Two Girls Down(37)

“Max Caplan,” said Cap. “This is my partner, Alice Vega.”

They all shook hands, and Press Linsom stood back and put his hands on his hips. Mrs. Linsom stood behind him, shrinking before Cap’s eyes.

“You want to tell me what this is about?” he said.



“We, Ms. Vega and I, we’ve been hired by the Brandt family to find Jamie’s daughters. Cole and Mrs. Linsom just helped us a great deal by helping us find this.”

“Uh-huh,” said Press, skeptical.

I know this guy, Cap thought. Met him a hundred times. These little pissing contests are the highlight of his day.

“So you’re not with the police?”

“No, sir. We’re private investigators.”

“And what makes you think I’ll just let you take an item from my property?” he said, stepping forward.

“Press, Jamie Brandt called me herself. She sent them here,” said Mrs. Linsom quietly.

Linsom turned his head to the side and held his hand up to her. She stepped back. Cap had a feeling she was familiar with that side of his hand.

Cap smiled, scratched his chin, and turned around to Vega. She kept a straight face.

“I’d think you’d want to assist in finding these two girls, being a father yourself and all,” said Cap.

Small parts of Linsom’s face reacted—the corner of the mouth, the tip of the nose twitching as if he were smelling something.

“Max Caplan,” he said. “Why is that name familiar to me?”

Cap glanced away, felt caught and couldn’t help it.

“Have we met before?”

“I don’t believe so,” Cap said. “I used to be with the police.”

Now Linsom smiled, victorious.

“I know who you are. I’ve done business with Kit Samuels. You’re the one who let his boy die.”

Cap shut his eyes for only a second, forced himself to open them, and wished a lot of things: for a beer, to be at his kitchen table with Nell, to go back in time and go to law school, to have supervised Em that goddamn night to make sure he was doing his job, to have checked that junkie kid’s pulse himself.

“Why’d you let them in?” Linsom said, turning to his wife. “The police fired this guy for incompetence.”

“He resigned, actually,” said Vega.

Everyone looked at her.



“Splitting hairs, sweetie,” said Linsom. “I want you both out of my house now, and I want that book. I’m sure the police would be interested in its contents. Qualified professionals.”

“You heard your wife, sir,” said Cap. “Jamie Brandt asked us to come here and talk to Cole. We’re bringing this book to her.”

Linsom tossed his suit jacket on a counter and held his hands out.

“You’re not bringing it anywhere, Caplan. Caplan, right? What kind of name is that anyway, Jewish?”

And a Jew-hater too, thought Cap. This guy is a winner across the board.

“Yes, it is,” said Cap.

Linsom took another step. He had a good six inches on Cap. He could smell the coffee on Linsom’s breath.

“True what they say, about sex through the sheet and everything?” Linsom said, smirking.

“All true,” said Cap. “It’s surprisingly effective.”

They were locked there for a moment, and then Cap could sense, not really hear, but feel Vega stirring behind him. Then she was next to him, both of them facing up to Linsom.

“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” she said.

Her voice was high suddenly, youthful.

“Oh yeah?” said Linsom. “Then you shouldn’t have come here.”

“We’re working with the police. Captain Hollows knows all about it,” she said. Then she looked back and forth to Mrs. Linsom and Cap nervously. “Do you really think Jamie Brandt would trust us otherwise? If we bring this to them…”

She stepped closer to Linsom, gazed up at him. Cap tried not to smile.

“Well, it’ll look really good for us.” She shook her head, humble. “You can, uh, check out my credentials, I have a business card somewhere.”

She patted herself down, fingers going in and out of pockets. She turned around to Cap.

“You don’t have them, do you?”

She looked so earnest Cap almost believed maybe this had been the real Vega all along and the whole tough girl thing was the act. He put his hands in his pockets.

“Why would I have them?” he said, annoyed.



“Press,” said Lindsay, pulling gently at his arm.

Linsom kept his eyes on Cap and Vega and let his wife tug him away for just a second. She spoke quietly and rapidly, and Cap could only imagine how many times she’d had to do this before—talk her husband off the angry bridge. Linsom spread his feet apart, seemed to relax a bit. There you go, Tiger, thought Cap.

“So if I let you walk out of here, and I call the police captain in a couple of hours, he’ll know exactly who you two are and he’ll have that notebook as evidence?” said Linsom.

He sounded like a high school principal, and Cap could tell he enjoyed it; the smirk had reappeared.

“Absolutely,” Vega gasped. “You have my word.”