“The mother pegged it to the Today show. Jared went out for some chocolate milk at the beginning of the eight-o’clock hour and got back a few minutes after the half-hour break. That puts Mendoza there at about eight forty-five. When did you hear from Smith?”

Button glanced at the snapshot again, and this time he took it to examine Mendoza more closely.

“What about the second man? Was it Gomer?”

“I didn’t have a picture of Gomer. What time did you talk to Smith?”

“Around nine, right in there, maybe a few minutes after.”

Button frowned as he thought about it and what it would mean if it were true, but he still didn’t buy it. He shook his head.

“There’s no way. He didn’t say anything about this.”

“Maybe Mendoza had a gun to his head.”

“There’s no way. The kid was confused.”

“He saw the cast. I didn’t prompt him, Button. He told me the man was wearing a cast. He saw them going in through the front gate at eight forty-five.”

Button glanced at the picture again as if he still couldn’t see it clearly.

“I talked to the man. He was fine.”

“Not if Mendoza was with him.”

Button flushed, and his eyes shrank into dark little bullets.

“Are you saying I missed something?”

“Did you?”

The Academy taught officers that people making statements under duress exhibited telltale cues. They were typically terse and hesitant because they were scared to say the wrong thing. Their sentence structure was often confused or repetitive for the same reason, and their voices would quaver or break due to a constricted trachea brought on by the adrenaline flooding their systems.

“He was fine. The guy did not sound like a man with a gun to his head. Even thinking back now, there were none of the cues.”

“Then forget the cues. What did he say?”

“That people like us—that would be me and you, Pike, who he specifically mentioned—were making things worse, costing him a fortune, and were gonna get him killed. You want more? He told me to shove Mendoza and pretty much the rest of Los Angeles up my ass.”

Button grew loud as he went through it, which caused three passing officers to stare. He waited until they were gone before he spoke again, but his eyes remained angry.

“What the hell do you care anyway? This isn’t your business.”

“Like Smith said, maybe I made it worse.”

Button glanced away as if he was suddenly uncomfortable.

“Why do you think they’re missing?”

“You’re the last person they had contact with. A lot of people have been calling them, but they don’t answer and haven’t returned the calls.”

“That doesn’t mean shit. You can come up with a hundred different reasons for that.”

“Until Mendoza goes through the gate.”

Button stared at the pavement again, then sighed.