Maiden Rock (13 page)

Amy didn’t know the answer. She hated to give Arlene more bad news, but she needed to make sure Arlene understood the danger Davy had been in. “You better have Davy checked out, Arlene. Bring him to the doctor and explain to the doctor what his mom was doing. He could have been exposed to some bad things.”

Arlene shook her head. “God. It never ends, does it?”

Jared came walking down the hall. He was wearing a white T-shirt that hung off his thin shoulders and a pair of longjohns. A thick pair of wool socks were on his feet. “What’s the matter, Mom?”

He stopped when he saw Amy.

“You probably don’t remember me,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I babysat you when you were about seven.”

He looked at her again, then gave a quick smile. “Oh, yeah. You spoke Spanish. I remember.”

Arlene stood up and poured Jared a cup of coffee. He sat down at the table and she set it in front of him. He nearly started to nod off. Arlene nudged him.

“Davy still sleeping?” she asked.

“I guess.”

His fingernails were bitten past the quick and looked red and sore. His nose was running and Amy could see a slight tremor in his hand when he reached out for his coffee cup. How was he managing to come off meth on his own? She had watched too many prisoners going through withdrawal, and that was with the help of medication, so she knew how hard it could be. Maybe he hadn’t been using too much. That would make it much easier.

Amy decided to jump right in. “What do you know of the fire at Letty’s trailer?”

Jared knocked the coffee cup over, the dark brew soaking into the white tablecloth. “Sorry, Mom.”

Arlene jumped up to get a sponge and Jared lifted up the cup. When they had settled again, Amy asked, “What do you know, Jared?”

“Nothing. I was here with Mom.”

Amy looked at Arlene. The older woman sat with her head down, stirring her coffee. She didn’t say anything, but if pushed Amy knew she would say that Jared had been with her. They had closed ranks.

“If I made you give us a blood sample right now, would I find meth in your system?” She decided to scare him.

Jared looked scared. He looked like he was about to bolt. “You can’t do that, can you?”

“If we found something of yours at the trailer. If we connect you with what happened at the fire.”

“That don’t mean nothing. I was over there sometimes.”

“You didn’t answer the question about the blood sample. You don’t look so good, Jared. Have you been taking methamphetamines?”

Jared looked at his mother. She looked away.

“Yeah,” Jared whispered. “But I quit. I’m never going to take that shit again. I promised my mom.”

“Good for you.” Amy continued. Keep asking him questions while he was telling the truth. “Who’d you get the drugs from?”

“A friend of Letty’s.”

This is what she wanted to hear. “Who?”

“I don’t know his real name,” Jared mumbled.

“I’m not fooling around here, Jared. I need to know who this guy is.”

Jared started, “We always just called him Hitch.”

***

Bill drove back from Monona and watched the fields fly by, golden in their autumn color. His contact hadn’t known much more than Margie did. A guy named Hitch was a low-level dealer, mainly cooking for himself, staying under the radar until now. Nothing new.

Bill had wanted to drive back to the sheriff’s department, waving this guy Hitch by the neck—impress everyone, especially Amy.

Amy coming to work at the department had changed everything for Bill and he wasn’t sure it was for the better. He now understood why many men resisted having women work with them. They just confused things. Sometimes he felt as if he was back in high school. The other problem, he wasn’t the only guy in the department who was trying to impress Amy.

The situation had been different when Claire joined the department. She was older and higher up, being appointed chief investigator soon after she had arrived years ago. She had good boundaries, as they said, and kept her distance from them, going home to take care of her daughter. Bill had a lot of respect for Claire.

There was no rule about fraternizing with fellow deputies, hadn’t needed one since they were all men up until recently. But Bill just didn’t think it was a good idea. He needed to have a clear head and focus on what was going on around him when he was at work, not wondering what this cute woman thought about him.

It didn’t help that his former girlfriend had just told him she was getting married to a doctor. She had always wanted money and she had been clear about not wanting to marry a cop. She broke up with him only about six months ago. He still missed her.

And now the sheriff had put Amy and him together with Claire on this case.

Bill drove into the lot and noticed Claire wasn’t back yet, but Amy was. He just had to stay professional.

***

“Anybody here by the name of Hitch?”

A whiskered old man with “Herb” sewed onto his shirt sat at the till reading the paper. He looked up at Claire’s question and said, “No Hitch, but we’ve got a Ben Hitchcock. Will that work for you?”

“Sure.”

Herb flopped his paper down and pointed to a tall blond man bent over a car. The shoulders gave him away for a former football player. He was leaning over the open engine of a car, crooning to it. “That’s it. That’s it. Come on, baby. Just turn over once.”

Claire stood behind him and waited until he had made the adjustment. Following the lead that Rich had given her, she tracked this Hitchcock down. While she was no expert on methamphetamines, this healthy guy didn’t look like he was hooked on them. But he might know something. Or he might be a dead end.

When he turned around, she introduced herself, looking him up and down

“You know anyone that goes by the name of Hitch?” she asked.

He looked her up and down. “You’re a cop?” “That’s why I’m wearing the uniform.” He scowled. “Hell, what’s he done now?” “He related to you?” “Not anymore.”

“This Hitch who’s no longer related to you, do you know where I might find him?”

“You don’t want to find him.” “Why not?”

“He’s a sorry excuse for a man. I’m always surprised to hear that he’s still alive. Why are you looking for him?”

“A young girl died this last weekend,” Claire started. “Don’t tell me,” he said.

“I’d like to find Hitch and ask him a few questions about it.” “My dad might know something.” “Where’s he?”

“The senior apartments on Main Street.” “Hitch is your brother, right?”

“Was. He’s about four years older than me. He was a great older brother. Always watching out for me. Taught me to play pool. Taught me most everything I know about cars. We had big plans. We were going to have our own garage. But that was all before he started doing meth.”

“You disown him because of the drugs?”

“No, I hated to see him destroy himself, but he was still my brother. I didn’t care if he wanted to take drugs and lose his mind. That’s his own business, but he had to tell my mom she could lose some weight on this great stuff. She wasn’t even that fat. But she had always been trying to lose weight. I don’t think he meant to hurt her. I don’t know what he thought he was doing. Hard to tell.” Ben shook his head, remembering.

Claire didn’t know where he was going with this, but she nodded her head in sympathy.

Ben continued, “So she did a little meth with him. It sure did the trick. She slimmed right down. She never slept. She rarely ate. She thought she looked great. He got our mother hooked on that crap.”

“He got her doing meth?”

Ben nodded. “She lost the weight—over a hundred pounds—but that’s not all she lost. Two years later she had a heart attack. She died weighing a little over a hundred pounds.”

Ben picked up a wrench. “I blame him. As far as I’m concerned, he killed our mother.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“He’s dead to me too,” Ben said before he leaned back over the car engine. “That man that’s walking around inside his body, I don’t know him.”

***

Meg got on the school bus just like she always did after school. She sat next to the window and watched the trees sail by. She missed Krista. It seemed like she missed her friend nearly every moment that she was awake. Once in a while she would forget and think about something else, then this heaviness would drop onto her shoulders and she would wonder why she felt so bad and she would remember. The remembering was awful. Like someone reached inside her mouth, then down her throat and grabbed her heart and pulled on it. That hurtful tug was constantly there, aching and aching.

Meg waved at her house as they passed it. She could see Rich’s car in the driveway. She hoped he didn’t notice the bus. She had told the bus driver she wanted to get off at a different stop today. She stayed on the bus until Jared’s stop.

She had always like Jared. He was two years older than her and she thought he was kinda cool in a long and lanky sort of way. A little like a teenaged Neil Young.

But this year Jared had grown kind of scary, erratic, and out of it. Then he started missing a lot of school. She had heard he might not even be able to graduate. Kids said he was on drugs. They said he was on meth.

A few other kids in school had tried it, but no one else did it steady like Jared. He was supplied by his aunt is what she had heard. Now his aunt was dead. And Krista was dead.

Meg just wanted to find out if Jared knew anything at all about the night that Krista died. One of the kids at the party had said that Jared had showed up for a few minutes toward the end. She figured it was worth a try.

Meg knew where Jared’s house was, but had never been inside of it before. She walked up the sidewalk to the bungalow and knocked on the front door. Nothing happened, but she could hear the TV going inside. She knocked louder, trying to be heard over the sound.

The door popped open, but no one was there. Then a small boy poked his head around the edge of the door.

“Hi,” Meg said.

“Who are you?” asked the little boy as he held onto the door knob and swung on the door. “I’m Meg. Who are you?”

“Davy. Davy Gunterson. My mom went far away.” Meg realized this small boy was Jared’s Aunt Letty’s son. He looked about three years old. “I’m sorry about your mom.” “There’s a fire, but I crawled out the window.” “You did?”

“Yeah, and Jared catched me.”

Meg hadn’t heard that Davy had been at the fire, or Jared. Maybe the small boy was making it up. Maybe he wanted to believe he had been there when his mother died. She understood this feeling. She had imagined Krista’s death so many times that she felt like she had been there.

Meg squatted down so her face was at the same height as his face. “You’re very lucky.”

“I know.”

“Can I come in?”

“I’m not supposed to let nobody in.” “Oh, is anyone else here?” “Yeah, Aunt Arlene and Jared.” “Can you go and get Jared?” “I’m watching TV.”

“If you run it won’t take you but a minute.”

“Okay, I can run fast.” He closed the door in her face.

Meg sat down on the steps.

The door opened again a minute later. Jared’s mother was standing behind the screen door, looking down at her. Meg scrambled to her feet.

“I’m a classmate of Jared’s. I brought him some homework.”

“Oh, that was thoughtful of you. Come on in.”

Meg walked in the house and felt rather awkward standing there. Jared’s mom invited her into the kitchen and offered her a chair at the table. “Jared should be right down.”

When Jared came into the room, he looked like he had just woken up. He was wearing a sweatshirt inside out. Meg guessed he had just pulled it over his head from the way his long brown hair was styled. A pair of jeans completed the outfit. He had on socks, but no shoes.

“Hey,” he said.

She wondered if he even knew who she was. Even though their school was small, twenty-five kids in her sophomore class, there wasn’t a lot of mixing between the grades. And he was two grades ahead of her. Jared had been one of the cool kids, according to Krista, until this year. Then he had turned into a burn-out.

In school there was a small group of kids that wore black, got tattoos, and pierced their body in odd and inconvenient places. Meg didn’t think they all did drugs. In fact, she didn’t think most of them did, but the druggies hung out in that group. Jared, if he could be said to hang out with anyone anymore, ganged around with them.

Jared had never paid much attention to her, but they were taking a class together this year. “I brought you some homework from Drama class.”

“Thanks.” He sat down at the table with her and rubbed his eyes.

“You kids want some pop?” his mom asked. “I’ll take a Coke,” Jared said.

“Sure,” Meg went along with that. She hardly ever drank soda pop, but she didn’t want to be a nuisance.

Jared’s mom put two cans of Coke on the table, then said, “I’ll be downstairs. I’m just doing the wash.”

Meg pulled the homework sheet out of her backpack and handed it to him.

Jared didn’t even bother to look at it, saying, “I’m so far behind, I’ll never catch up.”

“What’s going on with you?” Meg took a sip of her Coke just to be polite. She had always found the drink too sweet.

Jared gave her a stare. “What’s it to you? What’re you doing here anyways? I didn’t ask for my homework.”

“I know. To tell you the truth I’m trying to find out what happened to Krista. How she died.”

At the mention of Krista’s name, Jared’s head dropped. “Why d’you think I know anything about that?”

“I heard you showed up at the Halloween party after I left. You and some older guy.”

“Maybe.” Jared lifted the can of Coke and poured the whole thing down his throat as if he were chugging it.

“I don’t know if you heard this but Krista had meth in her system when she died. You know anything about that?”

“Shit.”

“What?” Meg leaned forward, hoping he would tell her who had given the meth to Krista. “Nothing.”

“Listen. I just want to know for myself. Who gave her the meth? Why did she take it?”