“That’s if you pick up a stranger. But everyone knows everyone in Scarlet River. I didn’t know the girl’s name, but I’d seen her around, so I guess you could say I knew her.”
“Just a Good Samaritan helping out a girl in need.”
“I mean, yeah.”
“Did she have a long walk?”
“Huh?”
“A long walk home.”
“Long enough.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“About two miles.”
“So you knew where she lived. You make a habit out of learning the addresses of underage girls?”
Waggoner scowls.
“Now you’re the one being the bitch, trying to put words in my mouth. I told you it’s a small town. We speak to our neighbors. This ain’t D.C.”
“Mr. Waggoner,” Tipton says, regaining control of the interview. “Where were you between the hours of three and five P.M. on December the sixth?”
The bearded man leans back again and itches his beard.
“I’m a busy man, Sheriff. Can’t say I recall.”
“Try, Mr. Waggoner. It was only four days ago. Did you visit Cass Park?”
“Now why would I go there?” asks Waggoner, but his eyes shift from Tipton to the door.
Tipton removes a photograph of Sandy Young from the folder and slides it in front of Waggoner.
“Recognize her?”
Waggoner picks the photograph off the table, his thumb poised over the girl’s breast as if he wants to caress it. He studies the picture, eyes moving up and down the top half of the girl’s body, before he hands it back to Tipton.
“Might have seen her around.”
“Girl’s name is Sandy Young. She disappeared from Cass Park four days ago during the late afternoon, and you can’t seem to verify your whereabouts.”
For the first time since the interrogation began, Waggoner’s face shows alarm. He raises his hands.
“Hold up. I heard about a kidnapping on the news, but I didn’t put two and two together until now. Sandy Young, sure. Her name is all over the papers, but I never kidnapped no one. And now that I think about it, I was at Patsy’s Bar and Grill on Chestnut Street between three and five.”
“So if I ask around at Patsy’s, they’ll remember seeing you.”
“Damn right.”
Undeterred, Tipton slides Jennifer’s picture across the table. Darcy tries to avert her eyes, but she can’t.
“Recognize this girl?”
“I think I need a lawyer.”
“Now, now, Mr. Waggoner. You’re not under arrest. We’re clarifying important details.” Tipton taps his finger on Jennifer’s photograph. “This is Jennifer Gellar, age fourteen, the same girl my eyewitness says you followed at the Fresh Mart. She was kidnapped two nights ago, just five days after you trailed her through the store.”
“No way did I hurt her, and I don’t know nothing about kidnapped girls. I think I want that lawyer now.”
Hensel leans over and whispers to Darcy.
“They’ve got Waggoner off balance. Time for Tipton to find out what the scumbag knows.”
Darcy’s heart thumps. Did this man kidnap her daughter?
“Another interesting coincidence,” Reinhold says. “Ten years ago, you moved to Shatterstruck, Wyoming. Is that correct?”
“Yeah. I suppose there’s a law against moving from Georgia.”
“Four teenage girls went missing ten years ago, three murdered and one girl we never found.”
“I remember. That was a bad time for all of us.”
“Funny thing. The abductions and murders stopped after you moved to Wyoming. Now you’re back in Georgia, and we’ve got three new kidnappings and another murdered teenage girl on our hands.”
“Add in the fact that you harassed one of the missing girls five days ago,” Tipton says, leaning across the table toward Waggoner. “And this doesn’t look very good for you.”
Inside the observation room, Darcy glances at Hensel and says, “It’s all circumstantial.”
Hensel grins and tilts his head at Waggoner.
“But Waggoner doesn’t know that. Check him out. The S.O.B. is sweating bullets.”
The mood changes in the interrogation room. Gone is Gil Waggoner’s sarcasm and swagger. His eyes dart between Reinhold and Tipton like moths caught amid streetlights.
“Hey,” Waggoner says, waving his hands. “I might have a thing for pretty girls.”
“Pretty underage girls,” Reinhold interjects.
“But I never hurt anybody. All I did was look. If these girls don’t want guys staring at them, they should put on clothes. Stop walking around in crop tops and shorts cut up to their pussies. I mean, maybe someone ought to arrest these girls for indecent exposure and stop blaming every guy who notices.”
“Mr. Waggoner, I’d like you to review this transcript from an Internet chat room.”
As Reinhold hands Waggoner the transcript, Darcy gives Hensel a questioning look.
Hensel winks and says, “We followed his IP address and caught him soliciting teenage girls in a private Internet forum. According to his profile, he’s seventeen.”
The papers tremble in Waggoner’s hands as he flips from one page to the next.
“This isn’t me,” says Waggoner, jabbing his pointer finger at the paper. “I don’t go in chat rooms. Hell, the Internet is nothing but whiny liberals bitching about people who work for a living.”
“We can prove it’s you,” Tipton says. “An IP address is a lot like a phone number, Mr. Waggoner. We traced your screen name, so let’s cut the bullshit. Ever meet any of the girls you chat with?”
Waggoner appears ready to protest and stops himself. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders curling inward.
“No.”
“Never?”
“It ain’t illegal to talk to girls.”
“Mr. Waggoner, please turn to page three,” Reinhold says, flipping through her copy of the transcript. Waggoner wastes time, turning the sheets over as though page three is difficult to locate. “Go back one page, Mr. Waggoner.”
“Okay, I think I found it.”
“Direct your attention halfway down the page. You solicited nude pictures from a teenage girl with the screen name S-Cat04.”
“I was joking around. And she never sent a photo, which tells me she ain’t who she claims she is, anyhow.”
“No, she didn’t send you a nude photo.” Waggoner grins at Reinhold’s admission, his arrogance returning. “But you had quite the conversation. It goes on for almost an hour, and three times you offer to meet her.”
“Again, it’s nothing but fooling around. Flirting. These girls realize people hanging out in chat rooms aren’t who they claim to be, and that’s part of the turn on. It’s all fantasy. I wasn’t serious about meeting her.”
“So you never got together with anyone you met during a chat session.”
“Course not. That’s sicko stuff.”
Again, Waggoner drops his eyes, a tipoff he’s lying. Reinhold removes her reading glasses and sets them on the table.
“Except you met this girl, didn’t you, Mr. Waggoner? S-Cat04 is Sandy Young.”
The blood drains from Waggoner’s face. He opens his mouth to protest and nothing comes out.
“Admit it,” Tipton says, knocking his knuckles on the table. “You met Sandy Young at Cass Park and abducted her, just like you kidnapped Jennifer Gellar after you stalked her from the store to the parking lot.”
Waggoner’s eyes widen to white saucers. He fidgets in his seat as if he needs to use the restroom, the bright lights making his eyes squint.
“No…no. I didn’t kidnap no girls.”
“But you know who did. Is there something you want to tell us?”