Harlan Coben - Don’t Let Go

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

“I told you. He pulled down his pants.”

“Your daughter was walking. And he pulled down his pants.”

“Yes.”

“On your video, his pants are up.”

“He pulled them back up.”

“I see. So he pulled his pants down and then he pulled them back up.”

“Yes.” She is looking up to the left. I forget if that means a lie is coming or a memory. Doesn’t matter. I don’t believe much in that stuff. “He saw me fiddling with my phone and he panicked and so he pulled them back up.”

“How long would you say his pants were down?”

“I don’t know. How could I know?”

Joe adds, “You think she was carrying a stopwatch or something?”

“It was long enough, that I can tell you.”

I bite back the obvious joke and say, “Go on.”

Suzanne looks confused. “What do you mean, go on?”

“He pulled his pants down, he pulled his pants up.” I look very unimpressed. “That’s it?”

Joe doesn’t like that. “What, that’s not enough for you?”

“How do you know his pants didn’t just fall down?” I ask.

Once again Suzanne’s eyes drop to the table before lifting toward me. I know a lie is coming. I am not disappointed. “He pulls his pants down,” she says again. “Then he yells at my daughter to look at his... I mean, he starts stroking it and everything.”

Ah, human nature. So predictable sometimes. I see this a lot, Leo. You hear a witness tell you something that they hope will shock your senses. Then I, as an investigator, act blasé. The truthful person lets it go. But the liar starts embellishing, trying to up the story so I share their outrage. I use the word “embellishing” here, but really it’s straight-up lying. They can’t help themselves.

I know now and don’t want to waste much more time here. Time to cut to it.

Watch and learn, Leo.

“You’re lying,” I say.

Suzanne’s mouth turns into a shocked perfect O.

Joe’s face reddens. “Are you calling my wife a liar?”

“What part of ‘you’re lying’ left that in doubt, Joe?”

If Suzanne had been wearing pearls, she’d have clutched them. “How dare you!”

I smile now. “I know it’s a lie,” I say, “because I just talked to Maria.”

The anger rises.

“You did what?” Suzanne shouts.

“It took a while for your daughter to cave,” I say, “but eventually Maria admitted to me it never happened.”

They are both apoplectic. I try not to enjoy this.

“You aren’t allowed to do that!”

“Do what?”

“You can’t talk to our daughter without our permission,” she says. “I’ll have your badge.”

I frown. “Why does everyone say that?”

“What?”

“That threat. ‘I’ll have your badge.’ You saw it on TV, right?”

Joe takes a step toward me. “I don’t like the way you’re talking to my wife.”

“And I don’t care. Sit down, Joe.”

He sneers at me. “Tough guy. Because you have a badge.”

“Again with the badge.” I sigh, take out the badge, slide it across the table. “Here, you want it? Take it.” I stand and get right in Joe’s face. “You ready to go now?”

Joe takes a step back. I step closer to him. He tries to look me in the eyes, but he can’t hold it.

“Not worth it,” he mutters.

“What did you say?”

Joe doesn’t reply. He circles the table and sits in the chair next to his wife.

I glare down at Suzanne Hanson. “If you don’t tell me the truth, I’m going to launch a full investigation and charge you with two counts of violating federal Internet Act Section 418, which upon conviction could lead to a penalty of one hundred thousand dollars and up to four years in prison.”

I’m making this up. I don’t think there is any federal Internet act. The specific section number is a nice touch, don’t you think?

“That bum shouldn’t be there!” she insists. “You people wouldn’t do anything about it!”

“So you did,” I say.

“He shouldn’t be allowed to be that close to a school!”

“He has a name. It’s Hank Stroud. And he’s missing.”

“What?”

“Since you posted your video, no one has seen him.”

“Good,” she says.

“How’s that?”

“Maybe the video scared him.”

“And you feel good about that, do you?”

Suzanne opens her mouth, then closes it again. “I was just trying to protect my child. To protect all the children at the school, really.”

“You better tell me everything.”

She did.

Suzanne admitted that she “exaggerated” to the point of making it all up. Hank never exposed himself. Tired and frustrated by what she perceived as the lack of action by school administrators and law enforcement, Suzanne Hanson did what she thought best.

“It’s only a question of time before he did something awful. I was just trying to prevent that.”

“Noble,” I reply with as much disdain as I can muster.

Suzanne was “cleaning up the filth” by trying to twist the reality of her town into the idyllic haven she believed it should be. Hank was mere refuse. Best to dump him curbside where he could be trucked out of sight and smell. I would lecture Suzanne Hanson on her lack of empathy, but what’s the point? I remember once when we were maybe ten, driving through a rough neighborhood in Newark. Parents always tell their kids to look out the windows and be grateful for what they’ve got. But our dad handled it differently. He just said one line that has always stuck with me:

“Every person has hopes and dreams.”

It is something I try to remember every time I cross a fellow human being. Does that include low-life turds like Trey? Of course. He has hopes and dreams too. That’s fine. But when your hopes and dreams crush the hopes and dreams of others...

I’m rationalizing again. I don’t care about the Treys of the world. Simple as that. Maybe I should. But I don’t. Or maybe I doth protest too much.

What do you think, Leo?

When I finally leave their stuffy house — when Joe slams the door behind me to make some kind of stand, to himself at least — I take a deep breath. I glance over to where Maura used to live. She never brought me here, and I was inside only once. This was about two weeks after you and Diana were killed. I turn now and look at the tree across the street. That was where I waited, hidden. First I saw the Vietnamese family exit. Fifteen minutes later, Maura’s mom stumbled out in an ill-fitted summer dress. She managed to weave her way down the street toward the bus stop.

When she was out of sight, I broke into the house.

The answer to why is probably obvious. I was looking for clues to where Maura might have gone. When I had cornered her mother earlier, she said something about her transferring to a private school. I asked where. She wouldn’t tell me.

“It’s over, Nap,” Mrs. Wells told me, her breath stinking of booze. “Maura has moved on. So should you.”

But I didn’t believe her. So I broke in. I rummaged through all the drawers and cabinets. I went into Maura’s room. Her clothes and backpack were still there. Did she pack anything? It didn’t look like it.

I also searched for my varsity jacket.

For all Maura’s eye rolling about my being a jock and the stupid intensity of sports in this town and the anti-hip, quasi-sexist idea of it all, Maura got a kick out of wearing my varsity jacket. Retro maybe. Ironic, I don’t know. Or maybe it wasn’t a contradiction at all. Maura was an old soul.

So I searched for my varsity jacket, the green one with the white sleeves and the crossed hockey sticks on the back and my name and “Captain” stenciled on the front.