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But he’s only just gone missing. There’s only been one night and one day.
‘Thank you,’ said the young man. ‘I appreciate it. And I know Aunt Shannon will too.’
I’m lost …
‘Hopefully,’ said the woman, ‘there’ll be a more positive outcome for Caleb Veir.’
Oh. OK. She’s talking about the other boy … the one who drowned: Aaron Fuller.
‘Yes,’ said the young man. ‘I couldn’t not come to help today.’
‘Good for you,’ said the woman.
She left quickly, and as Ren looked up, there was no one between her and the young man, and they locked eyes. He gave her a small nod, then turned and walked toward the line of volunteers.
When Ren went back over to Gary, Ruddock was standing with him, looking in her direction, but following the path of the young man.
‘Who is that guy?’ said Ren.
‘Interesting you should ask,’ said Ruddock. ‘He’s a former inmate of BRCI, got out last summer: Seth Fuller. He’s a cousin of Aaron, the boy who drowned. He lives with his aunt out at The Crow Bar on Lake Verny. She owns it. In fact, she bought it from John Veir – he bought it when he came back from one of his tours of duty. He was going to set up a dive school there, or do boat tours, but it never really worked out for him, so he had to sell up.’
‘How did he afford that?’ said Ren.
Ruddock shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What was Seth Fuller in prison for?’ said Ren.
‘Possession. He’s a former heroin addict, cleaned up his act, apparently.’
Not that apparent …
‘He wasn’t mentioned on John Veir’s questionnaire as someone to consider,’ said Ren.
‘No,’ said Ruddock. ‘And Veir would have known him through selling the business to his aunt too.’
‘What’s your take on him?’ said Ren.
Ruddock tilted his head. ‘On Seth Fuller? He was a very bright, creative kid until he got involved in drugs – he was more a danger to himself than anyone else. That would have been my take on him … up until about five minutes ago. We’ve just learned a little something about Seth Fuller: apparently, he used to pay particular attention to Caleb Veir …’
10 (#ulink_c5c9385d-e18a-551d-945e-fdd76f6eeddb)
The crowd of volunteers was moving back and forth, and at that moment, parted to reveal Seth Fuller again.
Ren watched him shift from one foot to the next, his eyes on the battered paperback in his right hand, one of the classics, folded back on itself.
What am I getting from you? And what are you reading?
‘Who told you about this Fuller guy and Caleb Veir?’ said Gary.
‘The owner of the comic book store in town,’ said Ruddock. ‘He just called, said that on several occasions when Caleb was short a few dollars, Fuller would help him out. He also saw him buying the kid sodas and candy from the store across the street.’
‘Did he say how Caleb reacted to this attention?’ said Ren. ‘Did it seem to make him uncomfortable?’
‘He said Caleb just seemed happy to have someone pay his way,’ said Ruddock.
‘Well, he’s twelve years old and he was getting free stuff,’ said Ren.
Ruddock nodded. ‘You know what it’s like in a situation like this – everyone starts eyeing people suspiciously.’
‘Well, we need to treat it seriously until we know otherwise,’ said Gary.
Ren glanced up at him. That was unnecessary. Ren looked at Ruddock.
Apologizing with my eyes.
‘Have you seen enough, here?’ said Ruddock. ‘I wanted to let you know you’re all set up inside.’
There were twelve desks in the temporary office, five already occupied by agents from the FBI Portland Division, which covered the entire state of Oregon. Another desk was taken up by the CAST agent – Cellular Analysis Survey Team. He had given Wiley printouts of the Veirs’ phone dumps; John, Teddy and Caleb’s cell phones, and the home phone.
Wiley was waiting for them like a student eager to please.
Mixed messages central.
‘Nothing jumping out at me so far,’ said Wiley. ‘The last call made on Caleb’s cell phone on Monday morning was to his aunt, Alice Veir – John Veir’s sister. Veir himself made a call on Sunday morning to one of his colleagues, Rob Lockwood, a psychologist at BRCI.’
Wiley also had the reports from the lab on the Veirs’ laptops. They read through them.
‘Nothing here is setting off alarm bells,’ said Ren. ‘Caleb was looking up PlayStation cheats for Grand Theft Auto 5, emailing friends, posting on Facebook, checking out porn. Sure, he calls his father an asshole in a few of his emails, but that’s what kids do. He hates school – he’s twelve years old, no surprise there.’
Ruddock’s phone beeped. He checked a text. ‘The Veirs are here. I’ll go meet with them.’
Wiley followed him out.
Gary turned to Ren when they had left. ‘You and me are talking to John Veir. I think you might unsettle him. I wouldn’t say he likes strong women. You lead, and if his story starts smelling like bullshit, I’ll go big guns, round two.’
‘OK, but would you mind if Ruddock and I took Teddy Veir? She is so fragile: in the first interview, I’m not sure she responded very well to being faced down by two men. She looked a little freaked. She could be intimidated by male authority figures, especially if she’s a cowed wife.’
‘Or she could be used to male authority figures …’ said Gary.
‘Trust me on this,’ said Ren. ‘You could intimidate a woman like her without even realizing it. I’ll tread lightly, and Ruddock is a familiar face, with a gentle way about him. Between us, I think we can just …’ she shrugged, ‘set the right tone.’
Ruddock came back and brought Gary and Ren to the interview room where John Veir was waiting, pale-faced, twitchy, tense. Ren and Gary introduced themselves.
‘I’m sorry that we’re meeting under these circumstances, Mr Veir,’ said Ren. ‘And I apologize for having to ask you so many questions at such a difficult time, especially ones that you may feel you’ve already answered.’
John’s eyes flicked toward Gary.
You’re surprised the lady spoke first …
‘Thank you,’ said John, his eyes back on Ren, his pupils huge, his gaze fixed.
Jesus. Intense.
‘It’s OK,’ said John. ‘I understand. Go ahead.’
‘Talk me through the twenty-four hours before Caleb went missing,’ said Ren.
John nodded. ‘Sunday morning, me, Teddy and Caleb went to the eleven a.m. service at Tate Baptist Church on 1st Street. We came home, ate lunch together. After lunch, Teddy was in the dining room – she was writing, Caleb was upstairs in his room, on his laptop or his phone, I guess. I was doing some work around the house, in the garage. It was a regular Sunday. Teddy left for Patti Ellis’s house at around six o’clock – Patti’s Teddy’s friend, she’s got cancer, so the friends are taking turns to look after her. Teddy does Sunday nights. And she had a trade show in Salem the following day. After she left, I cooked supper for me and Caleb. We ate together. Caleb went back up to his room. I was in the living room watching television.’
‘What were you watching?’ said Ren.
‘Uh … well, I was watching a box set,’ said John. ‘I think Breaking Bad? Whichever one is in the machine.’ He didn’t take his eyes off her as he spoke.
Hmm.
‘I was dozing off,’ said John.
‘Did you see Caleb again – did you check on him before you went to bed?’ said Ren.
John frowned. ‘Of course I did. He was fine.’
‘How were things between you and Caleb in general?’ said Ren. ‘We’ve had reports of raised voices in the house …’
‘Sunday night? No way,’ said John.
‘Not specifically Sunday night …’ said Ren.
‘Well, not on Sunday, and not on Monday,’ said John. ‘Caleb and I were good.’ He paused. ‘Let me correct that, sorry – I did shout up at Caleb several times on Monday morning, because he was dragging his heels, and his oatmeal was going cold.’
‘Did he respond to you?’ said Ren. ‘Did he hurry up?’
‘He was already leaving his room,’ said John.
‘Did you drive Caleb to school often?’ said Ren.
‘When I was working the late shift, yes,’ said John. ‘Otherwise, it was his mom. Or he walked.’
‘It takes what – fifteen minutes?’ said Gary.
‘Yes,’ said John. ‘A lot of the kids around here walk it. There are usually some parents too. It’s … safe.’
‘But Caleb was running late on Monday,’ said Ren.
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you drive him?’ said Ren. ‘Your shift wasn’t until later that day.’
‘He wanted to walk,’ said John. ‘And to be honest, I wanted him to take responsibility for being late. I’m always trying to teach him that choices have consequences.’
‘Did you argue at all, have a disagreement about anything that morning?’ said Ren.
‘No,’ said John. ‘I told you. Nothing like that. Hands up, I admit I’m strict on the boy, and, yes, I do raise my voice. I know that’s not the done thing these days, but children need discipline. Without discipline …’ He trailed off as his voice cracked. There were tears in his eyes.
Whoa. Did you discipline him too much? Did it go too far?
‘Look, I didn’t do anything to my son,’ said John. ‘I know you look at parents very closely in these situations, but I swear to God, I did not harm my son. It’s the last thing in the world I would do. And my wife … she’s an angel.’
Fuck, that seemed genuine.
11 (#ulink_62a0ba35-b308-5039-b9f7-173edfc62cd0)
Ren looked through Caleb Veir’s cell phone records.
‘John,’ she said, ‘there was a call made from Caleb’s cell phone to your sister, Alice, at seven thirty a.m. yesterday. Did you know about that?’
John shook his head. ‘No, I did not.’
Those giant pupils. Sign of deception …
‘Do you know why Caleb would have called your sister?’ said Ren. ‘And so early in the morning?’
‘I have no idea,’ said John.
‘Are they close?’ said Ren.
‘They get along,’ said John. ‘They don’t see each other a lot, but when they do, yeah, absolutely, they’re close.’
‘I have cell phone records here going back three months and this was the first time he had ever called her,’ said Ren.
‘From his cell phone, maybe,’ said John, ‘but he has spoken to her on the home phone when I’ve called her.’
‘What would they talk about?’ said Ren. ‘Was your sister someone Caleb would open up to?’
‘Honestly, I didn’t pay attention to what they talked about,’ said John. ‘I was just glad they were talking.’
‘Monday’s call was ten minutes long,’ said Ren.
‘Honestly, I don’t know what that would have been about.’
‘The call was deleted from the call list on his phone,’ said Ren. ‘Why would Caleb have wanted to hide that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said John. ‘Maybe he was planning a surprise for me or his mom and didn’t want us to know he’d called Alice?’ He paused. ‘Oh, hold on … I forgot about this – Alice is working on a wrongful conviction case that’s getting a lot of attention. Caleb had mentioned her coming in to talk to his class on one of her visits here. Knowing Caleb, he was probably supposed to have someone organized for Monday, and he ended up calling Alice at the last minute.’
‘Did Caleb have a particular interest in the law?’ said Ren. ‘Or was there something about this case?’
‘It might just have been that Alice had been on television,’ said John. ‘You know kids …’
Ren nodded. Hold on a second … ‘Haven’t you talked to her yet? Told her that Caleb’s missing?’
