by Mary Logue
“What would you like?” he asked Emily.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having. Something strong.”
Roger ordered two Brandy Manhattans. The bartender poured generous shots into two highball glasses. “Anything else?”
“That’s it.” Roger paid, then grabbed the glasses.
The bartender tapped the fifty cent tip he had left him on the bar and said, “Have a good day.”
Under his breath, Roger said, “Too late.”
***
7:20 p.m.
The older clapboard house impressed Rich as tidy, but slightly shabby. He knew that Arlene’s husband had died a few years ago. Rich had known her husband better than he knew Arlene. Bob
Ecklund had worked for the grainery in Durand. Rich often got his feed there. Bob had always struck him as a nice, steady guy.
He knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. He could hear voices inside. Maybe they hadn’t heard him knocking. Most people probably used the side door. Most people probably just walked in.
Rich knocked again and then tried the door. It was not locked and opened easily. He stepped in.
The TV was on in the front room, but no one was watching it. He stood on the front door mat, a welcome sign with a cow on it, and hollered, “Anybody home?”
No answer.
Rich walked in and looked around.
In the kitchen it looked as if they had left in a hurry. A cup of coffee sat on the table, an open half-gallon milk container next to it. The inside side door to the kitchen was open. The screen door was shut, but not locked. There was no car in the garage or the driveway.
He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know for sure that Meg had come over to Arlene’s. Maybe she had called and no one had answered. Maybe she had dialed the wrong number.
But the state of the house bothered him. Arlene didn’t strike him as the kind of person that would leave the TV on and the milk sitting out, even if she was just running next door.
Rich put the milk away and then walked into the living room and turned off the TV. The neighborly thing to do. He would call Arlene later to make sure everything was all right. Right now, he had to find Meg.
***
7:25 p.m.
When the Hazardous Materials team showed up, they pulled everyone out of the house and made them suit up. Several other squad cars showed up with more deputies, including Speedo—so named because of the quickness at which he could snap a photo. Claire followed the Haz-mat guys back into the crime scene, wearing a better mask and an orange coverall.
Hitch still lay sprawled on the kitchen floor.
Speedo squatted down next to Hitch’s body, camera at the ready.
He looked up at Claire. “What do you want?”
“A couple close-ups of the knife, a couple full body, then from both sides. I’d also like you to take some pictures of the rest of the room; the whole house for that matter. It’s all a crime scene.”
He nodded at Hitch. “This is one emaciated dude.” Claire agreed. “He’s been on a meth diet for too many years.”
“I heard about Amy.” “Yeah.”
“She going to be okay?”
“She took a load of shot.” Claire didn’t want to think about Amy. She had had to call Amy’s parents and her mother had started crying before she could even say what had happened. They had moved down to Arkansas and wouldn’t be able to get up to Wisconsin until tomorrow. Claire had assured her that Amy would be okay, didn’t mention what her face had looked like. “You know what’s going on about the medical examiner?”
“I think they had to call in some one from Eau Claire.”
“Shit.”
Since Dr. Lord had retired, they were often forced to use the medical examiner from Eau Claire. That meant it would be another hour or two before he got to Fort St. Antoine.
Claire walked into the bedroom to check on Bill. He was looking over the booby trap shotgun. “Nasty thing. How’d he know who’d open that door? Could have been a kid.”
“His state of mind, he could have done it himself,” Claire pointed out.
“I think Amy’s going to be okay,” he said it like it was a question.
“I hope so.”
“Why did she get so nuts when they were taking her away?” Bill asked.
“Shock can do that to you.”
“I’ll stop by the hospital later tonight.”
Once again Claire wondered what was going on between the two deputies. “That’d be great. Thanks, Bill. Have you checked out the other room?”
“No. Be careful.”
“I’m nothing but careful.”
Using a chair, Claire pushed open the door of the other bedroom. When nothing snapped at her, she reached in and turned on the overhead light.
A full-sized mattress on the floor with a Snoopy blanket mounded on it was the only piece of furniture in the room. There were no shades; the window had a flattened piece of cardboard nailed over it. Another sign of meth paranoia.
Other than the mattress, the room was stuffed with mail. Piles of mail carpeted the floor like a tidal wave, cresting at a foot or two high. Reaching down, she picked up an envelope.
Phone bill for a Mr. Anderson. She wondered if any of her mail was scattered on the floor.
Looking at the dark, mail-filled room Claire felt like she was seeing the inside of a methamphetamine user’s brain. She had always had the theory that looking in people’s houses was a lot like getting a peek into their psyches. What she saw in this room was an explosion of paper and words, a paranoia that knew no bounds.
Claire shivered and then tried to guesstimate how much mail was in the room. Two months worth of deliveries in Pepin County. How could this much mail be taken and not noticed to be missing? She looked down at another envelope. A Minneapolis address. That explained it.
She had heard of meth users supporting their habits by stealing identities. When they were high, they had infinite energy and an obsessive ability to focus. Going through mail and stealing numbers and selling them was a good way to use that energy and keep money coming in for their habit.
She hated to think of the work all this mail would entail. Looking at the piles, she thought of the manpower it would take just to sort through it all. She backed out and pulled the door shut. Another day.
Claire walked back into the living room to check on Speedo. He was snapping away. The house disgusted her. How could people live like this—the whole room was a garbage can, literally—beer cans, newspapers, rotten sandwiches, MacDonald bags, and worse.
There was a pile of something dark in the corner that she didn’t even want to examine. She was glad to be wearing protection. Who knew what foul matter was in the air.
As she watched Speedo, she decided not to interrupt him. He seemed to be getting all the shots she wanted. Rich was always telling her she needed to learn to trust other people more. The house was stifling. She was sweating profusely in her orange overalls. She had to get out of the house for a moment, breathe some real air.
As Claire pushed open the screen door, something glinted on the floor and caught her eye.
She leaned down and picked up a friendship bracelet with red and blue beads braided into it. It looked like the strings had frayed and broken. She examined it more closely.
Her heart stopped.
She had seen this bracelet before. It was Meg’s. Small white beads spelled out her first name.
Meg never took it off, not even when she showered.
Krista had made the friendship bracelet for Meg’s birthday.
CHAPTER 20
7:25 p.m.
Head down, Meg pushed a path through a field filled with flower skeletons. That’s the way they looked to her. Brown skeletons of dried-up goldenrod and coneflower.
A cold wind rattled the grass. Clouds scudded across the dark sky. The half moon was in the western sky, giving off a thin light.
She didn’t know where Jared had gone. She didn’
t care anymore. She kept her hand wrapped around what she had grabbed away from him before she had jumped in the truck and drove off. Why had she done that? Should she have left him there? What good would staying have done?
Everything seemed completely hopeless to her. Despite her best intentions, actions of hers had resulted in death. She should just learn that nothing she did made any difference.
She wished she could talk to Krista about what was going on. Krista would tell her what to do. Krista had always had an opinion about everything and never hesitated to give it. Or Curt. She needed someone on her side. Someone who would understand what she had done.
She had known Krista since fifth grade when they were in classes next door to each other. That was before they became
best friends. She remembered so clearly how their friendship had started. Sarah Larsen had been standing in the hall talking in a really loud voice about how stupid the movie Brokeback Mountain was. Krista had been getting into her locker and Meg had been arguing with Sarah about the movie, which she had loved.
Sarah said, “The only people who could like that movie are liberals and homosexuals.”
Krista had slung her arm around Meg’s neck and kissed her under the ear in a very seductive manner. Then she had turned and said to Sarah, whose mouth was hanging open, “We’re both.”
Meg had been both shocked by and adoring of what Krista had done and wished she had thought of it.
That was at the end of eighth grade and they had been best friends this whole last year. Until Halloween.
If only there was no such thing as methamphetamines in the whole wide world.
Meg had known that methamphetamines were being used in this area. A month or two didn’t go by without the school bringing some kind of speaker—an ex-druggy, a rehab counselor, a concerned mother—to talk to the students about how bad drugs were for you. Meg had always thought the talks were stupid and over the top. She had never had the impulse to try a drug particularly, but she didn’t believe they could totally destroy your life the way these speakers said.
Now she believed it all. She had seen it with her own eyes. The ravaged body of Hitch, the foulness of the nest he lived in, the stench of the drug he was concocting, she would never forget any of it.
Meg knew she would have nightmares about Hitch. Jared didn’t look so good, but Jared mainly just looked skinny and wasted. She didn’t know how Hitch could still be alive. His face
was pockmarked. He had few teeth left in his mouth. His breath was noxious. His eyes were sunken into his skull. He looked like the soul had been sucked out of him and all that was left was a few bones and tendons. No mind, no muscle, no spirit.
She wondered what Hitch had been like at her age, if he had played a sport, if he had thought of going to college, if he had had a girlfriend. Hard to imagine a normal life for him as he had truly become a monster.
She didn’t know how badly she had hurt him. She didn’t care. She hoped, for everyone’s sake including his own, that Hitch was dead.
She kept walking. The Maiden Rock was on the other side of the skeleton-littered field, past the trees.
Meg looked down at the square of tinfoil she was holding in her hands.
Methamphetamine.
What would it be like to try a little? Just to know what Krista had felt before she left the earth.
***
7:25 p.m.
“Where we going?” Davy asked, poking a finger at Jared.
Jared was sitting next to Davy in his car seat and he had his feet stretched out under the driver’s seat, but he felt totally cramped. He had been trying to sleep, but for the first time since he had come off meth, he wasn’t tired.
Davy poked him again.
He poked Davy back. “I don’t got a clue.”
“You don’t gotta clue?”
“No clue,” Jared repeated.
Davy held up two fingers. “This is two.”
“How old are you?” Jared asked him.
Holding down his thumb and his pinkie finger, Davy managed to get three fingers sticking up. “I’m this many. I’m free.”
Jared had no idea where his mother was taking him or even what she was thinking. When he had been outside Hitch’s place, trying to figure out what to do after Meg took off, she had pulled up in her car. She grabbed Jared by the arm, and ushered him into the backseat. Without saying a word, she drove away. Jared hadn’t even tried to stop her.
His mom had locked the back doors, child safety feature on this car, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care what happened to him anymore.
His Nikes were sitting on the seat next to him.
He put them on and didn’t ask anything.
She was driving north on Highway 35. Not in the direction of their house. In fact, they were pretty close to Prescott. Maybe they were going to the cities. Maybe the Mall of America. But she drove through Prescott and kept going north. They were now heading toward Hudson, but he couldn’t figure out why.
He sat up. “Where we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“Mom, tell me.”
“A place I should have taken you long ago. You’re done with that meth stuff for the rest of your life.”
Meth, even the word made his heart race and his muscles tighten.
Somehow he had gone to see Hitch and left without any meth. A minor miracle. Or a major disaster. He wasn’t sure anymore.
All because of Meg. She had taken him there and then she had saved him from it. He hoped she was okay.
***
7:30 p.m.
Rich tried to call Claire on her cell phone, but got no answer. Then, on the way to Curt’s house, Rich saw all the squad cars lined up along Highway 35. He pulled over and sat in his car, wondering if he should go talk to her.
An orange-suited person walked out of the house and Rich recognized Claire when she pulled off a full-face mask.
He got out of the car. She looked over at him and waved.
He could see the pressure marks from her face mask circling her eyes and mouth. Sweat beaded on her skin. Her eyes were wide open and her forehead wrinkled, deep lines between her eyebrows. Claire looked more anxious than he had seen her since Meg had disappeared. And now her daughter was gone again.
“What’s going on in there?” he asked.
“God, you don’t want to see it. Unbelievable. The pure squalor. I don’t understand how people can keep living as long as they do when they abuse themselves so much. But he’s dead now.”
“Who?”
“This dealer named Hitch. It’s been a nightmare. He had set up a shotgun trap and Amy opened the door and got hit by it.” “She going to be all right?”
“If she’s not, I’ll kill him again.” Claire was silent for a moment, then she spit out, “Fucked-up paranoid son of a bitch’s dead. Good riddance.”
Rich listened to her swear. She didn’t do it often, even though he knew it was not uncommon language with the deputies, so when she did the words hit him hard. “Sounds like it.”
“His full name was James Hitchcock. You know him?”
“Just heard of his brother, like I told you.” Rich watched Claire. “What happened? Overdose?”
“No, he got help. A knife in the back. I hope it was some deal gone bad.”
He could tell from her face that she wasn’t telling him something. “What else could it be?”
“Well, we think he might have been the guy who gave Krista the meth.”
“And?”
Claire looked up at him, worried. “What if someone else found that out? Someone who loved Krista?” “Like who?”
“Oh, Rich.”
She grabbed his hand and leaned into him, avoiding looking at him. He didn’t like this. “What?”
“I picked this up in this house, on the floor right by the door.” She opened her hand and showed him Meg’s friendship bracelet.
“Shit.”
“I know.”
“Aren’t you supp
osed to have that in an evidence bag?” “If it’s evidence,” she said quietly. “What’re you going to do with it?”
She jingled the bracelet in her hand, then tucked it away in her pocket. “I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 21
7:35 p.m.
Rich left, telling her he was going to talk to Curt, assuring her that he would find Meg wherever she was. Claire couldn’t stand the thought that her daughter had been to see Hitch, that she was mixed up in this mess in any way.
After checking on Speedo again, she told the other deputies that she was going to talk to the neighbors. Mr. Bagley lived across the street. She didn’t know him well even though she had lived near him for years. A widower, he kept to himself. While he was probably in his late eighties, his house and yard were always immaculate.
Looking down the street, she could see him in his yard on his riding lawn mower, studiously minding his own business despite all the cop cars.
She pulled off her orange suit and dropped it and the mask in the back of the Hazardous Materials truck.
It was getting dark out and her daughter was missing again. If only Claire had been there for dinner tonight, if only Rich hadn’t gone to the Fort—but they couldn’t watch Meg all the time. She was fifteen years old. Around the world girls were getting married off at that age, having babies.
Claire allowed her mind to slip into a place she didn’t want it to venture: what if Meg had had something to do with Hitch’s death?
She knew how devastated Meg had been by Krista’s death. But she had to keep reminding herself that Meg didn’t believe in killing—not anything. Her daughter walked wasps out the door on Kleenex, rather than squash them. If a bat flew into the house, she opened all the doors and windows until it found its way out again.
When they had first moved in with Rich, Meg had explained, “No need to hit it with a tennis racket. We’re on the same side. We want the bat out. The bat wants out. All we need to do is help.”
