Wayward

by Gregory Ashe

  If the fact that Frank was a stranger, or that he wore an oxygen mask, or that he looked like he had one foot in the grave—if any of those things bothered Evie, she gave no sign of it. She just laughed and played and talked like she’d known Hazard’s dad her whole life.

  “Finally,” Somers said, joining him on the far side of the room.

  “I didn’t take that long.”

  “No, I mean: finally, I get to see the same surprise on your face that I felt the first night you watched Evie.”

  Hazard guessed that what he was feeling was surprise. But it was like calling a lightning bolt a light bulb: maybe some of the same elements were involved, to some extent, but the differences were so huge that they weren’t the same at all.

  The door opened, and Aileen Hazard came into the room carrying an armful of bags.

  “Mom,” Hazard said, taking the bags, “why didn’t you call? I would have gone down and helped you.”

  “Oh, bunny, you don’t have to worry about that. I managed just fine. Did you sleep?” The question was automatic; her gaze was already moving to Somers.

  “This is John,” Hazard began.

  “Shush, muffin. I know exactly who he is.” She bussed Somers’s cheek and then pulled him into a hug. “Hello, John-Henry. I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Hazard.”

  “That’s Aileen to you,” she said, busying herself with the bags Hazard was holding. She pulled out a foil-wrapped sandwich, and the fragrance of sausage and cheese floated up. “Oh, darn it. I forgot the coffees.”

  “I’ll go get them,” Somers said. “What does everyone take?”

  “Black all around,” Aileen said. “But you don’t need to do that.” She was already buttoning her jacket again. “I’ll just—”

  “No, I’d love to do it.”

  “I’ll go,” Hazard said. “I need to move around anyway.”

  “We’ll both go,” Somers said, touching his arm like he might take hold the way he sometimes did, only he let his hand fall to his side again after a moment. “If that’s ok?” Somers said, splitting his gaze between Hazard and his mother.

  Hazard understood the real question: would Evie be all right? He snorted and glanced back at the bed, where Frank was threatening to shave all the LOL dolls bald, and Evie was screaming with the exact right mixture of delighted horror.

  “What an absolute doll,” Aileen murmured, watching Evie. “You boys go get some coffee. I’ll be lucky if that little girl can spare a minute for me; every child I’ve ever known has taken to Frank like this. You’d think I’m chopped liver.”

  Somers practically had to drag Hazard from the room. They rode down the elevator in silence, and between floors three and two, Somers took Hazard’s hand and squeezed once. They walked out to the Mustang, and the spring day was already warmer than the one before, with the sun high and bright and dew clinging to everything, so that the whole world glinted; it was hell on his head. Somers let go of his hand long enough for them to get in the car, and then he took it again when they were seated. He started the car, shifted into reverse, and then planted his foot on the brake.

  “Is this ok?”

  “She’ll be fine. You saw her; she didn’t even care that we were leaving.”

  “No, I mean, coming here like this. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Yeah,” Hazard said, turning to look out the window. “It’s fine.”

  After a moment, Somers eased out of the parking stall, and they drove across town to a Starbucks. The drive-through line wrapped around the building, and so they waited, the Mustang idling. Hazard rolled down the window; a spring breeze ran through the car, warm and smelling like fresh-growing bluestem and wild grama.

  “I would have come last night,” Somers said. “But you were right: Evie was exhausted. You were right about a lot of things, actually. I’m really sorry for how I acted. It was totally out of line to ask you to go to my parents’. I haven’t treated you the way you deserve to be treated. I’m sorry about that too.”

  Hazard ran his thumb along the rubber window seals, gathering the night’s dew. “I’m sorry too.”

  The radio came on, and Somers fiddled with the tuner, dialing up and down the FM band and then switching over to AM. Then the sound cut off.

  “You’re more important to me than my family.”

  Hazard shook his head. “That wasn’t fair of me. I shouldn’t have drawn a line. And, for the record, I know I overreacted last night. I know what you were asking, an hour of time when I knew my dad was relatively stable, I know that wasn’t really asking too much. It was a big deal for your dad, and I messed it up. I’m sorry. I know you’ve been trying to mend fences with him, or . . . or whatever you’re trying to do.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m trying to do,” Somers said, blowing out a breath and laughing softly. “I mean, when I borrowed the money for Astraea, I had a long talk with my parents. Both of them. And then I had a second, longer talk with my dad. I told him he had made my first marriage really hard. He and my mother had never treated Cora well, and they never thawed. I told them that this time it was going to be different. And I said . . . I said I’d do whatever I could to make it different, if he’d just make a little effort too.”

  Questions clicked through Hazard’s head like slides in a carousel, but what he said was, “We weren’t engaged when you borrowed the money.”

  “Well, dum-dum, I had some big ideas.” Somers was smiling as he stared out the windshield; they inched forward in the Starbucks line. “You know what it’s like, your whole life, everybody telling you how great you are—everybody except your dad? I’m not throwing a pity party, Ree. I know you had it a lot worse. I’m just trying to tell you, he never, ever was satisfied. With anything I did. The tests. The touchdowns. The awards. The scholarships. Nothing. He couldn’t even be bothered to come to a game to watch me play. And so, of course, after a while, I started doing whatever I could to make him angry. I dated Cora. I wrecked his cars. I changed my major at Mizzou. I became a cop. I married Cora. I’m not saying that’s the whole reason, because I really did love her, but it was . . . it was part of this horrible way of living that I’d gotten into, and I didn’t know how to get out of it.”

  “And you did it with me,” Hazard said, his thumb stuttering along the rubber again.

  “No, actually. That’s one of the things I wanted to tell you. When I realized I was in love with you, it was like I could be someone else finally. I knew my parents would be pissed, sure. But it wasn’t about them. It was about me. Finally, I was doing something just because I wanted to do it, not because it was part of this action-reaction dynamic that had driven my whole life.”

  Wiping his thumb on his jeans, Hazard finally turned; Somers’s eyes were bright, his cheeks flushed. “I know what it’s like to have a dad who’s never impressed,” Hazard said. “I know what it’s like to get caught up in that kind of relationship. Kids are biologically programmed to want approval from their parents. Our brain chemistry, not to mention our social conditioning—I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I guess, at some point, for a lot of people, for me, it’s sink or swim. Either you drown in all that disapproval or you turn it into a weapon or a game or a joke.”

  “But you still want it,” Somers said. “Or, I do, at least. God, I’m a grown man, and I’m happy with who I am, I’m proud of myself, I’m proud of you, I know how lucky I am. And I still want his approval. I’m still so desperate for it. That’s pathetic, I know. And I’m sorry I let it get between us. It won’t happen again.”

  Hazard thought back to the night before: the way he had talked about the Keeper case, the slow kindling of excitement as he realized his dad was interested, his dad was curious, his dad wanted to hear him talk. The intoxicating sense that his dad approved of this tiny sliver of his life.

  “John, it’s not pathetic. It’s human. Jesus, watching my dad with Evie today. All
I could think was: did he ever play with me like that? I honestly don’t know. If he did, I don’t remember it.” Hazard cleared his throat. “And what happened this week, that was on both of us. We both agreed to it. I know I’m not good at expressing myself, but I was feeling . . . insecure, I guess. About our relationship. I still feel that way sometimes. Because I love you so much, and sometimes I think you’re going to wake up and realize this was just a phase and you’re ready to get back to the life you used to have. I’m not blind, John. I know people ignore you when we go out, guys who used to be your buddies. I saw Chris Olson walk away from you in the Savers when you tried to talk to him, ok? I know a little bit of what you gave up to be with me. And I don’t know how to make that better for you, or how to make this, what we have, be worth that price.”

  Somers let the Mustang rumble forward a few more inches. The smell of exhaust mixed with the spring day now, overlaid with the aroma of coffee.

  “Really?” Somers said, his eyes too wide now, overly innocent. “You felt insecure?”

  “Ok,” Hazard growled, dropping back against the seat.

  “It’s just, I never would have picked up on it.”

  “This is why I don’t like talking.”

  “You have these big, complicated emotions that I can never figure out.”

  “Let me clarify: this is why I don’t like talking to you.”

  “If only I could penetrate this inscrutable enigma.”

  “You don’t even know what inscrutable means,” Hazard grumbled, looking out the window. “And you did plenty of penetrating the other night, thanks. I’m lucky I can still sit down.”

  “I know what inscrutable means; I read it in a book.”

  “Probably a novel.”

  “Definitely a novel.”

  “Probably James fucking Joyce. Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand. Good Christ, did that asshole never think about getting his books spellchecked?”

  “Come here,” Somers said.

  Hazard growled and turned his whole body toward the window.

  “Come here,” Somers said, “I want to kiss you.”

  “No. Now I’m thinking about James Joyce, and I’m angry.”

  Laughing, Somers caught his t-shirt and tugged. They wrestled for a minute, Hazard stiff-arming him, Somers dragging on his tee, until finally Hazard let himself be hauled over the center console and kissed. Thoroughly.

  “I love you,” Somers said. “What we have, I’ve never had before in my whole life. I get to be me, the real me. I get to be with you. That’s worth any price.”

  Hazard whispered, “I love you too.”

  “Welcome to Starbucks,” blared a staticky voice, and Hazard jumped so high he hit his head. “What can I start you off with today?”

  They ordered coffees and drove back to the hospital. When they got up to 503, Frank was lying back on the mound of pillows, his eyes closed, his face the gray of over-washed linens. Aileen sat on the floor, playing dolls with Evie. She laid a finger over her mouth, pointed to the foil-wrapped breakfast sandwiches, and then went back to playing with Evie.

  Hazard tried to be quiet as he unwrapped the sandwich, but the foil-coated paper crinkled. And rustled. And crackled.

  “For the love of Christ,” Frank said without opening his eyes, “can’t a man die in peace without a bunch of mice rustle-rustle-rustling?”

  “Morning,” Hazard said, dropping into a seat.

  “Sorry, Mr. Hazard,” Somers said. “We’ll be quiet.”

  Quiet sounded perfect to Hazard, but, as usual, he didn’t get what he wanted. His dad opened his eyes—even that gesture seemed draining—and proceeded to grill Somers. At first Hazard intervened, even with Frank repeatedly telling him to stay out of it, and Somers patted his hand in an effort to soothe him. Finally, though, Somers looked at him and said, “Ree, sweetheart, I’ve got this.”

  At which point Hazard sat back, uttered an internal good fucking luck, and waited for the fireworks.

  The fireworks never came.

  Frank Hazard was relentless. He covered almost every topic under the sun. He wanted to talk about taxes, and Rudy Miller, the whiz, was recommended again; this time, Hazard didn’t point out that the Millers had moved to Florida. His dad asked about the police pension plan. He asked about their mortgage. He wanted to know about job security and union benefits. He probed into Somers’s finances, stuff even Hazard hadn’t known—an array of investments Somers’s parents and other relatives had made for him when he’d been a kid. He asked about student loan debt, repayment plans, and loan forgiveness for police officers. He gave a twenty-minute rambling tirade on property taxes and then wanted Somers to go down and check the oil on the Mustang—and he wanted to know where Somers got the work done.

  “The dealership?” he said, like Somers had confessed to letting Satan, the Dark Lord, perform the occasional lube job. “I taught Emery how to change the oil when he was twelve years old. He can show you. Going to the dealership, you’re just asking them to rip you off.”

  Somehow, Somers bore up under all of it, although his smile got a little stretched and saggy by the time Frank wore himself out and fell asleep again. He was in the middle of interrogating Somers on his family medical history, and he drifted off during a quiz about gallstones.

  Somers wiped sweat from his forehead.

  “Don’t worry,” Hazard said. “I’m going to have a talk with him when he wakes up. He’s never going to do that again. That was wildly inappropriate.”

  Somers kissed his cheek. “I’m going to remind you of that the first time a boy comes to pick up Evie for a date.”

  Hazard’s mother laughed quietly, and when Hazard shot her a glare, she laughed harder and finally had to excuse herself. He could hear her laughing in the bathroom.

  “This,” Hazard said, “is why families are overrated.”

  Somers just grinned and squeezed his hand.

  “Have you heard anything about the case?” Hazard asked.

  The smile on Somers’s face faded, and he nodded his head. “A little. Dr. Boyer is pretty sure the sweater you found is the murder weapon. She thinks it matches the ligature marks, although those weren’t very clear, so that’s a stretch. More importantly, she thinks the fibers match. They sent off samples to Missouri Highway Patrol’s labs, along with the sweater itself. They’re hoping they’ll be able to recover DNA evidence from it, but—” Somers shrugged. “It’s a long shot.”

  “And Josh and Melissa are sticking with their alibis?”

  “Why wouldn’t they? They’re solid. Melissa’s got the records to show she was home; Josh’s parents swear he was with them all night.” Somers shook his head. “I’m not even sure Josh and Melissa are the only ones we should be looking at. Remember that weird conversation Josh had on the phone? I still think he was talking to Daniel, and it sounded like they were in on it together. And Daniel and Courtney have both disappeared. That hate-porn website, the stuff Daniel did to Donna May—I mean, he had a big reason to want Donna May gone. And Courtney, judging by the diary, did too. They’ll both turn up eventually; neither of them is smart enough to disappear completely. But right now, I don’t know where to go with any of this.”

  Hazard leaned back. He felt better after the coffee and the sausage-and-egg sandwich, and his brain was starting to turn again. He ran through the events of the night Donna May had disappeared, double checking his internal timeline: first, the fight at Maniacs; then Courtney and Donna May had left; Josh and Daniel had continued to fight and been arrested; Melissa had gone home. Then, everyone was on their own: Courtney, supposedly at home; Donna May, supposedly driving around in Courtney’s car; Melissa, supposedly at home; Daniel and Josh—the only two Hazard could say for certain he knew where they were—in the sheriff’s lock-up. Then they’d been bailed out, and everything had started on a collision course: Josh had gone to Melissa’s; Donna May had caught them there; the fight had escalated; Donna M
ay and Josh had left; Donna May had arrived home. Alive. That was the part that threw Hazard. His gut told him that, if Josh and Melissa had killed Donna May, it had happened in the heat of the moment. But that wasn’t possible because Donna May had come home. Mr. Warner, the racist pervert, had seen her. He had recognized her—in whorish attire, or however he had written it. And she had flashed her lights just to annoy him, the way she always did. Then she had walked off.

  After that point, Hazard was on shaky ground. It was possible that Donna May had walked anywhere: into the Vegas’ trailer, where Courtney might have killed her; to Daniel’s trailer, where he might have killed her; or across the mile of undeveloped land, back to Moulton Estates, where either Josh or Melissa might have killed her.

  The bathroom door opened, and Aileen came out, still wearing a smile that Hazard found surprisingly annoying, all things considered.

  Hazard tried to slip back into the cool flow of thinking. Which motive had been the deciding one? Money, in Courtney’s case? Fear of losing a career, possibly more, in the case of Daniel and Melissa? Or divided loyalty, as Josh must have felt when Donna May caught him with Melissa? The problem was that they were all good motives, all reasons to kill—sex and money were as old as sin.

  “Bunny,” his mother said quietly, “how’d you sleep?”

  “Fine.”

  Hazard tried to branch out, tried to think in ways he hadn’t thought before. It all seemed to depend on where Donna May had gone that night after parking Courtney’s car and flashing the lights at Mr. Warner. Wherever she had gone, that’s where she had been killed. But she could have gone anywhere. She had done it before; she had hitched rides, she had walked, she had taken the bus. Where had she gone? Could he requisition satellite imagery? Had any friendly government agencies turned an eye toward a shitty little trailer park in central Missouri that night? Or maybe the best solution was the tried-and-true one: knock every door in that trailer park and start asking questions. But, with the exception of Mr. Warner and his obsessions, who would remember one random night from weeks before?