SW01 - The Edge of Nowhere

by Elizabeth George

  Seth said, “Like a girl. Whatever.”

  “Seth. What does she look like?”

  Seth called to Jake, who was behind the deli counter, “Jake, you know Becca King, right? What’s she look like?”

  Jake raised his head from a platter of meat. He said, “Uh . . . darkish brownish hair, chubbette body. Major thunder thighs. Butt like a bronco. She wears weirdo glasses like something from nineteen fifty-two, and she dresses like shit, but hell, I’d do her.”

  Seth said to Dave Mathieson, “I wouldn’t. She’s fourteen years old.”

  Jake leered and winked. “Start ’em young.” And then with his gaze flicking to the window and back to Seth, “Hey—”

  Seth cut in quickly. “I bet the undersheriff here’d like to talk to you about doing fourteen-year-old girls, Jake.”

  Jake ducked his head. “Just kidding, Darrow.”

  Outside, Becca had seen the undersheriff and had executed a neat turn. She was walking swiftly back up the street where, Seth hoped, she would duck out of sight. The undersheriff wasn’t going to hang around the Star Store forever. It was pretty clear that he was in town to prowl around, looking for her.

  Mathieson said, “Very amusing, you two. I’m just peeing my pants, you two guys are so funny. But my boy’s in a hospital bed hooked up to IVs and a heart monitor, with his leg in traction, and someone put him there. So you listen to me and you hear me good.” He eyeballed Seth. “You find this Becca King and you bring her to me for questions. You got that?”

  “I got it fine. But I don’t know where she is.”

  “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

  “Look, she’s just some kid who came in once looking for grease for her bicycle chain. Sometimes she buys a sandwich here. That’s all I know, and that’s all Jake knows.”

  The undersheriff looked at Seth long and hard. He took his hand off his gun and he pointed at Seth again. He said, “Don’t play me. We can always go up to Coupeville to the jail and have a conversation there. How’d you like that, Seth?”

  “Do what you need to do,” Seth replied. “I’ve had worse things happen lately than taking a ride to Coupeville.”

  BUT SETH WASN’T happy about having made it through his talk with the undersheriff when he clocked out of the Star Store several hours later. His time had been elongated. Restocking vegetables had become working one of the registers when two more people failed to show up for work because the sun was out and they’d probably decided that a day windsurfing at the beach was better than eight hours working in the Star Store.

  Manning the cash register had been like every bad dream Seth had ever experienced about being in his history classroom and being mistakenly handed a calculus test by the teacher. His grandfather’s old friend Mrs. Prince had been pretty nice about being charged $2,100 for a newspaper, a six-pack of beer, a loaf of Dave’s Killer Bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a pound of green beans. But once Seth had cleared that little mess up, he was pretty stressed, and the rest of the morning was downhill from there. When it was over, he climbed into Sammy, put his head on the steering wheel, and said to the car, “I wish you could drive yourself because I am finished.”

  “You can’t be,” Becca remarked as she rose from the backseat from beneath an old beach towel. “You gotta get me out of here.”

  Seth jumped a good six inches. “What the heck!”

  Becca shed the towel. “This thing smells awful.”

  “It’s Gus’s. What d’you expect it to smell like? Roses?”

  “Don’t you ever wash it?”

  “It’ll just get dirty again.” He fired up the car and headed out of the parking lot. He pulled out into Second Street, and he began to drive up the hill that would take them to the north edge of town. Where Second Street changed its name to Saratoga Road, he pulled into the parking lot of the local Laundromat. Becca climbed over the seat and dropped down next to him, and it came to Seth that Jake’s description of her was no longer apt. She still had the weirdo glasses and the bad brown hair, but she wasn’t a chubbette any longer. If she deep-sixed the glasses and owl-eyes makeup she would almost look good. She said, “I saw the undersheriff talking to you. I didn’t know where to go but I figured he wouldn’t look for me inside Sammy.”

  Seth said, “Good thinking. And you’re a suspect now.” He explained his visit from Hayley, what she’d said about Jenn’s promise to her.

  Becca listened to all this and shook her head slowly. “So I’m supposed to have . . . what? Like, I pushed Derric off the trail because he didn’t want to be my boyfriend?”

  “That’s about it.” Seth looked away from her. Across the street was a vacant lot, for sale as long as he could remember. At the moment it hosted a doe and three fawns. Triplets, he thought. You didn’t see triplets often.

  Becca said, “Seth . . .” as if to get his attention. “You don’t think I did that, do you? You don’t think that I pushed Derric?”

  “I guess not,” Seth said.

  “Well thanks. That sounds real positive.”

  He turned back to her. “Hey, I can’t help what it sounds like. I didn’t push him. Someone did. I don’t know who. Maybe it was you.”

  “Great.” Becca threw herself back against her seat and stared out the window and into the Laundromat. She sighed.

  It looked to Seth as if he and Becca had come to a crossroads in their friendship, and one of them was going to have to move across it. But he didn’t want to be the one who did the walking. As he was thinking this, Becca turned her head and looked at him. “At some point,” she said, “we’re going to have to trust each other or we’re not getting out of this.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I guess it means you need to tell me why you stopped wearing your sandals. Dylan’s still got his on, so I’m thinking it’s not the weather that made you stop wearing them.”

  Seth swore. Then he said, “Those sandals. Crap. I wish I never bought them.”

  “Okay. Whatever,” Becca said. “But d’you see how it looks that you stopped wearing them pretty fast after Derric fell?”

  “And do you see how it looks that you disappeared after Derric fell? And how it looks that you left that stupid cell phone in the parking lot of Saratoga Woods?”

  “Yeah. Matter of fact, I see it. But those were things I had to do.”

  “Yeah? Well, I had to do some stuff, too.”

  “Like what? Push Derric over the bluff?”

  “Hey, come on.”

  “Okay, okay.” Becca watched him for a moment in a way that made Seth feel she was trying to delve into his brain. She finally said, “Like I said, at some point we’re going to have to trust each other, so here’s the deal: I saw a footprint of those sandals on the trail where Derric fell and I’m saying that you didn’t hurt him.”

  “Good. Because that kid’s over six feet tall and built like a linebacker, and I’m not stupid. No way would I put a hand on him. What about you?”

  “I don’t push boys over bluffs. No matter if they tell me the sight of me gives them the runs. Okay?”

  He smiled. “The runs, huh? Okay. So what now?”

  “So now you tell me about the sandals.”

  Seth rolled his eyes. “The sandals again. Hell, Becca, they’re being repaired. I had to send them to Seattle. Probably a week after Derric fell. The sole started to separate and they cost me over one hundred fifty bucks and they’re guaranteed for life.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. Period. They’re all-weather and the whole nine yards and when the sole started to come off, believe me, I was pretty pissed. So they’re being fixed.”

  “Why didn’t you just say?”

  “Say what? To who? ‘Hey, world, I’m getting my sandals fixed’? I didn’t even know why anyone cared about them.”

  Becca shook her head, but Seth could tell it was in wonder now and not in disbelief. Her expression said it was such a simple answer and one that made perfe
ct sense.

  She said, “I think we’ve got to talk to Dylan Cooper then.”

  Seth said, “Looks like. If you saw that print and if anyone knows anything, it’s going to be that dude.”

  “Know where to find him?”

  Seth looked at his watch. “This time of day? No problem.”

  * * *

  THIRTY-NINE

  When Seth took Becca back toward town, she felt trepidation. She hadn’t been out in broad daylight in weeks other than to whip up to the cemetery for an hour or to sneak to the library via Seawall Park. So she slouched in her seat as they coursed down Second Street, and she ducked her head altogether when they passed the Cliff Motel.

  She couldn’t believe it when Seth headed up Maxwelton Road. It seemed to her that South Whidbey High School had to be his destination. All she caught from his whispers was Dylan . . . stoners always . . . like Sean said, so she figured he was sure about where to find Dylan Cooper. Her only terror was that his idea was to find Dylan by marching into the administration office of the school and demanding to see him.

  But he made a left turn just before the school, and they curved up a road behind it. They went past a baseball diamond and ended up tucked into a parking area where two trailheads branched into a woods that Becca hadn’t seen before.

  She said, “Where are we?”

  Seth said, “South Whidbey Community Park. Part of it backs onto the high school. Very convenient for the stoners. Come on.”

  He led the way into the trees. It was a broad path, but it soon got narrow. There weren’t additional trails breaking off it as in Saratoga Woods, though. It was all straightforward for quite some distance until a single fork appeared. Seth didn’t hesitate. He veered right, heading vaguely back in the direction of the high school. They were far behind it and up above it, though. Dimly in the distance, a bell for changing classes rang.

  This path was narrower than the other. Salal and ferns grew so thickly along the way that Becca knew she would have missed the third trail leading off from the path they were on, had Seth not pointed it out by a young, arching alder that marked it some fifty yards into the trees and brush.

  He said, “This way,” and ducked into the shrubbery. Becca followed. Soon enough she smelled, rather than saw, what they were looking for. The scent of burning weed was unmistakable and what accompanied it was the murmur of voices and the additional whispers of oh man heavy . . . where’d this stuff . . . drag man . . . lid of this all right, which told the tale of the state they were about to find the dope smokers in.

  There were three of them, and they were blitzed. Becca recognized them all as she emerged into a small clearing behind Seth. Dylan Cooper was there—wearing those sandals—and his two companions were the boys who’d been with him the day he’d harassed both Jenn and her just outside the new commons. Beyond them and below, Becca could see the school. It wasn’t so far away as to make sneaking into the woods a problem for kids who wanted to dope up.

  “S’happenin’?” Dylan was the one to speak. “Seth, cool. You here for a toke?”

  “God. It’s that skank,” one of the other boys said, pointing to Becca. “Whew, you’re one ugly chick.”

  “Or you buyin’?” Dylan asked as if the other boy hadn’t spoken. “I got three beans for later but I c’n sell you one.”

  “We need to talk to you,” Seth said to Dylan.

  Dylan drew in on the joint he was holding and smiled a slow and knowing smile. “Bet I know about what. Also bet I don’t care.”

  Becca rolled her eyes. This, she saw, was not going to be easy. She said, “You dope up in Saratoga Woods sometimes, right? On weekends, I bet, most of all.”

  “At the erratic at the top of the woods,” Seth added. “Everyone knows it.”

  Dylan shrugged. “So what?”

  “So that day when Derric Mathieson fell, you were there,” Becca said.

  Dylan’s eyes looked as guarded as they could, considering how lit up he was. One of the other boys said, “That dude Mathieson again. When’re we goin to stop hearin’ about him?”

  Dylan smiled. He said to Becca, “Mayyyyyyybeeeee. Or mayyyyybeeeee not.”

  “I saw you, Cooper,” Seth said. “You took off when the cops showed up, but I saw you and so did everyone else who was there.”

  Dylan hadn’t considered this, obviously. Or at least not in his present condition. He said nothing, but Becca could see that he was attempting to make a few calculations in his head. She heard fuh . . . gotta . . . wow . . . damn . . . all bouncing around him, but that was it. Her hopes of somehow wrestling some sense out of this boy were pretty well dashed. But she had to try.

  “Were you meeting Derric in the woods?” she asked him.

  “Th’ hell would I be meetin’ him for?” Dylan asked.

  “You tell us,” Seth said. “Because you left your footprint on Meadow Loop Trail right where he fell and if you don’t want the sheriff to hear about that—”

  “Hey hey hey!” Dylan was on his feet in an instant, in a way that belied the extent to which he was doped up. “What you saying, dude?”

  “That you were there and you know something and it’s time to cough it up,” Seth told him.

  Dylan approached. He and Seth were matched for size, but with his friends present—no matter their condition—the odds weren’t good. He got in Seth’s face and sneered, “And what about you?” as his two friends rose to their feet. “You bein’ there and him bein’ there an’ you such a fug of a loser an’ him such a fug of a winner . . .”

  Seth put a hand on Dylan’s chest to keep him at a distance. He said, “When it comes to losers, dude . . .”

  Dylan’s friends were up and circling the two boys in an instant.

  Becca said, “Come on, Seth. If these guys know anything—”

  “Nope,” Seth said. “Dylan’s going to talk. Because if he doesn’t, I’m going to punch his lights.”

  “Uh . . . Seth?” Becca said, for one of the boys had spied a fallen branch and had decided to arm himself with it.

  Seth gave it a glance. He looked at Becca. “He couldn’t hit a dead turkey with that,” he said.

  The boy took this as a challenge and swung, but Seth was quick. One move and the branch was his. He twisted it and its wielder was on the ground. Seth threw the branch to one side and said, “Come on. You guys are way too strung out to fight. We can go that way but even Becca here’s going to be able to take you on. So you want to answer me or you want to throw punches?”

  Dylan wanted punches. He landed one, but in his condition it was a glancing blow. One blow from Seth and he was on the ground. Seth sighed. “Guys,” he said. “Get real.”

  “Fug. Loser.”

  “Fat ’n’ ugly.”

  “Yeah, dude. And all the rest,” Seth said. “So what happened in the woods or do I have to sit on your face to hear it?”

  “Nothin’ happened in the woods, okay?” Dylan said. He was on the ground still, but his concern now wasn’t Seth so much as the roach he’d dropped. “Didn’t know that dude was there. What’s with you? We heard the fuggall noise. That’s it. Next thing we know the cops’re there. Like we’re goin’ to want to talk to them?”

  Becca listened hard to this and to everything else, but there was nothing more. Particularly there was nothing in the air among the boys to suggest that Dylan was lying. He was a piece of work, but it seemed that he was telling the truth. And if his condition now was anything like the condition he might have been in at the erratic in Saratoga Woods, he wouldn’t have been able to push anyone anywhere, least of all Derric Mathieson, who probably outweighed him by forty pounds and definitely outsmarted him by forty IQ points.

  She said to Seth, “That’s it, then.”

  “You think?” he said.

  She nodded. “Let’s go.”

  ALL THE WAY to the car, Becca thought furiously. She wanted answers and she wanted them now. But the whole idea of having answers handed to her took her back to th
e words that Diana Kinsale had spoken to her when they’d returned from their look at Jenn McDaniels’s house: The point of struggling through the questions was to recognize the answers when you finally had them. She’d struggled through her questions about Jenn McDaniels and Jenn’s dislike of her, and the answers had lain in that place where Jenn lived, in its grinding poverty and its sense of hopelessness. Here, now, she was faced with more questions, and while Dylan Cooper hadn’t provided the answers, she had a feeling they were staring her in the face.

  She said nothing as they made their way back to Seth’s VW. She felt that they had a partial picture of what had happened that day in Saratoga Woods but how to finish it? She’d thought talking to Dylan would do it. She’d been wrong. So she had to seek another way.

  She leaned against the VW when they reached it. Seth climbed inside and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. She pictured Saratoga Woods once again, much as she had pictured it for Diana earlier. So many people had been there. But how many of them could have taken the trail that Derric was on when he fell? It was by itself. It was far to one side of the meadow, tucked out of sight. True, it connected to other trails high up in the woods, but there were far easier ways to get to them, both from the parking lot and from within the forest itself. So for Derric to have been there . . . for anyone to have been there . . . there was going to be a significant reason, and it wasn’t going to have to do with a day hike. For a day hike just didn’t make sense. Not that trail. Not where it was. Not how you got to it.

  She leaned into the VW and spoke to Seth. “I think we’ve got to do it all again.”