by Louisa Luna
Junior pulled over, and they all watched the caravan: the Whites’ car containing Jamie and her parents and aunt and Bailey, the lawyer’s car close behind, two state police, three local, and then the news vans—ten that had become twenty while the authorities had been conducting the interviews in the hospital.
A helicopter cut the air above them, hanging low like a mosquito. Cap lowered his window, leaned his head out and peered up, shutting one eye to the rough wind from the rotors. The sound amplified and became less choppy, turned into a booming rumble. There was something strangely peaceful about it; Cap had the feeling that if he closed his eyes and opened his arms the gust might lift him up, he might rise and float—until a voice or a car horn shocked him awake, brought him back down fast.
16
Vega watched the TV in the break room back at the police station, saw Jamie hobbling out of the hospital clutching Bailey to her side, Sam the lawyer stepping between them and the cameras, then Hollows, Cap, herself. Her eye twitched when she saw her face on the screen, the gravel scratches and the bandage, the bruise around her eyebrow. It all looked worse than it felt, although now that the last of the drugs had worn off, the pain was manifesting as weariness, joints and muscles cracked and stretched. She swallowed the rest of the room-temp Lipton tea from the cup in her hand.
“Vega.”
It was Hollows in the doorway. He nodded at her, and she nodded at him, and the nods meant that she should follow him. They went to Traynor’s office, where Vega felt like she had missed something. It was Traynor behind his desk and Cap leaning on the wall, the Fed and the Fed’s boss, who was silver haired and looked like a businessman instead of an agent—tie clip, cuff links, clean lines on the pants. He was tired in the face though, thin but swollen skin under the eyes and jawline. He spoke quietly.
“This is Miss Vega?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Fed. “Miss Vega, this is my supervisor, Special Agent Gatlin.”
Gatlin stood and shook her hand, glanced and read the screen on the tablet in his other hand.
“Miss Vega, I understand you shot and wounded a key witness in this investigation, and now she is unresponsive?”
He did that question-mark ending, reserved for lawyers and teenage girls. It was difficult to know if he actually wanted an answer. He closed the cover on his tablet.
“That’s not the ideal outcome,” he said to her, as if they were the only two in the room. “I imagine you’ll have to appear before a grand jury at some point.”
“Is this really your jurisdiction, sir?” said Cap, agitated.
“Caplan—” said Traynor.
The Fed rubbed his eyes.
“No, let’s just hold on,” said Cap, coming off the wall. “You’re coming in here and threatening my partner with indictment after she acted in self-defense and defense of a minor. We don’t need that kind of help. She doesn’t give a shit if she goes before a grand jury. She doesn’t give a shit if she goes to jail.”
Gatlin smiled thoughtfully, like he was doing math in his head, and said, “What a relief that must be.”
“Yes, it is,” said Cap. He patted his hand over the middle of his chest, flattening an invisible tie. “It’s fucking heavenly. So, sir, do you have anything you can bring to this case, or did you just come here to slap us on the wrist? Because if that’s the case, however much the Bureau paid for your plane ticket, it seems like too much.”
Vega knew he was tired, could hear the cords straining in his throat, could see his eyes watering as he got more and more pissed off.
For just a second, the room was quiet and airless, and in that peculiar space Vega thought of him unclasping her bra and wondered if he could do it with one hand.
Traynor coughed as an intro and said, “Sir, we’ve all been working round the clock here, and I think what Mr. Caplan is getting at is we’ve made it a point not to get caught up in digressions. Do you have anything new for us?”
“Just one thing,” Gatlin said, not angry, no longer bemused.
Vega got the impression nothing moved him much in any direction.
He opened his tablet again and tapped the screen. He showed it to Traynor but spoke to the room.
“We’ve been re-examining the Ashley Cahill and Sydney McKenna cases,” he began.
“Re-examining?” said Cap. “Aren’t they still open?”
Gatlin turned to him and poked his tongue around his cheek. Traynor touched one finger to his temple like he was about to tell the future. Vega felt a laugh shudder through her chest and throat; she kept her mouth shut tight.
“Yes, Mr. Caplan, they are open, just a bit chilly. We found one more connection—both Ashley and Sydney took ballet classes at small studios.”
“So did Kylie,” said Vega.
Everyone thought about it.
“Yes,” said Gatlin. “And all three of those studios used the same distributor—Moreland Athletics.”
“So are we talking to them?” said Traynor.
“We are,” said Gatlin. “We have a man there going through employee lists, looking at who has made deliveries or sales to all three locations.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to isolate Kylie Brandt’s first?” said Junior. “In the interest of time?”
“Can’t be too many guys who’ve worked there over four years, in deliveries and sales in those three areas,” said Vega.
“That’s exactly right. By looking at all three scenarios, Captain, we’ll actually narrow our suspect list,” Gatlin said.
“Moreland Athletics didn’t come up in the ballet teacher’s statement, far as I know,” said Traynor, standing. “While we’re waiting for lists, let’s cover it again, everyone who works there. The suspect profile is someone with substantial disposable income, probably male, probably Caucasian. Special Agent Gatlin, you and Special Agent Cartwright can accompany Captain Hollows to the location if you’d like to see it.”
“That’s fine,” said Gatlin, eyes on his tablet.
“Vega, Cap—Alex Chaney’s waiting for you.”
—
Chaney was pacing and gnawing his fingertips when they came in. He wheeled around and shut his eyes in relief when he saw them.
“Hey, you guys…could you guys tell them I didn’t have anything to do with this—you know I didn’t have anything to do with this, we talked about it, we had a—”
“Sit down, Alex,” said Cap.
He was past exhausted and anxious and was now feeling like he had felt when Nell was a newborn and he was working certain cases—awake but not awake, when coffee didn’t work anymore and it was just sugar he wanted, candy and soda.
Chaney dropped into the chair and put his thumbs and forefingers on his temples, making an awning out of his forehead.
Cap sat across from him, and Vega stood behind Cap.
“You sell drugs to a guy named Evan Marsh?” Cap said.
Chaney shivered and shrugged.
“Yeah, sure. Works at the Giant, right?”
“That’s right,” said Cap. “Now you need to think—the day Kylie came to see you, was Marsh there too?”
Chaney looked back and forth between them, cornered.
“He got something to do with Kylie?”
Cap cut the air with his hand.
“Just listen to what I’m asking,” he said. “The day Kylie came to see you, was Evan Marsh there?”
Chaney bit his lips so they disappeared.
“Yeah, I think so. I think that’s right. I mean, it makes sense. Timing’s right. Marsh comes by once a month, toward the beginning.”
“But you don’t remember them talking to each other specifically, or anything like that.”
“No, man, I wanted to get her out of there. I said to her stay here, in the corner with the cat—she was playing with my cat—and I went to get my keys and my jacket.”
“So when you came back to the living room, was she still playing with the cat?”
“No,” said Chaney. “She was talking to
some of them, the dopeheads, and I remember thinking she looked so much older than when I last seen her.”
“Was one of them Marsh?” said Vega.
Chaney gazed up to her, his eyes wandering around her face, registering her injuries.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He looked back to Cap. “I just wanted to get her out of there.”
Cap tried to picture Chaney’s house in daylight, tried to see Kylie there with the cat, talking to Marsh and whoever else.
“Does Marsh usually come to your place by himself?” Cap said. “Does he come with people?”
Chaney perked up, eager to answer.
“Yeah, he does,” he said. “Lately a guy named Bruce.”
Cap scrolled through the list of Evan Marsh’s known associates in his head, thought he remembered a Bruce.
“Bartender, right?” said Vega.
Chaney rapped his knuckles on the table.
“That’s right. At Stag’s.”
“You got a number for him?” said Cap.
Chaney pulled out his phone and tapped some buttons. Vega put the number in her phone, and then Chaney looked up at both of them and sniffed dramatically.
“We’ll walk you out,” said Cap.
“That’s it?” said Chaney, looking like a kid who just found out he didn’t have to get the flu shot.
“That’s it,” Cap said. “We don’t have any questions or concerns regarding your small business aspirations. If you could keep track of your clientele, maybe work up a list for us of people who come to see you at the beginning of the month, that would be helpful.”
“You got it, man,” said Chaney. He stood and made fists, unsure of how to process the energy. He made a sound like “Hoo,” part sigh and part whoop.
The three of them left the room, entered the second-floor hallway, which was narrow and crowded with circles of cops. They headed for the stairs, and then Vega stopped short in front of Cap, and Cap put his hand up in reflex, felt the lats in her back turn to clay, and then Cap saw why: Junior holding Jamie Brandt’s arm, coming up the stairs.
Jamie started to smile when she saw Vega, but then her face hardened up when she caught sight of Chaney lurking behind Cap.
“The fuck is he doing here?” she whispered.
“He’s helping us,” said Vega.
“Helping you,” said Jamie, incredulous. “He never helped anyone but himself. “What do you know about anything?” she said to him.
Chaney held his hands up.
“I swear, I’m here to help find her.”
“The fuck are you talking about? The fuck is he talking about?” she said to Vega, her voice cracking into a shriek.
“We need to bring you up to speed, Jamie,” said Cap.
“Yes, you goddamn do, Mr. Caplan. I don’t know anything that’s going on right now; that’s what I’m doing here. What are we doing to find Kylie? What’s this asshole got to do with it?”
“Jamie,” said Vega. “One thing and then the other.”
Jamie blinked twice like Morse code, and Vega said it again more quietly:
“One thing and then the other.”
The words had a pacifying effect on Jamie while she considered the situation. She studied Vega’s face, and the hallway took on the feel of a junior high basketball court before the free throw, all the parents holding their breath, hoping to hell the kid would make the shot.
—
At a stoplight, Vega opened a small foil envelope and shook two Advils into her mouth, tasted the sugary coating in the back of her throat and waited. The sun was starting to sink again, the temperature dropping fast after a deceptively warm day. Her window was open, and a burst of cold air shot through the car and hit the open cuts on her cheek.
She thought of when her mother used to take her and Tommy to the Russian River, and they’d wade into the water, walking on a million pebbles and then smooth, round rocks that seemed made to fit the arches of her feet. The water was cold, but she’d get used to it quickly, her body heat sinking to match it.
But then the riverbed would drop off, and the plunge wouldn’t startle Vega as much as the temperature of the water, which would turn to freezing cold, the real cold, enveloping her, and she’d realize, this is what the river actually is—it is this cold, the kind that makes you blue.
That’s what she felt in the air now, and that’s the problem with this whole coast, she thought. They tell you it’s spring, they say out like a lamb, but it’s still winter underneath, barbs of ice packed deep in the dirt and gusts of Arctic air turning whipped cream wheels in the sky.
The light went green, and Vega followed the GPS to Stag’s Bar, a redbrick building on a small street with houses on either side. There were two small windows and a Coca-Cola light-box sign above the door, an American flag dancing around in the wind.
Inside, the counter was U-shaped and white and looked cheap and beat-up under the fluorescents in the corkboard ceiling. There were three customers, two young guys together on one side talking to the bartender, one old man on the other. The bartender had illegible script tattooed up and down both forearms and drowsy eyes. He was not particularly tall or husky.
They all gawked at her when she came in, none of them the least bit shy, the old man sipping his beer and staring at her face like he was watching a football game. The bartender walked away from the two young men, and they immediately erupted in laughter. The bartender glanced back at them and laughed too, in on the joke. He came toward Vega, smirking.
“What can I get you?” he said, shuffling his skater sneakers on the checkerboard floor.
“You Bruce Pastor?” said Vega.
He nodded up once. It was the who-wants-to-know nod.
“I’m Alice Vega,” she said. “I left three messages on your phone.”
Pastor snapped his head to the side.
“Battery’s dead,” he said, both hands on the bar. “Who are you again?”
“My name’s Vega. I find missing persons. I’d like to ask you some questions about Evan Marsh, about a time you and he bought drugs from Alex Chaney a month ago.”
She could see Pastor hedging in the dimly lit hallways of his head. She could almost hear the idiot chorus: lie to her.
“I don’t know either of those guys,” he said. “So I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not a cop,” she said. “I don’t care if you buy drugs or use drugs or if you’re on drugs right now. I need to know if you remember seeing a little girl at Alex Chaney’s house the last time you were there with Evan Marsh.”
Pastor was quiet; he was looking everywhere but at her eyes.
Vega leaned over the bar.
“The little girl was Kylie Brandt,” she said, close enough to his face to smell cinnamon gum. “We found her sister this morning, but Kylie’s still missing. I need to know what she and Evan Marsh talked about at Alex Chaney’s house a month ago.”
The two guys in the back chattered away. Pastor looked over his shoulder at them, then turned back to Vega, pursing his lips, gathering spit to speak.
“If you’re not buying a drink, you’re gonna have to leave.”
Vega sighed. She could tell he felt kind of bad about it but not bad enough to talk. He started to walk away, and Vega grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t do this,” she said. “Please just tell me if you remember.”
He yanked his arm away and shrugged, and even that was lazy, his bony shoulders barely making the arch.
“Sorry, girl. Wasn’t me.”
Now he no longer felt bad about anything. Now he was just a kid who wanted to cover his ass, like a million kids before him wanting to cover their asses. He walked away from her, and she watched him go with his skinny-boy slouch. He went back to talking with his friends, and they sputtered and laughed some more.
Vega honestly couldn’t determine if she was more angry or tired. Her face was tingling, but she was fairly sure it was the injuries and not roofless rage. She stared at he
r hands, palms and tops, the dirt and blood packed under the nails, and thought of the day she had had. Then she saw the three boys at the end of the bar and tried to think of the day they had had—probably woke up at noon and smoked weed and played Grand Theft Auto and jerked off.
She looked at the old man on the other side of the bar, sipping his beer, and felt like him, or felt like she imagined he was feeling—creaky and sore.
Then she thought of Caplan and his daughter. For some reason she imagined him helping Nell with homework at the kitchen table. Vega actually doubted that Nell needed much help with anything, but still she pictured Cap standing over her while she worked on math or chemistry, something with definitely right and wrong answers, nothing wishy-washy. She thought of Nell getting it, drawing a neat box around a string of numbers and letters. Cap would say, “You see, Bug [that’s what he called her, wasn’t it?], you don’t even need me.” And Nell would smile and say something smart. Maybe they would high-five. They would both be proud.
Maybe Cap and Nell had not done that today, but whatever it was, no matter the detail, Cap and Nell were unequivocal in the decency of their lives; it ran through them like thread and colored everything they did. And these guys, well, how was she to know, really; maybe they helped an old lady with her grocery bags and had run a tutoring session for at-risk kids today before they came here to get hammered at five p.m., but likely not. Vega stared at them, put a box around the answer.
She moved slowly at first toward them, her right hand running along the bar, when she came to the taps—Yuengling, Yuengling Light, Bud, Bud Light. She made a fist and hit one after another, and down came the tired streams, one by one onto the rubber mat on the floor. It was only during a pause in their conversation that Pastor noticed the sound.
“What the fuck, girl—” he said, managing to sound offended and hostile at the same time, and then he started to run.
Vega picked up a highball glass in each hand and lobbed one at him. He caught it like she knew he would, so she fired the other one at his head. It hit him, and he screamed, probably more from the shock of it than the pain, though he went down anyway.