“Alright, I guess.” Maybe Nadia had something there. “But it don’t make no difference now.”
“Sure it does.” She stood, stepped over to me and squeezed my arm. “‘Cause unlike a fall that kills you, he’s just sore. Take the first step. Tell him you’re sorry.”
Couldn’t quite look at her right then. “What if that don’t fix it?” To lay it all out for him and still get shot down…didn’t know if I could face that.
“It’s not going to fix it.” She squeezed again. When I looked up at her she smiled. “It’s going to start fixing it, but that takes a lot of work.” She patted my arm before walking away. Just before she hit the door, Nadia turned and added, “You’ve done some damage that’s going to take a while to patch up.”
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 18
I looked up when I heard my name. Up by the front counter, on the other side of the bullet-resistant glass, this scrawny kid in a hand-me-down parka talked through the partition with Jess Garts. I stood on up, walked over and dropped my hand on Jess’ shoulder to let him know I was there. Leaned up on the counter and spoke through the set off section of the divider. “Can I help you?” The powers that be, when they built the justice complex, said the setup was for officer safety. Always made me feel like a bank teller when I came up to the front desk.
“You’re Deputy Peterson?” I don’t know if he could have been more nervous, chewing on his bottom lip and shifting his weight on his feet. “They said you were the one looking into Lane Walker’s death, that you’d be working today.”
I nodded at Jess to let him know I had it and he headed off. “That’d be me. What can I do for you…?” I let the end of that hang there to prompt him for his name.
“I’m Austin, Austin Wright.” He swallowed. “I heard about Lane’s death. And that you’re still looking for Chris.”
The name Austin name didn’t ring any bells for me. Still, couldn’t hurt to hear the kid out. “Come on back, we’ll talk.” You never knew who had that little scrap of something you needed to put a case together. I motioned for him to come ‘round behind the counter as I hit the buzzer for the door. “Did you know Lane and Chris?” I asked as he walked through.
He shrugged. “You could say that.” The coat almost swallowed his head when he did that.
Ushered him over to my workspace and sat him down. Then I perched on the edge of the desk. “I didn’t see your name in the original file.”
“I don’t know why.” He answered like he thought I would expect him to have a clue what the file contained. “Nobody seemed to want to talk to me back then.” He rubbed his hands along his thighs, bunching the jacket up over his face again. “I kept expecting it, but no one came by.” Then he slid down into the chair and parka a skosh more. “And my mom said if you guys really needed me, you’d call.” This pair of haunted brown eyes stared up at me from what shelter the fabric seemed to offer. “Told me not to worry about it and put Escalante behind me.”
Figured I should clarify if that’s what he meant. “You don’t live in Escalante no more?” I decided to take away a little of the intimidation factor that my physical size and my position gave me. Like I just needed a stretch I stood, rolled my shoulders a bit and plunked my butt down into my own chair.
“No.” Austin jammed his hands into the jacket pockets. “I moved to Colorado the week after Thanksgiving ‘cause of all the stuff I had to deal with here.” Brought the barrier around his face down a bit with the shift.
Trying to keep any hint of suspicion out of my voice, I prompted, “What kinda stuff?”
“Just,” he shrugged again, “you know, stuff.”
It didn’t seem I was going to get a better answer than that, at least not quite yet. “So you came on in to Panguitch just to come talk with me?”
“Yeah. Sort of. I’m in from Grand Junction, visiting my grandparents for Christmas in Hanksville. I was just gonna call, but then I thought I really should come in person.”
Austin seemed way too young to be in high school, much less hanging with Trey’s pack. “How old are you?”
“Fourteen.” Boy barely looked twelve.
His answer confirmed my suspicion, but gave me another question. “How’d you get here?”
“My cousin drove me. He wanted to visit some of his friends from around here.” Austin’s tone told me he didn’t think much of anyone who lived in the area. “Day after Christmas and all, they decided to get together and eat leftover pie.”
Had to wonder what was all fired important that this kid needed to come and talk to me face to face. “Okay. I’m listening.” Since this wasn’t a formal interview, just a boy in with maybe some information, I figured I didn’t have to go through the whole song and dance of pulling in an advocate. Least ways, not yet.
“I heard that Lane and Chris were last seen the day after Thanksgiving.” He forced his hands deeper in his pockets and stretched some. “My mom told me that.” Least it pulled the jacket away from his face. “This weekend I overheard my relatives talking about how Lane was found dead, so I hit the ‘net, to find the story.”
“Yep.” I nodded. “That Friday’s the last time anyone can say for sure they saw either boy alive.”
“I saw them both that day,” he rushed it out like he thought I might shut him down, “the day after Thanksgiving, I mean. All of them.”
Alright, maybe he might have something really good to tell me. “All of them?”
Suddenly, maybe realizing how hot the station was, Austin stood and unzipped his jacket. “Trey, Lane, Chris…the whole gang of them.” He took it off and hung it, all careful like, on the back of the chair. “Up around Mount Dutton where they found Lane.” Then he crossed his arms over his chest and jammed his fists into his pits. The elbows of his shirt were almost see-through they were so worn.
Too much energy wound through that boy’s frame. “Why didn’t you talk to anyone back when they disappeared?” If I tried to set him down in the chair, I bet he’d spring back up like a jackrabbit.
“I don’t know.” Austin shifted his weight from one worn out sneaker to the other. “I was kinda wrapped up in my own problems around then. And I figured that if it was important the police would come talk to me. But nobody did, so it didn’t seem like what I saw was important.”
“How would we know it was important if you didn’t come forward?”
“Well, I mean,” he sat down heavy in the chair, “Trey and all them would have told you about that day, so you had my name and all.” Took him a moment of chewing on his bottom lip for Austin to realize what was going on. “They didn’t tell you I was there that day?”
“No.” Confirmed it with a shake of my head. “No, they didn’t.”
“Crap.” He hissed. “I kept telling my mom that I should say something and she kept saying if it was important you’d all come find me.” Picking on the bottom of his shirt, he added, “Not like you couldn’t just ask for me at my folks’ place. Sorry, I’m not making sense, huh?”
“That’s okay.” I reassured Austin. I’m sure his folks were just protecting him from what they likely saw as a bad situation. “Whatever the reasons, now’s the time to set it right. Go ahead and tell me.”
“It’s kinda long.” Sounded like Austin was having some second thoughts about his little trip.
Managed to smile. “I got time.”
“Okay, I moved because Escalante was Hell for me… Mostly because of Trey and those jerks.” He huffed. “They made my life suck. Didn’t help that I got skipped two grades in elementary, so I’m like way younger than everyone else.” Austin’s tone reeked of bitter. “In school they pushed me into lockers and stole my shorts for gym.” Boy in hand-me-downs, too smart for his own good and small for his age…he’d walked into high school with a target painted on his back. “Constantly emailing me and texting and crap telling me I was gay.” Staring off across the squad room, Austin seemed to drift for a bit in his own thoughts. Then he shoo
k his head like he banished a bunch of dark memories. “They got the girls all in on it so they’d tape pictures of half naked guys on my locker with notes about my ‘boyfriends’ on ‘em…it sucked.”
“Bet it did.” I offered him up a little sympathy.
Austin gave me one of those glares that said he thought I was patronizing him like every other adult he knew. “I was like, this is never going to end. My folks found out about it at the start of this year and they got into it with everybody else’s parents…and so shit got worse, ‘cause even if most of those idiots had graduated, everyone knows everyone. I couldn’t walk five feet without hearing comments in the halls.”
“It ain’t easy, sometimes, living in a small town.” Some days were rougher than others.
Ignoring me, Austin kept on with his story. “Then on Thanksgiving, my mom and Trey’s mom got into a big fight, screaming at each other in the middle of the street. I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I wrote this note and put it in a ziplock, ‘cause I figured it might be awhile before it got read, and took my rifle and my dirt bike and the next day headed up into the forest.”
“Why?” I hoped the answer wasn’t going to be what I thought it probably was. Still, Austin hadn’t gone through with things and that equaled pretty positive in my book.
His lips went tight and he shrugged. “Because I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Felt like he didn’t want to discuss that part. “Okay.” About that point I realized I should be taking some notes. I grabbed a pen from the cup and the note pad off on the side and started jotting things down. “So you’re up at Mount Dutton with your rifle.” The press didn’t know yet that Lane’d been shot. “What type?”
“Marlin .30-.30. I’m really pissed I lost it.” My heart almost did a belly-flop into my stomach when Austin said that. “My dad’s gonna kill me when he figures out it’s gone. Cost him close to three hundred bucks.” Matched the caliber of the slug the OME pulled out of Lane’s skull.
I had to keep things easy and slow if I were gonna find out anything. “When’d you lose it?”
“That day…” Austin heaved up a big ol’ sigh. “I’ll get to that.”
“Alright.” I just nodded and kept taking notes
“I went to a place that my dad and brother and I used to go camping.” He started pulling bits of tinsel off the garland Noreen strung around the lip of my desk. “We’d just go for a day to spend time when I was little and I really liked it. So, I’m sitting on this log trying to work myself kinda up for it when Alex comes roaring on in on a bike.” Austin kinda swooshed his hand across the desk, showing me how fast the other boy’d been moving. “He sees me and takes off. So, I’m like, crap… I didn’t want any of them around, especially not that time. I head over to my bike, thinking maybe I’ll go somewhere else and then they all come back.”
“They?” I could guess, but I wanted to know exactly who all’d been around.
Austin ticked the names off on his fingers, “Alex, Trey, Lane, Chris and Cooper.” His face got all hard. “Cooper and Alex are on dirt bikes and they start circling around me.” He spun his fingers ‘round each other then moved one hand over top the other. “Trey’s got his truck and gets between me and my bike, gunning the engine and all. They all jump out and start pushing at me.”
That little bit maybe lined up with bruising the OME found on Lane’s body. “You all got to fighting?” Austin said they pushed him, didn’t mean he didn’t push back.
He snorted. “I got to be beaten on. First, I just tried to keep away, get to my bike. But there’s five of them and one of me. Trey came at me and Cooper had gotten in behind me and so I tripped over him. I dropped the rifle and they all start in on beating the shit out of me.” Took him a few swallows before he could go on. “Well sort of. Trey and Cooper,” he corrected, “they hit me. The rest were just yelling and all.”
I spun the pen through my fingers a moment. “How long that go on?”
“A few punches.” The way he said it, I figured it probably equaled more than just a few. “Then Lane gets in between Cooper and me, and shoves Cooper on his ass.” Austin pushed his hand out like he shoved somebody down. “Lane had my note in his hand.” A little red crept across Austin’s cheeks as he talked. “I guess he must have found it and read it and figured why I was out there, ‘cause he starts you know, ‘Let’s just go,’ ‘it’s not fun anymore,’ that kinda shit.”
“What happened next?”
“Trey grabbed the note out of Lane’s hand.” Now the boy started shaking. Not hard, but just enough so I could tell. “And he’s reading it to the others and laughing about it.”
“Okay.”
“That’s when I got pissed. I ran up and just whacked Trey in the nuts with a branch.” At that he gave a little smirk. If I had to guess, that crotch shot bit of revenge probably felt better than just about anything in Austin’s life. “I got on top of him and we’re punching and rolling around on the ground. Lane pulled me off and shouts at me to get gone.”
I wrote some. Then I realized that Austin was waiting on me. “Go on,” I prompted.
“And then Cooper’s got my gun, and he’s got it pointed at me, yelling, ‘You really want to do this! I’ll do it for you!’” Austin shouted it out and then seemed kinda embarrassed that he’d yelled. His next few words were quieter, not quite a whisper. “Cooper’s looking at Trey like he’s some kinda superhero or something, Alex is freaking out more than me and Chris is yelling, ‘Dude, stop!’ I think, maybe, Lane realized it was all kinda out of control, ‘cause he stepped in and knocked the rifle out of Cooper’s hands…told him to cut it out.”
“What happened then?”
Austin’s eyes went wide. “I realized like maybe I really didn’t want to die and got the heck out of there.”
“You ran?”
“I got on my bike and got out ‘round behind Trey’s truck.” He nodded, the volume and excitement in his voice gaining more ground as he spoke. “For a while Chris chased me. But my KTM is a 450…it’s pretty old but, you know, still a racing model, I do motocross, and he was on this gutless little piece of junk. He ate my mud.” He smirked a little with a teenage boy’s pride. “No way he could have caught me.”
Decided to bring him ‘round back to the real meat of his story. “You know what happened after that?”
“No, I ah, got home and my mom and grandma and everyone is there.” His body sagged a little. “They’d all be talking and figured I should move in with my aunt in Colorado. Start over, you know.”
“How’d you explain,” used my pen to kinda draw the air along the line of his body, “you being all muddy and messed up?”
Like it was the most obvious solution in the world, Austin said, “Told them I fell off the bike.”
My folks would have bought that. I think they probably got the same line outta me once or twice after I’d been almost caught scrapping. “When did you know the boys had gone missing?”
Austin seemed to think it over. “I heard about it later.” For a moment, he chewed on the inside of his cheek, maybe trying to sort the thoughts in his head. “I mean my mom told me and I told her I’d run into them that day—but, you know, not all of it, because I didn’t want her to know how down I was…it would be too many questions. But like I said, she said if you needed to talk to me, you all would.” He scrunched up his face into a look that said he thought his momma should have known better. “I asked her a couple of times if the cops had asked and she said ‘no.’”
“Did you think it strange that Lane and Chris wound up missing after all that?”
“Kinda.” He looked a little contrite. “I figured they were assholes and had always talked big about getting out. So I thought maybe they just did, you know. Especially after they had that blowout with Trey and Cooper. They didn’t have a lot to hold them to Escalante, might as well just the get the heck out of Dodge.” He shrugged again. “You know? Especially when you guys weren’t really asking any questions ab
out it.”
Yeah, the department hadn’t treated it like much at all back when. Couldn’t blame Austin’s folks for feeding off our attitude…especially if he hadn’t come real clean with them. “If’n I show you something, think you can identify it?” I reached over across my desk to rifle in the stand up file rack. A copy of all the pertinent bits of Lane Walker’s file sat there. Tugged out the folder and then fished on sheet from inside. “It’s a copy.” The original sat in the evidence locker.
Austin leaned in. “Of what?”
“This.” I offered him the photocopy of the note we’d found.
Almost like he was afraid it’d bite him, Austin rocked back in his chair. “Where’d you find that?”
His attitude told me pretty much what I was hoping for. “Lane’s pocket.” I set the paper on the desk between us.
“Why would he have my note in his pocket?” Austin talked to me, but his eyes were glued on the note.
“Don’t know.” I tapped the sheet with my finger. “Do you think, and I don’t want to put nothing on your shoulders by this question, that knowing what you set out after, he might have chose that?” At this point, I didn’t think Lane had. The one thing that kept hinting at suicide, the note, well now I knew for certain it didn’t belong to him.
Austin looked up at my question. “Lane.” The way he said that one word told me he thought I was plumb nuts. “Kill himself?” He wrinkled up his nose and shook his head. “If he was that miserable, he hid it well. His life was kinda messed up. I just… no, not Lane. Can’t see that.”
I came back around to a part of his story. “So how’d you come to lose your rifle?” Tested bits of his story for consistency.
Spin Out Page 18