“Of course,” Moran said. “I remember the day we got that call, because it was my son’s seventeenth birthday. The case of a dead teenage boy hit me extra hard as the father of one. Dugal had a twelve-year-old nephew at the time. We both struggled to maintain our composure when we realized the victim was just a kid. It took a couple of days to get an ID on him because no one had reported him missing.”
“I found that to be among the most damning details,” Sam asked. “They didn’t report him missing because they knew where he was. How did they explain that when you eventually talked to them?”
“The stepfather said they’d had an argument and figured he’d run away,” Moran said. “They expected he’d come home when he ran out of money, which seemed somewhat plausible. I mean, it wasn’t the first time either of us had heard about a kid taking off because he or she was pissed with the parents.”
“I hear you on that, but I have a fourteen-year-old son,” Sam said. “Take away the White House and the Secret Service and put us back in an ordinary life. If I don’t know where he is for five minutes, I’m raising holy hell.”
“I felt that way as a father,” Moran said. “But they made it seem like it was a common occurrence for King, that he was always blowing up and taking off.”
“Were you able to talk to his sister at the time?” Sam asked. “I don’t see anything in the report about her.”
“According to the mother, she was refusing to come out of her room after hearing her brother had died. We didn’t want to add to the trauma by forcing her to talk to us. She was only eleven.”
Sam wondered what might’ve been different for Amara and the case if they’d compelled her to give a statement then. Would she have told the truth or still been too afraid of being removed from her home? Dealing with kids in these cases was tricky, and she didn’t fault the detectives for making a judgment call.
“How was he identified?” Sam asked.
“We reached out to the middle schools in the city to see if they had a student who’d suddenly stopped coming to school in recent days with no explanation from the parents,” Moran said. “There were four students who fit the criteria, and we narrowed them down to King. The other three were chronic runaways, all of whom were eventually located.”
“Okay, so now you know who he is, what was the next step?” Sam asked.
“We went to the house, where we were met by parents who acted like everything was fine. At first, we didn’t tell them what we already knew. We wanted to see how they’d play it.”
“Were they nervous around you?” Freddie asked.
“Not at all, which is interesting in light of what we know now. How were they not freaking out when cops showed up at their door?”
“I bet they’d practiced for that possibility,” Sam said. “Role-played it. They were ready.”
“With hindsight,” Moran said, “I think that’s very possible. Once we told them he’d been found dead, the mother was hysterical. The stepfather was more composed but clearly upset.”
“The way I see it, we now have three important things to build the case on,” Sam said. “One is Amara’s eyewitness testimony. Two, they never reported King missing. Three, they didn’t ask why they were being arrested today.”
“Because they knew,” Moran said, nodding.
“I hope they’ve spent every day of the past six years dreading us showing up,” Freddie said.
“That’s the least of what they deserve,” Sam said. “You mentioned King was found by the waterfall at The Yards. I assume the area was canvassed?”
“Yes,” Moran said. “Extensively. We never found anything that could be tied to him.”
“Do we have phone records from six years ago?” Archie asked.
“I don’t see any mention of that in the file,” Freddie said.
“Was there any effort to track his phone or get the phone records?” Sam kept her tone friendly since Moran had come in to help.
“We tried, but the phone company stonewalled us,” Moran said.
“Can we get them now?” Sam asked Archie.
“Absolutely. Perhaps Amara can tell us the name of their carrier. We can request a warrant for the account. It’ll take a minute because it always does with the phone companies, and the six-year gap will make it more so, but we can get it.”
“Can you please handle that and ask for as much of a rush as you can get?” Sam asked.
“Will do.”
“Let’s face it, though,” Malone said. “We won’t get that data in time to make our deadline.”
