by Claire Booth
‘What?’
‘I invited him over. For dessert and to help with your Instagram.’
Hank folded his arms across his chest. ‘I got what you were saying, OK? You don’t have to … Look, I can’t very well have a heart-to-heart with him. That’s not how guys work. Or cops. Especially not guy cops.’
He stared at her in exasperation as she calmly added seasoning to the ground beef.
‘I don’t expect you to. I know how your emotionally stunted profession works.’ She handed him a package of taco shells. ‘I just told him that you needed help with social media. I’m not going to spend my rare evening off listening to you swear at the computer because you can’t figure out anything and then start grousing about how old you’re getting.’
He wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her ear. ‘It’s like you don’t even know me at all.’
There was a crunch. Maggie burst out laughing. Hank was about to swear when he saw Maribel come in with Aunt Fin.
‘I think you broke the taco shells, Daddy.’
She had her little soccer shin guards in her hands and dirt on her knees. Her grandfather followed them holding the dog’s leash. He unhooked Guapo, who immediately went for his water bowl. Dunc collapsed in a chair and fanned himself with his ridiculously big straw sun hat.
‘I’m rethinking the idea that I’ll walk him around the park while Maribel practices,’ he said.
‘Please don’t tell me he destroyed something,’ Hank said.
‘No, he actually didn’t,’ Dunc said. ‘But he did pay more attention to several lady dogs than was appropriate.’
Fin took off her own sun hat, brushed off her khaki skirt, and sniffed. ‘Next time, I’ll be the one walking him. You let him wander all over creation. The owner walks the dog, not the other way around.’
All four adults looked down at the sausage-shaped dog, who sat there with water dripping off his muzzle and his one up ear cocked eagerly. The other ear, as usual, flopped down at the side of his too-small head.
Dunc glared at his sister. She ignored him and placed her hand gently on Maribel’s head.
‘Let’s get you washed for supper, sweetness. We’ll get those knees cleaned up, too.’
They headed for the bathroom, Fin’s sturdy orthotic walking shoes squeaking on the linoleum.
‘Hasn’t anybody told her we don’t wear shoes in the house?’ Hank hissed as soon as they were out of the kitchen. ‘And “next time”? What does that mean? How long is she staying?’
‘I don’t know,’ Maggie whispered with a helpless shrug. ‘I’ve tried talking to her about Lew, but she just won’t engage. She’ll talk about anything else, but not him.’
Hank looked at Dunc, who gave him the same shrug-off.
‘I don’t know, either,’ he said. ‘We talked a little on our walk just now, and she said she hasn’t even spoken to him since she’s been down here.’
‘What?’ Maggie said. ‘Really?’
‘And she hasn’t talked to him about the affair, either,’ Dunc added.
‘Wait a second,’ Hank said. ‘Is this a proven thing – the affair? Or is this just Fin’s suspicion?’
The other two both paused. Dunc rubbed his chin and sat back in the chair. ‘I … I don’t know. She’s talked like it’s a sure thing. She said she caught him with a woman.’
‘Like, in the act?’ Hank said.
Dunc gaped at him. ‘You think I’m going to ask my sister if she saw that? Are you completely nuts?’
‘Dad, don’t,’ Maggie said. ‘That’s the way Hank thinks, you know that.’
‘About sex?’
‘No,’ Hank said – loudly. ‘About eyewitnesses. And proof.’ He took a deep breath and went back to whispering. ‘What if she’s … mistaken? What if it’s a misunderstanding?’ If it was, it could be sorted out and then Aunt Fin could go the hell home and stop being a heaping helping of complication on his already enormous plate of problems. He barely stopped himself from saying so, mostly because Dunc started talking again.
‘I don’t want you interrogating my sister, you got it? She’s had a rough go of it, and we need to just give her some space and a place to heal.’
A rough go of it? You want to talk about rough? Try six dead kids, Hank thought. The vise constricting his chest for the last three days turned inside out and started to expand. For a moment, he felt sure he was going to explode all over the kitchen. Maggie stepped quickly to his side and grabbed his arm.
‘This is not the right time for this,’ she whispered. ‘She is right down the hall. We will discuss it later.’
Hank and Dunc each started to speak. Maggie held up a hand in a ‘stop’ gesture so definitive, both mouths shut immediately. She took the box of broken taco shells out of Hank’s hands and told him to set the table. Then she ordered her father to go wash his hands. He meekly headed to the sink as Maribel walked back into the kitchen, followed by Fin and Benny.
Maggie worked at the stove for a minute more and then served up ‘special taco shovels’ and showed the kids how to use their broken shells to scoop the fixings onto the bigger cracked pieces and eat the meal that way. They loved it. And he loved her. Lord, did he.
He’d just finished the dishes when the doorbell rang. Both kids and the dog stampeded toward the front foyer. Maribel had the deadbolt unlocked and the door open before Hank got there. With no adult to stop him, Guapo leapt. Sam barely managed to stay on his feet for the waggy, licky greeting. Hank hauled the devil dog away by his collar and apologized.
‘That’s all right,’ Sam laughed.
Hank shooed all three family members away and led Sam into the living room. Maggie appeared with two bowls of ice cream, a hug for Sam, and a kiss for Hank. Then she disappeared down the hall for the kids’ bedtime routine. Sam, who’d turned bright red at Maggie’s hug, slowly returned to normal coloring as he looked around the room. His gaze landed on Hank’s laptop on the coffee table, open to the Instagram website. The Pup wiped his hand across his face. Hank suspected he was trying to hide a smile.
‘You don’t have to sugarcoat anything,’ he told his deputy. ‘I know I’m not any good at this stuff. So go ahead and laugh at me. Really.’
Sam grinned and pulled out his smartphone.
‘You do it on this. I wouldn’t even know how to do it on a laptop. The whole point is that you take photos. You know, with your phone. Then you post them by using the app.’
‘Oh.’ He closed his laptop and retrieved his phone from the kitchen. Sam was already busy typing away. He sat down on the couch and downloaded the app, feeling like a very slow dinosaur. Maybe a stegosaurus. They had little brains. As the little circle moved incrementally toward finishing, Sam looked up.
‘Maybe you should just write down the stuff I find?’
Hank thought that was a great idea. He grabbed his notebook and tried to keep up.
Alex Danzig’s account was public, Sam said, so they could see everything the high school senior had posted. Lots of band photos and a bunch of Star Wars-related stuff. Some photos of him and his dad working on the old Chevy Camaro. No photos had been posted the night of the crash.
‘That makes sense, if he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to,’ Sam said. Hank hoped one of the other kids hadn’t been quite so restrained.
It wasn’t either of the other two boys. Isaiah Barton didn’t seem to post many pictures of his own at all, instead just liking what others had posted. And Gabe Schattgen didn’t appear to have an account at all. Hank wasn’t surprised, considering the poor kid’s belligerent father.
Sam started pecking away on a search for Johnny Gall when Aunt Fin wandered out from the kitchen with a steaming mug in her hands.
‘Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.’
Hank suppressed a snort of laughter. His company didn’t realize there was company. Ha. He introduced Sam. The Pup, good boy that he was, stood immediately and politely shook her hand.
‘I was j
ust making a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt. You’re working on police things?’
‘Just a little research,’ Hank said.
‘Oh. Well, I’ll leave you to it.’ She stayed where she was for a minute, hands wrapped around her mug, then plodded down the hall. Still wearing her sensible shoes. Relieved, Hank turned back to his notes. Sam sat back down and finished the last bit of his melting ice cream.
‘I didn’t know you had company.’
‘It was … unexpected,’ Hank said. He must have had some kind of look on his face, because Sam went from starting to say something to quickly picking his phone back up.
Johnny Gall had no account, and he didn’t show up in photos posted on any of the boys’ accounts, which surprised neither of them. So Sam moved on to the girls. He was silent for a bit, and then said he couldn’t find one for Hailee Fitch. ‘I think she’s got one though, probably with a really obscure username. Just so she could see if anybody else posted stuff about her. It’s a way to keep an eye out for if you’re getting bullied online. Which she might have been, from what it seems like people thought about her.’
Hank’s heart started to hurt again. He could barely stand to think about how miserable her life must have been, and how happy she must have been that night, to be going out with people she thought were friends. He dropped his head in his hands.
‘Uh … you OK, Chief?’
He sat for a moment and then forced himself to look up. Because here was someone who was miserable, too, for different reasons. Sam’d been by Ted Pimental’s side when Ted was shot by a fleeing suspect. Ted almost died and still hadn’t recovered enough to come back to work. Sam blamed himself. Which was completely wrong. It had been Hank’s fault. He was the one who let them both chase after the suspect in the first place. But he pushed that aside and turned toward Sam.
‘I am … OK, I mean. And I want for you to be, too. You’re a good cop, and I hope you know that you’re appreciated. And –’ he pointed at Sam’s phone – ‘also damn near indispensable. I’d still be trying to log in.’
He grinned at his deputy, hoping to mitigate the touchy-feeliness of the moment. It worked. Sam grinned back, then logged out of his Instagram account and back in as Kayla Anderson. Her parents had given him their daughter’s password and username. Since her account was set to private – and she certainly wasn’t accepting follower requests anymore – that was the only way to see what she shared with the few people for whom she’d approved access.
Sam explained this with more patience than Hank probably deserved. He moved so he could look over Sam’s shoulder, and they scrolled through the sixteen-year-old’s social life. Most pictures were of either Lauren Blenkinship or the BVHS marching band goofing off prior to performances. There were a few far-off shots of football players that Hank assumed were good-looking under their helmets. He made a note to find out what number Matt Chorovich wore.
‘Wait … stop. Go back.’ Sam obediently scrolled in reverse until Hank pointed. ‘There, in the background. Can you zoom in?’
Sam snapped a screen shot and from there, swiped to enlarge the photo on two figures standing behind Kayla and Lauren as they took a selfie at the edge of the school parking lot. Then he turned to look at his boss with a slowly spreading smile on his face.
‘I think that’s finally confirmation, don’t you?’ he said. Hank nodded and looked back at the picture, where Johnny Gall and Patrick O’Connell were leaning insouciantly against the fender of a black sports car.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Hank didn’t recognize the number. And it was six in the morning. He’d have to be up soon anyway, but was in no mood to field strange phone calls at this time of day. He had, once again, not slept. He stabbed at the button.
Seven minutes later he was out the door, the loud mutterings of Duncan trailing after him. Jenny Danzig had come home.
He pulled up to her dilapidated house, blocking the GMC pickup that was in the dirt parking space. He ran his hands through his bed hair on his way to the door and rubbed the crust out of his eyes. He shouldn’t have worried. He still looked better than the woman who answered the door.
‘Who the hell are you? Get off my property. I got a gun. So scram, asshole.’
‘So do I, ma’am. And this.’ He showed his badge and what he hoped was an intolerant glower. Then he ‘asked’ her to step outside. She yanked a dangling tank-top strap back onto her shoulder and her dollar-store flip-flops slapped the concrete as she descended the two front steps. He was pretty sure she had some kind of shorts on, but he didn’t want to lower his gaze enough to confirm it.
Yes, she was Jenny – Jennifer – Danzig, and yes, there was someone else in the house. He was a gentleman friend, and he was asleep. Very asleep.
‘He’s not going to come bustin’ out here with a gun. Don’t worry. It’s probably going to take him most of the day to sleep it off.’
They’d been with friends in Springfield since Saturday. And she wasn’t going to give up their names until he told her what the hell was going on. Hank had no intention of doing that until he’d gotten more information out of her. He asked her about the sedan.
‘Yeah, it’s mine. What, did it get stolen? That kid.’
Hank made an encouraging noise. ‘Kid?’
‘My son. Alex. He borrowed it. He said it was an emergency.’ She shrugged. ‘So I left him the key under the flowerpot.’
That was about seven thirty Saturday night, she estimated. She’d been on her way out, so she hadn’t seen him pick it up. She’d assumed he still had it. ‘Until your ass showed up.’
‘You didn’t ask for any more explanation than that?’ Hank said.
She rolled her bleary eyes. ‘He’s a senior in high school on a Saturday night. He’s got a social life. What more “explanation” do I need?’ She jabbed air quotes at him. ‘Though now I’m gonna have a problem with him. How’d he let it get stolen?’
Hank sidestepped. ‘Is your son dating anyone? Is that why he needed the car? Who does he hang out with?’
Jenny tugged up on her tank top and down on her shorts. ‘I don’t know. He … we … aren’t all that close. He lives with his dad.’
She last saw him around Christmas. Hank tried to keep his face impassive. This woman lived a few measly miles away from her son and hadn’t bothered to see him in almost ten months. Although, it could very well be that Alex hadn’t wanted to see her. That, he could understand.
‘Do I need to fill out a police report or somethin’?’
He thought he’d do Ginny Danzig a solid before he answered that.
‘I’m a little curious why your car is registered to your ex-husband’s address. Care to explain that?’
She pushed limp hair out of her face. ‘Eh. The rates were lower. I, uh … might have not mentioned to the insurance guy that I was divorced. And I move around a lot. Always on the go, ya know?’
He scolded her and she promised – he was tempted to use air quotes on that – that she would fix any paperwork she had with the wrong address.
‘Do you have any problems with the car? Mechanical, anything like that? Where do you get it serviced?’
‘What the hell does that have to do with anything? It’s a shitty little four-door. It leaks some oil and the brakes squeak. I take it to Speedy Lube out near the old high school. And … wait. You wouldn’t be asking me that stuff for it being stolen. What happened? Was there an accident?’
His chest vise started to tighten. ‘Ms Danzig, I need to tell you about Saturday night. There was an accident. Alex was driving. And he and his passengers were killed.’
She hit him. Just hauled off and swung straight at him, walloping his upper arm and then shoving him smack in the chest with both hands. They stared at each other with the same surprised look on their faces. Then she started to sink toward the concrete. He grabbed her around the waist and helped her inside. He wished Nina DeRosia were here to run for a glass of water.
Sh
e collapsed on the couch and closed her eyes. Two seconds later they snapped back open.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that first, you son of a bitch,’ she yelled. ‘You come here and ask me stupid-ass questions for ten minutes and don’t even mention my son is dead. What kind of fucking monster are you?’
He’d been asking himself that question for the past three days. Since he had no answer, he quietly went in the back, roused the gentleman friend, and left him to tend to the hysterical woman on the couch.
Kurt Gatz was no help.
‘I got no clue, man,’ he told Sam. ‘I can tell you what blood type is on it. But whether it’s legit? Nope.’
He left Sam sitting alone in front of the halo of light on the table in the sheriff’s office crime lab in Forsyth. Staring at the bloody, mangled driver’s license of one John Gall, age seventeen, issued by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He picked it up with his gloved hands and poked at it a bit. He just had no idea if it was a fake. The kid’s birth certificate was a forgery, so it stood to reason the DL was, too. But he needed confirmation. Which meant he’d have to spend the entire day on the phone trying to find an expert who would be able to tell. Which was about the last thing he wanted to be doing. Seriously.
He’d done such a ‘great job’ on the fake birth certificate, that BPD detective had assigned him to all ID documents related to the case. He did not consider this a reward. He sat back and tapped his fingers on the work surface. They made a muted sound through the latex gloves. He wasn’t going to accomplish anything in this closet of a crime lab. There were no windows and it smelled kind of chemically. He sealed the license back in the clear evidence bag and took it to Sheila’s office. She was out and he’d be able to use her desk.
He settled in, carefully moving aside the photo of her smiling little nieces and firing up her desktop. He laid the DL flat and then placed the birth certificate for Evelyn Cluth, Jr next to it. This was all he had. It would sure help to also have Junior/O’Connell’s license, but his wallet was still missing. They weren’t even sure what name was on the darn thing. Sam’d run both Cluth and O’Connell through the appropriate Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee databases and come up empty. He dreaded having to contact all the other states one at a time, to see if they’d issued identification to either name. If only the guy had a criminal record. That was a quick nationwide search if you had a fingerprint, which they definitely had, seeing as O’Connell or whatever-his-name-was was currently lying in the morgue.