* * *
She heard the Cadillac before she saw it. It backfired loudly from a couple of blocks away, the noise carrying down the street and around the corner to where she was waiting at 6th and Irving. The engine sounded throaty and unhealthy, as if it was about to expire, and she had been nonplussed as it pulled over to stop at the edge of the sidewalk opposite her. The man she had spoken to on the phone had said that he was an executive from a company that dealt in cattle all the way across the south-west. He certainly had the accent for it, a mild southern burr that leant his voice a musical quality. She hadn’t expected him to be driving a beat-up car like this but, as she crossed the sidewalk to the open window, she chided herself for jumping to conclusions.
A bum begging for change next to the entrance to JC Penney watched as the door was opened for her. He watched as she carefully slid into the car, her hands pressing down her skirt as she lowered herself into the seat. The man didn’t think twice about it and she hardly registered; he was hungry, and more interested in adding to the couple of bucks in change that had been tossed in to the cap on the sidewalk before his folded legs. If he had paid attention, perhaps he would have noticed the look of confusion on the girl’s face as she looked, for the first time, at the man who had picked her up. He might have remembered more if he had known that he would be the last person to see the girl alive.
18
Milton leant back and traced his fingers against the rough vinyl surface of the table. It had been marked by years of graffiti: gang tags, racial epithets and unflattering remarks about the police, some of them quite imaginative. There was a dirty glass of water, an ashtray that hadn’t been emptied for days and, set against the wall, a tape recorder. He crossed his arms and looked up at police officers who were sitting opposite him. The first was a middle-aged man with several days of growth on his chin, an aquiline face and a lazy left eye. The second was a little older, a little more senior, and, from the way the two of them had behaved so far, Milton could see that he was going to keep quiet while his partner conducted the interview.
The young one pressed a button on the tape recorder and it began to spool.
“Just to go through things like we mentioned to you, we’re gonna do a taped interview with you.”
“That’s fine,” Milton said.
“There’s my ID. And there’s my partner’s.”
“Okay.”
“So I’m Inspector Richard Cotton. My colleague is Chief of Detectives Stewart Webster.”
“I can see that.”
“Now, first of all, can you please state your name for me?”
“John Smith.”
“And that’s S-M-I-T-H.”
“Correct.”
“Your date of birth, sir?”
“Thirty-first of October, 1973.”
“That makes you forty, right?”
“It does.”
“And your address at home?”
“259 Sixth Street.”
“What’s that?”
“A hotel.”
“An SRO?”
“That’s right.”
“Which one?”
“The El Capitan.”
“How are you finding that? Bit of a dive, right?”
“It’s alright.”
“You say so. Phone number?”
He gave them the number of his cellphone.
“Are you alright for water?”
“Yes.”
He tossed a packet of cigarettes on the table. “Feel free to light up. We know this can be stressful.”
Milton had to stifle a long sigh of impatience. “It would be stressful if I had something to hide. But I don’t, so I’ll pass, but thanks anyway. Now, please — can we get started? There’s already been too much waiting around. Ask me whatever you like. I want to help.”
Cotton squinted: one eye, a little spooky. “Alright, then. John Smith — that’s your real name, right?”
“It is.”
“And you’re English, right?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve been to England. Holiday. Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, all that history — one hell of a place.”
Milton rolled his eyes. Was he serious? “Just ask me about Madison.”
“In a minute, John,” the man said with exaggerated patience. “We just want to know a little bit about you first. So how come you ended up here?”
“I’ve been travelling. I was in South America for six months and then I came north.”
“Through Mexico?”
“That’s right.”
“How long you been here?”
“Nine months. I was here once before, years ago. I liked it. I thought I’d come back and stay a while.”
“How have you been getting by?”
“I’ve been working.”
Cotton’s good eye twitched. “You got a visa for that?”
“Dual citizenship.”
“How’s that?”
“My mother was American.” It was a lie but it was what his passport said. Dual citizenship saved unnecessary nonsense that would have made it more difficult for him to work. Being able to claim some connection to the United States had also proven to be useful as he worked his way north up the continent.
“Alright, John. Let’s change the subject — you want to talk about Madison, let’s talk about Madison. You know we’ve dug up two bodies now, right?”
“I’ve seen the news.”
“And you know none of them are her?”
That was news to him. “No. I didn’t know that.”
“That’s right — none of them. See, Madison had a metal pin in her hip. Fell off her bike when she was a girl, messed it up pretty good. They had to put one in to fix it all together. The remains in the morgue are all whole, more or less, and none of them have anything like that.”
Milton felt a moment of relief but immediately tempered it: it was still surely just a matter of time.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t find her,” Cotton went on. “If you’ve been watching the news, you’ll know that we’re still searching the beach and we’re very concerned that we’re gonna find more. So, with all that being said, let’s get down to meat and potatoes, shall we?”
“Please.”
“Why’d you do it, John?”
Milton wasn’t surprised. “Seriously?”
“What did you do with her body?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not kidding, John.”
“No, you’ve got to be. It’s nothing to do with me.”
“Answer the question, please.”
He looked dead straight at the cop. “I just answered it. I didn’t do it. I have absolutely no idea where she is.”
“So you say. But on your own account you were the last person to see her alive.”
He clenched his fists in sudden frustration. “No — that’s not what I said.”
“You got a temper, John?”
“I don’t know that she’s dead. I hope she isn’t. I said that I was one of the last people to see her before she disappeared. That’s different.”
“We know the two girls we’ve got in the morgue were all hookers. Madison was hooking when she disappeared. It’s not hard to join the dots, is it?”
“No, it isn’t. But it has nothing to do with me.”
“Alright, then. Let’s change tack.” He took a cigarette from the packet and lit it, taking his time about it. He looked down at his notes. “Okay. The night after she disappeared — this is the Friday — we’ve got a statement from Victor Leonard that says you went back to Pine Shore. He said he saw you coming out of the garden of the house where the party was the night before. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“We checked the security camera, Mr. Smith. There’s one on the gate. We looked and there you are, climbing over the wall. Why’d you do something like that?”
Milton gritted his teeth. The camera must have run off rechargeable batteries that would cut in when the power went out. “The gate was locked,” he said.
“Why didn’t you buzz to get in?”
“Because someone had changed the code to the gate after Madison disappeared. Rather than wasting your time with me, I’d be asking why that was. A girl goes missing and the next day the code to the gate is changed? Why would they want to keep people out? Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?”