Blind Spot (33 page)

“Sorry,” Warren said, interrupting her thoughts. “Guess that was pretty much of a bust.”

“Not your fault.” Suki watched the woods.

“Hey,” he said gently. “You want to call it quits for the day? Try again some other time?”

She pulled herself from her reverie. “Let’s do something,” she said loudly, too loudly. “Anything,” she added more softly. “The center? TeenScene again? The mall?”

“The mall might work,” Warren said. “We could go to Video Haven—you know, that awful video arcade on the second floor?”

Suki knew all about Video Haven. It was Kyle’s favorite place in the world—and her least favorite. “I thought you wanted to talk to some adults before we hit the kids?”

“That idea panned out well,” Warren said with a straight face.

Suki was surprised she could laugh. “To the mall.”

Video Haven was even worse than Suki remembered. It seemed as if twice as many machines now filled the long, narrow space, which meant twice the kids, twice the noise, twice the flashing lights, twice the headache. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were all painted black, but this lack of color was atoned for by the arcade games themselves: streaks of pink and purple neon soared from “Soul Edge”; “Sega Virtua Cop 2: Guardian of Virtua City” blinked orange and white and then orange and white again; two pulsing red car seats raced along the winding highway of “Cruis’n USA”; Roman gladiators held guns in one hand and round shields outlined by flashing lights in the other, an anachronism Suki was sure no regular patron had ever noticed.

It was jammed. Kids stood three and four deep in front of every machine, pushing buttons, shooting guns, rotating joysticks. Here and there a group of girls played, or a parent stood behind a small child, but mostly, Video Haven was populated by teenage boys. “I’m killing him!” a voice cried next to Suki. “Shit, I’m dead!” moaned another. “Yeeh, ha!” It smelled like stale Fritos.

“This time I bet you’ll be more than glad for me to go it alone,” Warren yelled in Suki’s ear.

She shook her head and yelled back, “I’m ahead of you.” For a while, the two tried to carry on barely intelligible conversations with friends of Alexa’s, friends of Jonah’s, friends of Kyle’s, boys Suki didn’t know. No one was easily pried from the machines, and no one seemed pleased to see them when they were. Most of the boys were unable to hear the questions—or else they feigned deafness. When Suki’s head began to pound in time to both the stampeding elephants of “Jungle Death” and the guns of the elite S.T.A.R.R. team of “Area 51,” she told Warren she’d wait at the entrance.

Suki walked out of Video Hell and leaned her head against the cool tiles that lined the walls of the mall. She stared into the blinking eyes of “Mystic Lady: She Knows All,” a mechanical palm reader perched at the edge of the wide doorway. “Press your hand here to learn the truth,” it said over Mystic Lady’s turbaned head. If only it were that easy.

But she couldn’t resist dropping a quarter into the slot. She pressed her hand to the metal electrodes and waited. A moment later, a piece of paper spit from Mystic Lady’s mouth. “Stop wasting your time at the arcade,” it said. Very funny, Suki thought, yet she couldn’t help wondering if the advice wasn’t apt.

Warren finally emerged from the dark. He looked like he had a headache, too. “You want to go get a drink or something?” he asked.

“Do I need one?”

Warren took her arm and led her to the escalator.

As she rode down, Suki watched the rows of pulsating waterfalls erupt from chunks of marble. This mall had once been a one-story utilitarian shopping center, then the roof was raised, the floor covered with marble, the arty fountain and glass atrium installed. Now the stores charged twice as much.

When they got to the ground floor, Suki turned to Warren. “Tell me,” she said.

He pointed to an empty marble bench near the wishing pond that edged the fountain. They sat. Warren stared at the coins sparkling in the sunlight. “I didn’t get anything on the witness,” he finally said. “I don’t know if there isn’t anything to get, or if no one’s talking—but my guess is it’s the former.”

“What about the dealer?”

Warren stared into the waterfalls. He looked troubled, distant, almost afraid.

“Just say it.”

“Marcus Bouchard, a good kid, a senior …”

Suki had never heard the name. “What did he say?” she asked.

“He said he wasn’t sure who the big speed dealer was, but that he thought it was some kid from Boston.”

Suki slumped on the bench. This was going nowhere. It was hopeless. Then she looked at Warren and saw that there was more.

Warren cleared his throat. “I’ll give it to you straight and fast: According to Marcus, Alexa has been selling methamphetamine in the girls’ room.”

Suki shook her head.

“Marcus said a friend of his bought some speed from her a few weeks ago. Before all of this.”

“No,” Suki said. “He’s wrong.”

“He’s a pretty straight shooter.”

“It’s not possible.” Suki stood up and began walking toward the exit. Warren followed her. “It’s a lie.” But even as she said it, she wondered why a kid would lie about such a thing. Maybe it wasn’t the kid. Maybe it was Warren.

“It’s tough being a parent,” Warren said.

Suki was so angry she couldn’t speak. First Warren accused Alexa of dealing drugs, then he condescended to her. Why had Warren been so willing to help anyway? What was his agenda? She hadn’t thought to suspect his motives because he was Jonah’s uncle, but that assumption might not be sound. She threw a glance at the man walking beside her, at his lanky hair, his scruffy clothes. He
did
work at the rec center with Ellery, and he
did
mentor Devin. Warren could easily be in on McKinna’s plot to frame Alexa, feigning assistance while he monitored and impeded Suki’s progress. She walked faster.

“There’s a lot that goes on in this town that parents are oblivious to.” Warren kept up with her pace.

No. It didn’t make sense that Warren would be involved in a cover-up for Jonah’s murderer. Maybe he actually believed Alexa
had
killed Jonah. Maybe he had agreed to help her as a way to punish them.

“Parents tend to see their kids as the innocent children they once were,” Warren continued, “but the world isn’t innocent, and neither are the kids.”

“I don’t need you to tell me about being a parent,” Suki reminded him. “I think I know my daughter a little better than you do.”

“Maybe it
is
a lie,” Warren began backpedaling. “Maybe Marcus got his story wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that things aren’t always the way you want them to be.”

Suki clenched her fists, but didn’t say anything.

“I want to help you, Suki. Really I do. But like I told you before, I don’t think this is the way to go about it. You’re way off base on the witness-drug dealer thing, and scrounging around like this, you’re just asking to find out things you don’t want to know.”

Suki turned and faced him. “What exactly are you implying here, Warren? That you think Alexa is a drug dealer? That she killed Jonah?”

“I’m not saying that. Not at all.” Warren held up his hands. “I’m just trying to help. To keep you from wasting your time. From getting hurt.”

“I think I can decide for myself what’s a waste of my time,” Suki said. “And if saving my daughter means I get hurt, then so be it.”

As soon as Suki stepped into the house, she knew it was empty. She felt its stillness, its vacancy, with a sixth sense. She had spoken to Alexa at lunchtime and, although Alexa hadn’t sounded great, her lethargic, monosyllabic answers to Suki’s questions were nothing out of the ordinary; Alexa hadn’t said anything about going anywhere. Suki called out, but was not surprised when she received no answer.

The answering machine in the kitchen was blinking, and Suki jammed the button with her forefinger. There was one message. It was from Superintendent Rizzo’s office.

“I’m just calling to double-check on the note you sent in with your daughter, Dr. Jacobs,” a voice coated with annoyance announced from the speaker. “The one giving her permission to visit Lindsey Kern?” There was a long pause. “Well,” the voice continued, “seeing as how you’re not there, and the note’s signed and on your letterhead, I’ll let Alexa in this one time. But in the future, we need both written and phone authorization for minor visitations. I thought you knew that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

W
hen Suki got to Watkins, she found Kendra sitting in her mother’s van, reading
Mademoiselle
. She sent the girl home. Wednesday evening was visiting night, and the lot was full. Two boys wrestled in the back seat of an old Chevy parked next to Suki and, on the other side, a little girl stared out her window and nibbled on a trench fry. As Suki headed for the main entrance, a rangy mongrel barked at her from the back of a station wagon. A guard prowling the parking lot wished her a good evening. She was so angry she could barely give him a civil reply.

Suki opened the door and marched up to the front control. She had never seen the man behind the glass before, as she had never been here during the evening shift, and he looked at her with bored disdain.

“Name of inmate,” he barked.

“Lindsey Kern,” Suki said, “I’m—”

“Already got a visitor,” the officer interrupted. “You’ll have to wait.”

“I’m not just a visitor. I’m the forensic psychologist evaluating Ms. Kern’s case for Michael Dannow’s office. I have a letter signed by the superintendent permitting me to see her any time I wish.” Unfortunately the letter was in her briefcase at home.

“Don’t matter,
miss
.” He leered at her breasts, then waved to two rows of plastic chairs shoved into a tight corner of the room. The chairs overflowed with a not very happy humanity of crying babies, sullen adults and teenage boys who needed showers. “She can only have one visitor at a time. You’ve got to wait like everyone else.”

Suki brought her face close to the mouthpiece. “My name is Dr. Suzanne Jacobs. Call Superintendent Rizzo’s office right now and tell him it’s an emergency. That I must speak with Ms. Kern immediately. He will authorize it.”

“They’re all gone for the day,” the officer said, but he was much less belligerent, much more wary, after hearing his boss’s name.

“Try anyway,” Suki ordered, although it was past six.

“I know for a fact—”

Suki pressed her palm to the small shelf in front of the window. “The girl in there talking with Ms. Kern is underage,” she said quietly. “She hasn’t received the proper consents for the visit, and unless this is straightened out right away, someone could get into big trouble.”

The man began fumbling with the sheets in front of him. A file and a few pens fell to the floor. “That can’t be,” he muttered to himself. “Can’t be.” Then he raised a piece of paper and waved it triumphantly. “Says right here that Alexa Jacobs, age seventeen, was verbally approved by the superintendent’s secretary. And she had a letter.” He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked at Suki. “Seems like she’s got all the consents she needs.”

“And who signed the authorization letter?”

The officer ran a nicotine-stained forefinger slowly down the columns. He squinted at the small writing. “A Dr. Suki Jacobs,” he said before he recognized the name he was reading. Startled, he looked up.

For the first time since meeting Warren Blanchard in Ayer that afternoon, Suki felt a beat of triumph. “I rescind my authorization,” she said sweetly.

But Suki’s sense of triumph was short-lived. After being escorted through the metal detector and the trap, down a long hallway and up two flights of stairs, she was led into a large room divided in half by a wall of Plexiglas: the shadow box. On either side of the plastic partition were two dozen open cubicles, each set connected by a telephone, each set occupied. Husbands, children, mothers, lovers, sisters, nephews, friends: full, half, ex- and step. Every permutation of every possible relationship. It should have been noisy and chaotic, but instead, the air was tight and close, overheated and full of hushed urgency. Dusty sunlight filtered through the barred windows. Corrections officers stood behind every fifth prisoner and at either end of the visitors’ row.

Suki immediately saw Alexa amidst the murmuring crowd, and her stomach clutched. Alexa looked like an illustration in an anorexia text, or a photograph to solicit donations for the Jimmy Fund. Alexa’s right hand pressed the phone to her ear while her left pressed tight against the partition; Lindsey’s hand mirrored hers from the other side. They were linked, finger to finger, palm to palm, and, Suki feared, soul to soul.

Suki walked over to Alexa. “You’re out of here,” she growled in her daughter’s ear.

Alexa dropped the phone.

Suki grabbed the girl by her elbows and raised her from her chair. “My car is in the lot.” Suki looked at the name tag of the officer who had accompanied her. “Ms. Knobe here will bring you outside. You are to get in the car and stay there until I’m finished.”

“But I—”

“But nothing,” Suki ordered, her anger coating every word, although her voice was soft. “We will discuss this later. Now go.”

Alexa and Ms. Knobe went.

Suki sat down in the seat Alexa had vacated. At her right shoulder, the receiver hung by its cord, swinging like a lost soul from the gallows. She picked it up. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked Lindsey.

Lindsey leaned her elbows on the table in front of her and watched Suki calmly. She kept the phone pressed to her ear, but didn’t answer for a long time. “She came to me,” she finally said without a trace of regret in her voice.

“You could have refused to see her,” Suki snapped.

“No,” Lindsey said. “I couldn’t do that.”

Now it was Suki who watched Lindsey. The woman was quite striking, even in her faded orange work shirt, without makeup, her hair pulled back severely. Her eyes dominated her face, so large, so intelligent, and, at the moment, so compassionate. Suki could see that in her own way, Lindsey wanted to help Alexa, and Suki’s anger dissipated.

“She’s just a child,” Suki said, a wave of deep, searing sadness rolling over her. “A baffled child whose life is coming apart at the seams. She doesn’t need any more confusion.”