by John Hart
Becky allowed herself the first real smile, teasing her friend in return. “I’m not at all sure that I do.”
“Now, Becky Collins. Don’t tease a girl.”
“Let me put it this way.” Becky put a finger on her lips, as if in deep thought. “If he asked me out again, I would say yes.”
“Oh my God…”
“An immediate, eager, and most definite yes.”
* * *
Dana had lost her virginity in ninth grade, so it took time for Becky to settle her down, and peel away into the morning crowd. Gibby was not in precalculus; she couldn’t find him in the courtyard or the halls. By third period, Becky decided he wasn’t in school at all. No one had seen Chance, either.
Becky used a pay phone to call his house. No answer, but that was nothing new. At lunchtime, she went looking for Dana, and found her leaning against the same wall, her earlier enthusiasms melted away, as if by the heat. Her eyes were half-closed, one foot braced against the brick. “School sucks this close to summer.”
That was all the opportunity Becky needed. “Do you feel like ditching?”
“Yes. Please. God.”
They waited until the end-of-lunch bell spilled a thousand students into the hallways, then used the confusion to slip away, across the baseball diamond and into student parking. Squatting by the car, Dana fumbled with her keys as Becky craned her neck to see if they’d been spotted or followed. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Keep your skirt on, woman.” Dana found the right key, and unlocked the driver’s door, climbing in to unlock the other side. “God, this heat.” She started the car when Becky got in. “We’re clear?”
“Right as the rain.”
“Then we are out.” She didn’t bother with reverse, but thumped over the curb and onto the street, saying, “Yes! Thank you, Becky Collins!”
“Ah, it was nothing.”
“Where are we going?”
“Gibby’s house.”
“Wait. That’s why we’re doing this?”
“He wouldn’t ditch without a reason.”
“Seriously?” Dana shook her head, half-smiling. “He’s cute and all, but I knew there was a reason I didn’t like that boy.”
“Stop. I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” Dana grinned around the cigarette pinched between her perfect teeth, hair whipping out as she drove faster. “Sometimes a cowgirl needs a pony.”
* * *
The rest of the drive went like that: Dana amused, and Becky tied into knots of worry. Gibby’s car was not in the driveway when they got to his house, so Becky rang the doorbell. When no one came, she rang five more times.
“He’s not home!” Dana yelled. “Let’s go already!”
Becky got back in the car, and belted herself in. “Let’s go to Chance’s house.”
“I hate that side of town.”
“Just drive the car, Dana. Please.”
They found Gibby’s car in Chance’s driveway, top down and glinting in the sun.
No response to the doorbell.
Dead silence in the house.
Dana made a shooing motion, and said, “Go on in!” But Becky was thinking of Tyra and Sara. Dark house. Dead quiet. Dana stuck her head through the car window, shouting, “Go on, cowgirl! Ride that pony!”
Becky put a finger against her lips.
“Put a brand on that pony!”
Dana could get in these moods, and Becky knew from hard experience that the best way to shut her up was to take away the target. So she opened the door, and stepped inside, half-blind.
“Hello? Anyone?”
Becky couldn’t explain the fear she felt, but it grew by the second, a serious, no-bullshit kind of fear. Gibby should have been in school. His car was here.
And what was that smell?
Every curtain was drawn, and that felt wrong on such a sunny day, the kind of wrong that made Becky think of outside and people and fast fucking cars. Instead, she went to the living room, which was darkest. Something shapeless was on the floor. In the gloom, it could be a pile of laundry, but Becky knew better. She thought she saw a leg, that maybe those were fingers.
Don’t do it, she thought.
But her fingers found the switch on the wall.
When the light exploded, she wanted to run—God, did she want to run! But those were fingers. And that was a leg. So Becky screamed. She screamed so loud and long that Dana tumbled from the car, and burst into the house, following the sound of those screams. She came at a dead run—a fine damn friend—and that’s how she tripped on the body, and fell facedown on top of it. Ride that pony, Becky thought, but it was a mad thought, and a wild one, a where-the-hell-is-my-boyfriend thought.
39
Cops came like buzzards to a kill, the marked cars and dark sedans, the men in somber suits. Becky sat on the porch with an arm around Dana, who could not stop scrubbing at all the places she’d been stained by the dead man’s blood.
“I need a shower. God, please. A bath. A washcloth.”
Two cops approached, and one said, “We really do need to talk.”
“Give her another minute,” Becky replied.
“How about we question you separately. How about that.” They weren’t questions, and he wasn’t pleasant.
Becky said, “It’s Martinez, right?”
“Detective Martinez.”
“I’m not leaving her, Detective, so give us another minute.”
The cops actually did step back, and Becky used the time to get her head straight. Everything was crooked: the dead man on Chance’s floor, Gibby’s abandoned car. When the cops came back, she said, “You know we had nothing to do with this, right?”
The other cop said, “Of course, sweetheart. We do have questions, though.” He gestured at the bustle around them. “We can go as slowly as you like.”
“We just want to go home.”
“We’ll be quick.” With an understanding nod, he lowered himself to sit on the step below them. “Do you know the man inside?”
“No.”
“You’ve never seen him before?”
“Never.”
“What about you?” He looked at Dana. It took her a moment, but she shook her head. “You girls are in the same class as Gibby and Chance?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why aren’t you in school?”
“Gibby wasn’t in class.” Becky smoothed away a single tear. “I was worried.”
“Kids do skip school. Is there any particular reason today was worrisome?”
There was no right way to answer that question. How much could Becky say? How much would Gibby want her to share? “I was worried.” She kept it vague. “He’s a good student. He doesn’t skip school without good reason.”
“So this is unusual behavior for him?”
“Or he had some good reason.”
“Did he have one?” Martinez asked. “A good reason?”
“I don’t know.”
The nice cop waited a moment, and then tried a different angle. “Is there anything else unusual in your friend’s life? Has Gibby been acting strangely? Has he spoken to you about anything odd that may have happened?”
“Just that his brother’s in prison. You know.”
Martinez said, “Ask her about the car.”
“Ignore my partner,” the nice cop said. “He tends to interrupt. How about you walk us through it in your own words. Tell us what happened. There’s no wrong way to do it. I promise.”
Becky did as he asked. She told them what time they got there, and what happened after she went inside. He wanted details, but the narrative wandered. She had to backtrack; start over. “I know I shouldn’t have gone in someone else’s house without permission, and it’s horrible that Dana fell on the body—crime scene and all, evidence, I mean—but I was screaming, and she was trying to help, and I was just … It was just so…” She smoothed away another tear.
“Take your time, young lady. You’re doing fi
ne.”
“Oh, for God’s sake…”
“Hush, Martinez.”
“Ask about the car.”
The nice cop sighed, but nodded. “The Mustang belongs to your friend, right? We know it does. I’m sorry. That sounds like I’m trying to trick you somehow.” He shook his head as if frustrated by his own questions. “Was the car here when you arrived?” Becky nodded. “And your friend? Did you see him at all?”
“No.”
“What about Chance?”
Becky shook her head, increasingly suspicious of Martinez. He was too intent, the way he leaned forward and stared. “Why do you care about the car?” she asked.
“It’s a routine question.”
“It’s just his car,” Becky said. “He bought it last summer.”
“That’s fine. You’re doing great. Did you see anyone when you arrived? On the street? Anywhere nearby?”
“I wasn’t paying attention.”
“If someone had left the house through the back door, do you think you would have seen them? As you arrived, or as you entered the house, did you hear anything? A door closing? Footsteps?”
“No.”
“Any sense of movement inside the house?”
“You think he was still in the house? Whoever did this?”
“No, sweetheart. I doubt that very much.”
But Becky thought he might be lying.
Martinez said, “Ask her about the keys.”
The nice cop held up a hand, but did not respond to Martinez. “Look at me, sweetheart. Okay?” He lifted his eyebrows, an invitation for her to stop staring at Martinez, and focus. “A few more questions. Did you happen to notice if the keys were in your friend’s car?”
Becky shook her head.
“How about in the house? Did you see the keys inside?”
“What do Gibby’s keys have to do with someone killing that man?”
“It’s just a question, sweetheart.”
“Will you please stop calling me that?”
“Of course. I’m sorry. I have daughters. It’s a habit.”
Becky looked at Martinez. “And you, you’re scaring my friend.”
Martinez showed his palms, and moved back a step, an almost-apology. The nice cop smiled encouragingly. “The keys,” he said again.
“The keys were beside the body.” Dana looked up for the first time. “That’s why they’re asking. They think Gibby and Chance are involved.”
“Hang on now, no one here thinks that.” The nice cop tried to keep things calm.
“He does.” Dana pointed at Martinez.
“Just questions,” the nice cop said.
But he didn’t seem so nice anymore.
* * *
For Bill French, the day was an exercise in bureaucratic futility. He’d gone to the station early, and Captain Martin had been there, waiting.
I’m sending you to Raleigh for a conference. You don’t want to go, but I need you gone for the day.
French had argued back, but the captain was determined.
Gone for the day or suspended for a month. Your choice …
“So here I sit.” French mumbled under his breath, shifting on the hard, plastic chair. “Goddamn it.” He was in a conference room on the third-floor headquarters of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, Capital District, one of a hundred city cops from across the state attending a seminar on cross-jurisdictional cooperation. An hour in, and he’d already slipped out three times to borrow a phone and call friends at the station back home. The desk sergeant. A junior detective who owed him a favor. They didn’t know anything, or wouldn’t tell him. He found Burklow on the third call. “Sit tight,” he’d said. “If something breaks, I will track you down. In the meantime, have faith.”
But faith was for rookies and civilians. French knew too much about bad cops, bias, sloppy work.
He looked at his watch.
Eighty-three minutes since he’d first sat down.
It had to be longer than that!
For another twenty minutes, he cooled his heels as some state plebe droned on about the architectural hierarchy of a multi-jurisdictional investigation as might be used in pursuit of a purely hypothetical, cross-county, serial rapist. “If you’ll turn to the diagram on page twelve of your manual…”
“No. Just no.”
He was in the wrong city, doing the wrong thing.
French left the conference room without looking right or left, his steps loud in the hall as he stalked past the outer offices of the Professional Standards Division, en route to the elevator bank. He was almost past the double doors before a young woman interrupted his thoughts. “Excuse me, Detective?”
It was the same pleasant young woman who’d allowed him to use the phone on her desk. “Yes, Agent…?”
“Foil,” she said. “You have a call.”
At her desk, she handed him the phone, and moved away to give him privacy. Four agents stood at a conference table across the room; no one at the adjacent desk. Only Burklow had this number. “Ken?”
“What’s the last thing I said to you?”
There were background sounds. Men in the squad room. Orders. Activity. French’s hand tightened on the phone. The call would not have come without good reason. “You told me to have faith.”
“Shit. No. What was the second-to-last thing I said?”
“That you’d track me down if something major broke.”
“That’s the one. So you give those state cops a nice thanks-for-your-time, then get your ass home, fastest. ’Cause I’m telling you, brother”—a rustle on the line as Burklow shifted the receiver from one ear to the next—“shit down here just went sideways.”
* * *
Raleigh to Charlotte was all interstate and open highway, so French lit up the cherry, and put the pedal down. Chapel Hill. Greensboro. Salisbury. He counted cities, pulling 95 in traffic and 120 when the traffic thinned. Eighty-nine minutes after Burklow’s call, he hit the Charlotte line. Two miles in, he braked hard, and rocked into the parking lot where Burklow wanted to meet. He was there, and waiting. “When you said ninety minutes, I didn’t think you could actually do it.”
“I think it took ninety-three. Any sign of Gibby?”
“Not yet. I’m sorry.”
“Gabrielle?”
“She’s still in the dark, and I convinced the captain to keep it that way, at least for now.”
“Does he know you called me?”
“Suspects, maybe. He squawked twice, and left a message at the station.”
“Saying what?”
“That you’re in Raleigh for the day, and he wants you to stay there.”
“What about the body?”
“Transported forty minutes ago. Lonnie Ward. White male, thirty-seven, and big as a house, six-eight, maybe, and about two-ninety.”
“He has a sheet?”
“A few minor convictions: loitering, lewdness, solicitation. There was a Peeping Tom charge that went away back in ’68 when the witness recanted. The DA was an associate then, but remembers the case; thought there might have been some intimidation. No family, far as I can tell. No word yet on occupation or known associates. He has an apartment near the university. Smith and Martinez are there.”
“What about the girls?”
“Becky Collins and Dana White. Scared to death, but home with their parents. They don’t know anything. Other developments since we spoke. They put Gibby’s car on a flatbed, and hauled it out for full forensics. Can’t imagine what they hope to find, but there it is. Still, no murder weapon or witnesses. Martinez and Smith interviewed Chance’s mom, but she knows nothing of use. Never seen the dead guy. Has no idea where the boys could be.”
“How’s this playing with the captain?”
“Honestly? The man is lost. You know how he is, too decent to be a murder cop, and more bureaucrat than street. I don’t think he’s recovered yet from seeing Tyra Norris the way she was.”
“Wh
at about the rank and file?”
Burklow rolled his heavy shoulders, almost fatalistic. “You’re well-liked. You know that. Plus, a lot of these guys watched Gibby grow up. There’s respect, too, for how Robert died in the war. But then again, there’s Jason, and he’s a scary dude, even for cops. A few of the newer guys wonder if Gibby has some of those same qualities tucked away inside. The car keys are a problem. Martinez is on that like white on rice. If you’re asking me to lay odds, though, I’d say most cops in the know think the boys got caught up in something they weren’t looking for. Wrong place, wrong time. I’d call it 70 percent.”
“And the other 30?”
Burklow shrugged, soulful and sad. “They think the boys are involved.”
“With Jason?”
“Jason, yeah. Tyra, and Sara. Now the dead man in Chance’s house. None of it feels random.”
“Christ, it does look bad.” French scraped dry palms across his face. “What do I do, Ken? How do I save my family?”
40
The warden brought the phone, but was nervous about it. There was too much intent in X’s eyes, and too much stillness in his limbs.
“I said five minutes.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” The warden tried to swallow, his tongue so suddenly dry it cleaved to the roof of his mouth. “It took time to find a cord that was long enough to reach.”
Nothing changed in how X stood or spoke, but the warden’s entire body chilled. Predator. Prey. A viper tasting the air. He offered the phone, and X took it.
“Wait upstairs. This won’t take long.”
* * *
Reece was off by a few minutes, but the call came about the time he thought it would. He let it ring six times, then lifted the receiver, and spoke with ill-concealed satisfaction. “Hello, old friend.”
“We are most assuredly not friends.”
Reece squinted across the sun-scorched fields. He was afraid of X, but the thrill was real, too, a madness that felt like falling. “Can I assume from this call that we have an understanding?”
“Release Jason’s brother unharmed, and I will cancel the contract on your head. I won’t hire anyone new. I won’t spend a dime.”