A Good Killing (2 page)

3

A
s soon as the airplane screeched to a halt on the runway of Detroit Metro Airport, Anna powered up her phone and tried to call her sister again. No luck. Her headache was receding, but the worry in her stomach grew.

She got off the plane and hurried past a wine bar, golf shop, and day spa—besides the casinos, the airport housed the most sophisticated commerce in Detroit—and took the escalators down to baggage claim, where she looked for Cooper Bolden. Kathy had arranged for Cooper to pick Anna up. He’d been a friend in high school, a sunny, bookish kid whose family owned a farm on the outskirts of the county. She hadn’t spoken to him in ages. Last she heard, he’d become an Army Ranger and gone to Afghanistan. She scanned the area for him now, looking for a tall, skinny boy with knobby knees and flapping elbows.

Standing against a pillar, scrolling through his phone, was a man with a chest like a Ford 350. He wasn’t wearing glasses, and his black hair was shorter, but under a couple days’ worth of stubble was a familiar lopsided grin.

“Cooper?”

He looked up and she could see his eyes: light blue rimmed with indigo. She rushed forward to hug him. He stumbled, laughed, and hugged her back.

“Anna. Hi! Easy.”

“Easy? You’re three times as big as you were in high school.”

Cooper laughed. “Maybe only twice as big.” He pulled up the jeans on his left leg, lifting the hem. Below was a silver prosthetic limb. “Compliments of the Taliban.”

“Oh, Coop. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. They didn’t get the best part of me.”

“Your spleen?”

“No. My enormous”—he held his hands two feet apart—“intellect.”

“Of course.”

“You look great,” Cooper said. “Just like I remember you. Except more . . .”

“Weary?”

“No. Grown-up.”

Anna grabbed her suitcase off the conveyor belt. When she packed it two days earlier, she thought she’d spend a few nights at Grace’s house, in the process of moving out of Jack’s. Now she had the dizzying sensation of being a nomad, with no true home anywhere on earth. For the last year, she’d lived with Jack and his six-year-old daughter in their pretty yellow Victorian. After their engagement, Anna started calling it “our house.” At Jack’s urging, she’d begun to make it her own: rearranging where the mugs were kept, registering for silverware. But now she’d have to find her own apartment. She had to go to that pretty yellow Victorian and pack everything up, deciding which things to take and which to leave forever. She’d see all Olivia’s toys and first-grade artwork and know that she had no claim to them. Because, much as she wanted to be—as often as she’d gone to parent-teacher conferences, braided the girl’s hair, pored over parenting books trying to figure out the right answer to every six-year-old question—she wasn’t Olivia’s mother. Without Jack, she was nothing to Olivia. She was just a woman with a suitcase and a hangover.

Cooper took the bag from her hands. “I got it,” he said.

She came back to the present and glanced at his leg. “But—”

“Can’t stop me from being chivalrous.”

She’d had a hard breakup, but he’d lost a limb for his country. It put things in perspective. Normally, she’d insist on carrying her own luggage, but now she just said, “Thanks.”

As they walked toward the parking lot, she saw that Cooper’s
gait had changed too. It used to be a long, loping bounce, like a frisky colt finding his balance. Now his stride was shorter, more deliberate, and with a little hitch that could be interpreted as a swagger if you didn’t know better.

“Have you heard from Jody?” Anna asked. “I still can’t get ahold of her.”

He shook his head. “All I know is the police want to interview her.”

“I wish she’d called me. I’m a lawyer.”

“I expect she knows that,” Cooper said with a smile. “And she doesn’t need a lawyer. She’ll be glad to see her sister, though.”

“I hope so. Can we go right to her house?”

“Sure.”

In the parking garage, she followed him to a handicapped parking space and reached for the door to a gray sedan. He shook his head. “That’s not mine.” He walked to the other side of the sedan, where a huge black Harley-Davidson sat in a motorcycle spot. She glanced at the bike and then at Cooper’s prosthetic leg.

“Don’t worry. There’s a double amputee riding across America.” He strapped her bag to a luggage rack and handed her a helmet. “He was fine when he started, but he lost both legs in a motorcycle accident.”

She laughed, weighing the risk to her life versus the risk of hurting his feelings. She’d never ridden a motorcycle before and was mildly terrified. She reached for the helmet. Cooper opened a saddlebag and pulled out a black leather jacket, similar to the one he was wearing, and held it out to her. But it was mid-June, warm and balmy.

“No thanks,” she said.

“It’s to protect your skin if we have a crash.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring.”

She put on the leather jacket. It smelled of cedar, cherries, and the faint hint of another woman’s perfume. Cooper straddled the front seat. She climbed onto the seat behind him and grabbed the metal handles on the sides, leaving a wide berth between their bodies.

Cooper glanced back. “Don’t be shy. Scooch up nice and close and hold on to my waist.”

She hesitated, suddenly wary. Who picks someone up from the airport on a motorcycle? What if she’d had more luggage? She met his clear blue eyes and found only earnestness there. She slid forward and put her arms around him.

He started the engine and pulled forward. As the motorcycle drove past the parked cars, her heartbeat quickened. She was very aware that she had a large man between her legs, her breasts pressed against his back, and a giant engine humming beneath her. She could feel Cooper’s lean muscles beneath his leather jacket. She wasn’t cheating on Jack, she reasoned. First: she was just getting a ride. Second: she and Jack were done. Third: she hoped she didn’t die.

Anna tried to pay for parking, but Cooper beat her to it. He pulled out of the parking structure and onto the service road. Anna could reach out and touch the car in the next lane—which would take her arm off. As he pulled onto the highway’s on-ramp, Cooper yelled, “Ready?”

“Yeah,” she lied.

The bike roared up to Michigan’s 70 mph speed limit. She held tight to Cooper’s waist. The motor filled her ears and the pavement flew under her feet. She wondered how it would feel if her body hit it. The bike angled low into a curve, and Cooper swung between her thighs. Her adrenaline surged. She was scared and thrilled and very aware of being alive.

Halfway between Detroit and Flint, Cooper slowed the bike and took the exit ramp marked “Holly Grove.” Anna’s grip relaxed, but her chest tightened. She’d been
relieved when she left this town, and she never liked coming back. The only thing she really loved here was her sister.

Cooper passed through the historic downtown. It must have been charming once, but it wasn’t used for much these days. The courthouse and city hall still looked respectable enough, but the storefronts in between were mostly vacant and dilapidated. With
each auto factory that closed, the town took a hit. And the commerce that still remained in Holly Grove was in the suburbs. Cooper continued out there, passing subdivisions anchored with strip malls, big-box stores, and massive parking lots. He turned onto a smaller cross street, leaving the commercial strip behind.

As they came up to the curve before Holly Grove High School, Anna noticed an acrid smell, growing stronger. The football stadium came into sight, and she stared at it in shock.

A burned-out car was smashed into the center of a blackened circle at the bottom of the stadium’s cement wall. The ground beneath it was an oily scab of scorched earth. The top of the stadium appeared unscathed, with the word
BULLDOGS
still gleaming in blue and silver. Yellow crime-scene tape surrounded the area. A few police officers lingered around the perimeter.

Cooper pulled the bike to the shoulder, put down the kickstand, and took off his helmet. The roar of the engine was replaced with the chirping of insects. She took off her helmet too, smelling fresh-cut grass, ashes, and gasoline.

“What happened?” she asked.

“This is where Coach Fowler died,” Cooper said.

“How?”

“He came around this turn. Guess his car was going pretty fast. Crashed right into the stadium. His car went up in flames. He didn’t make it out.”

She climbed off the bike and walked to the edge of the yellow tape. A cop on the other side glanced over but didn’t shoo her away. She guessed the crime-scene work was done and they were just waiting for a tow. Cooper stood next to her.

The car was a classic Corvette. A few spots of blue paint were still visible, but most of the outside was burned black. The hood was smashed in so far, the car looked like a pug. A circular web cracked the windshield in front of the driver’s seat.

Anna looked at the ground between the road and the stadium. There was a dirt shoulder, a section of grass, and then a cement apron abutting the concrete wall. There were no skid marks.

“You know what’s weird?” Cooper said.

“Other than Coach Fowler crashing right into his stadium, without making any apparent attempt to stop?”

“Cars don’t generally explode on impact. I mean, it happens sometimes, but it’s not like the movies. It’s rare. And when cars do catch fire from a crash, there’s usually a more heavily burned area where the fire started, like around the battery or gas tank, and then some less burned parts. But the coach’s car is blackened all around. To me, cars look like this when someone has taken serious steps to make it happen.”

“How do you know so much about burning cars?”

“I saw a lot of them in Afghanistan.” Cooper ran a hand through his short black hair. “I was in one.”

Anna glanced up at his face. He was looking at the stadium, but seeing something else. Before she could respond, a police officer came up to them. “Help you?”

“Actually, yes, sir.” Cooper straightened and put a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “We’re looking for my friend’s sister, Jody Curtis. I understand you are, too. Do you know if she’s been located?”

“She’s at the station now.”

“Is she okay?” Anna said.

“Seems so.”

“Thank God.” She was flooded with relief. “What’s she doing at the station?”

“Being interrogated,” the officer said. “In connection with Coach Fowler’s death.”

That made Anna pause.
Questioned
was one thing.
Interrogated
sounded a lot more adversarial.

“Thanks, Officer.” She turned to Cooper. “Can we head to the station?”

“Let’s go.”

4

M
om always told us not to use the word
hate.
“Hate is a very strong word,” she said. “Save it for the very worst things.” We could say we “disliked” something, or we “didn’t care for” it. But let me tell you: I hated Wendy Weiscowicz. Not like cleaning the toilet or global warming, which I merely disliked. I
hated
her.

We’d never been friendly—she was a princess and I was a jock—but Wendy and I really started beefing at the Homecoming game of 2004. That game was always a big deal at Holly Grove High, and it was seriously big that year. The team was undefeated, and everyone hoped we’d take back the state title. In a town where everything was turning to rust, football was our last shining thing. That night, I was also excited to be out hanging with friends. After you left for college, the house felt empty. Mom was working two jobs, and the dinner table was a lonely place. Football games meant a place to go, excitement and crowds, tailgating and after-parties.

It was ten years ago, but I remember that night as perfectly as if it were recorded on video. Funny, things from last week are stored in my brain with less clarity.
There’s something about being fifteen that makes everything that happens stay clear and bright.

I stood with my friends, our cheers making cloudy puffs in the cold night air. The wave came around and we shouted and raised our hands toward the bright lights. Down below, Coach Fowler stalked the sidelines, shouting commands at his players. The cheerleaders were in frenzied dance mode, flashing their silver-and-blue pom-poms.

Wendy Weiscowicz stood on the sidelines near the cheer squad. She’d been the head cheerleader the year before but graduated last
spring and enrolled in Holly Grove Community College. In her spare time, she helped train the current crop of cheerleaders. She called that “community service,” but actually it was her way to keep hanging out at the high school. In the real world, she was just another college freshman. Back at the Holly Grove stadium, she was still queen bee.

One of the cheerleaders grabbed Wendy from the sidelines and pulled her out with the cheering squad. Wendy made a momentary show of resisting. Then she smiled and threw off her jacket. Beneath it, she wore a blue top and black leggings—the closest thing to the cheerleading uniform a civilian could get away with. She grabbed a pair of shimmery pom-poms and seamlessly joined the routine. She knew the moves better than some of the actual cheerleaders did. It was pathetic how much she missed high school. But the crowd cheered for her. At least, the adults loved her. Me and my friends rolled our eyes.

A few minutes before halftime, someone in the stands called to Wendy, and she made her way up there. She was chatting and animated, her cheeks flushed pink. She was kind of a celebrity in the stadium. And she was beautiful, with that amazing head of red-blond hair and those big green eyes. A crowd was soon gathered around her. But when the clock reached zero, she excused herself and went to the rail overlooking the tunnel where the players ran to the locker room. That happened to be right in front of where I was standing. She leaned over the rail and called to the coach as he passed.

“Owen! Yoo-hoo!”

He looked up at her and stopped. The players jogged past him.

“Good game!” she called. “You’re looking good out there!”

Which was true—the Bulldogs were up by seven—but I couldn’t believe she was taking precious seconds out of his halftime to personally give him platitudes the rest of the crowd was yelling.