The Perk

by Mark Gimenez

  "Why do you say that?"

  "How many virgins would start with two men?"

  "No, the cocaine."

  "Oh. My older boy, he was in school with Heidi. If she was a cokehead, everyone would've known it. Small town. My boy said she was obsessed with staying gorgeous, wouldn't even drink beer 'cause it might hurt her looks."

  "Was she? Gorgeous?"

  "Drop-dead. She was our beauty queen." Grady shook his head. "I kid you not, Beck, every time she walked down Main Street, we had three traffic accidents. No one had ever seen anything like her around here before … or since. We all figured she'd be Miss America one day."

  "Then how'd she end up in that ditch?"

  Grady shrugged and turned his palms up. "Wish I knew."

  "Did she have a boyfriend?"

  "Nope. She wouldn't have nothing to do with the local boys. Rumor had it she liked girls, like our lesbians over at the bookstore. She hung out there some. But her best friend says she wasn't like that, said she was just too mature for high school boys."

  "So this guy could've been a college boy?"

  "Could've been."

  "Two guys at the same time?"

  "Forensics said the semen on her shirt had caked before the rain hit it. So some time elapsed between the two encounters."

  "And she was only sixteen?"

  Grady nodded. "Sad, ain't it? And playing Russian roulette, sex without a condom. Kids think they're bullet-proof."

  "So she either knew this guy well enough not to be worried about contracting a disease or—"

  "She was too drunk and stoned to care. But we got his DNA. We just don't got him."

  "The paper said you got samples from every male in town."

  "Yep. We even accounted for every college boy home for the holidays."

  "They all came in voluntarily?"

  "It was like a blood drive, everyone asking each other if they gave yet. She was the coach's daughter, whole town wanted the guy found. We had to use our emergency fund to pay for the tests, over a thousand."

  "That's all?"

  "Males fifteen to sixty-five. Hell, half the population is over sixty-five, Beck. This is a retirement place now, like Florida without the hurricanes."

  "Or the ocean."

  "That, too. Results started coming in a couple months later. Aubrey would be here waiting for the FedEx truck like an old-timer waiting for the mailman to bring his social security check. But no matches, so he ain't a local. Which is about the only good thing in this damn case, at least one of our boys didn't do it."

  "Aubrey said illegal Mexicans didn't give samples."

  "Nope. Scared they might get deported. I told them I wouldn't give their names to the Feds, but they didn't go for it."

  "D.A. seems to think an illegal did it."

  "He's just politicking. Mexican boys, they're too scared to even look at a German girl. And if Heidi was hanging with a Mexican, whole town would've known."

  "Is the autopsy report in the file?"

  "Yep. Cause of death was acute cocaine intoxication."

  Grady was now cleaning his fingernails with the pocketknife.

  "Did they check under her nails?"

  Grady stared at his handiwork a moment, then looked up at Beck. "No tissue under her fingernails, no bruising around her genitals, no scratches, no fight marks—M.E. says sex was consensual. He found a few fibers, probably from a towel, inside her underwear. Figures the guy wiped her."

  "Why?"

  "Must've figured it all come out and he could wipe his DNA off her." He shrugged. "That's why they call it dope. That's also what tells me he wasn't a Mexican."

  "Because he wiped her?"

  "Because he thought about it. Means he watched those CSI shows."

  "And?"

  "And most Mexicans here can't speak English. They watch the Spanish channels and Mexican soccer on satellite. They don't watch CSI."

  Beck nodded. "No other evidence?"

  "Nope. No fingerprints, no other trace evidence of any kind. It was raining that night, so any trace evidence would've washed away."

  "So what's your theory?"

  "Not sure it qualifies as a theory, but way I figure, she was at a party, snorted coke, had sex with a couple college boys from UT. Gets in a car with the second boy, then she ODs. He panics, dumps her, hightails it back to Austin."

  "She was only sixteen, Grady. That's statutory rape."

  "Only if the boy was more than three years older than her. College boy, might not be."

  Grady inhaled and blew out a breath.

  "Look, I know Aubrey wants this guy caught and put in prison, but Heidi looked twenty-five and snorted coke like she was twenty-five and screwed like she was twenty-five. Now we're gonna make out like she was the Virgin Mary and put some kid in prison for twenty years for thinking he was screwing a twenty-five-year-old girl? Is that justice? When the stat rape age was put on the books, sixteen-year-old girls were virgins. Today, you got a better chance of winning the lottery than finding a sixteen-year-old virgin." Grady pointed the pocketknife at the window. "You walk down Main Street when the tourists are in town? Looks like a goddamn hooker convention."

  "I saw that."

  "We ain't isolated anymore, Beck. We got cable, the Internet, Facebook, freak dancing—"

  "Freak dancing? What's that?"

  "How old are your kids?"

  "Ten and five."

  "You don't want to know."

  "Grady, how do you raise your kids with all that around them?"

  "It ain't easy. Not like when we were growing up here—worst trouble we could get into was drinking beer and skinny-dipping in the river. Coke was something you drank from a bottle and you couldn't die from getting laid." He exhaled. "It's a different world now."

  "I've got a girl."

  "Raising girls is double-tough. They're a different breed, Beck. I can't figure mine out. Hell, if not for the wife—" Grady grimaced. "Sorry."

  "How'd you learn so much about kids?"

  "Hand-to-hand combat." A little smile. "I got four of 'em, two teenagers. And I'm the sheriff. You're gonna find out, Beck, if you're the judge, you learn a lot more about people in town than you want to know."

  Beck picked up Heidi's file. "Mind if I borrow this?"

  Grady waved the pocketknife at Heidi's file. "Knock yourself out." He then closed the pocketknife and stuffed it into his pants pocket. "Beck, I never had the heart to tell Aubrey, about the two DNA samples. He was real proud of her. Figured I'd let him keep on being proud. Every morning driving in, I see him stopped by the city limits sign out on 290, putting fresh flowers by that white cross. Every day going on five years now."

  "Four years, seven months, and fifteen days. He keeps a calendar. Called me this morning, to see if I had talked to you yet."

  Grady shook his head. "All he's got left is football and dreaming of finding that guy … and drinking."

  "I've noticed."

  "If I arrest him for DUI, he'll lose his coaching job."

  "Maybe if he knew what happened to his girl, he wouldn't need to drink."

  "Maybe."

  Beck pushed himself out of the chair and turned to the door.

  "Guess you can decide now," Grady said.

  "Decide what?"

  "Whether Aubrey wants to know what's in that file."

  "Thanks."

  "You asked."

  "Yeah … I asked."

  "Good luck with the election. Say hidi to J.B. for me."

  J.B. Hardin was standing at the open barn doors at the rear of the winery and gazing out at the vineyards. He and Luke had spent the day picking ripe grapes and dumping them into the destemmer for Hector. He now called over to his grandson.

  "Luke, let's take a last run through the vineyards."

  The boy met J.B. at the two-seater Gator. J.B. got in behind the wheel; Luke jumped into the passenger seat.

  "Buckle up."

  J.B. shifted the John Deere utility vehicle into ge
ar and drove into the vineyards.

  "You put in a man's day of work, Luke."

  The boy didn't say much; he was a lot like J.B. He didn't talk just to hear his own voice.

  "You gonna play baseball this year?"

  "No."

  "You're not gonna play your favorite sport?"

  "I quit."

  "Oh, can't hit?"

  "I can still hit."

  "Can't catch?"

  "I can catch."

  "Throw?"

  "I had the strongest arm on the team last year."

  "So why'd you quit?"

  "Mom."

  "She wanted you to quit?"

  "She died."

  "You quitting baseball 'cause your mama died?"

  "It's not right for me to play when she's dead."

  "Oh, I see. You're punishing yourself."

  "God."

  "You're punishing God?"

  "Because He took her."

  J.B. stopped the Gator. "Yep, He sure did, Luke, and I don't have a clue why. But that's the way it is, and there ain't nothing we can do about it. I'd trade places with your mother if I could—I guess maybe I have. But life is for the living, Luke. Your mama emailed me many times before she died, and she told me to tell you she's cheering for you from heaven."

  Tears came now, so he reached over and pulled the boy in next to him the way he should have pulled his own son next to him twenty-nine years before, but didn't. J.B. let the boy cry; sometimes a good cry is the best thing for the human soul. Many were the times J.B. Hardin had stood on this land and cried after his wife had died, and then again when his only son had left here hating him. He didn't want this boy to hate his daddy; and he didn't want the boy's daddy to feel the hurt of a son's hate. After the boy's tears had run out, J.B. got out and walked around to the passenger side and said to his grandson, "Scoot over. You're living in the country now, time you learned to drive."

  The boy took the wheel but said, "I miss her."

  J.B. sighed. "I know you do."

  Heidi Geisel might have been a beauty queen in life, but she wasn't in death.

  Beck had never before looked at crime scene photographs. It wasn't a pleasant experience. The DPS crime lab technicians had taken color photos of Heidi's body lying in the ditch: location shots, full-length shots, and close-up shots of her face and arms and legs and torso and hips from every conceivable angle; and the file included a DVD in a plastic pouch containing even more photos.

  She had been found lying face-down on the county side of the city limits sign. Her blonde hair was dirty and wet from the previous night's rain. Her clothes were soaked and stuck to her body and did not completely cover her pale flesh; her wet mascara had made black lines across her face. Her eyes were closed, as if she were sleeping peacefully.

  Beck knew how it felt to lose a wife to death; how would it feel to lose a child? To be awakened early one morning with a call and learn that your child was dead—that you would never see or touch or hold or speak to your child again? How had Aubrey and Randi survived that call? Or had they?

  And how had Heidi ended up in that ditch?

  The six-inch-thick file contained the photos, the Offense Report, the DNA Report, the Autopsy Report, the Evidence Report, and sworn statements from family and friends. The Offense Report detailed the facts surrounding the discovery of her body: the trucker's 911 call; the units dispatched to the scene; the crime scene diagram; statements of officers. But there was no more information than had been in the newspapers.

  The DNA Report stated that none of the 1,017 samples obtained from local males matched the DNA samples obtained from Heidi's clothes and body.

  The Evidence Report listed the personal effects recovered from Heidi's body and at the crime scene: white shirt, black skirt, black undergarment, three silver loop earrings, silver ankle bracelet. That's all? Beck flipped through the pages and thought of Annie: What had she worn when they had gone out? Glasses, earrings, necklace, bracelet, wedding and engagement rings, watch; bra and panties and sometimes pantyhose, dress or blouse and slacks, shoes; purse, keys, and cell phone.

  Heidi was sixteen, so she might not have needed glasses, she wouldn't have had a wedding or engagement ring, and she might not have worn a bra or pantyhose. But wouldn't she have worn shoes and carried a purse? And every teenage girl Beck had seen in Chicago had been texting on a cell phone. Wouldn't Heidi have had one? Beck shut the file.

  Where were Heidi's cell phone, purse, and shoes?

  NINE

  Beck was double-knotting the laces of Meggie's shoes.

  "Now, don't be nervous, honey."

  "We're not nervous. Mommy says school is fun."

  The doll was in her backpack.

  Beck stood. Meggie's kindergarten teacher was looking at him with a sympathetic expression that said, Father's first day of school. Beck Hardin had never before taken his children to their first day of school. But he had taken them to their last.

  The Gillespie County Consolidated School District covered the 1,061 square miles in the county and educated four thousand students at four campuses: primary, elementary, middle, and high. Beck and J.B. had already dropped Luke off at the elementary school. They were now delivering Meggie to the primary school.

  "My mommy's visiting Jesus," she said to the teacher. "She'll be back soon, probably by Christmas."

  "Welcome to kindergarten, Meggie," the teacher said. To Beck: "Hi, I'm Gretchen Young."

  She was young, a slim blonde woman wearing a denim skirt and a colorful shirt; she looked like Mary Jo Meier in high school.

  "I'm Beck Hardin. This is my father—"

  "Oh, I know J.B." To his father, she said, "I like your shirt."

  It was cream-colored with multi-colored palm leaves.

  "It's called 'Uno, Dos Palms.' "

  "Cute. Oh, your last merlot was wonderful."

  "Guess I know what to get the teacher for Christmas."

  Ms. Young smiled then consulted her clipboard; her smile became a frown.

  "There must've been a mix-up. I'll get Meggie moved to another class today."

  "Why?"

  "Didn't you request an Anglo class?"

  "You can do that?"

  "You can here. All the rich German parents get together and request the same teachers so their kids' classes will be all-Anglo. Mine's a Latino class. Well, officially, it's a bilingual class, but that's how they separate the kids."

  Beck looked into the classroom. It was bright and colorful, with posters and artwork on the walls and mobiles hanging from the ceiling. The children were chattering in Spanish; all of their faces were brown. He turned back to the teacher.

  "This is a public school, isn't it?"

  "Don't tell the Germans that." She glanced around and lowered her voice. "Our principal, Ms. Rodriguez, she came here from San Antonio. When she hired on last year, she told admin it was illegal to segregate the kids, so she stopped all parent requests and mixed the classes. The Germans went ballistic, complained to the school board. So admin took over our class assignments—and they let the Germans pick their teachers."

  "But if that's illegal segregation, how can they get away with it?"

  "Because no one complains."

  "What about the Latino parents?"

  "Especially not them. See, most of our Latino parents are illegal. If they filed a complaint with the state, the Germans would blacklist them, they'd never work here again. Small town. They need to work, so they don't complain."

  "So their kids get put into all-Latino classes?"

  "Over at the elementary school they get put into Special Ed classes."

  "Because they're Latino?"

  "Because they can't speak English. That way they don't have to take the state achievement tests. The Latinos don't score as well, so admin games the system, dumps them into Special Ed. If they can keep the Latinos from being tested, the district will rank higher. I overheard an administrator saying he was glad the city finally took down that
big 'welcome-willkommen-bienvenidos' banner over Main Street. Said he wants them to put up another one saying 'No More Mexicans.' Said the Mexicans are ruining our scores. Public school today, it's all about test scores."

  "What about that 'No Child Left Behind' law?"

  Ms. Young pointed at the brown faces in her classroom.

  "That's what the law looks like in a school."

  "The law of unintended consequences."

  "The law doesn't mean anything to those kids. They just want to learn. You should see their faces when they learn to read English. When it clicks in their mind, all the words in the books come alive for them. They're so happy. That's why I teach."

  Beck thought she might cry.

  "People can argue all they want about illegal Mexicans, but those kids"—she pointed at her classroom—"they were born here. They're American citizens, and they're entitled to an education same as the German kids." She calmed and sighed. "I have to fight for these kids every day, to give them a chance."

  She turned when a little Hispanic girl walked up with a young Hispanic woman. "¡Hola, Graciela! ¡Buenas días!" To the woman, "Señora Gomez. ¿Le gusto el verano?"

  The mother: "Sí."

  "Este año será maravilloso."

  The mother bent over and kissed the girl then walked away. Ms. Young said, "Meggie, Graciela, why don't y'all find your desks? You're next to each other."

  The children went into the classroom, each with a backpack over her shoulder and a big smile on her face. Ms. Young nodded toward Señora Gomez walking away.

  "She's illegal, but Graciela's a citizen."

  "Your Spanish is pretty good," J.B. said.

  "I'm working at it. We don't have any Latino teachers, so someone's got to speak the language. Ms. Rodriguez has the kids saying the Pledge of Allegiance in English and Spanish each morning. Anglos learn Spanish, Latinos learn English. They pick it up pretty fast at this age."

  "Smart move."

  "Smart principal." Ms. Young again glanced around and dropped her voice to a whisper. "But the Germans went Gestapo. The school board said they wanted the schools to promote the German heritage, not the Mexican heritage. If they'd said that in Austin, they'd have to resign. Not here. We can't even mention Cinco de Mayo in the classroom. They told Ms. Rodriguez 'no more Spanish Pledge and no more Spanish in the schools'—forty percent of our students are Latinos, but the board wants her to stop all Spanish in the school. How stupid is that?"