Pretty Girls Dancing(77)
He slowed, then turned into the parking lot of the Pub’s Bar and Grill. “Think this is the same place DeVries met with Starkey a few years back?”
“Only one way to find out.” Sloane released her seat belt and opened the door of the vehicle. “Let’s go ask him.”
“You omitted Dane Starkey’s name from your list of acquaintances.”
“He wasn’t—” Brian DeVries started.
“You failed to tell us about a potential suspect in this case. A man with reason to seek revenge on you,” Mark continued inexorably. “You lied about why you were paying him off. And when we talked about the church Whitney occasionally attended, somehow you forgot to mention that you’d spent quite a bit of time around it when you took care of the mowing there one summer. When was that, Brian? Did you know Kelsey Willard? Is that where you first saw her?”
“Who?” The man shook his head as if to dislodge the words. “No! It wasn’t like I was mowing when kids were outside. That was at least ten years ago.”
“He probably just forgot about the lawn job.” Sloane’s voice was soft. Understanding. “The man has the weight of the world on his shoulders right now. His daughter is missing, for God’s sake. Have a little compassion.”
“Yes, that’s . . . I just didn’t think about it. It was a long time ago. And as far as Starkey . . .”
“Yeah, let’s talk about him.” If Sloane’s tone was cotton batting, Mark’s was granite. “Or better yet, let’s talk about Shelley Starkey, the twelve-year-old girl you sexually assaulted in the basement bathroom of Lewis Starkey’s house when you were fifteen.”
“That’s bullshit!” A couple of men at a neighboring table looked over at Brian’s vehement protest. Lowering his voice, he went on, “First of all, she came on to me. I thought she was a couple of years older, and she never said no until . . . until later.”
“Until you almost raped her?”
He looked away, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “It wasn’t rape, and I stopped when she started struggling. I don’t know if she’s the one who spun it or if it was her parents to get money from my mother. Because her dad was all about calling the cops when he came storming over, but he shut up pretty quick when my mother pulled out the checkbook.”
“You could have told Agent Foster that. Innocent until proven guilty, right? But hiding it . . . you have to know how it looks.”
DeVries scrubbed his hands over his face as Sloane spoke. The man looked like he’d aged ten years since his daughter went missing. “And risk having it show up in the official report? I wasn’t ignoring the possibility that Starkey could be behind it. I even—” He snapped his mouth shut on whatever he’d been about to say.
Too late, because Mark could already predict the rest. “You even spent your days back at work digging into the lives of the Starkey family, right? Did some investigating of your own, using law-enforcement tools on searches you weren’t authorized to perform? What do you think your sheriff would have to say about that?”
“I was desperate! Think I can’t tell my office is coming up empty checking on punks I’ve arrested?”
That had been a task Mark had left to the Fenton County Sheriff’s Office. Something he was regretting now. The sheriff had showed a lack of common sense letting DeVries anywhere near the office while the investigation was ongoing.
The man continued. “Like you say, Starkey was a logical suspect, and I took a hard look at him, even though I didn’t really think the gutless prick had it in him. But his relatives . . .” He looked from Mark to Sloane. Back again. “You’ve checked them out, right? Because they could have been in on it with Dane.”
Disgusted with the man, with the situation, Mark pushed away from the table. “We haven’t come up with a thing on any of them, and believe me, we looked. Here’s what you’re going to do, Brian. You’re calling the sheriff tomorrow. Say you made a mistake going back to work and need some time at home. I don’t give a shit what you tell him, but if I find out you’re anywhere near that office again without my okay, I’m laying it all out for him. Every lie you told me. You won’t have a job to go back to.” He might not, anyway. Mark couldn’t keep this information from the sheriff indefinitely. It was up to DeVries’s employer to weigh the man’s circumstances against his illicit use of law-enforcement search tools and databases.
DeVries gave him a terrible smile. “You gonna threaten me now? Someone took my little girl. Losing a job can’t come close to a loss like that.”
“Of course it can’t.” Sloane was comforting. “And you can’t risk tainting this investigation by being anywhere near it. You’re a cop; you know that.”
“Tell me you’ve got something.” DeVries’s voice was pleading. “At least that you’re close. You’ve got a person of interest. Something.”
“Go home, Brian.” Mark was suddenly weary. It was possible, he was finding, to have sympathy for the man while wanting to slug him. “Waiting for news on your daughter is the worst kind of torture, but that’s what you have to do. We’re looking in several areas. We’re talking to people with links to both Kelsey Willard and your daughter. In fact, we just discovered another one who we’ll be interviewing tomorrow. The best way you can help us do our jobs is to be open and honest with us.”