If She Hid

Behind her, DeMarco was flipping through the movies. “Floyd really wasn’t kidding about his son watching porn back here. Half of these are amateur porn titles. The other half are Cinemax-style sex stuff.”

Kate kept looking through the phone. She opened up photos and found that it was packed. Some were of girls, all partying. A few were topless. A few were kissing one another, the expressions on their faces a clear indication that they were wasted. There were a few videos of these events, all rather brief. She slid right past these until she came to one that was just under five minutes long. In the thumbnail of the video, she saw Mercy Fuller’s face.

She pressed Play and it took her less than three seconds to understand what she was seeing before she shut it off. In the video, Mercy was lying on her back, being videoed from just above her. The director was apparently Jeremy, filming while having some fairly rough sex with her. It was not forced, if the sounds coming from Mercy were any indication.

“Jesus,” Kate said, sliding out of Photos.

“What was that?” DeMarco asked.

“Proof that Jeremy Branch was telling the truth about at least one thing: they were definitely having sex.”

Kate saw that while the phone in her hand had no access to Contacts—it did not need it, as calls were impossible from it—she did see that there were a few text threads. She opened up the messages and saw only three conversations. One was with a contact that had been titled BRO and the texts made it obvious that they were to and from his brother, Randy. One of the others was to a guy named Chuck and the entire thread was about which celebrities they would like to have sex with and why.

The third message thread was from a contact Jeremy had titled BOOTY CALL. The little picture above the name was Mercy Fuller, head tilted and making a kissing face.

“I might have hit the jackpot over here,” Kate said.

DeMarco came over and they both started reading through the thread. It was quite long, spanning back over the last several months. The vast majority of it consisted of long drawn-out messages from Mercy with very short, often only one-word responses from Jeremy. The more they read, the clearer it became that Jeremy Branch had been lying to them. He may have been truthful about the nature of their relationship, but the picture he had painted of Mercy and her parents was totally untrue.

And that raised a very important question.

If he was lying about that, what else was he hiding?

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kate walked back into the interrogation room as calmly as she could. DeMarco was with her and while she, too, was irritated, she had agreed to let Kate run the bulk of this second interrogation. Similarly, Barnes was also hanging back, fielding a few calls about other local interests in his office.

Kate sat down across from Jeremy, her expression blank. She could already tell that Jeremy was nervous, his eyes shifting back and forth between Kate, DeMarco, and the surface of the desk between them.

“The good news is that you’re a very convincing liar,” Kate said. “The bad news is, you aren’t particularly bright.”

Jeremy said nothing. He continued to sit there, looking dumbfounded, waiting to see where Kate took the conversation next. Kate took the old cell phone out of her pocket and placed it on the desk.

“You left this in your bedroom at your father’s place,” she said. “Stored away with all of your porn. We noticed that some of your own amateur stuff is also on this phone. Of course, I can tell by the look on your face that you know there is more than just incriminating pictures on here.”

Jeremy still remained silent. He was not being defiant; he was simply at a loss. He had nothing to say. So Kate went on, assuming that if she kept pushing, he’d end up talking.

“There are very long conversations between you and Mercy Fuller on this phone,” Kate said. “Several times during those conversations, she talks about her parents—her father in particular. In one of those conversations, she goes so far as to say that she likely has the coolest father in the world, the exception being his taste in music. She also, at one point, tells you that she’d like for you to meet her parents, even if only for you to taste how delicious her mother’s homemade lasagna is. She also talks about being excited for college and how the only real thing that makes her afraid to leave home when college time comes around is leaving her parents behind. Now…that does not sound like a girl who hated her parents and not at all like a girl who was planning to kill her parents.”

Slowly, Jeremy reached for the phone. Kate promptly grabbed it back up and got to her feet. “Why’d you lie to us, Jeremy? Are you hiding something?”

“No,” he said. “I just wanted you running in circles for coming after me. The law in this stupid county is always after my brother. Gave my old man a hell of a hard time back in the day, too.”

“Trying to stick it to the law?” Kate asked. “You really aren’t very bright, are you? This is not you just screwing with some local investigation, wasting the time of the cops. This is interfering with a federal case. And based on all of the drugs I found in your brother’s house, your little act—your bullshit story—could get you in a lot of trouble.”

Jeremy looked genuinely scared now. It had not taken much and the way he was shifting between emotions—from prideful to stubborn to scared—told her all she needed to know about him. He had lived his life wanting to appease someone—probably his brother or father—and was seldom thinking for himself. And now here he was with his tough-guy act crumbling before him, looking down a path that could lead him to some very serious trouble.

“Look…I don’t know anything about what happened to her.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Kate said.

“I swear, I don’t! I’ve done some messed up shit, but I would never kidnap someone. And I wouldn’t k-k-kill someone.”

His stutter and the glistening of tears in the corners of his eyes made Kate believe that he was right. No matter how good of a liar he was, it was very hard to fake that sincere sort of emotion.

“Where is Mercy, Jeremy?”

“I swear, I don’t know!” He slapped at his own face as a tear trailed down his cheek.

“When was the last time you saw her?” DeMarco asked.

“Last week. It was just for a little while. Usually we at least talk and hang out a bit before I take her back to Waterlick Road. But that last time…”

“What? It’s okay,” Kate said. “No need to be modest on us now.”

“Well, she was really into it. It was quick and sort of rough and when we were done, she said she wanted to go home. Right away.”

“And that was unlike her?”

“Yeah. She usually liked to cuddle up and talk when we were done. Maybe smoke a little weed.”

Kate waited for about thirty seconds before she tried again. She leaned across the table and, as menacingly as she could muster without actually accusing him, she asked: “Where is she, Jeremy?”

“I don’t know!”

“How do I know you’re not lying to us about this, too?”

“I’m not! I’m telling you the truth!”

Kate crossed her arms, stared him down for a moment, and then headed for the door. When she walked out, DeMarco followed closely behind her.

“It’s not him,” Kate said quietly.

“I’m getting that vibe, too,” DeMarco agreed.

“You feel like staying overnight in Deton?”

“It wouldn’t be on my bucket list, if that’s what you mean. But I’d rather stay here than drive back to DC and repeat it all over again tomorrow morning.”

“I think we need to have Sheriff Barnes hold Jeremy for a while. The longer he’s here, the more he’ll start to worry about his brother. The more he’ll start to worry about his own fate. If he is hiding something else, time will pull it out of him. Besides…based on his lies, the drugs, some of the stuff on his phone, and his relationship with Mercy, there’s plenty to hold him on.”

“Maybe we should get one last meeting in before the day ends. Get Foster back in here and go over what we know.”

“Good idea. And while we’re doing that, maybe some more truths will come tumbling out of Jeremy Branch.”

But really, she thought Jeremy had been as truthful as he could be. While he showed no real remorse for the disappearance of the underage girl he was sleeping with, the fear she’d seen in his eyes made her believe he’d given them everything he had. And at the end of the day, it hadn’t been all that much.

***

At 6:15, a very small meeting was held in the conference room. It consisted of Kate, DeMarco, Barnes, and Foster. Barnes had considered bringing one more officer in on it but decided not to. The Deton police force consisted of six active-duty cops and, as Barnes had explained, Foster was the only one Barnes trusted not to blab about the case all over town.

“So you went out to Floyd’s place?” Foster asked.

“We did,” Kate said. “That’s where we found the phone.”

“I assume Floyd did absolutely nothing about the fact that his youngest son was spending time at the station?”

“Hardly,” Barnes said. “I’ve already explained to the agents the type of stand-up father Floyd Branch is. He won’t be a factor in whatever happens to Jeremy.”

“That’s what we need to figure out,” Kate said. “I don’t think Jeremy is guilty. Not of Mercy’s disappearance and not the murders. If he had something to do with her disappearance, I don’t see him so casually answering the door for us the way he did this morning. And if he killed the Fullers, there’s no way he would stick around town.”

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