My fantasy car ride was an Aston Martin. So not a Hummer. I got back to my original question. “How much could you see from that distance?” She was parked a good half a long block away from where I had been standing.
“Binoculars. C’mon, I’ll drive you to where you’re parked. It’s not safe after dark.”
“I’m around back, it’s not convenient from here.”
“No problem, I can afford a few extra blocks of gas. And I need to make sure you’re okay getting to your car.” She smiled. It was about as attractive as her chortle. She grabbed my hand and started pulling me in the direction of her hulking vehicle.
I tried to take my hand back, but she just tightened her grasp and pulled harder. Inwardly I sighed. And fumed. I either had to fight her or go with her. I gave in and told myself if we didn’t go directly to my car, I was jumping out at the next stop sign. At least I could get a look at her spy operation. I had a bit of morbid curiously there.
She didn’t let go of my hand for the entire walk there. I kept my fingers limp and unresponsive so there could be no illusion we were holding hands.
At the vehicle—I can’t call it either a car or truck—she finally let go. I had to stretch to get in. Her entrance was on the clumsy side of ungainly, like a cannonball in reverse, except for the mercy her seat didn’t splash. As pretty a sight as her smile. As I had suspected, I’ve lived in apartments smaller than this thing. The interior was black leather, shiny chrome with a pair of boob beads hung around the rearview mirror. Charming.
I wrapped my left hand around my body to keep it as far as possible out of her reach.
“Listen to this engine roar!” she said as she turned the ignition.
The best I could do was a wan smile and resist asking why she wanted to drive something that sounded like a cement truck going up a steep hill. The radio was also blasting what I guessed was country music, although the variety that was more pop than anything else.
She was extolling all the wonders of the Hummer.
I asked, “How much do you spend every month on gas?”
“Too damn much!” was her answer. “Gas prices are crazy in this country.”
I didn’t argue. I doubted someone who drove something this big much cared about the nuances of energy policy. My only conversation was directions to my car. She had to take a long route, claiming she wouldn’t fit down one of the streets. A turn and a turn and a turn and finally we were there.
I pointed to my car. She pulled into the only place she could, someone’s driveway.
Somehow I managed a polite (barely) smile and said, “Thanks for the ride.” I tried to open the door.
It was locked.
She reached out and grabbed my arm (the hand still hidden away), then clambered over halfway to my seat. “You are seriously one of the most sexy women I’ve dated in a long time. You have to be feeling it, too, right?”
I shoved myself against the door, scrabbling to find the unfamiliar lock. “Look, I’m sorry if you got the wrong—”
She was over the seat, on top of me planting a sloppy kiss on my unwilling lips.
Thank the cosmos for all those arm days at the gym. I had enough strength to push her back. I was about to drown in the slobber.
“No!” I said, almost like I was talking to a bad dog. The only way to refuse this woman was to be rude. Therefore, rude I was going to be. “Please get off me and let me out.”
“C’mon, don’t be shy.” She shifted but didn’t really move away. “We’re adults, we can do this.”
“Get the fuck off me and let me the fuck out.” I didn’t yell, instead used the coldest voice I could manage.
“What’s wrong with you? I thought you said you liked women.”
“Let me out of the car now.”
“It’s not a car, it’s a Hummer, an H2.”
“I don’t give a damn what the fuck it is, let me out.”
Finally, she slid back over to her seat. “Okay, you don’t need to be rude about it.”
The lock popped.
I got out without another word.
She roared off. So much for worrying about my safety.
I got in my car, hit the locks, and immediately took off, turning in the opposite direction from her. Personality disorder, narcissistic variety, came to mind. Most likely she’d roar back to the ’burbs, but I wanted to make sure my small, sensible, fuel-efficient (but with enough pep when I needed it) car stayed very far away from that big thing of hers. I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t come back around the block to see if I hadn’t changed my mind—and on finding I hadn’t, take a fender off.
On the drive home I said every obscene thing I’d wanted to say to her for the entire evening. I don’t call myself a model of sanity, sensibleness, and stability, but at least I’d managed one relationship of over a decade instead of burning through one every few years. I lobbed a few choice words at Torbin as well for suggesting this.
Instead of that third beer I really wanted—and fortunately didn’t have—I poured myself a generous glass of the good Scotch when I got home. It was the only way I could begin to salvage this disastrous evening.
CHAPTER SIX
I’m not sure what to do. He is nicer than I thought he’d be, after what the others said about him. Not pushy or stupid like the boys in school. He listens to me, asks about my day, not just talking about sports or hunting like the rest of them do. He took me out to a nice dinner last night, a real restaurant. He’s the first one to ever do that. It felt nice, like I was who I wanted to be, not a kid stuck having to do what those so-called adults tell me to do.
Now he wants a picture. Me in the sexy bra he says he noticed the first day we met. That’s normal boyfriend stuff, right? I took the pic, had to do it before babysitting. But I’m not sure I should send it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Oh, hangover, there is not enough aspirin in the world for you. I went back to the bathroom and brushed my teeth for the second time this morning. I needed to obliterate the slop of her kiss from my mouth. Yeah, she’d tried a tongue, although it didn’t get past my teeth.
As much as I didn’t want to trudge into the office with this headache, it was probably better than staying here with nothing to distract me.
I filled the big travel mug with coffee. I’d make another pot when I got there. Aspirin and caffeine would be my spiritual guides for today.
The bright, sparkling sunny day didn’t help the hangover.
When I got to the office, I closed the blinds. Usually I like a sunny day.
I made a pot of coffee while drinking what I’d brought in the travel mug.
Once I had a second cup in front of me, I sat at my desk, jogging my foggy brain to sort the day. I had hoped the computer and phone would be the quick route to finding the boy who’d threatened Tiffany. That might still work. I could be lazy and wait for their report.
I had jotted down some of the most-used phone numbers for Tiffany’s phone before I gave it to the computer grannies. I could go through the tedious process of talking to them. The info from the phone and computer might, at best, give me Tiffany’s side of the story. Maybe she led him on; maybe she’d done something to him that caused him to react this way. Much as we all want a clear truth with known villains and heroes, life is usually more complicated and murky. Or maybe he’d done this with other girls, and even if there was no actionable proof with Tiffany, the next girl might be under seventeen and the law would reach him.
I pondered my options. The only answer I came up with was that I probably needed food in addition to coffee.
I had promised myself that I would never darken the door of the downstairs coffee shop save to collect rent. I wanted—truly needed—the money to go one way. Admittedly by the time I drove someplace else and paid their price, I’d be saving no money, but it was the principle of the thing. Once I allowed myself to go there, the temptation of the praline bacon bagel with maple cream cheese might be too much to resist. I needed to be
better than that. I didn’t spend enough time at the gym as it was, and a quick jog to outrageous pastries was not in my best interest.
Sighing, I trotted down the steps and even eschewed my car, instead walking five blocks away to the next nearest coffee shop. I got a plain bagel with a blueberry croissant for dessert. Carbo loading cures hangovers, right?
Once back at my desk with another half a cup of coffee and most of the bagel in me, I again read over the case file looking for inspiration. It was one sheet so far, not very inspiring.
I started on the croissant. At least the blueberries were an excuse to call it not as terribly unhealthy as it could be.
Come on, Micky, I cajoled myself. This isn’t that complicated a case, save for how heartbreaking it is. I find information and use it to create a path to the answer. I give my client the answers I’ve found and get on with my life.
The truth is I wanted to turn away from Mrs. Susie Stevens and her lost daughter Tiffany. I wanted her tragedy to be only a skimmed newspaper headline in my life, a page to be quickly turned. I didn’t want to talk to the people who knew her for her short life. It would be a sad, grubby story, and no part of it would make things better for those left behind.
I pulled out the other case that had come my way, the murder in 1906. My hangover was improving, but not enough to want to spend the rest of the day at the library reading microfilm. That was probably where I would find what information there was to be found.
I stared at the two files.
Having just finished breakfast, it was too early to break for lunch.
Talk to the adults first. She most likely met the guy in her everyday life. I scanned the notes I had taken, did a quick online search, then sighed, brushed the croissant crumbs off my desk, and headed out. My destination was Tiffany’s school.
Not that they advertised it that way, but it was a middling Catholic school, aimed more for the kids who would become administrative assistants or fast food managers, not the ones who went to Yale or medical school. It was out past Lakeside Shopping Center in the suburbs, a neighborhood I’d never been to. And wouldn’t have gone to except for the case. The houses were tidy, most of them red or yellow brick ranches. Probably built after the war and into the sixties, GI Bill houses and white-flight houses. The safe suburbs; a good place to raise kids.
The school itself—Mother Mary of Grace—harkened to the same era. It was a yellow brick box, nothing notable about its design; it seemed a box that could have come out of a box, a small grass yard in front and a much larger mostly concrete yard in the back with stone benches and tables and a very small track. According to the website, it had originally been an all girls’ school, but had become co-ed sometime in the nineties.
I parked a few blocks away, near enough to a convenience store that my car, if noted, would probably be linked to it. I could have parked in the school lot, but it’s a habit to be discreet. This way no one would see an unfamiliar car pull in and mark my getting out of it. Besides, it was a beautiful spring morning and the croissant needed to be burned off.
I hadn’t called ahead. It might mean I was out of luck, but I prefer that to getting a prepared speech. The suicide of a student was probably a touchy subject, especially if her blackmailer was another student. If they threw me out, I’d at least know they didn’t want me to investigate.
However, they didn’t throw me out; they made me wait in the principal’s office.
As I had entered, a polite guard asked if he could help me. I said I needed to talk to someone about a student matter. He clearly assumed I was a parent—I like to think I’m not old enough yet to be considered a grandparent—and led me here. Slowly, as he was about old enough to be a great-grandparent, and probably this job was more to help him eke out a retirement than to truly provide security.
Even though I knew I was an adult—old enough to be slotted into the parent profile—school did not bring up happy memories. I was smart; I did well in class, enough to be a ticket out of here on a college scholarship that I had no chance of getting otherwise. But I had flunked everything else. Or maybe arriving at that suburban school after growing up out in the bayous, barefoot and free, eating alligator like it was an average meal, I was doomed to be the outsider, the one the kids could make fun of as a bonding ritual. Even when I did well, when I found friends, the nagging shadow of being a lesbian made me feel like a fake, a failure. If they really knew me…knew who I was, they would hate me. That was my refrain for so much of high school. I couldn’t be who I was and had no idea of who to pretend to be. My pious Aunt Greta, even worn-down Uncle Claude, would have thrown me out if they knew. The teenage years are fraught enough—Tiffany proved that—having to navigate knowing I liked women and knowing I could tell no one made it a hell.
The yellow brick was the same, why didn’t they ever change it? Couldn’t we at least have red brick? I’d gone to public school; Aunt Greta only sent her real children to Catholic school.
Let it go, Micky, I told myself. You survived those years. Now you need to concentrate on surviving these years. Finding a life I wanted and not just the one I found myself in.
It was fifteen minutes before the principal, Melvin Freidman, MEd, ushered me into his office.
Two minutes later, I was ushered back out. All I found out was they were all sad about Tiffany’s “unfortunate death,” but he couldn’t help me. He barely knew her, and even so, student files were confidential. I didn’t argue. They might be confidential to me, but as she was under eighteen, her parents still had a right to see those files. If I needed to, I could sic Mrs. Stevens on him.
The guard smiled at me as I exited. Just as I hit the door, a bell rang and the chaos of several hundred teenagers exploded in the hallways. I was lucky in my timing. A stream of them ran around me down the stairs, charging off with the vigor of youth to wherever they were going, presumably lunch.
It seemed the convenience store was a popular destination, so I found myself jostled and passed by the streaming kids as I walked to my car. One advantage of being an adult was that my lunch time wasn’t controlled by a bell. Or a nun with a ruler, although I’d seen none of them in my brief visit to the office.
I was mulling what to do about the students swarming around my car, one older boy perched on the fender, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” a voice said. An adult voice.
I turned to face a woman who was probably in her mid-thirties, dressed in a conservative gray pantsuit, clothes that seemed too sensible for her face. She was tall, we were almost eye to eye, and at five-ten, I mostly have to look down at women. Her hair was ginger, shading into blond, clearly from time on beaches and in the sun. Her face told the same story, with laugh lines radiating from her eyes, and paler skin around the eyes from sunglasses. Her shoulders were broad and looked like she either worked out or led an active live. Her hair had been pulled into a bun, to go with the pantsuit, but strands were escaping as if they had a life of their own.
“Yes?” I said.
“Shondra told me you were asking about Tiffany. The principal’s secretary,” she clarified.
“Yes, I am.”
“Why?” she asked. “I mean, why are you here? Are you from the police?”
Her tone didn’t seem hostile or defensive, instead I felt she wanted to talk to me but also wanted to know I had a legitimate reason for being here.
“I’m a private detective,” I said. “I’ve been hired by her family to look into the circumstances of why she did what she did.”
“Her mother, right?”
I nodded. I wanted her to be honest with me, so I hoped honesty from me would help. “You knew the family?”
She glanced around at the kids still passing by this way. “Let’s take a walk.” She led me down a quiet street away from both the school and convenience store.
“By the way,” she said, “I’m Cindy Lee. I’m a teacher here. Oh, I know, not what a teacher from All Things Catholic in the ’Bur
bs schoolteacher should look like.”
“Seems to me teachers come in all sizes and shapes.”
“I’m finishing up an MSW. Social work. You know, to better save the world. This job helps pay the rent until I can move on.”
“I’m Michele Knight, but my friends call me Micky.” I pulled out my license. She looked at it long enough to read the major stuff.
“Really a private detective? I’ve had an interesting life, and you’re the first one I’ve met.”
“Not a bad thing. We’re generally involved in things you’d prefer not to be involved in.”
“Like this?”
I just nodded, and with a glance around to see we were out of earshot of the kids, asked, “How did you know Tiffany?”
“The obvious way. She was one of my students. I think what I noticed about her was how little she stood out—like she was the kind of average kid who only exists in average world—most kids have something—sometimes negative—that makes sure they’re not average in some way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her grades were Bs and Cs, always passing comfortably, but not doing really well. She hung out with the ‘beige’ girls, not popular, but not rebels or geeks or Goths. The kind of kids the popular ones need to be popular, so they’re not mean to them. But they’re not included, either. Call me idealistic, but I felt there had to be something more to this kid than just showing up to school and going home to watch TV.” She paused and we stopped walking, under a shade tree. We’d gone far enough and she needed to get back to school. Her life was ruled by bells as well.
“Was there?” I asked.
“Not that I ever found out. At least not until this.”
“What do you know?”
“Mostly the rumors. The official line is that it was a tragic and accidental death. But the rumors are she killed herself over a boy.”
“That’s one way of putting it. The story I’ve gotten is she sent less-than-clothed pictures to someone—possibly one of her classmates. He was using them to blackmail her to have sex with him. It seems she felt so trapped and desperate she saw no way out except to kill herself.”
The Girl on the Edge of Summer Page 5