Page 64 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
Sometimes, if I can’t explain without sounding defensive, I just don’t. Do I really care whether this woman thinks I’m playing detective? Nope. If she kidnapped Max, she’ll find out how much I’m “playing.”
When I only look at her, she has the grace to squirm. Then she comes back with, “You’re doing a good job, though.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You just … well, I’m going to guess you lived a pretty sheltered life. You people usually do. Really close families and communities. Not a lot of crime.”
I bite my tongue. Hard.
She continues, “You accepted Dana’s story because you’re a good person from a good background. To everyone else, it’s obvious she’s lying.”
“Enlighten me.”
She blinks. “What?”
I take a seat behind the desk. “We’re going in circles here, Lynn. I asked how you know Dana’s lying, and you said it was obvious and then made a whole lot of judgment calls about me, based on…” I circle my face.
She flushes. “I was just saying—”
“A whole lotta judgment calls, all of them wrong, which has to make me wonder whether you’ve done the same with Dana. Took one look at her and decided she was complicit in her own situation.”
She sputters and squawks, but in the end, it seems she’s made the exact same presumption as Louie. Is it racial prejudice? Maybe, but mostly I threw that out to knock her off balance. If Dana had been white, Lynn might have decided Dana and her husband were mixed up in meth or white-collar crime, depending on her assessment of their social standing.
The truth, I think, is that Dana is right. We underestimated the human capacity for blame. In the real world, I wouldn’t have made that mistake. I’ve seen how the most innocent of victims are treated, with someone always questioning what they “did” to deserve it. They carried an expensive purse and got robbed. Walked home at night and got assaulted. Cut off someone in traffic and got shot. No crime is so horrific that someone won’t blame the victim. That person made a mistake that they’d never make and therefore they are safe.
My mistake was in hoping that people who’d been victims themselves would be more understanding. In Rockton, no one openly shared their stories. They might tell a few people they became close to, for support and commiseration, but you arrived knowing that you weren’t supposed to share, and most gratefully accepted that.
Yet while we’ve been busy setting up our town, suspicion has been festering. Lynn insists she came up with it on her own and told no one. She didn’t think it was relevant until Max disappeared and then, like Louie, she decided it was very relevant. That’s why she put the note under the door. For the fake cops who were too clueless to see the obvious.
How many other residents are questioning Dana’s story? Any staff? Are there others out there who’d decided it was none of their business, but are now eyeing Dana, whispering among themselves that she knows more than she’s letting on?
Did Lynn have anything to do with Max’s disappearance? I don’t think so. There’d be no point in tipping us off if she did. For now, I’ll be assigning someone to watch her, and I’ll quickly search the apartment she shares with her husband. My real concern, though, is finding the person who sent the other notes—the person claiming to have Max.
* * *
As I search Lynn and Grant’s apartment, I think about the other two notes. I haven’t dismissed the possibility that Lynn wrote them. Or that Grant did, the two of them working together. But the more I consider the trio of notes, the more Lynn’s seems to work at cross-purposes with the other two.
Lynn’s note turned attention on Dana. It urged us to look at her more closely. The other two notes are for Dana herself, and they function to open a direct line of communication. Presumably something would follow, and presumably it would be a demand for payment, in return for her son.
If Lynn was behind the other two notes, she sure as hell wouldn’t want us taking a closer look at Dana. That would defeat the purpose.
Or would it?
Could tipping us off be a way of applying pressure to Dana?
I’m not sure, but that twinges another thought.
There’s something very odd about that final note, isn’t there? About what it asked Dana to do.
Tell the truth and sign it. Not your fake name either.
Now look at the timeline. We know whoever left the note in the boot did it between Max’s disappearance and the next morning. What about the follow-up note? She’d retrieved it the next day, but it would have needed to be in place as soon as the first note was left.
The timing works. It all works.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I’ve been outside the storage shed for an hour now. Dalton is back, having found no sign of Max, and he’s joined me after leaving Storm with Kenny. I’ve explained everything, and he agrees with my logic. Now we’re waiting.
