And Then She Was Gone(48)
“Keep me posted.”
A door clicked closed, and Jack heard the superintendent’s heels move down the hallway in the opposite direction.
He stared at Stacy’s picture on the wall. They think it’s Jay. They’re pretty certain of it. But it wasn’t. Someone killed you, but not him.
Stacy’s eyes seemed to meet his, and more than anything, he wished he could ask her one question. “Do you know who killed you?”
The stoic police officer standing at the interrogation room door moved to the side when Jack entered, and Detective Vargas smiled. Vargas may have been wearing a neatly pressed business suit with highly polished shoes, but he still had the bearing of a soldier. He strode over to the other side of the table, across from Jack, and pulled a chair back, but he didn’t sit down. Instead, he placed the evidence bag with Stacy’s tan and gold handbag onto the table.
“So you’re Jack Stratton?” His hard, dark-brown eyes studied Jack’s face.
Jack nodded.
“Well, Jack, I need to ask you a few questions.” His tone was much harsher than it had been with the superintendent.
Jack nodded again.
“Let’s start with this handbag.” Vargas held it up.
The plastic of the evidence bag reflected the overhead light, and the handbag’s gold swirls sparkled. The image of Stacy’s golden hair glittering under the water flashed into Jack’s mind. It made him sick to his stomach.
“Do you recognize this?”
Jack felt numb. He nodded but looked away.
“I need your verbal confirmation. Look at it again, please.” Vargas gave the bag a little shake.
Jack forced his eyes up. “That’s the bag I found.”
“Can you please tell me how you came about finding it?”
Jack explained how he saw Robyn with the bag, recognized it from the description in the flyers, and then how he got it from her.
“Wait a minute. You paid this homeless woman for evidence?”
“No… She had the bag and I didn’t think that she’d just give it to me, so I traded her for it.”
Vargas frowned. “Why didn’t you contact the police when you saw her with the bag?”
“I…” Jack sat back. Chandler had wanted to go to the police, but Jack didn’t listen to him. “I guess because I didn’t know for certain that it was Stacy’s.”
“But you recognized it because of the flyer? Where did you get this flyer?”
“Detective Clark. He was handing them out at the basketball court in Hamilton Park.”
Vargas sat down and folded his hands on the table. “I heard you know Detective Clark.”
“He’s a friend of my dad’s.”
“So Clark gave you one of these flyers a couple of days ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you remembered that handbag until today. That’s some seriously good police work.”
Jack wanted to accept the comment as a compliment, but there was something about the detective’s undertone that made Jack question whether he was sincere.
“I heard you want to be a cop,” Vargas continued.
“I do. I’m going into the Army first.”
“I did that too. I liked the Army. It was good to me. I did six years, then I moved right into law enforcement. San Antonio.”
“I’m doing two years then college.”
“Why not go right to college?”
“Money.”
“That’s why I didn’t go.” Vargas leaned back in his chair. “Your parents aren’t helping you out?”
The question bothered Jack. “My dad has to retire early. Health issues. This is his last year teaching. I don’t want him to worry about my school.”
“That’s nice of you.” Vargas’s kind words didn’t match the look in his dark eyes. “You told the responding officer that you didn’t touch any of the items in the handbag, is that correct?”
“Yeah. I just looked inside.”
“Why?”
“To see if it was Stacy’s. I saw the medic alert tag. That’s when I figured it was hers.”
Vargas crossed his arms. “And you didn’t call the police then?”
“I planned to, but Robyn told me where she found it and I wanted to check that out.”
“But you said earlier that you didn’t call the police when you first saw the bag because you weren’t sure it was Stacy’s. You looked inside. Now you’re sure. I think you would have called them at that point.” Vargas planted his feet on the floor and rocked back in the chair. “You knew it was hers then, right? You said so. Tan with gold swirls like the flyer and a diabetic medic alert tag inside.” Vargas looked at the cop at the door, and they both nodded as if they had come to a mutual understanding. “So after you… traded for this handbag, you went to…” Vargas flipped open a notebook and scanned the page. “You went thirteen benches down from the fountain. Thirteen benches? That’s pretty specific directions this homeless woman gave you.”