Two Girls Down(91)

Chaney dropped into the chair and put his thumbs and forefingers on his temples, making an awning out of his forehead.

Cap sat across from him, and Vega stood behind Cap.

“You sell drugs to a guy named Evan Marsh?” Cap said.

Chaney shivered and shrugged.

“Yeah, sure. Works at the Giant, right?”

“That’s right,” said Cap. “Now you need to think—the day Kylie came to see you, was Marsh there too?”

Chaney looked back and forth between them, cornered.

“He got something to do with Kylie?”

Cap cut the air with his hand.

“Just listen to what I’m asking,” he said. “The day Kylie came to see you, was Evan Marsh there?”

Chaney bit his lips so they disappeared.

“Yeah, I think so. I think that’s right. I mean, it makes sense. Timing’s right. Marsh comes by once a month, toward the beginning.”

“But you don’t remember them talking to each other specifically, or anything like that.”

“No, man, I wanted to get her out of there. I said to her stay here, in the corner with the cat—she was playing with my cat—and I went to get my keys and my jacket.”

“So when you came back to the living room, was she still playing with the cat?”

“No,” said Chaney. “She was talking to some of them, the dopeheads, and I remember thinking she looked so much older than when I last seen her.”

“Was one of them Marsh?” said Vega.

Chaney gazed up to her, his eyes wandering around her face, registering her injuries.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He looked back to Cap. “I just wanted to get her out of there.”

Cap tried to picture Chaney’s house in daylight, tried to see Kylie there with the cat, talking to Marsh and whoever else.

“Does Marsh usually come to your place by himself?” Cap said. “Does he come with people?”



Chaney perked up, eager to answer.

“Yeah, he does,” he said. “Lately a guy named Bruce.”

Cap scrolled through the list of Evan Marsh’s known associates in his head, thought he remembered a Bruce.

“Bartender, right?” said Vega.

Chaney rapped his knuckles on the table.

“That’s right. At Stag’s.”

“You got a number for him?” said Cap.

Chaney pulled out his phone and tapped some buttons. Vega put the number in her phone, and then Chaney looked up at both of them and sniffed dramatically.

“We’ll walk you out,” said Cap.

“That’s it?” said Chaney, looking like a kid who just found out he didn’t have to get the flu shot.

“That’s it,” Cap said. “We don’t have any questions or concerns regarding your small business aspirations. If you could keep track of your clientele, maybe work up a list for us of people who come to see you at the beginning of the month, that would be helpful.”

“You got it, man,” said Chaney. He stood and made fists, unsure of how to process the energy. He made a sound like “Hoo,” part sigh and part whoop.

The three of them left the room, entered the second-floor hallway, which was narrow and crowded with circles of cops. They headed for the stairs, and then Vega stopped short in front of Cap, and Cap put his hand up in reflex, felt the lats in her back turn to clay, and then Cap saw why: Junior holding Jamie Brandt’s arm, coming up the stairs.

Jamie started to smile when she saw Vega, but then her face hardened up when she caught sight of Chaney lurking behind Cap.

“The fuck is he doing here?” she whispered.

“He’s helping us,” said Vega.

“Helping you,” said Jamie, incredulous. “He never helped anyone but himself. “What do you know about anything?” she said to him.

Chaney held his hands up.

“I swear, I’m here to help find her.”

“The fuck are you talking about? The fuck is he talking about?” she said to Vega, her voice cracking into a shriek.

“We need to bring you up to speed, Jamie,” said Cap.



“Yes, you goddamn do, Mr. Caplan. I don’t know anything that’s going on right now; that’s what I’m doing here. What are we doing to find Kylie? What’s this asshole got to do with it?”

“Jamie,” said Vega. “One thing and then the other.”

Jamie blinked twice like Morse code, and Vega said it again more quietly:

“One thing and then the other.”

The words had a pacifying effect on Jamie while she considered the situation. She studied Vega’s face, and the hallway took on the feel of a junior high basketball court before the free throw, all the parents holding their breath, hoping to hell the kid would make the shot.

—

At a stoplight, Vega opened a small foil envelope and shook two Advils into her mouth, tasted the sugary coating in the back of her throat and waited. The sun was starting to sink again, the temperature dropping fast after a deceptively warm day. Her window was open, and a burst of cold air shot through the car and hit the open cuts on her cheek.

She thought of when her mother used to take her and Tommy to the Russian River, and they’d wade into the water, walking on a million pebbles and then smooth, round rocks that seemed made to fit the arches of her feet. The water was cold, but she’d get used to it quickly, her body heat sinking to match it.