Two Girls Down(54)

Cap didn’t plan, just started talking.

“I’m working for the Brandt family, Chief, with Alice Vega, over there. We think there’s a connection between the kidnapping and the dead kid we just found, and we’d like to tell you about it.”

Traynor glanced at Vega, then back to Cap.

“Get inside.”

“He can’t enter the premises,” said Junior, pointing at Cap. “It’s in the terms of his agreement.”

“What terms?” said Traynor.

“My resignation,” said Cap.

Traynor thought about it for only a second.

“Was the condition negotiated on behalf of the family or the department?”

“Department,” said Cap.

“Good,” said Traynor. “Consider the condition suspended for the length of this investigation.”

“Chief, legally speaking it might not—” Junior began.

“You get yourself a JD, Hollows, in your spare fucking time?”

Junior stepped back and appeared to shrink in volume.

“Then we worry about it later. Let’s go,” the chief said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

He turned and headed toward the steps, striding, and everyone else was quick to follow, jumping to attention like they were already late. Vega held her hand down to Cap. He took it, feeling her soft cold skin, and she pulled him up. She let go, said nothing, straightened her jacket out and clapped her hands together once softly like they were chalkboard erasers she’d just finished cleaning.





10

She sat at a long oval table in a dim blue room with a bunch of cops.

Cap was next to her, and the chief of police and the FBI agent were at the front of the room, projecting images from a laptop onto a ratty screen. Cap and Vega were near the head of the table. The presentation was for them.

There was a school photo of a girl on the screen, round faced, with straight blond hair to her chin. She smiled out at the camera, but it was one of those trained-kid smiles. Smile, smile, smile, Vega could hear the photographers in her head. Always laid it on thick for the girls—Come on, princess, you’re gonna be Miss America, smile for me. All the boys got was a Hey buddy, say cheese.

“This is Sydney McKenna,” said the chief. “Disappeared on her way home from school two years ago near Harrisburg. She was eight years old at the time. You remember?” he said to Cap.

Cap nodded. “I think so, yeah.”

“Splashed around the news for a couple of months. Never found her.”

Traynor nodded at the kid with the mouse, who clicked.

Another photo, another little girl, wearing a sailor top and a navy bow in her hair. She was younger than the last, her hair a darker blond, but still there was a resemblance.

“Ashley Cahill, age six, was seen getting into a car in the parking lot of a public swimming pool in Lebanon four years ago,” said Traynor.

He let it all sit for a moment.

“Gone. Never seen again. Either of them. We think,” he said, nodding to the Fed, “what we have is an MO, which is not much, but it’s similar, and there’s a physical resemblance between all the girls. That and they all took ballet classes. These two and Kylie Brandt.”



Traynor nodded at a cop by the door, who flipped on the lights. The photo of Ashley Cahill stayed on the wall behind him, overexposed, the top half of her face whited out.

“We’ve talked to every registered sex offender who fits the profile between here, Harrisburg, and Reading. Everyone ruled out aside from five we can’t locate. Agent Cartwright has people working on that.

“As you know, we have three witnesses of varying reliability, two of whom have a similar description of the suspect, which matches the image of the sender of the email we got from Kinko’s. You say you have something similar?”

Vega nodded.

“We’ll want to have a look at that afterward to line it up. You tell us—Caplan, Miss Vega—what brought you to Evan Marsh?”

Caplan looked at her and held his hand out, opening a door.

“After we received the email about Nolan Marsh we talked to his mother,” said Vega. “She didn’t have anything new as far as we could tell. I talked to Evan Marsh just to cover the base. He seemed under the influence of something—your team will find the pills in his bathroom. And your ME should look at his right wrist—I saw scratch marks there.

“We, Caplan and I, we think Evan Marsh had some opportunity to meet Kylie, even though we’re not sure where.” She paused. “We think he was the kidnapper, initially at least. His plan was to take the girls and use them to get his brother’s case revisited. Then, we think, he would’ve returned them. He wasn’t a pedophile, didn’t want to raise them as his own, just wanted his brother’s body so his mother could put on a funeral. But he obviously didn’t do this alone, and whoever helped him or worked for him got angry.

“But now, this guy, Marsh’s killer, has the girls and an unknown motive. Maybe he’s one of your five.”

The Fed, Cartwright, leaned forward.

“You talk to Marsh’s acquaintances? Co-workers? Girlfriend?” he said, no blame in his voice, just a slight southern accent.

“We didn’t get that far,” said Cap. “This is our theory as of”—he looked at his watch—“two and a half hours ago. And we’ve been tied up.”