Hello, Stranger

by Virginia Swift

  Aggie screeched to a halt, yanking Beanie’s leash. The dog gagged and hacked. “No.”

  Sally nodded.

  “And you’re out running around this morning?” Aggie said, gaping.

  “I’m not thinking about it. I don’t have enough brain cells. So you have to help me.”

  Aggie began walking again, slipping into a lope. Sally kept pace. “Do you know anything about people with guns, Aggie? People who might have drugs too?”

  The girl stared straight ahead, picking up the pace.

  Sally panted to keep up, then gave up and took charge. “Slow down. In fact, let’s walk. Talk to me.”

  Aggie stopped and turned to face Sally head-on. “Okay. Yeah. You promise you won’t tell my parents or my aunt Maude?”

  Sally crossed her heart.

  “They had a lot of parties,” she began, assuming Sally knew enough to follow along. “I don’t know why I went. I mean, lots of girls from Laramie High did, but it wasn’t really that much fun. I mean, if you like to get drunk and stoned and all, I guess it’s fun, but I don’t like it all that much. It’s scary. Those parties were always at least a little scary, and sometimes really bad.”

  Beanie was pulling on his leash, eager to walk. Sally touched Aggie’s arm, and they headed on. “I heard about one in particular. Some guys were hitting on underage girls, and Charlie went crazy. You were there, weren’t you, Ag? She was trying to protect you.”

  Aggie sniffled, tried to suck back the tears, and in the end, gave in. “I shouldn’t have been there. It was onlythe second time I went. Charlie told me before to stay away, but I just had to see what was happening. And there was this guywho wouldn’t let me alone, Sally. I couldn’t make him go away.”

  Sally chose her words. “Aggie, don’t blame yourself. I’m going to guess that you might have been a little loaded at the time, and you’re not sure whether you did something that made him think it was okay to hassle you. No matter how drunk or stoned you were, nothing gives him that right. Guys don’t get to decide that ‘no’ doesn’t really mean no. I’m sure you were frightened. I heard as much, from somebody who was there.”

  “Charlie?” Aggie said. “Charlie couldn’t have told you about it. She wouldn’t. She swore.”

  “Not Charlie. Somebody else, a college student. And he was appalled at the guy’s behavior. So don’t ever think that you did something that made the guy think he had the right to treat you that way. I mean, you know where your error in judgment came—that was in being there, in drinking or smoking. You can make different and better choices, and you know it. But getting jumped on by some dickhead, well, that’s so not your fault. Forget about it. Next time, maybe you’ll know enough to say no when people try to get you to go to a party like that.”

  “Are you kidding? Like, never, never again,” Aggie said, unconsciously speeding up until Sally was panting again.

  “Slow down.” The girl slowed. The dog changed his gait, toenails clicking on pavement. “Okay. Now tell me about the guns and dope,” Sally said.

  Aggie looked around. They were on a side street, heading for the park, but not yet there. Nobody else was on the street. “Well, there were lots of both,” she admitted. “A couple of the guys who lived there were dealing.”

  “Guns or drugs?” Sally asked.

  “Both,” said Aggie. “They’d go in a back room to do business, but it was obvious. People would come back into the living room stuffing things in their pants, or wiping their noses.”

  “Was Charlie involved?” Sally asked.

  “Not in the dealing. I mean, she does drugs and drinks. I tried to get her to stop, but she couldn’t. I told her that if her stepmother caught her, she’d use it as an excuse to put her away again, but she told me to shut up and mind my own business. She said she needed something to kill the pain.”

  Sally just bet she did. “What about Billy?”

  “He didn’t touch anything—not liquor or weed or blow or anything. He said his body was a temple, which you have to admit is kind of a riot, when you think about the fact that the guy’s covered with ink.”

  “Maybe he’s a Hindu temple,” said Sally.

  Aggie smiled faintly. “Whatever. He hates drugs. But I guess you know he’s got other problems. He just can’t help himself. He’s been stealing since he was a little kid. He can’t stop. And he carries a gun, pretty much all the time. But I’ll say one thing for Billy. He loves Charlie so much, he’d do anything for her. He tries to talk her out of getting high. I’ve seen him take a beer out of her hand, and make her leave a party even when she gets mad at him.

  I’ve seen her haul off and slug him while he’s trying to get her out.”

  “Did you ever see him hurt her?” Sally said, the question sticking a little in her throat.

  “I’ve seen him grab her arms pretty hard. But she was trying to slap his head off at the time.”

  “Do you think he could have killed her father?” Sally asked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about it. Her father was terrible to her, Sally. He beat her. They said it was for her own good. That it was God’s will.”

  “That’s not a God I can believe in,” Sally said.

  “That’s what my mom told Charlie. I mean, she asked my parents why they didn’t ever hit me.”

  Jesus. “What about when the Prestons sent Charlie away, Aggie? Where did she go?”

  Aggie shuddered. “She couldn’t talk about it, not really. She’d mention being locked in a little room she called ‘the hole,’ nothing but a cot that was bolted to the floor and a toilet and sink. It sounded like jail. She said it was all kind of fuzzy. I guess they kept her on some pretty heavy meds. They told her they had to do it, because when they cut back on the medication, she got violent and she tried to hurt herself and other people. Sometimes they tied her down.”

  Aggie took a ragged breath. “You know the worst part, Sally?” Aggie said. “They started putting her in that place when she was just a little kid. And nobody ever went to visit her. She’d be there awhile—I guess until the zookeepers, or whoever, decided to let her out. Then her stepmother would come and get her. She said she’d promise to be good, so they wouldn’t have to send her back. But I guess she couldn’t keep it up. Sooner or later she’d snap, and it would start all over again.”

  “And it was always Beatrice who came to get her out?” Sally asked.

  “Uh-huh,” said Aggie. “That was one big reason Charlie hated her dad so much. I mean, when she’d get out and go home, he’d be all, ‘Oh honey, I love you, I hope you can behave this time, be a good girl for Daddy.’ And like that. But I guess he didn’t think it was his job to take her to the slammer, or whatever it was. According to Charlie, her father and stepmother talked all the time about what God ordained for women and for men. The husband’s job was to earn the money and rule the household. The wife’s job was to keep the place clean and deal with the children. I guess they thought that locking up their kid was women’s work.”

  Chapter 21

  The Fifth Commandment

  When she got back home, she found Hawk sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning his Smith & Wesson. The whole house smelled like gun oil. He didn’t look up when she came in.

  “Want some coffee?” she asked.

  Now he did look up, with an expression in his eyes she hadn’t seen in a long time, and had hoped never to see again. Cold. Remote. Nothing there to hang on to, much less touch. “I’ve had some,” he said.

  She moved to the stove, twisted around to address the back of his head. “I guess if you’ve got a gun, you just have to clean it now and then.”

  He didn’t turn around when he finally answered. “True,” he said. “But I also figure that there’s not much else I can do. I mean, you don’t even bother to get me up before you go waltzing off, the very morning after some fucker came in here and shot up our house. I’m becoming convinced that you’d rather get yourself killed than be my partner. I’m not quite
sure what to do about that, but in the meantime, I’m going to take precautions.”

  She tried to make a joke of it. “Guess somebody around here has to.”

  Hawk put the gun down on the newspaper-covered table and wiped his hands carefully. Then he exploded to his feet, and before she knew it, he was gripping her upper arms and shouting in her face. “You’ve got to stop, Sally! I can’t stand this! We can’t stand this! I love you, damn you, and I swear to God, I’m about ready to give up on you.”

  The distant look in his eyes was gone. Now there was anguish.

  She threw out her arms, broke his grip. “Let go!” she said. “You’re hurting me.”

  He looked at his hands. He hadn’t realized how hard he’d been holding on to her. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she said. “But I’m in too deep.”

  “You sure as hell are,” he shot back, turning to clean up the table.

  She wanted to go to him. To put her arms around him. To tell him he mattered more than anything, even a troubled girl whose life, sad as it was, might be running out on her. She could feel Hawk slipping away, slowly and painfully, and she wanted to pull him back, with all her strength. She’d just taken the first step toward him when, goddamn it, the phone rang.

  “You get that,” he muttered. “It’s probably for you.”

  So she answered. “Dave Haggerty here,” said the voice on the wire. “Are you free this afternoon?”

  No flirtatious preamble, no outrageous come-on. To Sally’s vast relief. She hesitated. “Why?” she asked.

  “Billy Reno insists that he wants to see you,” he said. “When I told him that Bea Preston had fired Charlie’s attorney, and then taken her out of the hospital, he freaked out. He said Charlie told him she’d come to you, and you’d given her all your money and the coat off your back. He says that makes you his homie.”

  She thought about that. To her knowledge, she’d never been anybody’s homie. But she didn’t think Scotty Atkins would be excited about the idea of her chatting with his murder suspect. “I’d like to talk to him,” she told Haggerty, “but wouldn’t he talk to you about anything he’d tell me? You’ve known him since he was a baby, and after all, you’re his lawyer.”

  “Yeah,” said Haggerty. “Well, I don’t know. Our relationship is... complicated.”

  Sally looked at Hawk, who was stuffing oily newspaper in the trash, grimacing hard. Everything about this situation was complicated. “Okay. You think you can get me in to see him this afternoon?”

  “Can and should,” said Haggerty. “It could be pretty important for Charlie.”

  Nothing more needed to be said. But he did say one more thing. “I heard about what happened at your house. I’m really sorry.”

  “Not your fault, Dave,” she replied.

  “We’ll get this fixed, Sally,” he said.

  And so, for the first time in her life, Sally found herself going to visit somebody in jail. It didn’t surprise her that her level of anxiety built as she walked across the parking lot toward the squat, windowless building, or that once she was inside, the place smelled like a combination of dust, sweat, old smoke, and disinfectant, or that she had to go through a metal detector and submit to a body search before they let her into the waiting area. She’d expected all that.

  But she’d found herself profoundly unsettled by, well, by the vibe of the place. Despite the echoey hard surfaces of yellow ceramic-fired brick walls and gray tile floor, there was almost no noise. And yet, beneath the quiet, the place seemed to roar inside her head, to shriek with the rage and desperation of those who’d been confined there, of whoever was even now locked up beyond the walls. The place pulsed with the fury.

  She wished she’d worn a warmer jacket, even as she felt sweat begin to trickle between her shoulder blades.

  She’d become accustomed to thinking of Albany County law enforcement in personal terms. Sheriff Dickie Langham was one of her best friends, and if her relationship with Scotty Atkins was testy, well, that was personal too. But there was nothing intimate or individual about the Albany County jail. Doubtless, having Dickie or Scotty there would have made her feel more secure, more herself. But she hadn’t called them about the visit, and didn’t care to examine the motives for her reticence.

  And surely it would have been easier if Dave Haggerty had met her there, smoothed the way. But Billy was allowed only one visitor at a time. Haggerty had explained that he had other pressing matters to attend to, even on a Saturday. As she went through the process of being screened and admitted, she’d never felt so alone.

  Imagine how Billy Reno must feel.

  She was led to a cubicle partitioned by Plexiglas, with a chair, a Formica counter, a phone. The other side of the partition featured an identical setup. She took out a notebook and a pen. She’d made a list of questions, and now she added more. She had half an hour. She hoped they’d make it count. A few, very slow minutes passed before Billy Reno was brought in to face her.

  He was tall and thin and deadly pale, with immense, liquid brown eyes, like a doe or a child. His orange jail jump-suit seemed to hang from wide, sharp shoulders. The dragon’s head twined around his neck, and when he picked up the phone on his side, there was a crudely done, fresh tattoo between his thumb and forefinger. It said, “Charlie.”

  “We didn’t do it, Mrs. Alder,” he said, without preamble.

  Mrs.? A title of respect, she guessed. “Call me Sally, please, Billy. And let’s be serious here. I’d like to believe you. But your fingerprints are all over that lug wrench,” Sally said, beginning to write.

  “Big whoop,” Billy replied. “Charlie’s a shitty driver. She’s always running over curbs. We changed a lot of flat tires. Somebody planted the wrench.”

  “The police have an informant. Somebody who says they heard you two plotting to kill Charlie’s father.”

  “Yeah, we’re that fuckin’ stupid. I mean, if I were going to commit murder, I’d definitely want to talk it up in front of everybody I know. Fuckin’ Munk.”

  “Munk?” Sally said, looking up from her notes.

  “Like Chipmunk. I know who ratted us out. Alvin fuckin’ Sabble. Wonder what charges against him they dropped in return?”

  Sally thought a minute. “Billy, is there any chance that he did it himself and set you up?”

  Billy tapped a finger on the counter. “Yeah. Sure. I mean, I couldn’t tell you what that fuckin’ guy might be capable of. I mean, he’s not your Eagle Scout.” More tapping. “Then again, I don’t see him using a wrench, if you know what I mean. He’s more of a gun man.”

  Sally shivered, cold sweat springing up with a vengeance now. “A Saturday night special kind of gun man?”

  Billy nodded slowly. “Among other things. But yeah, the man likes a little piece he can keep handy in case of emergencies.”

  Her teeth had begun to chatter. She clamped them together and ordered herself to stay focused. “What does he look like?” she asked.

  “Like a fuckin’ chameleon,” Billy answered. “I mean, he’s G’d up from the feet up, but then again, he can blend in. He’s got a lot of ink, but nothing that shows in a dress shirt, if you get the picture. He says it helps in his line of work.”

  “And what is that line of work?” Sally said.

  “Whatever anybody pays him to do,” Billy responded. “Fuckin’ bastard.”

  “So why did you agree to be roommates with him?” Sally asked.

  “You don’t always get to choose the company you keep,” Billy explained. “And what makes it worse is, he thinks it’s all okay because he fuckin’ goes to church all the time and God forgives him. Of course, a lot of that goes around. Shit, my mom took me to church every Sunday after she got born-again, and look at all the good it did us!”

  “You grew up going to church?” Sally couldn’t control her amazement.

  “Hey, I believe in God and everything—who doesn’t? But going to church doesn’t guarantee anything. I mean,
the first time I ever saw Charlie, she was at that church with her parents, pretending to be one big happy freakin’ family. I fuckin’ met Alvin Sabble at the church, and look at him. Look at my mom. You’d be surprised how many dope addicts think Jesus is going to come in and save them. You know how many times she told me God was watching out for me? Charlie heard the same crap from her old man and the stepmother, and then again every Sunday. Shit, if He was watching out for us, He was the only one, I can tell you that. And he sure isn’t payin’ very close attention now, is he? Kind of like the cops.”

  “Give them some credit. I’m sure they’re working every angle?” Sally asked.

  Billy snorted. “It’d be easier for the cops if Charlie and I did it. They like to make it easy on themselves.”

  “I bet you don’t,” Sally told him, looking him square in the eye.

  He laughed at that, a strikingly sweet sound. She looked up from her notebook. And at that moment, Sally realized why the crusading attorney had called his relationship with the boy criminal “complicated.” When Billy Reno laughed, he looked a hell of a lot like Dave Haggerty.

  “Listen, Billy,” she said. “I have to ask. Why did you want to talk to me?”

  He gazed back at her through the glass, intent. “You helped my girlfriend. She went to you when she was in deep shit. You listened to her, and you gave her money, and you didn’t call down the cops on her. You gave her the fuckin’ coat off your back. That’s enough for me.”

  Maybe most people wouldn’t be flattered by praise from somebody like Billy, but Sally blushed. And pressed on. “Tell me,” she said, “about Charlie and her father.”

  “They had that love-hate thing,” said Billy. “Like most kids and their fathers.”

  “Most fathers don’t beat their kids until they’re bloody and bruised,” Sally said.

  “He didn’t, usually,” said Billy. “Mostly he tried not to hit her where it would show.”