Two Girls Down(35)

“Were there ever any solid leads?” asked Vega.

“No. Not that they told me about. I put up flyers and kept updating the profile on NamUs. Once we got close—they had a body down in Philly that matched him, but the face was all decomposed. Then they did the teeth and no go. Ain’t him. I got sick about a year later, so I don’t do much anymore. My youngest keeps up with it more nowadays.”

She shrugged.

“Is it your lungs?” asked Vega.

Cap turned to her, startled.

Maryann nodded.

“I’m stage 3B. Which means I’m only seventy-five percent screwed as opposed to a hundred percent screwed. Funny thing, I only smoked here and there when I was younger. Doctors don’t know if it was Nolan’s smoking or my folks’ or the asbestos around Beth Coal where I worked for twenty years.”



She crossed her hands in her lap and smiled at them.

“And really, who cares? Machs nix, as my dad would have said.”

“Is it in all of your lymph nodes?” said Vega.

“Oh yes, hon. It’s everywhere. Survival rate is shit, excuse me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Cap.

Maryann shook her head as if to tell them not to worry. Vega’s mouth was unbelievably dry just then; she bit the tip of her tongue to create some liquid.

“Could we speak with your other son at some point, Ms. Marsh?” Cap said.

“I don’t see why not. I’ll give you his number,” she said. Then she reached into the pocket of her sweater and pulled out her cell phone. “You know,” she said, pausing, “the detective called me yesterday. The one who I filed the report with originally.”

“Detective Ralz?” said Cap.

“Yes, Ralz. He said he was going over old files and wanted to know if I’d ever heard anything. I told him no. We talked for only a couple of minutes.”

Cap glanced at Vega. Maryann put on a pair of reading glasses and held her phone in her lap, tapping the face of it.

“You know what they say about coincidences,” she said, still eyeballing the phone.

“That there are none?” said Cap.

Maryann looked up at a point above their heads. “Is that what they say?” Then she shrugged. “I thought they said something else.”

—

The Linsoms lived on a cul-de-sac in the Sherwood Forest subdivision, part of the Sprawl, as Cap called it—rural edges on the north side of town transforming into Monopoly-house planned communities. He’d seen a billboard on the highway on the way in: LIVE LIKE A KING IN SHERWOOD FOREST. Then the list of amenities, if the name was not enough to grab you: 2-, 3-, 4-BEDROOM NEW LUXURY HOMES, JACUZZIS, WINE CELLARS, OUTDOOR GRILL ISLANDS. There was the happy family right in the picture, standing in their front yard. See them waving? See how cheery they are? You’d be that happy too if you had your own outdoor grill island. Instead you have a boring indoor oven, and your kids think you’re a failure.



“You talk to the kid, okay?” said Vega as they walked up the driveway.

They had not really spoken after leaving Maryann Marsh’s house. Cap couldn’t tell if Vega was working something out in her head or if it was something else—the vaguest sense of grief seemed to rinse over her face, but there was no way he was going to ask her about it. Maybe in the future, over beer or tea or motor oil—whatever she consumed in her leisure time.

Lindsay Linsom answered the door and let them in. Her face was an arrangement of delicate bones, her hair pulled into a neat bun. Everything inside was white—white walls, white carpet, white furniture, the only standout a mahogany upright piano against one wall with a nickel-plated table clock on top, ticking audibly. Mrs. Linsom led them into the sunken living room and offered them drinks and seats on the couch.

“We met with the police at the school yesterday,” she said. “They asked Cole some questions already.”

“We understand, Mrs. Linsom. Like I said, we have some new information that we have questions about. Cole might be able to help us with it. It will take only a few minutes.”

Mrs. Linsom looked at both of them and touched her hair gently.

“Of course we want to do everything we can to help. I can’t imagine what Jamie must be going through. We just had Kylie over last weekend,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll get Cole. She said her stomach hurt, so I kept her home today. I think she’s just worried about Kylie. You never know how kids will process these things.”

She left, up a carpeted staircase. Cap looked around, at the straight stack of hardback books on the glass coffee table, the throw pillows angled in the same way in the corners of the couch, not a thread out of place on anything.

“Cozy,” said Cap.

Vega nodded, examining a glass deer centerpiece on a table behind her.

Mrs. Linsom came down the stairs with Cole, a slight girl with white-blond hair and pink lips. She stood in front of them, wide-eyed, uneasy.



“Cole, this is Mr. Caplan and Miss Vega.”

Cole stared at them and took a step closer to her mother.

“Hi Cole,” said Cap, as gentle as he could.

He’d actually forgotten how small ten-year-olds were. He had come to see Nell as an unstoppable force of development, since she had gotten out of the baby stage and started outgrowing clothes and shoes every other month. Cap’s reaction to her was still, I can’t believe how big she is. He would look at her on the soccer field and be awed, watching her slide tackle the ball with her long legs, her arms coming out like pea shoots from the sleeves of her uniform.