Off the Deep End (48)
AMBER GREER
I hurried down the sidewalk, doing my best to keep up with Mark. He was marching to the police station the same way he marched his way through amusement parks. Like he was on an important mission and everybody else better fall in line or get left behind.
FALCON LAKE POLICE DEPARTMENT was written in bold black letters above the entrance doors, and he pulled open the one on the right and held it for me. In all my years in Falcon Lake, I’d never been inside the police department. I’d never had a reason to. I didn’t know what the reason was now, and it had my heart in my throat. Detective Hawkins called thirty minutes ago and asked if we could come down to the station, which is super weird because we’d had all our meetings and discussions at our house. We’d never come down here for anything, especially not at eight in the morning, but he’s been acting strange ever since I went to Samaritan House. He didn’t even come by the house yesterday.
The room was arranged like the DMV waiting room with brown plastic chairs attached to the floor with metal legs. A mousy woman with a huge necklace hanging down her chest sat in a reception desk at the front of the room behind a plexiglass divide. There wasn’t anyone else in the room. We made a beeline toward her.
“We’re here to speak with Detective Hawkins,” Mark said at the same time I said, “We’re the Greers.”
She gave us each a quick once-over. “I know who you are. Detective Hawkins is expecting you.” She pressed a button next to her and motioned to the metal door on her right. “Head down the hall. He’s in the second room on the left.”
“Thank you,” I said. Mark didn’t bother thanking her. He was already through the door and heading down the narrow hallway. Brown metal doors lined each side. He still hadn’t said a word to me since we got the phone call.
Detective Hawkins was already in the room when we got there, and he rose from his position at the head of the table to meet us after Mark barged in without knocking. I met Detective Hawkins’s eyes awkwardly, trying to read if there was any residual anger from me confronting Jules. He only glanced at me briefly before turning his gaze to Mark, then quickly pointing to the chairs around the beat-up conference table. “Please have a seat.”
His change in demeanor was obvious. Everything about him had become a bit more formal. His shirt was unbuttoned and his tie loosened when he worked in our kitchen, but he was buttoned up tight today. I didn’t know if that meant anything or if it was just because he was at the office. I tried not to read too much into it, but it was hard.
I sat on one side of the table, and Mark sat on the other. The room smelled like old smoke despite the air freshener plugged into the wall. It felt strange not having Mark beside me, so I quickly got up and switched seats so we could be next to each other. I grabbed his hand and gripped it underneath the table. No matter how mad I was at him and how much we were fighting, I needed someone to hold on to right now.
“Hope you got some sleep last night,” Detective Hawkins said, and my anxiety went down a notch since that was how he greeted us each day.
“We got a little.” I gave our standard greeting right back. The truth was I’d ended up sleeping on the couch again, and Mark had slept with Katie in her room. Katie was the only one who’d gotten any actual sleep. Sleep was still impossible for me.
“That’s good,” Detective Hawkins said, nodding. He laid his hands on the table. “I wanted to bring you down this morning so that we could talk about a few things and get you brought up to speed since I got so busy I never made it to your house yesterday. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course,” Mark said eagerly as I nodded my agreement.
“Great.” He looked pleased with our cooperation. “Let’s get right down to business, then, shall we?” He didn’t wait for us to answer. Our presence said it all. “There are some details about the Dog Snatcher case that we release to the general public just like we do any other crime, but there is always information that we keep to ourselves about an investigation. We only release information that’s going to help the investigation. We never release the stuff that might harm the investigation or interfere with it in any way. Do you follow?”
We both nodded.
“Good. That’s important. I just don’t want either of you to feel like we’ve kept anything hidden from you when we talk about the case today, because we’re going to be talking about things we haven’t released to the public before. Stuff we haven’t talked with you about either.” He shifted his glance back and forth between us.
I dug my fingernails into Mark’s hand. His entire body was rigid next to mine. My heart thudded in my chest.
“Everyone is aware of how the victims’ clothes are folded in a box and how they’re delivered, but the piece we’ve never released to the public is that the clothes from each boy were laundered with the same detergent. And not just Brady and Josh. I’m talking about all the other boys that have been linked to the Dog Snatcher. All five. Their clothes were also washed with the same detergent. It was one of the primary reasons we felt confident in saying that we were dealing with a serial killer.” He was silent for a few seconds before continuing. “We got the results back from the analysis on Isaac’s clothes last night, and his clothes weren’t laundered with the same detergent as all the other boys’.”