by Marc Cameron
Audrey’s mom smoked weed herself once in a while, to relax, so it wasn’t like she was going to come home and smell anything that would make her freak out. She was more worried about her expensive booze and locked the cabinet with a combination that Audrey happened to know was her own birthday.
In truth, Constance didn’t know what was supposed to happen that night, except that Audrey said they were going to “partay,” which to Audrey usually meant smoking weed and snitching some of her mom’s wine. At least, that’s what Constance had heard. She’d never been invited to Audrey’s house before and she didn’t know Evelyn except from geometry class.
Audrey was gone long enough for Evelyn to tell an entire story about her mom’s stepdad, who killed some guy who owed him money and now he was doing twenty years in Spring Creek down in Seward. “Hey, maybe your uncle knows him,” she said, as if Arliss knew every murderer in the Alaska prison system.
“Maybe so,” Constance said, hoping she sounded friendly instead of condescending.
Audrey came back with a small brown paper bag, rolled tight and wrapped with a rubber band. It was about the size of a fat cigar. She dropped it on the quilt next to her pizza plate and flopped down beside it, careful not to smudge her toes or jostle her wineglass.
“For laters,” she said, pushing the paper bag aside.
“That was way easier than I thought it would be,” Evelyn said, nodding at the paper bag.
Audrey took a bite of pizza. “Just like Uber Eats,” she said. “But for the good stuff. You should have seen that girl’s shoes.” She nodded at Constance. “I mean, you want your shoes to look trashy for that whole goth, emo thing you have going on, but this poor girl didn’t have a choice. I invited her in for some pizza, but she said she had somebody waiting for her in the car.”
“That was nice of you,” Constance said, feeling stupid as soon as she said it.
Audrey held up the bag and grinned. “Be nice to your dealer, they’ll be nice to you.”
Evelyn cocked her head, eyeing her friend with a sly smile. “Is that what I think it is?”
Audrey raised her wineglass and took a slug – like she was slamming down a Gatorade or something.
“Indeed it is,” she said.
Evelyn’s hand shot to her mouth. “You got tabs?”
Constance hoped the electric jolt she felt in her gut didn’t twitch on her face. She’d been prepared to smoke a little weed, but tab acid – LSD – was… just… she did not want to think about what her mom would do.
Constance had seen tab acid at school, perforated paper with colored designs on each tiny square where there was presumably a drop of LSD that would be absorbed when you put the paper under your tongue.
“Have you done it before?” Constance heard herself say. There was a dumb question every other minute. At this rate, she’d never get invited back.
“It’s all good,” Audrey said, taking another bite of pizza. “We’ll do it one at a time, so two of us make sure the other one doesn’t run into the street naked or something.”
“This is totally sick,” Evelyn said, stifling a giggle. “I can’t believe you invited your dealer in for pizza like that.”
“She’s not my dealer,” Audrey said. “She just works for my dealer.”
“Did you give her money?” Evelyn said.
Audrey nodded.
“Did she give you drugs?”
She nodded again. “I guess she is my dealer. We could have painted her nails for her. I really do feel sorry for her.” She leaned forward, as if confiding a secret. “I think they have her turning tricks on the side, poor kid. Anyway, I figure if we fed her and let her hang out a while, she’d bring us a little extra when she comes back tomorrow.”
Constance bit her tongue.
Audrey and Evelyn had been friends since elementary, so they did most of the talking. Both of them acted sorry for the girl who’d come to the door, but they were happy to buy drugs from her. Evelyn was nervous because her dad had decided he was going to have her randomly drug tested after somebody’s kid at their church had almost died of a heroin overdose. Constance ate pizza and listened, wondered if her mom might have her drug tested when she got back from Juneau. She’d never mentioned it before, but it sounded like something she might be paranoid enough to try. If her mom ever found out Constance was in the same house with LSD, she’d have her peeing in a cup daily.
Constance thought she heard something outside the front door but fought the urge to look that direction like a scared kid. Instead, she channeled her Uncle Arliss without thinking. “You’re not scared of having that girl know where you live?”
“Lighten up, Lolita!” Audrey was always coming up with weird phrases like that. She patted Constance’s arm like a wise old auntie. “It’s the twenty-first century. Everybody knows where everybody lives. If you can’t find out for free, you pay some website a couple of bucks. My mom met this guy online last year who screwed her over somehow, thinking she’d never be able to track him down. She flew to Chicago and put a dead salmon in his car. It will not do to piss off my mother…”
Like having acid delivered to your home address, Constance thought, but didn’t say it. She really needed to go to the bathroom.
Evelyn interrupted her thoughts. “When are we going to try it?”
“Step back, Sriracha,” Audrey said, scolding with another of her oddball phrases. “I said it’s for laters. You gotta take it slow sist—”
The doorbell chimed again. There had been someone outside.
Evelyn’s hand covered her mouth.
Audrey scowled, as if getting everyone murdered would prove her wrong.
“Maybe it’s your parents,” Constance said, looking at Evelyn.
Audrey, too brave or foolish for her own good, was already up. She slid the rolled bag of drugs under the couch. She spoke over her shoulder as she walked. “If you hear me talking to the cops, hide the wine.”
Evelyn rocked in place, toying with the pacifier that hung from the ribbon around her neck. Constance sat frozen in place, straining to hear the conversation down the hall. She was so scared she forgot she needed to pee.
Then Audrey laughed out loud. Not a nervous chuckle, but an honest belly laugh. “Ladies,” she said as she came around the corner with a short, square-ish Hispanic girl. “I’d like you to meet our mule, Imelda.” She grimaced. “Sorry, I shouldn’t call you a mule, I just meant—”
Imelda smiled. “Is okay. I bring you your chochos, so I guess I am your mule…” She paused and looked around the living room, obviously in awe. Her brown eyes sparkled in the dazzling white of the tile and walls.
“No men here?” she asked, running a hand along the back of the couch.
Constance thought it would have been better not to let a stranger know they were all alone, but Audrey shook her head.
“Nope.”
“Good,” Imelda said, still looking at the couch like it was some kind of museum piece.
She said she’d taken a cab, but the cab had left her. She was going to call her boyfriend but decided she could stay and eat some pizza like a normal girl. Likely story. She was probably inside casing the place for her friends to rob it. Constance had heard so many stories from her uncle that she couldn’t help but brace herself and wait for Imelda’s friends to bash in the door with guns – but no one did.
Imelda seemed like a regular kid once she settled in. And nicer, more genuine than Audrey and Evelyn.
Constance had never been one to paint her toenails, and if she had, it would have been black. Audrey had only bright colors – and pink, which Constance detested unless it was in the shape of a skull or something that looked rad instead of girly.
Imelda inhaled four pieces of pizza, laughing, trying to hide the fact that she was so ravenous. In the dim light of the porch she’d probably looked okay, but her frayed jeans and oversized T-shirt stood out starkly against the pristine furniture. Her hair was cut short, like a boy’s almost, and needed a
good wash. She wore no jewelry, not even a watch, but her cell phone case had a little string of fake pearls hanging from the lanyard hole in the corner. It was an older phone, at least four or five years, and the face was webbed with cracks.
Audrey offered to give her a pedicure – mainly as an excuse to get her to wash her feet. It wasn’t quite as forward as saying, “Hey, girl, you could use a shower.”
Imelda seemed overwhelmed at all the different bottles of polish. Audrey suggested they go with a different color on each toe.
“You are much too nice,” Imelda said.
“No biggie,” Audrey said, painting the nail of her drug dealer’s little toe bright yellow. From her tone, Constance decided Audrey was nice too, just super messed up.
Constance worked on her own toes, but kept a wary eye on the door for the home invasion that she felt sure would go down any minute. She’d already decided to throw a chair through the back window and jump out the moment the front door opened.
Oblivious to danger – and just about everything else – Evelyn rested her chin on her hiked-up knees as she filed the nail of her own big toe. She asked, “Where are you from?”
“Guatemala,” Imelda said. “My mother and sisters will come up too when I send them enough money. It is very dangerous where they live.”
“You came to Alaska all by yourself?” Constance asked.
Imelda groaned and gave a sad shake of her head. “I paid a man, or, I mean my mother, she paid him. He got me as far as San Diego…”
Constance felt like she might cry. Imelda was only a year older – sixteen – and all alone in Anchorage. She worked for some guy moving his drugs and doing God knew what else for him. She never called him her pimp, but the bruises on her arms and neck were clear enough. Constance began to suspect that Imelda accepted the invitation for pizza and a pedi because the alternative meant going back for some more rough stuff.
Imelda stretched out her legs in front of her when Audrey finished. She wiggled her toes, moving the cotton balls in between each one.
“I am so very grateful to you all,” she said, sniffing back tears. “But you girls should be careful. I do not think you know the kind of man who sell you chochos. If he came here… and saw you are alone…”
Audrey fished the rolled paper sack out from under the couch. “Come on,” she said. “I’m tired of being sad.” She held the bag out to Imelda.
“Oh no, no,” she said. “No for me, thank you. They will make me take pills with them when I go back. But that is all right. When I am with them, I do not mind being out of my head.”
Constance wanted to scream. “Then don’t go back. We can help you.”
Imelda gave a soft laugh. “It is not so easy. He would hunt me down.”
Constance started to mention her uncle Arliss, but Audrey saw it in her eyes and changed the subject.
“Brighten up, Betty! I said I’m tired of being sad. Let’s play a game.”
Evelyn bounced up and down. “Truth or dare! Let’s play truth or dare.”
Constance studied the bruises on Imelda’s wrists, the worry lines in her pretty face. Yeah, a truth game with this poor girl was bound to cheer everybody up.
Chapter 20
“You wait here,” Van Tyler said. The parking lot at the Shrine of St. Therese was a few hundred feet off the road, tucked into a dark forest of huge spruce and towering hemlock. He’d driven past the lot first, hoping to get all the way out to the shrine by car, but found the road to the caretaker’s home and public restrooms blocked with a brightly painted little sign that directed him to go back the way he’d come.
Ensley put a hand on his forearm, cocking her head like she knew better. “You said you’d never been here before,” she said. “I have, so I should show you where to go.”
“Nice try,” the attorney said. “You already told me there was only one way on and off. I’ll be fine.”
“We’re the only car in the lot.” She took out her phone and opened a game with colored bubbles. “Looks like we got here first. Your informant is probably going to park right here. Maybe I’ll go ahead and get the information and cut you out of the deal.”
“Just stay in the car,” he said. “I’m serious.”
She gave him the most noncommittal shrug he’d ever seen and went back to playing on her phone, popping bubbles with her thumbs.
Van Tyler knew he should pull rank, but he held his tongue. This girl was hot, but sometimes she made him want to punch a wall. She didn’t have to do a damned thing he said. He’d given up all rights to be her boss as soon as her panties came off the first time. Before that, really. When they’d just flirted, talked about it in deliciously juicy double entendre. She had him over a barrel and she knew it – but oh, what a barrel that was. He shook his head, resigned to his whipped lot in life for as long as it lasted. He wasn’t breaking any laws, or even any sacrosanct moral code, just office policy. It was only his career at stake. But if this informant came through with the promised information, his career would be able to weather a lot of storms.
He eased the door shut. The parking lot was all mossy stone and brown shadows beneath the enormous trees. It felt like a graveyard – not the kind of place you slammed a door. A gravel path followed the gentle slope down between the buildings, toward the sea. A small, tree-covered hummock rose out of the water at the end of a narrow spit, perhaps a hundred yards long. The stone chapel where he was supposed to meet the informant would be out there, completely hidden by the trees.
Basketball-size rocks landscaped with shrubs of ash and juniper lined the gravel path. This had been built by humans, but there had likely been a path to the island for millennia, exposed by falling tides and disappearing when they rose. It made for the perfect sacred island. There was a word for such an island mound connected to land by a spit… Tyler’s vocabulary was far superior to the other AUSAs in the office. It was better than most people he knew except for his father, who had a true photographic memory. He was eidetic if a person wanted to use the precise word – which Van’s father always did.
He continued out the spit toward the little bump of land…
What was that word…?
Tyler thought about looking it up on his phone but decided he’d let the back of his brain do the work while he focused on getting the Hernandez brothers convicted along with everyone else who had anything to do with smuggling a boatload of black tar heroin into Alaska.
He took a deep, cleansing breath of sea air to clear his head. There were no clouds, but it was getting late, and an evening haze hung over the distant snowcapped mountains across the Lynn Canal. The water was glass calm, undulating like quicksilver in the long light. A man in an aluminum skiff fished off the gravel bar north of the shrine. The path climbed gradually into the trees, and a humble gray chapel of gray melon-size river stone came into view. It resembled a small fort.
Still trying to think of the elusive word for this kind of island, Tyler walked the circumference of the grounds twice, stopping at each of several religious statues, halfheartedly reading their inscriptions, killing time. He expected someone would approach him in the shadows like a Cold War spy. No one did, so he pulled open the polished timber door and went inside the church.
* * *
Ensley Rogers stuffed her phone in the pocket of her jacket as soon as Van walked down the little hill between the buildings and out of sight. She’d suffered from FOMO before anyone gave it its own acronym. Fear of Missing Out. Never being the type to wait in the car – not for anybody – she wanted to see this informant for herself. Like that Hamilton song, she wanted to be in the “room where it happened” – in the thick of things. Most of all, she wanted to protect Van. He was a good guy, even if he was a little preoccupied with his cool hairdo.
Her leg began to bounce. Her fingers drummed the center armrest. After what seemed like hours, she pulled out her phone again to check the time.
Seven minutes.
Her leg bounced harder. The fi
nger drumming became more intense. She’d planned to introduce herself when the informant arrived, like a good assistant, and then walk out to the shrine together. But no one showed, and she began to think the meeting was already going on. Without her.
Van would be mad if she followed him, but she’d make it up to him later.
She got out, easing the door shut so it didn’t make a sound, and snugged her jacket up tight around her neck. She wasn’t chilly. The dark shadows and towering trees just made this place spooky as hell. She checked her phone again.
Fifteen minutes. That was long enough to wait.
* * *
The tiny bud in Dallas Childers’s left ear clicked with static a moment before Schimmel’s discombobulated chatter came across the air. He was in the boat, fishing, watching, supposedly ready to give a heads-up when anyone approached the shrine. Childers had had the attorney in his sights for three full minutes before the idiot had said a word about it.
The voice-activated radios were encrypted, better than cell phones for this job. Childers did not want to leave his position on the gun to push or swipe any buttons needed to take a call. It was a good thing, too. The witless US attorney had walked within ten feet of his hide. This time, Childers wore a ghillie suit, uneven strips of multicolored burlap that matched the thick foliage of highbush cranberries and devil’s club. He’d dug into the duff and decaying spruce trunk, covering himself with debris. A multicam sniper veil draped across the rifle’s optic, breaking up the outline to any casual observer. But in the end, Childers stayed hidden because the lawyer, like most people, walked around with his head up his ass. Obviously nervous, the guy looked everywhere but saw little.
“I… I think… he’s gone in the church,” Schimmel stammered.
