“You’re right!” I gasped. “That makes perfect sense! She takes the bus out here to see him. The bus stops running in the evening, so she must have expected a ride back and…”
“And then…then he kills her,” Tom said slowly. I froze, realizing that in the challenge of solving a puzzle, I had forgotten how this game finished. It ended on the snowy trail right behind me; Helen dying with the knowledge that she’d been betrayed by the boy she had trusted.
“We have to go to that bar,” I said.
Chapter Twenty
The Trapper was a one-story bar cobbled together out of the scraps left over from home renovation projects. The original building was flanked with sunken additions that must have been ambitiously imagined on a Friday but then sloppily finished in time for a beer and Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday. The structure was completely surrounded by snowmobiles and a handful of trucks. This was prime snowmobiling weather: warm enough that being outside was a treat, but still enough snow that you wouldn’t get bogged down in slush.
My mom would have been horrified if she knew that Tom and I were at a place like the Trapper. There were dozens of similar bars in the outlying areas of Thunder Creek—all rough establishments catering to men looking for cheap booze after a day outside. There were plenty of clean-cut, outdoorsy people who snowmobiled in Thunder Creek, but they didn’t come to these bars.
These bars were dangerous because of the men who congregated here. They were men who had lived hard lives on the fringes of legality, hunting past their quota, fishing in protected areas and cooking meth in isolated shacks. Or at least that’s what I had heard, since a teenage girl would be insane to ever step foot in a place like the Trapper. Well…most teenage girls.
“This place looks really rough,” Tom said as he parked the truck. I was glad we had taken his truck; it blended in better than my sedan.
“Yeah,” I said, anxiously chewing on my fingernails.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Tom said. “We’ve maybe figured out a connection to Helen, but what about Chloe? How would she know someone who worked here? Is this the kind of place she might go to, you know, meet guys?”
“You don’t really think that Chloe would come here, do you?” I was incredulous. Even the thought of Chloe venturing out to the boonies was laughable. Thunder Creek was already too country for her, and she never ventured farther west in town than the movie theater. It was clear that Tom thought Chloe’s disappearance had something to do with Helen’s murder. I didn’t agree.
“I just meant, maybe if she wanted to meet a guy but didn’t want other people to know?” Tom said carefully.
“Tom, you say that like she’s some kind of…whore.” My voice sounded strained as I confronted the word. I felt my anger rising but I had to defend Chloe. “She’d never come here!”
“Okay, okay, sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it—but maybe they crossed paths in town or something? Look, this place does look pretty sketchy. Are you sure you want to go in?”
“I think it’ll be okay,” I said, my heartbeat slowing as Tom moved the conversation away from Chloe. “I mean, it’s early evening. It’s not like we’re going when the bar’s in full swing.”
Tom stared through the windshield at the crowded parking lot and nodded.
“You’re probably right. I mean, it’s just a bar. It’s not like they’ll shoot us for walking in.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Besides, all we need to do is scope out the place and try to figure out who Helen might have been seeing.”
With that settled, we got out of the truck and weaved through the ring of snowmobiles surrounding the entrance. Although the door looked new, there was already a cracked glass pane in the upper-left corner. And clearly no one had measured the frame first, because there was a gap at the bottom between the door and the splintered step.
I pushed the door open and heard hard-rock music, the clatter of pool cues hitting balls and a rumble of male voices shouting over each other. I could smell stale beer and cigarette smoke. The air was so smoky that my eyes began to water. I wondered how the place had managed to evade Ontario’s regulations against smoking indoors. It was an ominous sign that anything could happen here, as normal rules didn’t seem to apply.
The inside of the bar was wood-paneled with the usual Northern assortment of mounted fish, newspaper clippings about hockey and cheaply framed group pictures of guys in leaf-patterned camouflage. Men were clumped around the pool tables and bar, hunting knives hanging in sheaths from their belts.
A group of men turned around when they heard the bell on the door chime. They looked suspicious when they saw a teenage couple instead of a familiar buddy who had gone out for a smoke. The men ranged from their late twenties to sixties, but they all seemed like relics from the past with their thick, bristled moustaches, close-cropped hair and fleece sweaters advertising boat companies and local businesses. And they all shared a dazed look, as if they’d been living in this bar for so long that a reminder of anything different was shocking.
I heard Tom light a cigarette behind me and I arranged my features into a look of bland indifference, one I hoped mirrored the look of any other person who spent their time in the Trapper on a Tuesday night.
I walked up to the bar, aware of the fact that I was in the minority here. There were a few women mixed in with the men, but they were all at least forty and had crunchy peroxide perms and oversized Harley-Davidson T-shirts. A woman with a Minnie Mouse tattoo was working the bar, and I sat down on a stool and watched her joke with the locals. Her blue eye shadow almost covered her pencil-drawn eyebrows. She was too short for her jeans, and the edges had begun to degrade under the heels of her boots.
“Uh, can I help you?” she asked, a note of suspicion evident in her voice.
“Yeah, I was wondering—” I began, but she interrupted me, throwing a dirty rag in the sink next to her.
“I know you’re not legal so don’t bother ordering,” she snapped.
“No problem,” I said, feeling Tom’s hands settle on my shoulders. It was comforting to know that he literally had my back, although we wouldn’t be much of a match for a bar full of drunken hunters. “I’m just looking for someone.”
“Yeah? Who?” she asked.
I bit my lip. I didn’t want to mention Helen; I sensed this place didn’t take kindly to crime talk. Helen’s killer might even be here, or there could be more than one person involved. For all I knew, this whole bar was in on covering up Helen’s murder. It seemed unlikely but not impossible.
“Uh, I’m looking for a young guy who works here. He’s a friend of a friend,” I finished vaguely, hoping she wouldn’t ask too many questions.
“Oh, you’re looking for Alan—he’s the only young guy working here,” the woman said, her face softening. I felt my stomach unclench. I nodded, hoping that Alan was actually the right person. I doubted this woman would let me play Guess Who with all of the Trapper employees.
“I think he’s on his smoke break. You can go out back if you want. Just walk past the bathrooms,” she said, pointing down a long corridor. She gave me a small smile, and I wondered why Alan’s name had miraculously changed her perspective of us. Maybe it just accounted for our presence.
Tom and I walked down the narrow hallway, past a dank bathroom to an outside door that was propped ajar. A Native guy who looked like he was in his early twenties was leaning against the building, smoking a cigarette.
The guy jumped when we opened the door wider. He looked like the kind of person who startled easily. He had a wiry build, and I could see the ropy muscles in his arm flex as he ashed his cigarette. He had a buzz cut that made his black hair look as soft as velvet.
“Uh, are you Alan?” I asked.
He frowned at me. He was undeniably attractive, but I noticed the tattoos first. They bloomed up his neck and down his forearms, interrupted only by the thin cotton of his sweatshirt. The tattoos were mostly words—blurred Gothic script entwin
ed with song lyrics.
“Who wants to know?” he demanded, raising his arm and tossing his cigarette away as if aiming at an invisible target.
“So, that’s a yes,” Tom said drily. The guy rolled his shoulders and sighed.
“Yeah. What do you want?” Alan asked.
“Uh, we wanted to talk to you about Helen,” I said, figuring that there was no point dancing around the topic.
Alan’s eyes widened with shock before collapsing into furious slits. His whole demeanor changed, his body tensing into action.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about but get the fuck away from me,” he snarled, backing away from us so quickly that he looked like a video running in reverse.
“But—” I began, but he had already turned around and sprinted away.
Tom and I ran to the edge of the building and peered around it. Alan was running across the parking lot, dodging snowmobiles on his way to a beat-up red truck. He got in, gunned the engine and peeled out of the parking lot without ever looking back. Tom and I watched the truck fishtail around a corner in the highway and disappear beyond the woods.
“That went well,” Tom said.
I couldn’t help but laugh. Our attempt at an interrogation had been a complete failure. I turned around and looked up at Tom, who was laughing as well. His face was rendered more youthful and handsome by the smile. I stretched up and kissed him, reveling in the laughter on his lips and the warmth of his cheek against my hand. It was just an impulse, but I felt him return the kiss, the strength in his neck tipping my head back. For the first time since Chloe had disappeared, I felt truly happy.
Chapter Twenty–One
March 10, 2006
A few days after our trip to the bar, I was leaving school when I saw a cop car cruising by the student parking lot. I recognized Trudeau and Bragg immediately. Trudeau waved as the car slid to a stop in front of me. I sighed. I’d already had to slog through a full day at school and now I had to talk to the cops? Honestly, it was moments like this that made me want to shut my bedroom door and never come out again.
“What a coincidence. Hello, Jenny,” Trudeau said, rolling down the window to talk.
“Hi,” I said, shifting from foot to foot, the slushy sidewalk making my feet cold. I should have stuck to boots; it was too early in the year for sneakers.
“We had another chat with Liam McAllister yesterday,” Trudeau said, staring at me. I resisted the urge to look away, refusing to lose some childish staring contest.
“Oh?” I said, scanning the parking lot in case I saw him. This would be a bad time to run into him. He was paranoid enough about me talking to the police.
Students were pouring out of the school and a lot of people were watching me curiously, nudging their friends and pointing at the cop car. I rubbed my eyes tiredly. This was going to do wonders for my reputation. Everyone already thought I knew something about Chloe’s disappearance, and now the rumors would start flying that the cops were watching me. It was official. No one would be asking me to prom next year.
“He claims that he took Chloe out for pizza as a friend, and then dropped her back at your house,” she said. I nodded.
“Yep, that’s right,” I said. I hated that I was inadvertently covering for Liam. But I didn’t know how to tell the truth when I’d already told so many lies.
“What do you think about him? Is he a good guy?” Trudeau asked. The question took me by surprise.
“No,” I said, before I’d thought it through. “I don’t think he’s a good guy. But he’s rich and he’s good at hockey, so in high school, I guess it doesn’t matter,” I finished, the bitterness creeping into my voice. Trudeau frowned, still staring at me under furrowed eyebrows.
“It matters to me,” she said.
“What about Helen?” I asked. “Does she matter to you?” Trudeau looked away. Bragg, who had been sitting silently in the driver’s seat, piped up.
“That’s not our case, Jenny. We’re investigating Chloe’s disappearance,” he said gruffly.
“Yeah, well, I heard that it’s no one’s case anymore, that you’ve shelved it,” I said.
“Who told you that?” Trudeau asked, her voice hardening. I shrugged.
“It is true?” I asked.
“That’s really not my business. Any decision to allocate resources to a particular case is made by my superiors. I’m sure they had their reasons,” Trudeau said, not meeting my eyes.
“Yeah,” I said, walking away from the car. “That’s what I thought.”
I thought they might call me back, but they didn’t. Maybe they didn’t have any more questions for me or maybe they were sick of me asking questions they didn’t want to answer. I just wished that someone would give me answers. I’d never felt so confused in my life.
—
A few days later I decided to try talking to Alan again. I didn’t mention it to Tom because I wondered if maybe the two of us had intimidated him. We’d gone to lunch the day before and I’d considered telling him then but held back. It was hard to keep it from him, though, as I was constantly trying to dream up reasons for us to hang out. Hopefully, Alan would be more open to talking to a single girl. I knew Alan was our most important witness, either because he was the last friend who saw Helen or because he was her murderer. I should have been more scared at the idea of confronting him, but it seemed so inconceivable that any person could kill another that I couldn’t fathom talking to an actual murderer.
I drove through the parking lot of the Trapper, searching for Alan’s truck. I couldn’t see it, but I convinced myself that he might still be there. Maybe his truck was in the shop or he’d lent it to another employee for a supplies run. I had driven this far; I might as well check inside.
I tried to calm my nerves as I entered the bar. Admittedly, it was a seedy place, but I was coming to realize that it wasn’t the bar full of strangers that you needed to worry about; it was the town full of people you knew.
Inside, the same waitress was working the bar. She frowned at me as I approached. I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the smell of stale sweat and beer that oozed out of every porous surface in the room.
“I’m still not going to serve you,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re Alan’s friend.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I was just wondering if Alan is around.”
“You know, he really should be working when he’s here, not just visiting,” she said, her prim sentences at odds with the low-cut tank top that revealed breasts wrinkled from decades of tanning bed sessions.
“I know. I’m sorry to keep bothering you,” I said. “I just really need to talk to him.”
My apology must have worked because her face softened. She began to wipe down the counters, studiously working around my area, swiping the rag in lazy loops.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help you, but Alan doesn’t have any shifts today. He may swing by anyway—he hangs out here a lot—but I can’t make any promises.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, glancing around the bar. It was already getting crowded, but most of the guys in the place were decades older than Alan. Would this be a night that he showed up, or would I be wasting my time hanging out in this sketchy place?
“I can get you a Coke, if you want to wait,” the waitress offered, gesturing at the soda dispenser as if it was an exciting prize on a game show.
“It’s okay, I’ll probably just take off,” I said. I didn’t feel safe in here, not when I so obviously stuck out. I knew the men would only get drunker, and I didn’t want to be around when they began to hit on the few females scattered around the bar.
“Probably for the best,” the waitress said, scanning the room. I admired the tough way she squared her shoulders and began to fill beers to bring to tables. It was obvious that she wasn’t afraid of the repressed chaos of a rough bar. I wondered if that kind of strength came from past experience with worse things or whether some people were just born brave.
When I walked outside, I noticed that the sun had already set. Dusk had washed the sky in a rich and velvety blue. The Trapper was starting to fill with people looking to party hard, weeknight be damned. I could hear the front door slam behind me, and snatches of guitar music slipped outside with the patrons. The parking lot felt strangely tranquil compared to the heaving energy of the bar.
I climbed into my car and started the engine. A sensible girl would cut her losses and leave now. The waitress had offered only the slimmest of suggestions that Alan might show up later. My social calendar wasn’t jam-packed, but surely I could find something better to do than aimlessly wait around at a sketchy bar.
But sensible girls didn’t investigate murders. They did their homework and spent their free time improving their yoga poses and learning Italian from a Rosetta Stone program. Sensible girls dated cross-country runners, baked muffins and never snuck food into the movie theater. I was obviously nothing like those girls.
So, instead of leaving, I just moved the car into the darkest part of the parking area. I chose a space under a copse of trees that jutted into the irregularly shaped lot. I backed in and made sure I had an unobstructed view of the front and back doors.
I undid my seatbelt and reclined my seat. Then I grabbed the half-eaten box of Ritz crackers that had been bouncing around in my backseat for weeks. They were stale, but not even the soft texture could kill the buttery flavor. It was official. I was on my first real stakeout. There was something undeniably cool about the way I was sitting here like a spider, waiting for Alan to wander into my trap. It would have been more badass if I were planning on arresting him instead of just pestering him to talk to me. But TV and real life inevitably parted ways somewhere, and it was generally when the TV detective pulled out a gun.
The novelty of the stakeout lasted for five minutes at the most. Then it just became sitting in my car alone watching people have more fun than me. To make it worse, I had nothing to distract myself from my boredom. I couldn’t listen to the radio because I was worried about running my battery down, and I couldn’t read a magazine because I needed to watch the bar. Selfishly, I wished that I had let Tom in on my plans. The time always flew by when we were together.
The Lives of Desperate Girls Page 13