City Problems

by Steve Goble

  She looked around at the autumn show of painted leaves. There was little to see besides woods, fields, farmhouses, and more fields, but it all added up to pastoral beauty. “Nice out here.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said, hoping it would still be that way once this case was over.

  She turned toward me. “You know you look a little bit like Heath Ledger?”

  “Who?”

  She laughed. “C’mon. Heath Ledger? The actor? Played the Joker? You look like him, just bigger.”

  I knew the guy she meant. She wasn’t the first person to tell me that, of course. But the only movie I had ever seen Ledger in was that one where he painted his face with deathly white paste and bloody gruesome lipstick, and went around scaring people and killing people for no damned reason at all. The Joker was a trickster God in a universe without rules, sense, or justice. I didn’t want to live in a universe like that, and maybe sometimes I still worry I do live in a universe like that. I’d used booze, pills, therapy, and meditation ever since New York in an attempt to not see the universe that way. And now, here I was looking for a missing girl while memories stalked my mind, like Grendel at Herot.

  Anyway, I get tired of hearing about how I look like the fucking Joker.

  “Nah, I don’t look like him.”

  “It’s not a bad thing, Ed.” She grinned. “Lot of women would say it’s a good thing.”

  I glanced at her. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Well, then, maybe looking like the Joker sans makeup could have advantages, after all.

  I was a professional cop working with another professional cop, though, so I changed the topic. We just chit-chatted the rest of the way to Hollis High—a flat, one-story building with a library at one end and a gymnasium at the other, with hallways and classrooms and a cafeteria in between. The marching band across the parking lot was rehearsing “Billy Jean.” Don’t ask me why.

  Kids were streaming from the doors already, lugging books and bags and wandering toward the line of vehicles where parents waited to collect their offspring. Some wandered to the right, where a string of yellow buses waited to take them home. A lot of the girls reminded me of Megan Beemer, and of a different blonde, back in the Bronx, who I didn’t really want to remember.

  I parked the truck and got out in a hurry, spitting on the gravel lot. I had thought about NYPD and that damned Bronx case too many times today, and the beer was wearing off.

  “You OK, Ed?” Shelly shut the truck door. “You look pissed.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  We walked toward the front door. Principal Del Reed saw me and headed my way. He waved. I waved back.

  He dodged his way through the swarms of kids and hurried toward us as quickly as his short legs would allow, his black tie flapping over the shoulder of his blue shirt. He wore his usual walleye expression, the same one I always got when I came poking around Hollis. Reed was worried more about bad publicity than just about anything else, because there was always a school levy coming up and it ain’t easy prying money from farmers who think you are indoctrinating kids to believe in evolution and vote for Democrats. Reed would rather lose both legs under a lawn tractor than give farmers another excuse to deny his school funds, so he was hoping we weren’t here to do a drug sweep.

  “Can I help you, Detective?” He had jogged about a hundred feet, and was huffing a bit. He tried to look happy to see me, and failed miserably.

  “Mr. Reed, this is Detective Shelly Beckworth, from Columbus PD. Shelly, this is Principal Del Reed, in charge of all these kids here.”

  They nodded at each other and muttered hellos.

  “Shelly is working a missing persons case, Del, and we’re hoping some of your kids might be able to help us out.”

  “Columbus, you said?” He made it sound like a disease.

  “Yeah. None of your kids are in trouble,” I assured him.

  “Oh, well, of course,” he said, showing a genuine smile at last.

  “At least, we have no particular reason to think so. We just hope some of them might have heard or seen something. Actually, I was hoping to start with Miss Scott.”

  “Ah,” Reed said, peering down at his shoes. He looked back up, trying to hide a grin. He suddenly looked like a window peeper. “Well, you know where to find her, I am sure. Please … try to be discreet. Please? And thanks for not showing up in a marked cruiser. Thank God for small favors.” He went on his way, saying goodbye to departing kids and waving at parents in the pickup line.

  “You didn’t want to start with the principal?”

  “Nah. He’s so worried about the district’s image he won’t say much of anything, even if we put a gun to his head. If a cop asks him what’s on the lunch menu for tomorrow, he’d check with the school board for permission to answer before committing himself.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah. Kids don’t tell him much, anyway. No one really likes him. We’ll get more help from one of the teachers. Linda Scott’s an English teacher, and helps the arts teacher a lot, and the kids adore her because she treats them like people. If any Hollis kids went to Columbus this weekend, I think there is a pretty good chance she might know about it.”

  “Sounds good. Principal seemed amused when you mentioned her, though.”

  “No idea why.”

  We entered the building. The lobby opened into the cafeteria. A few students sat at tables, and on tables, gabbing away. A couple were reading, and one was writing furiously. I figured they were hanging around for some after-school club or something, or maybe just waiting for rides. I doubted they just loved school so much they didn’t want to rush away at the final bell.

  We turned right, headed down the hall and past the offices, then turned right again. Another left, and we were at Linda Scott’s classroom. Literary quotes hung in a row across the wall. “There’s many a man has more hair than wit.—William Shakespeare.” “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.—Mark Twain.” “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.—Ursula K. Le Guin.”

  I always scanned those quotes, looking to see if Linda had added the one I had suggested. Lo and behold, there it was. “I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest.—Alexandre Dumas.”

  I spotted Linda, shelving a book. Her back was to me, but I recognized the flowered skirt, the curves, the nice legs, and the long red hair streaming down the back of her white sleeveless blouse. The three freckles that formed a triangle on her left forearm were still there.

  “Knock knock,” I said.

  She turned and smiled big. “Ed!” Her blouse had a couple more buttons loose than was probably wise in a building full of teenage boys, but I didn’t mind if she didn’t. It is sometimes a good thing when September is unseasonably warm.

  Linda came forward quickly and gave me a hug, then smiled at Shelly. “New girlfriend?”

  “Fellow cop. Detective Shelly Beckworth, out of Columbus. Shelly, this is Linda Scott, reader, writer, artist, and cupcake expert.”

  They shook hands, and seemed to be sizing one another up. Maybe that was just my imagination working overtime. It does that.

  “I am looking for a teen girl missing out of our jurisdiction,” Shelly said. “We have reason to believe she may have encountered some Hollis students at a party in Columbus on Saturday night. Maybe she left the party with one or more of them, or maybe they saw her leave with someone else or heard her mention some plans for afterward. Anything that might help.”

  “We were hoping you might have heard if any Hollis kids went up that way,” I added.

  “I see.” Linda’s green eyes met mine for just a moment. We’d had a thing a while back, and it had been a pretty damned good thing up until she’d asked me what I was thinking one too many times. What I had been thinking wasn’t anything I wanted to talk about. Linda liked to try to fix people and thought making them talk would do that.
She probably was right, but I didn’t like it much anyway and it tended to make me surly and difficult to be around.

  Anyway, we had parted on good terms, and seeing her now I had to wonder if maybe I should have talked more.

  “As a matter of fact,” Linda said, glancing heavenward, spinning toward her desk and clasping her hands together with what seemed to me a small air of victory, “you came to the right place. There were plenty of celebrations this weekend. Big Green beat the Dusters, you know. Rivalry game, rah rah rah.” She smiled at me, and leaned against her desk. I knew she did it just to stretch those long legs out in front of me. She crossed the right one over the left, slowly, smiling all the time.

  “Halls were filled with hushed talk of parties, getting wasted, getting laid, getting caught, you know how it goes,” Linda said. “Most of it sounded like parties around here. But I do know of at least three boys who went to Columbus.”

  I whipped a notebook from my pocket. Shelly did the same and asked, “Names, please?”

  “Soul Scraped.”

  “What the fuck?” I snorted. “You got a student named Soul Scraped? I know Bob and John are kind of out of style these days, but …”

  Linda laughed. “It’s a band, Ed. Soul Scraped. Hollis High’s very own power trio. Dark, angsty, poetic stuff, very fast and very loud.”

  “They were in Columbus Saturday night?”

  “They had a gig there, yes,” Linda said. “They were very excited about it, although they tried to act as though it was no big deal. You know, like a guy in the bigs hits a home run and casually trots around the bases like he hits one every day, that sort of thing. But they talked about it a lot, and clearly had a night they described as epic.”

  Shelly tapped her pen against her chin. “Do you know where they performed?”

  “No idea, but I think it was a party, rather than a campus bar or something like that.”

  Shelly and I exchanged glances. I asked Linda for the names.

  “Jimmy Norris. Sorry. He prefers Buzz these days. He is the guitar man and lead singer. It’s his show, really. Johnny Burke plays bass, Gage Thomas plays drums, but I think Buzz writes it all. A lot of Poe and Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith riffs in the lyrics, but some Emily Dickinson and Yeats and more, too. They auditioned for our yearbook assembly, but Mr. Reed thought they were a bit … too … much.”

  I nodded. “Hell, I know Buzz Norris. Trailer park across from the cemetery near Jodyville. Our road guys get called out there to shut down the noise a couple of times a week.”

  “Are they any good?” Shelly finished writing the names.

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes,” Linda said.

  “I have heard them,” I said. “About as melodic as a chain saw.” The teacher laughed and flipped her red hair back over her shoulder. “You voluntarily listen to Kris Kristofferson, may I remind you. Musically, Soul Scraped may be an acquired taste. But Buzz’s lyrics have some real poetry to them. He thinks things through. And they are a very enthusiastic power trio. They jump and bounce and really shred the instruments.”

  “Kristofferson’s a poet,” I muttered. “And Willie doesn’t shred.”

  Shelly gave me a puzzled look, then returned her attention to Linda. “Do you know of any other students who went to Columbus this weekend?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Gage Thomas,” I said. “Any relation to Baker Thomas?”

  Linda’s eyes flashed quick anger. “The son of a bitch who threw his wife down the stairs? No, Gage is not related to that piece of shit. He’s been pretty vocal about that.” Linda usually tries to save the adult language for after hours, but the Thomas case had everyone riled up.

  “OK.” I jotted that down.

  “Thanks for catching that garbage,” Linda said, calming down as quickly as she’d flared up.

  Shelly pulled out Megan Beemer’s photo. “Have you seen this girl around? If she came this way with a hot guitar player, she may have met him here after school or something, or maybe you’ve seen her around town.”

  Linda looked at the image, and sadness clouded her face. “No, haven’t seen her. Pretty girl. I hope you find her soon. God, I really hope so.”

  “Thanks. We will do our best.”

  “See that?” Linda pointed to the Dumas quote on the wall.

  “Yeah, I did,” I answered. “Thanks.”

  We said our goodbyes and headed back to the truck. On the way we showed the photo to a few straggling students, and asked if anyone knew of any excursions to Columbus, but we had no luck.

  Back behind the wheel, I radioed dispatch. “Dee Two to station.”

  “Station. Go ahead, Dee Two.”

  “Debbie, have we had any noise complaints from the Norris place today? Out near Jodyville?”

  “Indeed. Got one just now, almost as soon as school let out. Loud drumming, that’s it so far, but you know the rest of it will start up soon. Always does. Unit Three is set to respond, but he is way up north just now. It’s gonna be a while.”

  “I’ll take the noise call; you can wave Unit Three off.”

  “Gonna request some real country music, Ed?”

  “Dee Two out.”

  “Station out.”

  We listened as Debbie called off the road guy. It was Trumpower, and he sounded relieved. I figured I could get a beer out of him for taking the call.

  “OK, Shelly,” I said as the truck engine rumbled. “Let’s go be music critics.”

  “Who’s Kristofferson?”

  “Jesus Christ.” My eyes widened as I pulled out of the school lot. “Really? ‘Me and Bobby McGee’? ‘Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down’? ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night’?”

  “I know the Bobby McGee one,” Shelly said. “Janis Joplin sang it, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Kris Kristofferson wrote it. He sang it, too, well, growled it really. Growls and grumbles, mostly in tune, but not always. Anyway, a damned good songwriter.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  I sighed. “Why me, Lord?” I’ve always been told my musical tastes are older than I am, but I felt like I was beginning to catch up.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tuesday, 2:47 p.m.

  “DUDE, WE’RE FUCKED.”

  “Not so loud, dumbass. Jesus, you might as well be on speakerphone. Why don’t you call the fucking TV news and tell them all about it?”

  “Sorry. It’s cool, though. I’m all alone. No one close enough to hear me. Which is good, because we are fucking fucked.”

  “Calm down. How are we fucked?”

  “Cops. Came to the school. Asking about Columbus and a missing girl. Showing pictures, asking students do you know her, have you seen her around, shit like that.”

  “Columbus is a big town, dumbass. Lots of bitches disappear. Every fucking day.”

  “I said they got pictures, dude.”

  “Pictures of us?”

  “No!”

  “Then who the fuck cares? Is it her?”

  “Fuck, dude, I didn’t talk to the fucking cops, OK? You think I’m a moron?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Anyway …”

  “Anyway, I hear it is a blonde they are looking for, a pretty blonde. We are fucked.”

  “Will you chill? Jesus! Dude, lots of people were at that party. No one is going to find her; no one is going to connect her to us. Unless, you fuckhead, you lose your shit and start sweating and gulping and shitting your britches in front of the cops, you got it? So calm the fuck down. Figure they got nothing, because if they had something, they wouldn’t just be asking random fucking people random fucking questions, see?”

  “Yeah, maybe. OK.”

  “So we will figure out our next move. Relax. We’ll figure it out.”

  “OK. I said OK. Fuck.”

  “Calm down.”

  “OK.”

  “They might get to us, you know, because we were there and people know it. So th
ey might talk to us.”

  “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”

  “But that don’t mean shit, OK? Other people were there, too. Remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So us being there don’t prove shit, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Right?”

  “OK, fuck it. Right.”

  “So they come around, they ask questions, we don’t know shit, sorry, dude, never seen her. Right?”

  “Right. OK.”

  “And we stay calm. Got it? We went to the party, we saw people but not her, sorry we can’t help you, blah blah blah. We don’t stammer like a dumbass, we don’t drip sweat all over the fucking cops, we don’t start yammering like a nervous fuck, right?”

  “Right.”

  “We don’t shit ourselves.”

  “Right.”

  “Because we are dudes.”

  “Right.”

  “We are dudes.”

  “Right. Fuck, yeah. Right! We are dudes!”

  “OK, we cool?”

  “Cool.”

  “We dudes?”

  “Dudes. Fuck, yeah.”

  “We rock and roll machines?”

  “Fuck, yeah, dude. Fuck, yeah. Rock and roll machines.”

  “Keep cool. Later, dude.”

  “Later.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tuesday, 3:19 p.m.

  I HAD SKIPPED lunch, so Shelly and I stopped at the Jodyville Market for fry pies and coffee, since it was on the way. It would be my second fry pie of the day, but, well, that’s happened before. They’re really good.

  Jenna behind the counter smiled at me as though she knew a secret. The market was the only real option for shopping nearby, unless you wanted to drive into Ambletown, so everyone in or near Jodyville popped in here regularly for smokes, ice cream, bad beer, and lunch meat. Jenna knew everyone by face, if not always by name. Some people collect stamps or coins, but Jenna collects gossip.

  She looked at me the way a birder looks at a green-winged teal, then her gaze zeroed in on Shelly. “Who is your friend, Ed?”