by Frank Zafiro
We went into the garage and he yanked the tarp off of the Toyota.It was a dark blue hatchback from the early 80s.There were some small dings and a little rust at the rear tire well.Not bad for such an old car, considering that River City winters could be harsh.
“Engine was tuned up last summer,” he said.“Tires are all-season.”
I nodded.“It’ll work great.Thanks.”
He shrugged, lifting the hood to check the oil.“Just find her,” he said.
“I will,” I said.“I will.”
35
That night I fried up a rib-eye steak to go with my Western Family Mac ‘n cheese.I cracked open a bottle of Labatt Blue and that made it a veritable king’s feast.
I didn’t enjoy the steak as much as I hoped.Mostly I enjoyed the crisp taste of the Blue and how familiar it felt sliding down my throat.And even as I chewed my dinner, I was remembering standing in the beer aisle of the grocery store, staringat all the choices waiting for me, all the wonderful choices.
I’d just grab one bottle, I thought as my eyes swept over the Miller, the Bud, the Kokanee.Just one for the taste of it.To go with the steak.
And then my eyes had drifted to the cases stacked next to the individual bottles and I was reaching for the box full of ambrosia before I’d even thought about it.I stopped mid-reach and dropped my hand to my side.
You were a drunk, I told myself. A pathetic, lost drunk. A complete mess.
Yeah, well, that was a long time ago, I countered a moment later. I could have a drink. AndI could stop at just one.I wasn’t like those pathetic, weak addicts who stood up and cried in front of everyone at the AA meetings.The truth was, I just had a bad time for a while.That’s all.And I beat it, I fucking beat it and I was just a regular guy who could have a beer with his goddamn steak.
In the end, I compromised between the two voices in my head. I grabbed a six-pack of Labatt Blue and hurried to the checkout stand.
As I finished my steak, I lifted the bottle to finish the meal with a nice draft of Canada’s best, but the bottle was empty.
I walked to the small refrigerator and took out a second beer.The top twisted off with a hiss.I could feel the small tendril of warmth in my stomach from the first bottle with dinner.
I took a healthy slug and washed down the remains of the taste of my steak.
Clearing and washing the dishes only took a short while and I sipped the beer while I worked, just a simple man enjoying a beer after dinner.When the bottle ran dry, I popped another and sat down with my notepad and wrote down everything that had happened since I agreed to take on the task of finding the little siren Kris Sinderling.
“Here’s to you, Star,” I said, raising my beer.I wasn’t sure if I was trying to sound serious or mocking.“Wherever the hell you are.”
Then I chuckled, because I was a fucking poet.
“Na zdravi,” I said, finishing the toast. Then I took a healthy swallow, which is what you’re supposed to do when you toast, and returned to my notes.
I worked on those notes late into the night, scribbling facts and ideas and questions.And I walked through all six of those beers, leaving the dead soldiers standing on the kitchenette counter awaiting review in the morning.I sat staring at that little squad of six and it took every last bit of strength not to leave the apartment and head up to the 1-Stop just two blocks away and buy the case I should’ve bought in the first place at the grocery store.Instead, I called it a night and forced myself to go to bed.
That night, I did not dream.
36
When morning came, it was really afternoon.That’s what the small, cheap digital alarm clock next to my bed said, anyway.
I moved and then groaned.My head hurt, throbbing like someone was playing the bongo drums in time with a heavy bass guitar right in the front part of my skull.My torso ached where Leon and Grill had played kickball with me.Inside my mouth, my tongue was like a throw rug from inside a doghouse.
My stomach felt queasy.Then, the salty-bitter taste of pre-barf saliva filled my mouth.Queasiness gave way to all-out nausea.I rolled out of bed and staggered into the bathroom before I threw up what looked like an awfully expensive steak and some cheap macaroni and cheese.The heaves sent pain lancing through my mid-section, particularly where Grill’s front kick had drilled me.
Once all the food was out, I thought I would be done, but the dry heaves held on for several more trial runs.Nothing came up, just the clenching of my stomach and back muscles and the retching of my throat, followed by a brief respite.During those small breaks, I tried to spit the taste of puke out of my mouth, but it wasn’t going to be so easily dislodged.
Eventually, the heaving subsided. I flushed the toilet and leaned my head against the back of it.I muttered my thanks to whoever designed toilets, making the porcelain cool and comforting in a time of need.
I shut down all thought and sat resting my head against the cold porcelain until I felt ready to get up and face the day.
Once I rinsed my mouth and brushed my teeth, I was marginally better.I popped three aspirin and ate a piece of dry toast before getting into the shower and standing under the hot water until it ran out again.Once I was clean and in some clothes, I felt even more human, though the bongoandbass duet in my head gave no sign of subsiding.
The six empties stood on my counter, all in a neat row.The stale smell of beer made my stomach lurch, threatening to expel the toast I’d eaten earlier and the pain relievers with it.I forced myself to breathe through my mouth and swept the bottles into a plastic grocery bag.I slipped on my windbreaker, which was the warmest thing I owned at that moment and took the bottles with me when I left the apartment.
My first thought after throwing the bag into the dumpster was coffee.I should’ve made some in the apartment, but I’d been so intent on getting clean and losing my headache that it hadn’t even occurred to me.I debated heading over to the Rocket.Did I really want to see Cassie again in the shape I was in?Then I decided to go anyway and let things happen if they were going to happen.
I almost started walking over when I remembered I had Matt’s car.The Celica started right up and I drove to the Rocket.The lunch crowd was thinning out and a little twenty-something barista with a belly button ring took my order.There was no sign of Cassie.A small sadness wormed its way into my chest.
The coffee seemed to nudge the pain relievers along and my headache faded.I sat at a table in the corner, wishing I had brought my notes with me.I didn’t remember writing anything profound, but sometimes re-reading things helped spark the analytical process.Being a detective was never something I really got a chance to do. I guess the only the exception was a brief stint helping out detectives while I was on light duty after the Circle K shooting.Even then, I mostly did grunt work.
I closed my eyes and thought of everything that I knew and everything that had happened.The faces of all the people involved rolled past in my mind’s eye. I heard voices, murmuring echoes, but no epiphany came.I hadn’t accomplished much of anything yet and I had no idea where to go from here.
The coffee warmed my stomach and settled it down.I sipped it until the cup was empty, going around and around things in my head and ending up with the same dead ends every time.
I left the Rocket and walked to the payphone down the street.I got Adam’s voice mail, so I left him a message about getting a late lunch and hung up.
Back in the car, I glanced at the digital clock on the dash.School would be out soon.Maybe there was something I could do.
37
A Porsche.I should’ve known.
After leaving the Rocket, I’d driven up High Drive and found my way south to Fillmore High School.A Zip’s Burger was across the street from the faculty parking. I backed the Celica into a parking slot and waited.After a while, the smell of burgers and fries got to me. I wandered inside and bought a plain burger and some more coffee.My headache had subsided to almost nothing and I didn’t want it coming back out of hunger.
I sat in
the driver’s seat of the Celica, munching my burger and sipping a cup of coffee that had a slight burnt taste to it.
When the kids got out, large groups streamed across the street for that post-school burger, a universal fixture since burgers were invented.I kept my eyes trained on the faculty lot, wondering how long it would take for Gary LeMond to leave.Was he the kind of teacher who stayed until five, working on papers and lesson plans?Or did he bust right out of there, getting off-campus even before some of the students made it?
I didn’t know.But of all the people I’d come into contact with since I started looking for Kris, LeMond was the only one I couldn’t put my finger on.He bugged me for some reason. Since I didn’t have anywhere else to go, unless Adam worked a miracle for me, checking up on LeMond was as good a place to waste time as any other.
A solitary figure strolled purposefully around the faculty lot. I recognized the shirt and the shape.It was the school security officer, Bill, pulling parking lot duty.He was probably there to make sure none of the kids vandalized a teacher’s car after school.Ah, the glamour.
I realized that LeMond might have some kind of after-school activity.Maybe the drama club was meeting or something.Hadn’t Marie Byrnes said something about it being his turn to produce a play?
The last of the burger tamped down my hunger.I balled up the wrapper and returned to sipping my coffee.
My questions became moot fifteen minutes later when I spotted LeMond speed walking out to the parking lot.He had some books and folders under one arm.Bill gave him a comradely wave but LeMond didn’t notice.He strode directly to a white Porsche 911 and got in quickly.
Like I said, I should’ve figured.
I started the car and slipped into traffic behind him.He drove like a maniac, slipping in and out of traffic like he was on a NASCAR tryout.Just in the short drive down to Twenty-ninth and over to Grand Boulevard, three separate cars honked at him. One guy in a Blazer shot him the bird.LeMond ignored them all and zipped along.
The nice part about long straight-aways likeTwenty-ninth was that it was easy to keep his car in sight.But when he turned right on Grand Boulevard, I had to speed up to avoid losing him.By the time I got to the intersection, the light had changed and the car in front of me was waiting to go straight.I looked frantically down Grand Boulevard and watched thedistinct Porsche rear end go around the bend.
When the light changed, I chirped my tires, pulled around the corner and accelerated hard.By the time I got to the curve in the road, LeMond’s Porsche was out of sight.
I slowed down and thought about it.Unless he’d sped up to about fifty or sixty, he couldn’t have reached the crest of the hill at Fourteenth, where Grand Boulevard drops down into the downtown area.Besides, Grand is a twenty-mile-an-hour zone and heavily patrolled by traffic cops.The traffic up near the park slowed to a crawl.More likely, he turned off on one of the side streets.
Manito Park appeared on my left, a huge park with a wide open grassy area around a duck pond and gentle, treed slopes.He hadn’t turned that direction, so all that remained was a right hand turn.
I took the next right and drove down the side street for several blocks until it approached the maze of streets next to Rockwood Boulevard.Another two blocks and the houses went from middle class to upper class in a hurry.I hoped that LeMond wasn’t privately rich or banging someone who was.At least that way, he had probably stayed to the west of Rockwood Boulevard.
I drove down the residential side streets on a serpentine course, looking at the cars parked in driveways and on the streets.It occurred to me that LeMond might have a garage of some sort to keep his Porsche, in which case I would never spot it.
Once I started looking for Porsches, it was amazing how many I came across.Only one was white, though and it was a 944 parked outside a large brick house that was several tax brackets above a teacher’s income.
I was down to Sixteenth and just about to give up when I finally spotted LeMond’s Porsche. He was parked in a driveway next to a small rancher, mid-block.The Porsche was rested under a portable carport directly next to the house.
The neighborhood was solidly middle class and bustling with late afternoon activity.A pair of elementary-aged kids were playing catch with a football in the front yard just two houses away from LeMond’s.Another, who might have been a high schooler or maybe only junior high, was trudging sullenly up the sidewalk.Across the street from LeMond’s house, a trim woman about thirty was doing some sort of yard work in the flower bed next to her porch, her breath pluming upward in the air as she worked on her knees.The rest of her yard was sharply manicured.I imagined it was a sight to behold once spring came around.
I drove around the block and parked four houses up from LeMond’s on the opposite side of the street.This put me as far away from the two kids playing football and the diligent yard mistress as possible, but still left me a decent view of his place.I wasn’t sure how long I could sit and watch without arousing suspicion, though in a neighborhood like this I didn’t think it would be very long.On a street like this, everyone knows everyone else’s cars.Plus, the house I was parked in front of didn’t have a driveway. That meant I was probably sitting right in what some resident felt was his personal parking place.
In reality, the street is public property and anyone can park there.But I didn’t feel like trying to explain that to an irate homeowner while the rest of the neighborhood looked on.Especially with the two kids, who I’d come to believe were brothers, playing half a block away.The last thing I wanted was someone thinking I was some kind of a burglar. Or a pervert.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to wait very long.Barely ten minutes passed and I saw exactly why LeMond had been driving so fast.A small red car pulled up directly in front of his house. A dark haired beauty stepped out.I put her at twenty or twenty-two at first. She carried school books, but she could be in college.But then I noticed how she still walked with the carefree step of a younger girl.I lowered my estimate and that put her in high school.
The girl’s hair was long and hung nearly to her waist above pert buttocks.This was a girl that would never buy her own drink in a bar when she was old enough to get in.A goddamn heartbreaker.
Like Kris Sinderling.
The girl rang the doorbell and LeMond answered almost instantly. He flashed a big, dopey grin at her. She gave him a quick embrace before stepping inside.LeMond cast a glance up and down the street before closing the door.
Sonofabitch, I thought.He was sleeping with her.
On the tailend of that came the devil’s advocate, arguing that maybe he was tutoring her.Or maybe she was in drama and he was going over lines with her.Or maybe she was a college girl and my first impression of her age had been dead on.Nothing wrong with a high school teacher sleeping with a college student, is there?
And who’s to say that he’s actually sleeping with her?Maybe-
I shut that argument down.The quick hug and the furtive look up and down the street told me all I needed to know.He was sleeping with her and for whatever reason, he wasn’t supposed to be.I didn’t know if that look happened because she was a student like Kris or because he had a wife or girlfriend and he was just cheating or what.But he was up to no good.
What I really wanted to do was to sneak up to his house, peer into the windows and get a look inside, even though I was afraid of what I might find.But it was still light out and would be for a while yet.
Besides, I knew what I needed to know.
Gary LeMond was a slime ball.
38
I drove to the gas station and filled the tank.While I was there, I called Adam again.He answered on the second ring.
“Adam, it’s Stef.”
“Oh, hey, how’s it going?”
“Good.You get my message?”
“Yeah,” he said.“And I’m sorry, but I was too busy to get lunch anyway.”
“You want to grab some dinner?”
“Can’t.Nikki and I have plans.Thanks, though.”
>
“Okay.”
We were silent for a moment and I felt foolish for talking in code.It’s not like the Russians or the Feds were listening in.
Adam said, “Listen, though, I’m not as busy tomorrow as I thought I was going to be.I could probably meet you for coffee in the morning, if you want.”His voice was smooth and casual, but I knew him well enough to sense the excitement underneath.
“That sounds good,” I said, trying to mask my own excitement.“The usual place?”
“Sure,” Adam said.“See you there.”
I hung up, thrilled.He had found something, I knew.He was excited because of whatever the technological feat was to accomplish it, but I was excited because tomorrow morning I would have something to go on.Maybe.
And I’d be one step closer to finding Kris.
39
Once it was dark, I drove back to LeMond’s block.With darkness came a stillness to the street. No one was outside in the cold.There were three streetlights on the block, but the middle one was out, either from a burnt bulb or a well-thrown rock.Lights blazed in many of the houses, but some were shrouded in darkness.
I found a place to park just about two houses away from LeMond’s and walked to his house.The porch light was off and the drapes were drawn, though I could see that there was a light behind them.I cut across his lawn and tried quickly to peer through any cracks in the drapery.There weren’t any.
There was another window on the side of the house and light poured through this one.I leaned into the light far enough to see that it led to a kitchen.It was clean, except for some dishes in the sink and an open bottle of wine on the counter.
