The Janes

by Louisa Luna

  “Yes?”

  McTiernan flipped open his badge like a pro and said, “Detective Sean McTiernan, SDPD. This is Max Caplan, security consultant.”

  Her eyes goggled at the badge, and then she looked up at both of them confusedly.

  “How can I help you?” she said, her voice raspy.

  “We’re wondering if we could perhaps ask you some questions about a series of burglaries in the neighborhood recently.”

  “Burglaries?” said Mrs. Miller, as if she had never heard the word pronounced quite that way.

  “Yes,” said McTiernan. “One over on Cypress, and one on Pine. Within the past week.”

  If Mrs. Miller was alarmed at the news, she was pretty good at hiding it, Cap thought.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” she said plainly.

  “Of course not,” said McTiernan. “You wouldn’t have yet.”

  McTiernan tilted his body slightly forward to say something more intimate. Cap did the same.

  McTiernan continued: “Without going into too much detail, ma’am, we have reason to believe your house is the next target.”

  Now Mrs. Miller reacted—she reared back in surprise, looking back and forth between the two of them.

  “What?” she said, her voice louder. “What kind of reason?”

  “May we come in, Mrs. Miller?” said McTiernan gently. “So we can explain.”

  She scrutinized them for a moment more and then nodded hastily and stood aside. She led them to the left of a staircase into a two-story, open living room with large picture windows and a wall-mounted fireplace.

  “Please,” she said, gesturing to a brown leather couch and chair.

  McTiernan sat on the couch, so Cap chose the chair. Mrs. Miller sat on the couch, on the opposite end from McTiernan. She did not offer them drinks. Cap also noticed there was no smell of food drifting in from the kitchen, which he could see from where he sat, a curved, spotted marble counter. It stood out as strange to him—it was now past eight, and most families either would have eaten dinner or would be preparing to eat.

  “You were saying?” she said. “You have reason to believe my house is a target?”

  “Yes,” said McTiernan. He coughed one small, humble cough before continuing. “As I said, both burglaries have happened within the past week so we’re watching this area very closely. Our suspects are targeting people who collect art, sculptures mainly.” McTiernan gestured to a large piece next to the fireplace, three smoothed wooden blocks on a plank.

  He said it with such plausibility that Cap almost said, Really, they are? Instead he nodded sagely.

  “We only have this, and a piece in the master bedroom,” said Mrs. Miller. “And you can’t see either from the street, so how would they know they were here?”

  “My associate, Mr. Caplan, is a securities expert, and can elaborate a little on the suspects’ MO and what you can do to protect your home.”

  “We have an alarm system,” said Mrs. Miller, turning to Cap. “We turn it on whenever we leave the house.”

  “That’s good,” said Cap. “But these guys are surprisingly sophisticated. They’ve been able to disarm quite a few home security systems. And they’re in it for the long game, meaning they may have been monitoring your house for quite some time. Could I ask you what your schedules are like, generally, yours and your family’s?”

  A crease crossed Mrs. Miller’s copper eyebrows as she thought about it.

  “My husband works in medical research so generally eight- or nine-hour days during the week and a little bit on the weekend. He leaves the house around seven and comes back around six. Tonight he’s at an event. He has a lot of fundraising-type events. I work three days a week at a marketing firm for nonprofits, and our son, he’s seventeen, so between school and football practice and social activities he’s not home very much. So I’m home the most, you could say.” She paused and regarded Cap inquisitively. “Are they breaking into the houses during the day or at night?”

  “At night,” Cap added definitively. “Both have taken place at night but before midnight. Do you ever attend evening events with your husband?”

  “Yes, sometimes,” she said, bringing her arms slowly across her abdomen, crossing them.

  Cap noticed her body language changing the more she talked about her husband: the crossed arms, the features on her face freezing up.

  McTiernan must have noticed it too; he picked up the line where Cap had dropped it: “May we ask, when was the last time you and your husband were at an evening event together?”

  She thought about it, eyes searching the high angled ceiling.

  “That would’ve been Wednesday,” she said, adjusting a silver bracelet on her wrist.

  Her mouth and jaw were clenched shut after she spoke. Cap remembered her stumbling, angry, drunk. He struggled to recall her exact words to her husband, but couldn’t forget her face in the dim streetlight and warm air. She’d had the same expression she wore now, like there was so much to be angry about if only she had a big enough frown to express it.

  “What type of event was it?” McTiernan said, trying to sound matter-of-fact and doing well enough, but Cap knew he shouldn’t push it.

  “A fundraiser for a friend—Green Streets, or Green City, something like that. Environmental,” she said, appearing not too interested in remembering the details.

  “Sounds like you had a great time,” Cap said, trying to be cute, adding a grin.

  The start of a smile loosened up Mrs. Miller’s lips but didn’t get very far.

  “It was fine,” she said. “Just not my thing.”

  “What time did you return home after that event?” said McTiernan, still all business.

  “I don’t know,” she said, trying to remember. “Probably eleven.”

  “Did you see anyone or anything strange when you got here? Anything on the street? People or cars out of place?” asked McTiernan.

  Cap felt a flutter of anxiety in his chest, hoping Mrs. Miller didn’t have some kind of latent photographic memory, and she would suddenly remember seeing someone who looked just like him parked in a rental car across the street.

  “No,” she said immediately. “We parked the car in the driveway and came inside. I didn’t see anything unusual. Do you think they’re watching houses?” she asked, looking at Cap.

  “Possibly,” he said. “Now, you said your husband’s at an event tonight. Might your son be available—is he at home?”

  “He’s home, but he wasn’t that night. Out with friends,” she offered.

  “Do you mind if we ask him what we’ve asked you?” said McTiernan. “If he saw anything unusual?”

  Mrs. Miller paused, and Cap could sense a retreat, even though she didn’t move a hair or alter her expression. He thought two things: that she was practiced in concealing which way she leaned, and also that she was used to being in a position where she had to.

  “I’m sure he would have told me if he’d seen anything strange,” she said, measured.

  “Absolutely,” said McTiernan. “But please understand, we all see a lot of things in plain sight and we don’t realize we’re seeing them. They may not have seemed strange at the time, but in hindsight, they may prove helpful to us.”

  Cap admired how genuine McTiernan sounded, but Mrs. Miller didn’t seem moved. In fact she sat up a little straighter.

  “I think I’d like to have my husband here, or counsel, if you want to ask my son any questions,” she said, stern but polite. “Him being a minor.”

  Cap was impressed by her savvy, even though it temporarily wrenched their strategy. He couldn’t blame her; he’d never let any cop or reporter or lawyer near Nell unless they had a subpoena or a warrant or both, but since most people learned their rights from TV shows, he’d hoped he and McTiernan might have gotten a little more leewa
y here.

  Cap’s phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket. He read the text while McTiernan attempted to finesse Mrs. Miller.

  From Vega: “Status?”

  Cap typed back: “Kid’s in house but mom blocking. She’s smart. Dr not home.”

  “I understand your hesitation,” McTiernan was saying.

  He was doing his best, a great job, thought Cap, running lap after lap without dropping the relay baton, but at this moment right here, it didn’t matter. Mrs. Miller nodded politely and didn’t say a damn word.

  * * *

  —

  Vega ran around the block once at a slow trot. She actually didn’t think anyone was watching her but wanted to be prepared should she be stopped. She passed the Miller house, noticed some lights on inside, but didn’t linger.

  The cut under the bandage ached mildly, so Vega tried her best to run using only her leg muscles, raising the quads evenly and keeping her hips steady so they wouldn’t swing back and forth.

  She stopped at the corner, checked her watch, jogged in place and stretched her arms out over her head. Then she jogged up a dimly lit path next to a dark house with a real estate broker sign on a white post stuck in the lawn, a strip of stubby cactuses planted in pebbles to her left.

  The path led to a deck overlooking a backyard. Vega lightly stepped up the stairs like she belonged there and onto the deck, walking heel to toe. A motion light shone on her, but there was no alarm; Vega stayed clear of the sliding doors just in case. She took a quick look inside; the place was scarcely decorated, like an open house: a white dining table with fake fruit. But she didn’t care too much about what was in the house; all she wanted was the view from the deck.

  Her phone buzzed with an email from the Bastard.

  “Punk’s set the party posts to private” was all it read, with a link to Facebook.

  Vega clicked and scrolled through a dozen photos: Graham Miller and jock friends with Solo cups and cigarettes or girls; their eyes were narrow and bloodshot, their grins sloppy and stupid. RJ Otero was in a couple, smiling sheepishly. One caught Vega’s eye: a blond girl asleep on a couch, Graham sitting on the arm, pointing down at her, laughing. RJ Otero stood behind the couch, his smile forced, the strain in his jaw visible. The caption read “Aw big boy’s growing up.”

  She could see the back of the Miller house and backyard four lots away. All of the houses were separated by cedar wooden fences, about four or five feet high, more for delineation than security, she thought. The lawns were all the same size and square shape, laid out like a checkerboard, some with decks like the one she stood on, some with vinyl playground sets, others with aboveground swimming pools or trampolines, but no people in any of the backyards between Vega and the Miller house.

  She came down the steps of the deck and backed up about ten feet. She rubbed her hands together and pulled the sleeves of the hoodie over the heels of her hands, trying to give herself a little cushion.

  She started slow, then sped up, remembered not to look at her left leg hitting the wall but keep her eyes up to the top of the fence, where she hooked her hands, felt the wood splinter her a little but it was treated and sanded so not so bad. Then she hiked her right leg up and hoisted her butt on the fence, brought the left leg over and jumped into the next yard.

  She pulled the hood of the hoodie, which had fallen back, over her head and scurried along the back wall. Her cut throbbed a little from landing, and her fingers itched from the wood, but she kept going. She was absolutely in plain sight; anyone looking out the back window to check for raccoons or search for the sideways dome of the moon might see her if he paused for just one extra second.

  So she kept moving over each fence and into each yard, the injury and her fingers moaning a little more with each jump. Vega ignored the discomfort.

  Her feet touched down into the Millers’ yard, and she stuck close to the back fence, stepping onto a strip of smooth rocks laid out in geometric flower patterns. She examined the house: there was a well-lit square deck, a dim light on the first floor somewhere inside, near the front of the house; no lights on upstairs.

  Vega squatted and peered under the deck, saw three small rectangular windows along the ground. A basement or a rec room, she thought. She came up into a crouch and scurried under the deck into the darkness, the grass smelling mossier here. She approached the window furthest to her left and kneeled.

  It was a basement, and there was Graham Miller, playing a video game. First-person shooter. He sat on a couch, and Vega could see only the back of his head but knew it was him: the gingerbread brown hair, his long legs extended, feet resting on a beanbag. She estimated he was about six feet tall, couldn’t tell from the shoulders how strong he was, only that he had shitty posture.

  She could hear the sounds of the video game, muffled through the glass, gunshots and grenades. She could see Graham working the switches and buttons with his thumbs, tilting his head from one side to the other. Vega could count on her fingers how many times she’d played a video game; they didn’t hold her interest for more than a minute and she usually found that the people who played them regularly were lazy.

  Or maybe that’s just what she thought of Graham Miller.

  She squatted next to the window and leaned against the house, examined Cap’s text on her phone.

  Vega typed: “Do you think you can swing her?”

  She waited a moment, and then came his response: “Possible. Not likely.”

  * * *

  —

  Cap placed his phone screen-down on his leg while McTiernan continued to navigate the questioning of Mrs. Miller, such as it was. She didn’t appear agitated, nor did she seem to be in a hurry for them to leave necessarily, but it was becoming clear that she would continue to say no politely until they wore themselves out from asking.

  “We’re not here to trick anyone,” McTiernan said. “We just need to make sure he didn’t see anything.”

  Mrs. Miller gathered her hair and brought it over one shoulder. Cap thought she looked lovely.

  “I think it’s a little strange,” she said, matter-of-fact. “We’re close to the Oteros—you must know Roland Otero?”

  If McTiernan was spooked, he didn’t show it.

  “Of course, he’s my commanding officer,” he said, like he was pleased to have discovered a mutual friend.

  “I talk to Palmer Otero almost every day. She hasn’t said anything about burglaries in the neighborhood.”

  McTiernan didn’t miss a drop, knocked the ball right back: “This is all somewhat sensitive, Mrs. Miller. It’s quite possible that Commander Otero hasn’t shared the information with his wife.”

  Cap couldn’t tell if she believed him, but still, she seemed calm. Then McTiernan’s phone began to ring. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the screen while he continued to make his case.

  “We don’t want to scare people here, just get as much intel as we can.”

  McTiernan turned the sound off on his ringer and passed the phone to Cap. It buzzed in his hand and the caller ID flashed across the top of the screen: “DEA MACKEY.” Cap picked up his own phone and texted Vega:

  “How sure are u the kid knows something?”

  McTiernan’s phone finally stopped buzzing.

  Mrs. Miller gave a shrug.

  “I wish I could be more help to you, but you’re not talking to my son, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice light, eyes averted to the side.

  Cap saw that Vega had written back: “Not sure.” He clenched his jaw.

  “Do you gentlemen need to leave?” Mrs. Miller asked earnestly. “You seem to be very busy,” she said, nodding to the phones in Cap’s lap.

  McTiernan fixed a smile on his face and stared at Cap. What now?

  And just then another text came back from Vega: “Gut is sure. One way to find out. Any chanc
e she’ll break?”

  “Just five more minutes of your time, Mrs. Miller,” said Cap. “Then we’ll be on our way.”

  McTiernan picked it up, kept stalling like a kid on Christmas Eve, and Cap wrote back as fast as he could to Vega:

  “No. U do u.”

  * * *

  —

  Vega powered down her phone and rapped on the small rectangular window with her knuckles. Graham Miller didn’t turn around, couldn’t hear over the video game war, Vega figured. She knocked again with her whole fist, and he turned, his face a mix of surprise and irritation. Vega smiled and gestured with her hand to come closer.

  Graham stood up from the couch and approached the window slowly, watching her suspiciously.

  “Hi!” Vega called through the glass. “Could you, uh, open this?”

  His head was directly at the level of the window; Vega guessed he was not quite six feet tall. Slender athletic build. Light tannish fuzz on his cheeks matching his hair color, hazel eyes with not much space between them and the bridge of his nose. Vega imagined to girls at school this might make him look like a rugged royal type, the result of generations of moneyed inbreeding. To her, it looked like he’d originally had one giant eye that had been split into two at a later time.

  He flipped the window open. It was awning style, the glass tilting inward so that it lay flat in the middle of the frame. Vega figured that it was about twelve inches wide by six tall, nowhere near wide enough for her to wriggle through.

  “Hi, I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said, speaking quickly and in the highest register she could reach without sounding like an animated bunny. “My name’s Alice, and I just bought the place on the corner—thirty-one hundred? And I was out running, and I locked myself out. No battery,” she said, waving her phone. “I can’t believe I did this,” she said, shaking her head.

  Graham stared at her and appeared sort of disgusted, not like he didn’t believe her but like he thought locking oneself out was untoward, next to picking your nose in public.