She was talking about Al Ayla. This was the other possibility we had to confront. O’Shea could have had some tie to The Family, if they were in fact behind the kidnapping. Maybe he was their contact at the school. Maybe they had paid him off to be their “inside” person.
Agent Pilgrim responded to the outburst with quiet professionalism. “George, I just need you to answer the questions as simply as possible. Do you want to take a break before we go on?”
“No,” he said, turning back around to face front. “I just … I don’t understand where you’re going with this. What do you mean … contact with other countries?”
“I’ll ask again,” she said, and repeated her question verbatim. This time, O’Shea answered with a simple no, and
again, Pilgrim nodded.
Next, she opened a file and set an eight-by-ten photo on the table in front of him.
It was a mug shot of Ray Pinkney, the drugged-out van driver from the morning of the kidnapping.
“Do you recognize this man?” Pilgrim asked.
I watched O’Shea’s face as he looked at the photo. There was no lateral movement in his eyes, no physical signs of evasion or lying that I could see at all.
“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” he said.
“Do you know where Zoe Coyle is right now?” Pilgrim asked.
“No,” he said.
“Do you know where Ethan Coyle is right now?”
“No!”
Every one of his answers got a nod from Agent Pilgrim. It was starting to add up.
It’s not that polygraphs are foolproof. They’re a guide, and nothing more than that. But even so, we seemed to be heading toward an unwanted conclusion here. You could feel it in the room.
George O’Shea wasn’t our guy. He didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping.
THEY WERE JUST finishing up with the polygraph when I got an unexpected phone call. There weren’t many people who could have pulled me out of that room just then, but here was one of them.
“Detective Cross, it’s Nina Friedman from the White House. Could you please hold for the First Lady?”
Just like that — a direct call from Regina Coyle. Sure. Happens every day. Of course I could hold for the First Lady.
I stepped out and into one of the empty interview rooms. Just as I was pulling the door closed behind me, Mrs. Coyle came on the line.
“What can I do for you, ma’am?” I asked.
“I’m wondering what you can tell me about this George O’Shea person,” she said.
The question caught me off guard. I wasn’t completely surprised that she’d already gotten word on O’Shea, but still, this put me in a tight spot.
“Excuse me for asking, Mrs. Coyle, but how much do you already know?” I said.
“I know who he is. I know that he’s been arrested. And I know the reason why. What I’d like to know is what you think of him.”
“I can tell you he just passed a polygraph test,” I told her. “But that’s not impossible to fake. I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Yes, but what do you think, Alex? You’re my eyes and ears on this. I’m not looking for absolutes,” she said. “Just … anything to give us hope.”
The more I knew Mrs. Coyle, the more I found myself relating to her, parent to parent. I probably said more than I should have.
“I don’t think he knows where Ethan and Zoe are. I’m sorry.”