Tunnel Vision

by Aric Davis

  “I just said I’d make a call,” said Andrea. “Don’t get too excited.”

  Betty kissed her mother on the side of her head and then released her.

  “If anyone’s interested,” Ophelia said, “I have some exciting stuff going on, too.”

  “Of course we are,” said Betty, as she leaned over to kiss her other mother on the cheek. Ophelia smiled at Betty as she retook her seat, and then began to describe to them some breakthrough she’d had that afternoon with the new painting in the basement.

  EIGHTEEN

  I see Claire before she sees me, and I cover the distance between us quickly, giving her a short wave when she finally turns and notices me. I could have mugged her if I wanted to, but as interesting as her wallet might be, I’m a lot more interested in getting some information. I don’t know how happy Claire is going to be that I looked into her ex instead of just checking up on June, but she needs to know everything at this point, and I want to see the look on her face when I mention Jack.

  “You said you needed to talk?” Claire asks, but the words come out shaky, almost like she knows what I’m about to say, but doesn’t want to hear it.

  “I did,” I say, and then pop a matchstick in my mouth. “I went by Jack’s house the other day. Is there anything I should know about him?”

  “Oh my God! Why would you go there? He’s going to be furious if he finds out that—”

  “There’s nothing to find out,” I say, and it’s true. Jack isn’t going to find out that I broke in, and even if he did, there’s nothing for him to discover that would lead back to Claire.

  “Jack has a temper.” Her words come out measured and emotionless. “If he caught you there, he’d hurt you, maybe even worse.”

  Worrying about what didn’t happen is a waste of time, so I press on. “How often does June spend time with him?”

  “Every few weeks, but there’s nothing I can do about that,” says Claire. “He pays his child support, and so he has visitation rights.”

  “Not if you think he might hurt your daughter.”

  “I don’t think that,” says Claire, but the words don’t assure me she’s telling the truth. I wonder if she believes them. “Jack never had a temper like that, not with her. June’s only usual gripe is that he ignores her when she’s over there. No, he’d never get violent with his daughter.”

  I nod, not sure of what else to say. It still sounds to me like she’s trying to convince herself of something, like there’s some suspicion she doesn’t want to say aloud for fear that might make it true. “Could Jack have hurt Mandy?”

  “No,” she says, the expression on her face screwed up and unfamiliar. “No, never.”

  I nod, but my head’s racing.

  I should believe Claire, but I don’t. There’s a wounded person inside of her, someone who wants to do what’s right, but either doesn’t know how or is too scared. “I just want June to be safe,” she says again, like it’s her mantra, or something she’s chanting against demons while she shakes a rattle over a fire. I know there are no deeper revelations to be had today.

  “All right,” I say, letting a smile crease my face. “June’s safety is what I want as well, so if you think of anything that could help me with that, be sure to let me know.”

  Claire returns my smile halfheartedly and then nods, but it’s meaningless. She might tell me more dirty little secrets later, but at the moment, she’s convinced that if she stays mum, the truth will stay buried forever.

  The bike ride home from the park gives me a few moments to reflect on things, and I have to admit, after talking to Claire my interest in the Reasoner case has been piqued all over again. The more I look at the evidence, the real evidence, the more I wonder how in the world the prosecutor was ever able to get a conviction. Don’t get me wrong, Duke could be as guilty as Gacy, but that doesn’t mean the conviction was clean. Of course, that’s the real reason for all of the public interest. Duke and Mandy were already a good story, but add in a weak conviction? Gold.

  Besides, the real meat of the job is to watch June, and if last night was typical, that should be a piece of cake. June is rarely alone, and she tends to stick to her house and school. If there’s a boyfriend in the picture then he remains to be seen, and even though I only have one day to base her routine on, June isn’t sneaking out at night. Claire wants her daughter safe, and so do I, but right now it seems like the best way to do that is going to be casually watching her and making sure her daily life stays on the straight and narrow.

  Where I stand now, though, all of that’s on the back burner. I need cash, and if this job with June is going to be as short-lived as I’m expecting, some drastic measures are going to be necessary. For years I had a connection to sell the pot I grow through a friend that went to a nearby high school, but that changed a little over a year ago. Now he keeps permanent residence in a hole in the ground, and I’ve been scrounging ever since. Don’t get me wrong, it could be a lot worse. I could be the one in the hole, but it definitely hasn’t made life any easier.

  Growing dope is easy, and dealing dope is easy. But finding someone you can trust to sell a quantity to—that’s hard. And that’s the only way it makes sense to do business, because it’s much safer to sell a lot once for a low profit than it is to be the guy trying to make deals on every last scrap. It was hard enough to make an arrangement for that once, and it will be just as hard to do it again. Right now I’m in sort of a stasis on the matter. I try not to think about it, and the dope I grow just keeps piling up. The only good thing to come of it is that when I do finally make a big sale, it’s going to pay off large, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

  I was supposed to go work out at Rhino’s today, but the only person I made that deal with was myself and right now I’m not in the mood. I know it’s lazy, and I know I need to keep in shape, but it’s getting harder and harder to make myself walk in there. I trust Rhino like a father, and my friend Jeff is there all the time, too, but still I avoid the place. I think I’m just scared that they’ll be able to see through me into the awful things I’ve done. Even scarier is the idea that I might finish a sparring session by spilling all of it, all of the mess. Life isn’t meant to be easy, but when I look in the mirror I know what I’ll see: hollow eyes wondering how we ever got to this point. The boy there is beyond wounded, and there’s a trail of blood behind him a mile long. I’m glad I’m lucky enough to live like I do, but sometimes, I wonder what I would trade for the life of a normal teenager.

  Instead of the gym, I just keep circling Riverside. Being here alone lets me breathe in the sights and sounds, and it reminds me of what it’s like to be a hero instead of a demon. I’ve been both, but being a hero sure makes waking up more pleasurable, especially when you wake up alone. Some mornings, good memories and cereal are all you have to help you get by.

  I’m half-tempted to just find June and talk to her, let her know she’s digging in a hornet’s nest and that her mom wants her out of it, but knowing kids, that might just make things worse. Of course, it wouldn’t be purely altruistic. I like the idea of talking to June, or her friend Betty. I feel like I know both of them, in that creepy Internet voyeur sort of way. They have pictures and all of their likes posted all over their profiles, so I feel familiar with them already. I know that’s a load of crap, and that all I’d do is freak them out if I did tell them I knew what was going on.

  Doesn’t matter, though. I’m not going to contact them. This job is going to fade away like they have been lately, and then I’m going to need to get back to moving some dope.

  NINETEEN

  Betty was slogging through another day of school when halfway through third period her phone buzzed. “It’s a yes,” said the text from Andrea. “Our house @ 4. Let me know if u cant make it.”

  Betty wanted to jump from her seat and run around the room, but instead she discreetly put the phone away in her pocket, making a mental note to text her mother back at the end of the class. Glancing at
the clock as her teacher droned on about nonsense, Betty knew the text was only going to make time go even slower.

  Minutes after the first text, Betty felt her pocket buzzing again, but this time when she took it from her pocket the message was from Jake. It was simple, short, and to the point: “We ned 2 talk.”

  The message filled Betty’s stomach with a cold dread. Was he going to end it?

  That should’ve been a happy prospect, right? She wanted things to be over with Jake, or at least she thought she did, but the idea of him wanting it to be over was sickening in a new way, and it made her feel awful that she could be so shallow. Betty had never been dumped, she’d always been the one holding aces at the end of every relationship she’d ever had, and the feeling that she was dump-able was gut churning.

  Betty was just tucking the phone back into her pocket when the teacher, Mrs. Huevel, asked, “Betty, is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

  “No, Mrs. Huevel,” said Betty.

  The scrunch-faced teacher smiled thinly. “Then put the phone away, dear.”

  Betty nodded but wasn’t sure of exactly what to do, as the phone was already back in her pocket. She settled on rubbing the outside of her jeans, and the motion satisfied the prunelike teacher.

  “Now, as I was saying,” said Mrs. Huevel, and Betty once again drowned the older woman out, thoughts of boyfriends, detectives, and a dead girl from the past far too interesting for her to pay any mind at all to math.

  When class was finally over, Betty grabbed her bag and walked out the door. The plan was to get to June, tell her about the meeting set for that night, and then text Jake and tell him that she’d be up for a phone call later on. After all, she was far too busy for a meaningless high school relationship right now, and if all Jake wanted was for it to be over, then that would work for her, too.

  The thought died in her mind as a hand landed on her shoulder, and then a voice said, “We need to talk. Can I walk with you?”

  Betty turned to see what her ears had insisted was Jake, but what part of her mind had argued was very likely an escaped and vengeful Duke. “Sure, we can talk if you want,” said Betty, wondering why the Duke thought had ever come into her mind in the first place. Even if he were out of prison, there would be no reason for him to suspect that Betty and her friends were working on a project about the murder.

  As Jake and Betty began to make their way through the crowded hallway, Jake said, “So I’ve been thinking—”

  “Let’s wait until we’re outside.” The words came out too blunt, too much of an order, and Betty could see Jake’s face redden in her peripheral vision.

  “All right,” he said sheepishly, his eyes locked on the door ahead of him.

  Betty kept her eyes locked straight forward, too. Before the text from Jake, all she’d wanted of the day was to escape school and get the interview that Andrea had set up, but now she would have been happy just to leave and imagine that none of this was happening. Dating Jake was supposed to be fun, just a little fling that never really went anywhere, but now Betty felt like she was destined to be thrown to the scrapheap that was the school’s rumor mill, not to mention the emotional bruising that would come part and parcel with a breakup.

  When they reached the doors, Jake pulled one open to allow Betty to walk outside, but without thinking she opened the door on the other side of the breezeway and then waited for Jake on the other side. June was out there waiting for her. In the stress of the Jake situation, Betty had forgotten all about their planned walk to the library. June shuffled out of the way as Jake followed Betty onto the sidewalk, and the three of them came to a halt and exchanged glances that covered the matter as well as words would have.

  “Jake and I need to walk alone today,” said Betty, as if the matter was really that simple, and June slipped back inside without a word.

  “What’s up with her?” Jake asked, and Betty wasn’t sure what to say, so she answered him with a shrug. June saw the look on my face, thought Betty to herself, and she wanted to leave before we started screaming at one another. That they’d made it outside and the parking lot and lawn were devoid of people were the lone blessings of the situation.

  Betty started across the sidewalk, then stepped over a curb and onto the asphalt, before crossing the road and hopping the next curb onto the lawn.

  “You don’t need to walk so fast,” said Jake. “Besides, we both know I can outrun you.”

  “Especially if you get me in trouble and stuck doing push-ups,” replied Betty, instantly regretting her bitchy tone.

  Jake’s face reflected the words’ heat. “Betty, I’m really sorry about that,” he said, “and about getting you in trouble at home, too. I do stupid things sometimes, like talk to you when we’re supposed to be running, or that damn text, but I really do care for you.”

  Here it comes, the moment where he tells me that he likes me as a friend, or that he needs time for himself. Not sure why she was even upset, Betty just kept walking. This is a good thing, it means you both get off easy. He doesn’t get a broken heart, and you don’t have to be the bad guy.

  But mainly, Betty was rocked by the fact that she’d never considered how she would feel in this situation. The reality of it was like seeing a semi bearing down on her. The idea of being the one dumped, and then seeing Jake with some cheerleader slut or whatever else had caught his eye made her feel like she could dust her shoes with her breakfast right there on the lawn.

  She didn’t, though. She just kept on walking, until Jake grabbed her arm. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I want to talk to you about?”

  “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” said Jake. “This is actually tougher than I thought, though.” Jake raised his face to the sky, sighed deeply, and then lowered his head to lock eyes with Betty. “I’m thinking about joining the navy.” The words coming from his mouth were so unexpected that Betty wasn’t capable of responding. She just stared at him with what felt like an impossibly dumb look on her face while he kept on talking. “I want to sign up so that as soon as I graduate I can go to boot and get it over with. My parents are totally supportive, and all I really need to do is talk to you about this.”

  “You want me to try and talk you out of it?”

  “No,” said Jake. “I want you to come with me. If we get married, then after boot you can come live with me on a base somewhere. I’ll make more money if I’m married, and we’ll both have insurance and stuff. I know we’re young and this probably sounds crazy, but it would be the only way that you can come with me.”

  Betty opened her mouth to speak, to tell Jake that he was insane. She wanted to tell him that the two of them were nothing, just a little high school thing to keep from getting bored, and that his idea to join the navy and have a little family was probably the least attractive thing that she’d ever heard in her life. Betty wanted the wind in her hair and a guitar in her hands, she wanted to live before she was resigned to a house and a nine-to-five, she wanted to be the person that she’d always imagined, on stage and screaming about everything that had ever mattered to her.

  “I don’t know what to say,” said Betty, one of the most purely true things ever to cross her lips.

  “Don’t say anything yet,” said Jake. “I know it sounds awesome, but it’s a big commitment, and we need to be totally sure before we do this. Why don’t you give me a call tonight, if you’re able to, and we can talk more?”

  “I’ll try,” said Betty. “I’m still grounded, and that includes you, especially after what happened.”

  “Well, they’re going to need to get over that,” said Jake. “Either way, we’re going to be together, so they just need to get used to it. We need to do this, Betty. This is going to be our life, and I’m not going to let anyone take that away from us.”

  Betty stared through him. Jake had always seemed dumb in a friendly sort of way, like a six-month-old dog, but this was a whole new dep
th of stupidity that she’d been completely unaware of. The Jake she knew, the jock that was dangerous enough to be interesting, was a far cry from this delusional little boy.

  “I’ll try,” said Betty, and then the bell sounded from inside the school, an ear-splitting mercy.

  TWENTY

  Betty thought she’d be able to gloss over the details of her encounter with Jake and compile a list of what she should ask the cop later that afternoon, but June was far too intrigued for anything that reasonable. Once she was over the initial shock of Betty somehow being proposed to—a word that seemed more like a curse to Betty than it ever had before—June spelled out very clearly what she wanted.

  “Every detail, Betty,” said June. “Every single word, I want deets and I want them now. This is probably the biggest thing that has ever happened to us. I include my aunt in that—this is bigger.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Betty, the annoyance clear in her voice. All she wanted to do was work on the project, but June was going on like an idiot. It’s not even a big deal, it just means that dumping him is going to go even worse than I expected. The thought was callous enough to redden her face. She was the one who had been terrified of being broken up with just ten minutes earlier, and she didn’t even like Jake all that much. He was the one in love with her, and he was going to take it terribly. That was clearer now than it had been before.

  “Yes it is,” said June. “God, I cannot wait until this gets out. There aren’t usually proposals until senior year. At least that’s what my mom always said. Seriously, this is like the weirdest thing ever. How can you say it’s not a big deal?”

  “You swore you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m not going to,” said June, and then she shook her head to indicate her unassailable loyalty, even in the face of such incredibly juicy gossip.