Page 99 of Kill For Me Kill For You
‘If I know Amanda, she’ll put up a fight. Look, just keep on those computer techs. Quinn is a blank, and I think that laptop has some answers – maybe even a motive.’
He ended the call, pushed the plunger all the way down on his coffee and poured himself a cup.
It wasn’t like Amanda not to return his calls, but it was Thanksgiving yesterday. Holidays were especially tough for the bereaved.
He tried calling again, but the call went straight to voicemail. He didn’t leave another message. He’d been around lost and broken people for too long.
He knew it paid to be sensitive. And he knew Amanda was in trouble.
In the early days after Luis and Jess’s funeral, Amanda would call Farrow every other day. When there was a development, or anything of note to report, he called her straight away. Farrow had never married. Didn’t have kids. He’d realized early that the job and a fulfilled family life were not easy bedfellows. Some cops could do it. They could come home on time, switch that shit off and be with their kids, their wives or husbands. It was not something Farrow could do. The job demanded too much. It consumed his every waking moment. Even his dreams. He sometimes saw their faces in the dark – the ones whom he’d found. The dead victims. Crying out to him in the night. Reaching for him. Not to hurt him. They always wanted to touch his hand. Hold on to him.
And so he held on to them. Kept them close.
He owed the dead a debt. And he saw to it that it got paid.
He’d been the second cop on the scene when Jess’s body had been found. That was one night he would never forget. A little girl in a dumpster surrounded by black garbage bags. Her small hands. Her toes. Cold. Dead. Unnatural.
That image took something from him that day. And replaced it with a fire. Something very human inside Farrow was brought alive. It burned in him. It flamed whenever he sat across the table from Wallace Crone in the precinct interview room. He knew the man had killed that little girl. He was certain of it. And while Crone had constantly denied it – in his black eyes Farrow saw the truth. He’d seen not only that Crone had killed the girl, but that he had enjoyed it.
He would never forget that interview.
Crone had been questioned by police on multiple occasions. This time it was no different. He sat in the interrogation room with this lawyer, who told him not to say anything. Of course, Crone was too narcissistic to take the advice to heart. He didn’t answer all of their questions, but he didn’t mind riling them up.
‘Where were you on the day Jess White was abducted?’ asked Hernandez.
He didn’t answer. He just looked at the shoulder of his tailormade suit and brushed some tiny speck of dust from it, then he smiled.
‘We have a man on security footage leading Jess away from the park, and that man looks a lot like you. That’s why you’re here.’
Crone merely shrugged, said, ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Don’t you care that a child was abducted, abused and murdered?’ asked Hernandez. It was an open question – appealing to the side of Crone’s personality that thought of himself as a victim of the police.
The answer he’d given to that question, in that room, that day, still made Farrow’s heart beat faster.
‘When you say abused, you mean, they had sex? That’s not abuse. Some girls are more mature than you give them credit for. I treat them like the women they are. You know my history – my rap sheet. I like young girls, Officer Hernandez. I like to sleep with them. You wouldn’t understand, but there’s nothing wrong with that. They like it. I like it. I don’t see a problem. I don’t know this girl, but from what you’ve told me it sure sounds like someone had a good time with her.’
Hernandez had looked at Farrow then. They’d sat side by side. Her mouth was open.
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand. Society has created a false narrative. If you look at the Bible, this happened all the time,’ said Crone.
Neither of them could speak. Farrow gritted his teeth.
‘You’re pretty cute,’ said Crone, still staring at Hernandez. ‘But you’re too old for me. Do you have any kids?’
The lawyer told him, right then, to keep quiet, and Crone leaned back in his seat, folded his arms and put another smug grin on his face.
To this day, months later, Farrow still wasn’t sure how he or Hernandez were able to hold their nerve in that room, and not reach over the table and strangle Crone to death. God knows he deserved it.
As well as a debt owed to the dead, Farrow owed something to those left behind. Amanda had been hit harder than most, and Farrow had watched her heart break, and yet what pulled at him was that she never gave up. She kept fighting. Even when it was hopeless.
He’d spent many late nights sitting on her couch, listening to her talk about Jess and Luis and the life that they’d had, and all the things that they would never have now. It was fuel for Farrow. The pain helped to keep him sharp. Ready. On the edge.
When the forensics team had called him and given him the news on their DNA results, he’d felt his heart trip out of rhythm.
Amanda didn’t deserve what was coming to her. And he needed to be there, in person, to hold her hand once again.
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