“Neighbors?”
“Falco knocked on doors. Nobody saw anything.”
“Great,” the Chief says, meaning not great. “I’ll talk to the kid.”
Cruz DeSantis is tall, lanky, and Black; he wears his hair in a military-tight buzz cut. Joe, Cruz’s father, flew with the Eighty-Second Airborne in the second Persian Gulf War. Less than a year after Joe got home from Iraq, Joe’s wife was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive type of cancer, and she died shortly after, leaving Joe with a three-year-old to raise on his own. Joe has done a fine job with the young man, an extraordinary job, though when the Chief walks into the interview room, Cruz looks nothing like his usual self. He’s wearing jeans and a rumpled T-shirt that says VIRGINITY ROCKS—maybe ironic, maybe not; Joe runs a pretty tight ship. Cruz’s expression is 90 percent devastation and 10 percent I don’t want to be here. Behind his glasses, his eyes are watering.
“Chief?” Cruz says, getting to his feet.
The kid looks so shook up that the Chief wants to give him a hug but instead he indicates that Cruz should sit. “Did anyone offer you something to drink? Water? Coffee?”
“I can’t. I don’t want…” Cruz collapses in the chair and clutches his head. “Vivi is dead. She’s…” He swallows. “She’s dead.”
“Okay, okay,” the Chief says. He wonders if he made a mistake deciding to do this interview himself. He’s never had a problem separating his personal and professional lives, but the Chief holds Joe in very high esteem and he has grown fond of this kid and rooted for him to succeed. “Just take a couple deep breaths. I know you’re upset. A lot of people are going to be sad when this news gets out. It’s my responsibility to try and figure out what happened.” The Chief eases into the seat across the table from Cruz. “Let’s start with what you remember about finding Ms. Howe.”
“Vivi,” Cruz says. “She’s like my second mom. Leo and I are…well, we’ve been best friends since preschool. And Vivi…she jokes that I’m her favorite child. I have, like, my own seat at their dinner table. And Vivi bought a Christmas stocking with my name on it that she hangs on the mantel.” Cruz chokes up. “I feel like I belong at that house. Like I’m part of the family. Not because I’m some motherless kid she feels sorry for but because she…loves me.”
“I’m sorry, son.” The Chief picks up his pen. “You were headed to the Howe residence when you found her? At seven fifteen in the morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Early visit for a Saturday,” the Chief says.
Cruz drops his head onto the table and starts crying. The Chief gives him a minute, then says, “Where were you exactly when you first saw Ms. Howe? Walk me through it.”
“I was coming from my house so I took that soft left onto Kingsley and I saw…a person, Vivi, lying on the ground. She was almost to the bike path but not quite. I thought she’d hurt herself,” Cruz says. “I knew right away it was her. She runs that road every single morning. I thought she’d sprained her ankle so I pulled over and hopped out. And when I reached her, I saw…it was bad. I called 911.”
“Wait,” the Chief says. “Let’s go back. You were coming from your house? You’re sure about that?”
Cruz nods, but he’s staring at his hands.
If Falco saw Cruz run a stop sign at the end of Hooper Farm Road, then Cruz is lying. Joe and Cruz live over on Delaney, just off Cliff. It’s possible, he supposes, that Falco was mistaken. Or maybe Cruz was coming from someplace he wasn’t supposed to be. His girlfriend’s house, for example. If the Chief has seen it once, he’s seen it a thousand times: when you investigate one crime, you often uncover a bunch of unrelated things that people are hiding.
“Cruz,” the Chief says, and the kid looks up. Behind his glasses, his eyes are terrified. The Chief reminds himself that even good kids, even great kids, make mistakes. “Did any cars pass you on Madaket Road before you noticed Ms. Howe?”
“I don’t think so,” Cruz says. “Not that I remember.”
“Did you pass any pedestrians on Madaket Road?”
“No.”
“Did anyone other than you see what happened? Were there any bikers or joggers out?”
“If they saw what happened, wouldn’t they have stopped?” Cruz says.
“Did you notice anyone on the bike path, Cruz?”