“Why would you do that?” Lorna asked.

“I don’t know. I guess…” He shrugged. “I guess because it made me look important, you know? Like I was there or something. I can’t explain it now. I was just a kid then. I never thought it would matter much.”

He paused, then asked, “Does it matter much?”

“Only to make me wonder if you lied about anything else,” T.J. told him.

“No, I swear. Everything else is the truth.” Dustin looked from Lorna to T.J.

“Did it ever occur to you to go back to the police and change your statement?” Lorna asked.

“A couple of times I thought about it, but it didn’t seem to matter. Jason never came back. After awhile people stopped talking about it. We all just figured he’d run away, maybe the sister, too.” Dustin shrugged. “That’s what I woulda done, if I’d had a mother like that. I’d have run away and never looked back.”

“So what do you think?” Lorna said when they were back in the car, T.J. driving.

“I think Dustin reminds me of all the worst used-car salesmen I’ve ever known.”

Lorna nodded. “It’s the hair. Not a good look.”

T.J. laughed and drove out of the parking lot and stopped at the light.

“It wasn’t a complete waste of time, though. We came away with two possible suspects,” he said.

“We did?” She frowned. “What suspects?”

“The Keeler boys.”

“How do you figure?”

“Let’s start with Mike. He’s not telling the truth about where he was the night Jason disappeared. We’ve had three versions now, and two of them say he wasn’t out with the other guys. But he tells the story as if he were. Why? Maybe because he doesn’t want us to know where he really was that night.”

“Maybe Fritz and Dustin just don’t remember it clearly. It was a long time ago, and they were drinking.”

“They seem to remember the other details well enough. And I’m not sure I understand where Mike was when Melinda went missing. He says he was at Matt’s the whole time, but no one’s backing him up.”

“Again, it was a long time ago.”

“True, but that night turned out to be an event. Something important happened. A child disappeared, they all took part in the search. You remember things like that. My grandmother has days when she can’t remember the name of her next-door neighbor, but she can tell you in detail where she was and what she was doing the day President Kennedy was shot. People tend to remember the dramatic times, Lorna. Their friend’s younger sister disappearing was such a moment.”

“What about Fritz?”

“Well, let’s take a look at him. According to Dustin, everyone in Callen knows he’s gay-except you, apparently-and we’ve confirmed that at least three of the nine missing boys were.”

“That’s not much to go on.”

“Agreed. But it’s more than we’ve got on anyone else. Besides, he was around the night Jason disappeared.”

“He was home by then.”

“Was he? We have only his word for that. Remember, his mother was away that night. Jason had been home for a while, first arguing, then talking with his mother, before he went out that door into the yard. Billie’s already told us that. Fritz would’ve had plenty of time to ride his bike out to the Eagans’.”

“But why would he have done that? What would his motive have been?”

“I guess we’ll have to ask Fritz. In the meantime, let’s have Mitch run a trace, find out where Fritz has been going a couple of days every month over the past few years, and see if any bodies have popped up in his path.”

“I don’t see it.” She shook her head. “Fritz is just too gentle a soul, T.J. I don’t think he has an aggressive bone in his body.”

“That’s what some people said about John Wayne Gacy. And Ted Bundy.” He took his phone from his pocket and speed-dialed Mitch’s number. “If I learned one thing all those years I was with the Bureau, it’s that there’s no way of telling what goes on inside the head of another human being. The person who looks craziest might be harmless, and the person you least suspect might be a monster who is capable of things you can’t even begin to imagine.”

“A monster?” she said softly. “Where did that come from?”

He watched the light change, then made a left onto the two-lane road that would take them back to Callen.

“T.J.?” She reached over and touched his arm. “Where did the monster thing come from?”

“From long ago.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He drove in silence for almost a mile before replying.

“Not today.” He stared at the road straight ahead. “Maybe some other time, but not today…”

Mitch was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, feet crossed at the ankle and resting on the railing, when T.J. and Lorna returned to the farm.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he called to Lorna after she’d gotten out of the car, “but I needed a little downtime to think a few things over.”

“I don’t mind at all.” She smiled. “Mi rocker es su rocker.”

“Muchas gracias,” Mitch said. “Now, Dawson, tell me why, with all the super-duper spy equipment that I know you’ve purchased over the years, you need the FBI to get telephone information for you.”

“I sold it all when I sold the business.”

“You sold all your toys?” Mitch’s eyebrows rose.

“Every last one of them.”

“That’s too bad.” Mitch shook his head. “And damned poor planning on your part.”

“Hey, I was retiring and the buyer made an offer, lock, stock, and barrel. My partner said to sell it all, so we did.” T.J. stood on the grass with his arms folded over his chest. “Are you going to tell me what you came up with?”

“A name, dates. A phone number. The usual.”

“Are you going to make me beg?”

“Nah.” Mitch opened the briefcase that sat at his feet and handed T.J. a folder. “Name, Claude Raymond Fleming.”

He looked at Lorna. “That name ring a bell?”

“No.” She shook her head.

“Claude Raymond lives on Michigan ’s Upper Peninsula. I have someone checking him out as we speak.”

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence?” Lorna frowned. “Maybe the call had nothing to do with Melinda after all. I guess that would have been too good to be true.”

“We’ll see what turns up. According to the records, it’s a number Danielle hadn’t called in the past four years, so that right there makes me curious. That she’d be dialing even as you’re leaving. Seems as if she was telling someone something they needed to know right away, doesn’t it?” Mitch turned to T.J. “So how’d it go with you today, Dawson?”

“It went.” T.J. sat on the top step and leaned against the support pillar.

Lorna unlocked the front door. “I’ll be back out in a few. I want to see if I have a message from any of my clients.”

“Take your time,” T.J. told her. “I expect we’ll still be here when you’re finished.”

“You learn anything from… which one did you see today?” Mitch asked.

“Dustin Lafferty. The one who drove Jason home the night he disappeared. About the only thing I learned was that he admitted he lied about having seen Jason go into the house that night.”

“Why would he have lied about that?”

“Seems he thought it would make him look important. He wanted people to think he knew something no one else knew.”

Mitch nodded. “I hate it when that happens.”

“And he also told us that Fritz Keeler is gay.”

“Well, there’s something.” Mitch stopped rocking. “Gay victims, a gay perp could make sense. Local guy, just like we thought. Maybe I should have a chat with him. Tell me, what do your instincts say?”

T.J. shrugged. “I don’t have any.”

“That’s bullshit, Dawson.”

“Let’s just look at the facts as we know them, okay, and leave it at that.”

“In that case, I’d say it’s time for me to bring in Fritz.”

“Then do it.”

“You don’t think it’s him,” Mitch said flatly. “I can tell by the look on your face. Will you please tell me what you’re thinking?”