Maiden Rock (17 page)

He checked Meg’s messages. Nothing came in. The top message in her In-box was from Curt. The time line read from this morning. She hadn’t answered it yet.

Rich clicked on Curt’s message:

Rich wasn’t sure what had gone down between her and Curt, but from the looks of the note, he might have been Meg’s special someone. Rich had always liked the boy. Curt had an ease about him that was very genuine.

The few times Curt had come over he had seemed interested in the pheasants, asking questions that showed a depth of knowledge. When Rich asked him about his interest, Curt had explained, “I raised geese for 4-H a few years ago.”

Rich had hoped that Meg could stay friends with Curt through all that had happened to the two of them, both of them being such good friends to Krista. But he knew enough not to say anything to Meg for fear she’d move in exactly the opposite direction.

So Meg might be at Curt’s house. Or they could be meeting someplace. That made sense. Nothing to worry about. He just wished Meg would have let them know where she was going.

Sitting at Meg’s desk, he picked up the phone, thinking to call Claire and tell her he was going to drive out to Curt’s to see if Meg was there. Then Rich wondered if Meg had called someone after he had left for the Fort. Worth checking out. Claire had taught him how to do such things.

He pressed *69. The phone bleeped out a number and then it started to ring. Five rings, then a recording.

An older woman’s voice said, “We’re not here right now. Press 1 to leave a message for Arlene and 2 to leave a message for Jared. We’ll get right back to you. Thanks for calling.”

Rich hung up the phone without leaving a message.

Meg hadn’t called Curt. Or at least, that hadn’t been the last call she had made. Arlene and Jared. It sounded like she had called the Ecklunds?

Arlene and Jared Ecklund. Rich knew Arlene slightly. He was pretty sure that her son Jared was in school with Meg, but in a higher grade. He hadn’t heard Meg mention him much. Rich didn’t think they were particular friends or anything. But maybe Jared had been a friend of Krista’s.

Then he remembered the conversation he had had with Meg when they came home from Krista’s funeral. She said she knew someone at school that she should talk to about methamphetamine use. Could it be Jared?

Letty was Jared’s aunt. It was a well-known fact that she was doing drugs. Maybe it had been meth. From the little he knew about that drug, people on meth had no scruples about getting loved ones hooked too.

E
mily sat as still as a stone, leaning up against the car window as if she wanted to get as far away as she could from him. She didn’t have her seat belt on. She wasn’t saying anything.

Roger wasn’t sure where he was going. He was headed south and thinking of crossing over into Minnesota at Wabasha. He just wanted to get away.

“What now?” Emily finally asked as he drove into Nelson.

“I don’t know.”

“We’ve got to do something,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t know. Tell someone.”

“What?”

“What happened.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re law-abiding citizens.”

“Right,” Roger said.
“We
play by the rules, but no one else has to. No one will believe us. That much is clear.”

“That doesn’t matter. We have to do it anyway. We can’t just go driving all over the country.”

Roger pulled over in front of the bar in Nelson and turned off the car. “I need a drink first.”

“I could use one too.” Emily opened the door, then looked back at him. “Then we have to go tell the sheriff.”

“Okay.”

“He’s dead, you know. I’m sure he’s dead.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Roger put his arm behind his wife of twenty-three years and escorted her into a bar. Neither of them drank much and he was sure Emily had never been in this place before. He had only been in the bar once or twice in all his long years in this area.

The bar smelled of cigarettes and dung. Roger wasn’t sure why it smelled that way, but he guessed maybe the farmers were tracking in manure on their boots. There were a couple older men up at the bar and a couple in the dark toward the back of the place.

“What would you like?” he asked Emily.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having. Something strong.”

Roger ordered two Brandy Manhattans. The bartender poured generous shots into two highball glasses. “Anything else?”

“That’s it.” Roger paid, then grabbed the glasses.

The bartender tapped the fifty cent tip he had left him on the bar and said, “Have a good day.”

Under his breath, Roger said, “Too late.”

***

The older clapboard house impressed Rich as tidy, but slightly shabby. He knew that Arlene’s husband had died a few years ago. Rich had known her husband better than he knew Arlene. Bob

Ecklund had worked for the grainery in Durand. Rich often got his feed there. Bob had always struck him as a nice, steady guy.

He knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. He could hear voices inside. Maybe they hadn’t heard him knocking. Most people probably used the side door. Most people probably just walked in.

Rich knocked again and then tried the door. It was not locked and opened easily. He stepped in.

The TV was on in the front room, but no one was watching it. He stood on the front door mat, a welcome sign with a cow on it, and hollered, “Anybody home?”

No answer.

Rich walked in and looked around.

In the kitchen it looked as if they had left in a hurry. A cup of coffee sat on the table, an open half-gallon milk container next to it. The inside side door to the kitchen was open. The screen door was shut, but not locked. There was no car in the garage or the driveway.

He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know for sure that Meg had come over to Arlene’s. Maybe she had called and no one had answered. Maybe she had dialed the wrong number.

But the state of the house bothered him. Arlene didn’t strike him as the kind of person that would leave the TV on and the milk sitting out, even if she was just running next door.

Rich put the milk away and then walked into the living room and turned off the TV. The neighborly thing to do. He would call Arlene later to make sure everything was all right. Right now, he had to find Meg.

***

When the Hazardous Materials team showed up, they pulled everyone out of the house and made them suit up. Several other squad cars showed up with more deputies, including Speedo—so named because of the quickness at which he could snap a photo. Claire followed the Haz-mat guys back into the crime scene, wearing a better mask and an orange coverall.

Hitch still lay sprawled on the kitchen floor.

Speedo squatted down next to Hitch’s body, camera at the ready.

He looked up at Claire. “What do you want?”

“A couple close-ups of the knife, a couple full body, then from both sides. I’d also like you to take some pictures of the rest of the room; the whole house for that matter. It’s all a crime scene.”

He nodded at Hitch. “This is one emaciated dude.” Claire agreed. “He’s been on a meth diet for too many years.”

“I heard about Amy.” “Yeah.”

“She going to be okay?”

“She took a load of shot.” Claire didn’t want to think about Amy. She had had to call Amy’s parents and her mother had started crying before she could even say what had happened. They had moved down to Arkansas and wouldn’t be able to get up to Wisconsin until tomorrow. Claire had assured her that Amy would be okay, didn’t mention what her face had looked like. “You know what’s going on about the medical examiner?”

“I think they had to call in some one from Eau Claire.”

“Shit.”

Since Dr. Lord had retired, they were often forced to use the medical examiner from Eau Claire. That meant it would be another hour or two before he got to Fort St. Antoine.

Claire walked into the bedroom to check on Bill. He was looking over the booby trap shotgun. “Nasty thing. How’d he know who’d open that door? Could have been a kid.”

“His state of mind, he could have done it himself,” Claire pointed out.

“I think Amy’s going to be okay,” he said it like it was a question.

“I hope so.”

“Why did she get so nuts when they were taking her away?” Bill asked.

“Shock can do that to you.”

“I’ll stop by the hospital later tonight.”

Once again Claire wondered what was going on between the two deputies. “That’d be great. Thanks, Bill. Have you checked out the other room?”

“No. Be careful.”

“I’m nothing but careful.”

Using a chair, Claire pushed open the door of the other bedroom. When nothing snapped at her, she reached in and turned on the overhead light.

A full-sized mattress on the floor with a Snoopy blanket mounded on it was the only piece of furniture in the room. There were no shades; the window had a flattened piece of cardboard nailed over it. Another sign of meth paranoia.

Other than the mattress, the room was stuffed with mail. Piles of mail carpeted the floor like a tidal wave, cresting at a foot or two high. Reaching down, she picked up an envelope.

Phone bill for a Mr. Anderson. She wondered if any of her mail was scattered on the floor.

Looking at the dark, mail-filled room Claire felt like she was seeing the inside of a methamphetamine user’s brain. She had always had the theory that looking in people’s houses was a lot like getting a peek into their psyches. What she saw in this room was an explosion of paper and words, a paranoia that knew no bounds.

Claire shivered and then tried to guesstimate how much mail was in the room. Two months worth of deliveries in Pepin County. How could this much mail be taken and not noticed to be missing? She looked down at another envelope. A Minneapolis address. That explained it.

She had heard of meth users supporting their habits by stealing identities. When they were high, they had infinite energy and an obsessive ability to focus. Going through mail and stealing numbers and selling them was a good way to use that energy and keep money coming in for their habit.

She hated to think of the work all this mail would entail. Looking at the piles, she thought of the manpower it would take just to sort through it all. She backed out and pulled the door shut. Another day.

Claire walked back into the living room to check on Speedo. He was snapping away. The house disgusted her. How could people live like this—the whole room was a garbage can, literally—beer cans, newspapers, rotten sandwiches, MacDonald bags, and worse.

There was a pile of something dark in the corner that she didn’t even want to examine. She was glad to be wearing protection. Who knew what foul matter was in the air.

As she watched Speedo, she decided not to interrupt him. He seemed to be getting all the shots she wanted. Rich was always telling her she needed to learn to trust other people more. The house was stifling. She was sweating profusely in her orange overalls. She had to get out of the house for a moment, breathe some real air.

As Claire pushed open the screen door, something glinted on the floor and caught her eye.

She leaned down and picked up a friendship bracelet with red and blue beads braided into it. It looked like the strings had frayed and broken. She examined it more closely.

Her heart stopped.

She had seen this bracelet before. It was Meg’s. Small white beads spelled out her first name.

Meg never took it off, not even when she showered.

Krista had made the friendship bracelet for Meg’s birthday.

H
ead down, Meg pushed a path through a field filled with flower skeletons. That’s the way they looked to her. Brown skeletons of dried-up goldenrod and coneflower.

A cold wind rattled the grass. Clouds scudded across the dark sky. The half moon was in the western sky, giving off a thin light.

She didn’t know where Jared had gone. She didn’t care anymore. She kept her hand wrapped around what she had grabbed away from him before she had jumped in the truck and drove off. Why had she done that? Should she have left him there? What good would staying have done?

Everything seemed completely hopeless to her. Despite her best intentions, actions of hers had resulted in death. She should just learn that nothing she did made any difference.

She wished she could talk to Krista about what was going on. Krista would tell her what to do. Krista had always had an opinion about everything and never hesitated to give it. Or Curt. She needed someone on her side. Someone who would understand what she had done.

She had known Krista since fifth grade when they were in classes next door to each other. That was before they became

best friends. She remembered so clearly how their friendship had started. Sarah Larsen had been standing in the hall talking in a really loud voice about how stupid the movie
Brokeback Mountain
was. Krista had been getting into her locker and Meg had been arguing with Sarah about the movie, which she had loved.

Sarah said, “The only people who could like that movie are liberals and homosexuals.”

Krista had slung her arm around Meg’s neck and kissed her under the ear in a very seductive manner. Then she had turned and said to Sarah, whose mouth was hanging open, “We’re both.”

Meg had been both shocked by and adoring of what Krista had done and wished she had thought of it.

That was at the end of eighth grade and they had been best friends this whole last year. Until Halloween.

If only there was no such thing as methamphetamines in the whole wide world.

Meg had known that methamphetamines were being used in this area. A month or two didn’t go by without the school bringing some kind of speaker—an ex-druggy, a rehab counselor, a concerned mother—to talk to the students about how bad drugs were for you. Meg had always thought the talks were stupid and over the top. She had never had the impulse to try a drug particularly, but she didn’t believe they could totally destroy your life the way these speakers said.