Hobbs stood up and scraped her chair underneath the table. “Let’s go outside then.”
***
Hobbs led Vance out of the interrogation room, through the hallway and out to the back parking lot of the police station. It seemed conspiratorial and anachronistic – meeting him this way. If she closed her eyes and just took in his scent, the tread of his footfalls behind her, the singsong of robins in the distance – she could almost place herself in the previous decade, playing the role of her previous self.
But no, that was ridiculous. Now it was 2017, she was 41 years old and she knew better. She had to be smarter this time. The filament of their relationship could not be a line that stretched infinitely into the future – tattered and broken off in places but still there. Their relationship had to be over – defined by both a start and an end date, a stretch of time that no longer mattered.
“You look beautiful Roberta,” Vance said as soon as they were sitting together on a set of wooden steps behind a row of cars.
Hobbs shrugged off his compliment and stayed focused on the task. It was easier this time than in the past. Maybe because she was on duty, or maybe because it was a line she had heard so many times before, worn through and no longer effective.
“Did you tell your guys to assault John Brock?” Hobbs asked him.
Vance laughed. “Whoa, so even out here, you’re still all business, huh?”
“Yes, Steven, that’s the only reason we’re out here and the only matter I care to discuss. Can you please answer the question?”
Vance shook his head. “I have a bunch of different businesses, most of which are decentralized…you know? I don’t order hits or anything like that. I’m the guy on the top; I don’t really get involved in the details.”
“So you didn’t order the hit?”
“Why would I order a hit on a high school kid?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you sold him drugs and he didn’t pay you.”
Vance threw his hands in the air. “First of all, who says I sell drugs? Secondly, you think some high school kid is going to work up enough debt to make it worth my time to order a hit on him?”
“You haven’t actually answered the question.”
“You haven’t actually asked me a reasonable question. Did I ever sell drugs to John Brock? No I did not.” Vance looked at her – his dark eyes as intense as she’d ever seen them.
Hobbs swallowed and asked in a softer voice, “But you know him.”
“Is that a question?”
“Yes.”
“Sure, I know John. I know a lot of people.”
“He’s a high school kid and you’re a big presence in the city. How do you know him?”
“I can’t remember. I come across a lot of people in the course of a day. Can’t say how I meet them all.”
“But Greta obviously thought you were involved in his assault.”
“Well yeah but she was off the wall…ranting and raving like a maniac. I’d say you should ask her…but I guess you can’t.”
“Steven, where is the Carpenter family?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“Steven, look at me.” Hobbs shifted until she was sitting a few inches away – the better an angle to stare at him, to survey him, to let him know she was capturing every twitch of body language, every hint of inflection.
“Steven…where is the Carpenter family?” she repeated.
Vance stared back. His voice was even when he responded, his body unmoving. “I have absolutely no idea,” he repeated, this time in a slower cadence, each word individually enunciated.
Hobbs looked away. She knew she had to evaluate this conversation and figure out if he was lying. It should have been an easy task given her history with him. Rarely if ever had he looked her in the face and lied to her. His lies were omissions of information, secret meetings and crafty avoidances. But yet, her history with Vance also compromised her; it made her question her own judgment and whether she was truly acting objectively.
The thing was, Hobbs knew of no other suspicious enterprise in or near Vetta Park. Steven Vance had a monopoly on professional delinquencies, as far as she and the police force knew. The names and faces of the petty dealers and corner drug pushers came and went. But there was only one large-scale, skilled operation and that belonged to Steven – a man with enough resources and local political ties to evade capture and incarceration.
“Are you done with me now?” Steven asked.
“Yeah, you can go,” Hobbs said.
Steven stood up and faced her. “Hey, look, Roberta, there’s one more thing I want to say…and…it’s the reason I wanted to meet with you outside – away from everyone. Robbie, believe me, I feel bad about the way things went with us. Over the years. I didn’t treat you right and I know I’ve never apologized or acknowledged how poorly I behaved. I’ve thought about what to say to you for so many years—”
This was the mea culpa Hobbs had been waiting for five years to hear – the regret for how he had acted, the acknowledgement of the pain he’d caused. And for some reason, even as she’d longed to hear it, she couldn’t bear to hear it.
There was something about accepting an apology so many years after the fact that made it insufferable. It was like the nominal payment of a library fee many years after the book had been destroyed in a horrible fire – long after the fine was written off.
There was no way to deal with personal anguish in the parking lot of a police station, in the middle of a workday, at the end of an interrogation that had given her no leads but that she’d have to justify for her Captain. There was no way to hear Steven Vance’s words without reopening a wound she had no time to look after or mend.
So Hobbs left him standing on the steps. He was mid-sentence, rambling apologies and regrets, his face solemn, his voice gravely and sincere.
Hobbs looked both ways, crossed the parking lot and opened the back door to the police station. She could hear him yell after her: “Hey Roberta!” But she didn’t look back.
***
Hobbs walked past the cluster of desks, past the bustle of uniformed people in the hallway and into Captain Weaver’s office. She was surprised to find it full. Weaver was sitting in his chair, Martinez and Adams were seated across from him, and Rochelle was leaning against a file cabinet near the window. They looked like they were in the middle of something – perhaps a discussion or an exercise – which they promptly suspended when she walked in the room.
“Detective, come in and sit down,” Weaver said affably. Without prompting, Adams stood up, vacated the chair and stood next to Rochelle.
“What’s going on?” Hobbs asked as she sank into her seat. The air in the room felt different; it was a viscous fog, the culmination of rumors or suggestions that had been abruptly halted but still hung in the atmosphere. Martinez and Adams wouldn’t look at her.
“What did you learn from your meeting with Steven Vance?” Weaver asked.
Hobbs cleared her throat. “He says he has nothing to do with the family’s disappearance, and I believe him. He also told me emphatically that he didn’t ever sell drugs to John. What he wouldn’t do is tell me that he didn’t order the assault on John. He kept dodging the question. I think Vance could have ordered the hit…but I can’t figure out what the circumstances would have led to that if not drug-related. So I learned that Vance and John Brock did know each other…but Vance kept dancing around my questions about how they knew each other too.”
Although this information didn’t yield any solid leads, it was still good intelligence in Hobbs’s opinion. She thought Weaver would praise the work she’d done to glean this information from Vance, but he didn’t appear to be moved at all. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Can you three give us a second?” he asked, still looking at Hobbs. The others left the room.
Hobbs inhaled and waited for Weaver to talk. The air in the room still felt stiff. Although Hobbs knew she had broken some of the ru
les, Weaver had always been a protector – an avuncular boss who was always in her corner. She figured she would explain herself and he would nod in agreement – like he always did.
But sitting across from his stern face, she realized that she had miscalculated. Weaver didn’t frequently reprimand his detectives but when he did, he was cold and severe – and the stories of such rebukes circulated among the police force for days.
“Why were you meeting privately with Steven Vance?” Weaver asked sharply.
“I had no choice Captain. It was that or let him go.”
“Are you in a position to make that decision?” Weaver asked. His words were sharp, his voice a cavernous grumble. Hobbs had never heard him take that tone with her.
“No sir,” Hobbs answered.
“If I’m correct, just this morning, you said you were going to sit this one out. Do you remember that?”
Hobbs nodded.
“So what happened? Or…more appropriately…what’s going on between you and Steven Vance?”
Hobbs swallowed hard. Maybe Martinez knew the whole story about her and Steven but no one else did. She was humiliated to have it come up in such a way. The story of her and Steven felt both ancient and fully present – an old folk tale that resonated despite her desires to keep it buried.
“There’s nothing going on with us,” Hobbs said. “We were together once – a long time ago – but that’s all over now. I don’t really have any more to say about it.”
Hobbs let her eyes run over the objects on Weaver’s desk—his desktop computer, his framed pictures of his wife and kids, various folders and papers. If she could just keep her focus on these items, she could ignore the present. Like staring at an object during a blood draw, if she could just concentrate on the inanimate, the acute sensation would pass.
“You say you’ve moved on, but Roberta, it’s clouding your judgment.”
“It’s not clouding my judgment. I got some good info—”
Weaver’s face grew red – tomato-like splotches spreading across his cheeks. “Roberta, you sold out on our most promising lead! Steven Vance is all we have! You think there are other drug lords hiding in the corners of Vetta Park? You said it yourself; the guy knows John Brock, and we’re pretty damn sure he assaulted the kid two years ago! But all he has to do is look you in the eyes and say he doesn’t know where the family is and you’ll believe him! At least make him buy you a nice dinner and take you to the symphony before he tries to fuck you the next time!” Weaver smacked his desk when he spoke, an exclamation point to reinforce his bellowing.
Hobbs waited a few seconds for the room to cool down, for the air that had been scattered and displaced by Weaver’s desk-slap to settle. After a few moments, his face reverted to normal too, and she was hopeful that with the eruption of the storm would come a useful dialog. Hobbs could have taken issue with his intrusion into her privacy; the mention of dinner and whatnot was truly not warranted. But she allowed the comment to pass because she wanted to appeal to reason and move ahead.
“Captain, I know you think my judgment is clouded but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s telling the truth about not knowing where the family is. I’m usually right when I go with my gut.”
Weaver acknowledged her by squinting and staring up at the ceiling.
Hobbs waited for his words – the comforting, supportive après-disagreement that he always issued. I did think that Vance was involved, but I trust your instinct on this one. Or: Perhaps I was wrong to question your judgment. If you say Vance isn’t involved, we’ll see what else we can find.
But Weaver was neither supportive nor reassuring. “I’m afraid I disagree with you, and the rest of the team thinks so too. Steven Vance and his drug operations are the only link we have tying the family to subversive individuals.”
“Well, what about the traffic file? Once they locate the traffic file, we’ll have something else.”
“Enough about the traffic file! There is no traffic file!” Weaver roared.
Hobbs sat back in her seat, stunned. “What? What do you mean?”
Weaver pressed a button on his phone. “Send Rochelle, Adams and Martinez in here please!”
A moment later, the three came back into the room – their expressions the same as before and their places the same as before – Martinez in the seat next to Hobbs and Rochelle and Adams next to each other against a file cabinet.
“Rochelle, please tell us what you came up with after searching the basement,” Weaver said.
All eyes in the room focused on the red-headed young woman, who looked surprised by the sudden onset of attention. “Oh…um…I told the Captain that we combed the entire basement. I’m sorry to say, there was no file about a yellow Ferrari in an accident, and no mention of Greta Brock, Greta Wagner or Greta Carpenter as witness to an accident who later changed her statement.”
Hobbs turned back to face the Captain. “So, then, the file hasn’t been found yet.”
“Or it never existed at all,” Weaver countered. “Maybe you remember it wrong.”
“No, Captain, I know for a fact. The traffic file exists. I wrote the report when Greta changed her mind. I remember her face. I’m not wrong about this.”
The room was then completely silent – heads lowered, faces impassive. No one wanted to challenge Hobbs’ memory of the report, but it was obvious to her that no one believed her. They saw her as stubborn at best and unprofessional at worst – too stubborn to admit when she was wrong, and too caught in the throes of an old relationship to think clearly about this case.
Hobbs was insistent. “We need to look again. I’ll look again. After hours, when I get off of work here, I’ll look through the basement and look through the files.” She could hear her own voice ringing in her ears and she wondered if she sounded more crazy or desperate. For some reason, she felt a need to prove herself on this case – to advance the momentum even when they were at a stasis.
Weaver huffed in her direction but didn’t specifically address her pleas to redo Rochelle’s work. “Listen, I think we need to focus on Greta Brock’s mother,” Weaver said. “Johanna Wagner, we have a name and a most recent location – Springfield, Missouri. She seems to be a bit of a drifter but I’m sure she’s findable if we get some boots on the ground out there. Martinez and Hobbs, get out there as soon as you can and let me know what you find out.”
Both Martinez and Hobbs nodded and then Weaver dismissed the group. Hobbs walked out of the office feeling like a once-inflated balloon that had lost all of its air. She was smarting from the professional censure and the loss of credibility. She could have combed through the basement files and found what she was looking for – surely Rochelle and her ilk hadn’t combed through every single box in a manner of five days – but now she was to spend the next several days in Springfield, Missouri. She had no choice but to suspend the file search.
Adams followed her to the desk and then asked to catch up with her in one of the interior meeting rooms.
Once they were inside the tiny room, he said, “Roberta, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about what happened back there. I tried to vouch for you. Since you’ll be in Springfield, I can look for the traffic file in my spare time.”
Hobbs knew what she should have felt and how she should have responded. Adams still believed in her and she should have been grateful. She should have smiled at him and perhaps thrown her arms around him – the room was windowless anyway – and thanked him for his help.
But what she actually felt was angry. There was something pitying about the way he looked at her – his eagerness to rescue her from her situation. She wouldn’t have needed his help searching the basement if Weaver hadn’t forced a temporary geographic relocation and she didn’t want a knight in shining armor.
“Don’t do me any favors,” Hobbs said, sounding more caustic than she intended. “I mean, if you’re offering to do it because you think it’ll advance the case, then by all means search the basement, but if yo
u’re offering because you think it means anything, then I don’t want your help.”
Adams shook his head and threw up his hands. When they landed, he shoved them deep inside his pockets. His face – once willing and friendly – hardened into a grimace. “I offered because I tend to think you’re a good detective. Jesus Christ! And you should be grateful for my offer, since everyone else thinks—” Adams stopped and rubbed his chin, smoothing the scruffs with his fingertips.
“What? What do they think?” Hobbs demanded.
“They think you fucked the case,” Adams said. “That your head is shoved way up your ass over Steven Vance, and that Martinez and Weaver should’ve listened to you when you asked to be recused from the case. I was the one who took your side.”
This information was entirely predictable to Hobbs. If she had sat down and thought about what Weaver and Martinez had been saying before she entered his office, this was what she would have guessed…and yet hearing Adams say it out loud felt like a puncture. Her secrets were coming to light in conversations behind her back; she was no longer the guardian of her past. And even though they didn’t know the actual story, it didn’t matter.
“Well, I don’t need you to take my side,” Hobbs said. “I can fend for myself with Weaver.”
“Christ, Roberta, I don’t even know why I try with you. I try to offer you help, you get mad at me about it. I try to take your side and we end up in a huge fight, and I just don’t understand why I bother.”
“Well then save yourself the trouble and don’t bother!” Hobbs yelled. She was saying it not for Adams but for all of them. For the colleagues having covert discussions about past and questioning her state of mind. For the young woman who was ever-eager but too incompetent to find a simple traffic file. And for the drug lord pretending to be a benevolent entrepreneur who had screwed with her for years and was now whimsically tossing out apologies.
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