For some reason, this made Lilly even more nervous. But getting up and running didn’t really seem like an option. This guy looked to be in pretty good shape. He’d catch her for sure. Whatever this was about, she would have to play along.
“I guess.”
“Good. I just want you to know that you’re not in any trouble, and you’re not going to get into any trouble for anything you tell me.”
He opened the envelope, took out a pair of pictures.
“I just want to ask you if you recognize a couple of people. If you could do that, it would really help me out.”
He was lying to her. She knew it. All that business about not getting into trouble was bullshit. He was going to show her a picture of Mr. Mushroom Teeth, and a picture of that skateboard asshole by the bus station. She was going to get arrested for kneeing some pervert in the balls and burning that kid’s face, too. And she didn’t even do that one. Double assault and battery. She was going away for life.
When he flipped over the first picture, Lilly felt a cool breeze blowing across her heart. It wasn’t Mr. Mushroom Teeth in all his creepy glory after all. It was a picture of a girl. Kind of heavyset, but she had on a pair of great hoop earrings and a killer necklace.
“Do you recognize this girl?” he asked. “Her name is Monica.”
Lilly took the picture from him, looked closely. The girl in the photograph looked like a girl she had gone to school with, Trish Carbone, but Trish had smaller eyes. Snake eyes. She didn’t like Trish Carbone. “No,” she said. “I don’t recognize her. Sorry.”
“No sweat.” He put the picture back into the envelope, flipped over the other picture. This one was of a blond girl. She was really pretty.
Like model pretty.
“What about her?” he asked. “Have you ever seen her before?”
Lilly scanned the photo. She didn’t know too many girls this pretty. Sure, there were girls at her school who looked good—rich girls from Rivercrest and Pine Hollow—but they were all haters. Mean Girls, Inc. This girl looked like someone she could hang out with. “No. Sorry again.”
“That’s okay. You tried, and I appreciate it.”
He slipped the second picture into the envelope, closed the clasp.
“Just one more thing, and I’ll leave you to this beautiful day,” he said. “I want to give you a few names, see if they sound familiar.”
“Okay.”
“Daria.”
Lilly shook her head.
“Starlight.”
“No,” she said, absolutely positive her face would give her away. It didn’t.
“Govinda.”
“Is that a girl?”
“I think so.”
Lilly shrugged. “Don’t know her either.”
“Okay.”
He gathered his things together, preparing to leave.
“I wasn’t much help, was I?”
“Don’t worry about it. You did great,” he said. “Some people won’t even talk to me.”
“Well that’s just plain rude.”
He laughed. He had dimples. “It surely is. Back in Berks County, where I’m from? People are more than happy to conversate. Well, maybe not in Reading so much, but in Bechtelsville you can’t shut them up.”
This guy is from Berks, Lilly thought. She knew there was something farm boy about him. She’d always been a sucker for farm boys. For a second she wanted him to stay and talk to her, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen.
He stood up, brushed off his pants. “Well, thanks again. It is most appreciated.” He reached into his pocket and took out a little black wallet. He pulled out a card, handed it to her. “If you remember anything, or run into anyone who might have known these girls, please give me a call.”
“I will.”
He smiled, turned, and walked across the sidewalk. He waited for the light.
“What was her name?” Lilly asked.
Detective Joshua Bontrager spun around. “I’m sorry?”
“The girl in the picture. The blond girl. You never told me her name.”
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. Great cop I am. It was Caitlin. Her name was Caitlin O’Riordan.”
Lilly felt dizzy. It felt as if the earth was falling away beneath her, as if she had just chugged a fifth of bad whiskey and gotten on a Tilt-A-Whirl. And he was going to notice. He was going to notice something was wrong and ask her if she was okay and she was going to blurt everything out. Then she was going to jail for sure.
But that’s not what happened. Although it felt as if her ears were jammed with wet cotton, it sounded like he said, “Have a great day.”
She watched him walk away. There were a pair of teenage boys in the small park across North Twentieth Street. He was going to start all over with them.
Lilly took a pair of deep, slow breaths. She felt like she was at the top of the first hill on a roller coaster, about to plunge toward the earth.
Caitlin O’Riordan.
They knew. And they would be watching her. She would have to act fast.
She would have to trust somebody.
FORTY-FOUR
THEY’D STRUCK OUT. Between South Street and the bus station they had talked to more than a hundred teenagers, passed out over a hundred cards. On their way out of the station Byrne saw four cards in the trash. He saw three more on the sidewalk.
Street work paid off more than it didn’t, but it was exhausting. And sometimes, on days like this, fruitless. Byrne hadn’t expected much, and that’s what they got.
ON THE WAY BACK to the Roundhouse, Byrne’s cell phone rang.
“Byrne.”
“Detective Byrne, my name is David Sinclair.”
Byrne rummaged his memory. Then it clicked. “The author.”
“Yes sir.”
“I appreciate you getting back to us.”
“Well, it’s not every day I’m asked to call the police. How can I help you?”
“We’d like to meet with you if we could. We have a few questions about your books that we think may impact on a case we’re working on.”
Silence. “My books?”
“I’ll explain more when we meet.”
“Okay. Sure. When would you like to get together?”
“Today, if possible.”
“Wow. Okay, I can meet you at Chester County Books if you like. Do you know it?”
“We’ll find it.”
“I can be there in an hour,” Sinclair said.
“That will be fine.” Byrne glanced at his watch. “Before I let you go, can I ask if you know a woman named Laura Somerville?”
“Somerville?”
“That’s right.”
A few silent seconds. “No, I’m afraid it doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Okay. We’ll see you in an hour.”
Byrne called the boss, got the go-ahead. He and Jessica decided to split up for the afternoon. Jessica was going to continue her canvass on a few of the college campuses. They decided to meet in Manayunk in a few hours. Byrne dropped Jessica off at the Roundhouse, then headed toward Chester County.
CHESTER COUNTY, along with Philadelphia and Bucks, was one of the three original counties created by William Penn in 1682. Although originally named for Cheshire, England, it had long been known around these parts as Chesco.
The bookstore, on Paoli Pike, was one of the largest independent bookstores in the country, covering more than 38,000 square feet and stocking over a quarter million titles. It also featured the Magnolia Grill, a New Orleans fare restaurant.
SINCLAIR WAS WAITING at one of the tables in the Magnolia Grill when Byrne arrived. When he saw Byrne enter, he stood up, waved him over. Byrne guessed he really did look like a cop, even in his trust-us-we’re-the-good-guys attire.
Byrne didn’t know what to expect, physically, of David Sinclair. He hadn’t met too many authors. Perhaps he expected someone about sixty or so, someone who looked like Albert Finney or Michael Caine, somebody in corduroy or tweed, a man who wore vest sweaters and Oxford button-down shirts and horizontally striped knit ties. Someone who smoked a meerschaum.
Instead, Sinclair was about thirty-five, and wore Levi’s, a leather blazer, and a Ramones Gabba Gabba Hey T-shirt. Along with a New York Yankees cap.