As the Wicked Watch(37)

“Anthony, but everybody calls him Tony,” she said. “He gets in sometime this afternoon.”

“Is he Cynthia’s brother?” I asked.

I’d wondered about their connection, because Pam told me that she never married Masey’s father. She must have sensed my curiosity.

“Cynthia and I became best friends in high school after I started dating her brother. I’ve always thought of her as my sister-in-love,” she said.

“Ladies,” Scott said, “sorry to interrupt, but I just want to let you know I’m good to go here. I just need to get you two mic’d up. Pamela, let’s start with you.”

Just like that, the nervous energy returned. I fumbled through my purse looking for my notebook with the questions I’d jotted down, then realized I had left it in the news truck. I only wished I’d done a better job of masking my disgust with myself.

“What’s wrong?” Pam asked.

“Oh, nothing. I . . . I, uh, left my notebook in the truck. I’ll be right back.”

A freaking novice, are you?

I was half embarrassed, half annoyed with myself. My plan was to get to Cynthia’s and take control of the situation. Now it felt more like the situation was taking control of me. When the woman whose child has been murdered must ask me what’s wrong, I was clearly not the one in control.

I ran out to the news truck to find my notebook, and the heel of one of the half-size-too-big pumps I’d bought because they were on sale got stuck in a crack and came off.

“Damn it!” I retrieved the shoe, which now had a deep, ruinous crevice down the back of the heel. Nervous energy pulsed through me like an electric shock. I paused and took a deep breath. Pam had kept it together so far. I couldn’t let her see me sweat. Once the interview starts is when things can get hard.

Jordan, you cannot fall apart.

I checked my makeup in the rearview mirror and smoothed my skirt and jacket, slipping on the flats I’d brought for this evening before returning to Cynthia Caruthers’s elegant dining room.

“Sorry about that,” I said as I looped the microphone underneath my jacket and hooked the battery pack onto the back of my skirt.

“Pamela, before we get started, I wanted to ask, what do you hope to accomplish in this interview today?”

She dropped her head and closed her eyes as she thought about her answer. By the time she looked up, her eyes were filled with clarity. “I want people to know who my daughter was. But let me be clear,” she said, stabbing the table with her forefinger. “I. Want. Her. Killer.”

Pam looked down at the table and covered her mouth with her left hand, then held up her right in a gesture I interpreted as “I need a minute.”

Scott took the opportunity to ask Cynthia if there were any cell phones nearby and to turn the ringers off. “And, Cynthia, if you wouldn’t mind, the house phone, too?” he asked.

“Those are already off,” she said.

Yes, off since the previous interview with Channel 11, which I must now follow, which I hate to do, in such an emotionally charged situation.

The dining room curtains were drawn closed, and the room was dark. Too dark, in fact. I should have asked Cynthia to tie back the panels and let in some natural light. Scott flipped on the light atop his camera.

I started the interview. “When was the last time you saw your daughter?”

“Why are you asking me that? I told you I was at work. I left . . . I left that morning a-a-at six o’clock,” she stammered. “You-you-you know that!”

Pamela and I had talked about the last time she’d seen Masey at the coffee shop, but we’d never had the conversation on-camera. I should have prepped her. I should have explained to her that some of the questions I would be asking were about situations the two of us had talked about previously but were unknown to viewers. Expecting Pam, in her current state, to account for that was a rookie mistake. If I hadn’t been so lost in memories of my own trauma, I would have remembered that. Now Pam was triggered. Her face twisted and leaning forward, she said with conviction, “Why do our kids always have to be runaways? Huh? Unparented and misguided? Neglected and unloved? The police instantly go there. She was fifteen years old! She was a straight-A student invited to attend a prestigious STEM school! How did she accomplish that without a loving family to support her?”

I agreed with everything she said, but this wasn’t the reaction I had expected. I thought about asking Scott to stop filming so that I could explain why I asked the question. Instead, I let the camera roll and searched Pamela’s eyes, trying to connect with her soul. I realized she was expressing her frustration with police for falling back on stereotypes and their own biases, not with me.

“Pam, I know. I hear you, and I agree with you,” I said. “But we’ve never spoken about your recollection from that day on-camera. Okay? I should have prepared you for that question. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m just . . . ,” Pam said irritably.

“Let’s take a break,” I suggested.

“No, really. I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said.

I’m not.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she insisted.

I looked back at Scott. “Let’s do that take again.”

I rephrased the question.