The Prodigal Girl

by Evan Ronan

  Everything kills you.

  I’ll quit diet soda another day, when I’m not trying to figure out what a twenty-year-old girl is really up to after hiding for five years. I keep going through the case file as the night darkens and I go through it again. Up and down the street, the houselights wink on. The streetlights come on later. The crickets start their symphony.

  Reading Strommel’s case file is like taking Private Investigation 101. It’s pretty cool to see how a real detective works. Then my self-doubt begins to creep in and the impostor syndrome returns.

  I’m not really a PI.

  So why’d you say yes, dummy?

  Because I like to help people. Yeah, I want to make millions and set my daughter up for a good life, but I also want to help. Maybe I’ve got an unclassified disease.

  Tarika’s house is lit up now. Both downstairs and up. Shannon’s room is on the second floor, street-side. The white curtains are drawn shut tightly. I can see a vague shadow from time-to-time flitting across those curtains. Shannon. Up there.

  Pacing.

  Why is she pacing?

  Because she’s bored out of her mind. You would be too if you were locked in your room all day.

  But why would she lock herself in her room?

  I don’t know.

  I continue this highly-illuminating and perceptive inner monologue for five minutes while I finish the fries. The ice in my diet soda has melted, watering down the flat taste at least. I take another swig.

  Her mother is imagining things. She’s just worried her daughter is going to vanish again. Shannon’s not in any danger. You’re taking advantage of Tarika by accepting her money.

  “I’ll give it back,” I say.

  My conscience has nothing to say to that. It’s nice to get it to shut the hell up.

  I’m on my third trip through the Strommel case file when the light in Shannon’s room goes out. I close the file and place it on the passenger seat. There are blinds in the bay window downstairs, so I can’t see inside.

  Five minutes pass. It’s dinner time so I assume Shannon has just come down to eat. But will she go out?

  Ten more minutes pass. I imagine the scene inside the house. Tarika and Shannon, reunited after all these years. A very loving mother and her very distant daughter. I wonder if they speak. I wonder if they look at each other. One thing I’m sure of—

  Whatever they’re eating, it’s better than this roadkill hamburger I paid five bucks for.

  Another ten minutes. The whole time, I’m waiting for the light in Shannon’s bedroom to come back on. When the text comes through, I almost jump.

  She’s going out.

  I start the car and make sure the headlights are off. Hands on the steering wheel, just waiting for something to happen now. The front door of Tarika Lahill’s house opens and—

  Somebody bangs on my car.

  “What are you doing?”

  There’s a middle-aged man with thick glasses looking at me through the passenger window. He wears a suspicious scowl. I didn’t even see him coming up the sidewalk, I was so focused on the house.

  Some detective I am.

  Shannon Lahill emerges from the house. She is as tall as her mother and built like her. Basically she’s a twenty-year-younger version of Tarika.

  The neighborhood watchman bangs on the roof of the car again. “I said what are you doing out here?”

  I don’t roll the window down. “Waiting.”

  “Get the hell outta here before I call the cops.”

  “Way ahead of you, buddy.”

  Shannon gets in a car parked in front of her house, though she doesn’t start it up right away. I turn my head lights on while the neighbor glares through the passenger window. Pulling onto the street, I drive past Shannon in her car. The whole way, I want to look at her but I’m somehow able to control that unhelpful urge, keeping my eyes straight ahead. I drive to the end of the block and bang a right.

  I wait for traffic to pass, then K-turn around. Edging my way down the street, I peer out my window. Shannon is just pulling out now.

  Oh so slowly, I turn back onto the street. Concerned Citizen Neighbor is not on the sidewalk anymore, but I wouldn’t put it past him to still be watching from his porch. I don’t look left or right, just keep going while allowing Shannon to get some distance on me.

  As I tail her, I wonder where she learned to drive. When she disappeared, she was only fifteen. She must have learned while she was away. But driving requires a license. At least, legally-speaking. Did she drive without a license for several years?

  Unlikely.

  That means she got one.

  But if she’d gotten a license under her real name, the private investigators would have found out.

  Now you’re thinking.

  That means Shannon Lahill either drove without a license or got a license under a different name. Driving without a license is more frequent than we think, but it’s still incredibly stupid. You get caught doing that, the State will bring charges. That gets onto your record and …

  No matter what, this behavior bespeaks a person who had no intention of ever being found.

  So why did she come back home?

  She leads me through Willingham along a wandering, circuitous route. Either she’s trying to lose me, or she’s just out for a long drive to pass the time. It’s Saturday night, but she’s got nothing to do. Shannon’s a young pretty girl, but it’s not a stretch. She fell out of contact with all her old friends, so I doubt she’s calling them up now.

  Maybe she’s embarrassed by it all.

  So why come home then?

  To be with her mother.

  Then why is she so distant?

  Feelings are never that simple, Greg.

  At fifteen, Shannon was too young to appreciate what she was doing. She made an outrageous decision, if you can call it a decision, to run off with a grown man, leaving her mother, friends, and community all behind. For reasons that are still beyond her mother and me, she decided to come home. But she hasn’t really come home. Her life went in one direction, and literally everybody else she knew went in a different direction. They all graduated high school, many of them went on to college, maybe some of her athlete friends are involved in sports still.

  So, yeah, this is home. But what does she have here? Let’s not forget that she probably sees coming home as an admission of some egregious past mistake. She must wonder what others think. She must expect their judgment, even though she was just a damned kid who didn’t know any better.

  Makes me want to slug Marcus, the creep.

  It’s an impossibly lot to process for her. Maybe now she doesn’t know how to cope. Where does she go from here? Get a GED, try to get into a college? Or just join the ranks of the so-called working stiffs, who are forced to take low-paying, menial jobs because of bad luck or one bad decision?

  I mean, how do you come back from something like that?

  My nerves are twitching. Part of my brain worrying that Shannon knows I’m following her. I’m willing to bet she hasn’t seen me but all the same, I slow some more, allowing her to get out further ahead.

  She’s just doesn’t know what to do with herself.

  Not all who wander are lost.

  But some of them are. Maybe most.

  We pass a convenience store we’ve already gone by.

  She’s just wandering. My heart goes out to the girl. Tarika’s intuition isn’t right, but it isn’t wrong either. Her little girl isn’t in danger.

  She is adrift.

  Is that why she came home? Maybe she had already gotten this way before her return, in Mexico, or in Florida, or in wherever the hell she was. Things had petered out with her creep, pedophiliac boyfriend. My stomach knots at the thought—perhaps she got too old for him, and the perv moved on. That could explain why Shannon came back but Marcus the statutory rapist did not.

  I’m working through all these what-ifs and almost miss Shannon slowing down. I’ve begun to
edge my way up, so I take my foot off the gas again. She’s about four car lengths ahead of me.

  She activates her right turn signal, and I get my bearings. There is a long strip of stores in a gigantic lot. A cheap department store, a dollar store, a bounce place for kids’ parties, a nail salon, a check cashing place, another big now empty space for a retailer that’s been closed forever, and a couple takeout restaurants. I could go for a slice of pizza after that travesty of a hamburger but I am on the clock and have more important things to do.

  “Where are you going?”

  The lot is large enough to warrant several entrances. Shannon takes the first and I decide to be smart and take the third, the whole way trying to keep an eye on her vehicle without getting into an accident. Once she crosses the mostly empty space and passes between parked cars, though, I lose her.

  I enter the lot and double-back. Slowly. I decide to act like I’m going somewhere specific. The bounce place for kids’ parties is called Partastica. It’s about in the middle of the strip, so it makes the most sense for me to park near it. That way I can keep an eye on Shannon no matter which way she goes. And there’s no way she’s headed into Partastica.

  I bang a right down an aisle and to my surprise find Shannon walking toward the strip mall, right down the middle of the lane. For just a moment, my headlights trap her and I see the jutting, provocative walk of a woman very comfortable in her own skin. Tarika is right. The fifteen-year-old girl is gone. Shannon is a self-aware woman now.

  I slow, grateful that the glare of my headlights is blinding her to me, as Shannon moves to the side. She is carrying a big purse and dressed in hip-hugger jeans and a white t-shirt. I act like I’m at a urinal and keep my eyes straight ahead as I drive past. I don’t think she notices me.

  Hers is the last parked car in this lane. There are spaces open on either side of her, but I don’t take them. Sometimes I’m smart like that. I move on to the next aisle and find a spot where I can see her car but don’t stick out like a bagpiper at a funeral.

  “Where are you going?”

  Shannon is crossing the main artery of the big lot that runs in front of the strip. A car slows to allow her to pass, and she flicks a friendly wave in the driver’s direction.

  The driver of the vehicle allowing her to cross double-taps the horn. Two quick beats. Using my powers of deduction, I surmise the driver is a he and this is his puerile attempt at flattering Shannon. I’m assuming that, like most women, she’ll ignore the unwelcome and silly advance, and just march to wherever she’s going.

  But she surprises me.

  Shannon stops, still in the middle of the lane, and flashes a big smile. The driver responds by flicking his lights and tapping the horn a couple more times.

  “What’s up, mama?” comes the oh-so-smooth line.

  I’m rolling my eyes, but Shannon is eating this up. Or at least, pretending to. Why is beyond me. She juts a hip and, ahem, sticks her derriere out a little bit and blows the guy a kiss.

  Who is this girl?

  When she moves again, it isn’t a walk. It’s a strut. She gets out of the car’s way but waits along the edge of the lane. The driver pulls up alongside her, and then Shannon disappears from my view to speak to Don Juan DeCreepy through the passenger window.

  I thought the horn-honk as a pick-up move had stopped working about fifty years ago. Maybe it’s retro now. Or maybe it’s so old it’s new again.

  For a moment, I think this is the reason she came. Not to get hit on randomly by a passing driver, but in fact to meet this guy secretly. She might have gotten into the car already without me seeing.

  I go over what’s happened so far to see if it fits.

  Shannon drives around to kill some time, possibly to make sure she’s not being followed, then parks her car away from home, so she can meet up with this guy without Tarika knowing about it. And he agrees to meet her here because … he’s a creep and married or with somebody.

  By stopping in front of the strip mall, though, the driver has caused quite a back-up. A couple less patient souls lay on their horns. Somebody shouts at him to get the fuck out of the way. He turns away from Shannon and leans out the driver side window. He’s black and bald. It’s dark out, but to me he looks like he’s twice her age.

  “Just keep going, Shannon,” I say.

  Prince Charming has decided to engage the drivers behind him, threatening to get out but not actually doing it. The guys behind him, not to be outdone, do get out of their cars.

  And then I see Shannon again.

  Without a goodbye, she’s moving away from the car. Stepping onto the sidewalk, she doesn’t glance back over her shoulder once. If the Cadillac Casanova ever had a chance with her, it’s over now.

  I see where she’s going.

  And I turn the car off.

  “Oh wow.”

  Nine

  Shannon Lahill enters Partastica.

  When Tammy was little, maybe five or six years old, we had her birthday party at a joint just like this. It was even called something similar, like Partasia, or Partasy. They’re all the same, though. It’s basically a big space filled with blow-up things for the weans to climb and bounce on. It’s aimed at children between the ages of three and thirteen.

  Children.

  Aimed.

  At.

  Children.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  I sit and wait, fighting the urge to get out of the car and follow her. I could pretend to be a father interested in their service. But Shannon can’t see me. If she does, she’ll remember me the next time she sees me. Once the genie is out of the bottle, as they say …

  It’s after dinner, but the place is still lit up. Aside from the obvious, I try to come up with reasons as to why Shannon Lahill just entered Partastica. Maybe Shannon is attending the party of a child belonging to one of her old friends. I didn’t see her carrying a present. But then again, she had a big purse and maybe the gift fit inside of—

  Yeah, right.

  Don’t talk yourself out of the reasonable explanation, Greg.

  But it’s not reasonable. She’s only twenty. She was gone for … yeah, I do the math and realize it’s all very possible.

  Shannon is inside for fifteen minutes. When she pops the door open, I start the car. I’m assuming she’s going to leave, but instead of coming out to her car, she turns right and heads farther down the strip.

  Now what?

  The nail salon is the obvious answer. But nothing obvious has happened yet. She walks right past it. Heads into the check cashing place.

  Check.

  Cashing.

  She wasn’t working. She wasn’t on disability. She wasn’t doing anything that would get her a check. On my phone, I jump online and discover that Smith’s #1 Check Cashing offers their clients a variety of financial services, including money orders, bill payments, prepaid debit cards, and money transfer.

  Follow the money.

  Does she have any of her own?

  Tarika answers my call before the second ring. “Greg, is Shannon okay?”

  “She’s fine,” I say, not wanting to give her all the details just yet. “Does Shannon have her own checking or savings account?”

  “Not that I know of,” Tarika says. “Since she came home, I didn’t want to put a lot of pressure on her to become an adult, you know? Why do you ask?”

  “Did she have any of her own money?” I ask. “Is it with you?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  I decide to tell her part of the story. “Don’t confront her yet, Tarika. It’s better if we have a complete picture first.”

  “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “She just went into a check cashing place.”

  “Oh.” Tarika almost breathes a sigh of relief. “Smith’s?”

  “How do you know it?”

  “Levanna Smith is one of her friends from high school.”

  “She’s been here since she came back
?” I ask.

  “Not that I’m aware of, but she knows the family. They’re very nice.”

  It’s still raising an alarm for me. “Why would she go there on a Saturday night?”

  “Maybe Levanna is working. Has she been anywhere else?”

  Uhhhhhhhh … “She drove around for a while.”

  “Where?”

  “Tarika, I gotta go. She’s coming out. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “You can call me anytime,” she says. “No matter how late it is. Okay, Greg?”

  “I will.”

  I hang up feeling like a shit. Did I keep my mouth shut to spare Tarika’s feelings or my own? I try to justify my omission by telling myself I don’t yet know why Shannon went into Partastica and there is no reason to get Tarika all riled up when it might be harmless. Maybe in the course of coming to Smith’s #1 Check Cashing before, Shannon met one of Partastica’s employees and became friends. Maybe somebody from high school is there.

  That’s a whole string of maybes.

  If Shannon’s meeting a friend in Smith’s, she doesn’t stop to chat for very long. She exits the store in a few short minutes in the midst of multitasking.

  Cell phone up to the ear.

  And.

  Wallet going back into the purse.

  “Why was your wallet out?”

  I love asking nobody questions.

  Shannon heads for her car. Nothing ever came of the parking lot argument between the creep who horned her lecherously and the other drivers just looking to get to wherever they were going.

  She gets back in her car but doesn’t start it up right away. She sits in the dark interior for a few minutes, the only glow coming from her cell phone. Texting somebody.

  Then she heads back home. It only takes a quarter hour. After watching her go inside, I double back to Partastica. It’s now after eight, though, and the place is dark. Kids’ parties don’t start that late.

  But I hustle to the door and knock.