Two Girls Down(88)

“So how exactly did Mr. Marsh talk you into kidnapping an eight-year-old girl?” said the Fed, all clean lawyerly manners. “I’m curious to know how he phrased it so you could think you weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“All he said was he needed me to hold on to a kid for a couple of days. We were never gonna keep her,” McKie said.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better, sir?” said the Fed. “Kidnapping a child for a week is as bad as a month is as bad as a year.”

McKie’s breathing accelerated, turned into a wheeze.

“Look, if you find Marsh, he’ll tell you everything—he took the older one.”

“Mr. Marsh is dead, Mr. McKie,” said the Fed. “We think someone shot him.”

“Fuckin’ Marsh,” McKie muttered. “Dumb motherfuckin’ Marsh.”

“Yeah,” said the Fed, quiet, calm. “Where would someone like Marsh get fifty thousand dollars, Mr. McKie?”

McKie didn’t respond right away. Vega heard nails on skin, scratching an itch. She wondered what kind of medication they had him on, how long it would take him to go into withdrawal.

“A guy,” he said. “I don’t know who. Some guy paid him to take the girls.”

“Then why would he give one of them to you?”

Vega knocked her head lightly against the wall behind her. She pictured Kylie’s face in the video at the ice cream store, the smile. The girl’s a natural-born flirt. She knew what McKie was about to say.

“Because the guy wanted the older girl. Just the older girl. I guess ten-year-olds gave him a stiff but not eight-year-olds, the fuck do I know,” McKie said.



Then he laughed a little at his joke.

“I’m glad you find the potential rape and murder of Kylie Brandt funny, Mr. McKie,” said the Fed. “I’m sure Captain Hollows here will remember that when he speaks with his district attorney.”

“Hey—” started McKie.

“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to, please. You’re a moron, and it grates on me,” said the Fed, getting angrier. “What do you know about the man who paid Mr. Marsh to bring him Kylie Brandt?”

“Nothing,” said McKie, drawing the word out. “Nada.”

His tone was careless, and it made Vega want to pop his front teeth out with a flat-head screwdriver. But if he were lying he would be more committed, somber even. He was not smart enough to lie casually.

“Captain Hollows,” announced the Fed, “if you have any questions, I encourage you to ask them. Mr. McKie’s made me so tired with his cerebral impairment that I can’t trust myself not to slap his mouth if I continue to conduct the interview.”

Vega extended her neck like a weed trying to reach the light, listening.

“Yes, I have some questions,” said Hollows. “Where did you say you met Evan Marsh for the first time?”

Vega heard the creak of the mattress as McKie moved around.

“Stag’s Bar on Seventh.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t know. Year ago.”

“And how did you get to know each other?”

“What do you mean?” said McKie, confused.

“In my experience,” said Hollows, “drug addicts get to know each other because they buy drugs together, sell them together, do them together. It’s like a burrow of rats sharing the same pile of garbage. And Denville’s not a big place. So did you and Evan Marsh share that type of relationship?”

Vega smiled. Hollows could sound sanctimonious and bitchy reading a grocery list, and she recognized that it probably made him good at his job.

“Yeah, sure, we bought from the same guys,” said McKie.

“You traveled in the same circles?” said Hollows.



“Yeah,” said McKie, sounding exhausted from the repetition. “Yes.”

“So how exactly would Evan Marsh meet Kylie Brandt, if these were the types of people he was associating with?”

McKie was quiet.

“I’ll rephrase that,” said Hollows, ever more condescending. “Where would a little girl meet two dumb junkies like you and Evan Marsh?”

“I don’t know, man,” said McKie, angry and annoyed. “At a party or some shit. I wasn’t there.”

Vega pictured a room. Beige walls and beige floors. No furniture, no windows. There was Kylie in her party dress on one side; there was Evan Marsh in jeans and a T-shirt on the other. No one else.

“Come on, John,” said Hollows. “Where would that party be? You think Marsh went to her middle school dance?”

Vega filled in the room. Flat-screen TV. Cardboard box for a coffee table. One black cat with white paws. She touched the bandage above her eye, and the ache rushed across her brow.

“One of Marsh’s hookups,” said McKie. “He was buying, and she was there.”

In her head a blue needle moved across the spiking red sound waves on an audio memo, a scratchy voice saying, “I had clients here. People get freaked out they see a kid.”

“That’s what he told you?” Hollows said, skeptical.

“Yeah, that’s what he told me, the fuck I know!” McKie shouted, banging his fist into the bottom of his food tray.