The Edge of Nowhere (28 page)

Now at school, Hayley was worried. If Seth had come to the farm, then Brooke was right in what she was saying. It had to do with Hayley. And if it had to do with Hayley, it also had to do with Saratoga Woods. She and Seth weren’t finished talking about that.

She was working her hour at the reception desk when Derric’s father showed up at the school again. The undersheriff looked really bad. His eyes were bloodshot and his face looked jowly with weight loss. Dave Mathieson had always been the kind of man that people referred to as “robust,” which Hayley translated to mean full of health. But he didn’t look like that now.

She said, “Hi, Sheriff Mathieson. How’s Derric doing?”

The undersheriff shook his head. “No change. The signs are good, but he’s not waking up. The doctors’re making noises about more tests. They want to take him into Seattle to Children’s Hospital and bring in a specialist team from Ohio.” The undersheriff scrubbed his hands over his face.

Hayley said, “I
know
he’s going to wake up. It’s just a matter of time.”

Dave Mathieson said, although she didn’t know why, “Sometimes you do the wrong thing,” and then he took a deep breath and altered his course with, “I’m meeting with Ms. Ward and the A-to-L counselor. That’s Ms. Primavera, right?”

She said, “Sure,” but before she could pick up the phone and call them to say he was here, he said to her, “Laurel Armstrong, Hayley. Is she someone from the school?”

Hayley shook her head slowly, as she thought about the name. “I don’t know. It could be a younger kid, I guess,” she said. “One of the ninth-graders? Why?”

“She’s who bought the cell phone that made the call to nine-one-one, that day from the woods.”

Hayley’s eyes widened. “How’d you find that out?”

“Like I told you, these phones have serial numbers,” he said. “That took us to a 7-Eleven in southern California.”

“And that took you to Laurel Armstrong?” Police work was amazing, Hayley thought, just like on television.

“It took us to her credit card. Not likely that the card belonged to the kid who made the call, but we’ve got to check everything. The cops down there are helping out, going to the address associated with the card to see if it was stolen or if the phone was stolen. It’s a loose end that needs to be tied up.” He looked around, and his eyes seemed dim, like eyes not taking in what they were seeing. He finally said, “Anyway . . .” which reminded Hayley that she was to phone Ms. Ward and Ms. Primavera. She picked up the phone and did so.

But she could see that there was another reason the undersheriff had come to the high school. She just hoped it had nothing to do with her.

WHEN HAYLEY WAS
walking out to the farm truck after school that afternoon, she saw that the undersheriff’s car was still in a guest spot in the parking lot. As she watched, he came trudging out of the administration building. The expression on his face suggested that he’d had no luck in finding someone called Laurel Armstrong.

He wasn’t alone. Ms. Primavera was with him. She was talking to him, but her expression indicated she was feeling impatient with Derric’s dad. Hayley figured she was probably telling him he was wasting his time looking at South Whidbey High School for someone who wanted to hurt Derric because no one there
wanted
to hurt him, and no one ever would.

Or maybe, Hayley thought, all of this was just wishful thinking on her part.

She continued toward the farm truck. But she heard the undersheriff call her name, so she turned back. She did this in time to see him say something to Ms. Primavera, to see Ms. Primavera frown and roll her eyes, and to see them part ways. The undersheriff came toward Hayley.

When he reached her, he said, “Looks like you were right. No Laurel Armstrong. There’s a Cindy Armstrong in ninth grade, but she’s no relation.” He smiled in a tired way. “Back to square one. Have to wait and see what else the cops in California come up with.”

“Gosh.” Hayley waited for more. She figured that the undersheriff had something else on his mind or he wouldn’t have called her name.

He began with, “You and Derric have been pretty tight this year, huh? You know him pretty well.”

“We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend or anything.”

“Sure. I know that. But what I don’t know it this: What the
hell
was he doing in Saratoga Woods, Hayley? You say he wasn’t with you. Okay. I accept that. But he had zero reason to be there. It wasn’t like him to go out for a hike alone, and even if he did on that day, why ride his bike all the way to Saratoga Woods when Putney Woods is closer?”

Hayley shook her head, drawing her eyebrows together. “I don’t know, Sheriff Mathieson.”

“Things go on in the woods,” Dave Mathieson said. “I know that, Hayley. Up there by the erratic, things go on. That’s always been the case.”

“Derric’s not a stoner, if that’s what you mean,” Hayley declared. “He never even
talks
about drugs. Besides, he doesn’t hang with stoners at school and he probably would, wouldn’t he, if he was using. I mean, it’s not like he’s nasty to them or anything. It’s just he’s not interested. ’Cause if he was . . .” Hayley’s voice drifted off as she saw the undersheriff was looking at her oddly. She’d been talking aimlessly, she realized. That was stupid.

Dave Mathieson said, “What were you
really
doing in the woods that day? You, Hayley. Not Derric.”

“Sheriff Mathieson, I’m not a stoner either.”

“Were you there because of this Laurel Armstrong?”

“I don’t know her. Really.”

“But something was going on. I know it and so do you. It had to do with what happened to Derric, and it’s why he rode his bike all the way from home instead of going to a closer woods to hike. My guess is that it’s also why you parked your truck over by Metcalf Woods. None of you kids wanted to be seen. Right?”

“No, really. That’s not how it was.”

The undersheriff shook his head. He said, “Hayley, I’m going to get to the bottom of this eventually. You might want to pass that message along to everyone else who was there.”

TWENTY-FIVE

S
eth was walking back out to Sammy after paying for gas at a highway strip mall called Casey’s Corner when he saw Mrs. Cartwright come out of the Goose, a grocery store on the other side of the parking lot. She was carrying what looked like seven or eight reusable shopping bags, heading to the family SUV. As she walked, the bags started to get tangled up. He drove over quickly and rolled down his window, saying, “Hang on and I’ll help you.”

She was trying to untangle the bags and find her car keys in her purse at the same time. She said, “Thanks, Seth,” and she shot him a smile. When he’d parked and jogged back over to her, she said, “This stuff’ll have to go in the backseat. Hold on a sec,” and she put the bags on the ground along with her purse, which she opened and fished her car keys out of. Seth saw that she’d been running errands. She’d filled the back of the vehicle with boxes of canning jars, two huge sacks of barley and oats, and three big bags of chicken feed.

She opened the passenger’s door and leaned across the driver’s seat to unlock the driver’s door and the other doors, too. Seth went to the driver’s side with some of the bags and she joined him there with the rest, saying, “Got to get that door fixed. It doesn’t open any longer with the key. You can lock the darn thing, but you can’t unlock it. Even when it’s unlocked, you can’t open the door with the outside handle. I swear. Everything’s falling apart.”

“My granddad could probably fix this door lock for you,” Seth told her. “I can ask him to if you want.”

Mrs. Cartwright said, “Let me think about that,” and then she said, “Brooke told me you stopped by to say hello.”

He said, “Yeah. I did,” but thinking about his trip to the farm and the condition of things there made him feel the need to say something altogether different. He went with, “Hey, thanks for watching Gus that night. You know, the night that my granddad came for him?”

Mrs. Cartwright looked confused for a moment. Then she said, “Oh! That night. Not a problem. Hayley kept Gus in her room.”

Hayley. There. Her name was out between them, so it was a good time to say something about her and ask how she was and what she was doing and whether Mrs. Cartwright knew how serious Hayley was about . . . But Mrs. Cartwright was getting into the car. She said, “Thanks for the help, Seth,” and she patted his hand.

She started the car, which took on her second try. Black exhaust belched out of the tailpipe. Seth said, “Someone wants an oil change,” when he saw this. “Better tell Mr. Cartwright. You don’t want to let something like that go for long.”

She looked flustered. Then she said, “Yes, yes. I’ll tell him,” and she put the car into gear. It jerked.

Seth thought the transmission or the clutch could use a look, but he didn’t like to say that after already mentioning the exhaust. So instead he said, “How
is
Hayley?”

Mrs. Cartwright looked at him in much the same way someone looks at a lost puppy. Seth didn’t like this, but his words were out, so he had to listen to her response. She said, “She’s been busy. I don’t see much of her. She’s at the hospital a lot because of Derric Mathieson. You know Derric, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I know him,” Seth said. “Everyone knows him.”

Mrs. Cartwright nodded and cocked her head. She smiled at him tenderly and said, “We all like you, Seth. Every single one of us likes you.”

He said, “Whatever,” and she backed out of the parking space. He watched her, heavyhearted, as she drove off.

He felt completely alone in that moment. He kicked his toe against the tarmac, and that was when he noticed that he’d left Mrs. Cartwright’s purse behind the SUV when he’d picked up the grocery bags and carried them around to the door of the vehicle. She’d backed up and had been lucky not to run over it, but there it stood, with all her stuff inside.

He went to it and scooped it up. Best to return it. At least it would save her another trip to Casey’s Corner from the farm.

SETH GOT STOPPED
by both of the traffic lights on the highway before he got to the route that would take him to Smugglers Cove Farm and Flowers. So he was a couple of minutes behind Mrs. Cartwright and when he reached his destination, the SUV was parked and the grocery bags had been taken inside. The stuff from the back was still within the car, so with Mrs. Cartwright’s purse slung over his shoulder, he opened the back of the SUV and grabbed the cartons with the canning jars in them. As he went toward the door, he passed the woodpile. It still hadn’t been stacked.

Mrs. Cartwright seemed surprised to see him. Then she saw her purse hanging from his shoulder. She said, “My heavens. I didn’t even miss it,” and she held the screen door open.

He went to the kitchen, where she’d set the grocery bags on the floor. One of them had spilled out and the family cat was sniffing a cherry tomato that he proceeded to bat around.

Seth set the boxes of canning jars on the counter and asked Mrs. Cartwright if she’d like him to stack the firewood. She said, “Oh, that’s so sweet of you, but don’t bother, Seth. Bill just hasn’t gotten to it yet.”

Seth said, “No trouble. I sort of like the work. It’s a nice day and . . . I got nowhere I need to be.”

Mrs. Cartwright cast a look in the direction of the barn, which could be seen in part from the kitchen window. She said, “All right then. Thank you, Seth. That’s very good of you.”

“No worries.” He went back outside and approached the woodpile.

The wood had become fairly heavy from the rain. It should have been stacked in the covered woodshed right after it had been delivered. Seth wondered if they’d have to buy another cord of it to use until these four cords dried out. He doubted they could afford it.

He set to work. It was the kind of labor he enjoyed, making order out of chaos. That, his grandfather liked to tell him, was always pleasurable to the human mind.

Seth worked steadily for about twenty minutes, at which point he paused and took off his flannel shirt. He turned back to the pile and picked up another load, and he heard a man’s voice call out, “Don’t tell me that woman’s put you to work.”