“You don’t even know that she’s missing,” Mr. Fogelman said.

“Oh, I know she’s missing,” Kovac said. “And by the end of the day I’m probably going to be sure that she’s dead and lying on a steel table in the morgue.”

“Aaron certainly had no part in any of that!”

“He was part of the little ambush that prompted Penny Gray to leave the Rock and Bowl on her own that night, Mr. Fogelman. And then she disappeared. So see? You can’t say Junior here didn’t have anything to do with that. You throw a rock in a pond, you don’t have control of where the ripples go.”

Wynn Fogelman stood up, trying not to look flustered. “I think we should go now, Aaron.”

“Kyle Hatcher followed her out,” Aaron said, happy to throw the blame on someone else.

“Kyle Hatcher doesn’t have a vehicle,” Kovac returned.

“He came with her,” the boy threw back. “Why wouldn’t he leave with her too?”

Kovac refused to react. “What time did you leave the Rock and Bowl that night, Aaron?”

Fogelman Sr. put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Aaron. We’re leaving. Now.”

The boy looked from his father to Kovac, not sure which authority figure to obey. “Later. After them.”

“And where did you go?”

“Home,” his father said firmly. “He came home.”

“Well, then,” Kovac said to the elder Fogelman. “You’re a hell of a lot luckier than Penny Gray’s mother, aren’t you?”

He watched the Fogelmans exit the room—father, ramrod straight, chin up; son, looking at the ground, shoulders slouched, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. He followed them to the hall and watched them walk out as Tippen joined him.

“Which do you think would be worse?” Tippen asked. “Knowing you’re a son of a bitch or knowing you fathered one?”

“Toss-up,” Kovac said as his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. Liska.

“Do I need to help you bury the body?” he asked by way of greeting.

“No. But I’m touched to know that you would.”

“Well, in the last hour I’ve come to a greater understanding of why tigers eat their young.”

“That insight might come in handier than you think,” she said. “Penny Gray is dead.”

29

Liska marched into the lovely offices of Dr. Bob Iverson, her heart thumping with purpose. The receptionist behind the elegant cherrywood counter looked up at her, recognizing her from before, but uncertain about the expression Liska knew she wore now. The bland, polite smile she had given the woman when she picked up the X-rays had been replaced by something harder and darker.

“Did we forget something?” the woman asked quietly.

“I would say so. I need to speak with Dr. Iverson.”

“He’s seeing patients all afternoon. I’m afraid he won’t be available to speak to you until after four P.M.,” she said with a practiced look of apology.

Liska pulled her ID out and thrust her badge at the woman. “This is police business in relation to an urgent missing persons situation. Dr. Iverson will see me now.”

The staff on the other side of the counter all turned and looked at Liska with wide eyes, like a small herd of gazelles suddenly aware of a lioness in their midst.

The receptionist turned to a nurse in purple scrubs. “Angie, would you please tell Dr. Iverson—”

The nurse scurried back toward the exam rooms before she could finish the sentence.

Liska glanced off to the side, to the waiting area with its mood lighting and big-screen television quietly playing a travel show depicting someplace tropical. A mix of patients sat in the leather armchairs in varying stages of misery, coughing and sniffling. Several were looking at her. Others were absorbed in their magazines and cell phones.

The door to the exam area opened and the purple-suited nurse stuck her head out.

“The doctor will see you now,” she said softly.

Liska followed her down the hall and into the doctor’s private office. Iverson, a big, good-looking man in his fifties, had already taken his position behind his impressive desk. He rose from his seat and offered his hand.

“Bob Iverson.”

“Sergeant Liska, Homicide,” she said, holding her ID out in place of the handshake.

“Homicide?” he said, his brow furrowing. “Are we talking about the same case? Penny Gray? I spoke with her mother, Julia, this morning. I thought this was a missing person case.”

“It was.” Liska put the envelope with Penny Gray’s X-rays on the immaculate desktop.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” he said. “Please have a seat, Sergeant.”

Liska perched on the edge of a chair, back straight. The doctor lowered himself into his cushy executive’s chair, his hands on the desktop as if physically bracing himself for bad news.

“Are you telling me Penny Gray is dead?” he asked.

“I’m not at liberty to tell you anything, Dr. Iverson. I need you to answer some questions for me regarding your treatment of Penny back in April of last year.”

Iverson frowned. “I’m sure you’re aware of patient privacy laws, Sergeant.”

“As I am sure you are aware of the laws regarding physicians’ needs to report child abuse to the proper authorities.”

“Penny isn’t abused!” he scoffed.

“Really? Because I had the assistant chief medical examiner look at these X-rays that were taken here in your office last April, and he tells me this injury is a spiral fracture, a torsion fracture resulting from a twisting of the limb. This is a common injury in cases of physical abuse. But neither the police department nor Family Services has a report on record regarding Penelope Gray.”

“Because Penny was not abused,” he insisted. “She took a nasty fall, twisting her arm as she came off the bike. There was no reason for me to report the incident. I’ve known Julia Gray for years. She’s a lovely woman.”

“Are you Penny’s regular physician?” Liska asked.

“No. She’s just at the age to switch over from her pediatrician.”

“Do you have a pediatrician as part of this practice?”

“Yes.”

“And is that pediatrician Penny Gray’s doctor?”

“You’ll have to ask her mother that question.”

“According to the date on these X-rays, this incident happened on a Saturday. Most people have accidents on a weekend, they go to an ER,” Liska said. “They don’t call their family practitioner.”

“This is a concierge practice,” Iverson explained. “As you may have noticed when you came in the building, we have an urgent care facility, we have our own lab facilities. We are one-stop shopping for our clients. There was no need for Julia to take Penny to an ER on a spring weekend where they would have sat for hours before being seen.”

“And you personally dropped what you were doing on a Saturday and came in and saw the girl when presumably she could have been taken care of by the on-call doc in your urgent care clinic?”

“Yes,” he said with a defensive edge to his voice. “As I said, I’ve known Julia for years. Of course I would come in when she called me.”

“And you believed the story about the bicycle.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“If you’re such good friends with Mrs. Gray, then you’re probably aware she and her daughter have a difficult relationship.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with falling off a bicycle.”

“And when you saw the nature of Penny’s injury, this didn’t raise any questions in your mind?”

“No.”

“Seriously? How many spiral fractures do you see in the course of your week, Dr. Iverson?” she asked. “How many fractures do you see at all? You’re not an orthopedist, are you?”

“No.”

“Yet you felt perfectly comfortable treating an unusual type of fracture.”

“I worked in emergency medicine early in my career,” he said. “I’ve treated every kind of fracture there is. Penny’s break was clean enough to set and cast. It didn’t require a specialist.”