Vince sighed. He would have been agreeing with her if he hadn’t wanted to keep her from crying. In fact, if he had been teaching a seminar, using Dennis Farman for an example, he would have said it was probably already too late to save him.
His colleagues back in Quantico would think the same. He had sent them Dennis Farman’s drawing by fax. He would talk to them the next day, but he already knew what they would say. They would say Dennis Farman already had well-established violent, antisocial behavioral tendencies. His artwork already showed sadistic fantasies—sadistic sexual fantasies in a child who had yet to reach puberty. There probably wasn’t going to be any fixing what was wrong with this kid.
But he wasn’t about to say any of that to Anne.
“You’re right in what you told his father,” he said instead. “The boy should have psychiatric counseling.”
“And what army is going to make his father believe that?” she asked. “Frank Farman probably thinks he can beat the bad out of Dennis.”
The strain of the day’s events was taking a toll on her. Vince reached across the table, put his big hand over her small one and gave it a squeeze.
“Don’t give up, Anne. Not yet. You fought for that boy today. You stood up to Mendez and me, you stood up to his dad. He needs someone on his side.”
One crystalline tear slipped over the edge of her lashes and down her cheek as she looked away from him, embarrassed.
“Hey, come on,” Vince cajoled, his voice soft. “No crying. You’ll ruin my reputation as a ladies’ man.”
He won a little smile for that one.
“Are you a ladies’ man?” she asked, visibly relieved for the distraction.
“That all depends on the lady,” he admitted.
Her cheeks bloomed pink and she glanced away, still harboring the little smile. She extricated her hand from under his, wiped the stray tear away and tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t usually fall apart that easily.”
“I’m betting you never fall apart at all,” he said. “But you don’t usually have a kid bring a severed human finger to your classroom either. I think you can cut yourself some slack.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
Their food arrived. Her caprese salad, his baked ziti. Vince pushed his plate at her.
“Eat,” he ordered. “Have some ziti. My Italian mother’s cure for everything. She would tell you Avete bisogno della vostra resistenza! Ci e niente a voi!
She seemed pleased with his flamboyant Italian. “What does that mean?”
“You need your strength. You’re too skinny. My mother thinks everyone under two hundred pounds is too skinny. Never mind that I can pick her up with one hand.”
“How old is she?”
“Eighty-two. And your mother?”
“Passed away.” She dropped her eyes and picked at a piece of pasta. “A few years ago. Pancreatic cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” Vince said. The different turn Anne Navarre’s life had taken. Her mother died. She left school. “And your father?”
“Will outlive both of us, despite his alleged poor health.”
She didn’t seem especially happy about the prospect.
“You still haven’t told me how I’m supposed to help your investigation,” she said. Back to business.
He stuck a fork in his side of the pasta. “Tell me about Tommy Crane.”
She thought he’d thrown her a curve ball. She looked up at him, suspicious again. “Why would you want to know about Tommy?”
“We have to pursue all possible angles in a case like this,” he said. “Understand?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not saying the investigation is going in one direction or another at this point. We’re still trying to piece together the last day anyone saw Karly Vickers, the missing girl. Miss Vickers had a dentist’s appointment last Thursday. It was her last appointment of the day.”
“With Peter Crane.”
“So far, he’s the last person to have seen her—that we know of.”
“You can’t possibly think he’s involved,” she said. “He’s the nicest man. Tommy adores his father.”
“I didn’t say he was a suspect. He’s not even a person of interest at this point,” Vince explained. “But he is the last person to have seen this young woman. We have to account for his whereabouts that night. I would like to do that as discreetly as possible.”
“I can’t tell you anything about that,” she said. “But I can tell you he seems to be a wonderful father. Now Tommy’s mother, on the other hand ...”
“Difficult?”
“The Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Ask Detective Mendez.”
“And what’s Tommy like?”
“He loves baseball, he plays the piano, and has a better head for math than I do,” she said with a crooked smile. “He’s smart, thoughtful, quiet. Every mother’s dream.”
“Outgoing?”
“No. Tommy is an observer,” she said, very much in her element talking about her student, analyzing what made him tick. They weren’t so different that way. She wanted to get into their little heads, figure them out. “He stands back and watches what’s happening before he decides on a course of action.”
“He got his butt kicked today.”
“He was coming to the rescue for Wendy—the girl Dennis attacked. And he did that knowing full well Dennis would kick his butt.”
Vince smiled. “Chivalry lives on.”
“That’s the kind of boy he is. And by Tommy’s accounts, that’s the kind of man his father is.”
“Fair enough,” Vince said. “But would you do me a favor? Would you ask Tommy about last Thursday night? Was his dad home or did he go out that night?”
The idea was leaving a bad taste in her mouth. He could see her resistance rising.
“They’re easy questions, and they probably have easy answers,” he said. “I just think it’s better if they come from you. He doesn’t need an FBI agent scaring him, asking him questions about his dad. He trusts you.”
She arched a brow. “So I should manipulate him?”
“I’m not asking you to manipulate him. Ask him a couple of questions for me. That’s all.”
“Why don’t you ask Mrs. Crane?”
“The Queen of Hearts?” he tossed her own description back at her. “Wives have ulterior motives. Kids don’t.”
She thought about it for minute, giving him the I-don’t-quite-trust-you eye. She had a shield like a Spartan warrior, this one, and she might guard herself with it, or she might smack him in the head with it if that seemed the more prudent thing to do.
“I’m not asking you to steal trade secrets,” Vince said, scooping up some ziti. “Just to ask a little boy where his dad was last Thursday night.”
“I guess I could do that,” she said reluctantly.
“What do you know about the Morgan family?” he asked.
“They’re nice people. The dad—Steve—is an attorney. Sara sometimes teaches art classes for the community education program. She’s mostly a stay-at-home mom. They have the one child—Wendy.”
“Good marriage?”
She shrugged. “As far as I know. Don’t tell me Steve Morgan is a suspect.”
“He was a friend of Lisa Warwick. We have to check him out. It’s just routine. You could probably get a feeling from the girl if something was off at home, right?”
“And what do I get for interrogating my students?” she asked, surprising him.
“I’ll talk to your principal,” he offered. “Recommend that he set up some tutoring sessions for Dennis Farman. Maybe the boy could come to school for a couple of hours a day, as long he isn’t allowed in the classroom or on the playground. That way you can maintain some contact with him. How does that sound?”