Chương 8
She entered through the employee door, but her badge still did not work. A security guard she knew pretended not to notice and opened the turnstile manually.
Maribel hugged her in the laundry corridor.
Then she stepped back and said, “You look terrible.”
“So do you.”
“I’m sixty next month. I earned it.”
The meeting took place in a windowless training room with a broken dispenser of plastic cups. Dr. Levin explained that Leo had requested Savannah’s presence before another attempt at the forensic interview.
Savannah asked whether that was appropriate.
“You would not be in the interview room,” Dr. Levin said. “You could arrive with him, help him regulate in the waiting area, and leave once he chooses to enter.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then he doesn’t.”
Alvarez added, “Your role isn’t to get a statement.”
“I know.”
“Good. Because his words need to be his.”
Graham arrived late. He wore no jacket and had not shaved. Without the procession of assistants and guards, he looked less powerful and more physically imposing, a tall exhausted man occupying too much space in a small room.
He stopped when he saw Savannah.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Her attorney glanced at her.
Savannah said, “For what?”
“For your name being released. For not protecting your employment status. For coming to your home after you told me you needed distance.”
“I told you to leave after you came.”
“You shouldn’t have had to.”
She folded her hands. “Anything else?”
Graham looked at the table. “For assuming Leo’s trust in you was something I could hire.”
The room went quiet.
Savannah had expected an apology shaped by legal advice. This one sounded less polished and more expensive.
“All right,” she said.
He looked up.
“That doesn’t mean it’s fixed.”
“I know.”
Dr. Levin gathered her papers. “Now that everyone has survived speaking like adults for thirty seconds, we can discuss Leo.”
Alvarez smiled despite herself.
The second interview attempt occurred the following morning.
Leo wore headphones but played no sound through them. He carried the towel rabbit and a small laminated card showing the sequence of events: car, building, waiting room, interview room, car, home.
Savannah rode with him and Graham.
Nobody spoke during the drive.
At the center, Leo sat beneath a wall painted with clouds. Savannah placed two folded napkins on the table and made a rabbit slowly, using the same method he had watched her use at the hotel.
His version had always been better.
He watched her hands.
“You don’t have to go in,” she said. “You can decide.”
He touched the rabbit’s ear twice.
The interviewer opened the door and waited.
Leo stood.
At the threshold, he turned toward Graham.
Graham’s hands remained flat on his knees. “I’ll be here when you come back.”
Leo looked at Savannah.
She nodded once.
He entered alone.
The interview lasted thirty-seven minutes.
Graham counted every one.
Savannah read the same page of a magazine six times. It was an article about kitchen storage. A photograph showed glass jars labeled FLOUR, SUGAR, OATS, as though confusion in a kitchen could be defeated by black lettering.
When the door opened, Leo came out holding the interviewer’s green marker.
He had forgotten to return it.
The interviewer let him keep it.
Alvarez did not immediately tell Graham what had been said. She explained that the recording would be reviewed by investigators and prosecutors, and that Leo should not be questioned about it afterward.
“Did he identify Frankie?” Graham asked.
“Don’t do this here.”
“Did he?”
Alvarez looked at Leo, then back at Graham. “He gave information we can investigate.”
That afternoon, she told him more.
Leo described being taken through a service hallway by “Uncle Frankie” after Frankie said his mother needed help. He remembered room 3217 because he liked number patterns. He said Frankie gave him apple juice in a blue cup and turned on a radio near the door. The static hurt his ears.
He remembered his mother entering once.
She was crying.
She told him he would stay with his father and that she would come back when it was safe. Frankie stood beside her. When Leo tried to follow, Frankie held the door closed.
Leo did not describe being struck, threatened with a weapon, or physically injured.
He said Frankie told him, “Your dad says this is a quiet game.”
After Evelyn left, Frankie drove Leo through the underground garage in a black car, kept him in another room Leo could not identify, and returned him to the Connecticut house the next afternoon.
Graham had been told Leo had been with Evelyn’s sister.
Evelyn’s sister had been told Leo remained with Graham in Manhattan.
Frankie had created two believable assumptions and allowed a child to disappear between them.
“Why didn’t anyone verify?” Alvarez asked.
Graham could not answer without indicting every person who trusted the system he had built.
The chauffeur invoice emerged from an accounting archive.
The company had paid an outside car service for a black sedan on the night Evelyn disappeared. The passenger name was listed as F. Duca. The route began at the Vale Meridian, stopped near the East Thirty-Fourth Street heliport, continued to a private residence in Westchester, and ended at a small regional airport.
There had been no flight under Evelyn Vale’s name.
The driver, Desmond Price, still lived in Queens and initially refused to speak. He had signed confidentiality agreements and feared losing contracts with wealthy clients.
Alvarez obtained records and approached him again.
This time, he brought his own lawyer.
Desmond remembered Evelyn.
“She asked if Graham knew where they were going,” he said.
“What did Mr. Duca say?” Alvarez asked.
“He said, ‘He’ll know when this is clean.’”
“Did Mrs. Vale appear to go willingly?”
Desmond stared at the table.
“She got in the car by herself.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She looked afraid.”
“Of Mr. Duca?”
“I don’t know.”
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“Did she try to leave?”
“At the house, she walked toward the road. Mr. Duca spoke to her. She came back.”
