I shoved all the photos of the girl — Olivia — at him. “That’s horrible. But I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Heifort left the photos where they were. He turned in his chair to give Koenig a meaningful glance, but Koenig’s expression didn’t change. Then he turned back around to me, his chair groaning and clicking. He rubbed one pouched eye. “I want to know where Geoffrey Beck and Grace Brisbane are, Samuel. I’ve been round the block enough times to know that coincidences don’t just happen. And you know what the common factor is between all these things? You.”
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t the common factor.
“So are you going to cooperate and tell me something about all this, or are you going to make me do it the hard way?” Heifort asked.
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” I said.
Heifort looked at me for a long time, as if he were waiting for my expression to betray something. “I think your daddy didn’t do you any favors training you in lawyer talk,” he said finally. “Is that all you got to say?”
I had lots more to say, but not to him. If it had been Koenig asking, I would have told him that I didn’t want Grace to be missing. That I wanted Beck back. That he wasn’t my foster father, he was my father. That I didn’t know what was going on with Olivia, but that I was just trying to keep my head above water. I wanted them to leave me alone. That was all. Just leave me alone to work through this on my own.
I said, “Yes.”
Heifort was just frowning at me. I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. After a space, he said, “I guess we’re done for now. William, take care of him, would you?”
Koenig nodded shortly as Heifort pushed away from the table. Breathing felt slightly easier after Heifort had gone down the hall.
“I’ll take you back to your car,” Koenig told me. He made an efficient gesture that meant for me to stand. I did — surprised, for some reason, that the floor felt solid beneath my feet. My legs felt vaguely jellied.
I started down the hall after Koenig, but he stopped when his cell phone rang. He retrieved it from his duty belt and examined it.
“Hold on,” Koenig said. “I have to take this call. Hello, William Koenig. Okay, sir. Wait. What happened now?”
I put my hands in my pockets. I felt light-headed: strung out from the questioning, from not eating, from the images of Olivia. I could hear Heifort’s voice booming through the open door of the dispatch room to my left. The dispatchers laughed at something he said. It was weird to think that he could just switch it off like that — righteous anger at that girl’s death instantly changing to office jokes in the next room over.
Koenig, on the phone, was trying to convince someone that if his estranged wife had taken his car that it was not theft as it was co-marital property.
I heard, “Hey, Tom.”
There were probably dozens of Toms in Mercy Falls. But I knew instantly which one it was. I recognized the odor of his aftershave and the prickling of my skin.
The dispatch room had a window to the hall on the opposite side from us, and I saw Tom Culpeper. He was jingling his keys in the pocket of his coat — one of those barn coats described as rugged and classic and four hundred dollars that were usually worn by people who spend more time in Land Rovers than barns. His face had the gray, sagging look of someone who hasn’t slept, but his voice sounded smooth and in control. Lawyer voice.
I tried to decide what was worse: risk talking to Culpeper, or brave the puke smell in the kitchen. I contemplated retreat.
Heifort said, “Tom! Hey, devil. Hold on, let me get you in.” He breezed out of the dispatch room, down the dogleg hall that led around to the room where Culpeper was, and opened the door. He clapped a hand on Culpeper’s shoulder. Of course they knew each other. “You here for work or are you just stirring up trouble?”
“Just coming to see about that coroner’s report,” Culpeper said. “What did Geoffrey Beck’s kid have to say about it?”
Heifort stepped back just enough that Culpeper could see past him to where I stood.