Page 65 of Hidden Falls

The smell of stale pizza hit her nose like a blow, and Marcella’s stomach rolled. She opened her mouth and breathed through a wave of nausea.

Since when did the smell of a pizza bother her so much?

Marcella grasped the girl’s shoulder and directed her forward. “Keep moving.” She steered the teen through a cluttered living area littered with empty fast-food boxes, beer cans and soda bottles. A big screen TV took up one corner—that seemed to have been the main activity performed in this room besides sorting; boxes of pills and baggies were lined up on the coffee table.

Marcella sat the kid down on the couch, Mirandized her, and opened her phone to a recording app—just in case the girl had something useful to say. Marcella sat down beside the girl on the filthy tweed couch. “My name is Special Agent Marcella Scott. What’s yours?”

“Penny Barnes.”

“How old are you, Penny?”

“Fifteen.”

Marcella picked up her phone and typed the girl’s info into her Notes feature, glad for technology that could keep recording as she did so.

“What’s your home address and phone number?”

Penny told her.

“Okay. And what are your friends’ names, ages, and home addresses?”

Penny knew her friend Mary’s info, but not anything more about Johnnie but his first name and his age—twenty-three.

“Where is Gary Paulson?”

“I . . . I don’t know.” But the girl’s eyes flicked toward a door at the far end of the room.

Marcella softened her voice. “Why do you think we’re here?”

“Don’t know.” Once again, the girl’s eyes made that betraying shift.

“We are looking for a man named Gary Paulson,” Marcella said. “We are not interested in arresting kids who got caught up in his drug operation. We just want to find the man behind it all.”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

Marcella shrugged. “That’s up to you.”

“I had nothing to do with it,” the girl burst out. She scooted forward to the edge of the couch. Her bound arms pushed her forward toward Marcella; her brown eyes were pleading. “I just came over here for a hit, you know? To score. That’s how it started.”

There was a big story here and Penny wanted to talk.

Marcella relaxed her stance and opened her arms. She gave an understanding smile. “I can see how you got caught up in something you didn’t intend to participate in.”

“That’s exactly right. I came over and . . . there he was, on the rug.”

“There who was?” Marcella wanted to get every word of this confession spelled out on the recorder.

“Dr. Paulson. Dr. Gary, we called him.” Her eyes filled all of a sudden. “I think he died of a heart attack.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because Johnnie . . . that’s the guy outside . . . Johnnie was trying to do CPR on him. And Mary, that’s my friend sitting outside, she was . . .”

The kid seemed to seize up. Her mouth opened and closed but no further words came out. Her eyes filled. “I didn’t do anything to him. None of us did.”

“Now that I have a little more information, let’s go back to the beginning of your story. You came to this location when?”

“Two weeks ago.”

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