The 9th Girl (24 page)

Kovac stared at the picture he’d gotten from Brittany Lawler. He had enlarged the photo and cropped the Lawler girl out. The girl her friends called Gray looked at him coyly from over her shoulder. She had been portrayed by people who knew her as an angry girl, but she wasn’t angry in the photo. She looked bright and mischievous. Her dark eyes had a spark in them.

Kovac wondered if she meant to make a statement with the half-shaved head and the piercings. Or was all that a disguise, intended to distract the eye from the essence of her—the sensitive, misunderstood poet? Probably a bit of both.

In the best scenarios, kids that age were a bundle of insecurities. They were children who thought they wanted to be adults but at the same time were afraid to let go of teddy bears and dolls. They thought they wanted to be individuals, yet they clung to their peer group, desperate for acceptance. Penelope Gray looked like the poster girl for contradictions.

Liska and Tippen came into the room, Tippen with a venti iced coffee, wearing a silk necktie with a palm tree painted on it. Liska clutched a cup of coffee to her chest as if hoping to will the caffeine directly into her veins.

“Jesus Christ,” she grumbled, “when are they going to get this fucking furnace situation under control? It’s like the ninth circle of hell in here.”

“I’m starting to like it,” Tippen said. “It’s kind of like visiting my parents in Boca Raton. They set their thermostat at ninth circle of hell.”

Kovac studied his partner as he rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Jeeze, Tinks, you look like a heroine addict.”

She narrowed her bloodshot eyes. “Thanks. That makes me feel so much better about myself. You need to make a motivational video and sell it on the Internet.”

“Did you get any sleep?”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“Yeah, well, you’re looking like that could be sooner rather than later.”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “What’s next?”

“We need to talk to the kids who were at the Rock and Bowl. Maybe that can happen right at the school,” he suggested. “Faster and easier than trying to drag them down here.”

Tippen raised his eyebrows. “Privileged darlings at a fancy private school? Parents with lawyers on retainer? I don’t think any part of that is going to be easy.”

“Let’s get on it right away, then,” Kovac said. “Tinks, you must have an in with the principal at PSI.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. He’s a pompous ass who can never get my name straight and believes my son is a violent thug who draws gay pornography. I’ll have him wrapped around my little finger.”

“Just be your usual charming self, then,” Tippen suggested. “Put his balls on the table and smash them with your tactical baton.”

“If only . . .”

“I’ll go with you,” Kovac said. “Make sure you don’t get called up on brutality charges.”

“You spoil all my fun,” she said, pouting.

“Later I’ll let you roll a junkie, just for kicks.”

“There’s no sport in that.”

“If you want a sport, take up cage fighting,” he said. “You can beat the shit out of people and get paid for it.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“In the meantime, I’ll get Quinn set up to look over what we have with an eye toward Doc Holiday; then you and I can hit the bricks. Tip, I want you to go have a chat with Penelope Gray’s father. See what he’s all about.”

He turned and looked at the horrific autopsy photos.

“Somebody in this girl’s life hated her enough to do this. Let’s find out if it was personal.”

•   •   •

“
I
T’S ABSOLUTELY OUT OF THE QUESTION,”
Principal Rodgers stated. His tone had the ring of finality, like a steel door slamming shut. “I won’t have my students interrogated.”

They stood in his office, where everything was perfectly in place, perfectly polished—including Rodgers himself. The blotter on the desk was pristine white. Papers were stacked in perfect alignment, books on the bookshelves arranged by size. All this tidiness made Liska wonder if the man actually did any real work.

She glanced at her partner. Kovac had on his poker face, but she could feel his irritation. She raised her eyebrows at him as if to say,
See what a dick this guy is
?

“We’re not looking to interrogate anyone,” Kovac said. He picked up a paperweight off the desk, a solid glass ball with some trite motivational phrase etched on it, and tossed it back and forth from one hand to the other. Rodgers snatched it away from him and put it back exactly where it had been. “We just need to talk to them about what they might have seen, noticed, heard that night and the days leading up to that night. We’re trying to put together a picture of the events that led up to Penelope Gray’s disappearance.”

“We need to establish a timeline, Mr. Rodgers,” Liska said. “We know these kids were all at the Rock and Bowl the night Penny Gray went missing. It’s essential that we speak to them.”

“I can’t have you question my students without parental consent.”

Kovac stepped over to the credenza and gave the globe there a lazy spin. Rodgers put a hand on it to stop it.

“Please don’t touch my things, Detective.”

“Sorry.”

Kovac went around the front of the desk and plucked up a family photograph in a silver frame. “Do you have kids, Mr. Rodgers?”

Rodgers leaned across the desk and pulled the picture away from him. “I have a niece and a nephew,” he said, rubbing at Kovac’s fingerprints with a small cloth meant for cleaning eyeglasses.

“I think you would feel differently if one of them were missing,” Kovac said.

“That would be different,” Rodgers said. “That would be strictly a personal reaction. I can’t do that here. I have a job to do. I have an obligation to my students and to their parents.”

“Penny Gray is your student too,” Liska said. “Do you have any concern for her, for her family?”

Rodgers gave her a look like she was a turd on his rug. “Of course I do. I won’t have you question my dedication to these young people, Mrs. Liska.”

“Really? Tell me about Penelope Gray, then,” she challenged. “Who are her friends? Who are her enemies? Does she have a boyfriend? What are her interests? Does she have a teacher or an upperclassman mentoring her? Was she having difficulties with anyone in the days before the holiday vacation started?”

“I have over five hundred students here,” he said defensively. “You can’t expect me to know all the small details of their personal lives.”

“No, but so far you don’t seem to know
any
details of her life,” Kovac said. “Do you even know what this girl looks like, Mr. Rodgers?”

“She has dark hair and recently shaved part of it off,” he said. “She has multiple piercings—which are against our appearance code here at PSI.”

“You know how she annoys you,” Liska said. “You know how she doesn’t fit your profile of the perfect PSI student.”

“That’s unfair.”

“I would say so.”

“It’s unfair to me,” Rodgers specified. “Miss Gray works at standing out in a negative way. If she was an outstanding student or an outstanding leader, those would be the things I would remember her for.”

“If she was like Christina Warner, for instance,” Kovac suggested.

“Christina is an exemplary student.”

“We understand the two girls didn’t get along.”

“Christina’s father brought that to my attention,” Rodgers said. “Penelope is jealous of Christina and resentful of Dr. Warner’s relationship with her mother. He wanted me to be aware of the situation and take it into account if Miss Gray began exhibiting disruptive behavior.”

“Did she?” Kovac asked.

“Nothing over and above the average for Miss Gray.”

“I’ve been told that a particular clique of kids bullied Penny Gray,” Liska said. “That they made fun of her poetry and taunted her about the way she looked and about her sexuality.”

“That seems like an exaggeration,” Rodgers said.

“But you’re not out in the middle of it, are you?” Kovac said, picking up a fat black Mont Blanc pen from beside the spotless blotter. “Something you see from a distance as ‘kids will be kids,’ the kids might see something else entirely. We need to talk to them.”

Rodgers stared at the pen as Kovac twirled it around his fingers, visibly fighting the urge to grab it away from him.

“I can’t make promises, but I’ll try to arrange something for this afternoon. There’s a protocol to be observed here, Detective,” Rodgers said. “I have to contact the parents and consult them. I would recommend they be present at any kind of questioning. They may want to consult their attorneys—”

“And while all this protocol is going on, Penny Gray is missing and possibly in the hands of a madman,” Liska said.

She didn’t believe that. She believed the girl was dead in the morgue, but she wanted Rodgers to think otherwise. She wanted to make him feel guilty and responsible.

“I think Julia Gray will take a very different view of your stalling tactics, Mr. Rodgers,” she said. “Her daughter is missing. You should probably think about her consulting
her
attorney. If this was
my
son missing, I would be on the air with every TV station in the metro area, calling you out. How would
that
look for PSI?”

“My hands are tied, Mrs. Liska,” Rodgers said primly. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve contacted the parents.”

Kovac set the pen back down on the desk, just far enough out of the principal’s reach that he had to lean across the desk to retrieve it and put it back just so beside the blotter.

“Frankly,” Rodgers said, looking at Liska, “I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be one of the people questioning these children, considering the situation with your son.”

“What situation is that?” Liska asked.

“Your son is involved with Miss Gray.”

“They know each other. I don’t consider that a situation.”

“And there’s this latest outrage concerning the other students on your list.” He glanced at Kovac, pausing for drama.

“What outrage?” Liska asked.

Rodgers heaved a put-upon sigh. “I was going to call you this morning.”

“Well, I’m here. So let’s do this now.”

Rodgers glanced at Kovac again.

“It’s okay,” Kovac said. “I’m her father. It’s all in the family.”

Rodgers pursed his lips in disapproval. He picked up his smart phone from its charging stand. “This was brought to my attention first thing this morning by Aaron Fogelman’s father.”

He punched some buttons and brought up a picture, then thrust the phone at Liska. “This was posted on Twitter last night. I don’t know who posted it, but there’s no doubt in my mind who did the artwork.”

She looked at the picture and felt a flush of heat rush through her. It was Kyle’s drawing of the three Ultors, the one that had been ruined by the kids he didn’t get along with. The heads of the Ultors had been changed out for caricatures. One she recognized instantly as Aaron Fogelman, grinning like a fool as he fondled himself.

“Are you going to deny your son did that?” Rodgers said.

“You’re going to assume that he did,” she countered.

There was no question that it was Kyle’s work. Still, she was going to defend him against this jerk. The Fighting Liska/Hatcher Family motto: Go down swinging.

“That’s not Kyle’s Twitter account,” she said.

“Mrs. Liska—”

“
Sergeant
Liska.”

“I find this drawing very disturbing,” Rodgers said. “I don’t know anything about Twitter, but I believe your son made this drawing. I’m suspending him for the remainder of the week, at least. I’ve already spoken to him. He’s in the conference room across the hall waiting for you.”

Anger and frustration flooded through her. Anger and frustration with Rodgers. Anger and frustration with her son. The pressure of it roared in her ears until she couldn’t hear.

Kovac stepped between her and the principal and gently moved her backward toward the door.

“Take the car,” he murmured, pressing the keys at her. “Take Kyle and go home. Ground him or beat him or chain him in the basement. I don’t care which. I need you downtown.”

She took the keys and left the room, feeling embarrassed and helpless and exhausted. To her horror, tears burned her eyes. She felt like a failure on multiple levels.

As she walked into the conference room Kyle looked up at her from the far side of the table. She thought his expression was probably a mirror of her own. He was upset and angry and fighting tears.

“Get your things,” she said. “We’re going home, where you will be grounded for the rest of your life.”

25

Kasselmann was the king
of the press statement. He had the perfect look: as solid as a bull, as serious as a heart attack, handsomely groomed. He had the perfect authoritative voice. He was articulate and concise.

Kovac watched the live news feed on the television in the conference room. He had no desire to be questioned by the media. Reporters asked stupid questions, and they asked them over and over. He was more than happy to let Kasselmann take that spotlight.

Julia Gray stood beside the captain, looking stunned. She was as pale as a ghost, and the bruise on her cheek stood out despite her efforts to hide it with a clever hairstyle. When it was her turn to make her appeal for the return of her daughter, it seemed for an uncomfortable moment that she wasn’t going to say anything. She looked down at the podium, locked inside her own mind.

Kovac wondered if the good Dr. Warner had prescribed something for her nerves. Probably—and rightly so. Having dealt with more child abductions and disappearances than he cared to count, Kovac knew the terrible strain it put on the parents. They labored under a heavy burden of anxiety, fear, anger, uncertainty, and guilt. What could they have done to prevent this? Why couldn’t their child have been more careful, less headstrong? What was happening to their kid? Was she or he alive, dead, frightened, in pain?

Beside him in front of the television, John Quinn stood with his arms crossed and his brow set in concentration as he watched Julia Gray finally rouse herself to make the standard appeal for the return of her daughter or the revelation of any information that might shed light on her disappearance.