As he waited for processing, Salvatore thought through the case. Robert Fontenot had had sex with Lucy Masterson. It could have been consensual or rape. Where had the opiates come from? What sequence of events led to her death? Did the basketball prodigy from Barton Hills hold a woman underwater until she drowned? If so, why? And what did his buddies know? Salvatore needed more evidence that Robert had been involved in Lucy’s death—he had to get one of the other lifeguards to talk.
* * *
—
THE GARDNER BETTS JUVENILE Justice Center was clean and organized but bleak. Armed guards nodded as they admitted Salvatore, checked with the sheriff, led him to Robert Fontenot’s cell.
On the bottom bunk, another juvenile offender stared into space, seemingly comatose. Robert lay on the top bunk curled up like an infant, his knees hugged to his chest. Salvatore could see only his neat haircut and his back, which read GARDNER BETTS INMATE.
“Robert?” he said. The cellmate sat up, met Salvatore’s gaze.
“He OK?” said Salvatore.
“How would I know?” said the other kid, lying back down and closing his eyes.
Robert didn’t move. Salvatore called his name again. Finally, he rolled over but did not rise. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he said.
Someone began to scream in the cellblock. Another cry joined the first. There was banging, yelling, a soundtrack of mayhem. It was so loud. Salvatore was sweating: either the air-conditioning was broken or the temperature was set way too high.
“I didn’t kill her,” said Robert.
“That’s what they all say,” Robert’s cellmate said.
“I believed her,” said Robert. His eyes were glassy. Salvatore wondered if he was having a panic attack, or maybe detoxing? “I believed her. She said…she said she loved me,” said Robert.
For a moment, it seemed as if things quieted in the facility. The screams ceased; the breathing, the singing, the obscenities went quiet. “She loves me,” said Robert. “She promised me. She said she’d stop.”
“Oh, man,” said the kid on the bottom bunk. “He’s crazy, right?”
Salvatore’s stomach eased for a moment. If Robert was insane, he could get the boy out of here.
“Please help me,” said Robert.
-11-
Whitney
WHITNEY DECIDED IT WAS time. Her plan had gone wrong; this was clear. She could not bear the thought of Bobcat in jail. The sweet boy! He had reached for Whitney’s hand when they walked to elementary school, taking her fingers easily, as if she were another mother.
Could Bobcat’s girlfriend be the same woman Whitney had texted?
Was it Whitney’s fault that Bobcat was in jail?
What had happened on the greenbelt?
Whitney grabbed her Kate Spade case from the medicine cabinet. She was tempted to make sure the phone inside it would still turn on, but she didn’t want the location services pinging nearby cell towers. She had to assume there was an APD tech department who could pull the damning messages even if the phone was dead. Whitney didn’t understand any of this stuff! She was not a career criminal, just an overwrought mother trying to keep her children safe—both of them. She might be condemned, but this was the only plan she’d had. Things could not continue. And so—as risky and absurd as her actions may have been—she had acted. But she had never thought of the girl on the other end of the transaction. She had thought only of her own babies. And now here she was, driving on Manchaca in the middle of the night.
Detective Revello’s house was south of Stassney in an area Whitney called “up and coming” on her website. Whitney found the address she’d obtained by paying a few bucks online. Revello lived in one of a row of identical brick ranchers, maybe worth three hundred, three-fifty at most.
Whitney parked a few blocks away and pulled her sweatshirt hood over her head. As she walked, she removed the phone from the Kate Spade case, approaching Revello’s house from the side. She tossed the phone onto his worn welcome mat, hoping he didn’t have a video doorbell and pretty sure she was out of its line of sight if he did.
This was insane.
She was desperate.
Whitney saw now that she had been deluded, thinking she could fix things. But she couldn’t wait until her son was dead! She was almost out of hope now.
She drove home, reactivating her security system despite her knowledge that the greatest threat was already inside her house.
Whitney thought of Bobcat in a jail cell and felt nauseous. Whatever happened to him over the night was her fault. Whatever Annette was feeling now was Whitney’s fault.
She was a monster.
Was she a monster?
Whitney rubbed La Mer into her face, trying to avoid her own gaze.
-12-
Cellphone Transcript Record
512-XXX-XXXX
MEX
Is this Kobe?
Kobe Nadkarni Who’s this?
MEX
It’s Joe
Kobe Nadkarni Why does it say MEX?
MEX
Scored a new phone. Found it on my doorstep, boi
Kobe Nadkarni Noice. Can u play?
MEX
Yeah loading in
Kobe Nadkarni Join my party
Lola Where should I send the money?
MEX
?
Lola Venmo?
MEX
One sec
MEX
Do you have V-Bucks?
Lola ??
Lola Venmo or PayPal?
Lola ??
MEX
Venmo @SalvatoreRevello
Lola OK
Lola Did u get it?
MEX
Yes
Lola OK when can we meet?
Lola tonite???
Lola Please
Lola 7-11?
Lola ??
Lola ??
Kobe Nadkarni You ready? Let’s go
MEX
One sec. People are sending me $$ for no reason!
Kobe Nadkarni Wut?
MEX
Rando wants to send me money. I gave my dad’s Venmo
Kobe Nadkarni Yur Dad gonna flip.
MEX
Yeah
Lola 7-11?
Lola Now?
MEX
Can you play?
Kobe Nadkarni Not rn
MEX
When?
Kobe Nadkarni Tmrw b4 school
MEX
OK
Domino I said OK for the 40. Venmo pls?
MEX
@SalvatoreRevello
Domino Got it?
Domino ??
MEX
Dude I am copping new Air Force 1s tomorrow.
Kobe Nadkarni Bruh
MEX
People be sending me $$
Kobe Nadkarni Joe, did you steal this phone or wut?
MEX
I’m a gangsta
-13-
Salvatore
SALVATORE’S PHONE BEEPED AND he glanced down: it was a payment of eighty dollars into his Venmo account, from someone named Lola. Salvatore frowned, assuming it was a mistake, turning the phone over.
He no longer smoked, and he’d already had the two beers he felt was an OK amount of beers for a weekday night. He’d be forgiven for sinking deeper into drinking—he was still a heartbroken widower, after all—but it was such a tired cliché. Salvatore’s father had been a medium-level drunk. A “functioning alcoholic.” While he was home in body, his Budweiser habit allowed him to disappear every night. Salvatore got the appeal, he truly did, but he didn’t want to be that sort of dad, especially without a wife to remember cat costumes and teacher conferences. Being a medium-level drunk dad required a present mom, and Salvatore didn’t have the luxury.
So he held an empty beer bottle and sat in his yard and watched the moon.
Salvatore had always thought that if he lived his life correctly, happiness would come. And maybe that was where he’d fucked up. He’d spent his life scared that he’d take a step wrong.