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starting to feel comfortable with Officer Brume. “Some of the neighbors indicated that you were on Mercer Street a little after eleven o’clock on the night of the murder, is that true?”
    “Yessir.” Rudy was a little afraid, even embarrassed about the admission, but he was glad too. Glad to get it off his chest, especially in a nice conversation like this.
    Elena had been sitting in the waiting room for twenty minutes. She had grown more and more impatient, and now was starting to suspect that something really wasn’t right. She walked up to the window again.
    “I’ve been waiting twenty minutes. I want to know where my son is,” she said in a firm but steady voice.
    “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the woman replied. “I’ll call back there again.” Elena stayed at the window, watching as the woman called. After a moment she hung up and said, “Someone’s coming out to talk to you.” Elena stayed where she was. If someone didn’t walk through that door immediately, she was going to do something—she didn’t know what. All she knew was that the time for being polite was over. Almost immediately, a man walked through the door from the inner sanctum. He was dressed in black pants, a short-sleeve white shirt and a plain black tie, open at the collar. Elena guessed he was in his mid-thirties. He was as nondescript as his attire, neither short nor tall, fat nor skinny, handsome nor ugly—the perfect face in the crowd.
    “Ma’am, I’m Del Shorter.” He stuck his hand out, which Elena stiffly accepted. Del motioned to the waiting room chairs. Elena noticed that he had closed the door to the inner sanctum behind him. She reluctantly sat down. “Ma’am,” Del began, “my partner, Detective Brume, is talking to your son as we speak. We’re investigating the Lucy Ochoa murder and your son may be able to help us. He works at the convenience store nearby. He may know the girl, know who she was coming in the store with. Maybe even saw her that night. These are things we need to know. We need descriptions. We’re showing him photographs. He could be a big help to us.”
    It was a lie but a plausible lie, something that played into Elena’s own thoughts about the matter. Still, she wasn’t ready to sit calmly and wait. Rudy was too vulnerable.
    “I accept what you’re saying but I’d like to see Rudy. I’d like to be there when you’re questioning him.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s against department procedure.” Del knew he was treading on thin ice so he supplemented his response. “Technically, since this is an investigative stop, we’ve advised Rudy of his rights, so I’ll advise you as well. He does have the right to remain silent, he does have the right to an attorney —” Elena interrupted him.
    “Mr. Shorter, you don’t understand. Rudy’s a little slow. If someone asks him a question, he’s going to answer it whether you advise him of his rights or not. I’m his mother, and I don’t want him answering questions.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am. He’s an adult and he must make those decisions himself. But you can hire an attorney for him and if his attorney advises us that we cannot talk to him, we’ll certainly stop.” Elena finally got it This was a stonewall. And why would they be stonewalling her if her son was not a suspect? She glared at Del Shorter.
    “You’re not going to let me see him?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “And you’re going to continue to talk to him?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Elena turned to leave. She had to get a lawyer over there immediately. But who do I know? And then she had a thought. “Is there a public phone here?” she asked the receptionist.
    “Yes, ma’am, right outside the front doors.”
    In the other room, Wes’s chat with Rudy was moving along quite well.
    “Rudy, were you in Lucy Ochoa’s house that night?”
    “Yessir.”
    “What time?”
    “I’m not sure but I close the store at eleven and I walked right over.” Rudy knew the next