Slain

by Harper, Livia

  I nod. I do remember. Searching hands that I always had to guide back to where they were supposed to be, even though everything in me was telling me not to. I wanted his hands to stay where they were. I wanted even more than that. But I was convinced at the time that he needed me to be the one to set the limits. I remember the guilt in his eyes, the hushed thank yous for keeping him honest, feeling like I had won a battle against the devil, that both of us had, every night he would drop me off after a date.

  “But the thing is, Em, I don’t regret it.” He looks me straight in the eye. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. Especially now.”

  He looks up to the stars, like he’s looking right at her. My eyes get moist, threaten to spill over.

  “I’m thankful. We didn’t have long enough together, but at least we got that.” He turns back to me, “Do think that’s wrong, Em? Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

  “No, Nicky, I don’t. Not at all.” I take a deep breath, try to find the right words. “I think that things aren’t always as black and white as we might have been taught.”

  “Thank you for saying that, Em,” he says. “It means a lot, coming from you.” He looks back up to the stars. “June and I may not have been married, but in my heart, she’s my wife. I think God can see that. Don’t you?”

  He looks at me, his eyes wet and searching for my approval, my agreement.

  I nod.

  I get home just before midnight. My parents think I was out with Mike, so they don’t ask questions. It’s late, but I can’t sleep. My mind buzzes with it all. June lived in the church. I can’t believe I never noticed.

  It feels important to understanding what happened to her, but I can’t yet reason why. Is it because she could have seen something she wasn’t supposed to? But what? What would be worth killing her for?

  Maybe it’s just because this seems like something I should have known, and not knowing it makes me uneasy about what else could be out there that I don’t know.

  I didn’t know, for instance, that her dad was in prison. My heart was set on it being him, and now I’m back to nothing. At least I think it’s nothing. He must have had friends. Could June have known something that could hurt her dad? I think about all the hit men I’ve seen in movies, scenes of drilling holes through floors to poison someone sleeping below or camping out in the building across from a target.

  If June could have hidden in the church, then who else could have been hiding? The person that did this to her wouldn’t have had to be attending the lock-in at all. They could have been waiting there all day, all week even.

  It’s 3 a.m., but I call Detective Boyer and leave her a voicemail. Then I call Mr. Graham and leave him a voicemail. It’ll be at least five hours before I hear back. I should sleep, but I don’t think I can.

  I decide to research her dad. Maybe I can find some of his accomplices and hunt them down. I take a moment to let that sink in. My life now includes research into bank robberies and accomplices. It’s unreal.

  I enter his name into Google: Lee Stuckey. A lot comes up. There’s a slew of articles from 2004 that list him as a suspect in a string of bank robberies, and finally convicted of armed robbery in one. I don’t remember them, but I would have only been eight. I click on the one dated the latest, November 12, 2005. It says just what May told me.

  Lee Stuckey, the last of the notorious Milk Gang, has been sentenced to life in prison for the deaths of Cassidy Surleaf and her baby boy, Cody Surleaf. The Surleafs were caught in the crossfire between a bank employee and the gang during the robbery of the Lafayette Credit Union last May 28. Forensic evidence later showed that the fatal bullets were shot from Stuckey’s gun.

  While the $200,000 they stole has yet to be recovered, all the members of the Milk Gang—Sara Jo Ford, Buddy Trent, Jay Peterson, Christina Bromegat, and Stuckey—were apprehended just four days later, on the morning of June 1. All have been formally charged and have begun serving out their sentences.

  While the rest of the Milk Gang each accepted plea bargains for shorter sentences, Stuckey demanded a jury trial. It proved to be a mistake for Stuckey, who was convicted on two counts of murder, as well as armed robbery and possession of an unregistered weapon. Stuckey now has no option for parole.

  The husband of Mrs. Surleaf and father of young Cody, Jason Surleaf, said nothing can ever replace the loss of a wife and child, but added, “I’m glad today that justice was finally served. I pray that Mr. Stuckey comes to find the error of his ways.”

  I research the prison he’s in, the Limon Correctional Facility, thinking I might visit. How else can I make sure he’s not involved? But the website says that I have to submit an application, which could take up to a month. I don’t have that kind of time.

  Then I get an idea. I call May. She gave me her number in case I needed to ask her any more questions. I mean to leave a message, but she picks up right away.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Emma. Sorry to call so late.”

  “S’okay. I’m up.” Her voice is so groggy it must be a lie.

  “Can I ask you a favor?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I FAKE SICK ON Sunday morning to get out of church. It has to be Sunday because my parents will be gone all day. Ditching church isn’t something I’ve ever done before, so seventeen years of consistent church attendance goes a long way in getting them to believe me.

  After they leave, I find my oldest pair of jeans, the tennis shoes I used to help paint the homeless shelter, and a baggy flannel shirt I got for a ski trip a couple years ago and haven’t worn since. The guidelines on the website are very strict about clothes.

  When I meet May at a gas station later, she agrees that I should be good enough to pass and loans me her driver’s license. I’m not on Lee’s approved visitor list, but she is. If the police won’t look into it, I will. It’s time to go meet the devil in person.

  I head east on I-70. Google told me last night that it would take two hours to get to the Limon Correctional Facility. I don’t mind. It gives me time to think about what to ask.

  Just a half hour outside the city, the landscape turns to vast plains that disappear to infinity at the horizon. It’s endless, like looking out on the ocean, but instead of shimmering waters it’s mostly brown prairie grasses and dust. Trees only grow near water, and that’s hard to come by out here. The land is totally exposed. There’s nowhere to hide. The sun glares down on it, and only the most resilient can survive its gaze.

  I was born in the wrong state. My mind craves green moss and the sound water makes against rocks and the shade of trees and the smell of grass. I want to live in a place of secret nooks, not vast expanses. I want privacy and independence. I couldn’t give a shit about transparency.

  That’s why New York will be so perfect. My Grandma Wellington took me there once, and I fell in love right away. There was an anonymity to the city, a way to disappear inside the crowds, inside the oom-pah-pah of the umbrellas on the sidewalks, dodging other umbrellas as they passed one another. It felt exotic and familiar all at once.

  But New York, and my whole life, depend on staying focused now. I need information, but I don’t know what information. All I need is a small connection between him and the murderer. But I can’t imagine he’s going to come right out and tell me if he’s involved. I have to be careful.

  I arrive at the prison and park. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, far outside the main town center that makes up the city of Limon. It’s a huge process to get inside. There’s a pat-down and forms to fill out. There’s a metal detector and stern warnings from the guard about the rules and what will happen if I break them. It makes me feel like I’m the criminal. My shoulders automatically slump from it, and I divert my eyes from the guards as though I’m the prisoner.

  At the very last checkpoint in the line, a female guard asks for my ID. I hand it to her with a shaking hand. She stares down at it, then back at me.

  “You clean up your look,
Miss Vogel?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, eyes downcast. “I guess so.”

  Please don’t notice. Please don’t notice. Please don’t notice.

  “Date of birth?” she asks.

  I almost, almost, say my own birthdate, but catch myself just in time. “May twelfth, 1995.”

  “Middle name?”

  “Crystal-Anne.”

  “Address?”

  “Forty-three Girard Place, unit B.”

  “Relationship to inmate?”

  “Daughter,” I say.

  The woman behind me in line, a chubby brunette with food stains on her T-shirt and a wiggling toddler in her arms to match them, says, “How long’s this gonna take? I ain’t got all day.”

  The guard turns to her, passing the license back to me, and waving me through. “It takes as long as it takes, Delia. Seems like you should be acquainted with the process by now.”

  Their voices disappear behind me as I walk forward. And just like that, I’m through.

  I enter the visiting room, which is a concrete box peppered by tables and stools bolted to the ground. It occurs to me that I have no idea what he looks like. I find a seat and wait.

  The inmates enter, and most of them pair up with their visitors immediately. The one left must be June’s dad. I had been picturing a pockmarked face and a tattooed body, hardened by years of crime. But his skin is tan and, as far as I can tell, free of ink. He’s in good shape, tall and fit, with dirty-blond hair, a touch darker than June’s. Some might call him handsome. If he was in the outside world and not wearing an orange jumpsuit, I’d think he was a corporate executive.

  I’m the only one left sitting alone. He spots me, and I give a small wave. He sits down across from me, his face wary.

  “You ain’t May.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “So who are you?” The moment he speaks the image of the executive is erased forever. He has a twang, a slick-wet voice from the Deep South that’s too sweet and too rich to be real. There’s mud in it, and brine, and berries rotting on the vine.

  “My name is Emma. I was a friend of June’s.”

  “You knew my daughter?”

  “Yes,” I say. “From church.”

  “That church where…” his voice breaks, “…where she was?”

  “Yes, sir.” I wish I hadn’t said that. The ‘sir’ is automatic, years of being trained to address my elders with respect, no matter if they deserve it.

  “I saw the service. They let me watch it on the TV.” He looks up at me. “Did she have…? Did she leave me something? A letter or something? That why you’re here?”

  “No. Sorry. I just…” I draw all my strength together. “I wanted to ask you some questions about June.”

  “She was a beautiful girl. Most beautiful girl I ever saw in my life. And I made her.” The man in front of me, the one I once thought menacing, is crying. It gives me courage.

  “She was.” I agree, to the beautiful part, not the made part. It’s one thing everyone who knew her could agree on. June was extraordinarily beautiful. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “She came to visit me about a month ago.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  He leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and huffs. “She had some ideas about some stuff, and I set her straight.”

  “Like what?”

  “Said her mentor told her she should say sorry about our past, but there weren’t nothin’ wrong with anything back then as far as I was concerned.”

  What does that mean?

  “She asked about wantin’ to get married too, which was one of the stupidest things I ever heard her say.”

  “She asked you for your blessing?”

  “Yeah. Said somebody told her she should. But I told her no. No way. No how. I told her if she even so much as thought about marrying that boy I’d call in some favors and make sure there wasn’t a boy to marry at all.”

  “You threatened her?”

  “What’d you say to me?” For the first time I can see what it must be like to be an enemy of this man. The tears are gone now, absorbed into his skin. For a moment I wonder if they were ever there at all. But his eyes gleam, still wet with them. They’re hard pennies hurled from the top of the Empire State Building. He wants to kill me, I think. But he can’t, I remind myself, not here.

  “You hired someone to kill her, didn’t you? One of your old gang. Someone who owes you a favor.”

  “Watch yourself, little missy,” he says. “It’s a federal crime to lie your way into a correctional facility. You want to end up in here with me?”

  “Just tell the truth. You’re already here for life. What’s it matter to you?”

  “Sweetie, everybody I got left to call in favors from ain’t in no position to give them. They’re all dead or in some place like this.”

  “That’s not what you told June.”

  He crosses his arms and fixes his gaze over my head, silent. I can’t tell if he’s lying. Maybe he’s as lost as I am. Maybe he just wants me to think he is. I decide to switch tactics.

  “What about somebody who had a grudge against you? Could they have gotten to her?”

  “Not unless the police are in the revenge business these days. I don’t make enemies.”

  “You can’t think of anyone? No one at all?”

  He pauses for a moment. There’s something he’s thinking of, someone.

  “Who is it?” I ask.

  “No one,” he says.

  “You said you loved her, Lee. You said so.”

  “I did.”

  “Then help me figure out who killed her. That’s all I want to do.”

  “You’re trying to find the killer?” he asks.

  “The police are useless,” I say. “They’re following all these crazy leads.”

  He scoffs, shakes his head. “Of course they are. Idiots.” He leans forward, glances around to make sure no one’s listening. “It’s probably nothin’,” he says. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Just tell me.”

  “I wasn’t even the one in charge of the job that got me put in here. Jay was. Why you think I’m sittin’ in here, stuck for life, and nobody else on the crew took that kinda heat?”

  “I thought everybody went to prison?”

  “Yeah, they did. But not everybody for as long as me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I think there was a snitch. Maybe more than one. You look at who gets out first, my money’s on them. Bet they got a nice little deal from the feds.”

  “I don’t get it. Why would that make them want to kill June?”

  “To get back at me.”

  “For what?”

  “I dunno’. Same reason they all ganged up on me in the first place I guess.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Well, you’d have to ask them about that. Never made any sense to me.”

  I’m getting frustrated. What he’s saying makes no sense. “But didn’t they already get what they wanted if they made you take the fall for the murders?”

  “I told you it was a long shot.”

  Something hits me then, something from the article.

  “You’ve still got the money somewhere, don’t you?”

  “Don’t be a goddamned fool.”

  “Is it still around?”

  “You think it was, I’d tell you?”

  “What if one of the people in the Milk Gang thought June had it?”

  “The Milk Gang. Jesus Christ. You been reading the papers, haven’t you?

  “Did they know about June? Would anyone think she had it?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That’s about the end of that conversation,” he says. Which means yes, the money is still around somewhere. And no, he’s not telling me where. I’m not getting anywhere with this guy.

  “You don’t seem like you really care about June at all,�
� I say.

  “You don’t know nothin’ about me,” he says.

  I can be hard too. “Yes, I do. I know all about you. June told me everything.” It’s not true, but I have to say it. “I think it was you.”

  He leans back in his chair, crosses his arms over his chest, bounces his leg up and down. I can’t tell if it’s a yes or a nervous tick. The tears come back.

  “I would never, ever hurt her. I loved her. She was my baby, my girl.”

  He swipes at his eyes. The image makes me think of a schoolboy with a scraped knee—the sweetest boy in class, who everyone wants to comfort or cheer for or love. Maybe it’s this, and not burly strength or animalistic rage, that’s his superpower.

  “You don’t know what it’s like to love someone that much,” he says, reaching out and taking hold of my hand, trying to kill me with sincerity.

  “It hurts you deep, especially when you’re not together. You just ache for that person.” He grips my hand tighter and rubs his thumb across the skin between my thumb and forefinger. It sends a shiver up my spine. “You look a little bit like her, you know, around the lips.”

  I yank my hand away and try to calm my breath. Stay focused, Emma. Keep him focused.

  “So you didn’t call in a favor? From anyone?”

  “If June got herself killed, it’s probably because she got into somethin’ over her head. You gotta be careful who you trust.”

  “Is that what got you locked up? Trusting the wrong people?”

  He shakes his head and clams up again.

  I’ve had enough. I get up to leave.

  “Wait. Can I ask you somethin’?” he says. “Last time I saw her, she was tryin’ to give me some Jesus, and I said no.” He bites the side of his cheek. “You think you could give me some Jesus?”

  “I…” I shake my head no. “No. I’m sorry.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “HOW’D IT GO?” MAY asks when I meet her later to return her license. We’re at a truck stop off I-70, splitting a basket of fries.

  “Sort of useless,” I say. “I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t really get much from him.”

  “Hate to say I told you so, but yeah. He’s a dick.”