Whatever Remains (11 page)

             
“Okay, Grace,” Woods started, “we’re just gonna…” and he paused when Riley touched his wrist in a silent request to lead the interview.

             
Trey snorted. “Dude.”

             
“Would you let that shitstain interrogate a kid?” Ben asked.

             
“Maybe if it was the kid from
The Omen
,” Jason said.

             
“’It’s all for you, Damien,’” Trey said before Ben elbowed him.

             
Riley flashed an easy smile. “Good morning, Grace.” She was friendly, but didn’t baby-talk. “My name’s Monica. I asked your mom to bring you in today so we could talk about Heidi.” No questions; no
do you know why you’re here
? It was better that way – don’t give the kid a chance to use her imagination. Ben nodded.

             
Grace was a thumb sucker. She lifted her hand to her mouth, touched the tip of her thumb to her lips; then thought better of it. She must not have been comfortable doing it in public; she was old enough to know that wasn’t “cool.” Instead, she wound a lock of hair around one tiny finger and tipped wide eyes up to Riley. “Heidi…” She took a shaky breath. “Heidi’s dead.”

             
It was amazing how easily a child’s mind accepted the terrible truth. Adults were all about denial, but children, no matter how crushed, took on the facts without question.

             
Riley made a sympathetic face and nodded. “I’m afraid so, yes. I’m so sorry.”

             
Grace glanced down at that table, at Heidi’s things laid out in front of her.

             
“Grace,” Riley said gently, “someone hurt your sister. And it’s my job, me and the other detectives, to figure out who hurt her.”

             
Grace fingered the edge of a photo album through its plastic evidence sleeve.

             
“So I need your help,” Riley said. She touched the table, drawing Grace’s attention back to her face. “Can you tell me anything about two nights ago that might help me find out who hurt Heidi? Anything at all?”

             
When she didn’t respond, Woods said, “Tell us what you did Friday night. You came home from school, and then what?”

             
Alicia patted her arm. “It’s okay, sweetie. Just tell them what happened.”

             
Ben didn’t know if Grace was terrified, or still wrestling with the aftereffects of shock. She blinked a few times, and then said, “Mommy made us dinner. We had fish sticks. Two of mine were burned, so Heidi traded them with me.”

             
Riley nodded and flashed an encouraging smile. “Good. Keep going.”

             
“We did our homework. I had cursive and addition. Mommy helped with my math; I’m not good at it.”

             
“Yes you are,” Alicia said, “you just need more practice.”

             
Grace took a deep breath, then cut a fast, nervous glance toward her mother. Alicia nodded, face grave. “Then,” Grace said. She was breathing hard, little chest lifting under her sweater. “Then Mommy got one of her headaches. They’re really bad. Sometimes she throws up. And Heidi and I hafta be really quiet and turn the lights off.” Her gaze dropped to the table.

             
“What happened when your mommy got her headache?” Riley asked.

             
“She…she went to her room. To take a nap.”

             
“And you and Heidi stayed in the living room?”

             
Grace nodded. Her shoulders curled and she put her elbows on the table, pulling in tight on herself.

             
“Then what happened?” Riley pressed.

             
Grace wet her lips; she was breathing through her mouth now, adrenaline thrumming through her as she relived the moment. “Heidi – she heard a noise outside.”

             
“What kind of noise?” Woods asked.

             
“Damn, man, just let her tell the story,” Trey grumbled.

             
“
Hiiiiisssssssss
,” Grace whispered through her teeth. Ben felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up; Trey’s brows jumped in his dim reflection in the one-way glass. “Like that.”

             
“Outside where?” Riley asked.

             
“The window. In the bushes.” Grace folded her hands together, knuckles going white. “It scared me. I wanted to go wake Mommy up, but…but Heidi went outside to look for it. She said it might be a snake.”

             
“She wasn’t afraid of snakes?”

             
“No. But
I was
. I told her not to.” She was getting upset. “Heidi said…Heidi said, ‘Don’t be a baby,’ and she went outside. We weren’t
supposed
to go outside without Mommy.”

             
“It’s okay,” Riley soothed. “You’re doing fine, Grace.”

             
But Grace didn’t hear her; she was deep in her memories and close to panicking. “Mommy said, ‘Don’t go outside at night.’ I
always
do what Mommy says, but Heidi…”

             
“Heidi wasn’t a disobedient girl,” Alicia said. Her eyes looked wet and her breathing was jagged too. “She was just starting to get at that age –  ”

             
“Mrs. Latham,” Woods said, “please.”

             
“What happened when Heidi went outside?” Riley asked. “Did you go with her?”

             
“No!” She shook her head. “No. I heard – I heard Heidi – she was screaming! And I woke Mommy up and…and…”

             
Riley laid a hand over Grace’s balled fists and squeezed. The room was silent. Ben held his breath and listened to the brief moment of intercom crackling. “Was Heidi gone?” she asked.

             
Grace’s eyes – huge and dark and haunted – would stay with Ben for weeks. “A bad man got her,” she said. “A
bad
man.”

“A bad man,” Captain Rice said as he leaned back against the table in the conference room. “That’s all she said?”

              “Well.” Riley pulled an evidence sleeve from her back pocket, the one with the blue plastic coin purse. “We had her look at what the CSIs took from the house, trying to see if anything jogged her memory. It was a long shot, but she pointed to this.”

             
Ben folded his arms over his chest and let his shoulders fall back against the wall, still juiced from hearing this a few minutes ago.

             
“According to Grace, she and Heidi were hanging over the fence at Canterbury a week or so ago and Heidi dropped this. It was in her hand and slipped out, and it rolled a ways down the hill. A man picked it up and carried it up to the fence to her.”

             
“A man?”

             
“He was there watching someone ride. She picked a photo of Asher McMahon out of an array.”

             
“We pulled prints off it that don’t match any of the Lathams,” Jason supplied, “which supports the story.”

             
Rice frowned down at his shoes. “McMahon? Refresh my memory.”

             
“Boyfriend of the girl who found the body,” Woods said. He was chewing gum and smacking it like a teenage girl.

             
Ben pushed off the wall, fighting down a sneer. “Not boyfriend. They were acquainted.” He went to the whiteboard that ran along the near wall, where photos had been taped up. “Jade Donovan” – he tapped Jade’s blown-up driver’s license photo; her smile was small and secretive – “and Jeremy Carver” – he flicked Jeremy’s ID shot – “ own Canterbury farm. The Lathams are next door neighbors. According to Alicia Latham and Ms. Donovan herself, Jade had been dating McMahon for a couple of weeks. He was at the farm on several occasions and we have Alicia Latham saying she didn’t like the way he watched her girls and Grace Latham saying he picked up Heidi’s coin purse. And the prints on the purse that we’re running. If those turn up to be a match –  ”

             
“Picking up the kid’s purse doesn’t equal murder, Haley,” Rice said, face set in hard lines as his eyes moved over the photos. “If you’re basing this off opportunity and random acts of kindness, then Jade Donovan’s had a year to kill her.”

             
Ben fought down a scowl. “Sir, can you honestly see one mother killing another’s child? With no motive whatsoever?” He knew that this was the typical war room base-covering, but the thought of Jade getting dragged into this…He couldn’t think about that. He had to make everyone see that it was McMahon.

             
“So what’s McMahon’s motive?” Woods asked. “He had no connection to the vic other than seeing her across the fence a few times. And he was there when the body was found.”

             
“How many times does it take a pedophile to see a child before he acts?”

             
Riley nodded. “Sometimes fifty, sometimes once.”

             
“Yeah. And what if he’s the type who likes to bask in the glory? He could have killed her, washed her, dressed her, and left her. He could have been leading Jade right down to see his handiwork.”

             
“Sickass show-and-tell,” Trey said, making a face.

             
“Where’d he get fresh clothes?” Rice asked. “Dr. Harding said her clothes would have been covered. And the mother ID’d these as belonging to the vic, so he didn’t bring along a fresh set.”

             
Ben shrugged. “He could have broken into the home earlier that day, the day before. He could have stolen some. They don’t have an alarm system and they live back off the road. That would have been easy.”

             
“If that’s the case,” Rice said, “then you’d have to look at what he was doing earlier in the week, and not just where he was that night.”

             
Ben nodded. “He’s a professor, so I should be able to figure out where he was pretty easy.”

             
“I’ll call the school,” Trey offered. “See if he showed up for class.”

             
Ben tossed him a grateful look over their captain’s head.

             
“So, this ‘bad man,’” Rice said, turning to Riley. She was in a swivel chair at the head of the table, clicking a pen top over and over, expression troubled. “Did she see something? Or is this just speculation?”             

             
“Speculation, from what I can tell. All she knows for sure it that her sister let herself out of the house and didn’t come back.”

             
Woods kept smacking his gum and scratched at the back of his neck. “I don’t get this hissing noise.”

             
“It’s irrelevant,” Ben said, and earned a scowl for it. “The killer was trying to lure her out. Or he turned the hose on. Or he was pissing up against the side of the house. Who cares?”

             
“Why’ve you gotta be such a shit about it, Haley?” Woods demanded. “You’ve been trying to keep me off this case from the start –  ”

             
“Because it’s a murder case, and I don’t need you touchy-feely-ing your way through all my hard evidence and fucking things up. You’re just here to make sure we don’t hurt the family’s feelings.”

             
“Wow.” Riley twitched her brows. “So much for departmental cooperation.”

             
Because he couldn’t very well apologize to her, and because he didn’t want to, Ben paced away from the lot of them, going over to the window.

             
“You all act like adults,” Rice snapped. He wasn’t threatening about it, though.

             
“Jason,” Ben asked, “when will you have print results?”

             
“Whenever. Soon. Just waiting on AFIS to do its thing.”

             
“In the meantime,” Rice said, “how ‘bout some old fashioned police work? And don’t,” he said as Ben turned, “gimme that sulky look. The four of you are working this case together. This is high profile; tomorrow morning, the media’s gonna be hitting us hard about leads and suspects. You need the manpower, Haley, so take it and shut up about it.”

             
Outside, it was looking like it might rain again. If it did, Jade would bring the horses in early, bundled in a PVC coat and wet to the knees from walking through the long grass. She would hum to herself and mix sloppy bran mash with hot water for their dinner. Somehow, he had to keep all of this very far away from her, as far as he could keep it. If anyone found out about their connection…Oddly enough, his job wasn’t his biggest worry at the moment.