First Girl Gone(75)

“Yes, but you took particular notice of Allison, didn’t you?”

Gibbs shook his head.

“You didn’t ask her if she wanted to steer the boat?”

Charlie watched the man’s chest move up and down as he breathed. He murmured something unintelligible.

“What’s that?”

“I thought she was pretty,” Gibbs said.

Charlie thought he sounded sad when he said it. Like it was some great sin to have thought her sister pretty.

“Sick fuck,” one of the observers said in a low voice.

Gaze flitting about the observation room now, Charlie noted the way almost everyone leaned in toward the glass. They were enjoying this, she thought, the way one might enjoy a movie or a play. Stimulated. She felt a pang of pity for the man on the other side of the window, and then, almost as quickly, a wave of disgust. Was she really feeling empathy for the man who had very likely murdered her sister?

“You thought she was pretty,” Detective Siebold repeated. “That’s right. And then what?”

Staring blankly, Gibbs said nothing.

“What happened after the boat ride ended? After you realized you probably wouldn’t ever have a chance to talk to Allison again? Did you start thinking of ways you might see her again?”

Gibbs shook his head again, and Detective Siebold angled his chin a notch higher.

“So just to be clear, you didn’t kidnap Allison Winters? You didn’t kill her and dismember her body?”

The palm of Will’s hand came down on the table.

“Look, Mr. Gibbs has agreed to talk with you. But this is the same line of questioning my client went through back then. You had nothing then and you have nothing now. Either give us something new, something you haven’t already asked him a hundred times, or this interview is over.”

The detective nodded and pulled two new photos from the folder—snapshots of Kara Dawkins and Amber Spadafore. Smiles on their faces. Eyes twinkling.

Charlie visualized Amber Spadafore laid out on the coroner’s table, her porcelain skin fish-belly-white against the hard steel. She tried to stop herself from imagining the scalpel slicing into the pallid skin, peeling it away to reveal the red underneath, but the images came whether she wanted them or not.

She closed her eyes and heard Detective Siebold ask his next question.

“Have you ever seen either of these girls?”

Eyes darting from one grinning face to the next, Gibbs looked bewildered.

“Never seen ’em.”

“No?” The detective’s eyebrows crept up his forehead. “Not even around town? Maybe at the supermarket or the gas station?”

Gibbs moved his head from side to side.

“You didn’t—”

“Come on, Jerry,” Will said, interrupting. “I won’t sit here and allow you to badger him like this. You asked if he knows or has seen either girl, and he said no. Twice. Move on.”

The detective nodded, his mouth a tight smile. His fingers snaked into the manila folder a third time and came out with a photo of Amber Spadafore’s body on the beach. It was a particularly grisly shot—a close-up of the mutilated legs ending in bloody stumps.

Gibbs recoiled, sliding back in his chair and shutting his eyes tight. Charlie couldn’t help but think of a child turning away from a particularly gory scene in a horror movie. Was it an act, or was he genuinely that repulsed by the image?

Will was on his feet in an instant, red in the face, shouting about shock tactics.

Charlie’s attention was diverted from the spectacle by Zoe taking a firm hold of her arm and pulling her toward the door.

“What are you doing?” Charlie hissed.

“I need to talk to you for a minute,” Zoe said. “Outside.”

“Can it wait?”

“No.”

The hallway was bright compared to the dimmed lighting in the observation room. Charlie blinked a few times, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

“So…” Zoe said. “They’re going to be in there for a while.”

“Yeah.”

“Like, probably for a few more hours, at least. Accounting for bathroom breaks, meal breaks, and all, I’d say this interrogation will stretch deep into the night.” Zoe spoke pointedly, her eyes going wide as if there were some second meaning Charlie was supposed to catch onto.

“That’s generally how it works, right? You can keep him for forty-eight hours without charging him.”

Zoe nodded, still giving her that penetrating look.

Charlie just shook her head, baffled by Zoe’s demeanor.

“It’s just too bad that someone couldn’t, you know, go peek in the windows of his house while they know he’s tied up here. Poke around for some physical evidence.” Zoe shrugged. “That’s all.”

Charlie blinked slowly, her eyes narrowing.

“So you want me to go snoop around Gibbs’ house?”

Hand to her chest, Zoe gasped.

“I’m merely making casual conversation with a friend. An offhand comment, if you will.”

“Right,” Charlie said, still squinting at Zoe.

“I mean, even if you found something, it wouldn’t be like you could act on it,” Zoe said. “The most you’d be able to do would be to call in an anonymous tip.”