The Lifeguards(58)

The Fontenots were no idiots: before Salvatore had even finished arresting Robert, their lawyer informed APD that Robert would plead the fifth. They would surely post bail as soon as it was set, which would likely be the next morning. Salvatore knew the prosecutor would want more than just the DNA match to have a prayer of convicting. No jury would send a kid to jail for having sex; no prosecutor would even take it that far.

As he waited for processing, Salvatore thought through the case. Robert Fontenot had had sex with Lucy Masterson. It could have been consensual or rape. Where had the opiates come from? What sequence of events led to her death? Did the basketball prodigy from Barton Hills hold a woman underwater until she drowned? If so, why? And what did his buddies know? Salvatore needed more evidence that Robert had been involved in Lucy’s death—he had to get one of the other lifeguards to talk.



* * *



—

THE GARDNER BETTS JUVENILE Justice Center was clean and organized but bleak. Armed guards nodded as they admitted Salvatore, checked with the sheriff, led him to Robert Fontenot’s cell.

On the bottom bunk, another juvenile offender stared into space, seemingly comatose. Robert lay on the top bunk curled up like an infant, his knees hugged to his chest. Salvatore could see only his neat haircut and his back, which read GARDNER BETTS INMATE.

“Robert?” he said. The cellmate sat up, met Salvatore’s gaze.

“He OK?” said Salvatore.

“How would I know?” said the other kid, lying back down and closing his eyes.

Robert didn’t move. Salvatore called his name again. Finally, he rolled over but did not rise. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he said.

Someone began to scream in the cellblock. Another cry joined the first. There was banging, yelling, a soundtrack of mayhem. It was so loud. Salvatore was sweating: either the air-conditioning was broken or the temperature was set way too high.

“I didn’t kill her,” said Robert.

“That’s what they all say,” Robert’s cellmate said.

“I believed her,” said Robert. His eyes were glassy. Salvatore wondered if he was having a panic attack, or maybe detoxing? “I believed her. She said…she said she loved me,” said Robert.

For a moment, it seemed as if things quieted in the facility. The screams ceased; the breathing, the singing, the obscenities went quiet. “She loves me,” said Robert. “She promised me. She said she’d stop.”

“Oh, man,” said the kid on the bottom bunk. “He’s crazy, right?”

Salvatore’s stomach eased for a moment. If Robert was insane, he could get the boy out of here.

“Please help me,” said Robert.





-11-


    Whitney


WHITNEY DECIDED IT WAS time. Her plan had gone wrong; this was clear. She could not bear the thought of Bobcat in jail. The sweet boy! He had reached for Whitney’s hand when they walked to elementary school, taking her fingers easily, as if she were another mother.

Could Bobcat’s girlfriend be the same woman Whitney had texted?

Was it Whitney’s fault that Bobcat was in jail?

What had happened on the greenbelt?

Whitney grabbed her Kate Spade case from the medicine cabinet. She was tempted to make sure the phone inside it would still turn on, but she didn’t want the location services pinging nearby cell towers. She had to assume there was an APD tech department who could pull the damning messages even if the phone was dead. Whitney didn’t understand any of this stuff! She was not a career criminal, just an overwrought mother trying to keep her children safe—both of them. She might be condemned, but this was the only plan she’d had. Things could not continue. And so—as risky and absurd as her actions may have been—she had acted. But she had never thought of the girl on the other end of the transaction. She had thought only of her own babies. And now here she was, driving on Manchaca in the middle of the night.

Detective Revello’s house was south of Stassney in an area Whitney called “up and coming” on her website. Whitney found the address she’d obtained by paying a few bucks online. Revello lived in one of a row of identical brick ranchers, maybe worth three hundred, three-fifty at most.

Whitney parked a few blocks away and pulled her sweatshirt hood over her head. As she walked, she removed the phone from the Kate Spade case, approaching Revello’s house from the side. She tossed the phone onto his worn welcome mat, hoping he didn’t have a video doorbell and pretty sure she was out of its line of sight if he did.

This was insane.

She was desperate.

Whitney saw now that she had been deluded, thinking she could fix things. But she couldn’t wait until her son was dead! She was almost out of hope now.

She drove home, reactivating her security system despite her knowledge that the greatest threat was already inside her house.

Whitney thought of Bobcat in a jail cell and felt nauseous. Whatever happened to him over the night was her fault. Whatever Annette was feeling now was Whitney’s fault.

She was a monster.

Was she a monster?

Whitney rubbed La Mer into her face, trying to avoid her own gaze.





-12-


    Cellphone Transcript Record


   512-XXX-XXXX