by Kate Gable
"No, we very much appreciate Neil's cooperation," Luke says. "What I don't appreciate, however, are the lies. Your son knows a lot more than he's saying. What I want him to know is that if he cares about his friend Violet at all and if he wants to help us find her, then he would tell us everything that he knows about that night."
"I already told you everything," Neil says. “And Detective Carr. I told her that I picked her up."
"Neil, shut up," Mr. Goss interrupts him, but Neil's eyes are huge like saucers and his cheeks are bright red.
Anger is boiling up within him and he stands up.
He pops up to his feet and puts his face in Luke's face.
"I told Detective Carr everything. I picked her up when she got dropped off by Kaylee and her mom. She waited for me in the driveway. She got on my moped. We drove around. We went all the way to the observatory. We had some food. We made out. That's it, nothing happened."
"Then you dropped her off at home?"
"We're leaving. Let's go," Mr. Goss says, grabbing his son by his shirt and pushing him toward the door.
"I dropped her back off. I have no idea why her clothes were found there."
"Were these the clothes that she was wearing the last time you saw her?" Luke asks, wasting no time.
Mr. Goss keeps trying to usher Neil toward the door, tugging on his arm and physically moving him, but Neil doesn't budge.
"Yes, that's what she was wearing."
"Shut up." He hits the back of his head and Neil winces in pain.
"You did not just do that, did you?" Luke asks, walking up to Mr. Goss and physically getting in between him and Neil. "I will not stand for any physical abuse of children, let alone one that happens right in front of me."
"I wasn't physically abusing my son, you moron," Mr. Goss barks.
"You just hit him in the back of his head right in front of me. You realize that you're not allowed to do that and I'm a mandatory reporter."
"What are you going to do? Call Child Protective Services on me?"
"Yes, that would be appropriate," Luke says, crossing his arms. "If you do that in front of an FBI agent in an interview room where you know we are recording every single thing that is being said, who knows what kind of sick and twisted things you're capable of doing in the privacy of your own home. But, that's not for me to find out."
I lean over and take a closer look at Neil who has a small smile on his face.
I have a feeling that very few people have ever stood up to Mr. Goss and it's nice for Neil to see that someone is actually capable of bullying the bully.
"If you think that you can talk to my son while you call CPS to investigate me, you are sorely mistaken. You cannot do that," Mr. Goss says.
"Yes, I know, but that's not why I'm doing it."
He turns to Neil and asks him, "Is there anything else that you can tell me about that night? You dropped her off. Did you really drop her off?"
I bite my lower lip.
I know that he's asking this in front of his father because were Neil to admit something outside of a parent's presence, there is no way that it could be used in court as evidence against him and it would put the whole chain of evidence in jeopardy.
"I just dropped her off," Neil says. "Now I wish I hadn't, but I have no idea how her clothes got back to the observatory, why, or what happened to her. I wish that I could help you. That's why I told her mom and her sister what happened because it doesn't matter if I'm the last person who’s seen her alive. I just want her found."
"What do you mean, the last person seen her alive?" Luke asks.
"That's it, we're leaving." Mr. Goss pushes his son out the door.
"I just meant that, you know, because she might be dead," Neil relents.
I watch the expression on his face fade and become more distant. It's almost as if he has said too much.
He realizes that he made a mistake and now he needs his father there after all, no matter how much he likes seeing someone put him in his place.
14
I go in to talk to Luke after the Gosses leave. He continues to sit in the interview room, a little dumbfounded with a vacant expression on his face.
"What do you think?" I ask.
He just shakes his head and responds, "I don't know. I thought that he had nothing to do with this for a while. I mean, against all odds, kind of. He seemed to really care and then that last statement at the end just throws me for a loop."
"I know what you mean," I say.
We've all seen it a million times before. A person you interview says all the right things and you start to believe him and you think maybe they didn't do it. At the end, they say something that they couldn't possibly know. They use a past tense. They refer to someone as if they're not there. They refer to someone as dead when they couldn't know for sure. It's a small detail, but it points you in the right direction. In reality, everyone always refers to everyone in present tense until they know for sure that they are no longer with us. Neil Goss didn't do exactly that, but he came close. He referred to Violet as possibly dead, not just missing.
"What are you thinking?" I ask. "Do you think he had something to do with it?"
"He was the last person to see her. He admitted to being there. As far as forensic evidence, I don't know. They're still collecting and you know how it is. It takes a while to get anything back. This isn't television."
"If Neil is guilty, then that means... What does that mean exactly? Would he have killed her or is he still keeping her alive somewhere?" I ask this out loud, letting my mind wander.
"You shouldn't let yourself think like that," Luke says. "I know you're a professional, but she's your sister and it's different when it's family. You know that."
"I know, but what can I do? It's almost like I've been preparing my whole career to deal with this case and I'm not prepared at all."
"You can't be. No one can," Luke says, shaking his head. "It always takes you by surprise. No matter how much we see it happening to other people, we just can't imagine it happening to us."
"It just doesn't seem real," I say and tears start to gather in the back of my eyes. My jaw clenches and that familiar feeling of way too much saliva floods my mouth. I'm so tired, exhausted, and emotionally spent that I can't keep my tears at bay, not even a little bit.
When Luke throws his arms around me, pulls me close, and holds me there, despite me trying to break away, I let myself sob and I really lose myself in the emotion. He holds me as my whole body shakes and I gasp for breath. I wipe the wetness on his jacket, but my face just gets more and more drenched. Somehow when I let my tears start going, I can't make them stop. It was almost easier to keep everything bottled up like it was before. It’s safer. Now that they're out, I can't make them stop. I have no more control. I have no control over my body. I have no control over anything.
A few minutes later, when I start to calm down, I try to break awayagain. Again, he stops me and he just holds me. It's like he knows what I need more than I do. I like that. I like the comfort and the security that it makes me feel.
"Are you okay?" he asks, wiping the tears from my cheeks and lifting my head up to his.
I lick my lips since they are inexplicably dry and so is my mouth. It’s as if all water within me seemed to have vanished or evaporated.
"I'm sorry about that," I say. "I don't know what came over me."
"It's fine. I understand. This case is so personal. I just wish that you weren't here."
"No, I'm glad that I was," I say. “You didn't bring up the fact that Natalie and Violet were making out."
"Yeah, I didn't. His dad was there and I wasn't sure I was going to get the truth about that. I also didn't want that coming back to Natalie's parents."
"That was the right approach, the right thing to do."
"Of course, but I still wonder what his reaction would be."
When I walk back out into the precinct, everyone is polite enough to not ask me how I'm feeling and I appreci
ate their concern. There are a few looks of sympathy and support, but that's it. You can always depend on cops to not talk too much about their feelings. In this case, I appreciate that very much. They know what it's like when you lose control of your emotions, especially in the workplace and they know that you need some time to get back to normal. Talking about it is something you do with a therapist, but not with everyone else, at least not unless you are close friends.
Captain Talarico asks to see us in his office and when we arrive, there are a few more agents and deputies there as well. We end up moving to the conference room next door and talk about what happened with the Neil Goss interview. These kinds of meetings allow us to review the footage and talk about why someone is lying, along with where and how. It allows the newer deputies to learn how to identify certain signs, certain emotions, and what decisions have to be made with the investigation as a whole.
"I may be in the minority here," Captain Talarico says. "After we have reviewed all the footage, including the last bit when Mr. Goss was trying to get Neil out of the room as fast as possible, I get the sense that he's telling the truth."
Luke snaps his attention to him with a complete look of surprise on his face.
"Listen, I heard what he said at the end. Don't get me wrong, but I don't know. It just feels like he's telling the truth."
Cops like to talk about their gut a lot. Somehow their gut has become a metaphor for this general intuition or this feeling that you can't describe and you don't have much evidence for, but you still feel. As a professional, we like to pretend that everything is very objective and all decisions are made in this objective way. The truth is that when we talk about our gut, we're talking about our feelings and there is nothing objective about that. This isn't an accusation at all. This job wouldn't be possible without feelings.
In fact, I wish that we would talk about them more in the open with the people we interview, the questions that we ask, and the people we suspect. They require evidence, but it's really the feelings that get us there first. Something doesn't add up, something feels off, something feels like it doesn't quite fit. These hunches, this intuition, these gut reactions, are the source of all that we do. In this case, the captain is arguing exactly what I am feeling.
"Why would he come and talk to Mrs. Carr,” Captain Talarico asks, "and put him at the center of this investigation? This is just a question, playing a devil's advocate or whatever, but tell me your thoughts."
This is a brainstorming session. Not all precincts do this, but I like that Captain Talarico does. It brings in input from people that would otherwise not provide any and it allows everyone to learn how to be better investigators.
"You can't deny the fact that he said what he said," Luke says, changing the topic.
"No, of course not, but he knows that she's missing. He knows that this is an investigation. He didn't come out and say that she was dead. He did say possibly dead though."
"Yeah, but still, there is something off about that."
"There is. I'm not going to argue. Let's think about everything else he said in this two hour conversation. It seemed to me that he wanted to be helpful."
"Murderers are often hanging around police stations trying to be helpful. You know that." Luke laughs and so does the captain.
15
We discuss the case in more detail. He argues for the possibility of the girls running away. There isn't much evidence of that, but then again, there isn't much evidence of much else.
It's hard for me to tell if he's playing devil's advocate or just trying to mess with me. The other possibility is that he actually believes that they ran away together.
"What about the clothes?" I ask.
The clothes are a never ending question to just about any possible theory. Why would the clothes be found in two Ziploc bags, folded over, and tucked in pretty neatly?
Why would they do that if they were going to run away?
Why would anyone do that if they took them? Leaving the clothes is leaving evidence.
Currently they're getting checked for fibers, saliva, and every other bodily fluid, but it's going to be a while before we have any of the results even though we put in rush orders.
If someone had taken them, why not just take both of them and disappear completely?
If they ran away, why not just run away wearing the clothes on their back?
It's a mystery that I need to solve, but by the expression on Captain Talarico’s face, I can tell that it's something that he's worried we might never get answers to.
“What about money?” I ask. “If they did run away, where did they get money from? They don't have bank accounts. They had debit cards, but there's been no activity on them. How could they pay for anything?”
“I don't know. That's why it's just a possibility,” Captain Talarico says.
Luke and I exchange a significant glance. Their theory doesn't make any more sense than mine and, unfortunately, we won't know the truth until we find out more.
Luke and I walk out of Captain Talarico’s office and he asks if we can have dinner again.
"I'd like to, but I have to get back," I say. "I have this murder case that I'm working and I'm already really behind."
"What happens if they assign it to someone else?"
"This is my job, Luke. This is what I do for a living. I wouldn't ask you to not take some job somewhere else for me."
"You wouldn't?" he asks.
We're standing in the hallway where people are coming and going. We're keeping our voices hushed, but that only makes us seem more suspicious.
This isn't the right place to have the conversation. He walks me out to my car in the parking lot where we can have a little bit more privacy.
"If you want to be in a relationship with me, don't ask me to put my career on the back burner," I say, crossing my arms. "That's not going to get you anywhere."
"Yeah, I can see that.” He nods. "It's not really about your career, is it?"
"I was here for the interviews. I'll be here for another press conference. I have to go back and do my job. Plus, there's only so few things I can do here. You know that."
"What about interviewing all of her school friends, talking to people who work in gas stations, and anyone who's around the comings and goings of this town? You know who works here. You know who lives here. You know who her friends are."
"Please don't try to make me feel guilty. I'm here. I'm here as much as I can be, but one day or two days in LA is not going to change anything. I need to work on that case. If I'm not there, it's going to get assigned to someone else and then who knows what case I'll get next."
We stand looking into each other's eyes for a second.
He doesn't look disappointed, just acknowledging what I'm saying. I can actually see him hearing me, which I appreciate.
A lot of the guys that I've dated before seem to gloss over my needs and wants when I tell them what I have to do and what I can't do.
I know that he still wants me to get serious with him. He still wants me to be his girlfriend, but luckily, he doesn't bring that up.
Luckily, he lets it go and I don't talk about it either. I like this place where we are now.
This friendly ground where he sees me and I see him while there's a possibility of what may happen in the future.
“Kaitlyn!” Mom yells my name from across the parking lot. She waves at me and walks over briskly.
"What's wrong? What are you doing here?" I ask.
"I wanted to catch you since you told me that you were leaving."
"Yeah, but I'll be back. I just have to get back to LA for a bit."
"I need to talk to you," she says quietly.
"Yeah, sure." I give a nod to Luke and he leaves.
Mom is dressed in her favorite plum trench coat and thick boots. She gets cold easily. I guess that's where I get it from since my body starts to shiver even when everyone else is just wearing long sleeves.
Mom has had a thyroi
d problem for a while and even takes medication for it, but when I got mine checked out, everything turned out to be fine. The cold is just due to my unusually low body temperature.
"Thanks for coming by," I say and wave her over to sit down in my car.
"Yeah, sure. Why do we have to go in here?" she asks and I pull off some of the wrappers from the front seat. "You know, you could clean this car once in a while. It wouldn't kill you."
I roll my eyes or rather resist to fully roll my eyes.
She takes her finger, runs it over the dashboard, and points out, "Look at this, look at how dirty this is."
"Mom, can we not talk about this right now?"
"You know, they have these people called detailers and they'll come over, vacuum your car, and all that stuff."
"It also costs $150 bucks and I would have to stay home, so that's impossible."
"What about running it through the car wash once in a while? That's, what, fifteen dollars?"
"Mom, I just don't have the mental space to deal with washing cars right now. Can we just talk about what you came here to talk about?"
"Sure," she says, disappointed.
She pulls on her coat and sets it on top of her lap, almost not wanting it to touch her seat.
There's trash packed into each of the compartments on both sides and I wish that I took the time to throw it all out before she came here.
"If you were visiting my apartment, I would have invested a little bit in a housekeeper to come out once and get it all ready, but this is a surprise visit. What did you want to talk to me about?" I ask.
"Just if you found out anything else about Violet. Any news on the case? Anything that the cops aren't necessarily sharing with everyone?"
I bite my lower lip.
"Yes, there is something, huh?" She reads me immediately.
It was probably because I already wanted to ask her about it and just didn't know how. Normally, I'm much better at withholding the truth.