O'Neil nodded.
"How are you feeling?" Dance asked Travis. "After the accident?"
"Okay, I guess."
"It must've been terrible."
"Yeah."
"But you weren't hurt bad?"
"Not really. The airbag, you know. And I wasn't going that fast. . . . Trish and
Van." A grimace. "If they'd had their seat belts on they would've been fine."
Sonia repeated, "His father should be home anytime now."
O'Neil continued evenly, "Just have a few questions." Then he stepped back to the corner of the living room, leaving the questioning to Dance.
She asked, "What grade are you in?"
"Just finished junior year."
"Robert Louis Stevenson, right?"
"Yeah."
"What're you studying?"
"I don't know, stuff. I like computer science and math. Spanish. Just, you know, what everybody's taking."
"How's Stevenson?"
"It's okay. Better than Monterey Public or Junipero." He was answering agreeably, looking directly into her eyes.
At Junipero Serra School, uniforms were required. Dance supposed that more than stern Jesuits and long homework assignments, the dress code was the most hated aspect of the place.
"How're the gangs?"
"He's not in a gang," his mother said. Almost as if she wished he were.
They all ignored her.
"Not bad," Travis responded. "They leave us alone. Not like Salinas."
The point of these questions wasn't social. Dance was asking them to determine the boy's baseline behavior. After a few minutes of these harmless inquiries, Dance had a good feel for the boy's nondeceptive mode. Now she was ready to ask about the assault.
"Travis, you know Tammy Foster, don't you?"
"The girl in the trunk. It was on the news. She goes to Stevenson. She and me don't talk or anything. Maybe we had a class together freshman year." He then looked Dance straight in the eye. His hand occasionally strayed across his face but she wasn't sure whether it was a blocking gesture, signifying deception, or because he was ashamed of the acne. "She posted some stuff about me in The Chilton Report. It wasn't true."
"What did she say?" Dance asked, though she recalled the post, about his trying to take pictures of the girls' locker room after cheerleading practice.
The boy hesitated, as if wondering if she was trying to trap him. "She said I was taking pictures. You know, of the girls." His face grew dark. "But I was just on the phone, you know, talking."
"Really," his mother interjected. "Bob'll be home any minute now. I might rather wait."
But Dance felt a certain urgency to keep going. She knew without doubt that if Sonia wanted to wait for her husband, the man would put a fast end to the interview.