and barking at her in Russian. The woman struggled to sit up, heart hammering in terror at the sound of her native language. Some memories never die. She was so relieved to find herself in America, surrounded by the comforts she had clawed her way toward and suffered to retain, that she sank back against the couch and agreed to all Morty was proposing. By the time Maggie returned with Sarah Hayes, Morty had retrieved a tape recorder from his car and was ready to play his part.
He asked Elena Hayes first in Russian, and then in English, whether she was the legal guardian of Sarah Hayes. Having established her parental rights, he secured her permission to interview Sarah as a minor, again confirming her consent on tape in both languages so there could be no question as to whether the woman understood what they were asking.
“Do you wish to be present while I interview your daughter?” Maggie asked. We all saw Sarah Hayes flinch at the question. She did not consider herself her stepmother’s daughter in any way. They were both the victims of Alan Hayes, I realized, but that did not make them allies.
The older woman’s composure faltered. She looked to Morty for advice.
“You may choose to be here, if you wish,” he said carefully. “Or, you may waive that right, perhaps out of respect for your stepdaughter’s desire for privacy.” As if he were merely stopping to check the speed of the tape, Morty halted the recorder and examined the spools carefully as he continued in a casual voice. “Of course, if you do not hear other people’s details, you cannot be called upon in court to testify to what you have learned.”
It was a mangling of the truth at best; she would not be called upon to say what she’d heard in any case. But to a woman leery of the authorities, he had offered her an out she was desperate to take.
“I will make us all tea,” she said. “Slowly. The Russian way.”
I could feel a layer of tension lift from Sarah Hayes as her stepmother left the room. The young girl was willing to reveal her shame to Maggie, and would tolerate Morty’s grandfatherly presence, but to share her shame with the woman who had surely known of it, and chosen to do nothing to stop it, would have been too much to ask.
After establishing that Sarah was talking to her voluntarily, Maggie began by getting the young girl to confirm on tape that she had been the one to tell Maggie where to find the hidden compartment in the wall. That Maggie. She was smart. There would be no question about the warrant’s parameters now.
“How did you know it was there?” Maggie asked her gently.
“Sometimes I watch him when he’s down there,” the girl whispered as Morty moved the tape recorder closer, trying to catch every word.
“Why?”
She hesitated. “I like to know where he is.”
Maggie let it go. That line of questioning was best left for the social worker whose job it would be to put the girl back together. Maggie’s job was to stop a killer. “How many times have you seen him take the plastic box from its hiding place?” she asked Sarah instead.
“I don’t know. Three or four times. But I think he does it every night. He spends a lot of time down there.”
“Doing what?’ Maggie asked.
She shrugged. “Making jewelry, I guess. It’s his workshop.”
“You’re not wearing any jewelry,” Maggie pointed out. “Yet your mother wears quite a lot.”
“Stepmother,” Sarah corrected her. “And I don’t like his presents.”
Maggie let it go again. “What does he do with the items in the box when he’s downstairs?” she asked.
“He takes them out of the box,” she said and hesitated. “He smells the things; he puts them up to his cheek and rubs his face.” She stopped abruptly.
“What else does he do?” Maggie asked softly.
The girl flushed and shook her head furiously. I felt a darkness descend over her. She had willed herself not to remember. Maggie knew enough to back off.
“Does he ever take anyone down there with him?” Maggie asked. “Guests? Other people. Maybe a student?”
“He makes my stepmother go down with him sometimes to . . . do things. I don’t watch then. Not ever.” She stared at her bare feet intently.
“But no one else? You’re sure?”
She nodded. “I don’t sleep very well. I hear when people move through the house at night. I know when he’s here. I