Jex Malone (20 page)

Just like Nat said. It was just that simple.

Stephan picks one of the editing suites and brings us a box of videotapes, smaller than the ones I remember seeing my mom pop into our old movie player until she finally relented and bought a DVD player.

“Press the ‘open' button and a little door slides up and out, like a hungry mouth waiting for a tape,” he explains, showing us how to pop a tape in and work a round knob that makes the tapes go back and forth as quickly or as slowly as we want.

He tells us he's just two doors down in the kitchen dealing with those offending bacon bits. We're told to come get him when we're done and he'll take us back to Katt. We nod obediently, pulling the door closed as soon as he leaves. Almost immediately, Nat yanks a digital recorder out of her bag and is ready to copy whatever we hear on the tapes.

Every tape has a date scribbled on it, and we start with the first one and pop it in. The grainy footage springs to life on the screen in front of us, and it takes us a few seconds to recognize its footage of the street where Patty lived—the same street we were on yesterday.

I gasp.

My dad, years younger than I ever remember seeing him, fills the next flickering camera frame and I hear Katt's voice demand: “Detective Malone, we hear a young girl has been kidnapped. Can you tell us what's going on? Can you confirm she was in fact abducted?”

Dad's hand raises up to silence the question, and I recognize that familiar look of agitation on his face. “Not right now, Katt, we're trying to work here,” Dad answers.

In another tape, Ricki is carrying Cooper, who is adorable with his long, sun-streaked blonde hair and a little half-broken dump truck clutched in his tiny hand.

“We got nothing to say to nobody, other than if you know where Patty is, please call the police,” Ricki barks into the camera, and we hear Katt's voice off camera shout to her. “Mrs. Matthews, do you know what happened to your daughter? Do you blame your husband? Was he drinking? Was he violent? Is he violent?”

“Get your skinny butt off my property! I don't want to tell you again!” Ricki barks.

Nat pops in another tape and it springs to life. Almost instantly, we all sit up straight as a large image fills the screen.

“That must be the boyfriend,” Cissy whispers.

Billy looks nervous and continually glances away from the camera. He has curly black hair that curls around the crooked collar of his bright blue and black sports shirt. He rubs his eyes and looks everywhere but at the camera as Katt starts to talk.

“What is Patty like?” she asks.

“She's the greatest girl in the world,” Billy answers as Katt nods reassuringly.

“Okay. Let's try this another way. What can you tell me about the night Patty disappeared? Were you with her?” Katt asks.

“Yes. No,” Billy stammers.

“I was with her for a little while,” Billy responds defensively. “Look, I don't know anything about that other stuff.”

“Wasn't there some kind of neighborhood party going on? Why wouldn't you be there with your girlfriend?” Katt is now peppering him with questions faster than he can answer them.

“'Cause we had a bad fight,” Billy responds, looking off into the distance. “I have a right to have a fight with my girlfriend. That ain't against the law, is it?”

“Billy, it's not your fault what happened to Patty, right?” Katt sneaks that question in.

He shakes his head slowly yes. Then no. Then yes again.

Katt's eyes go wide. Billy shakes a no again. I turn and look at Deva, Nat, and Cissy, and they're transfixed.

Tears overcome Billy and the next words he blurts out make our blood run cold.

“I think we need to leave this alone. Leave me alone! Maybe Patty got what she deserved,” Billy shouts angrily as tears are running down his face. “Maybe she's in a better place right now.”

“Like heaven,” Katt says in an almost whisper.

The tape goes black.

When Stephan returns, Nat casually tells him, “Would you mind telling Ms. Kaetan that we had to go … home? For lunch. But we will back. Someday.”

“And tell her thank you,” I sniff. “For the closure.”

“Whatever I may or may not be, I am definitely no angel.”

—Miss Jane Marple

The Galleria Mall is a big sprawling retail wonderland—complete with giant Spanish arches and parking lots named after famous conquistadors separated by medians decorated with giant cactuses.

“Remember, the point here is not to get a confession out of Billy—although that would be nice—but to ease him into talking,” Nat instructs. “If he were going to confess to murdering his girlfriend, he would have done it all those years ago when she first disappeared.

“We need to play on his emotions to get him to want to help us. Then we let the guilt that has been building up inside him all these years bubble over, once and for all,” Nat insists.

“Oh, c'mon, this guy is a psychopath,” Deva answers. “The only thing he's going to confess is that he will kill us, too, if we keep bothering him. We have to let him know that we can prove he killed Patty because we found her diary and she wrote everything down and practically named him as her killer. You know, shake him up. Play with his mind,” she adds with a fake wicked laugh that sounds like a cross between the Wicked Witch and some actress in a really bad horror movie.

“But Deva, she didn't do that,” Cissy interjects nervously. “I mean, why would we tell him that when it's not true? He's going to get really, really mad at us.”

“He doesn't
know
she didn't write that,” Deva hisses back. “We have to make him think his only chance of escaping the electric chair, Old Sparkly, is to confess now and take the police to where he hid her body.”

“There's no more electric chair—and it's Old Sparky … not Old Sparkly,” Nat interjects, as I just keep my trap shut and watch the exchange.

“What do you mean no electric chair?” Deva shoots back, clearly disappointed. “I thought there has always been an electric chair.”

“They thought that was a little too cruel and unusual in terms of punishment,” Nat lectures. “They don't even use it in Florida anymore, and they have very high standards for what they consider cruel or unusual down there.”

“Well, don't tell me we're going through all this trouble just so he can spend the rest of his life playing tennis and bocce ball at some country-club prison,” Deva almost shouts, causing the rest of us to shush her instantly.

“I want a dramatic ending to this!” Deva insists.

“Okay, drama mama, because this hasn't been enough excitement already,” I finally speak up.

Inside the suburban mall, I follow the others past the overpriced jewelry stores and the sunglass stores where shades cost more than diamonds. We move past the vitamin store that smells like the iron and blue-green algae tablets my mom makes me take in the morning.

There's a big looming bargain department sign ahead, and Deva straightens her shoulders and marches past the clothing section with her eyes trained on the automotive department. For the briefest moment, Cissy lingers to glance at a dress on one of those racks, and without moving her gaze, Deva barks, “Cissy!” at her.

Cissy immediately picks up the pace.

“That dress was pretty cute,” I whisper into her ear while hoping that Deva can't hear me.

“Really, Jex,” Deva says, still looking straight ahead. “I thought I made it clear that dusky pink is not in your color palette.”

“And I feel that eye roll,” she adds, still full steam ahead.

Two old men are watching cable news in the automotive store waiting area, which stinks of rubber tires and motor oil. Nat does a “be cool” gesture with her hands—palms down, hands spreading apart—and we push the door open to a car service area that is so loud with air compressors and hydraulic lifts that no one would even hear Godzilla stomping in.

Nat surveys the mechanics in the garage and then points to a pair of legs sticking out from under a red Mustang and whispers to us, “That's him.”

“You're identifying him based on his knees?” I whisper.

“It's him,” Nat mouths. “Those are some very big knees.”

Staring down at his grease-stained blue mechanic's pants, I approach him gingerly and then start to talk to those rather large knees in a firm voice that I heard my father use on the phone the other night while talking to a beat cop.

“Billy Guffman!” I say in a harsh, clipped tone.

No answer.

I try again. “Billy Guffman, come out from under that car. Immediately!”

The knees stay put.

“We need to talk to you for a minute and it's important,” I state in the best Malone no-nonsense guttural bark.

“What the … ” Billy says from under the car, his words hard and clipped. Confusion registers on his meaty face when he slides out.

“We need to talk,” I bark at him without hesitation.

“Hey, you kids need to get out of here,” Billy shouts back, and gestures with his hand, pointing back toward the waiting room. “You will get in huge trouble being out here.”

“No, we need to talk,” I insist, and Billy gives me a very puzzled look before getting to his feet. He towers above us and puts his hands on his hips as if he's the commanding officer of the auto repair bay. I take a step back, but don't back down.

“Where are your parents?” he says, looking at me—and me alone—in the most quizzical manner. “Do they know you're out here?”

“Trust me, Billy, you don't want my parent around,” I shoot back. Where did that come from? Who knows—but it works, because a wave of realization washes across Billy's face. He knows I mean business. About something.

“I can't imagine what we need to talk about considering I've never seen you in my life,” he shoots back. “Did I work on your car? Do I know your older sister or something? Wait, you're not that girl Debbie's sister, because I swear we never had anything going on.”

“Uh, nice Billy,” Deva interjects, clearly bored at the pace of our attempt at an interrogation. “Here's the deal: We've come into some new information about another old girlfriend of yours. And while we're standing here wasting your time and our time—and frankly God knows what these motor oil fumes are doing to my pores—our dear Patty Matthews is lying out there somewhere alone and dead.”

I turn to glare at Deva for speaking out of turn, but quickly notice that Billy has turned white as a sheet.

“Patty? What do you know about Patty? You look too young to have known her … what in the hell is going on here?” he stammers.

“We know all we need to know about Patty,” I jump back in, feeling the need to take control of this back from Deva before she blabs too much in her impatience. “What we need to know from you is … ”

Oh darn.
My mind goes blank.
What is it we need to know from him?
I'm totally flubbing this. Olivia on
Law & Order
never flubs her line when she's at that moment of confronting the suspect. I totally suck at Interrogation 101.

I must have a pleading look of desperation on my face because the next thing I know, Billy is grabbing an oily rag and wiping his hands on it, turning to shout at another mechanic that he's taking a fifteen-minute break. He points to the exit door and we obligingly head that way with him trailing behind. The door shuts behind us with a thud and the noise of the garage is muffled.

“Food court—now!” he commands us and points toward the open mall. We walk silently to the nearest table at the food court and take our seats without uttering a word.

“Look, I am not the smartest person on the planet,” he announces.

Deva stifles a laugh and I kick her under the table.

“But when people who I don't know show up at my work talking about Patty, I know something is up. So spill it, what do you know?” Billy demands.