Two Girls Down

by Louisa Luna

“Sure,” she said.

  “Was he a drunk?”

  “Not like, professionally, if that’s what you mean. Hey, you know, he didn’t take them. He’s the cops’ first idea too, but I told them, if he didn’t want them then, he sure as shit wouldn’t want ’em now when they’re just about to be teenagers.”

  “What else can you tell me about him?” said Vega, her voice steady.

  Jamie sighed. “He couldn’t hold down a job, and he liked girls with big tits. Any girl with big tits. They could look like Oscar the Grouch in the face, but as long as they had big tits, he liked them.”

  Maggie Shambley pressed her fingers to her forehead as if she had a headache.

  “Is there anyone else you know who would have something to gain by taking the girls?” said Vega.

  “No, no,” Jamie said, shaking her head.

  “Is there anyone who has shown an interest in the girls that struck you as strange?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone at school?”

  “No.”

  “You have any enemies you’re aware of?”

  Jamie’s eyes flickered, combative.

  “I’m not a saint, you know, but does someone hate me so much they’d take my kids? No. Cops asked me all this.”

  “You owe anyone money, for gambling or drugs?”

  “Je-sus Christ,” said Gail, standing up. “She’s the victim here, you know.”

  “Mom, sit down,” said Jamie. Her jaw was tight, the bottom row of teeth jutting out in a stiff underbite. “I buy a dime of pot every three weeks from a guy named Rocky Tibbs. I pay him up front every time. I told the cops all about it. Rocky’s got six kids or something; he doesn’t need mine. You got any more fucking questions?”

  They were all quiet. The only sound was Arlen’s labored breathing.

  Then Vega said, “Why did you keep his name?”

  “Huh?” Jamie said.

  “Your ex-husband’s. He sounds like someone you’re glad to be rid of. Why did you keep his name?”

  Jamie paused. Everything up until now, Vega knew, the police had asked her. Maybe not this.

  “ ’Cause it’s their name. The girls’. It’s on their birth certificates.”

  Jamie stamped the cigarette into an ashtray on the coffee table. She touched her lips.

  “I wanted people, all their little friends and their parents, to know I’m their mother, me.”

  She pointed to herself and started tapping her foot, moving her whole leg like she was pressing the pedal on an old sewing machine.

  —

  Vega left with Maggie Shambley close to eleven. The temperature had dropped. Vega felt cold wet air on her neck and ears.

  “You have to forgive my sister,” said Maggie. “All of them. I know they don’t show it right now, but they’re all very glad you’re here.”

  “Sure,” said Vega.

  “That’s me,” said Maggie, pointing to a Lexus across the street. Then, “Oh, here.”

  She handed Vega a business card that read “The Old American Inn” in curly script.

  “A friend of mine runs it. She and I have an arrangement. It’s the best bed-and-breakfast in the area. I brokered the deal for the place myself.”

  Vega took the card and stared at it.

  “I’ll really be fine in a hotel. Like a Best Western or something.”

  “Oh no,” said Maggie. “This place is so much better.”

  “I don’t really eat breakfast,” said Vega.

  Now Maggie smiled like a grandmother and said, “Breakfast is entirely optional. It’s cleaner and quieter than any motel, you’ll see. And there are bedbugs in all those motel chains. Have you heard about that?”

  She pulled her keys out of her purse, nodded to the house, and said, “What do you think?”

  “Hard to say right now. I have to do some research.”

  “Will you be talking to the police?” said Maggie.

  “Yes, tomorrow. I’ll need to speak with Jamie afterward.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be more amenable,” said Maggie.

  Vega was not at all sure of this.

  “I will speak with you soon, Miss Vega. Thank you for coming.”

  They shook hands again, and Maggie got into her car and drove off. Vega looked down the road at the unmarked car. She wasn’t sure but thought she could see the shadow of a man at the wheel. The man didn’t move and didn’t seem bothered by her seeing him. Vega stood up straight and stared at him for another minute. She wasn’t bothered either.

  —

  Later, in her room at the inn, Vega emptied her head in an email to the Bastard.

  TO: OMGBastard@thebastard.com

  FROM: Alice Vega

  RE: Info

  I’m near Phila working a case. Could you look up the following for me:

  • Whereabouts of Kevin Michael Brandt, dob: 12/19/81, ss: 199-75-8225. Start with PA, NY, OH, WV, MD, DE, then expand to all US. Any other relevant information.

  • Ridgewood Mall on Sterling Road E—can you get me security camera feed from around the Kmart from last Sat until 1pm? Also all parking lot exits/entrances.

  • Hess Gas on Township Hwy 148—security camera feed from last Sat morning.

  • Staff and faculty at Starfield Middle School and Denville East Elementary—look for anything that stands out.

  Asap.

  She looked up the police blotter from the past two months on the Denville Daily Tribune website—domestic violence, shoplifting, and minor drug busts, all for oxycodone, Vicodin, Percocet, heroin. And more oxy and more heroin. She went back a year or two, looking for times when the Denville Police Department had made the news. In 2013, budget cuts required reduction of the department by five officers. In 2014, a scandal—a former high school football star overdosed on oxy in the holding cell where he was awaiting processing.

  Vega scanned the photos; she paused on the detective who had resigned to avoid further attention from the Schuylkill County district attorney. The photo was from a better day, the detective smiling and standing with another man, shutting one eye into the sun, both of them holding thin silver fish on lines. She felt like she recognized him, his smile and curly brown hair, but maybe he had one of those faces.

  She checked the time in the corner of her screen: 2:42 a.m. She was not the least bit tired.

  —

  Downtown Denville was made up entirely of shabby storefronts on narrow streets and neighborhoods with weighty American names from a more industrious time, evoking coal mines and lumberyards: Bullrush, Rockland, Black Creek.

  Vega didn’t see one black or Hispanic or Asian person. Everyone was white, and smoked cigarettes and drove cars with dents. At an intersection there was a man in a hospital gown and flip-flops, hitchhiking. His face was unshaven, gaunt, calm. Vega drove closely past him but did not stop.

  The police department was an unadorned three-story beige building on a corner. Vega parked her rental on the street and saw three or four news vans in the parking lot; she recognized Channel 12 from the night before at Gail and Arlen White’s house.

  Inside, the station smelled like every other one she’d ever been in, half government facility and half men’s locker room: astringent, with the smell of old shoes and sweat.

  The lobby was full of people, sitting in the folding chairs against the walls, standing, talking to each other or on phones. Behind the reception counter were two women, one fat, one thin. The fat one wore a cop’s uniform and was explaining a form on a clipboard to a man who kept saying, “Do I need a lawyer? Should I call a lawyer?” The thin one was not a cop, wore wide-rimmed glasses and an oversized sweater.

  Vega stood in line for forty minutes and listened as the women behind the counter gave out forms and phone numbers, telling everyone they had to talk to someone else or wait or come back later. Vega eventually stepped up to the front of the line and faced the thin woman with the glasses.

  “Can I help you?” she said to Vega.

 
“I’d like to speak to Captain Hollows.”

  The thin woman wasn’t happy to hear this.

  “What’s your name?” she said.

  “Alice Vega.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Alice Vega. V-E-G-A.”

  Vega watched the woman write on a pad, “Alice Veja.”

  “Does he know what this is in regards to?”

  “I have some information about the Brandt girls.”

  Vega watched the woman’s eyes go wide but only a little. She picked up the phone and dialed three numbers. She cupped her hand around the receiver to create a little shield.

  “Alice Vay-zha is here to see you. She has information about the Brandt girls? Yeah, okay.”

  She hung up and said, “Someone’s going to come down for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Vega waited. Clock on the wall said 9:17.

  A cop with a shaved head and heavy eyes came down the stairs. Plainclothes, white shirt and brown pants, comfortable shoes. A look of either apathy or exhaustion. Around six feet tall. Vega could have picked him out as a cop in a dark movie theater.

  “You here for the Captain?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned around and started walking back the way he had come, up the stairs.

  “You in town for long?” he said, still facing forward.

  “A little while,” said Vega.

  “How long, do you know?”

  It didn’t exactly sound like he was accusing her of something, but that he might be starting soon.

  “Not sure yet,” she said.

  “Oh yeah?” he said, a little dare.

  Vega guessed he wasn’t crazy about the idea of her being in town at all. She was a quarter Mexican with dark hair and light eyes, her skin fair but easily tanned; she looked more ethnic depending on the day. Maybe this was one of those days, and maybe he didn’t like that.

  Or maybe he just didn’t like strangers.

  They came to the second floor, full of cubicles and cops, plainclothes and uniforms, phones ringing, one man yelling over another to be heard, a snap of laughter.

  “It’s a nice place,” the cop said. “You’ll enjoy it more than you think.”

  “Sure.”

  They stopped in front of a glass door, and the cop opened it and showed Vega in.

  The man behind the desk was on the phone. He said, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up.

  “Hi, Miss Vega, right?” he said, coming toward her. “Greg Hollows. Everyone calls me Junior.”

  He shook her hand, then pointed at the cop who had brought her. “You’ve met Detective Ralz.”

  “Sure.”

  Ralz left without a sound.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  Vega sat in a chair opposite the desk. She glanced up at the ceiling, peeling paint in the corners. The radiator under the one window made crackling noises.

  Hollows did not sit. He leaned backward against his desk so he was standing over her. He had a boyish face, big blue eyes and hair a little long in the front that she suspected he would have to constantly push back from his forehead, boyishly.

  He smiled at her.

  “When you get into town?”

  He asked like he was an old friend, someone she had run into at a high school reunion, making chitchat over a beer.

  “Last night.”

  “What do you think of Denville?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s a nice place to live.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Planning on staying long?”

  “A few days.”

  “That’s all it’ll take, huh?”

  “That’s all what will take?”

  Hollows scratched his chin and then laughed gently. He leaned down so his face was close to her ear.

  “I know who you are, Miss Vega. And I know why you’re here.”

  Then he went back behind his desk, sat down.

  “I had a chat with Maggie Shambley this morning. She’s a nice lady.”

  Vega said nothing.

  “I know she hired you to find the Brandt girls.”

  They stared at each other. They waited.

  He rubbed his eyes and said, “I’m glad you came to see me. Because I would’ve come to see you this afternoon. I have every man in my shop working the Brandt case around the clock. They are capable, professional, and determined, and they will find these girls. We have no need for a private detective here.”

  He paused.

  “I realize you have special skills.”

  He turned to his computer and tapped a key, then swiveled the screen toward Vega. She saw an old photo alongside an article. It was her and Sheriff Colson with Ethan Moreno and his parents.

  “You’re pretty famous out in California, huh?”

  Hollows glanced at the article.

  “Big hero. The bounty hunter who found Ethan Moreno.”

  Vega looked back at him and stopped smiling.

  “You’re still not a cop. You’re a girl with a gun who’s watched too much Buffy. So I’m asking as nicely as I can here, with all respect to you, that you tell Maggie Shambley you quit and that you stay out of the way. We don’t need civilian assistance in this matter, Miss Vega.”

  She let that sit for a moment. She waited until Hollows opened his mouth to say something else and then she spoke instead:

  “You have twenty-nine police here, not counting yourself and your chief, right?”

  Hollows was surprised but recovered quickly.

  “I know that doesn’t sound like a lot—”

  “I figure you’re probably the only captain in a town this size, maybe two lieutenants, two sergeants, on management and strategy, right? You seem to have had a bit of an oxy-heroin problem here for the last five years or so, so you probably have at least two teams of detectives on narcotics. Which leaves one team for homicides, one for sex crimes, one for robberies and burglaries. Which leaves fourteen patrol cops who answer the rest of the calls: domestic violence, shoplifting, assault and battery, vandalism. And in their spare time they do traffic control. You’ve had your funds cut three years in a row, and you can afford only one additional secretary at reception, so it’s very possible that you don’t divvy up the jobs at all and it’s more of a first come, first served or ‘clusterfuck’ type of situation. Which, judging by the age of that machine you’re typing on and the disrepair of this office in general, I tend to believe.”

  Hollows paused briefly. Vega was not close enough to see if his eyes were dilated, but she bet they were. Thinking hard. He leaned back in his seat and threw up his hands gently into little finger fireworks.

  “So you know how to use the Internet. I guess that’s supposed to impress me?”

  “I’m sure you know how to use the Internet too. I’m sure you know about David Haber, who lives two blocks from the Brandts, convicted of statutory rape in 2004. And Robert Vilinsky who lives half a mile from the girls’ grandparents’ house, pleaded no contest to trafficking in child pornography in 2012.”

  “I couldn’t confirm or deny either as it would compromise the confidentiality of an ongoing investigation,” said Hollows.

  “Sure,” said Vega. “Do you know the name Warren Pearson?”

  “Should I?”

  “He was arrested for assault five years ago in Philly. Bar fight, slammed his opponent’s face into a pinball machine. Spent sixty days in County. His bunkmate was a guy named Jay Nunez who, in addition to being arrested for possession of crack and heroin, was awaiting trial for molestation of his four-year-old stepson.”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me how this relates to my case.”

  “Last year Pearson got a job with a company called Diego Tree Service and Maintenance, the landscapers for most of Schuylkill County’s public schools, including Starfield Middle School and Denville East Elementary, where Kylie and Bailey Brandt attend, respectively.”

  “So you think Warren Pea
rson kidnapped the Brandt girls to give them to a pervert he met in County?” said Hollows. He moved his tongue to the front of his teeth, cleaning out the space.

  “Not particularly. But you had never heard of those men before I just told you about them. I’m not looking to impress you. And, with all respect, I think you need all the civilian assistance you can get.”

  “To chase dead ends?”

  “To shake out every rug in this trash heap town until you find those girls. It has been almost forty-eight hours. You don’t even have the time to be arguing with me right now.”

  Hollows smiled and folded his hands together. This is the church, here’s the steeple.

  Vega knew she was losing and kept calm. Her eyes combed Hollows’s desk—stapler, letter opener, a cup filled with pens. No scissors that she could see. Not yet, she thought. Not just yet. No sense breaking down the front door if you can pick the lock in the back, Perry would say. She wrote the email to the Bastard in her head: Captain Greg “Junior” Hollows. Give me everything you got.

  —

  Mrs. Svetich sat across from Cap in his office and watched the images on his laptop. Cap glanced back and forth between her face and the screen. She was an attractive woman, maybe not as young as the woman her husband was sleeping with, but she had nice eyes and smooth skin, and long brown hair tied up in a knot on top of her head like some Italian actress. Cap tried to see it from Mr. Svetich’s point of view. Gray hair at the roots, thin lips pressed together when she was upset, ruler-thin body but not from working out—naturally bony, thin wrists and thick hands.

  She shook her head gently and said, “Okay, that’s enough.”

  Cap pressed Stop and faced her. This was not an unfamiliar moment for him. When women thought their husbands were cheating, they were usually right, and he had had plenty of them as clients. He could typically tell how they were going to act—which were the sobbers and which were the plate throwers. Mrs. Svetich, though, could go either way.

  “So,” she said. “What now?”

  “Well,” said Cap. “That’s up to you.”

  “I know,” she said, annoyed. “I was thinking out loud. I know you don’t know what now, I was asking myself that.”

  “Of course.”

  She laughed a curt little laugh.

  “You know what, though, Mr. Caplan?”