Page 77 of Rage

He tsks. “Without her attorney being present.”

“Evidently,” Tomasetti mutters.

“The interview is over.” The lawyer ducks his head, turning his attention to Borntrager. “Hi, Wilma. Grab your bag. We’re leaving.”

Behind me, I hear Wilma gathering her things. I wait for her to look at me. “You don’t have to go with him if you don’t want to,” I tell her.

“Go fuck yourself,” she says, and brushes past.

“Might be a stretch, but I don’t think she learned to talk like that at the Amish school.” Tomasetti is sitting in the visitor chair adjacent to my desk.

“She’s a scared, dumb kid.” I’m at my desk, trying in vain not to fret about a situation I wish I’d handled differently. “We should have detained her.”

“She didn’t commit a crime.”

“I think she’s in danger.”

He shrugs. “You did your best.”

“Not good enough.” I slap my hand down on the desk. “Damn it.”

Behind me, the window unit pumps more hot air than cool; my shirt is sticking to my back like a wet towel and I resist the urge to spin around and punch it.

“She knows more than she’s letting on,” he says.

I recall the way she kept looking at the clock. “She knew the lawyer was coming.”

“Speaking of … he didn’t look cheap. Didn’t care for the man bun.”

“Be interesting to know who’s paying him.”

“Someone who doesn’t want her talking to the cops.”

We stare at each other a moment, our minds whirring.

After a moment, Tomasetti leans back in his chair and crosses his ankle over his knee. “In all fairness, she did give us a few things to unpack.”

“She worked for Brooks,” I say.

“When you talked to him, he didn’t mention he punched out Yutzy.”

“He doesn’t have an alibi.”

“All of that makes him worth talking to again.”

His cell phone buzzes. His frown deepens as he reaches for it and scrolls. After reading, he shoves it back into its case at his belt and smiles at me. “That was my legal guy,” he says. “We might have a lead on IDing the title holder of the house. He stayed late for this. I’m going to run up to Richfield and meet him.”

“I’ll see you at the farm later?”

“You bet.” Rising, he crosses to me and bends to press his mouth to mine. “Don’t be too late.”

“Same goes,” I say.

And then he’s gone.

Even in the midst of a double homicide investigation, the police station is quiet this time of night. I try to take advantage of the lull, use it to digest and absorb and drill myself on the myriad what-if questions I don’t have time to entertain during the day when everything around me is on fire.

My desk is buried beneath reams of paper. There are photos, sketches, handwritten notes, reports, and interview transcriptions. I’ve been through all of it a dozen times in the last two hours. I’ve dissected every word, looked at every scrap of information from multiple angles. Despite my efforts, nothing new has emerged. Or else I’m too damn tired to see it.