In Between Days (37 page)

Glancing back at the detectives in the hallway, she shrugs and smiles apologetically, then looks back at her watch, staring at it until the door finally opens and the taller detective enters.

“We’re going to get started here, Mrs. Harding,” he says coldly, pulling out a folder and then walking over to the table and sitting down beside her. “We’d like to wait for your husband, of course, but it’s starting to look like he might have had second thoughts. Don’t you think?”

Cadence says nothing to this but nods.

“In fact, what we’d really like to do is have you both come back tomorrow night, if that’s okay. And maybe this time you could make sure to bring your husband along.”

Cadence nods again, feeling ashamed, and then begins to apologize, but before she can finish her sentence, the detective waves her off and picks up the folder.

“I’d just like to ask you a few questions about your daughter, ma’am, and then I’ll send you on your way, okay? But I should let you know first that there have been a few developments in the past couple of days, a few things we’d like to talk to you about.”

“Developments?” she says, staring at him. “Good or bad?”

“Well, that depends on how you look at it.”

“Tell me the bad first,” she says.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

The detective looks back at his folder, then picks up his pen. “Well, it’s hard to know at this point, ma’am, but if I had to guess, I’d say your daughter’s probably looking at a pretty nasty civil suit at this point.”

“A civil suit?” she says, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know what a civil suit is, ma’am?”

“Yes, of course I do. But you’re saying she’s not looking at a criminal suit anymore?”

“Well, no,” he says. “I mean, from everything we’ve heard about the Beckwith boy, he’s in pretty stable condition right now. That’s what they’re telling us at least. He has some residual dizziness, of course, and there’s a hematoma in the membrane of his brain, which they’ll probably have to remove through surgery, but all of his criticals are fine, and from what they’ve told us, there’s no sign of brain damage.”

“No sign of brain damage,” she says, almost laughing. “You’re serious?”

“Like I said, it’s too early to say for sure, but yes, it certainly looks that way.”

“And he’s conscious?”

“He’s conscious, ma’am, yes. But he’s still got a tube in his throat. They’re trying to wean him off the ventilator gradually, you see. But he’s writing now, writing pretty well, in fact.”

“Oh, thank God,” she says softly.

The detective smiles weakly.

“So that’s the good news?”

“That’s the good news.”

“And they’re not filing assault charges?”

“No, they are, ma’am, but that shouldn’t involve your daughter, since she wasn’t present when the incident occurred, and it should only involve the Kittappa boy in a marginal way, since he wasn’t the one who delivered the blow. That is, if he’s willing to testify, of course.”

“What do you mean by ‘blow’?”

“The blow to the Beckwith boy’s head, ma’am. The blow that knocked him out. They’ve determined that the blow came from a cricket bat
that belonged to the Kittappa boy but that didn’t have his fingerprints on it.”

She looks at him, still confused.

“The bat was found in the apartment of the other boy’s girlfriend. A Bae Lin. Are you familiar with her, ma’am?”

Cadence shakes her head.

“Well, apparently, he’d rubbed it down afterward, the bat, but our team, the forensic folks, they were able to pull off about three or four solid prints, all clean, and they all matched the Cho boy, you see.”

“So he did it?”

“From what we can tell, yes. But that doesn’t completely exonerate the Kittappa boy, ma’am, and it’s likely he’ll still be looking at some charges himself. That is, unless he’s willing to testify, which we suspect he will be.”

Cadence looks at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t make any promises, ma’am, not at this point, but I’m guessing the DA will be willing take the jail time off the table if he’s willing to testify. Basically give him time served, you know? He’ll still have the charges on his record, of course—”

“But he’d be free to go.”

“Yes, essentially.”

“And no charges for Chloe?”

“Not at this point, ma’am, no, especially if she’s willing to testify.”

Gripping the edge of the table, Cadence can barely compose herself. The elation she feels at this moment, the knowledge that Chloe is essentially free to come home now, free once again to live a normal life, to have a second chance at a normal existence, it’s almost as surreal as the concept of her going to jail had once been. And suddenly, despite all of the resentment she’d felt only moments before, she wants Elson to be here now, wants him to be here to hear this.

But before she can say another word she’s halted by the expression on the detective’s face, which is one of concern, not elation.

“Look, ma’am,” he says finally. “We have another issue here, and that issue is that we still have no idea where your daughter is at this point, or where the Kittappa boy is for that matter, if they’re in fact together, which we believe they are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, ma’am,” he says, pausing. “Look. Let’s just say that we have reason to believe that they may have tried to leave the country earlier today, or perhaps last night, we’re not sure. In fact, it’s possible that your daughter might already be in Mexico right now.”

“Mexico?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can’t tell you that, ma’am, and it’s not really relevant. I mean, that’s not really the issue right now.”

She looks at him. “But someone must have told you this, right? I mean, someone must have tipped you off.”

The detective looks at her, but doesn’t answer.

“Was it Simone?”

He pauses again. “Let’s just say that Ms. Walsh was very helpful to us, yes. But, as I said, that’s not really the issue right now. The issue right now is finding your daughter and making sure we get her home safely. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“You think she might be in danger?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you think she might be?”

“We think it’s a possibility, ma’am, yes. But look, that’s where we’re going to be needing your help.”

“My help?”

“Yes,” he says, looking at her calmly. “What I need you to tell me, Mrs. Harding—and I need you to be honest with me now—what I need you to tell me is whether you know of anyone who may have aided your daughter in getting across the border illegally. Anyone who might have had the means to do that.”

At this, Cadence feels her heart quickening, the elation she’d felt only moments before turning into something else, a strange mixture of panic and confusion, the absurdity of what this man is suggesting floating loosely in her mind like a joke, a trick that someone is playing on her.

“She wouldn’t do that,” she says finally because she believes at this moment that this is true.

“I know you might believe that, Mrs. Harding—”

“No, I
know
that,” she says, breaking in. “Look, even if she had—let’s say she had, okay—even if she had, she would have certainly told Richard, and Richard would certainly have told us.”

“I know that this might be a little hard to process at the moment, Mrs. Harding. Believe me, I have two children myself. But in my experience, siblings can have pretty tight bonds, and you told me yourself that your daughter and son are very close.”

She stares at him now, the frail wall of her convictions giving way, the memory of Richard asking her for money the other day at lunch, the cryptic nature of it all—their conversation.
Two thousand dollars
, he’d said.
I need two thousand dollars, but I can’t tell you why
. And she had suspected it even then, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she known that something was wrong, that this was somehow connected to Chloe? And yet why hadn’t she acted on it? Why hadn’t she pursued the issue further? Was it possible that her faith in her son’s allegiance to her was so strong that it had blinded her from the truth? Or was it simply that she hadn’t wanted to believe it, hadn’t wanted to believe that he would actually deceive her? Thinking about this now, she feels unnerved.

“Have you spoken to him yet?” she finally asks.

The detective picks up the file, stares at her. “We’ve tried, ma’am, believe me, but if you don’t mind me saying, your son’s a pretty elusive character.”

And though he says this with a smile, the implication disarms her, unsettles her in the same way Peterson’s implications always unsettled her. She tries to consider what he’s saying. Sneaking across the border illegally? What did that even mean? Crawling through a muddy tunnel on her hands and knees, one of those elaborate labyrinths like the ones that she’d seen on
60 Minutes
, or maybe riding in the back of some truck, huddled beneath a canvas tarp with a group of other fugitives? If it wasn’t so disturbing, it would almost seem comical, the type of story that they might laugh about years later over Christmas dinner. But at this moment, even in the wake of her daughter’s exoneration, the unbelievable luck of it all, she can only imagine the worst, and her concern for her now, for her safety, her well-being, is matched only by her sudden resentment of Richard, her anger at him for withholding what he knew, for letting Chloe go astray, for not protecting the one person she had always trusted him to protect.

“Are you saying you think your son might know something about your daughter’s whereabouts?” the detective says finally.

Cadence shrugs. “At this point I have no idea.”

“I know this is a lot to process right now, ma’am.”

Cadence nods.

“Maybe you’d like to take a break.”

Cadence looks out through the window at the other detective, who’s watching them now with a slight grin. She shakes her head. “No,” she says calmly. “I think what I need to do right now … I think what I really need to do right now is find my son.”

LATER, WHEN SHE PLAYED
it back in her mind, this is what she’d remember: She’d remember the way Raja had sat with her on the curb outside the apartment complex in downtown San Antonio, rubbing her shoulders and whispering into her ear, telling her it would all be fine, telling her it would all be over soon. And she’d remember how quiet it had been that morning, how peaceful, the sky just beginning to lighten above the small buildings that made up the downtown San Antonio skyline, and the way the streets had been so empty, so bare, and the way the world had seemed to pause there for just that moment, the way everything, at least in that instant, had seemed so sane.

A few minutes later, though, it had all been disrupted by the sound of Teo coming out on the curb with a few of the men he’d been talking to the night before, all of them still drunk and laughing uproariously, moving around quickly as they loaded several additional crates into the back of the van. Sitting there, Chloe had wondered how much space would be left for them to sit, especially now that they’d be sharing the space with someone else, that girl who still hadn’t surfaced from the back of the building. She’d looked at Raja then, but his expression had been blank, expressionless, his eyes strangely calm.

Eventually, after they’d finished loading up the van, Teo had come over to them and told them that they were now free to get in. He’d apologized for the tightness of the space, then explained that he’d be back in a minute with the girl. They had entered the van slowly, squeezing their bodies tightly between the tall rows of boxes in the cargo space, then inching along cautiously until they’d reached the small dirty blanket at the back of the hold where they had sat only hours before on the ride down from Houston.

The space was considerably smaller now, and it seemed hard to imagine how they’d fit another body in there, but Chloe hadn’t said a word about it, hadn’t said anything in fact until Raja had squeezed her hand and winked.

“It’s only for a few hours,” he’d said. “I know it kind of sucks, but whatever. It’ll be fine.”

She’d nodded. Then she’d said, “Do you think he’s drunk?”

“Who?”

“Teo.”

Raja smiled. “Might be,” he said. “I don’t know. They were partying pretty hard last night.” Then he’d started to laugh, as if remembering something she hadn’t seen.

“This isn’t funny,” she’d said. “I mean, this is all we need. A fucking DUI.”

Raja winked. “It’s gonna be fine,” he said, and then he’d moved in closer to her and pulled her toward him.

When the girl finally arrived, Teo didn’t even introduce her. In fact, he just stood there at the steps of the cargo space and directed her toward the back of the truck. Chloe had seen her face for only a minute, a young, sallow face that made her think of Russian war films, of prison camp survivors, of long, cold Eastern European winters. And this picture was only intensified by the fact that when the girl finally did speak, her words came out in a thick foreign accent—Lithuanian? Polish? Ukrainian? She couldn’t tell.

“ ’Ello,” was all the girl had said, smiling weakly, and then the door had slammed shut behind her, and they had all been surrounded by darkness, fumbling to make space for each other.

Raja had slid up tightly against her, and then the girl had crammed her body into the small space left behind, pulling her knees to her chest and exhaling softly. Everything around them smelled of mildew.

“You okay?” Raja had asked her when he finally turned on the flashlight.

The girl nodded shyly.

“I’m Raja,” he’d said, “and this is Chloe.”

The girl nodded again but said nothing.

“Do you speak English?” Raja asked.

The girl shook her head.

Chloe could see that Raja wanted to engage her more, to make her
feel at home, to let her know that they were not here to hurt her, that they were not the type of people she should be afraid of, but the girl had averted her eyes from them both, had stared down at her knees until the van finally started to move and they were on their way.

For the first half hour or so, they had just sat there, the three of them, perfectly still, not talking. Somehow it had seemed rude to speak to Raja in English while the girl was just sitting there quietly, and so Chloe had just leaned her head against his shoulder and let her mind wander. At first, she’d found herself thinking again about Mexico, about what their lives would be like once they got down there.