But there is a reason high school and college kids cold-shouldered by social media and excluded from their communities sometimes got so desperate that they commit suicide. If Kyle having the 3DS was only a coincidence, he didn’t need his name smeared all over the local and national news, forever altering any future he might scrape together from his already troubled life.
“Oh, God.” Wendy leaned forward and rubbed her face brusquely. “This is going to drive me crazy—sitting out here like this.”
“I might be able to go in,” I said. “Watch from the one-way. . . .”
“Would you?” Wendy looked at me, rocking back and forth.
“I can’t promise anything,” I said, standing up. “But I’ll try.”
• • •
It turned out it was easy to get in the small observation room. I simply knocked, and Monty opened the door and waved me right in. Ken leaned against one wall and greeted me when I entered. Monty stood in the center, watching through the one-way, shifting from one foot to the other.
I saw Kyle sitting slumped in his chair in the interrogation room, his reddened, acned face full of disdain for the entire world. Herman and Ali sat across from him, and when Ali talked to him, he stared at the wall, zoning out, ignoring her, as if he was being lectured by his parents or a teacher. I saw Monty shake his head in frustration.
“What?” I asked him.
“Nothing. I just don’t think she’s got the best bedside manner. How’s Wendy?”
“Distraught, of course, but not as mad at me as I thought she’d be.”
The three of us stood and watched. Ali continued asking Kyle questions, trying to loosen him up with easy inquiries—where were you born, have you always lived in Kalispell, where do you go to school—but he didn’t budge. I knew he had a lot of practice giving his mother the silent treatment because Wendy had mentioned it to me before—that even when he was young, he’d go through periods without speaking for days. He’s been a very moody kid, I recalled Wendy saying.
Kyle shifted his stare from the wall to the table. He began to twist the back of his long, stringy hair with his right forefinger, and I was suddenly struck by how childlike he seemed—sulking before authority and coiling his hair around his finger, not unlike a young girl or a baby rubbing a blanket. I felt a pang of sadness shoot through me, but pushed it away. I couldn’t afford to feel too sorry for the kid. The Nintendo and why he had it was what mattered. The agents needed answers from this delinquent, and they needed them quickly. If he had been on drugs, who knew what he was capable of doing.
I could see Ali getting frustrated with his noncompliance, his muteness. She’d moved on to his whereabouts over the past few days, and was still getting nothing.
Kyle just kept staring down. Then she asked about the 3DS, and he still didn’t say a word. She leaned back in her chair, tilted her head to the side, placed her hands on each thigh, her feet splayed wide on the floor. “Kid, you too stupid to figure out what kind of trouble you’re in?”
Kyle still didn’t look at her, just continued to fixate on the table, twisting his hair around his forefinger, but I could see his face turn a deeper shade of red. I wasn’t sure if he was getting angry, nervous, or frightened.
Ali stood up and leaned over the table onto her knuckles like she was about to do push-ups, her face inches from his, but he still wouldn’t acknowledge her. “Kid, you hear me? This is not the principal’s office. You’re in burning hot water here, and if you don’t start talking fast, we’re going to assume you have something to hide. Your fingerprints are all over that thing.” She turned to Herman. “Am I right, Agent Marcus? This is serious, we’ve got a boy missing, and this kid is not saying a word. Fingerprints put him right in the mix. He easily gets tried as an adult under statutory exclusion laws. He could get life. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s the way I understand it, Agent Paige,” Herman answered.
Kyle looked at the light fixture overhead.
“Kyle.” Ali snapped her fingers in his face. “Look at me.”
Kyle lowered his stare to the tabletop again, ignoring her.
I glanced at Monty. He looked unimpressed with their efforts. The kid wasn’t budging. He even had a slight smile playing on his lips, as if he enjoyed how frustrated Ali was becoming, how she practically trembled with anger.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Monty grumbled in our quiet observation room. Only a fan hummed from a vent on the ceiling in the corner of the room. “But I think Herman should do the talking.”
“Why? You don’t think a female can interrogate a witness?” I asked.
“Of course I do, but it’s the same thing I told her about the farmhand, Brady—that he wasn’t going to respond to a female all that well.”
“Yeah, and from what I heard, she listened to you. Sent Herman in and he didn’t respond to him either. He wouldn’t give his prints either way, right?”
“Right, but she couldn’t stand it and went in before Herman had a chance to really work it. But this kid here”—Monty motioned with his chin to the glass—“see that?”
“See what?” Ali had walked to the wall while still talking.
“Watch. Just now, when she moved away. Kyle looked at Herman for an instant.”
“So?”
“He hasn’t looked at either one of them the entire time while she’s been sitting before him, and the second she walks to the side, he peeks at Herman. It says a lot. It says to me that he’s not going to respond to her, but he’s curious about Herman. He’s running away from a single mom with no father figure in his life, so why does Ali think he’ll respond to an authoritarian female?”
“Maybe he doesn’t respect authoritarian males either, if his father isn’t in the picture.”
“Ali’s obviously running the show. Herman’s a side dish in there.” Ali went back over and sat down, leaning toward Kyle, asking more questions. Monty continued, “He’s used to treating his mom like shit, that comes easiest.”
I winced at the thought of it—of Kyle mistreating the person who cared about him the most. I never had that as a teenager. Things went drastically wrong before I reached a rebellious stage, but I remembered Per doing it—recalled him viciously cutting down our father with harsh words for not allowing him to go to Denmark on a boat with a bunch of his friends.
“Give Herman the chance to challenge him and you might get somewhere,” Monty added.
“How would you go about it?” Ken asked Monty.
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “He’s one tough kid. I’d probably find a different angle.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I would first find out if he’s got any other interests besides drugs.” He turned to me. “You recall Wendy saying anything over the years? The kid have any interests at all?”
I thought about it for a while. “I think he likes rap. You know some good rap?”
“I read somewhere that Obama likes Kendrick Lamar.”
“Okay then,” I said sarcastically. I almost laughed at the idea of any of these officers trying to discuss rap with Kyle.
“Yeah, not going to work. Anything else?” Monty asked.
“I think he used to like to draw. Wendy has pictures in her office, but they were from some time ago, quite good for his age. Pictures of wildlife—mountain lions, lynx, and whatnot.”
“Might be cheesy, but could work better than their approach. The kid is obviously as rebellious as it gets and they ask him about school?”
I chuckled. “You’ve got a point.”
When I looked back through the window, I saw Herman and Ali shuffling out of the interrogation room. “Mr. Stubborn,” Ali announced when she came in. “Shit, who would have thought a teenager could be harder to deal with than a seasoned criminal. Now I know why I never wanted kids.”
Ken chuckled again, in spite of th
e fact that he had a small boy at home and I’d heard his wife was pregnant with a second.
“So, what’s the plan?” Herman asked. “He’s thoroughly tuned us out. How do we get this kid’s attention?”
Ali considered the question, stroking her face, thinking. “We let him sit and wait for a while, get him good and nervous, then go back in.”
I looked at Monty and Ken, who said nothing, probably wisely. “Any other ideas?” she finally said to us all.
“For starters,” Monty said. “It needs to be a male in there.”
“Oh my God, Harris, here we go again.” She threw a hand dramatically into the air. “Hello, did you not see Hollywood in the room with me?”
“He didn’t do the talking.”
“Look, Freud, your theory didn’t work last time with Brady either. I listened to you, but Herman didn’t get anywhere with him and he still wouldn’t offer his prints.”
Monty didn’t reply. I wondered if it was going to be Freud instead of Steady-Eddy from now on. Nobody else said anything either. Monty didn’t even bother with the explanations he gave me earlier, as if he didn’t think there was any point. After a few more moments of silence, I finally said, “Look, I’ve known this kid through his mother on and off for some time now.” I repeated what I told Monty about the pictures and about the rap music.
Ali took it in, then said, “Okay, I’ll go back in, try your angle, but first I’m going to let him sit for some time so that he gets good and nervous and starts thinking about the situation he’s in.”
“I don’t know,” I added. “Do you think someone else ought to try, like Monty or Ken? These kids have seen so many movies with FBI agents and, no offense, but they have this idea that you’re all hardasses who just come in and bark at them. Nobody has any preconceived notions about a Park Police officer.”
Ali looked at me like she had zero patience for some forensics person’s opinion. I thought she was going to say, Excuse me, but why in the hell is she in here in the first place? But then she sighed. “Okay, yeah, I agree—a different approach might be good.” I sighed then, probably loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. Ali turned to Monty, then to Ken. “Both of you, go in together. Give him some fresh faces, but give it a bit of time. Like I said, I want him to stew, to get a little nervous.”
Ken moved away from the wall, and Monty gave one nod. “Okay,” he said. “We can do that.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Ali said.
I decided that she wasn’t so bad, just a hardworking woman trying to make it in a male-dominated profession. I could relate.
20
* * *
Monty
KEN AND I spoke in the corridor in front of the vending machines and recapped the quick plan we’d formulated while we gave Kyle a bit of time to contemplate his situation. We went in at the same time, bringing some sodas and some bags of Lay’s potato chips. He was still twirling his hair at the nape of his neck below his right ear, his face set in a deep pout, and I sensed Ali was correct. He seemed upset to be left sitting and waiting.
I introduced us both when we entered the room, and we took seats, one on either side of him at the rectangular table. The plan was to make Kyle comfortable, then try to relate to him somehow, get him to relax without being too obvious about it. If that backfired, we were going to at least try playing good cop, bad cop. As far as we could tell, Kyle considered both Herman and Ali bad cops.
“Okay, Kyle,” I said, throwing him the bag and opening my soda after getting comfortable in my chair. He didn’t touch the chips, just stared at them. “I know you’re not all that interested in talking, and I can’t say I blame you, but we do need to at least try to figure a few things out. I’m sure you get that, don’t you?”
Kyle didn’t answer. I took a sip of my 7Up and squinted from the fizz. “Shit, haven’t had a soda in ages. Forgot how carbonated they are.”
Ken laughed. “Jesus, Harris. You can’t handle a little carbonation?”
“Guess not.” I shrugged. “Not part of my training.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you need better training.” He motioned with a tilt of his head toward the one-way.
“What? Like them?” I asked. “Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.” Ken was doing precisely what we planned—demoting ourselves to nonthreatening Park Police, separating ourselves from Ali and Herman. I knew it was silly and a little petty, but I, quite frankly, was having fun doing it. In the observation room, they’d know we were playacting, but it felt good to insinuate something derogatory, even as a joke, while they had no choice but to watch and listen. I noticed a faint smile twitch at the corner of Kyle’s mouth. We knew he was probably onto our lame shtick too, but we weren’t really trying to fool him—just trying to lighten the mood, and it was working, perhaps only because there was an ounce of truth to our discussion: Ken and I were actually slightly enjoying dissing Ali and Herman.
“Wasn’t really suggesting you should become one of those assholes,” Ken mumbled.
Kyle had lifted his eyes and was tracking our conversation, glancing at each of us. I reached over and opened one of the bags of chips we’d brought and starting munching on a few. Of course, I had zero appetite for Lay’s potato chips, but I was up for anything that would make the atmosphere in the room more nonchalant. I motioned to the bag I’d tossed to Kyle and told him to help himself since he still hadn’t touched it, but he didn’t budge. “They impress you, Kyle?” Ken asked. “Those special agents?’
Kyle didn’t answer, just stared.
“So, Kyle,” I said, crunching the greasy chips and passing the bag to Ken. “Enough of that. Let me ask you: you’ve been in trouble with the system before . . . in JV court a few times, that right?”
Again, no answer.
“That’s okay. You don’t need to answer that. I’m not trying to pry. Only bringing it up because my brother was a bit like you.” I groaned dramatically and made my tone more somber. “Right, Ken? You’ve met my brother?”
Ken nodded. “Yeah, so? This kid couldn’t care less about your brother.”
I shrugged. “I know that, but he kind of reminds me of him ’cause he, well, he started getting into a lot of trouble around his junior year in high school. Hated high school. Really, really detested it. The jocks made him sick to his stomach, the preps the same, and he really couldn’t stand the geeks either. You follow?”
Kyle didn’t nod or say anything, but he watched me closely, his eyes wide. At least I had his full attention, and he wasn’t blocking out what I was saying. “So where does that leave someone when they don’t want to hang out with anyone at the place they’re supposed to spend five days of every week for a good nine months out of the year?” I took another sip and swallowed. “Sheer hell, right?”
“Yeah, it sucked,” Ken said. “I mean, high school. It sucked. I hated those days.”
Kyle’s gaze ping-ponged between us.
“Adam,” I said. “That was my brother’s name.” I licked some salt off one of my fingers. “He just figured he’d skip classes a bunch. Got to know some other kids who felt the same way.” I took the yellow Lay’s bag in my hands and stared at it, pulling on the top corners to make the bag square again. The foil crinkled. I stopped and set it down. The room got quiet, as if we were all just bored and didn’t have anything better to do but sit around and chat and munch until finally, after what seemed like a long time, Kyle said something.
“What happened to him?” he asked, almost inaudibly. It was the first thing he’d uttered since he’d been brought in, and my heart raced, thrilled that he’d taken the bait, but trying not show it.
“My brother?”
Kyle nodded, but just barely.
“Well, shit. He got into drugs. Eventually heroin. When my dad found out that Adam had started shooting up, he checked him into one of those therapeutic wilderness schools. You kn
ow, the one up by Glacier. That’s where he went. Has your mom threatened to send you somewhere?”
“Yeah. She’s threatened me with a lot of stuff.”
“Any of it make sense to you?”
“Not really. There’s no point in it. I am the way I am.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can see your point. I figured the same for my brother.” I didn’t bother to tell him that perhaps his frontal lobe wasn’t fully developed yet, and if he took care of his brain, rather than doing meth, he might feel a little different someday.
Kyle studied me. I could tell he wanted to ask more, but wasn’t sure how or what to ask, and was so used to staying silent that it was just easier to remain that way.
“But I do have to say,” I added. “He kind of did change some. Last I saw him. I was surprised at how he’s turned things around for himself.”
Kyle looked at the wall and shrugged. I could tell he didn’t want to hear about the optimistic side of things, about how life could turn around. I could see he preferred the “things never work out” line of thinking, that bleakness prevails. I knew that line of thinking well from my brother, but ironically, he’d begun to turn things around to some degree. At Kyle’s age, though, if you believed that life held no meaning, it could lead to really selfish behavior over the long term. You had your out, your excuse to play victim for the rest of your life, your justification for making less than optimal choices and for succumbing to drugs. “But it took a long time,” I continued. “That place he went to wasn’t so great. Didn’t really actually help at all, probably even made things worse.”
“How?” Kyle mumbled.
“Let’s just say it wasn’t well run back then. I hear the place is a lot better now, though, but it’s expensive, so I don’t think you’ll have to worry about going there, Kyle, unless your mom’s got a boatload of money ready and available for that kind of a thing. Does she?” I asked curiously.
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