Double Vision (4 page)

“H
e seemed less than thrilled to hear from me,” Dodd said as Jenna coasted the Blazer onto the freeway toward the house where Molly Keegan lived with her mother and stepfather. When Jenna had told Saleda she planned to interview Molly a second time, Dodd insisted on coming with her. He'd found Molly at the crime scene, too, and since then, he'd seemed practically territorial regarding her. Whether or not the old codger was afraid Jenna might figure out the Triple Shooter before him, though, was irrelevant. As far as Jenna was concerned, they both wanted the same ending to this saga, so he could tag along all he wanted as long as he didn't hinder her process.

Now Liam Tyler's concerned face filled Jenna's mind, and an amber color flashed in. She pushed it back. No way she was going to try to interpret it at this point. It could mean just about anything in the color dictionary that was her brain, or it could imply something entirely new altogether. Intelligence, denial, caution, deceit, goofiness: all were represented by various shades of orange to Jenna, so what Liam Tyler's orange said about him was anyone's guess. At this point, the only association she made with him was his protectiveness of Molly, and for that she couldn't blame him.

“How'd you manage to get him to let us come by, then?” she asked.

“I didn't. He said a couple of choice phrases to me before the mom took the phone from him and told me to come on over. Said they'd do anything they could to help us catch the person who did this.”

Rita Keegan's limp form crossed Jenna's mind. Molly's grandmother had lain facedown in her own blood near the checkout line, the Triple Shooter's unlucky sixth victim. Regardless of whether or not Molly's mom wanted to keep Molly out of the mix, losing a parent was impetus enough to shoo away any misgivings you might have about letting your daughter talk more with police. Jenna should know. It was the same way she'd felt about police interviewing Ayana after Claudia had tried to kill her father last year.

“He's worried,” Jenna said.

“He's an ass,” Dodd replied.

“Nobody ever said you can't be both. But try to play nice until we get what we need from them.”

“He's some kind of priest or something, isn't he? He has to be polite.”

Jenna laughed. “I don't think working with a church youth group is quite the same as being a priest. And if you think the church crowd has to be polite, you haven't been to the same churches I have. Like I said, just be on your best behavior, like you should be with anyone, church worker or not. He can make this easier for us or harder.”

“I know that, Witch Doctor. Don't worry. This ain't my first rodeo.”

“Witch doctor, huh? That's a new one,” Jenna said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Definitely. I usually only get Shrink or Quackerjack. Stuff like that.”

Dodd shrugged. “What can I say? I'm an original. Besides, you have that whole magical color thing going on, so you aren't entirely of the medical persuasion alone.”

Too right you are.

She pulled into the driveway of the Tudor revival-style home at 1615 Adrianne Circle. Seemed a huge place for only three people, but maybe they'd bought the house with a bigger family in mind. Heck, maybe one of the two owned it before they got married, then the other moved in after.

“Nice digs,” Dodd mumbled, his sharp eyes scanning the length of the property. “Shall we go have a little number chat, then?”

“Let's do this.”

Jenna led the way up the winding sidewalk lined with liriope and hydrangeas. She rang the doorbell, noted no barking dog followed. Neither did voices or scurrying.

After about thirty seconds, the door creaked open and Jenna stood face-to-face with a woman of about thirty-five, her fine mousy brown hair situated in a stringy ponytail. This had to be Molly's mother.

“Hi, there. I'm Dr. Jenna Ramey with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. This is Special Agent Gabriel Dodd. May we come in?”

The frail woman said nothing, only fingered the charm on the gold necklace at her throat as she nodded and stepped to the side. Jenna gave her a close-lipped, sympathetic smile, then walked past her into her home.

The entrance led right into a spacious combination living and dining room. Directly ahead was a large wooden table that sat way more than the family of three, and off to the left, a gargantuan beige sectional sofa set dominated the room.

This was where Molly sat with Liam Tyler, singsonging a rhyme as they played a clapping game. Both seemed oblivious that Jenna and Dodd had entered. “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack. All dressed in black, black, black. With silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back.”

Liam beamed at the little girl, doing a good job of keeping up with Molly's hands, which moved faster and faster the further she got into the rhyme. She smiled a toothy grin, her brown pigtails bobbing with her hand movements.

“They climbed so high, high, high. They touched the sky, sky, sky. And they never came back, back, back, 'til the Fourth of July, ly. Ly, ly!”

Molly squealed and fell backward giggling.

Liam brushed fake sweat off his forehead. “You've practiced this more than me! It's not fair!”

“Aw, you looked like you were holding your own,” Jenna interjected.

At this, both Liam's and Molly's heads snapped toward Jenna, and Jenna caught the glance Liam shot at his wife before returning his eyes back to Jenna.

“I'm sorry. I didn't know we had company,” he said, his mouth now set in a serious line. He stood up from the couch, straightened his polo shirt, and took a few steps toward Jenna, extending a hand. “Nice to see you again, Dr. Ramey.” He gave Dodd a curt nod. “And you as well, Special Agent.”

The half grunt, half laugh behind her told Jenna that Dodd was smirking, and she silently willed him to keep his mouth shut. Now wasn't the time.

“Thank you for seeing us on short notice,” Jenna replied. She leaned to her right to peer around Liam. “Hi, Molly.”

“Hi,” the little girl said. She sat up on the couch like she knew how to behave in front of visitors, but her feet swung back and forth with the excited energy remaining after her giggle-fest.

Liam cleared his throat, seemingly to regain Jenna's attention. She looked back at him, and he gestured toward Molly's mother. “I don't think you've met my wife, Raine.”

No, I haven't, despite the fact that she answered the door.
Jenna turned to Raine, who was still fiddling with her necklace. “It's nice to meet you, Raine. I'm so terribly sorry for your loss.”

Raine's eyes filled with tears, and she folded her lips, sucking them inward for a moment. Then she blew out a slow breath. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Liam clapped his hands together then held them in front of his chest. “So Special Agent Dodd seems to be of the opinion that Molly may be of some assistance.”

Jenna nodded. “Yes. I'd like to ask Molly a few questions.”

“I understand, Dr. Ramey, but Molly has told me she has filled you in on everything she remembers about the store that day.” He leaned in and lowered his voice, though Jenna was sure Molly could easily still hear him. “She's already having trouble with nightmares, as you can imagine. I'm trying to keep it off her mind as much as I can. We said we'd call if she had anything further to impart.”

Dodd coughed.

Jenna held up a hand to Dodd behind her back to silence him. “That may be, but I'd still like to talk with her.” Jenna again leaned forward toward the girl. “If that's okay with you, Molly?”

Molly nodded. “I guess so. Is it okay, Mommy?”

Raine nodded.

Liam held his palms out. “Well, I guess that's that then. Ask away.”

Tricky.
“Actually, Mr. Tyler—”

“Liam, please.”

“Right. Liam. Actually, I'd prefer to question Molly by herself, if that's okay. Sometimes adults can influence a child's answers unintentionally just by giving encouraging nods or furrowing their eyebrows in concern. Sometimes it's easier if just us girls talk,” Jenna said, giving Molly a wink.

Molly grinned.

“Oh, I don't know if that's a good idea,” Liam said, hesitation in his voice.

A protective grayish hue flashed in Jenna's mind for a couple of seconds.

In the moment the color distracted her, Dodd let out a little laugh. “I suspect the things you don't know might fill volumes.”

Liam's head snapped toward Dodd. “Excuse me?”

Christ alive.
Had Dodd never heard of interpersonal skills, or was he seriously working against her?

“Sir, we're professionals. We do this every day. I think we know the best process for—

“What S.A. Dodd is trying to say is that while we prefer to question Molly on our own, we will of course defer to her parents' judgment,” Jenna cut in, whipping around to glare at Dodd.

He pursed his lips and blinked, clearly annoyed she'd interrupted him. Too bad. His lack of tact wasn't exactly thrilling for her, either.

“I think it would be fine,” a small voice said from Jenna's side. Raine looked at the ground, and a single tear dripped from her face onto the carpet.

“Okay,” Liam agreed, unable to argue with Molly's mother's wishes. He outstretched his hand toward the rest of the house. “Be my guest.”

Molly leapt off the sofa. “Come on! I'll take you on a tour.”

She clasped Jenna's fingers in hers and tugged her toward the staircase leading to the second level. Dodd trudged behind, but stopped short, fishing in the pocket of his black trousers.

“One sec,” he said, removing his cell. “Gotta take this one.”

He stepped away to answer his phone, and Jenna stood holding hands with Molly, who bounced excitedly, ready to get the tour under way.

“Do you give a lot of tours or am I getting a treat?” Jenna asked.

Molly tossed her head back and forth, weighing. “A few. Two a month, I'd say.”

Numbers.

“You're really good at the clapping game, by the way,” Jenna said. Making small talk with a six-year-old wasn't the easiest task, but you had to do what you had to do.

“Thanks! Did you know that in the nineteen fifties, for fifty cents like it says in the rhyme, you could buy a pack of ten Gillette razor blades? Or you could get twelve grapefruits. Those were twenty-five cents for six. Or four heads of lettuce! But that's before figuring in sales tax, but obviously you knew that. So you could probably only get three heads of lettuce so you'd have enough for the tax. Now for fifty cents you can only maybe get two gumballs from a machine, or a can of Coke if you're lucky. Most can machines cost over a dollar now.”

Holy bologna.

“Wow. You sure do know a lot of numbers, huh?” Autistic savant? No. The kid's depth of knowledge on her random fixation was definitely savant-like in behavior, but her social interactions showed a
heightened
cognitive development, not a hindered one. Parents rarely opted to demand brain scans on a perfectly healthy child, so no way of telling, but the remarkable displays of ability in certain fields like math, music, or memory in savants tended to be the result of some type of sectional brain damage. The brain hemispheres were thrown off-kilter, often limiting function in areas like social skills but resulting in more pronounced performance in other brain activity.

Molly beamed at the compliment. “Thanks. I love to read. G-Ma always said I got that from her, but technically I guess Mommy got it from her, then I got it from Mommy.”

Jenna grinned. This child clearly had no social or language deficits. Prodigy? She'd seen many children in her practice who were brought in by overly worried parents that assumed if their nine-year-old begged to practice piano more than to go to a friend's house and could play Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's “Flight of the Bumblebee” without missing a note that they must be mentally disturbed. In reality, the kid just happened to be an extremely gifted musical prodigy who happened to like hanging out with the baby grand in the foyer more than other nine-year-olds and their Xboxes. Child prodigies sometimes grew up to be geniuses, but not always. Sometimes they didn't even display higher than average IQs. Only precociousness and serious talent.

Whatever the case, Molly was a neat kid, and that was all the label Jenna needed for her for now.

Dodd hung up and moved back toward them. “Sorry, but I'm going to need to cut out early. I have to sort out some craziness with this case I'm testifying for. They're sending a car for me. You'll be all right?”

“Sure thing,” Jenna said. Then she turned to Molly. “Ready, Freddy?”

Molly nodded and tugged her toward the stairs.

•   •   •

Y
ancy yanked Oboe away from the hydrangeas the dachshund was currently considering marking as his own. The dog
could've
peed before they left the yard of their own apartment, but no. He had to wait and attempt to kill the bushes the neighbor had been cultivating for months. “Must you make all of our neighbors hate us?”

The dog didn't look at him but clearly noticed the yank on the leash, away from the bushes. He changed course and waddled on toward the roadside, a familiar path he and Yancy walked almost every day. Some things never changed.

He slowed to let Oboe sniff at a tin can on the curb. No, unfortunately, some things got stuck in neutral, and no matter how much gas you gave them, they'd just keep at that same speed.

Yancy reached into his pocket, clutched the little velvet bag there, the one that contained the perfect diamond ring for Jenna Ramey. Yeah. Too bad it would stay in that velvet bag in his pocket the rest of his life, probably. Every time he'd even come close to trying to show it to her, something had happened to remind him that she was perfectly fine with the way things were between them, and that change, at this point, was about as welcome as a fan club for her mother at Ayana's next birthday party.