“Okay.” He adds, “If you don’t show up, we’ll just come back.”
* * *
? ? ?
Gully was getting another coffee in the lunchroom when Bledsoe tracked her down.
“They’ve found her,” he almost crowed. “We have our witness. We know who she is—Weeks recognized her voice. She’s coming in.” All Gully’s tiredness had evaporated; she felt like she’d just had ten coffees.
Now, Gully studies the woman across from her at the table in the interview room. She’s probably in her late thirties or early forties, wearing jeans and a cashmere sweater. She looks fit, as if she takes care of herself. Her nails are professionally done, but kept short, in a subdued shade of pink. Her brown hair has highlights and a good cut. Gully doesn’t know quite what to make of this woman. She seems respectable. She’s a nurse, lives in a nice, well-kept house, and looks well put together. But what kind of person calls a tip line, twice, with important information about a missing child, but refuses to come forward and identify herself? And then tries to deny it? As Gully studies her, Marion Cooke shifts uncomfortably in her seat.
Bledsoe begins. “Ms. Cooke, one of my officers believes you are the person who called and spoke to him on our tip line, not once but twice, claiming to have seen Avery Wooler get into Ryan Blanchard’s car. He recognized your voice.”
“He’s mistaken,” she says. “I never called the tip line. I didn’t see anything.”
But she seems nervous, Gully thinks, her eyes flitting back and forth between the two detectives.
Bledsoe persists. “You live on Connaught Street. You would presumably know Avery by sight and recognize Ryan Blanchard’s car. What I don’t understand is why you refused to give your name, and why you now refuse to admit it. But I can hazard a guess.” He looks her in the eye and says, “You were lying.”
She says, “No.”
Bledsoe leans in close, lowers his voice. “A lie like that can get you into a lot of trouble.” He adds, “You could be charged with falsifying an incident, which is a serious charge.” She swallows, tears her eyes from his, and looks down at the table. “Did you see Avery get into Ryan Blanchard’s car on Tuesday afternoon?”
Now she lifts her eyes and looks up at them, as if coming to a decision. Gully waits, realizes she’s holding her breath.
Finally, she says, “Yes.”
Bledsoe lets out a long breath and looks down at some notes in the file on the table in front of him. “Okay. You said you were sure it was his car, but you didn’t see him specifically.”
She nods.
“Where were you when you saw this?”
“I was on my front porch.”
“You waited more than a day to make the first call. And then you refused to identify yourself. And then you denied it. Why?”
She swallows again. “I should have called right away. I realize that now. I regret that I didn’t. But I guess I hoped she would turn up and she would be all right. That’s what I told myself. Then, when she didn’t, I called, from a pay phone.” Gully and Bledsoe wait. “I didn’t want my name mixed up in any of this. I didn’t want to be in the news.”
“And why is that?” Bledsoe asks.
“Because of my ex-husband,” Marion says miserably. “I escaped a very abusive relationship a number of years ago. I had to get a restraining order against him. I don’t want him to know where I’m living now. I thought if I came forward as a witness, my name and photo would be in the news, and he would find me.” She looks back at them. “I didn’t want to risk him hurting me. I hope you can understand that.”
Gully finds her convincing. Her explanation makes sense. How unfortunate, she thinks wearily, that the one person who last saw Avery alive was too afraid for her own life to come forward.
“We can try to protect you, keep your name out of it,” Bledsoe says.
“Can you?” She looks back at him desperately. “Can you really do that?”
The relief she so obviously feels at this makes Gully feel genuinely sorry for her, even though she’s angry that she didn’t come forward voluntarily, and sooner. It might have made all the difference.
* * *
? ? ?
Marion Cooke is uneasy as she leaves the police station after signing her written statement. She’d parked her car on the street and now she walks that way. It’s after four o’clock, but she doesn’t want to go home yet. She decides to walk around downtown for a while, to clear her head. As she walks, glancing in shop windows, her thoughts turn to what might happen now.
Thirty-two
Nora Blanchard opens her front door just before five o’clock and feels the world tilt. It’s the detectives, Bledsoe and Gully, back again, and they look grim.
“Is your son home?” Bledsoe asks.
She wants to lie, tell them he’s out—anything to prevent what she knows is going to happen next. But Ryan is already coming down the stairs; he must have heard the knock. Or maybe he’s been watching for them out his window, expecting them.
Nora can’t speak. She feels a terrible dread. Ryan comes and stands beside her.
Bledsoe looks at Ryan and says, “The witness has come forward, the one who saw Avery get into your car on Tuesday afternoon at four thirty.” He adds, “We’re taking you into custody. You’re under arrest.” Bledsoe reads him his rights again.
Ryan turns white as the cuffs go on. He bursts out, “They’re lying!”
Nora finds her voice. “It’s not true! Who is this witness?” she cries. But they ignore her. As they take her son away, Nora calls after him, “I’m coming with you, Ryan. I’m right behind you. I’ll call Oliver. I’ll get your father. We’ll be there with you.”
* * *
? ? ?
Gully drives, occasionally glancing via the rearview mirror at the white-faced boy sitting handcuffed and silent in the back. Bledsoe is beside her, probably running through his mind how he’s going to conduct the interrogation. They know they can’t talk to him until his attorney, Oliver Fuller, is present. For that reason, they probably won’t get anything out of him. But Bledsoe will try to scare him, then offer him hope—offer him something to make him talk. A lot depends on what happens in the next hour or two. Gully takes a deep breath. She knows they can’t fuck this up.
The attorney wastes no time getting to the station. They are soon all seated together in the interview room—Bledsoe and Gully on one side of the table, Ryan and Oliver Fuller on the other, like before. The interview is being videotaped. The cuffs have been removed.
“This is serious, Ryan,” Bledsoe begins. “A girl is missing.” Ryan stares straight ahead, not meeting the detectives’ eyes. But he’s trembling like a leaf. “We have a credible witness who will testify that they saw Avery getting into your car at approximately four thirty on Tuesday afternoon. And no one has seen her since.” He pauses. “We know you didn’t get home until sometime between six and six thirty. What were you doing in that time?”
Gully studies Ryan Blanchard, trying to read him. Did this trembling boy do something to Avery?