Wayward

by Gregory Ashe

  “They’re insecure,” Daniel said, as though he hadn’t really heard Hazard. “And they haven’t really figured themselves out yet. They’re desperate for people to like them, but they’re also desperate to be ‘cool.’” He drew the quotes in the air with his free hand. “They’re insanely loyal friends, most of them, once you win them over.”

  He stopped, his strong features closing off, and he fiddled with the barbeque turner again.

  “Let me guess,” Hazard said. “Josh is still fifteen.”

  “Pretty much. He did a semester at Mizzou—we were roommates, actually—and then he came back here. He’s gotten a dozen jobs, some of them pretty bad, some of them pretty good. He tanks at every one of them. His parents talk bad about him every chance they get, what a disappointment, on and on, but they’re the ones who made him that way. Honest to God, I don’t think they want him to leave. So, yeah, the parents are driving the custody thing.”

  “But you think Dolly is better off with them than with the Vegas?”

  “Josh’s parents, they messed up with him, right? They were gone all the time, they let him do whatever he wanted, and he turned out bad. I don’t think they’ll do any better with Dolly. But Josh could do better with Dolly. And I said it’s better for her because, let’s be honest for a minute. How’s that girl going to move forward in life? Growing up here—” He sliced the turner through the air, taking in the trailer park. “—with grandparents who love her but who can’t give her what she needs, can’t even speak English. Or growing up with a dad who’s not a bad guy, who might even pull his act together, and with grandparents who can pay for preschool, private school, college. And don’t talk to me about scholarships, man. I worked my buns off in high school. I got decent grades. I’m brown, so I got some of those scholarships too. But I still came back from Mizzou with debt, and look where I am: fifty yards from where I started. I’m not mad about it, but if I could choose something for that little girl? Yeah, I’d choose something different.” He drained his beer and set it down with a clunk.

  Hazard let a few moments string together, and then he shook his beer bottle at Daniel. “Want me to grab us a couple more?”

  Daniel considered the question and then nodded. “Yeah. Kitchen’s to the right.” As Hazard moved toward the trailer, he added, “You take too long, and then I’ll know you were poking around.”

  “Busted,” Hazard said, still moving toward the trailer.

  Inside, he glanced left, saw a hallway with white resin paneling and three doorways: two bedrooms and a bathroom, he guessed, but he didn’t check. Things had gone well with Daniel so far, and Hazard didn’t want to rock the boat. He went right, passing a large living room with chunky leather furniture and a massive TV; standard bachelor pad material, complete with a foosball table and, above the television, a stag’s head. He paused to glance at the mail on the coffee table—he would have liked to swipe a credit card bill, but Hazard didn’t think he was at that stage yet—and the only thing he noticed that seemed out of the ordinary was four issues of People and three of the National Enquirer. The mailing label on each was for Courtney Vega.

  In the kitchen, everything was neat and clean, with no clutter on the countertop for prying eyes. Hazard snagged the beers, opened them, and headed back outside.

  Daniel was checking the plants, stripping dead leaves from one, and he glanced up at the sound of Hazard’s steps. “Find anything? Secret love letters from Donna May? Her checkbook? Head in the freezer?”

  Passing him the beer, Hazard just tipped the neck of his bottle in a kind of salute. “Can I ask you a few questions, and then I’ll get out of your hair?”

  “I don’t know where she is. I haven’t talked to her since she left.”

  “Ok. Did she give any clue as to where she might be going? Anywhere she’d been talking about lately? Any new friends she mentioned? New interests?”

  “Nothing new, no. I really thought this was it. She came back, talking about how she was going to kill all the cops, how she was a soldier in an unseen war, blah blah blah. I asked her if she was going to kill me. That kind of got her, but she kept going. She got picked up at the tree lighting because she made an ass of herself, and then she got picked up again after she stole Moe Howitz’s tow truck and took out all those mailboxes. She was out of her mind. High on meth. When she sobered up and the police didn’t think she was involved in that murder, the one with the cop, her parents took Dolly to see her. I guess that kind of shocked some sense into her.”

  “What happened?”

  “When she got out on parole a week or two later, she straightened up her act. She was going to therapy. She was doing NA. Seemed religious about it, you know? And she and Josh seemed better than usual too. He was talking to me about picking up shifts at the Tegula plant, assembly line stuff, just so he and Donna May could get an apartment together. With Dolly. Donna May wasn’t always good for Josh, you know? Didn’t treat him very well. I said a lot of bad stuff about her over the years. But this time, she was bringing out this great side of him that I knew was there.”

  “And then she left.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  Daniel slid a hand under the Metallica tee, scratching his belly, frowning. “I just don’t want this all getting blown out of proportion.”

  “You know how that sounds?”

  “Yeah, I know. It sounds really bad. Ok, so, there was this fight.”

  Now, Hazard knew, was the time in an interview when the rookies got sifted out. He could have jumped in; he could have prompted. Instead, he let Daniel’s emotions draw out in the silence, tangling until Daniel talked some more.

  “Josh was furious, ok? And he had a right to be.”

  Hazard leaned against the rail and studied Daniel. This wasn’t what Courtney had told him.

  “Donna May and I had hooked up a few times over the years.” Daniel’s head came up, his brow furrowed. “I’m not proud of it, but she was wild when she was on stuff. She’d do all sorts of stuff—look, I feel like a terrible human being saying this. Anyway, we hooked up again. She showed up at my door, trashed, and told me she and Josh were over.”

  “Drugs?”

  “What? No, just beer that time. Anyway, I’d heard that song before, but I was, I don’t know, kind of feeling it, I guess. So we hooked up. And the next day Josh calls me, asking me if I want to go to breakfast with him and Donna May, and she’s in bed next to me. Somehow, I got through that phone call, and then I woke her up. She confessed right away: it was a total lie, she and Josh were still together, she just wanted to mess around. Ok, I felt twice as bad, but we agreed to keep it a secret.”

  “Who talked?”

  “Courtney. She showed up that morning and caught us. She ran—she literally ran, in these stupid fuzzy pink slippers she was wearing—and got in her car and drove away.”

  “To tell Josh.”

  “That’s what I thought. Then I realized she could have called. No, she went out there to sleep with him. She told him everything, and they hooked up right there. Revenge sex.”

  “I get how that punishes Donna May; now Josh has had a fling too. But how is that revenge on you?”

  “Courtney and I aren’t a thing, exactly, but we hook up now and then.” Daniel laughed, scrubbing his hand over the bristles at the back of his head. “I sound like a douche, I know, but I’m young, I don’t want to settle down, and Courtney knows we’re just, you know, friends.”

  Hazard wanted to point out the magazines. He wanted to ask if she left stuff in the bathroom, if she had a drawer in the dresser. He didn’t know if Daniel was pretending or not, but either Daniel was very stupid, or he was willing to lie to himself to get easy sex.

  “That’s messed up,” was all Hazard said.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know what Courtney had done at the time.”

  “Is that why everybody looks like best friends here?” He displayed the photograph of Donn
a May’s last night in Wahredua.

  “Yeah. And then it came out.”

  “How?”

  “Josh’s therapist.” Daniel pointed at Melissa. “She was handsy with Josh. Really handsy. And Donna May got mad and said something about it, and Josh got mad and said something about Donna May and me, and then the shit just exploded.”

  So, Hazard thought, Courtney had been telling the truth. In part. A very edited-down version of it, anyway.

  “Did Donna May say anything about leaving town? Even if it just sounded like an angry outburst, anything like ‘I’m out of here.’ Anything?”

  Daniel shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I mean, Josh and I were swinging at each other pretty hard. We’d had too much to drink, and, I don’t know. You know how you can love somebody, like, I love the guy, but somehow that means I hate him too. It all just came boiling up.” Daniel scrubbed his buzzed hair again and said, “I’m not saying this to point fingers; I know I made a lot of bad decisions. But you’re going to hear it anyway, I’d rather have you hear it from me: Josh . . . he got physical with Donna May. Slapped her a few times before pushing her into a table. These people were eating there, and Donna May went flat on top of their food and drinks. That’s what got me going. I went for Josh, and then—I kind of lost track of Donna May and Courtney.” Daniel hurried to add, “Josh isn’t a bad guy. I don’t think he’d ever laid a hand on Donna May before. But that night, all the ugly stuff came out, and he kind of lost it.”

  Another detail that Courtney had omitted; Hazard tried to focus on that fact, tried to explore the possible reasons she might have kept this side of the story to herself. But underneath all of it, like the drone of a huge engine whiting out everything else: I love the guy, but somehow that means I hate him too.

  The Baba Black suddenly was too thick, too bitter, and Hazard set it down, only half drunk. “Anything else you think I should know?”

  “I guess I think that’s why Donna May left. If things hadn’t gotten so bad that night, I mean, with the fight, I think she and Josh would have patched things up. Once he shoved her, though, I think that was the end of it.”

  “Slapped her.”

  “What?”

  “You said he slapped her a few times.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “What about you?”

  “What?” Daniel said again.

  “What were you going to do if Donna May stayed?”

  It took a moment before surprise moved through Daniel’s face. “Like, with Donna May? Nothing. We were just friends. I knew we couldn’t keep hooking up; I told her it was over.”

  Neither man said anything until Daniel’s phone beeped, the sound of a timer, and he flinched and slapped at his pocket. “Sorry about that,” he said, trying for a smile as he pulled out the phone. “Look, I stand by what I told you at the beginning: that little girl is better off with Josh’s family, and Donna May is probably happier wherever she went. Josh and I both screwed up big-time, and she deserves better than that.”

  Hazard took a second look at the deputy, considering the rugged features, the muscled frame, the smile and the laughs and the friendliness. He didn’t think Daniel had any trouble getting somebody to share his bed, and he wanted to know something simple: why Donna May? But he shuffled the question back into the deck and nodded. He had a different wild card today.

  “And you’re ok with Josh and Melissa dating?”

  This time, Daniel’s surprise was staged. The deputy fumbled the barbeque turner, and it clattered on the deck before he stooped to pick it up. He grinned with embarrassment and shrugged, waving the turner like it was the prize on a game show. And then, when he was at the peak of the performance, he said, “Josh and Melissa, man? No way.”

  “What was your timer for?”

  Daniel shot a glance at the grill, where smoke billowed out from under the hood, and then back at Hazard. “Seriously, no way.” He took a step toward the grill. “She’s his therapist.”

  “You need to wash that.”

  “Huh?”

  “You dropped the turner. You need to wash it.”

  “Right, right. But you shouldn’t go around saying stuff like that, ok? That’s her job. You could really mess stuff up for her.”

  “You said she got handsy with Josh. Handsy enough to make Donna May angry. Kind of like the spark to the fuse that night.”

  “Yeah, but I just meant, you know, touching his arm, rubbing his shoulders.” Daniel laughed off-key. “You’ve got some kind of imagination.”

  “Sure,” Hazard said. “That’s what I’m known for: my flights of fancy.”

  “But seriously, maybe just don’t say something like that. She’s really great for Josh. Really great. She’s helped him make a ton of progress.”

  “What kind of progress?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just what he says. Oh, you know, he was finally ready to move out of his parents’ and set up with Donna May in an apartment. That kind of stuff.”

  “That’s what we’re sticking with?” Hazard said. “She’s just his therapist?”

  “That’s the truth. I can’t tell you anything else.”

  Hazard opened his mouth to press the question, but a second alarm rang. Daniel flinched again, but then he cocked his head.

  “Is that the baby shark song?”

  “Yes,” Hazard said, taking out his phone and dismissing the notification. He took his time putting the phone away, and then he met Daniel’s gaze and held it until Daniel grinned and dropped his eyes.

  “Cool.”

  Hazard grunted and produced a business card, which he passed to Daniel. “Thanks for the beer. And for your time. If you think of anything else, or if you hear anything about where Donna May might have gone, please give me a call.”

  “Definitely.” Daniel followed him, and it wasn’t until Hazard was clear of the deck and halfway to the sidewalk that he fired the closing salvo. “If this really is a missing person’s case, they should probably take it to the Sheriff’s Department. Or the police, I guess. Don’t you think?”

  Hazard gave Daniel a look over his shoulder; the deputy had come right up to the edge of the deck, leaning on the railing, feeling bold now that he was safe.

  “Have a good day, Mr. Minor.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MARCH 27

  WEDNESDAY

  3:39 PM

  SOMERS HAD SPENT TWO HOURS in their home office researching Bob Sackeman. Up until now, he had stayed clear of the police databases. In the past, Somers had used his position as a police officer to bail his father out of a series of minor indiscretions, mostly involving traffic violations. He’d never liked doing it, but he’d told himself that he wasn’t the only one in the department who pulled strings. And, of course, that had been before Hazard had come into his life. Then Somers’s father had been shot, and during the long months of recovery, that kind of bad behavior had vanished.

  Leaning back in his seat, Somers scrubbed his face. Not vanished. Gone into remission. Like a cancer. And now Glennworth Somerset was back, determined to wring every possible concession out of his son while, at the same time, winning the election. Personal and professional coups. The thought made Somers feel an unusual urge to smash something. The desk maybe. Just drag it into the backyard and work it over with a sledgehammer until it was nothing but splinters. Channeling my inner Hazard, Somers thought, with a smile that hurt.

  His phone rang. When he answered it, his ex-wife said, “Can I ask a huge favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can Evie stay with you through the weekend? I know I was supposed to come by after dinner—”

  Whatever else she said was lost in the rush of blood in Somers’s ears. His daughter. He was supposed to pick up his daughter. He glanced at the clock on the wall, saw the time, and his pulse doubled. The chair got hung up on the carpet, and he banged his knee getting loose. He limped into the hall, hurrying down to the
ir bedroom because, of course, he’d stripped down to boxers and his undershirt. His daughter. His daughter had been sitting alone at the preschool for almost an hour. What did they make them do if the parents didn’t show up? He had a vision of Evie sitting forlornly on the curb, her The Bravest Knight lunchbox on her knees, alone and confused and crying. His rational brain insisted no adult would ever do that to a three-year-old, but his rational brain had been packed down into the darkest corner of his brain. He could only see that horrible image, could only focus on the fact that he had forgotten. Everything went all tingly, as though he’d just cracked a full-body funny bone.

  “John-Henry, are you even listening to me?”

  “Fashion show,” he muttered, grabbing jeans and a tee. “Gone until Monday. Yep, ok. I got her.”

  “Why did your mother call me, asking if she should pick up Evie?”

  “What? I don’t know. Listen, Cora, I’ve got to—”

  “Does it have something to do with what’s going on with you and Emery?”

  “No. I don’t even know—”

  “Oh no.” The sound of her voice changed, as though she were settling in. “I’ve been building up to do this for a long time. I guess we’re having this fight right now.”

  “Cora, I cannot do this right now.” Shoes, shoes. Where in God’s name were his shoes?

  “I know you and Emery have a complicated history. And I know this is none of my business. But you’re important to me. And believe it or not, Emery is important to me. And I will not stand by and watch you ruin the most important relationship in your life because you’re scared.”

  “Shit-munching hell,” Somers growled. “Where the hell are my shoes?”

  “Do you have any idea how much it upset Emery when you disappeared a couple of months ago? You said you were going out for work, and then you didn’t call, didn’t text, didn’t come home. You should have seen him. He was distraught, John-Henry, and he never gets distraught.”

  “I know. I messed up, Cora. You are the last person who should be surprised by that. We figured things out, though.” He spied a boat shoe under the bed, grabbed it, and shoved it on. Then he spied its mate across the room, behind the laundry hamper. He stomped into it and raced for the front door. “I’ve got to go.”