Redemption Road(82)

“No.”

Beckett withdrew a folded paper from his pocket and placed it on the table. “You would have never been in that basement if you and your friends hadn’t wanted to walk on the wild side. But that’s what happened, isn’t it? You bought drugs from the Monroe brothers, and they came back and they took you. It wasn’t random. They didn’t find you on the street.”

“It was just the once. Please. We just wanted to try it.”

“Drugs?”

“Marijuana. Just the once.”

“And they came back for you.”

She nodded, small.

“What happened in that basement was your fault.” Beckett leaned forward and challenged her with every ounce of cop he had. “What happened to Liz was your fault, too. I’ve seen her wrists. I see how she’s falling apart.”

A sound escaped the girl’s throat.

“It’s time to tell the truth, Channing. To take responsibility for what happened in that basement.”

“What happens to Elizabeth if I do?”

He leaned back in the chair. “Liz walks free. Her life goes on.” The girl turned her head, but Beckett wasn’t finished. “Looking away is the easy part,” he said. “It always has been. The only real question is if you’ll let Liz die with a needle in her arm because you and your friends decided to get high. You okay with that? Look at me. This is your chance to do what’s right. Right here. Right now.”

The girl took her time. He let her have it.

“Does Liz know you’re doing this?”

“I told her I wouldn’t.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I look out for people I love, no matter the cost.”

“You love her?” Channing asked.

“Other than my wife she’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Channing considered his words for another long minute, and Beckett saw the instant she broke. “I’ll do it on one condition.”

“What?”

Channing told him what she wanted.

Beckett looked at the two-way glass, then shrugged and pushed a notepad across the table. “All right.”

The girl smoothed cuffed hands across the page.

Beckett held the pen where she could see it. “But, I want all of it.”

“Everything.”

“On camera and uncensored.”

“For her,” Channing said; and Beckett nodded.

“For Liz.” He gave her the pen. “Because she would do the same for you.”

*

Beckett watched the girl write, then took the page and folded it into a pocket. Two minutes later he was on the other side of the glass, and Marsh was setting up a video camera to take the girl’s statement. She looked small but determined.

Hamilton saw the emotion on Beckett’s face. “What did she give you?”

“A note,” Beckett said.

“May I see it?”

“It’s for Liz. It’s personal.”

“I don’t care.”

“You want the note, you f*cking shoot me.” Beckett’s face said he was deadly serious.

Hamilton could push it, but why bother? He had the girl, and she was going to talk. “How did you know?”

“About Billy Bell?” Beckett shrugged. “I talked to the gardener this morning. I thought the mother was the only one buying drugs. Turned out it went deeper.”

“That’s not what I meant. How did you know Channing would talk?”

“Maybe I didn’t.”

“I saw your face at the drink machine. You said you could break her in five, yet you did it in two. You were certain.”

“Liz loves the kid.” Beckett studied the girl through the glass, the delicate features and swollen eyes. “I figured maybe the kid loved her back.”

Hamilton didn’t buy it. He leaned against the glass and watched Beckett’s face. “I’ve seen husbands kill their wives; mothers turn on sons. Channing and Detective Black barely know each other. It has to be more than that.”

“Maybe.”

“You have a theory?”

“Maybe she needed to confess.”

“Why?”

“They say familiarity breeds contempt.” Beckett put his hands on the glass, thinking of his wife and the warden and his own bitter mistakes. “Who do we know better than ourselves?”

*

When the tape was running, it began. Questions came, and the girl spoke haltingly. How she met the Monroe brothers. Where she was when they took her. The state cops walked her through it, and as surprised as they were by the story she told, no one doubted the truth of what she said. The details were too strong, the emotions too real. She spoke of the candle, the mattress, the things they did to her. In places she broke, and in places she froze. The tale of abuse was so hard to hear it shook everyone listening. Forty hours, the child was gone. Forty hours at the hands of monsters. Eventually, she got to the part that tore out the final piece of Beckett’s heart.

Even Hamilton was pale by then, sitting rigidly when he asked the question. “How did you get your hands on the gun?”

“I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to do. The smaller one. Brandon Monroe. I wouldn’t do it, so he hit me again, bit me again.” She stopped; collected herself. “The next time he did that, I bit him back, right here.” She touched the soft spot above her hip bone. “He got angry and threw me against a wall. When he came for me, I tried to crawl away, but he dragged me by the foot. I was scraping at the floor, trying to hold on to something. The gun was just there in the dark.”