by Andrew Mayne
He raises the bag. “Jillian brought us some dinner.” He motions toward a picnic table at the front of the property. “If you can make your way there, we can enjoy one of the last nice evenings before it starts getting cold.”
I put on my shoes and meet him. A beer is waiting for me when I sit down.
“Gus Wheeler,” he says, holding out his hand for me to shake.
I return the gesture. “Still, Theo Cray.”
He pulls out two foam containers along with some napkins and condiments. “Hope you’re not a vegetarian.”
I open my container and get a whiff of the bacon cheeseburger inside. “I’ve given it up several times. This would make me do that again.”
Gus doesn’t make much conversation at first. I’m too focused on chewing my food without opening up the cut in my mouth.
It’s a beautiful evening. He stops eating to look at the colors of the sky as the sun sets behind the mountains.
“Every night, it’s like a brand-new painting. It’s always different, but nothing changes.” He nods toward town. “Some things do.”
“How long have you lived here?” I ask between french fries.
“I was born in Helena. I moved out here to teach at the middle school in Quiet Lake. Eventually I started teaching at Hudson Creek High and became principal.”
“You’re an educator?”
“I started off that way. Then, when things got worse, I felt more like a warden.”
I had gotten some of the story from Jillian, but I want to hear his version. “Worse? In what way?”
“Where do you want to start?”
“How far back does it go?”
“How much time do you have?”
“All night.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
LOST GIRLS
Gus opens up a second beer and continues. “People try to figure out the cause of things. They want simple explanations. Hudson was wounded long before it became infected. Used to be a trading post. It was called Swanson’s Creek back then. Trappers and Indians would come through here and more than likely get themselves swindled.
“That went on for a while before someone burned the trading post down. A while later silver was found in the hills.” He jerks a thumb toward a distant range. “There used to be a mine there a hundred years ago. Hudson was where you’d go to get drunk and go to the whorehouse. Loggers would come in from the camps. The two biggest businesses were silver and vice.
“As the town grew, men started having families. The vice never really went away, but the rest of the town grew big enough to hide it.
“When things get bad, the trouble comes to the surface. Now”—he shakes his head—“trouble is all we have.”
“Jillian mentioned the police officers who were arrested.”
Gus leans in closer. “Notice how many shiny cars there were in front of shitty houses? Hudson has two industries: pumping gas into the long-haul trucks and methamphetamine. The two aren’t unrelated. I don’t blame the young people with any sense for leaving.”
“Why didn’t you leave after you retired?”
“I didn’t retire as much as have my school close under me. We fell below the required attendance and the state shut us down. As far as why I’m here? Lots of people homeschool their kids now. Lots of people not qualified to do that. I tutor and try to help out.” He locks eyes with me. “You know what it’s like to be a teacher. You can’t give up on them.”
I wish I had his determination. I feel guilty for taking a compliment that doesn’t apply to me.
“Do you remember Chelsea Buchorn?”
“Oh, yeah.” He gives me a sideways look. “I heard you had a run-in with some of her former friends.”
“Yeah. That was . . . a mistake.”
“I’m going to tell you this, and you have every right to not believe me, but they’re not bad kids. They do bad things, but if circumstances were different, I don’t think they’d be pulling that kind of thing. Probably dumb stuff, but not to that degree.”
The kicks to my stomach felt pretty bad. “Why doesn’t anyone stop them?”
“Was there another young man there? Kind of a nerdy-looking one?”
I remember Amber’s boyfriend’s crony jumping out of the truck. “Yeah.”
“That’s Devon’s friend Charlie York. His father is the chief of police.”
“I see.”
“Actually, it’s a bit more complicated. Chief York is in Colorado getting cancer treatment. Or that’s the story. Rumor has it that he’s trying to dodge a federal indictment. The two they arrested were just the tip of the iceberg.
“Half the city council has cars in their driveways they can’t afford.”
This seems like a nightmare. “How does that work?”
“It’s not like they’re being given bags of money. Well, some are. The more honest ones—rather, the ones that try to see themselves as that—they’re getting paid rent on property they bought for next to nothing or profits from businesses they were practically given.”
“By who?”
“Whoever wants to keep doing business here and not get hassled. When this was a mining town, it was the owners of the cathouses and the saloons. Later it was the moonshiners.
“When meth came to town, it got worse. We’d lost a processing plant. Honest people were taking dishonest money.”
“Everyone?”
He leans back and squints down the highway. “You see that bass boat dealership?”
“Yeah.”
“Connor is the owner. He and his wife are good friends of mine. Nice folks. He sells two or three boats a week. Great business for around here.
“Do you think he asks everyone who steps on his lot where the money came from? He just built a new house on what he’s made selling boats. That’s how most people here make their money. They do it honestly, selling to dishonest people.
“The problem is that when you know where your money is coming from, whether you’re making it legally or not, you’re resistant to things changing. You stop caring about getting rid of meth in Hudson Creek and start talking about getting rid of the violence. Like Las Vegas.
“You resign yourself to the fact that you’re always going to have crooked politicians and police, but just as long as you’re safe.”
I got mugged because I was an out-of-towner they thought was here to do something illegal. If I went to the police, I probably would have found myself in jail.
Gus continues, “The reality people are facing is that all you can really do is push it below the surface. You ignore the problem and then find out your daughter is working as a prostitute or your son is beating up people trying to cook meth on the side.
“The price for all those shiny new cars is Hudson Creek’s children.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s like the old stories where a town would drown a child in a lake to prevent flooding. You do it enough times and your lake runs dry, your children are gone, and all you have left is an empty lake filled with skeletons.”
I don’t know what to say. So I turn back to the reason I’m here. “What do you think happened to Chelsea Buchorn?”
“I want to believe she decided to leave. What do I think really happened?” He stands up and faces the mountain where the mine was located. “Let me show you.”
I get to my feet with some strain and stand beside him.
“See the notch just below the ridge?”
Orange and purple clouds are visible just beyond. “Yes?”
“About twenty years ago, some surveyors found a skeleton there. And another and another. They were dead at least fifty years by then.
“That notch is about a mile off the path that led from the mining camp to Hudson Creek. The nearest building was a cathouse.
“They found at least twelve bodies before they gave up. All of them young women. All of them probably prostitutes that worked either in the whorehouse or the mining camp.
“We still have the town newspapers from back then. Not one, not a single one
, ever mentions a missing girl.
“Old-timers just assumed they moved on. At least twelve girls didn’t. That’s just the ones they found. Who knows how many others were never seen again by anyone. Those hills could be filled with lost girls.
“Back then, just like now, whenever people look the other way when evil is around them, the wicked will find it. Chelsea wasn’t the first. She won’t be the last.”
Gus and I quietly eat the pie Jillian prepared for us.
My gaze keeps returning to the notch where the forgotten girls were buried. How many other places are there? How many more children were lost?
We say good night and I head back to my room to chase down some ibuprofen with a medically inadvisable amount of beer.
When I wake up the next day, as sore as should be expected, I make a decision not to head back to Austin just yet.
I still want to talk to Amber.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
STALKER
When I wake up and feel coherent enough to think, I send a text message to Amber.
We need to talk.
Half an hour goes by and there’s no answer. I decide to be more direct.
I don’t care about what happened. I want to talk about Chelsea. I think I know what happened to her.
Another half hour and no answer. I decide to just call her.
A robotic voice tells me that her phone isn’t accepting calls.
She’s blocking me.
Of course. I’m sure I’m not the first person to call her after falling for their stunt.
I drive to the 88 Service Station for coffee. Walking through the brightly lit aisles, I see a shelf full of prepaid cell phones and purchase one for fifty bucks.
I open it in my front seat and play around with it. I’m surprised to find out that it’s more fully featured than I would expect for the price. By no means is it as good as my iPhone, but it has a web browser and runs Android apps.
An interesting realization hits me: if I’d paid cash, this phone would be totally untraceable to me.
I go back into the store and buy another one with money from an ATM. In theory, the phone could be connected via the ATM withdrawal if someone knew the time of purchase and checked the ATM’s history log. But it seems secure enough. I have no idea why that’s even important to me.
I guess, given what happened yesterday, a little more caution might be a good idea.
I put away the phone I bought with the credit card and text Amber on the one purchased with cash.
I’m not angry about yesterday. It was a mix-up. I wanted to talk to you about Chelsea.
To be honest, I’m mad as hell. But I just want to find out what she knows and get the hell out of this town.
I sit in the parking lot and drink my coffee while I wait for her to respond.
An hour goes by. Frustrated, I call her and get her voice mail.
I try to make myself sound as casual as possible. “Hey, Amber. This is Theo from yesterday. I’m not mad. I don’t care about the money. I just want to talk about Chelsea and what happened to her. Um, I’m not a cop or a weirdo. I lost someone, too. I just want to compare notes.”
I hang up, thinking that’s about as sincere as I can possibly get.
There’s no immediate text back from Amber like yesterday.
I get the feeling she’s not going to have anything to do with me. For all she knows, this could be a setup.
I try to look at it from her point of view. I’d be paranoid as hell. She probably thinks I’m out to kill her.
Mentioning Chelsea might only make her more frightened.
I need to figure out another way to reach out to her.
On my burner phone I do a Google search for a website that locates people. It takes me fifty dollars to get her most recent address.
It’s eight miles away.
Google Street View shows Devon’s pickup truck in the driveway. The sight of it makes me ache.
Crap. This isn’t going to be easy.
I don’t want to confront him again.
I go back into the 88 and buy two cans of Mace. The clerk is the same one that sold me the burner cell phones. He doesn’t bat an eye.
With my face bruised up, this has to look sketchy as hell. I’d call the police on me.
But apparently in Hudson Creek, this isn’t all that unusual.
When I drive by the address, Devon’s pickup is still in the driveway, just like the aerial image on Google. Seeing it close up makes me start breathing heavily.
I keep my window up and don’t stop. It takes me two miles to calm down.
The house had two stories and a large yard. It wasn’t terribly run-down, but it was cluttered. Three other cars were parked nearby.
They looked beat-up and not the kind of vehicle I’d expect the son of a police chief to drive.
The report on Amber said she owned a Honda Civic. I think I remember seeing one in the yard as I drove by, trying not to be seen.
My plan is to pass by the house every hour until the truck is gone and Amber is there alone. No way am I going there when Devon is around.
The truck sits there for four hours. At one point Amber’s car is gone, but it’s back when I drive by again.
When I turn the corner and see the truck has finally left, I feel a strange, perverse rush of excitement.
I park my Explorer in front of the house. I’m too scared to pull into the driveway and get trapped.
My face looks like crap, so I pull a baseball cap over my head and put on a pair of big aviators. When I step onto the road, my leg is trembling. My knee doesn’t want to support my weight.
I guess this is what they call spaghetti legs.
I should just get back into my Explorer and head home.
Yesterday was a warning. I’m getting too deep into this.
But there are answers here. Or at least the potential for answers.
My legs finally find their courage, and I walk up to the front door. I also have two cans of Mace in my pockets.
Three aluminum chairs sit on the porch along with dirty ashtrays and crushed cans. In one of the ashtrays there’s a glass meth pipe.
Through the window I can hear a television and see someone lying on a couch.
A dog starts barking when I knock. I step back from the door. Somewhere inside a young man says, “Hold up.”
I hear scuffling feet and the sound of the dog being pushed into another room.
The young man who answers the door has messed-up hair, bad teeth, and a bug-eyed expression. “Yeah?” he says drowsily.
“I’m here to talk to Amber. Is she here?” I have to use every ounce of control to avoid stammering.
I keep glancing over his shoulder, afraid Devon or Charlie is going to come running at me with the baseball bat. The only thing that stirs is an interior door when the barking dog throws his body against it.
The house is a pigsty. Dirty plates and takeout containers litter the floor. There are piles of clothes everywhere. Filled ashtrays sit on the arms of the couch and on the floor. Glass pipes are strewn about without care.
The place has a funky smell whose source I don’t even want to guess at.
My greeter shouts upstairs, “Amber, one of your gentlemen callers is here.”
“Who is it?” she shouts down.
“Ask him the fuck yourself. I’m not your butler.” He gives me a “What can you do?” look and rolls his eyes, then returns to the couch.
Footsteps sound from the top of the stairs, and I feel my heart skip a beat.
Afraid that she’ll see me and run, or worse, I turn away from the door and stare out at the street.
She reaches the bottom of the steps. “Yeah?”
I turn around, staring at the ground. “I just wanted to ask you about Chelsea.”
“What about her?” She’s studying me, trying to remember me. Suddenly it hits her. “What the fuck!”
She rushes to slam the door. I stick my foot in the way.
; “I’m going to call the police if you don’t get the fuck away! And I’m going to tell them you tried to rape me,” she says, trying to close the door.
The guy on the couch watches with amusement.
“Call the police,” I bluff, then decide to double down. “I’ll call the state police. Let’s see what they say.”
She stops pushing on the door. “Fuck off.”
“Amber, I don’t care about yesterday. It was a case of mistaken identity. I met with you because I thought you might be able to tell me what happened to Chelsea. I wasn’t trying to hire you as a hooker.”
“I’m not a hooker, you fucker!” she screams at me through the gap in the door.
I try to keep my voice calm. “I don’t care. I just want to know what happened to your friend.” I pull my foot away and step back from the door, making a point to hold my hands up. “Please.”
She watches me through the narrow space. I step all the way to the brown grass.
“This isn’t some kind of payback?” she asks in a calmer voice.
“It’s not. Juniper Parsons, the girl they say got attacked by a bear, she was a student of mine. I was her professor.”
She opens the door a little wider. “For real?”
“For real.”
“Keep back.” She steps outside the house and takes a seat on the top of the steps leading from the porch, then pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her sweatpants.
I lower my hands as she lights her cigarette. She keeps looking at me suspiciously, then scans the street. After a few calming puffs, she finally says, “Nobody believes me. Even Devon thinks I’m a joke.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
BESTIES
Remembering something from a psychology class on body language, I take a seat below her on the dying grass. Amber puffs away. I give her a moment to calm down. She also looks a little glassy eyed and may still be high.
Finally, when both our pulses have dropped, I say, “Tell me about Chelsea.”
She frowns, then blows smoke out of the corner of her mouth. “I don’t know. We were best friends since forever. Always getting into trouble together.” She gives me a quick glance. “Not that kind of trouble, at first. Just usual kid stuff. Staying out late. Boys. Stealing beer.” She shrugs, takes another drag. Sends another plume of smoke into the air. “But yeah. When things got so boring around here, we got into other stuff.