Kisscut

Lena bit her lower lip. 'I didn't have time.'

'Make time,' he told her.

'Yes, sir.'

Jeffrey sat back in his chair, staring at her for a few beats. He said, 'Tell me what happened when you snatched up Mark. Did he say anything?'

'He's being real tight-lipped all the sudden,' she told him. 'He won't say anything.'

'He lawyer up?'

'Buddy Conford,' Lena told him. 'Won't that be a conflict of interest?'

Jeffrey considered this. Buddy was the lawyer representing the county if and when Dottie Weaver brought a case against Jeffrey. He asked, 'Does Buddy know there's a connection between Mark and what happened with Jenny Weaver?'

'He knows Mark's the one Jenny wanted to shoot. Everybody knows that.'

'I mean,' Jeffrey said, 'does he know we suspect Mark of being the father of the child?'

Lena 's eyebrows went up. 'Do we?'

'Tell me why he wouldn't be.'

'There could be another boy,' she suggested.

'With the mother around?'

'She's been sick a lot,' Lena said, shrugging. 'I get a vibe from the father. He likes to push people around.'

'I'll give you that,' Jeffrey said, because Patterson had made a sport out of pushing Lena around in the trailer the other day. Jeffrey had been torn between stepping in and seeing if Lena could take care of it herself.

Lena said, 'Maybe he molested Mark, and so Mark molested his sister? Kind of like a cause and effect?'

'That's not how pedophiles work,' Jeffrey said.

'I don't follow.'

'Not all pedophiles were abused as children. You can't make that assumption.'

'We're talking theory here, right?' Lena asked. 'I mean, it could have happened that way. I don't see Patterson being into boys, though.'

'The vibe again?'

'Yeah,' Lena nodded. 'I don't get that vibe.'

'What about Mark?' Jeffrey asked, remembering how Lena had behaved when they first interviewed the kid. 'What kind of vibe do you get off of him?'

Lena had the grace to look down. 'Well,' she began, 'he's hypersexual.'

'Go on.'

'He really seems to work off his appearance, his sexuality.' She looked back up. 'I think he probably doesn't know how to communicate any other way.'

'That tattoo,' Jeffrey began. 'I found a guy in Alabama who had the same one.'

'The hearts?'

'He was watching a day care,' Jeffrey said, feeling the same disgust he had felt at Possum's store. 'Looking at the kids there.'

'Little kids?' Lena asked. 'He's a child molester?'

'More like a pedophile,' Jeffrey corrected. Sara had given him a lesson on the difference between these two a long time ago during another case, and he told Lena about it now. 'Child molesters tend to hate children, and don't want to be around them except to abuse them. Pedophiles think they're doing the kid some good. They think they love them.'

'Uh-huh,' Lena said, skeptical.

'Pedophilia is considered a mental illness.'

'So was homosexuality until the early sixties. I still don't see the difference.'

Jeffrey knew that Lena 's sister had been gay, so he was surprised to hear her say this. 'I suppose the big difference would be that adult-to-adult sexual contact is healthy. Children aren't prepared for that kind of thing.' She did not respond, so he continued, 'With a child-adult relationship, the balance of power is always going to be on the adult's side. It's not a level playing field. The adult is always going to be the one in control of the kid.'

Lena gave him an incredulous look. 'It sounds like you're justifying it.'

'I'm not doing that at all,' Jeffrey said, feeling prickly at her accusation. 'I'm just telling you what the mindset is.'

'The mindset is pretty fucking perverted.'

'I agree with that,' Jeffrey told her. 'But you can't let your disgust color how you approach this, Lena. If Mark has that tattoo because he's a pedophile or a child molester, you can't let him know that you disapprove. He'll never open up to you.' Then, because he had taught her this before, he added, 'You know that.'

'Well,' Lena said. 'Which one do you think he is? He's barely older than Lacey.'

'Three years at least.'

'That's not a huge difference.'

'Maybe from thirty to thirty-three it's not, but with kids, that's a pretty big jump when you think about it. That's the difference between being a child and being a young adult.'

She was silent, obviously thinking this through.

Jeffrey said, 'Look at it this way: A pedophile is more comfortable around children because he's scared of adult relationships. Adults scare him.'

'What about Jenny? How did she get sewn up like that? What's the story?'

'That I don't know,' Jeffrey said. 'Maybe Mark will give it up?'

'He's not talking,' Lena told him. 'Frank was in with him, and he just stared off into space.'

'Is he high?'

She shook her head no. 'He was before, but it's worn off by now.'

'Is he looking for a fix?'

'He seems okay,' she said. 'He's not twitching, if that's what you're getting at.'

'What about his physical state? Sara said he looked like someone had worked him over.'

'Yeah,' Lena said. She took some Polaroids out of her breast pocket. 'We took some pictures to document it. Dr. Linton said the cut on his belly looks like it was done with a sharp knife. It wasn't deep enough for stitches, though. He's got a bruise coming out on his eye.'

Jeffrey looked at the pictures one by one. Mark stared at the camera with a dead look in his eyes. There was one shot where he had his shirt off, and there were grass stains on the waist of his jeans as well as superficial scrapes on his lower abdomen.

'We didn't do any of this?' Jeffrey asked, just to make certain.