Nice Girls(29)

“Is he—?”

“Yes, he is,” she said quietly.

The news had never mentioned anything about DeMaria Jackson’s child. Kevin had alluded to it, something about DeMaria running away from her family, not being able to “deal” with them anymore. I thought he’d meant her mother, but Kevin was talking about the baby, Demetrius. Her son.

Demetrius seemed to lighten the mood. Mrs. Jackson had someone to occupy her, and I could focus again. I turned on the audio recorder on my laptop.

“I’m here interviewing Leticia Jackson, mother of DeMaria Jackson,” I said out loud, checking that the recording app was on. “Leticia, if you could just give me your age, your occupation, and the city where you reside?”

Leticia leaned forward. “My name is Leticia Hughes Jackson. I am forty-one, and I live in south Liberty Lake. I work as a legal secretary.”

Her voice was so soft that I could barely see the sound waves on the app.

“Uh, could you speak a little louder for the laptop?” I asked.

She nodded, bouncing Demetrius on one jittery knee.

“Can you tell me about the last time you saw DeMaria?”

Mrs. Jackson took a deep breath, her eyes fixed on the ground. She was scrambling through the details, carefully setting them all together.

“It was a Friday, July tenth. My day off. I was sitting in here, watching TV and taking care of Demetrius,” said Mrs. Jackson, her eyes fixed on the ground. “DeMaria comes in to say goodbye to her baby boy . . . Always gives him a little kiss on his belly. She was wearing her black restaurant shoes, black pants, black shirt, and a white apron from the restaurant. Had her cell phone and wallet with her. Then she left. Someone gave her a ride.”

I felt the hair rise on my neck.

“Did you see—”

“No,” said Mrs. Jackson promptly, not looking up. “I didn’t see the damn driver. And I didn’t see the damn car. DeMaria often borrowed rides from other people. I never thought anything strange of it. I thought she was carpooling with someone to work.”

I said nothing. DeMaria had potentially walked right into the killer’s car. If Mrs. Jackson had only looked out the front window, then she could’ve seen the driver. She could’ve at least seen the car. And Mrs. Jackson had blown that chance.

“Where did she work?” I asked.

“A French restaurant called La Rue. I thought she was a server there.”

“You thought?”

Mrs. Jackson sighed.

“DeMaria wasn’t working there anymore. She quit her job months ago. That was all the manager told me. She was working someplace else, but I didn’t know where.”

I jotted the name of La Rue down in my notebook, circling it.

“And was she acting strange before she left?”

Mrs. Jackson shook her head.

“Did you two say anything to each other?”

“Nothing. DeMaria was in a hurry,” said Mrs. Jackson. She moved Demetrius to her other knee. He leaned against her, his arms outstretched around the curve of her stomach.

“So the real reason why I’m here . . . I saw your Facebook post about the discovery of DeMaria’s . . . body.”

“Yes.”

“You said the police didn’t take you seriously when you reported that DeMaria was missing.”

“The Liberty Lake police were useless,” said Mrs. Jackson. Her voice was still soft, but there was an edge to it. “I called them the next morning when DeMaria didn’t come home. The police told me something about how ‘adults can go anywhere they please.’ DeMaria was nineteen and young, so they thought she ran away. Just ditched her mama and her baby boy . . . Two days later I call them back. She’s still not home. A police officer finally comes by, some pasty white cadet kid who looks like he’s barely fifteen. He looks around her room for a few minutes and then leaves. No sign of foul play, so DeMaria can’t possibly be missing. He was acting like I was a fool. The nerve of that little rat-faced shit.”

I imagined Kevin. Not the guy I’d met at Espresso Haus, but the cop that I’d driven past in the Sewers. Kevin had a farmer’s tan, and he looked older than his age. It was a different cop who’d stopped by, but more than likely, it was someone that Kevin knew.

“Leticia, you said that DeMaria had been kidnapped. What made you so convinced?”

“You’ll think I’m stupid for saying this,” murmured Mrs. Jackson.

“You’re not stupid for worrying about your daughter.”

“Well . . . I had a gut feeling that she’d been kidnapped,” said Mrs. Jackson. My heart sank, and I could already hear Kevin’s snort. “I mean, why would she leave? She had a son to take care of. This past year was so good for her after Demetrius was born. She’d been through some shit, but this little man right here was like sunshine.

“All of a sudden DeMaria was trying again, you know? All of a sudden, she was waking up early to take care of Demetrius. Talking to me again, going to church with me. A few months after Demetrius was born, she even went back to school for her GED. And then later she tells me, ‘Mama, I’m gonna go to college. I’m gonna be a youth counselor for all the other kids out there who need help. And I’m gonna pay for it on my own, you don’t need to worry.’”