“Yeah. I’ll,” Joel let the breath out and stared at the three women in turn. “I’ll talk to him.” He took a breath. “Twenty-five bucks an hour is the going rate,” he added. And then he smiled so they knew he was joking.
Holly shuffled her feet and tucked a piece of red hair behind her ear.
“I’ll pay it,” she said in a determined tone. “I’ll call you tomorrow when he’s home. If you’re free.”
If he’s home tomorrow, Joel thought, but he didn’t say it out loud. He finished his water and Gloria whisked the glass out of his hand as if she were about to bag it and check it for prints.
“I’m free,” he admitted.
“Then we’ll see you then,” Maeve answered and he felt her gentle nudge against his elbow, leading him back the way he came. “I’ve called you a car. It’s on me. We’ll take care of Holly, thank you for lugging that safe.” When she opened the door an Uber was already waiting in the driveway, the 40-year-old driver waved weakly when he saw Joel on his way down the steps.
Was that really how the night was going to end?
He waved, dumbfounded to the girl Maeve, and then climbed into the back of the silver sedan. He was confused and totally impressed at how he’d been easily maneuvered out of Holly’s house and out of the conversation; swiftly like they were professional pusher-outers. Protectors, he thought, as he told the driver where he was headed.
Then Joel dialed insurance, confessed his fender-bender and settled into the leather seats. What the hell had just happened? The city two miles in the distance blinked and called out to him. He’d be home soon enough where he could try to process the entirety of his day. From a normal morning with a run, oatmeal for breakfast as usual, and his morning mindfulness because he made the varsity soccer boys meditate as homework and he wasn’t a hypocrite. Then a gun at school. A fluster of activity. A normal after school practice; a crying goalie, shopping for a pair of kicks for a kid on his team, and Holly fucking Bloom.
“You have a good night?” the Uber driver asked.
“Yeah,” Joel answered. He supposed that was honest. He’d had a good night—a weird night. A good night. “I think so,” he mused, but he wasn’t into talking about it. The driver sensed his reluctance to continue and instead looked back and cleared his throat. Joel almost winced, wondering what kind of conversation he was about to embark on instead.
“If you’re not up for chatting. Mind if I go back to my radio?”
“Not at all,” Joel conceded.
And soon the car filled with the familiar and eerie voice of Art Bell, deep and caring, as if he could see and know all. Joel let the old broadcaster regale him with a tale of the men in black. There were ten minutes left in the syndicated show by the time the car pulled up to the SE Portland apartment he shared with his roommates, but he asked if he could stay until the end to finish out a strange call about time slips and the possibility of time machines.
Tipping well and rating a full five stars, Joel exited the car into the night and walked up the stone walk to the townhome while thoughts of guns and high school and murdered schoolgirls swirled through his head.
Chapter Five
The hearing was quick and most of it a blur as Holly thought it couldn’t hurt to evoke the Catholicism of her youth and pray a rosary the entire time. She used to keep a rosary at her desk in dispatch—every call needed an extra dose of prayer, even if it was just to calm a panicked soul.
Brian handled all the heavy lifting and Alex spoke only in a childish voice, higher than usual, “Yes, Ma’am,” and “No, Ma’am,” as the judge asked him questions.
“Counselors at the center said they found you calm and resilient, even charming at times. Is that what you’d say about yourself?” That was the Alex Holly knew and she prayed faster.
Her phone was on silent, but she noticed a message come in from Joel.
His name, already plugged into her phone by Gloria, inexplicably, caught her off guard and she breathed heavily out of her nose, trying to read the text and pay attention to the judge.
Joel: School’s not busy and I’m free. Call or text. Update whenever you can.
She wondered how long it took him to craft those words and syllables. She wondered, holding her breath, and she counted the syllables just to see. Seventeen. Her heart caught a bit and she read the text again. It was a haiku. An accidental haiku. Or maybe a labored over one, she didn’t know—and she wanted to imagine it as purely the universe drawing Joel’s words in a poem without him knowing.
“Your lawyer has submitted a statement expressing a safety concern?”
Holly perked up. Safety concern?
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“I’ve read it.”
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
“I’m ordering you to 6 months of community service and conflict negotiation class in lieu of probation and a permanent gun charge on your record, because you’re young and I know I’m not going to see you back here in my court. You understand me, Mr. Gamarra?”
Joel: Thinking of you. I know this must be hard. I am always here if you need me.
She counted. Nineteen. Two over. Man. So close.
“I understand, Ma’am, Ms. Judge…”
“Your honor,” Brian said and Alex followed suit. Holly picked up her phone and her purse and stood, waiting. Her kiddo looked haggard and sallow, big dark bags grew under his eyes and she bet he didn’t sleep.
She reached out for him, but he shied away and Brian followed close behind. Holly pushed away the urge to burst into tears. She wasn’t ready for the part of parenting where he treated her pain with disdain.
Out of the juvenile courtroom, they stood like a trio of sad clowns, each of them trying to be happy but failing.
“Let’s go home, okay?” Holly asked but her voice was too high, too eager and hungry for normalcy.
“I’ll set up the class and the community service hours,” Brian said. He checked his phone and was off after giving them both gentle hugs. Holly was impressed by how he was always moving from one thing to another—he was headed for a heart attack before he was fifty. After triple ensuring that she was free to walk out the door with her kid, Holly led them to the car.
“What’s this?” Alex asked, looking at Maeve’s scrappy Camry with suspicion.
“Your counselor rear-ended me in a parking lot,” she said with a shrug. That was her parenting style. Truthful and loose, fast and honest. She only left out the part where a bar was involved beforehand and how much he was attracted to him.
“Okay,” Alex agreed and blinked the entire thing away. “The school parking lot?” he asked.
She evaded. She thought it was her greatest character achievement, her ability to seamlessly slither out of conversations and questions. She was certain, however, Alex inherited a bullshit detector specifically for his own mother and he’d had it trained on her since birth.
“He helped me load a gun safe into my car,” she said pointedly. They stood outside Maeve’s car, Holly’s hand on the door.
“And then he just ran into the back of the car to make sure it was really packed in there or what?” Alex asked with a dry sarcasm that she loved when it was directed at movies and bad television and loathed when he directed it at her.
“Get in,” Holly said, ignoring him completely. “Hey, I was going to mention, that it was nice of her,” she continued, weighing her words as she unlocked the door. She got behind the wheel, impressed that Maeve had even vacuumed for the occasion. Alex sat in the passenger seat and kicked it back all the way, stretching as far as the car would let him and turning his head away from his mom. “Nice of her, the judge,” she repeated, “to offer a light sentence…”
“It wasn’t nice of her,” Alex protested with annoyance, his sarcasm was gone and his sulkiness returned. His eyes were closed and he didn’t look at her. “It the least she could do other than just let me go.”
“Then it was nice.”
“It was what I deserved,”
he said, still not looking at her.
“I see,” Holly said and she took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on keeping her calm and not taking the bait. He was tired, he was cranky, and he wasn’t going to talk to her. Fine, she thought. Fine. I have a secret weapon and maybe you’ll talk to him instead.
When they arrived home twenty minutes later, Alex stormed off to his room. Holly learned that parenting a child in the latter part of the decade didn’t mean contending with stormy music blasted from rooms. No, everything this generation did was cloaked in secrecy. He was no doubt listening to music in his giant two-hundred dollar headphones his grandmother purchased him, texting his friends, updating his social networking sites—most of them she didn’t even understand anymore—and despite all her attempts to follow and snoop…he’d managed to get a lot through her.
She thought of going up and confiscating his phone and his computer, but she was exhausted from trying to interact with her child on a basic level. She doubted she was capable of enforcing any type of reasonable parenting discipline in that moment. The thought crossed her mind to send in Gloria instead, but she knew Gloria would kick her ass if she said she couldn’t reasonably talk to her own son.
Timidity wasn’t usually her type.
Maeve had returned. Gloria, too. They brought Kristy, the third member of the Love is Murder Social Club, and catered tacos from a taco cart down the street off 82nd. Gloria got everyone tacos from the vendor—guaranteeing their deliciousness—and provided her own homemade salsa and ceviche. Kristy provided a dozen donuts and a quick squeal.
“They told me the guidance counselor is hot,” she said piling ceviche on to a tostada and covering it with Tajin. She held her hand in a high-five, but Holly playfully slapped it away.
“He’s on his way,” she said with a flippant grin as she took a taco and took a bite before saying anything more. Then she pulled out her phone and fired off a text, banking on the small foot touches and his eagerness last night that he wouldn’t be long to respond.
Holly: We’re home. Come over?
She’d hit send before she realized she had wasted an opportunity to send him a poem in return. He wrote back before she could even pretend he’d replied.
Joel: On my way. Be there in five.
Chapter Six
Joel didn’t tell her that he stayed longer at school waiting for the text. There was no reason to drive home, thank you rental car, and back. So, he sat in his office. Sitting in the office was perfect because the day had been total shit.
News of Claire’s death made its way through the school through social media channels. He realized quickly that only he and the principal had been privy to the match of name to the body found in the park not too far between the school and Holly’s house. By three-thirty, however, as the buses were leaving, the news began to trickle.
He’d been lucky enough to lock himself in his office and ignore the pressing calls from the press—who was she? What kind of student was she? Who did she hang around with? What did her teachers say about her? All the things he wouldn’t answer; all the things he’d wished they’d stop asking.
As he answered the call to Holly’s, her address already plugged into his phone, he wondered if he’d be easily traceable there by the press, who were now hungry to know about the dead girl and the threats about her life. But he thought it would be easy to explain—he was the child’s counselor.
He started his driving directions and revved the engine.
“Alright car,” he said to no one in particular. “Here we go.”
“Up the stairs and fourth door on the right,” Maeve directed and snapped her fingers. Holly hushed her.
Joel nodded.
When he’d arrived at Holly’s door, the same women as the night before, plus one, greeted him. The new one was petite and blonde and she stared at him with squinty eyes as if she was always perpetually confused.
Holly didn’t mess around or flirt or take an hour to reminisce about high school like he’d imagined, instead she was down to business, withdrawn, and eager to get it over with.
“I’m not going to get anything out of him,” she swallowed, her arms crossed over her body in a two-times too big sweatshirt. She’d clearly stripped down from court in a hurry. Her hair was still done and her makeup flawless.
“That’s why I’m here. I’ll let him talk if he needs to. Maybe it’ll take time,” Joel encouraged. It was true, but he also wished he could swoop in and fix whatever needed the most fixing. He started to climb the stairs, and he could hear Holly’s whispers at his back and he wondered what the women would talk about in his absence. He’d thought about time with her all day and now the entire scene felt ridiculous—he needed to learn boundaries when beautiful women asked him to do something. Although, he wasn’t sure he would’ve been given a chance to decline.
At the top of the stairs, he counted: one, two, three, and four. Joel knocked and then pushed the door open a touch, revealing Alex on his bed, laying on his back, earbuds tucked into his ears, his eyes closed. Joel took a chair from his desk and moved it closer to the edge of the twin comforter stuck inside a racecar bed. It was a bit childish and Alex had clearly outgrown it. Joel waited until Alex rolled his head to the side and tugged a headphone cord free from his ear.
“You doing house calls now, I hear,” Alex said. “I already told my mom that I’m not talking to you either.”
“She told you I rear-ended her in a parking lot yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
Joel paused.
“Claire died yesterday, Alex,” Joel said. It felt strange to sit in the young’s man’s room and engage him—he’d only met the kid a few times before; a quick scheduling meeting, a detention related to a tardy, and then the note.
“I heard,” Alex replied without looking at him. “I didn’t do it. I don’t know if you heard, but I was locked up.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you if you did. I know you didn’t.”
“My mom thinks I had something to do with it,” Alex spat the remark, disgusted. He sat up and looked at Joel, his eyes full of quick anger. He thought he saw the young boy’s lip quiver—and he realized that this was not a hardened criminal willing to shoot a young girl in the head. He was a child, boyish and confused. The brooding anger melted into something soft and simple; something fragmented and concerned.
“In the note,” Joel started, keeping his eyes on Alex, watching him for signs of agitation or uneasiness, “you are careful not to talk about what you and Claire were fighting about. But was something happening? Something that could have led to her death?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Alex said quickly. The child had emotion stored and locked in every pore—defiance, hurt, fear. “It’s done.”
“Alex—” Joel urged. “The police will probably come and talk to you more…”
“I didn’t do anything! I was trying to help! And I can’t help anymore,” Alex said and he punched the pillow beside him, nostrils flaring, eyes glued on Joel. “They are going to expel me and ruin my life because I was angry? Okay, so I was angry,” he was close to tears, “but I didn’t hurt her. I never wanted anyone to get hurt…” he trailed off.
It was clear there was so much more to the story, but Joel also knew he wasn’t going to be the one to get it from him. Alex didn’t know him—didn’t have a relationship with him—and didn’t care to start. There was something impenetrable about a teenage boy who’d already walled himself off from the world and decided he had to go alone. Joel could employ all his school-learned tactics, but ultimately Alex would have to want to tell someone.
By that time, the story may have found a way without him.
He thought of Holly downstairs; he thought of her hair and the way it dropped down to her shoulders, full and bright. The kid had red hair, too. Dark red.
It was a bad idea to dream of hooking up with one of his student’s parents. Although, he thought he could be given a pass since they knew each other
from a different life, a different decade.
“I believe you,” Joel said.
To Alex, the vote of confidence felt like a gift, Joel could tell by the pause and the way he looked down at the bed, shrugging and attempting a smile.
“Thanks,” the kid mumbled.
“I need to ask you,” Joel said carefully, “about keeping secrets…”
“I’m no rat,” Alex shrugged.
When the kid’s eyes flashed, he looked like his mom, too, all stubborn pride and back-the-fuck-away from me. Sometimes families had secrets down to an art form and maybe the Gamarras were no exception.
“I think that’s one of life’s best misconceptions,” Joel tried. “That being honest about the help you and others need is ratting people out.”
“You don’t understand,” Alex said and he tried to retreat to his bed and his pillow, turning away from Joel.
“I don’t have enough details to understand,” Joel said, not disagreeing. He couldn’t understand, but he knew teenagers often thought not having enough facts to understand was synonymous with not having the emotional capacity to understand. That was rarely the case.
“Are you in trouble, Alex?”
“I have a lawyer, thanks,” he said.
“I’m also like a lawyer. What you tell me is confidential…”
“That’s not true,” Alex spat with more anger than Joel was expecting. Ah, he thought, here’s something. “If you think I’m in danger or doing something illegal, you have to tell. It’s the opposite of my lawyer.”
“I think your lawyer has a moral obligation to help you if you’re in danger, too,” Joel said, wondering what on earth the child had done to develop such a dark and cynical view of the world.
Dispatched Confessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 2) Page 7