“I’ll leave you with Detective March,” he says.
After he’s gone, she lets out a breath. I try to think of a question to ask, but for the moment I’m stumped.
“He’s the person I talked to over the phone?”
I nod.
“He seems real nice.”
“He is,” I say. “Let me begin by expressing my condolences, ma’am. I know how shocking this is, and you have my deepest sympathy.”
The words sound hollow but I mean them. She does have my deepest sympathy, even though I took against her at first sight. She has it despite her reaction to my lieutenant. And I have nothing but the old clichés to communicate with, condolences and deep sympathy, even though what I want to tell her isn’t boilerplate at all. I understand what she is going through. Oh, I know what it is to lose a daughter. I’d like to tell her that, only I can’t. I’d like to tell her that above all others, I am the right man for the job.
It would mean nothing to her, though, and I don’t have the words.
“It is shocking,” she says. “That’s exactly what it is. But let me tell you something right now: I am not shocked. I’m not surprised, I mean, that this would happen. It’s just. . For this to happen to her. After all she’s been through. It’s not right, it’s just not.”
She scrubs a hand over her face, dragging her eyes down, her nose, her lips.
“My girl had every right in this world to be happy. If anybody deserved it, she did-and trust me, nobody wanted it more. She loved being alive, my little Mona.” She goes to her purse for a tissue, then balls it in her fist. “And he seemed so good for her at first.”
“Jason Young?”
She nods. “Early on, she took after me. She was a wildcat of a girl, always going with the exact wrong men. She liked them bad.” A wan smile. “And Jason, he brought some stability to her life, you know?”
“When did they meet?”
“I don’t know exactly. She had issues with me.” She makes quotes in the air. “And she was right to, I admit it. But one day I get a call from her and she says she has a good job and she’s not in trouble and there’s a man in her life, too. The first time I met him, I remember thinking, My baby’s safe now. I could stop worrying.” She shakes her head. “That didn’t last. From the beginning he didn’t care for me. That was fine, though, ’cause I understood why. She’d told him, you know. About. . everything.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Everything?”
“You don’t know, then.” She lets out a little moan. “I thought you could look on the computer or something and find everything out.”
“What did she tell him?” I ask.
“I have to say it out loud?” She takes a deep breath. “It was my ex-husband, Simone’s stepfather. He used to do it when I was at work and they were alone together. Starting when she was eleven or twelve.”
The pulse in my temple starts to pound.
“They said I was wrong not to believe her, and maybe I was. The school counselor ended up reporting it, and they took him away to jail. After that, though, whenever there was a man in my life, I was always afraid, you know? That something might happen or she might say that something did. She could be very manipulative. She was always very mature for her age.”
“And this went on for how long?” I ask, my voice dry.
“She was fourteen, I think, when they arrested him. She moved out when she was sixteen, into a foster home out in the suburbs. Those people had a lot of trouble with her. After high school, we kind of lost touch for a while. I used to have a substance abuse problem, but I got that sorted out.”
“Were you arrested?”
“For the drugs?” She shakes her head. “I fell in love is what happened. I met somebody and we were together awhile, and we both ended up going to rehab.” She starts counting on her fingers. “That was eight and a half years ago. The relationship didn’t work out, but once I was clean, I stayed that way. Got myself some work, a place to live, and I never looked back.”
“Okay. So Simone told Jason about all this, and as a result he wasn’t your biggest fan. But you said he was good for her?”
“At first he was. They were so happy before. They had them a nice house, he bought her a new car. I remember on Saturdays, after they were out shopping, they would pull up in my driveway and she’d come in and show me all the things she got. It was sweet, like she was my little girl again. He would wait in the car, listening to the radio or something, but that was fine. I didn’t have a problem with it.”
“What changed then?”
“He got so strict with her. So controlling. She would call me on the phone because he said I was a bad influence. She couldn’t visit me no more. Then he started taking things away from her. He took her credit cards. He even sold her car, and she loved that car. But I would tell her maybe he was right. She was raised without any discipline, so whenever there was discipline, she always bucked.”
“Your daughter had separated from Jason, is that right? Was it a legal separation?”
“She just left, that’s all I know. It was after a big fight. The other thing, in addition to how controlling he got, was he started getting religious, too. He started telling her how she had to dress and who she could be friends with. She couldn’t have any men friends. It was getting scary. Every time she called, I kept expecting her to say he’d hit her.”
“Did she say that?”
“No. She never said it to me, anyway. But she wouldn’t have, because one of her things was that she always wanted to look successful in my eyes.”
“To make you proud,” I say.
“It was more like a competition. Since I failed in life, she was showing me that’s not how she was gonna end up.” Her face goes dead a moment; then she forces a smile. “But like I said, I could understand that. I wasn’t a perfect mother.”
“She never told you what the fight was about, then.”
“All she said was, ‘I outgrew him.’ That was it. She changed jobs and moved in with that professor woman-and that was a terrible decision, too. That woman, Joy is her name, she was just as bad, just as controlling. That’s what Simone said. Always wanting to know her comings and goings, always trying to squeeze more money out of her. I told her she could come live with me if she wanted. But she didn’t. It was habit by then, being used by people. That’s what they all did; they used her. He did, that woman did, everyone did. I was the only one. . She should have come to me, shouldn’t she? This would never have happened.”
There’s clearly no love lost between Candace and Joy Hill. Through the window I can see Bascombe leaning over Aguilar’s cubicle to confer. I need to get into that interview with Jason Young, but first I need something I can use, a lever to pry him open.
“Mrs. Walker,” I say. “According to Dr. Hill, your daughter recently had a falling out with Jason over a loan he promised to make-”
“Oh, that.” She pounces on the subject, eyes brightening. “What a scheme that was. It was all the professor lady’s fault because of the rent being behind. She wanted money from Simone or else. So she put the thumbscrews on her, and what could she do? Jason has lots of money-he works three different jobs, did you know that? — so of course she goes to him. And he says fine, I’ll give you the money, but there’s something you have to give me first. She had to sleep with him again. So he was paying for it, basically, like she was some kind of street hooker.”
“And when was this exactly?”
“That was maybe two, maybe three weeks ago? It was before Thanksgiving, I know that.” She shrugs. “Simone told me about it afterward. She was very upset. She didn’t know what to do without that money, and she couldn’t get him to pay up.”
“Did he come around after that? To Dr. Hill’s house?”
She pauses awhile, thinking the question over. “He’s the one.”
“Did she ever tell you that he’d been to the house? Maybe she saw him outside on the street? Maybe he came to the door?”
“Yes.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes, she told me. He would go to the house and try to come in, but she wouldn’t let him. She told him to go away. Go away or she’d call the police.”
“You’re sure about this? You’d testify in court?”
A pause. “Yes, I will. So help me God, I will.”
I get up and go to the door, signaling the lieutenant.
“Detective,” she says. “It’s not right this happening to her. My girl wanted one thing in life, and that was to be happy. She at least deserved that.”
CHAPTER 3
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6 — 11:09 A.M.
Jason Young watches me from across the table, the familiar hunted look creeping into his eyes as I unpack one stack of papers after another: my notes from the scene, the preliminaries from the ME, transcripts of the statements Dr. Hill made last night to Aguilar and Mrs. Walker just completed with me, the photos from the scene, facedown on the table. And a lot of unrelated paperwork to pad it all out. I’m sending a message through this bit of theater. We have everything. We know everything. Tell me a lie and I’ll see through it because the facts are spelled out right here.
I square up a fresh legal pad in front of me, pen poised. “Now. Mr. Young. Why don’t we start with some basics? Where you live, where you work, that kind of thing.”
He glances from me to Bascombe, who sits to my left a few feet back, arms crossed. The wheels are turning. He’s trying to work out how much we really know. All I’m after for now is to get him talking, though. I need a baseline read on the man, to see what he’s like when he tells the truth. That way it will be easier to spot the deception later on.
“Don’t you already know that stuff?” he asks.
“These are just preliminaries we have to get out of the way.”
He sits back in his chair. “What was the question again?”
“Let’s start with your address.”
He gives me the street address of the apartment where Aguilar and I first spotted him. I write it down like it’s new information.
“And where do you work?”
“I’m an assistant manager at the Luggage Outlet on Richmond.”
“Okay.” I make another note. “And that’s your only employer?”
His eyes narrow. “No.”
I’ve caught him by surprise with the question. He scans the stacks of paper in front of me, probably wondering what else I have in there. Good. I want him to wonder.
“You have three jobs, isn’t that right?”
He nods slowly. “But only the Luggage Outlet is full time. I work nights and some weekends for Blunt Ministries, packing orders and duplicating DVDs, and there’s a friend of mine with a landscaping business who hires me on big jobs maybe once, twice a month.”
“Doing all that,” Bascombe says, “you must not have a lot of free time, Jason.”
“Not really.”
“So what’s your typical day look like? Take yesterday for instance. Walk us through that.”
“Yesterday wasn’t typical.”
“Just for instance,” I say. “Did you go into the Luggage Outlet at all?”
He shakes his head. “On Saturdays I go into the Blunt warehouse around ten-that’s off of Twenty-sixth Street-and I’m there pretty much all day, until maybe six or seven, depending on the volume of orders from the week. People order DVDs and over the weekend I do the duplicating and packaging; then the reverend will take them to the post office Monday morning.”
“The reverend?”
“Reverend Blunt. You know. . Curtis Blunt? He’s on the local radio.”
“Is that his church you were going to this morning?” I ask.
“He doesn’t really have a church. It’s more like a ministry. He has his show, and he makes videos of his teaching.”
“And he was with you yesterday?”
He shakes his head. “Not the whole day. He came by in the morning, but mostly I work alone. I get more done that way. The reverend’s really talkative when he’s there, so it’s hard to keep going.”
“What about lunch?” I ask. “You took a break, right? Where’d you go?”
“I’m not working three jobs so I can go out for lunch, man. I brought my lunch with me. That’s what I do.”
“All right, then. Why are you working three jobs?”
He shrugs. “Stupidity.”
Bascombe chuckles. “You wanna elaborate on that for us?”
“I’m working three jobs because, until about a year ago, I was spending money I didn’t have on a lifestyle I didn’t need. I had a mortgage and two car notes and about forty grand in credit card debt, which I was rolling from one card to the other. It kept growing and growing and I was barely making forty a year before taxes. So I said enough is enough.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I cut up the cards, sold the house, got rid of the cars, bought a junky used truck and started working sixty hours a week or more to put a dent in the debt. I’m getting out from under all that.”
“And what about your wife?” I ask. “You are married. I notice you’re wearing a ring.”
He lifts his hand and stares at the ring, like he’s only just noticed it.
“Yeah,” he says. “I am.”
“What did she think about all this?”
Young starts shaking his head in slow motion, a hard smile on his lips. “That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You’ve got me here because of Simone.”
I give nothing away. “That’s her name? Simone Young.”
He snorts. “She doesn’t call herself that anymore, but yeah. Simone Young. And all this”-he waves his arm over my stacked papers-“it’s for nothing, because whatever story she told you isn’t true, okay? It’s not even her fault, though. It’s Candace, isn’t it? I saw her out there when the other detective brought in the coffee. Listen, that woman is a bad influence on Simone, and if you separate the two of them and just ask Simone what happened, she’ll eventually tell you the truth. But not with her mother in the room.”
“The truth about what?” I ask.
“Come on. I’m not stupid, man. I see what all this is. But you know what? It’s he said/she said, because nobody else was there.”
“What’s he said/she said?”
“You know what.”
Bascombe chuckles again, acting like he’s impressed with the performance. “You gotta spell it out for us, though. For the record.”
“What you brought me here for,” Young says. “I didn’t do it. I mean, that’s not what it was.”
“What’s not?” I say, raising my voice just a bit.
“Rape,” he says. “Okay? It wasn’t rape. I didn’t rape my wife.”
“All right. So tell us what did happen. Give us your side.”
“It’s not gonna make any difference.”
“Telling the truth makes a difference,” I say. “It always does.”
I risk a glance at the lieutenant, who’s on the edge of his chair. He raises an eyebrow ever so slightly and I answer with an imperceptible nod. This is going great. Better than expected. We’ve got him talking, and even though he’s being careful to speak of Simone in the present tense, the more he says, the tighter we lock him into a version of events.
And once he’s committed, every time we poke a hole in the story, he’ll be forced to change it, forced to improvise on the spot. The worst case scenario is that we can go to trial with clear evidence of deception. The best case scenario is that we run him back and forth through the inconsistencies so many times that he sees it’s hopeless and decides to come clean. We’re going for the best case scenario, needless to say.
“Seriously, Jason,” I say. “This is your opportunity to set things straight. We’re here to listen, and like you said, it’s her story versus yours. Only we don’t have your story.”
“Okay, fine. Here’s what really happened. Simone left me and moved in with a UH professor named Joy Hill. The idea was, she’d pay
rent and that way Joy wouldn’t have to sell the house, because her husband had left her. But when I found out about this, I was like, ‘How are you gonna swing that?’ Because Simone was hardly making anything. She had some hours at a bookstore, but quit to take a job at this nonprofit center. Well, I looked that position up online and they listed the salary as eighteen grand a year. So I know this arrangement’s not gonna work.”
“You told her that? The two of you had a conversation.”
“We had a fight over the phone. I tried to explain the numbers to her, and she said I was treating her like a child-which is true, but she was acting like one. She knew I didn’t want a divorce and assumed that if it came down to it, I would hand over the money.”
As he talks, he leans forward, elbows on the table, staring into his cupped hands.
“I knew she’d have to come to me eventually, so when she did, I was ready. At least I thought I was. She still managed to surprise me, though: the amount she wanted was ten thousand. Ten! I told her there was no way, but we could meet and talk about it. That’s all I wanted, to talk. For the last six months, she’d barely acknowledged my existence. She wouldn’t take my calls. If I went over there, she wouldn’t answer the door. Now suddenly all that changes.”
He admits he went over there. Knew the lay of the land.
“So you met up in person. When was that?”
He pauses. “It was Veteran’s Day, whenever that was. We went to a restaurant and I remember on the TVs they were showing a lot of military stuff.”
I reach into my briefcase under the table, consulting the Filofax. “November eleven was Veteran’s Day. That was a Wednesday.”
“Right,” he says. “Anyway, she wanted a lot of money. A loan, she said, but we both knew there was no way she’d ever pay it back-and besides that, she’s my wife, okay? If I was going to give her money, I’d give it, not loan it. But I told her the money wouldn’t solve her problems. The solution was obvious, but it wasn’t that.”
“And the solution was what?”
“To move back in,” he says, wide-eyed. “Obviously. And I could tell she was listening, too, in a way she hadn’t before. We got married too quick, that’s the problem. We weren’t on the same page about a lot of stuff. But now she’d been on her own a little and she’d seen how hard it could be. She softened up some. I was like, ‘You just need to come home.’ But she said I sold her home. We couldn’t afford it, I told her, but my new place, that was her home now.”
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