that this man was asking for a date. A date! The idea of it was ludicrous. Mark had only been gone for a little over a year.
“Are you allowed to ask women for dates while you’re on duty?” she asked.
“What’re they gonna do, fire me?” He smiled. There should’ve been a sparkle effect.
“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
He looked disappointed but nodded his acceptance. “Okay. So uh, back on topic—”
“I’m going to be late for homeroom.”
“Ten more seconds,” he said. “Did Mr. Terrence say anything to you about leaving town or not coming back to finish his class?”
“Not a word,” she said. And it was nothing but the truth.
He nodded. “Okay. Okay, that’s all. Have a good day, Mrs. Tucker.”
“Bonnie.” The word, her name, fell from her lips without her consent. She didn’t even realize she was going to say it. But it was too late to take it back.
“You sure are,” he said, and then he walked past her and out of the classroom just as a handful of students came crowding in.
Christine was comfortable in one of the reading chairs inside Rosa’s Reads.
Diane was there, too, but she was pacing.
Unlike Bonnie, they were both free for the day.
Diane hadn’t been still for a moment since they’d got there.
First, she’d made a pot of tea in the bookstore’s ever present plug-in pot.
Then she’d run down Main Street to grab a bag of sustenance from New York Bagel.
Jenna was out. She’d had a story to run down this morning. The bookstore’s CLOSED sign was in the window, but Diane, the responsible one, had a key. In case of emergency, Rosa had said. Christine resented that Rosa hadn’t given her a key in case of emergency, but whatever.
Rosa came back from her mysterious morning appointment. When she saw them waiting in the bookstore, she shoved a small white bag into her purse and zipped it, then said, “Jenna let you in? I thought she had to work.”
“I let us in. I used my emergency key,” Diane said.
Christine asked, “Want a bagel?”
“You bring any cream cheese?”
“Plant-based. Better for the coronary arteries,” Christine replied.
Shrugging, Rosa helped herself to a napkin, a bagel, a plastic butter knife, and a single-serving container of cashew cream cheese.
“I don’t know how the hell she’s working today,” Rosa said.
“I think she wanted to see if she could pick up any gossip about Mr. Terrence. Besides, she’s seeing that kid after school.
The one who can hack the phone.” Christine bit into her own bagel.
It sent endorphins surging through her. Bread of any kind always did, because she rarely indulged.
But this bagel was sheer perfection. She closed her eyes, and went, “Mmm.”
“I listened to all the audio recordings on the camera,” Diane said. “And Bonnie looked through the mail. One of the pieces was forwarded from the…um…the guy’s prior address in Florida, so we have that now.”
“Wow, that’s a good find,” Rosa said. “What else did you find on the camera?”
“Pictures of the girls, full body nudes with descriptions underneath no decent person should ever read,” she said.
“Two of the other recordings reveal small pieces of the men’s actual voices.
And of course, that last one, the guy who saw what happened via live-stream I think.
The same guy demanding the phone—his voice was straight up normal, with a twang, all the way through.
I listened to all of it.” Then she closed her eyes and shuddered.
“I’m sorry you were the one to see and hear that stuff, Di,” Christine said, and put a hand on Diane’s shoulder. Rosa did the same on the other one.
“He’ll leave us alone us if we return the phone,” Diane said.
“I’m guessing Bonnie’s video confused him enough to buy us some time.
Time enough to hack into that thing and see what’s on it and make a copy, I hope.
Then we’ll return it and say we only just realized what happened.
It was in a case exactly like Bonnie’s.”
Rosa shook her head slowly. “Yeah, no. I’ve been thinking on it, and uh, he’s gonna assume we did exactly what we’re doing.
He’s not gonna risk it. Even if we give it back, he’ll assume we’ve seen what’s on there.
” She looked right into Christine’s eyes.
“Even with Sam there, I don’t know if she’s safe. I don’t know if any of us are.”
The look in her eyes made Christine shiver.
“What are you saying, Rosa?” Diane asked.
Christine closed her eyes. “She’s saying, the second pedo and his nine co-pervs have a reason to make sure we can never tell anyone what we know.”
Diane blinked, looking from one of them to the other. “You mean…they have to kill us?”
“I think from their perspective, it’s the right thing to do,” Christine said.
“Holy shit.” Diane never cussed. “Holy shit! What are we gonna do?”
“Easy, Diane,” Rosa took the teapot and refilled Diane’s cup.
“We’re gonna do exactly what we planned.
Hack into the phone and make a copy of what’s there for the police.
They’ll protect us. Especially once Sam is on the job.
We’re meeting at Bonnie’s tonight at seven. She said she’d have something by then.”
“We should still give the phone back, though. We can leave it at Terrence’s house and tell him after,” Diane said.
“You never know, he might even believe us. M-m-maybe—God, I’m stammering.
Maybe he’ll assume we’re too old to think of hacking a phone, much less capable of doing so, and just let the whole thing go. ”