The chief nods. “I'd like you to go in and talk to the kid. We're getting nowhere on the perp sketch. It's like she can't remember what happened, what the guy looked like. Either that or she doesn't want to remember.”
“Post-traumatic stress?”
“Maybe. I dunno. Seeing you might help.”
“Where is she?”
“Interrogation Room.”
“Seems kind of severe….”
“The windows in the other rooms spooked her. She thought the bad guy might be outside.”
“Check. I'll see what I can do.”
“Jane and the artist are with her.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ceepak heads up the hall to the windowless cinderblock room with the one-way mirror. The Interrogation Room.
“How's he holding up?” the chief asks when Ceepak's out of earshot.
“Fine, sir.” I see no need to mention the M-80 incident behind The Pancake Palace. “Just fine.”
“He hates to see kids in trouble.”
“Yes, sir.”
The chief leans up against the front counter and crosses his ham-hock arms across his chest. He looks like a contemplative moose resting against a stump. I've never had a heart-to-heart with Chief Cosgrove, but I think he's about to unload a monologue on me. I'm right.
“We were stationed in Germany together,” he starts, his eyes narrowing like he can actually see what he's remembering. “There was this chaplain. Baptist minister, I think. Short guy. Little moustache. Had this soft southern twang when he spoke. Anyhow, he was accused of molesting kids at his church down in Texas, so they got rid of him by shipping him overseas with us. A year later, he starts messing around with some of the kids on base. Soldiers’ boys. Nine-, ten-, eleven-year-olds. Their moms and dads are over there serving their country, and he's … you know….”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ceepak led the investigation. I was tactical support.”
“Did you guys stop him? The chaplain?”
“Of course. John Ceepak? He always gets his man.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I slip into the dark room next to the Interrogation Room. It's dark because otherwise, everybody in the IR would be able to see me through the one-way mirror.
This is one of the few times our IR has actually been used for questioning. Usually, it's where stuff like Christmas decorations gets stored or where we cut somebody's birthday cake. In fact, I can see a wrinkled red balloon lying on the floor near Ashley Hart's new shoes.
She's also wearing a new dress with Hawaiian flowers and hula dancers on it. I figure somebody picked it up on Ocean Avenue so Ashley wouldn't have to sit around all day in a blood-soaked sundress. Her hair is damp. She probably took a shower in the women's locker room. She looks like a young girl who just finished swimming in a motel pool and went back to her room to get dressed for dinner. Her cheeks are clean and ruddy; her blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail. It's only her eyes that look terrified, like she found some horrible monster stuck to the floor drain in the deep end of that swimming pool.
Ceepak is sitting at the head of the long table. Ashley is to his left. Next to her is Jane Bright, the closest thing to a child welfare officer we have on the Sea Haven Police Force-Jane has her masters degree in Social Work. Across from them both is the state police sketch artist.
“I like your new dress,” Ceepak says, trying to break the ice.
“Thank you,” Ashley says. “Mrs. Bright picked it out for me.”
“She did good.”
“Yeah.”
“We keep the old dress?” Ceepak kind of whispers it to Jane.
“No. But we photographed it.”
“Good.”
“It's in the trash if-”
“No. That's okay.”
Ceepak smiles at Ashley, like he's apologizing for talking shop with another cop.
“I'm sorry I can't remember more,” Ashley says.
“Maybe we could make it like a game?”
“A game?”
“You ever play Twenty Questions?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Was it a man or a woman?”
“Man.”
“Skinny or fat?”
“Skinny.”
The artist starts moving her pencil, swooping it around the sketch paper.
“Okay. That's good. Was he black or white?”
“White.”
“Hispanic?”
“You mean like a Puerto Rican?”
“Or a Mexican.”
“No. He was white-white.”
“Handsome or ugly?”
Ashley actually giggles.
“Ugly. He had this, you know … dragon on his neck.”
“A tattoo?”
“Yeah. Like Ozzy Osborne?”
“And it was a dragon?”
“I think so. There were flames coming out the mouth. It stuck out from under his T-shirt.”
“He was wearing a T-shirt?”
“Yes, sir. With colors all over it.”
“Was it orange?”
“No.”
“Pink? Purple?”
“No. It was all kinds of colors. Like rainbow sherbet?”
“Tie-dye?”
“Yes! It was a tie-dyed shirt!”
“What about his pants?”
“Dirty blue jeans. With holes in the knees. I could smell him.”
“How'd he smell?”
“Like pee-pee.”
“Urine?”
“Yes, sir. Urine.”
I peek at the sketch. The guy is starting to look like a bum.
“What kind of shoes? Did you see his shoes?”
“Yes. He had on boots. Hiking boots.”
