Hello, Stranger

by Virginia Swift

  “I also know,” said Dickie, “that these fine, upstanding young citizens have been partying and trashing their place, off and on for the last two weeks. We’ve had at least three complaints about noise, and on one occasion had to come in and shut things down. My officers busted three kids for drugs and wrote twenty-five minor-in-possession citations that night. Your boys here might be of age, but some of their guests were still suckin’ on pacifiers. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those cases have showed up at your university law clinic. ’Scuse me a minute.”

  Dickie had caught sight of Sally. He tilted his head, took a last drag on his cigarette, and flicked the butt away as he walked toward her, took her hand, pulled her aside, Haggerty at his heels. “What brings you out today, Mustang?” he asked, only a hint of irritation slipping into his voice.

  Haggerty turned to look at her, more than a glimmer of annoyance still on his own face, but quickly covered the emotion. “Sally Alder,” he said. “What a surprise.”

  “I had no idea what was happening here,” Sally told them, hoping to explain away her awkward presence. “I didn’t come just to gawk at the spectacle. I’m hoping to have a chance to speak to Billy Reno.”

  Both men looked at her. “And why would that be?” Dickie said. “You need a cheap TV or a Jeep Cherokee?”

  “Watch it, Sheriff,” said Haggerty. “Mr. Reno’s paid his debt to society for his juvenile indiscretions.”

  “Indiscretions!” Dickie laughed. “Last time I encountered little Billy being indiscreet, he wasn’t a juvie anymore, and he was in the midst of hot-wiring a Lexus that happened to be parked right out in front of the county courthouse. In the middle of a blizzard! There’s your indiscretion, and then there’s your bein’ a sociopath. But then, of course you probably recall that episode yourself, Dave, seeing as how you went straight out and hired away the PD who got the little shit off by convincing the Lexus’s owner that Mr. Reno had merely been a good Samaritan, thinking he was helping out with a dead battery.”

  “Since the owner had been at a bar where Billyhappened to be, and had slammed down six or seven vodka gimlets by the time he got back to his car, his recollection of the incident was a little hazy. The public defender merely presented the owner with a plausible explanation, which he chose to accept, rather than having his own DWI record become an issue,” Haggertypointed out blandly. “Come on. You have to admit it, Dick. That was a pretty sweet little piece of lawyering. No reason to revictimize the Lexus guy, or contribute to jail overcrowding and police overwork, when you can make everybody happy by getting a case dismissed. By the way,” he said, shifting gears suddenly and turning to Sally, “how do you know Billy Reno?”

  When in doubt, the truth. “He’s Charlie Preston’s boyfriend. I thought he might know something about how she’s doing, maybe take her a message.”

  “Why don’t you give me the message?” Dickie said. “I happen to be looking for Charlie Preston myself, you know.”

  “And you’re hoping Billy Reno can lead you to Charlie,” Sally said.

  “Better me than you, being as how I’m doing my job, which involves assaults and missing persons and homicide, for example, and last time I checked, you worked for the university. What kind of message are you trying to send this girl, Sally?” asked Dickie.

  She was a little embarrassed. “I just wanted to tell her to come home, and to talk to you.”

  “Thanks a heap,” said Dickie. “We peace officers need all the moral support we can get.”

  “Give me a break, Dickie. I’m really worried that whoever killed her father might be dangerous to Charlie. Maybe she found out that Brad was in some kind of trouble. Maybe she even got beaten up in the first place for seeing or hearing something she wasn’t supposed to know about. She was in a hell of a hurry to get out of town, right? Maybe it wasn’t just her father she was worried might be coming after her.”

  “Or maybe it was,” said Dickie. “And she had something to do with what happened to him. I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings to think that one of your students could be involved in murder, but it’s a possibility I have to consider.”

  “Which is precisely why this girl is so scared of you, or any cop. The system hasn’t been any help to her. She must know that you all see her as a suspect in her father’s murder.”

  Getting no reaction from Dickie, Sally appealed to Haggerty for support. “I thought, since I’m her teacher and she came to me for help before she disappeared this last time, I might be able to be, oh, I don’t know, a kind of go-between.”

  “A bridge over troubled waters?” Haggerty asked, aiming the tiger eyes at her.

  Sally looked into those eyes and fought not to mentally finish the line of the song, having to do with laying herself down. “Something like that.”

  “Charlie Preston’s a troubled kid,” Haggerty said, gaze steady on Sally’s. “She’s lucky to have a professor who cares about her. I admire you for that.”

  This was a man who seemed to know a thing or two about admiring. Sally’s heart was beating a little faster than it should. “I’m really not trying to interfere,” she told Dickie.

  “Oh yes. I could tell,” said Dickie. “And I’m really not going to have to tell you that you really don’t want to interfere, for reasons that ought to be really obvious to a person of your really large intelligence.”

  “Sarcasm. Really unbecoming,” said Sally, and then pointed at the punks on the lawn. “Which one’s Billy Reno?”

  “Well now, that’s an interesting question,” said Dickie. “Because none of them is. Matter of fact, Mr. Reno’s not at home. You wouldn’t happen to have some idea where the young man might be?”

  Sally shook her head. “I haven’t got a clue—I’ve never laid eyes on him. Any chance he just went out for a pack of cigarettes?” she asked.

  “Oh, there’s always a chance,” said Dickie, glancing down at his watch. “But I’ve been here an hour or so, and he hasn’t made an appearance. Odds are, he’s cleared out entirely. Our Billy has reason to skedaddle when the law comes calling, of course, but moreover, there’s no reason for him to hang around here. His name, naturally, isn’t on the lease. Even slumlords don’t like renting to incorrigible criminals.”

  “So Billy Reno wasn’t actually living here?” Sally asked.

  “Oh no. This is the address listed with his parole officer,” Dickie told her. “But you know how it is with these kind of places, Sal. People come and go. Sometimes the rent gets split five ways, sometimes ten, and sometimes, as we see here, it doesn’t get paid at all. Then everybody’s got to find someplace new to tear apart.”

  Sally looked at the boys on the lawn, noting the shaved heads, the tattoos, the wife-beater tank tops. One was lighting a cigarette off the butt of the previous one he’d been smoking, squinting against the smoke. Another, wearing a large, gem-studded cross around his neck, was slumped against a rusting car in the driveway, hand over one ear, cell phone at the other. A third bent to pick up something off the lawn: a handmade afghan, crocheted in pinks and purples and blacks. That afghan was something only a mother or grandmother could have made, and the kid was treating it like it was the Shroud of Turin. He stood, shook out the afghan, folded it neatly, and set it carefully on a La-Z-Boy lounge chair with half the stuffing coming out of it. There was a tattoo of Bob Marley’s sad-hopeful face on his arm, and something so poignant about the sight of him that Sally felt tears spring into her eyes. “Who knows who did the tearing apart, who’s responsible, and who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she observed.

  “I can think of one person who falls into both of the last two groups,” said Dave, “as you’ll probably be interested to know, Sally. Charlie Preston. It appears,” he said, looking at the notice of eviction now firmly stapled to the front door, “that her name was on the lease.”

  “Charlie signed the lease? Why? These guys look to me like they’ve got a few years on her, and she didn’t even live here, fr
om what I’ve heard.”

  “These boys also have worse credit records and rap sheets than she does, not to mention parents whose pockets aren’t close to being as deep as the Prestons’. I also think she was spending a fair bit of time here with Billy,” said Haggerty.

  “Which is why I’m going to excuse myself, much as I enjoy your company, and chat with the roommates over there.” Dickie jerked his head toward the boys on the lawn. “And just in case you should happen to succeed in making contact with Miss Preston before I do, I’ll tell you one other thing. I haven’t entirely given up hope that Billy Boy might show up here at some point. He knows that, at the very least, Charlie’s liable to have to go to court over what happened at this place. He’s completely crazy, true enough, but in his twisted, amoral, borderline way, Billy’s one of the most loyal people on this green earth. He’s very protective of the younger punks and losers and lost girls who follow him around and look up to him, God help him. Kid thinks he’s fuckin’ Robin Hood.”

  Sally and Dave watched Dickie walk toward the boys on the lawn. As he approached, each of them stopped what he was doing. Some slouched, some stood with their legs spread, arms folded or flexed at their sides. Their eyes grew flat, their faces expressionless.

  “Those guys,” said Sally, “are a little bit scary.”

  “They’re also a little bit scared,” said Haggerty. “More and more, I see kids these days who seem to be running out of options. What is it about our world that makes people with their whole lives ahead of them stop believing in possibility?”

  Haggerty’s lips were pressed together, his sandy brows slanting downward. They both watched as the sheriff engaged the boy who’d folded the afghan with such reverence, now affecting utter boredom with the experience of dealing with the law. “As it happens,” said Haggerty, “I’ve represented Billy Reno in the past. And will again, if it comes to that. Charlie Preston may need a little help in that department too.”

  “You’re a good guy, Dave,” said Sally.

  “Thanks,” he said reaching in the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out his wallet, handing her a business card, and catching her with the tiger eyes. “Let’s keep in touch.”

  “Uh, maybe we could get together for lunch or dinner,” Sally managed. “I mean, ever since the American Experience event, I’ve been meaning to call you. About the work I’ve been doing in the center. Talk about some projects,” she finished, wondering if she sounded as lame to him as she did to herself.

  Haggerty smiled. “Projects. Yeah. Definitely. Maybe some fund-raising too?”

  “How’d you guess?” Sally smiled back.

  “I’m clairvoyant. Plus your dean sent me a note saying it was nice to see me at the reception. So I’ve been expecting a pitch.”

  “I’m not that good at the pitch,” said Sally, “but I do think we care about a lot of the same things, and I’d like to pick your brain.”

  Now the tiger eyes softened. “Looks like one thing we both care about is messed-up kids. We could start with that, and see what else develops.” He glanced once more at her bare-fingered left hand. “Why don’t we make it dinner next week at the Yippie I O? I’ll email you to firm things up.”

  “I’m involved with somebody,” Sally said. “We live together.”

  “Right. I believe I heard something about that.” Another glance at her hand. “The world,” said Haggerty, “is a complicated place.”

  Chapter 7

  The Sanctuary of the Inner Witness

  “Hey, Hawk. what are you doing this afternoon?” asked Sally, putting down the newspaper. “Want to go to a memorial service?”

  Hawk eyed her suspiciously. “For whom?” he asked.

  “Bradley Preston,” she said. “There’s a service for him this afternoon at three, at a church out on the east side. I kind of feel like I want to go.”

  “Why?” he asked. “He wasn’t a friend, or even an acquaintance.”

  “Maybe Charlie’ll show up,” Sally said.

  “Not friggin’ likely,” said Hawk. “And if she does, you won’t get near her. The family will close ranks, first of all, and second, the minute that service is over, Dickie and Scotty will be hauling her in. In case you’d missed it, she’s a suspect in a murder case.”

  “No, I hadn’t missed it, though I definitely object to it,” Sally said.

  “Why?” Hawk asked. “From everything you’ve told me, she had reason to want to hurt her father. Maybe she didn’t have it in her to strike back, but she could have gotten somebody else to do it. And how well do you really know that girl, anyhow? How do you know she doesn’t get herself wired up on meth every night and go bust windows, or doors, or somebody’s head? Hell, maybe she was the one who tore up the apartment on North Fourth. You don’t have any idea.”

  “Okay. I don’t know her very well. But I’ve worked with victims of domestic violence. When they’re that beaten down, they don’t have the strength to fight back. It takes incredible guts just to run away. And you’re right, she’d be crazy to come back for the memorial,” Sally acknowledged. “But the Boomerang says that Beatrice Preston will be delivering the main eulogy. There was a picture of her in the paper. She was the one at the doctor’s office, leading the hymn singing. I think she gave the signal for the protesters to rush the patient,” Sally told Hawk.

  She handed over the newspaper.

  “Yeah, that’s her,” said Hawk, putting the paper down on the table. “The caption says this photo was taken in 2001. Her hairstyle hasn’t changed one hair since then.”

  “Neither has yours,” Sally pointed out, “since 1975.”

  “If it ain’t broke . . .” Hawk began.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  The Sanctuary of the Inner Witness was a large, flat building that looked more like a warehouse discount store than a church. It was surrounded by a sea of parking lots, filling up fast with pickup trucks and SUVs disgorging men in cowboy hats and women in conservative dresses, children with combed hair and clean, pressed clothes, older people leaning on canes and walkers.

  The place was packed. Sally and Hawk, dressed in their most nondescript dark business suits, joined the standing-room crowd at the back of the chapel.

  Laramie wasn’t as small as Sally was used to thinking. There must be hundreds of people in town who went to church at least once a week, whose values were in many respects 180 degrees away from hers and Hawk’s. She’d probably seen some of them at the supermarket or the bank, but she had absolutely no recollection of anyone she saw in this crowd.

  Then she caught sight of two people she knew. Off to the right, sitting unobtrusively in the second-to-last row, Dave Haggerty leaned his elbows on the pew in front of him, resting his chin on his folded hands. He didn’t see her.

  But Scotty Atkins did. By the time she found him, standing far back in a corner, she knew he’d seen her for a while. He nodded very slightly when their eyes met. He didn’t smile.

  All these people in a church so new and makeshift, it didn’t even have fixed pews. The congregation sat on folding metal chairs, noisy on the concrete floor. The dais was raised a good six feet above the seating area, so they had a clear view of the proceedings. At one side of the platform, a trio consisting of guitar, bass, and synthesizer worked through a lugubrious arrangement of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Most people in the church were still fidgeting, chatting, getting settled.

  Then the minister walked down the center aisle, shaking hands as he went. He was young and handsome and greeted with warmth by his parishioners. Ascending the steps, he took his place in the pulpit. Brad Preston, he said, had been a pillar of the community, an upholder of traditional family values, a heck of a first baseman for the church softball team. He’d shouldered his earthly burdens, and was now released from those bonds. Pretty familiar, tame stuff, to Sally’s mind. She’d been expecting hellfire, or a little damnation at least. She caught herself wondering, as Beatrice Preston ascended the steps, received a h
ug from the minister, and took her place in the pulpit, whether what she’d heard about Evangelicalism was vastlyoverstated.

  Beatrice wore an exquisitely tailored black crepe suit, with a cream-colored blouse secured at the neck with an oval brooch—a cameo, visibly handsome even from Sally’s distant vantage point. Bea’s blond hair was in its trademark perfect sweep, her face a matching cameo of composure and compassion. She dipped her head for a moment, closed her eyes, raised her chin, opened her eyes, and began to speak.

  “Bradley Preston was my husband,” she intoned, her voice as sweet and clear and ringing as a church bell. “But he was also your son.” She nodded toward a weeping white-haired woman in the front row. “Your brother.” She extended a hand toward the grim-faced man and woman flanking the mother. “Your neighbor, your colleague, your friend. Brad dedicated his life to timeless values. His death should be a call to us to build a world where the godly are not scorned, where the wicked see the path to righteousness.”

  In the front and middle of the church, people were crying. Even back where Sally and Hawk stood, she could feel people reaching for handkerchiefs, see them wiping their eyes. Beatrice Preston had a lovely speaking voice, and she used it with confidence and skill.

  And now Bea lowered the pitch of that voice, confiding in the crowd. “My husband,” she said, “was brutally murdered. In the days and nights since, I have wondered how such a good man could come to such a horrific fate. How could the just and merciful God be so senselessly cruel? I came close, brothers and sisters, to doubting God’s wisdom and His will.”

  Audible gasps. Hawk leaned over and whispered, “Guess she isn’t known for her skeptical nature.”

  “Unlike you,” Sally whispered back, putting a hand on his arm to prevent a reply.

  “Yes, I came within the merest feather’s breadth of doubting the will of our Lord.” Beatrice’s voice, breathy for a moment, began to rise. “But the Lord holds us in His hand.” Sally got a mental image of a little family and a little house in a big hand, some insurance commercial. A friend of hers had once observed that the true history of the West was about real estate. Maybe the true religion too?