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He seemed ready to collapse. Looking around as if afraid someone could overhear him, he whispered, “I’m not lying, I swear. I didn’t sleep with her, but yeah, I said I did.” His voice broke into an embarrassed whisper. “I’m ashamed of what I said, and I’m so sorry.”
“Why did you say you slept with her if it wasn’t true?”
His spine bent a little, the oversized green shirt fluttering in the gentle breeze against his thin body. On his chest, the logo of a local hardware store Kay recognized was embroidered in bright yellow.
“Listen, kid, we ain’t got all day,” Elliot said gently. He squeezed his thin shoulder with a reassuring gesture. “You have nothing to be afraid of. But there’s another young girl missing, one of your classmates, and that means you have to tell us everything you know and quickly, so we can help her.”
Kay caught a quick glance filled with terror when Elliot had mentioned Kendra, but didn’t intervene.
Renaldo nodded and swallowed with difficulty. “One day I went to school, and everyone was different with me. Girls were smiling and giggling when I walked by. Guys were winking, patting me on the back like we were pals, and we’d never been pals. That’s how it started. Everyone was saying I’d slept with Jenna, out of the blue, and, um, I didn’t deny it.”
“Why?”
“It was cool to feel like one of those guys who get the beautiful girls, you know? I didn’t think it would matter.”
“So, you did brag about it, didn’t you?”
Terrified, he threw a couple of side glances as if seeing if anyone could rescue him from Kay’s merciless questions. “Only if anyone asked, but I was just trying to be cool.”
“Did you think of Jenna for a second?” Kay whispered, barely refraining to grab the young man by the shirt and slam him against the wall.
He shook his head quickly. “I didn’t think it mattered. It wasn’t the first time there were rumors about Jenna sleeping around with others in our school, many others. I thought it was cool that they thought I could, um, sleep with a girl like that.”
“So, you were okay to be just one of the many who’d slept with her?” Elliot asked casually.
His cheeks blushed darker. “I didn’t know at first, that there were others… that many. Then I stopped saying anything, and let people believe what they wanted.”
Kay took a step closer to Renaldo, staring at him intently. “I want you to think hard about what I’m about to ask.” He nodded. “Before that day, when suddenly everyone was saying you’d slept with Jenna, did you hear any rumors about her sleeping around?”
He scrunched his eyelids shut, but a tear still found its way between lashes and rolled down his cheek. He wiped quickly with the back of his hand. “N—no, I don’t think so.”
Kay’s eyes darted quickly toward Elliot. They hadn’t uncovered the author of the cyberbullying attack; just another victim of it, although Renaldo didn’t even know it. The bully had picked him because he was weak, an easy-to-manipulate young man who’d grown tired of being marginalized in his rather small social circle. The perfect target, Renaldo had grabbed the opportunity and had become the spreader of rumors, confirming them.
“Who do you think started those rumors about Jenna and you?” she asked, although she already knew the answer.
“I—I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m really sorry… it happened quickly.”
“Before that day, did you hear anything at all gossiped about Jenna?” He didn’t respond, just looked at Kay with a vacant stare. “Anything at all?”
He bit his lip for a moment, probably thinking whether to say what he remembered or not. “Just minor stuff, you know, girl stuff.”
“Like what?”
He lowered his eyes again and ran his hand quickly against his nostrils, sniffling. “Just… like the color of her panties.”
Kay waited, making the silence increasingly uncomfortable for Renaldo.
“And, um, that she shaved down there.” Redness had reached the tip of his ears. The young man was a nervous wreck.
“That’s it?”
Renaldo breathed. “I swear, that’s all I remember.”
“Where is Kendra Flannagan?” she asked out of the blue, ready to catch his reactions.
His pupils dilated and his eyes shifted away from her. A deathly pallor washed over his face. “I don’t know.” His reply was calmer than she’d expected. Reassured. Rehearsed.
Kay gave the boy another look, head to toe, wondering if his apparent calm meant he didn’t have anything to do with Kendra’s disappearance, or was about something else. A slimebag like Richard Gaskell would teach his partners in crime about lawyering up. “Where were you on Tuesday evening, between eight and ten in the evening?”
